It’s been a while since a Philadelphia sports team has gone all the way and brought us home a championship. This past year, the Eagles had a shot at it and came quite close. The real Philly team to watch, however, is the 76ers. And with this play-by-play prediction of the 2005 NBA Playoffs, I’ll tell you why…

April 12th-20th
The Sixers win 8 of their final 10 games of the season and move into 3rd place in the Eastern Conference. I high five Lee, Dave, and Nagy a lot over the internet.

April 18th-April 26th
Philly meets Boston in the opening round. Iverson averages 50 a game, Korver shoots 70% from 3-pt range, Marc Jackson dunks on Paul Pierce, and I shit my pants. Sixers sweep the Celtics in four games and await the winner of the 2nd seed Pistons vs. the 7th seed Pacers. Then it gets interesting. George Steinbrenner takes interest in the Sixers’ heroic efforts and decides to buy the team. Bill and me high five because we can finally both root for the same team in a sport.

May 3rd
Game seven between Detroit and Indiana turns out to be an historic one. The Pacers take an early lead but Detroit comes charging back and secures a 15 point lead with five minutes to play. At this point, a naked Ron Artest runs onto the court and stabs Ben Wallace to death.

May 9th-May May 22nd
The Sixers take out the Wallace-depleted Pistons in six games and prepare to take on the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals.

May 24th
Steinbrenner realizes the Sixers are outmatched against the mighty Heat and decides to use his legendary persuasiveness and business skills ($$$) to convince David Stern (the NBA Commissioner) to eliminate the NBA trade deadline as well as the salary cap. Steinbrenner begins negotiations with the Heat to get Shaquille O’Neal in exchange for Chris Webber. The Heat owner replies, “You’ve got to be kidding me, it’d take Chris Webber and at least three billion dollars ($3,000,000,000).”

May 25th
Shaq arrives in Philly for his first practice with the team.

May 26th-June 17th
The rest is history…the Sixers sweep the Heat and shit on whatever sucker comes out of the Western Conference to win the NBA Finals. Some hot babes come over to blow me and congratulate me on my predictions.

July 1st
Ron Artest signs with the Carolina Panthers. Paul immediately picks him up for his fantasy football team.

The Super Bowl: a time for all Eagles fans to come together and watch two teams battle while scratching our heads and repeating over and over, “We should have been there. We would have won this game easily.” …But not this year. This year, all the hopes and dreams of one city would rest on the shoulders of Number Five and his troops as they marched into the final game of the playoffs. ONE: city, team, dream. What would follow would be one of the ugliest performances by a quarterback in recent Super Bowl history. ONE: more year. Yet through all the disappointment and heartbreak, all I could think about was one thing: how much Cris Collinsworth sucks.

Cris Collinsworth played wide receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals for eight years in the eighties, helping them reach two Super Bowls and being selected for the Pro Bowl three times in the process. He was a solid player and he ranks first on the Bengals all-time career receptions list. At this point in his career, Collinsworth hadn’t done anything to make me hate him.

In January of 1998, however, Collinsworth joined Fox Sports cast as a member of Fox NFL Sunday. Since then, his intelligent views and commentary as well as his outspoken demeanor have landed him a spot in the hearts of football fans across the nation.

Sike. Collinsworth’s “intelligent views” amount to his constant bashing of the play of other wide receivers and quarterbacks. He constantly points out that these guys are nowhere near as talented or as classy as he was and is. Add to that the fact that Collinsworth’s vagina explodes any time a player celebrates a touchdown and you’ve got a winning combination of “intelligent views.”

Collinsworth’s “outspoken demeanor” simply alludes to the fact that Cris Collinsworth is not shy about sucking Tom Brady’s penis in public. He even lets Brady take him from behind as long as it doesn’t cause anal leakage. This brings us back to the Super Bowl. Before this year’s Big Game, I always thought it was disrespectful and arrogant of Collinsworth to belittle players the way he has for a number of years now. I never liked him for that, but I didn’t quite hate him and I hadn’t at that point realized how much he sucked. Then he started talking about Tom Brady.

In Collinsworth’s eyes, Tom Brady is a god. It’s very true that Tom Brady is one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL and if you need a guy to lead your team to the Super Bowl, he’s probably the guy. But Collinsworth spent the entire game praising Brady’s every motion. At one point, he actually praised Brady after he overthrew an open receiver for an incomplete pass. Collinsworth pointed out how composed and collected Brady was in the pocket (as his offensive line held strong and no Eagles came within five feet of him). At this time, Troy Aikman actually asked Collinsworth what the shit he was talking about, but Collinsworth couldn’t hear him because Tom Brady’s dick was in his ear.

By the end of the game, I was cringing just at the sound of Collinsworth’s voice. People don’t need an NFL analyst who constantly drones on about the same stupid thing like this. According to Cris Collinsworth, there have only been two great players to ever play the game of football: Tom Brady and Cris Collinsworth. Collinsworth must be hoping they can breed together somehow. It’s time to give up on Tom Brady, Cris. He’s had hot babes sucking his dick for years now; he just plain doesn’t need you.