Rep. David Maloney, a Republican who represents parts of Berks County, wants to rename Lake Erie to “Lake Pennsylvania,” arguing that the state’s only Great Lake has become increasingly important to Pennsylvania’s economy and identity.
Maloney plans to introduce a resolution that would urge President Donald Trump, Congress, and the U.S. Secretary of the Interior to take the necessary steps to change the lake’s name, according to a recent news release.
In a memo to fellow lawmakers, Maloney pointed to the millions of Pennsylvanians who visit nearby Presque Isle and the Erie Bluffs each year, and to tourism’s importance to Erie County. He also argued that Pennsylvania plays an outsized role in supporting the lake’s recreational fishery, despite having a small share of its shoreline. According to the Great Lakes Fishery Commission’s 2025 report, Pennsylvania stocked almost 500,000 yearling steelhead last year, or roughly 40% of all steelhead in the lake, and more than any other state or Canadian province.
“This is Pennsylvania’s only Great Lake,” Maloney said in a post on X. “Its modern economy and identity are increasingly tied to the boaters, anglers, families and tourists who come to enjoy it.”
“Ohio has plenty of shoreline. New York already has two Great Lakes. Canada has four others,” he said. “Pennsylvania has one. Let’s call it Lake Pennsylvania!”
The proposal comes shortly after Trump ordered the federal government to begin calling Lake Ontario “Lake America.” Trump signed an executive order on Aug. 27 directing the Secretary of the Interior and the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to make the change in federal records.
Maloney’s resolution has not yet been formally introduced in the Pennsylvania House.
The Wings, Philadelphia’s National Lacrosse League franchise, are folding.
On Thursday, the NLL announced that the Wings and the Ottawa Black Bears would cease operations. For the Wings, the decision comes after Comcast Spectacor pulled its ownership of the franchise following the 2025-26 season. At the time, the NLL announced that it had initiated a “comprehensive process” to find an owner for the team, but the league ultimately decided to contract. The move to discontinue the Wings and the Black Bears, which also had ownership turnover, leaves the NLL with 12 teams.
“Today is a difficult day for the National Lacrosse League and, most importantly, for the fans, players, employees and partners who have supported the Ottawa Black Bears and Philadelphia Wings,” NLL commissioner Brett Frood said in a release. “These are proud lacrosse markets with passionate communities, and we are grateful to everyone who has invested their time, energy and belief in these clubs.
“As we enter our 40th anniversary season, our responsibility is to provide certainty for our constituents and move forward with 12 active member clubs aligned behind the League’s collective future.”
The NLL noted in its release that both cities “remain important markets to the NLL,” and the league would “consider future opportunities in either community if the long-term conditions and partners necessary to support a sustainable franchise are established.”
After Comcast Spectacor pulled its ownership of the Wings, it was expected that the franchise would move out of the city. The team was never included in Comcast Spectacor and Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment’s plan for a new arena in the stadium complex that will open in 2030.
Sam LeClair hugs Brennan O’Neill (left) after the Philadelphia Wings’ final home game at Xfinity Mobile Arena in April.Heather Barry / NLL
A dispersal draft, allowing the 12 remaining franchises to select players from the Wings and Black Bears, will be Sept. 15.
Last season, the Wings (5-13) finished with the worst record in the NLL. The franchise was established in 1987 as one of the original four teams of the NLL. The Wings became a fan favorite at the Spectrum as box lacrosse, which originated in Canada, gained popularity in the United States. The Wings relocated to Connecticut in 2014 and were renamed the New England Black Wolves. However, in 2017, the franchise was reestablished as an expansion team under the ownership of Comcast Spectacor.
The termination of the Wings franchise does not leave Philadelphia without a professional lacrosse team, as the Premier Lacrosse League’s Philadelphia Waterdogs have gained a fan base in the area. The league uses a touring model, in which teams travel from city to city as a league and franchises have “homecoming weekends” in their home markets. The Waterdogs, who played at Subaru Park last month, are slated to take on the Denver Outlaws in the league’s championship game on Sept. 20 at Sports Illustrated Stadium in Harrison, N.J. (12:30 p.m., 6abc).
Hundreds of early-bird shoppers have gotten a sneak peek at the new Asianfresh Food Market in Cherry Hill ahead of the store’s grand opening this weekend.
A colorful mural by Chinatown artist Chenlin Cai welcomes shoppers into the sprawling store at 2005 Route 70 East, the second location of the popular specialty market offering hard-to-find Asian imports.
Shoppers at the Asianfresh Food Market in Cherry Hill on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
Stocked with a wide variety of fresh produce, seafood, and specialty products from across Asia, the new store expands on the offerings available at the two-story flagship on 10th Street in Philadelphia that opened in 2019.
“Anyone with an Asian background can come and find something that they need,” including Cambodian, Vietnamese, Filipino, and Thai staples, spokesperson Karen Louie said.
Employees stocked the shelves at Asianfresh Food Market in Cherry Hill on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
For siblings Eric Alindogan and Daffodil Evans, the opening of Asianfresh creates another option for them to hunt for the best bargains in South Jersey.
The pair primarily cook vegetarian Chinese and Filipino dishes, they said, which often requires trips to multiple grocery stores to get all of the necessary ingredients at a reasonable price.
Jason Huynh, of Cherry Hill, kept the youngsters entertained while his wife shopped at Asianfresh Food Market on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
“We’re just doing research right now,” Evans said as they moved through the aisles, carefully filling their cart while mentally comparing products and prices to other international grocers in the area.
The store’s grand opening event will kick off at 11 a.m. on Saturday and will include a durian eating contest — the winner of which will get a one-minute shopping spree for free drinks and snacks in the store, Louie said.
Shoppers check out at the Asianfresh Food Market in Cherry Hill on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
Given the “overwhelmingly positive” response to the store since its soft opening on Sept. 3, she said they’re prepared for Saturday’s event to be packed.
Once officially open, the store will welcome shoppers daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., boasting large refrigerated and frozen food sections alongside aisles of items ranging from snacks to housewares.
Shoppers at the Asianfresh Food Market in Cherry Hill on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
Similar to popular big-box warehouse stores like Costco and Sam’s Club, Asianfresh also sells a number of items in bulk, both to individuals and to local restaurants, Louie said.
Merrill Reese sat in his living room chair, awaiting the rapid-fire questions from his wife as she prepared the longtime Eagles broadcaster for another game.
“Thirty-one,” said Cindy Reese, reading off an index card listing Cincinnati Bengals running backs.
Reese — who begins his 50th season on Sunday as the voice of the Eagles — needed a moment to think.
Cindy, who has a doctorate in education and spent 20 years teaching middle schoolers, quizzes him the night before each game on the opposing players. She reads him a number and he spits out a name. They repeat the numbers until he masters it, like a student preparing for a big test.
Reese grew up a Birds fan in Overbrook and would stare at the broadcast booth at Franklin Field while dreaming of being there one day. Now it’s hard to remember a time when Reese wasn’t calling the action in a voice that the Daily News once perfectly described as an “urgent baritone.”
Reese voiced two Super Bowl wins, told you the Eagles stopped ‘em again, and can make the word “good” sound great. He turned 84 earlier this month and has no plans of retiring. His 50th season, Reese said, isn’t a farewell tour.
Cindy Reese holds a note card with the names of Bengals players to help her husband, Merrill Reese, prepare for an Eagles preseason game against Cincinnati.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
“Forever,” Reese said of how long he plans to call the action. “My word is always forever. I always kiddingly say they’re going to have to remove me with a crane. Look, I love to golf. But I’d rather broadcast an Eagles game than anything in the world. My greatest pleasure is to sit there and broadcast an Eagles game. There’s nothing I love more. I even enjoy doing the preseason games. I can truly tell you that I love it as much or more as I ever loved it. I have no intention of stopping.”
Reese golfs three times a week, stays active, and says his vision is crisp after having cataract surgery a few years ago. And his recall, which he credits to his work as a child actor, stays sharp thanks to those study sessions in his Blue Bell living room where his wife sits on the sofa and asks him who wears No. 31 on the Bengals.
“Kentrel Bullock,” Reese said as Cindy nodded and moved to No. 35.
Merrill Reese is entering his 50th season broadcasting Eagles games.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
Chasing a dream
Reese was making $125 a week in the late 1960s at WBCB in Levittown when he heard KYW was having auditions for a radio newscaster. This was his chance. He nailed his tryout, wrote a strong script, didn’t flub any words, and felt good.
KYW’s news director brought Reese into his office and told him he was going to do him a favor.
Reese, who went to Temple before serving in the Navy, started his radio career in towns like Pottstown. Now he thought he was finally going to land a job in the big city.
“I said, ‘Boy this is great,’” Reese said. “But he said, ‘I’m going to tell you that he would be wise to find another profession because you’re never going to work in a major market station.’”
Reese was crushed. He went home and hid in his bedroom until his mother asked him what was wrong. He told her what the KYW boss said.
“He’s right,” his mom said.
Reese was stunned. His mom didn’t think he could cut it? She told her son that if he could be deterred by one detractor then he would never make his dream come true. She was right. Reese went back to work the next day in Levittown, kept pushing, and was working six months later at WWDB in Philadelphia. That news director? Reese said he soon got canned.
Video: unCovering the Birds: Is tight end the biggest area of concern?
Reese’s mother was a kindergarten teacher who loved the performing arts. She took Reese to the theater and signed him up for acting lessons when he was a boy. He was an extra in a Cecil B. DeMille movie starring Jimmy Stewart, regularly appeared on local TV shows like Chuck Wagon Pete, and did commercials as an 8-year-old.
Reese had a part in a live radio drama but was instructed to memorize his lines while the adult actors were allowed to read a script. They thought it would sound too rehearsed if the kid read. So Reese spent every afternoon studying with his mom before going outside with his buddies. The memory that is now sharpened in his living room was being formed.
“I have an unusual memory because I was trained at that age,” Reese said.
Merrill Reese and Cindy, at their Montgomery County home last month, have been married for 47 years.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
‘How about next Saturday?’
Reese and his wife met on a blind date, went out in the city, and didn’t talk again.
“I was geographically undesirable,” said Cindy, who grew up in Wallingford.
They reunited two years later and went on a double date on the Main Line with Reese’s sister and brother-in-law.
“We had a great time,” Cindy said. “I said, ‘Are you going to wait another two years to call me again?’ He said, ‘How about next Saturday?’ That was that.”
By then Reese parlayed his WWDB job into a gig at WIP, which hired him to do five minutes of sports every hour each morning before naming him the host of their Eagles pregame and postgame show.
He joined the broadcast booth in 1975 as a color analyst and then became the play-by-play man at age 35 in December 1977 after his partner Charlie Swift died by suicide. Reese got a call in the middle of the night that Swift died. That Sunday, Reese had to call the action.
Merrill Reese talks with his longtime spotter Bill Werndl (right) in the broadcast booth before a preseason game against the Bengals on Aug. 28.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
“I’m standing there in the booth and the Eagles held a moment of silence for Charlie Swift,” Reese said. “All the players on the sidelines turned and looked at the booth. My knees are literally knocking into each other. I’m hoping something can just come out of my mouth. After that, they queued me and I went on. I did a little remembrance for Charlie Swift, broke for a commercial, and from there on it was all football.”
Reese finished the 1977 season but there was no guarantee that the job would be his in 1978. The station tried to land Al Meltzer, the popular broadcaster who was returning to Philadelphia after a year in Chicago. They told Reese that “Big Al” could sell more advertisements. Reese understood. But he wanted that job.
“I used to dream many times that winter that they called me and told me I had the job,” Reese said. “I would wake up depressed because I didn’t have the job. It was just a dream. Other times, I would go to sleep and dream that they called me and said they decided to go into a different direction. I would wake up relieved because I still wasn’t out of it.”
Meltzer turned down the Eagles’ gig to become the sports director at Channel 10. Reese was thrilled. The job was his.
“It was very exciting,” Cindy said. “It really did launch the trajectory of our relationship because that was going to be our lives.”
“I believe we’ve become like members of the family (for listeners),” says Merrill Reese, with longtime radio partner Mike Quick.ELIZABETH ROBERTSON / Staff Photographer
Members of the family
Reese and his longtime broadcast partner, former wide receiver Mike Quick, are so popular that fans delay their TV feeds and hit mute to sync their screens with the WIP-FM broadcast. The broadcasters even have their own beer. In Super Bowl seasons or super bad seasons, Merrill and Mike give you a reason to tune in.
“I believe we’ve become like members of the family,” Reese said. “We’re like their old friends who’ve been with them for many, many years. They grew up listening to us and we’ve become somebody who is able to react the way they react. We’re not homers. We don’t paint phony pictures. We don’t make a game exciting. I try to transmit the excitement, but when they’re bad, I’ll say they’re bad. I think people appreciate that. They can identify with us. They feel comfortable with us.”
Reese’s voice — the one that every Eagles fan has tried to imitate — somehow sounds the same year after year.
He said he isn’t a smoker or drinker. He doesn’t scream and tries not to talk on the phone the day before a game. He builds his vocabulary by reading everything from the newspaper to mystery novels. But the secret to Reese’s longevity may be his wife.
“My wife is my partner and basically in everything we do,” said Reese, who married Cindy in June 1979. “Cindy has always helped me prepare. Cindy is my confidant and my friend. We golf together. We do a lot of things together and Cindy is also very accomplished in her own right. She’s a great writer, an environmentalist. She has so many interests. We have a wonderful life together with two great kids and two wonderful grandchildren.”
Cindy listens to each game and gives her husband feedback when he’s off the air. She understands football but isn’t a crazed fanatic.
Cindy Reese holds a note card with the names of Bengals players she uses to quiz her husband in preparation for a game. Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
“I’m an Eagles fan, but I’m really a Merrill fan,” Cindy said.
The couple raised two children — Nolan and Ida — but Reese’s broadcasting gig took him away to training camp every summer, practices during the week, and games on the weekend. There were radio shows, appearances, and hours of preparation. The job is more than just four hours on a Sunday afternoon.
So it was often up to Cindy to make sure everything was in line at home.
“It’s been teamwork. We had to be a team because of the nature of raising a family under those circumstances,” Cindy said. “The thing that makes our relationship different from a woman married to a football player is that there’s a time limitation. There might be four years or six years or whatever that their husband is involved in. With coaches, and people like Merrill, there’s no time frame. It just went on. Here we are. Fifty years.”
The broadcaster used to study the opposing rosters on his own before his wife stepped in. Cindy, who now mentors student teachers at Gwynedd Mercy University, turns their living room into a classroom. They’ve been doing it like this since Reese got the Eagles gig.
Her husband has to be quick during games as an assistant in the booth points to a number after a play to indicate who tipped a pass or forced a fumble. No. 31? No. 97? No. 56? Cindy says the numbers as rapidly as a football shoots from a JUGS machine. The former sixth-grade science teacher makes sure her husband knows them all.
“He’s amazing,” Cindy said. “He can memorize all these numbers. I’ll do the cards with him and when I leave the room, I don’t know the numbers. But he does. I don’t have that kind of memory. He has an amazing memory.”
Merrill Reese “says he wants to do it forever and as long as he’s able and happy with it then it’s great,” said his wife Cindy.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
Reese has called Eagles games from Jaws to Jalen Hurts but still wakes up nervous every Sunday. It’s because he cares so much, he said.
So Cindy always does her best to make sure the house is calm in the hours before her husband leaves. He’s too uneasy before kickoff to eat at the stadium so she makes him a stack of apple cinnamon pancakes every Sunday morning to hold him over. First, she sharpens his memory. Then, she fills his stomach. They’ve done it for 50 years and hope to do it forever.
“The station has changed many times, the ownership has changed many times, the coaches have changed many times, but Merrill is the constant,” Cindy said. “He just loves the seat and being involved. He says he wants to do it forever and as long as he’s able and happy with it then it’s great.”
Nick Foles has a tendency to shine in the spotlight.
He did it in 2018, when he led the Eagles to an unlikely Super Bowl victory against Tom Brady and the New England Patriots. And it did it again Thursday night during his debut as an NFL analyst for Netflix.
The Birds legend was loose and informative during a pre- and postgame show sandwiching the San Francisco 49ers’ 27-7 blowout of the Los Angeles Rams in Melbourne, Australia.
With Foles, Elle Duncan, Hall of Famer Michael Irvin, and former Green Bay Packers defender Clay Matthews III, Netflix shed the blatant self-promotion that dominated its early sports broadcasting attempts and put the focus on the game and its setting.
That being said, it’s still a pregame show with lots of time to kill. Foles seemed comfortable mixing it up with his new colleagues. He took the opportunity to troll Irvin a bit about the declining popularity of the Dallas Cowboys.
Putting his hand on Irvin’s shoulder, Foles praised “America’s team — the Philadelphia Eagles.”
To his credit, Irvin didn’t trash the Eagles. Instead, he devoted some time to defending Jalen Hurts, who has been a frequent target of critics (including on Philly sports talk radio) despite leading the Birds to two Super Bowl appearances and a championship during his five-year tenure as the team’s starting quarterback.
“You wrap his accomplishments around Trevor Lawrence, they’d be the happiest team in the world,” Irvin said. “For some reason, in the City of Brotherly Love, that brother gets no love.”
While he didn’t bring a dog mask to Australia, Foles was the only member of the crew to correctly predict the 49ers would win, noting he “loves an underdog.” He also let his hair down a bit and downed an unspecified beverage poured into a boot, an Australian custom known as a “shoey.”
“Who’s shoe was that?” Foles asked. “I tasted a little foot right there.”
Netflix’s entire broadcast, which NBC helped produce, was solid. Hall of Famer Luke Kuechly impressed critics during his debut in the booth alongside Noah Eagle. The footage was crisp and clean thanks to Netflix’s 4K ultra HD stream (for those on the premium tier). Even the scorebug drew praise.
About the only misstep was a Netflix-branded kangaroo hoodie the streamer had Foles, his colleagues, and even NFL commissioner Roger Goodell wear. The less written about that, the better.
But the best moment of Foles’ trek to Australia wasn’t on Netflix; it was on SEN 1116, a sports talk station based in Victoria. Prior to the game, Foles sat with announcer Gerard Whateley and watched his call of the “Philly Special” during Super Bowl LII.
“When we ran that play, we had no idea what it would represent,” Foles said. “It was aggressive, … we weren’t fearful, and that’s what radiated through our team throughout that 2017-18 season.”
🗣️ “When we ran that play, we had no idea what it would represent.”
A familiar Phillies radio voice will return to NBC Sports Philadelphia this weekend to call the team’s pivotal three-game series against the Atlanta Braves.
Scott Franzke, the veteran radio announcer in his 21st season calling Phillies games, will take his talents to TV to fill in for Tom McCarthy while McCarthy makes his annual trek over to the NFL.
Franzke and John Kruk will call all three Phillies-Braves games at Truist Park, beginning with Friday’s matchup. On the radio, pre- and postgame host Gregg Murphy will fill in for Franzke alongside Larry Andersen, who’s making his first road trip of the season.
Scott Franzke and John Kruk will call this weekend’s Phillies-Braves series. NBC Sports Philadelphia
While McCarthy’s jump to football isn’t anything new — it’s his 13th season as a play-by-play voice for CBS — the timing is unfortunate. The Phillies have a chance to cut into the Braves’ narrow lead in the NL East, but weren’t helped by Jhoan Duran surrendering a ninth-inning homer Thursday.
Instead, McCarthy will be about five hours south in Jacksonville, Fla., to call the Jaguars’ Week 1 matchup against the Cleveland Browns. This season he’s paired with a new partner: former Indianapolis Colts and Seattle Seahawks running back Robert Turbin, whois in his first season as an NFL color analyst.
“As the former voice of their preseason, I’m kind of used to it,” McCarthy said of the antics that seem to perennially plague the Browns.
The rest of the season, McCarthy benefits from a Phillies weekend schedule filled with national broadcasts.
Last season, Tom McCarthy called NFL games alongside Ross Tucker. CBS
Next weekend, McCarthy will miss the final two games of the Phillies’ four-game series against the New York Mets. The first two won’t air on NBC Sports Philadelphia — Thursday’s game is being broadcast by Fox, while the Sept. 18 game will be part of the Friday Night Baseball doubleheader on Apple TV.
He’ll also miss the final game of the season, Sept. 27 against the Tampa Bay Rays, which will feature former Phillies pitcher turned broadcaster Cole Hamels. McCarthy will call the first game of the Rays series Friday, while Saturday’s game will be broadcast on Fox.
McCarthy’s schedule also benefited from this year’s late Labor Day.
“It worked out that I’m missing less games this year than I normally do because the NFL season’s starting a week later,” McCarthy said.
The Eagles are set to appear twice on CBS — Oct. 18 against the Carolina Panthers and Nov. 22 vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers — but McCarthy isn’t in line to call either and has yet to broadcast a Birds game on TV.
“I would love to do an Eagles game. I think it’d be a hoot,” McCarthy said. “But it’s one of those things where I roll with wherever they send me.”
Why McCarthy hasn’t been posting on X
Tom McCarthy gives food to a fan during a broadcast from behind home plate at Citizens Bank Park in June. Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
While social media tends to be a hateful cesspool of negativity toward announcers, McCarthy has been a prolific poster for years.
Sometimes that meant answering a fan’s question about why the Phillies game wasn’t on NBC Sports Philadelphia. Often it was a funny rebuke of a nasty comment. He’s also used Twitter, now X, to defend his allegiance to the Phillies because he spent a couple seasons calling Mets games and his son, Patrick, handles New York’s pre- and postgame coverage on radio.
But his last post on X was more than two months ago. Why the long silence?
“I just got to the point between the algorithms and all the negativity and all the stories that were untrue,” McCarthy said. “It wasn’t something I really wanted to be associated with it anymore.”
If you miss interacting with McCarthy on social media, you can always follow him on Instagram, where he posts photos from the broadcast booth and connects with fans. He also likes that his feed is focused on baseball and golf.
“I can reset it pretty quickly if I feel like it’s too, let’s say, political,” McCarthy said.
NL East standings
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NL wildcard standings
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Phillies magic number
That is the combined total of Phillies’ wins and/or losses by the teams on the outside looking in that are needed to secure at least the third wild-card berth and a spot in the playoffs.
A day more than eight months in the making is nearly here. After a myriad key offseason changes, the Eagles will take the field at Lincoln Financial Field on Sunday (4:25 p.m., Fox) looking to prove they’re still the toast of the NFC East, and a viable Super Bowl contender. They’ll do so against a Washington Commanders team trying to turn the page on a bleak 5-12 season in 2025. Here’s how our writers see Sunday going:
Jeff Neiburg
The NFL schedulers threw Sean Mannion a bone. The Eagles have a difficult schedule overall — Sharp Football Analysis rates it the eighth-hardest schedule — but they open with games against the following team defense ranks from 2025: 32, 29, 21.
It should give Mannion and the new-look offense a chance to work out some kinks. Besides the joint practices in New England, the first-team offense hasn’t gotten any work as a unit against a real opponent, and the playbook we saw Andy Dalton, Tanner McKee, and Cole Payton work with during the preseason games is only one small part of what the Eagles have implemented.
We’ll see Jalen Hurts taking more snaps from under center, more receivers in motion, more play action, more middle-of-the-field throws.
The guess here is the offense will have some good and some bad over the first few weeks, but I expect the running game and the new-look wide zone scheme to have some success against a bad defense that hasn’t gotten much better.
Saquon Barkley was my pick to be the NFL’s offensive player of the year, and he should start his 2026 campaign with a lot of yards. The Eagles should run the ball with relative ease and then find high-percentage throws, especially off play-action.
Defensively, the Eagles had an edge before Commanders left tackle Laremy Tunsil’s injury, and it’s even bigger now. They avoided playing Jayden Daniels in each of their matchups with the Commanders last year, but they shouldn’t have much trouble causing havoc Sunday.
Prediction: Eagles 27, Commanders 13
The official beginning of the Sean Mannion offensive era comes Sunday. David Maialetti / Staff Photographer
Ryan Novozinsky
The Mannion era is going to start with a bang.
Sure, the Commanders have a new, lauded defensive coordinator in Daronte Jones. But they didn’t exactly make any splashy moves on that side of the ball, which means they’re largely returning a unit that ranked No. 32 in total defense last season.
Their passing defense ranked fourth-worst in the league. Their run defense was even worse, ranking 30th. Mannion’s wide-zone scheme should feast against a unit like this, especially if the run game gets going early, which would set up a play-action attack through the air.
The Eagles have the backfield weapons to make that happen, too. Barkley looked like his 2024 self in Mannion’s offense this summer and even Tank Bigsby and Will Shipley had their moments. Couple that with the running threat of Hurts — he looked quicker in training camp, as defensive coordinator Vic Fangio pointed out in August — and you should get a relentless rushing attack.
Now, this game isn’t a guaranteed win. The Eagles’ receiver room — sans DeVonta Smith — could prove to be too green or Daniels could take over and drag Washington to victory (like he did many times in his rookie season).
But let’s face it: The biggest factor in this game is the Eagles defense, which is arguably their best unit in years. How can you count them out against a team like Washington, which will be without Tunsil?
Fangio’s unit will carry them to victory, but Mannion’s offense will show some flashes.
Prediction: Eagles 35, Commanders 10
Will Saquon Barkley have another day to remember against the Commanders?Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
Olivia Reiner
This could be a coming-out party for the new-look Eagles run game.
Mannion now helms the offense and is expected to bring a derivative of the Kyle Shanahan/Sean McVay scheme rooted in the wide-zone blocking scheme. The wide-zone runs could help set up the play-action passing game, marrying together both phases of the offensive attack.
Still, the exact playbook remains a mystery, which the Eagles can weaponize to their advantage. Plus, the Commanders have been susceptible to giving up yardage on the ground.
Last season, the Eagles ranked No. 18 in the league in rushing yards. The offense still eclipsed 200 yards on the ground in Week 16 against the Commanders (only one of two occasions last season).
The Commanders have a new defensive coordinator in Jones, who was previously the defensive backs coach and pass game coordinator with the Minnesota Vikings. But head coach Dan Quinn could still have his fingerprints on the defense given his defensive background. Plus, the Commanders didn’t make many dramatic defensive personnel improvements in the offseason that would give the run defense a significant boost.
The other matchup to watch is on the other side of the ball. The Commanders offensive line took a hit when Tunsil tore his triceps in training camp. He was one of the best left tackles in the league last season, allowing the seventh-lowest pressure rate (8%) among 35 offensive linemen with at least 250 pass-blocking snaps at that position, according to Next Gen Stats.
The Commanders could struggle to run the ball behind a shaky offensive line. The Eagles, meanwhile, could thrive. If so, the Eagles will maintain their win streak in Week 1 under Nick Sirianni.
Former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman will be 80 years old in a few weeks, with much to celebrate as she marks the moment.
She was twice elected governor and brought a Republican legislature with her both times. She cut income taxes by 30%. She turbo-charged the drive to save the state’s dwindling green space, earning her a seat in the cabinet of President George W. Bush, running the Environmental Protection Agency. She is a woman of grand accomplishment, a pioneer.
And she had the guts to compare Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler, way back in 2015, before it was stylish. So count me among those who would clap and hoot when she blows out the candles at her party.
But … but … but …
She also assured us, one week after the 9/11 attacks, that it was “safe to breathe” the air at ground zero. And we know now that was a mistake of epic proportions; that the dust covering Lower Manhattan was a toxic stew of asbestos, lead, mercury, arsenic, dioxin, and polychlorinated biphenyls. It scorched the lungs of thousands who breathed it, leaving them disabled, and planted the seeds for cancer in thousands more.
“The number of people who have died of 9/11-related health conditions has far surpassed the number of people who died on the day of the attacks,” the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund states in its most recent annual report.
As the illnesses began to pile up, Whitman became an object of scorn to those who felt she had been flat-out lying, bending to pressure from the White House, which was eager to get Wall Street back to work.
She was called before Congress to answer for this in June 2007, soon after Democrats had taken control of the House, and they were ready to pounce. It was a sweltering day in Washington, nearly 90 degrees, and she had to brave a mob of furious protesters screaming at her as she arrived. This was to be the darkest day of her career.
“Our government has knowingly exposed thousands of American citizens unnecessarily to deadly hazardous materials,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the New York Democrat whose district included ground zero. “And because it has never admitted the truth, Americans remain at grave risk to this day.”
But was Whitman really that much of a monster? I had covered her for years as a columnist at the Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., and I had my doubts. Even today, no one has ever proved she lied about what she knew, or knowingly put people in harm’s way. If she were that evil, it seemed to me, it would be a first.
Still, this episode will rightly be remembered as the low point for Whitman. She may not have been a monster, but she was surely a wimp. She stood back and let Vice President Dick Cheney spin the EPA’s scientific findings out of shape, as the EPA’s own inspector general established two years later. The EPA’s recommendation that homes and businesses hire professional cleaners to eradicate toxins was removed altogether.
The changes to the EPA’s draft news releases were made by the Orwellian-named President’s Council on Environmental Quality, which was effectively run by Cheney. The CEQ had final control of press releases, and the IG report spells out each change it made, every time diminishing the danger and adding reassurance about safety at ground zero. Whitman didn’t make a peep of protest.
She didn’t know for certain she was sending people to their doom, as critics like Nadler claimed. But she was going along with the spin, yielding to Cheney. And many people died who might have stayed away.
At that 2007 hearing, Whitman was having none of it, and was more defiant than I had ever seen her. She was not a liar, she insisted. She based her decision on the best science she had at the time. She had no regrets, and said she was still not sure the toxins at the site were causing illnesses.
I reached out to Whitman, and she offered a written statement saying, “Everyone at the EPA did the best they could with the information, tools, and knowledge available at the time.” But she declined to answer a more personal question: Does she feel she did anything wrong when she issued the all-clear?
My guess is that deep down, she does.
Tom Moran is the author of the Substack Jersey Lowdown and former editorial page editor of the Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J.
Matt Campbell is familiar with Lincoln Financial Field. He has coached there twice, once as a graduate assistant at Bowling Green in 2004 and as Toledo’s offensive coordinator in 2011.
But it’s also the home stadium of his former Mount Union teammate and roommate, Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni. Campbell said he talked to Sirianni on Monday about playing at the Linc.
“Nick has been a great sounding board,” Campbell said Tuesday. “Obviously that relationship, that friendship, and having the ability to have somebody that’s kind of going through some of the same journeys has been huge.”
Campbell will face K.C. Keeler for the first time as head coaches when Penn State visits Temple on Saturday (noon, ESPN2). But the two coaches have crossed paths before. Keeler was the head coach of Division III Rowan and gave Campbell his only loss as a player at Mount Union in 1999.
The two in-state programs have played 45 times, with the Nittany Lions holding a 40-4-1 advantage. They last met in 2016, a 34-27 win for Penn State at Beaver Stadium.
“It’s the Super Bowl for Temple,” Penn State defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn said Tuesday. “We have to have that mindset when we go in there.”
Here’s how both teams stack up against each other:
The running game struggled, with starter Carson Hansen carrying the ball 11 times for 48 yards. Penn State averaged just 3.6 rushing yards in the game.
Penn State wideout Koby Howard (right) had a breakout game against Marshall last week.Barry Reeger
Quarterback Rocco Becht and his wide receivers made up for the run game struggles. Starting wide receivers Koby Howard, Brett Eskildsen, and Chase Sowell all present different threats for Temple’s secondary.
Howard excels after the catch, while Eskildsen is the fastest player on offense. Sowell, meanwhile, is the more physical wideout. All three had a catch of at least a 20 yards against Marshall.
Temple safeties Saboor Karriem and Kolin Dinkins and cornerbacks Denzel Chavis and Asa Locks, the secondary starters last week, may have their hands full disrupting the Nittany Lions’ passing game. The Owls’ defense, however, did account for three turnovers in the opener, which included two pick-sixes and a fumble recovery.
Temple’s offense vs. Penn State’s defense
Lynn’s first game as the defensive coordinator at his alma mater resulted in a shutout, allowing the Thundering Herd just 147 total yards. Lynn said Tuesday they kept the play-calling simple as the defense masters the “core concepts” before adding new things to the game plan throughout the year.
Temple’s offensive linemen also has taken a hit with injuries. Giakoby Hills and Luke Watson are confirmed out. Kevin Terry and Eric King arequestionable for Saturday’s game. It will be even more of a challenge to contain Penn State’s defensive line, who held Marshall to just 44 rushing yards last week.
“Got Penn State coming up, obviously it’s a big deal,” Keeler said. “I mean, they have all the Big Ten prototypical numbers — 6-foot-5, 6-foot-4, 310 [pounds], 330. [They are] long and athletic.”
The injury report doesn’t bode well for Temple running back Keveun Mason, who stepped in for the banged up Sam Brown and exploded for a career-high 158 rushing yards against Rhode Island. Brown’s availability is still up in the air for this weekend.
Temple’s trio of wide receivers, Colin Chase, JoJo Bermudez, and Jayce Freeman, remain a strong suit for the offense. Though Temple didn’t throw the ball much against Rhode Island, Chase and Bermudez were productive in their limited opportunities. Freeman caught the Owls’ lone passing touchdown in his team debut.
Another priority for Penn State will be Temple tight end Peter Clarke, despite his quiet season opener. Clarke had a career year in 2025 and earned second-team American Conference honors.
The Nittany Lions’ secondary was a key reason Marshall was held off the scoreboard, highlighted by cornerback Josiah Zayas, who became the first freshman defensive player to start a season opener for Penn State since John Reid in 2015.
Former Penn State QB Jaxon Smolik (left) got the start for Temple last week.Tyger Williams / Staff Photographer
Connections
Penn State had 50 players enter the transfer portal last December after its head coaching change. Four ended up at Temple: redshirt sophomore quarterback Jaxon Smolik, fifth-year defensive tackle Kaleb Artis, redshirt junior tight end Joey Schlaffer, and Dinkins, a fifth-year player.
Each played in the Owls opening win over Rhode Island, with Dinkins and Smolik starting. Dinkins had three tackles and his first career pass breakup.
Smolik, meanwhile, is in a quarterback battle. Both Smolik and Ajani Sheppard played in Week 1, and that’s not expected to change this weekend.
“No one took charge,” Keeler said after Temple’s victory over Rhode Island. “I mean, we’ll watch the tape, we’ll see how they each played. Ideally, we’d prefer not to play two equally, but we’re not going to live by any sort of, like, creed. Basically, we’re going to play whoever can help us win.”
Schlaffer and Artis didn’t log a stat in their first game with the Owls.
“I think both sides are just worrying about their team that they’re on right now,” Penn State offensive lineman Cooper Cousins said Tuesday. “Obviously have good relationships with all former players that have been here, in the program, outside of the program, but I think we’re all just kind of worried about our teams that we’re on right now.”
DALLAS — In 2024, President Donald Trump accepted the Republican presidential nomination by promising to “lead America back to the summit of human achievement and greatness.”
In 2026, he closed out an unusual midterm convention organized in his honor by saying he was a little bored of politics. He seemed more interested in telling supporters to swear on something holy — which seemed to be himself — that they would go out and vote for Republican candidates in November.
“Please raise your right hand,” Trump instructed a rowdy crowd of thousands inside a Dallas arena on Thursday evening. Many of them complied. “I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States that loves us so much he can’t even breathe that I will go out with my family, my friends, I will do it any way — I don’t care if I’m registered or not, I’m going to try and cheat like hell, like they do.” (Trump usually frowns on election fraud.)
He added: “I am going to go out, and I’m going to get my friends, my family, and we are going to vote on November 3.”
Speaking for a grand total of nearly 2 1/2 hours over two days in Texas, Trump made it very clear, onstage and in interviews, that he would be relying on the strength of his political brand to see his party through what appear to be daunting midterm elections. He would not be straying much from his comfort zone to help vulnerable Republicans. In fact, the president said Thursday evening, he was kind of over this.
“We’re going to have a good time listening to music,” Trump said, name-checking Christopher Macchio, an opera singer who closed out the evening. “I’m getting a little bit tired of politics now.”
Before taking the stage for the second night in Dallas, Trump was asked by Laura Ingraham of Fox News whether he intended to campaign harder than he ever had before.
“No,” he replied bluntly. Asked by Ingraham whether or not he thought his legacy was on the line ahead of the midterm elections — “Isn’t this just as important, Mr. President?” — Trump seemed almost blasé about the possibility of Republicans losing one or both chambers of Congress. “I’ll block all their bad stuff for two years. It won’t be the same, but I’ll be a blocker, what can I tell you?”
The whole spectacle was a window into the mindset of Trump and his advisers, who point to recent history as proof that he is capable of beating long odds through brashness, sheer will and an intense connection with his supporters. That relationship is unmatched in modern politics. During his own speech, Vice President JD Vance, the perceived front-runner for the 2028 Republican nomination, asked the crowd to chant his name because it felt “pretty cool.”
Trump does not have to make such requests. But instead of focusing his energy on Republicans in difficult races — some of whom skipped the event completely — he directed the focus back to himself while he was in Texas. He pleaded with voters to engage in make-believe, and to “please pretend” that he was the one on the November ballot. That exercise might work against him in competitive races where the war with Iran is unpopular and where voters feel that their worries about the prices of gas and groceries are being ignored.
He put a new twist on an old tactic by offering free money — $5,000 to every American adult — if Republicans keep control of Congress. On his first night in Dallas, he asked voters for patience: The war with Iran, he assured supporters, “will be over very shortly after the election.” All of these promises and pleas amounted to a maximalist, midterm-era version of the “in two weeks” rhetorical tool he relies on when he is under pressure, to vow that something good will happen a few news cycles down the road.
“Food prices and almost every other item are rapidly going down,” Trump told the crowd Wednesday. “And by the way, oil will be going down as soon as we win the war with Iran, which is taking place right now. We’ll win it. We’re winning it. We control the Hormuz Strait. I think we should call the Hormuz Strait, we should call it the Trump Strait.”
At moments, Trump almost seemed to be in conversation with himself about his endorsement style, which, in one crucial race at least, has featured a mix of insults and shrugging. On both nights, he defended the disparaging way he has talked about the appearance and character of Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general running for a Senate seat after Trump directed primary voters to oust Sen. John Cornyn. Those voters complied and put an otherwise reliable seat into play.
“I said, ‘I don’t really like the way he looks. I don’t like it,’” Trump said of Paxton on Wednesday. “But you know what I do like? He was the greatest attorney general in the history of Texas.”
By Thursday, he was basically saying to hell with it: “You better do me a big, the biggest favor you’ve ever done me,” Trump told supporters as Paxton watched from the sidelines and smiled through what was at least his third humiliation ritual of the Texas event. “You’ve got to do this for me. You’ve got to pretend I’m on the ticket.”
Again and again, Trump turned to other priorities, the most pressing of which seemed to be the crowd size in Dallas. There is a reason that political conventions are not held during the midterms. This expensive, two-day event, designed as a tribute to Trump, functioned more like a temperature check, and there were moments when interest seemed lukewarm. Rows of seats in the American Airlines Center stayed empty throughout the affair. Endangered Republicans, sensing a brush fire rather than a lit torch brightening the way forward, steered clear.
“No empty seats! Fake news,” Trump exclaimed Thursday, spending about three minutes affirming that the busy arena was packed when it wasn’t.
And so it went on in that vein in Texas, with little new except for a promise of free money, a pledge of allegiance gimmick, and a few glimpses of an 80-year-old president pondering a future in which he is not firmly in control.
“I want you to remember me in four or five years when this country’s rocketing,” Trump said Wednesday, somewhere near the beginning of a meandering and nearly two-hour speech. “Remember, I’m the one that got it started.”
By the time he was ready to depart Dallas, he didn’t seem too interested in the particulars of the future, the strength of Republican candidates or the validity of his promises. He suggested to his devoted supporters that he might be “standing with you one of these days.” But for now, he just wanted to chill out and listen to music. He sped through the last lines of a speech finale he knows by heart after a decade at the center of national politics.
“I just want to say, we will make America great again,” Trump said dutifully. “We will make it greater than ever before.”
Then the tenor took the stage. Red, blue, white and gold balloons began to fall from the ceiling. The president swayed to the music, lost in the moment.
