Indulge me for a second as I pretend that the Philadelphia Colts lost to the Saints last night. Here would be the local reaction.

Peyton Manning came up small in a big game…again. Yes, he won one Super Bowl, but that was against Rex Grossman, which hardly counts. And he really wasn’t very good in that game, or that year’s playoffs. He is now 9-9 in the playoffs for his career.  If that doesn’t scream pedestrian I don’t know what does. Did you see how much freaking time he had in the pocket last night? He could launched it deep all night with that time he had, and yet he just kept playing dink and dunk. And that final interception was just the icing on the cake. It was a sign that Manning’s time here should be over. It is time to give Curtis Painter the ball and see what he can do behind such a stalwart offensive line. I mean, seriously, he can’t do any worse. 

And it’s not that Manning always loses the big ones. It’s that he doesn’t seem to care about the big ones. He’s too busy doing commercials with Justin Timberlake to concentrate on football. Perhaps if he really cared about this team and about this city, he would say, “Hey Justin, sorry, but this year I’m really going to do some serious preparation for the upcoming season.” But that won’t happen.

Another question: why can’t Peyton run the plays that get sent out to the huddle, like every other quarterback in the NFL? This isn’t the 1950s, Otto Graham isn’t calling plays anymore. Peyton changes half the plays at the line. If I was the coach that would drive me nuts. I mean, these guys up in the booth spend their lives determining what plays to run against certain defenses, yet Peyton thinks he knows better after studying the defense for 3 seconds. It is insubordination, if you ask me, and I’d like to see it carried out in some other town. If “Mr. Know It All” was really such a genius at changing plays, would he be 9-9 in the playoffs, with his biggest win against Rex Grossman? I think not. Listen, I’m not a Peyton hater, but I just think that he is past his prime. I think we saw that in last night’s game. And I think it’s time to give the kid a shot.

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Hank Baskett just went from the guy best known for marrying Kendra Wilkinson to the guy best known for flubbing the biggest onside kick in NFL history. In his defense, he had no clue that was coming, and the ball was moving like a Tim Wakefield knuckler on a rainy day. Nonetheless, he is paid to do two things: catch onside kicks and block. He failed in that capacity, and allowed the momentum of the game to shift. He just became the answer to question number 11 in the Super Bowl Infamy quiz.

Who cares about Super Bowl MVPs? We highlight the dark side of the big game with this quiz. Answers (and links to news and video about the events) after the jump.

1. What NFL Man of the Year was busted for picking up a hooker the night before the Super Bowl?
2. What Miami Dolphins kicker threw the ball backwards for an interception, denying the 1972 Dolphins a shutout at the Super Bowl?
3. What kicker went wide right for the Bills in Super Bowl XXV?
4. This mentally unstable Raider center missed the Super Bowl to party in Tijuana.
5. Who is the only starting quarterback to not throw a single reception in the Super Bowl, going 0-6 before he was replaced?
6. Who did Neil O’Donnell throw two passes directly to to cost the Steelers a chance of winning Super Bowl XXX?
7. What Cincinnati Bengals running back went on a cocaine binge the night before Super Bowl XXIII and didn’t play in the game?
8. This Cowboys defensive end seemed to be headed for the end zone, but decided to showboat 5 yards before the end zone, allowing Don Beebe to knock the ball out of his hands.
9. In Super Bowl XXVI, this member of the Buffalo Bills missed the first drive because he was searching frantically for his helmet on the sidelines.
10. This Cowboys Tight End dropped what would have been the tying touchdown in a game the Cowboys ended up losing by 4 to the Steelers.

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Yeah, this one’s a retread, so shut up. Go Saints.

Rarely does a dunk impress me. Seriously. A 6′9” guy dunking is about as awe inspiring as watching an empty net goal in hockey. I mean, guys that tall don’t even need to stand up to masturbate. Come to think of it, I have no idea what that means.

I am, however, impressed when Mustapha Farrakhan dunks. That’s right, Louis Farrakhan’s grandson. And he’s not wearing a bow tie and standing at an intersection handing out brochures (to some of us). Rather, Mustapha is a 6′4” guard for Virginia and he sure does deliver “the proverbial facial” to that poor chap from N.C. State. Granted, the bitch in this video is Javier Gonzalez and he’s only 5′11. But that dunk sure is sweeter than a Nation of Islam beanpie.

Ilya Kovalchuk was told yesterday by Atlanta Thrashers’ GM, Don Waddell, that he will be traded. That’s according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the same news outlet that lists Philadelphia, New Jersey, Boston, New York, L.A. and Calgary as Kovalchuk’s most-likely destination.

Several rumor mills have I.K. being traded as early as today. So when the Flyers don’t get him, you can say you heard it here first. My prediction is that Paul Holmgren will tell the media that they didn’t trade for Kovalchuk because of the promise they see in their young forwards. You know, kind of like Ruben Amaro saying that he wanted to replenish the farm system.

In fairness, Kovalchuk just turned down and 8-year deal with Atlanta that would have paid him $10 million annually. That tells you that he’s no cheap date. And as a guy with an expiring contract, any team that trades for him should probably be confident they can get a deal done (or simply rent him for a playoff run this season). But despite Kovalchuk’s relative anonymity, he is the NHL’s second-best goal scorer. If you’re a GM with any balls, you stick them out in the wind to get this guy.

One of the most beloved athletes in Philadelphia history would be turning 48 today. One of my favorite Jerome Brown stories didn’t involve football, it involved the KKK. You’ve probably all heard it, but it bears repeating. This from a 1988 Sports Illustrated story on Brown. 

Tension filled the courtyard at the corner of Broad and Main. Some 150 anti-Klan onlookers—black and white—jeered the speaker and his 50 or so applauding supporters in the crowd. Two dozen police officers braced for the first hint of violence. The scene in this limestone-mining community, 45 miles north of Tampa in the backwoods of west-central Florida, was getting ugly.

Suddenly, however, the racial slurs were drowned out by the sound of a thundering dance-funk beat. Heads turned. Pulling up to the scene was a jet-black Bronco pickup blaring 1,000 watts’ worth of music from its 12-speaker stereo system.

Calmly, out stepped the driver, a brawny. 6′3″, 290-pound young man dressed in baggy Bermuda shorts, sneakers and a T-shirt. Cheers began to pierce the pounding rhythm. Jerome Brown—No. I draft pick of the Philadelphia Eagles in 1987, controversial former star for the Miami Hurricanes and black resident of Brooksville—had come to play a little defense for his old hometown. The 23-year-old Brown walked toward the circle of six Klansmen. He said nothing. He simply smiled as he carried a sign that had GO AWAY KKK written across it in Magic Marker letters.

The Klansmen seemed stunned as Brown approached them. “One of them looked like an ant compared to Jerome; he was totally dismayed,” says Brooksville policeman Terry Chapman. “You could see them all scratching their heads, standing around not knowing what to do next.”

Brown moved through the crowd, urging many younger blacks to stay cool. His stereo did the rest, drowning out the Klan’s attempts to resume it’s harangue. Frustrated, the Klansmen drove off, sacked by a man whose small-town roots remain firmly planted even after his ascent into the big time.

“We’ve been getting along in this town for as long as I can remember, and we don’t need those kind of problems,” says Brown. “Just because I play football in Philly now doesn’t mean I don’t care about what happens back here. Brooksville is always going to be part of me.”

Jerome Brown’s son, Dee, is currently a minor league baseball player still hoping to get a shot in the majors. 

The Eagles new defensive backs coach is Dick Jauron, most recently the head coach of the Buffalo Bills. The good news for the Eagles is that they get the man who, as a player, held the all-time rushing record at Yale until 2000. He was also All-Ivy League three years in a row during his days in New Haven and holds the Yale record with 16 consecutive 100-yard rushing games. I know, none of this means the Eagles are any closer to winning the Super Bowl but I have to write something about Sean Jones’ new position coach.

As a pro, Jauron played the majority of his career in Detroit as a free safety. He was named to the 1974 Pro Bowl as a punt returner and finished his NFL career in 1980 with the Cincinnati Bengals.

Jauron’s career head coaching record is 60-82 which isn’t all that bad. In truth, it means nothing since he’s the Eagles’ defensive backs coach, a position that adds zero to the team’s chances of winning a Super Bowl. One of the nifty things about being an NFL coach is that once you’re hired as a coach in any capacity, you’re pretty much guaranteed to be hired somewhere else in the league once you’re fired. And for Jauron, an ex-Ivy Leaguer, that kind of nepotism comes as no surprise.

Every other caller to WIP bemoans the fact that the Eagles don’t run the ball enough, and every host obliges them by crying about that fact themselves. After all, rushing the football is what championship football teams do, right? Nothing could be farther from the truth. One of the teams in this year’s Super Bowl is the Indianapolis Colts, who were 32nd (dead last) in the NFL in rushing (YPG). Of the top 10 rushing teams in the NFL this past year, only 5 of them made the playoffs. The team that nearly won last year’s Super Bowl, the Arizona Cardinals, were, like the Colts, dead last in the NFL in rushing. The World Champion Pittsburgh Steelers were 23rd in the league. Of the last 10 teams to win a Super Bowl, exactly zero of them finished in the Top 3 in the NFL in rushing. It makes you wonder: is the problem not that the Eagles are passing too much, but perhaps that they aren’t passing enough?

This video is making the rounds today. It’s kind of like the Northeast Philly version of an impromptu performance by Miles Davis in Paris. Imagine sipping a glass of pouilly-fuisse while some cat strums on his bass and soft notes float from the piano. Suddenly amongst the dim lights and stale smell of whiskey and cigarettes emerges Robert Creeley, who recites his poetry as your mind drifts along with the music and the verse. Then imagine what that would be like at an Applebee’s on Cottman Ave. Yeah, daddy-o, that’s it.