Philly Phile | Good deed or promotional stunt? Maybe both ...

FOOL'S GOLD

The Cowboys are 2-6, right?

They don’t have their quarterback, right?

They lost their best player – yep, wrote it, their best PLAYER, with no disclaimer in deference to Dez Bryant – midway through Sunday night’s game, right?

But, somehow, according to the talking heads and the most heavy-hearted in the Bleed-Green fan base, we’re supposed to get jacked up over the Eagles squeezing out a 33-27 overtime victory in Dallas.

It doesn’t register. Not here at least. Actually, doesn’t seem to be that hot on the buyer’s market throughout the area, either.

Oh, some did. Some always will. Hope will forever prevail for those people, and, frankly, kudos to them.

​It takes a special person to put a positive spin on anything whenever possible … or impossible.

But, not for nothing, what are we talking about here?

Now 4-4, the Eagles are the essence of mediocrity after a massive revamping of a roster that was stated to be that ultra-critical first turn in the right direction.

Newsflash: They already had “mediocre” down cold before Chip Kelly ever put his GM pants on … and, frankly, you could argue it was a better, more talented version of the word that the 2015 edition is.

DeMarco Murray has been a flat-out bust. Kiko Alonso has been a no-show. Sam Bradford … oh, Slingin’ Sammy B, well, he remains an enigma whose talents seem to be overshadowed by the never-ending excuses made for them so often staying hidden.

The QB’s backers will point to his big day in Big D as a coming-out party. His detractors will note his poor first half in that game … and the fact that his counterpart, Matt Cassell, roundly assessed as “sucking” by NFL experts, had a better game anyway.

The Eagles also lost, well, arguably their best player, Jordan Hicks, too. Not for a game or two, mind you, but the rest of the season. Damn those torn pecs. The rookie linebacker, simply, has spearheaded the team’s remarkable emergence on defense … and now he’s gone.

But, hey, the Birds beat Dallas. A division title is a sure thing now. Playoffs, maybe the Super Bowl, too.

The gang is getting right back on the bandwagon.

Anyone can have my seat, though.

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Eagles left tackle Lane Johnson and his linemates did a good job containing Cowboys defensive lineman Greg Hardy Sunday night in Dallas.

Promotional stunt. Plain and simple.

Reeked of it.

The moment Josh Innes started yapping about raising money for a women’s shelter as a statement against everyone’s favorite domestic abuser of the moment, Cowboys defensive lineman Greg Hardy, over the air on WIP, a weeks-old fish smell began wafting through the city, turning the stomachs of those with functioning brain mass while striking a cord with “Hate Dallas” Eagles fans.

For all the blather then and since about the good deed Philly’s most polarizing sportstalker endlessly promoted and ultimately produced – and let’s be clear, raising money, a lot of it, for a charitable organization always is a good deed – the reality is there was no redeeming or righteous reason, or inner-giver trigger, that ignited it.

Innes saw an opportunity to better connect with the locals, to bring national attention to his afternoon show and to have others join the young man in patting himself on the back. It was a guaranteed win-win-win, especially when you consider the “throw it to the lions” carnivorous carnival bound to take place when something negative related to the Cowboys happens to be dangled ad nauseam in front of an Eagles fan base.

Yes, the Genesis Women’s Shelter and Support in Dallas benefited from the reported $30,000 Innes and his cohorts convinced listeners with midnight green coursing through their veins to “pay forward.” There is no debating that.

But, c’mon. Let’s keep it real here. Innes was the real beneficiary. Well, him and WIP. By preying on those who hold bitterness toward a professional football franchise other than their own near and dear to their hearts, and apparently wallets.

How utterly … diabolical.

Call Innes whatever snake-oil salesman type name you like, and yours truly probably would agree. Just make sure to recognize his genius as well. The guy knows people and he knows how to push their buttons. People from here rip the guy because he isn’t from here, yet he knows them, and what makes them tick, even better than they do.

Still, you’re not going to find any genuflecting here at what transpired.

It was cheap, self-serving grandstanding at its most baseline level – pointing the finger at others, others being those lowlifes in Dallas who allow Hardy to make a living in their town, telling them how they suck, and then somehow magnanimously displaying the compassion to help them and show them how they really should be helping themselves and their own.

Yep, we’re great, we’re awesome … aren’t we?

Puh-leeze.

If there was such an outrage over domestic violence in this town, or others, then statements against Hardy and his ilk could, and should, be made every week … not just when it’s “Dallas Week” for Eagles fans. Hardy’s story is hardly breaking news. Not only did his incident happen more than a year ago, but the guy has been playing for the Cowboys several weeks now since being reinstated.

No, the whole driving force behind this “helping hand” right then was in being able to say, “Look at us, we’re better than you, Dallas. We have moral fiber, and you don’t.”

It’s as silly as Hardy’s act was criminal. Ask most people in Dallas about Hardy and you’d get the same response: “Who?”

For all the diluted minds out there who think the world revolves around football and those who play it, and, shamefully, we got a hand at least partially raised right here, too, the fact is … uh, it doesn’t. Not even in Dallas.
For the vast the majority of the living and breathing sect out there, football remains, at most, a diversion, a leisure activity best handled by fixating yourself in front of a big-screen TV and surrounded by food and drink of your own choosing. It is not life. It is not death. Not even in Dallas.

Heck, not even in Philly.

But Hardy did something awful, and, even worse, he currently wears a Dallas Cowboys uniform, so Innes made his passion play to his target audience … and it paid off, most of all for him.

Pardon me for not celebrating that victory.

- Jack Kerwin  |  [email protected]​