Dog Mentality: A newsletter from a Birds fan abroad (or at least outside of Philadelphia)

Week 1: “Eagles vs Lions”

Expectations, great or otherwise, are the currency Week 1 trades on. Famous gonzo writer and guy who I inevitably rambled about to unsuspecting friends in college (and still do; apologies), Hunter S. Thompson, started his suicide note with the phrase: “football season is over.”

It’s tragic, but it’s also in-line with the way Thompson took everyday beats of American life like a trip to Las Vegas, catching the Kentucky Derby once a year, or thinking about a presidential election to their extremes.

For football fans, imaginary team managers, ex-high school athletes, dudes with actual bookies, weekend warriors, Monday morning quarterbacks, and whoever else straps in for almost 8 hours of RedZone on Sunday, the pro season delivers the best America has to offer — spectacle and opportunity — into a simple game wrapped in a gaudy package. And when it ends — for those of us who care — it does feel like something is lost.

Plus, after the NBA playoffs wrap, what are people supposed to do? Watch baseball day games on TV, it’s not the same.

Now at the start of this new season, your dear correspondent also finds himself confronting some gargantuan life changes. So in the spirit of new seasons, here’s a new blog.

What’s in Name?

“Dog Mentality” is a favorite saying of Eagles Head Coach Nick Sirianni. Sirianni’s blend of cut throat confidence and quarter-zip-intelligence-looks makes him the entrepreneur bro of football. He’s loud, aggressive, throws around a lot of metaphors that don’t always add up (the “seeds are starting to sprout” is another doozy), but clearly he loves his boys.

So in his words, “dog mentality” is the attitude of any player ready to go out of the gate, again, and again, and again. Like the best slogans, the signifier sounds cooler than the signified; or the meaning may not make total sense, but “dog mentality” is a ripping blog title. It’s also wonderfully funny. The Pat McAfee show beautifully sent up Sirianni’s post game conference presence and the dog mentality during a hilarious impersonation. The pundit pretending to be Sirianni described the essence of “dog mentality” as “all bite, no bark.” Incredible. Here’s the full clip for reference

So, what does this have to do with writing? Well, for starters I’m an Eagles fan. My father and his people hail from a small town in South Jersey outside of Philly. After years of watching him scream at the TV on Sundays, eating wings at one of Birds’ territories best sports bars (Charlie’s at Somers Point), and rocking Kelly green, I’ve inherited the fandom even though I currently call LA Home.

As for the actual writing — it’s a challenge to get out of my comfort zone a little. I’m most at home talking shop about arts and entertainment, so why not jump in the football deepend?

Disclaimers

To that end, I’ll admit out of the gate, I’m new to this. Week 1 for the NFL is also my Week 1 as an amateur sports writer. I don’t have an encyclopedia of information about the sport, I’m just a fan who cares. I’ll do my best to call it correctly. Should anybody call me on a mistake, I’ll be happy to drop a personal wins and losses section into the newsletter. Plus the “dog mentality” isn’t about being right, it’s about getting after it.

What to expect from your dear correspondent

Shaggy posts with a more personal than professional touch.

I think for a lot of men of a certain generation, football provides an outlet. For the guys who came of working age pre-COVID, Sundays in a sports bar or at home represented an opportunity to release weird noises and make asexual comments on other grown men’s bodies — “Look at the legs on LT” or “Jesus, Brady’s got a smart arm” — that suit stiff, pre-90s feminism office environments didn’t really provide. So yeah, I’ll be discussing the Eagles, but I’ll also be venting.

Football punditry also requires a particular “regular guyness” voice that seems like a fun mode to work in. In other words, does your die-hard Lakers fan father hate hearing takes from Bill Simmons? Probably. But your dad would definitely grab a beer with BS before he went to a bar with, say, his local city council representative.

So this newsletter is an awesome excuse to keep up my casual writing chops while cranking on formal writing for grad school applications and so on.

Now that the preamble’s out of the way, let’s get into it.

Birds Beat the Lions

Admittedly, your dear correspondent missed kickoff. Apparently, shots compounding on top of a slew of Bud Lights costs sleeping through the majority of the first half. However, any self disappointment quickly dissipated when the game score hit my phone and revealed — THE BIRDS WERE UP.

Sure, we were beating the Lions, but they have “HBO Hard Knocks” juice and a quarterback I went to school with. That’s all the weird juju any Philly fan needs to coin flip on their team and immediately assume the worst.

For the past few weeks, pundits have decided that Jalen and company could make a playoff — and maybe even — a Superbowl run. “The Ringer” even started a Philly sports specific podcast (it’s phenomenal by the way). That said, do none of these people remember “The Dream Team” catastrophe? All of this to say, ahead of our match with the Lions, my “we’re gonna find a way to blow it” senses were tingling.

But we didn’t. In no small part due to the record breaking debut of one man: wide receiver AJ Brown.

T.B.T. (The Big Take)

On Sunday 9/11, AJ Brown delivered an opening performance on par with Joker’s introduction in the “Dark Knight” or Quint running his fingernails down a chalkboard in “Jaws” or Reese Witherspoon launching from screens directly into our hearts as Elle Woods in “Legally Blonde.”

The guy went 10 catches for 155 yards. He rolled out of initial tackles like a pinball, made space to bail Hurts out of some tight spots and in the comments section one Philly fan even dared to type the letters “T.O.” in reference to the display. Another random YouTuber admitted the whole thing made him cry. God, I love Philly fans.

While Brown couldn’t have found success without some fairly solid throws from Hurts, a healthy O-line (good to see Kelce blowing up defenders like they're softer than Swiss cheese again), and a healthy running core, his play was pretty damn inspiring.

Week 1 is the time to overreact, so I ask: Do we have an edge player in Brown or were we just playing the Lions? Time will tell, but the optimist in me says Brown is an actual problem for secondaries around the league.

Defense and other things

Our defense looked solid enough. Although, did we really need to put fans through 4th and 1 ringer to close out the game in the 4th quarter? With 3 minutes to go in the 4th and a Lions’ offense that rallied to close the gap to 35-38, did things have to get so bad that Jalen had to run a QB sneak to ice the game? Either the Lions offense is competitive or the Eagles defense sucks. Again, time will tell. Personally, your dear correspondent feels it would be incredible to get through an Eagles game without a nail biter. Couldn’t we kill somebody, just once.

NFC East Shuffle

• New York Giants (1-0)

  • Saquon’s back (so far)

  • Danny Dimes and the boys squeak an upset

  • They will be a mid team with some high watermarks

• Washington Commanders (1-0)

  • The NFC East’s prodigal redhead returns…for a victory over his former coach no less

  • They’ll likely suck, but it’s hard not to fear a major upset when they come to The Linc. I imagine Wentz has some strong feelings about his time in Philly

• Dallas Cowboys (0-1)

  • AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

  • If Jerry Jones ran his kingdom like the Targaryens from “Game of Thrones” McCarthy would be meeting the business end of a dragon real soon

Hot takes and answerable questions

• Aaron Rodgers is becoming the NFL’s answer to Nic Cage. Colin Cowherd is convinced it’s because Rodgers needs a wife.

• Some pundits wondered if maybe the Bills were overrated. Yeah, they definitely looked improperly valued when they embarrassed the reigning champs in SoFi.

• Are the Rams bad now or will the Bills be dunking on everybody?

• Why do football heads insist on defending a guy like Tua all offseason while simultaneously finding a million ways to say Mahomes lost his edge? This just in – Mahon

• The real superbowl will likely be the AFC Championship.

• Even with his bizarre performance, Burrow’s too cool to dunk on. Keep going Joe.

• Leave it to the Colts and Texans to tie. Could it have been anyone else?

• Oh shit — Winston gets to throw to a healthy Thomas. I’d change some NFC South odds around if I were y’all.

• It’s worth noting that enjoying the Browns v Panthers game with everything Browns QB Watson is accused of while still being paid, requires a level of cognitive dissonance usually reserved for white fraternity and sorority kids who blast rap songs about the struggle from 20 plus room mansions.

Coming Up

Your dear correspondent heads to his first major wedding in his 20s and Eagles play the Vikings on Monday Night. Things should get interesting.