What's the dilly, Philly?

Yesterday, the Eagles routed the 49ers. You could point to a lot of reasons why Philadelphia achieved such a lopsided victory:

• The Eagles had home field advantage
• The Eagles had one of the premier
  quarterbacks in the league, versus an untested rookie on the 49ers.
• The Eagles had TO, one of the best wide receivers in the NFL, who surely pissed off his former team, (and probably anyone who isn’t an Eagles fan).

However, while the above reasons likely contributed something to the overall annihilation of the 49ers, if you were to ask me, I like to think that real reason Philly won was due to its superior team name. Granted, I know very little about sports, (and especially little about football), but I’m fairly confident that I’m correct. Let’s review:

An eagle - this name invokes an image of the most majestic of all birds; one who balances grace and beauty with the ability to instill the greatest of fear in its prey, (if mice wore pants, I bet they’d crap them.).

A 49er: a person who went searching for gold during the California gold rush. I’m sorry, but to name your team after a prospector is silly. Just plain silly.

Eagle	49er

In the game of names- Eagles: 1000, 49ers: 3.

It was at this point that I was going to continue to mock San Francisco’s football team for being named after a year, but then I realized, as a Philadelphia native, I root for a whole bunch of poorly named teams. Let’s see.

The Philadelphia 76ers-A team named for the year the US achieved its independence. This is just as silly as being a “49er”. As a year, it’s important. As a name, it’s stupid.

The Philadelphia Flyers-What is a flyer? Dictionary.com says:

1. One, such as an insect or bird, that flies with wings. [“The Eagles” was already taken, so I guess Philly decided to use the more generic term of “flyer”] OR
2. The pilot of an aircraft. [Oooh, a bunch of pilots. We can fly planes. Watch out, or we’ll crash our planes into your structures of importance!] OR
3. A passenger in an aircraft [Now, we RIDE in planes. Beware our ability to annoy the pilot, who could crash his plane into your structures of importance!] OR
4. A pamphlet or circular for mass distribution. [“We’ll give you paper cuts! And we’re not environmentally friendly!”] OR
5. A step in a straight stairway. [Have a nice trip. See you next fall?] OR
6. A daring venture. [Not bad, but not good either.] OR
7. An exceptionally swift kangaroo. [The best of the seven. I’ll pretend that this is what Philadelphia intended by the name “Flyers”]

The Philadelphia Phillies-This has to be the worst of the four team names. It’s like Philadelphia didn’t even try. Did the committee in charge of deciding on the name wait until the last minute, only to be pressured into saying the first thing that came to mind? The city is already named Philly; couldn’t they think of something else? Alas, they didn’t, giving Philadelphia’s baseball team perhaps the most unimaginative name in sports. Since I don’t stand for the unimaginative, I will pretend that what they really meant was “Fillies:”

• Young female horses. OR
• Lively, high-spirited girls or young women.

Yeah, that’s better. Much better. Isn’t using your imagination fun?

Stupid name.	Pretty horse