No Fun Police: Criticizing DeVonta Smith for achieving Eagles’ WR rookie record in 17 games

The Philadelphia Eagles lost a meaningless matchup last night to the Dallas Cowboys, but were still able to walk away with a few players entering the history books at the end of the game
DeVonta Smith overtook DeSean Jackson for the most receiving yards by a rookie in franchise history, while the rushing attack recorded the most yards in team history with over 2,700 yards. Jason Kelce continued his Iron Man streak of consecutive games played, entering the night on a 121-game starting streak. He played one snap to extend his streak to 122 games.
Instead of fans and media taking to social media and celebrating these achievements, some decided to cry and scream about the asterisks that come with the new records.
Sure, with the NFL’s expansion to 17 games, many records were expected to be broken across the board. The lengthening of the schedule is nothing new, with the league changing from 14 games to 16 in 1978. Changes like these will always happen, and records won’t always be “pure”.
I didn’t hear anyone complain in 2013 that Peyton Manning’s 55 passing touchdown record wasn’t fair since Y.A Tittle once held the record with 36 touchdowns in 13 games.
Have none of you ever heard the phrase “records are meant to be broken”?
After our guy Victor Williams tweeted about Nick Sirianni and the Eagles having a historic turnaround this season and was instantly met by white-knight reporters clamoring he only obtained this achievement because of the NFL’s playoff expansion.
Honestly, these types of people are the worst. Just shut up, enjoy the success players and teams are having instead of trying to rain on their parade.
Paul Domowitch must be real fun at parties. Let me tell ya.
Almost every time a record is broken, the players who formerly held it are glad to see it shattered. None of them care that it took an extra game to achieve it. Sometimes, the additional game doesn’t even mean anything.
Take DeSean Jackson’s rookie receiving record, for example.
Over a 16 game period, DeVonta Smith was targeted 15 times less and had near-identical yards per reception. It’s not like Smith could only obtain the record because he needed a whole game to catch up. It took three receptions to surpass D-Jax’s record. Smith also had five receiving touchdowns in that span compared to Jackson’s two.
Numbers can be manipulated however people want to, so let’s not act that there was this holy sanctity surrounding playing 16 games, or seven teams making the playoffs now instead of six.
If you really care so much, compare player’s yards per game, or other averages along those lines. It’s not much better, but if it keeps you happy than so be it.
So for the reporters spewing these statements, shut the hell up. Enjoy having football on, and stop trying to ruin everything. Nobody else cares about these inconsistencies besides you.
It’s time to turn our focus over to the Wild Card next weekend. Fly Eagles Fly.
Mandatory Credit: USA Today