The Evster: So We're Really Goin' with Riley Cooper as our #2 WR, Huh?

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So what you’re telling me is that the Philadelphia Eagles – the organization who once employed Jerome Brown – is starting Riley Cooper at wide receiver. Riley Cooper. The 5th round draft pick and extremely mediocre wide receiver who also happens to have a really shafty haircut (and tends to be somewhat of a racist). That Riley Cooper. I just want us to all understand what’s going on here, because the season starts Monday. This Monday. And yet, as of now, Riley Cooper, yep, Riley Cooper, the same Riley Cooper I was just referring to -- a guy who has 46 catches in 3 NFL seasons and heckles concert security guards by calling them the N word -- is one of our starting wide receivers. Just so we’re all on the same page here. This is actually happening.

But for now, let’s forget about the fact that Riley Cooper used racial slurs at a Kenny Chesney concert and simply focus on the fact that he WENT to a Kenny Chesney concert. Because in order to do so, a few things must have taken place, it’s not like you’re just walking down the street one day and suddenly stumble into a Kenny Chesney concert. This was a premeditated event, something Riley actually wanted to do. Riley must’ve heard that Kenny Chesney was coming to town, taken interest in getting tickets to the show, found a way to get tickets (either through purchasing them himself or receiving freebies like athletes often do), then, on the night of the show, he still had to say to himself, “Yeah, this is a good idea. I’m gonna go check this Chesney guy out. I like Kenny Chesney,” then put on clothes for the concert, find a way to get himself to Lincoln Financial Field, enjoy the concert so much that he wanted to go BACKSTAGE to possibly meet Mr. Chesney and join in on the Chesney festivities, and then finally call that black dude the N word and end up as the Eagles most (publicly) racist wide receiver ever. I don’t know about you, but that’s not really the type of starting wide receiver I want on my football team. Granted, our other starting wideout (WHO I LOVE) is a bit of clown who made a rap video this offseason with Snoop Lion (WHICH IS AWESOME), but I’ll take that over a racist, country music fan with Goldilocks hair any day.

Then there’s the whole part about Riley Cooper sucking at football. In Riley’s 3-year NFL career, his most famous play has been when he LAID DOWN ON HIS BELLY on a kickoff return. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t really remember AJ Green or Roddy White ever practicing tummy time during any point of their NFL careers. Even if Riley showed great promise, was a late bloomer and had potential to break out like many unknown wide receivers tend to do, wouldn’t he have shown SOME of those signs throughout the last few years? Or preseason games? Or ever? And would an Eagles starting cornerback take a swing at a guy in practice just days before the season opener if he thought his teammate was worth anything to the squad? That might not be a good question, because Cary Williams seems like a total lunatic, but still, why would anyone want to go through life with such a stupid haircut?!?!

But he’s a starter! A starter for our favorite professional football team. So this year, the Eagles will have a dog-killing quarterback (WHO I ALSO LOVE) throwing touchdowns to a redneck idiot. Seems like a double standard, I know, that we can love Vick but still hate Riley, but Michael Vick is GOOD and Riley Cooper is BAD. (Err, I guess you could argue that Michael Vick sucks too, but at least he’s fun to watch, while Cooper is embarrassing to look at, especially when he takes off his helmet and shakes his long locks like my 13-year-old cousin, Leah.) Vick can throw a football through a linebacker’s face or leap over a whole guy at any moment, so we support him. And yes, that’s probably unfair to Riley, but this is THE GRIDIRON, and at every level from Pop Warner to high school to the THA ARENA BOWL, the best players have always received special treatment. This is nothing new. The bottom line is that Michael Vick has a rocket arm and jackrabbit legs and that Riley Cooper has a dumb name and a dumb face.

(Plus, for all intents and purposes, Vick has been a pretty good guy since he got to town. His teammates love him, he has done charity work in the community (The Vick Foundation recently donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to build a new football field in Fairmount Park) and as far as I know, he has not killed one single dog since he’s been here.)

All right, I could go on and on about Riley sucking and being a racist and doing commercials for Vidal Sassoon, but at some point you have to stop complaining and start asking, “What can the Eagles do about it?”

Well I feel like they could still do a few things:

1. They could cut Riley and start Jason Avant at WR2, Demaris Johnson at WR3, Vince Papale at WR4 and my Aunt Maxine at WR5. I guess that’s probably not the best plan, but with the number of tight ends on this roster, it just might work, and my Aunt Maxine is a WARRIOR who smokes A LOT of cigarettes.

2. Find someone else. I know, I know, I know, how could a new receiver possibly learn Chip Kelly’s before Monday Night? (And to make things even more difficult, the game has an early start time.) But after the latest round of NFL cuts, there are some decent dudes out there: Robert Meachem, Mohamed Massequoi, CHAD HALL, some dude I saw walking down the street the other day in a Michael Crabtree jersey … now, I understand that these guys got cut for a reason, they probably suck too, but I’d rather have them on the squad than a racist, no-talent butthead who wanted to go backstage to meet Kenny Chezzy Chezz.

3. They could just get rid of him and figure it out.

#SecretSnapper

But who cares what I think? I’m just a fan, just like you, and we have no say regarding what the Eagles do with their roster. So what can we really do? I guess we could boo Riley every time he runs out on the field, gets targeted, drops a pass, scores a touchdown, takes off his helmet and whips his hair in the breeze, anything to tell the organization that we don’t approve of their personnel decisions or Riley’s lousy play. Unfortunately, many Eagles fans tend to be degenerate racists, so I can’t imagine anyone actually going for that.

Personally, I hope the guy breaks his leg week 1. That’s not true, I don’t really wish that, but I hope something happens to prevent him from playing for our team. But I doubt anything will. Riley’s here, he’s in the starting lineup and we’re just gonna have to suck it up.

So when Vick (or Foles or Barkley or David Duke) throws up a fade to Riley in the end zone and he comes down with it and that stupid fight song starts playing and the guy next to you holds up both palms for a double high five, I guess we’ll just have to take a deep breath and go along with it. Maybe deep down we can celebrate Vick and the state of Virginia’s rehabilitation program. Or maybe we'll be reminded that football is the ultimate team game and it’s not necessarily Riley’s touchdown, but one shared by everyone on the roster. Or maybe we can just log onto Twitter to see that stripper who takes off her clothes every time the Eagles score.

Seriously, @AnnaPHCPhilly. Check her out. She’s a dancer at Cheerleaders and takes an article of clothing off every time the Birds score. It’s called “Pics for Points” and it’s honestly amazing / really, really, really weird and I CANNOT WAIT for our first score.

Seriously, I will compromise everything I’m about for one picture of a woman’s bare butt.

Follow the Evster @TVMWW.

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