What Was the Most Painful Philly Sports Year of the Last Decade?

A true scientific analysis.

Andrew Unterberger is a famous writer who invented the nickname 'Sauce Castillo' and is now writing for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez, as part of the 'If Not, Pick Will Convey As Two Second-Rounders' section of the site. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AUGetoffmygold and can also read him at Billboard. 

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Can there really still be three months left in this sports year? For Philly fans it's already felt like about a half-decade's worth of suffering packed into the first three quarters of 2020; to still have three whole months remaining where the only mystery left is what new ways the Eagles' 0-2-1 season can find to further collapse seems unconscionably cruel. 

Should I bother running down the highlights? Yeah, for posterity and always-needed self-flagellation, may as well: Before their stupefying three-game start to this NFL season, the Eagles kicked the year off by seeing their exhilarating underdog playoff run with half a JV squad ended by Jadeveon Clowney's helmet. The Flyers entered the playoffs as Stanley Cup favorites after their best regular season in a decade, but were eliminated in the second round with an excruciating Game 7 shutout by the Islanders. The Phillies needed to go just 2-6 in their final eight games to secure a playoff spot, but decided that was one win too many to ask for. And the Sixers, Our Sixers, exited a historically long year that they entered still with championship aspirations by getting swept in the first round by the Boston Celtics, while their ol' buddy ol' pal Jimmy Butler led his new team to the Finals. If there was a synagogue on Broad and Pattison, there's no way they would've been able to socially distance all the Philly sports sinners trying to get their atoning in this Yom Kippur. 

The well of misery has been dug so deep in 2020 that's it hard to remember if there ever could've been a year we've gotten this low before. A good time, then, to dig into the archives of our recent past to un-repress the memories we've long buried, and remember that yes, indeed -- there have been years when it's been nearly as tough as this one to imagine enjoying a sport in Philadelphia. Let's dig into each of the last ten years, and declare a true 2010s Philly pro sports calendar King of Pain: 

2017 - 2019

Don't want to waste too much time here because I don't think there's really much of a comparison here: The Eagles' Super Bowl regular season and playoff run knocks out 2017 and 2018 pretty much straight away, and even in 2019 with the historically brutal Quadruple Doink loss, it was still at the end of the most exciting Sixers playoff run since 2001. Plus, the Cody Parkey Double Doink, and the Eagles somehow winning the NFC East with half the team watching from their living rooms. Not really a patch on 2020. 

More painful than 2020?: Nah

2016

All right, now we can start taking the question seriously. The Eagles started the season 3-0 in Carson Wentz's rookie year before losing four of their next five (all by a touchdown or less) and finishing 7-9. The Flyers made the playoffs but lost to the Caps in six in the first round, while the final flames of the World Fucking Champs Phillies died out with the trade of Carlos Ruiz and the release of the Ryan Howard, as the team went 71-91. And the Sixers came one win away from historic futility with the end of their Jahlil Okafor-led 10-72 season, as Sam Hinkie was ousted and the Colangelos assumed power. Still, it was the beginning of some degree of hope in Philly, with Wentz's rocky but promising rookie season, with the Sixers landing the No. 1 pick and drafting Ben Simmons, and with Joel Embiid stepping onto the court for the first time as professional to begin the 2016-17 season. 

More painful than 2020?: Probably not

2015

Craig Berube and Ryne Sandberg were both fired as the Flyers and Phillies endured particularly fruitless seasons, the Phils ending with the worst record in the majors. Jahlil Okafor was drafted by the Sixers with the third overall pick in June, was getting into frustration fights in public by Thanksgiving, and lost 30 of his first 31 games by Christmas. Chip Kelly shipped out Nick Foles and LeSean McCoy for Sam Bradford and DeMarco Murray, and was summarily dismissed before year's end for that decision going about as well as expected. Oh, and Joel Embiid broke his foot for the second time in two years. None of the four teams made the playoffs, and maybe the year's lone true bright spots were the pickswap trade and Cole Hamels' no-hitter in July -- his final start for Philly before being traded to Texas. This was the year that Mike debuted his iconic tweet, which pretty much says it all. 

More painful than 2020?: Incredibly enough

2014

The Phillies tried to stave off the inevitable with their "reloading, not rebuilding" final grasp at the playoffs with their WFC core, and finished dead last in the NL East. The Sixers erased any memory of their unlikely hot start to the 2013-14 season by losing 26 games in a row from February to March, and then began the 2014-15 season by losing their first 17. The Eagles lost an agonizing Wild Card playoff game to the Saints in what would turn out to be Chip Kelly's lone playoff appearance, then began the next season 9-3 and still managed to miss the playoffs anyway. The Flyers were the lone team to make the postseason, led by a red-hot Claude Giroux to end the season, but lost to the Rangers in seven games in the first round. The year's lone redemption may have been Draft Night for the Sixers, where Hinkie drafted Embiid and traded for Dario Saric in perhaps his all-time purest demonstration of Process mentality. 

More painful than 2020?: Probably

2013

In a lockout season, and following a bust-out in free agency the previous summer, the Flyers missed the playoffs for the first time since 2007. Charlie Manuel was fired with a month and a half to go in the Phillies' first under-.500 season in over a decade. Andrew Bynum and Doug Collins both parted ways from the Sixers after reducing the franchise to rubble in the previous season. The Eagles did win the NFC East in Chip Kelly's exciting first campaign, though, and the Sixers kicked off the Process in earnest by hiring Sam Hinkie, who then went on to reinvent the franchise in one trade on draft night. Plus, the MCW game, and the Domonic Brown month. 

More painful than 2020?: Not quite

2012

The Phillies went .500 to end their five-year postseason streak, as Roy Halladay lost his fastball and Ryan Howard and Chase Utley missed half the season. The Eagles went 4-12 in Andy Reid's final season in Philadelphia. still their worst record of the 21st century. The Sixers attempted to get over the top of the Eastern Conference with the Andrew Bynum trade that summer, but turned out he may never have actually existed in the first place. Redemption of sorts did come, however, with exciting second-round playoff runs by the Flyers and pre-Bynum Sixers, the former getting past the hated Penguins with an indescribably satisfying Game Seven blowout and the Sixers squeaking past the injury-depleted Bulls on a couple Andre Iguodala free throws (forcing the surreal subsequent Uncut Gems series against Boston). 

More painful than 2020?: Nope

2011

The end of the Phillies' NL East dominance came with Ryan Howard's tearing his Achilles to close a gut-stabbing Game Five NLDS loss to the Cardinals, while the Bruins got their revenge on the Flyers for their comeback the previous season by sweeping them in the second round. Most memorably, the "Dream Team" Eagles with their newly loaded-up defense turned out to be a case of sleep apnea, following their disappointing Wild Card loss to the Packers the prior January by going a congested 8-8 and missing the playoffs entirely. But the Sixers wildly outperformed expectations in Doug Collins' first season at the wheel, even getting a game off Miami's Big Three in the playoffs (LOOOOOUUUUUUUUU), and I'm not gonna pretend that 102-win Phillies season wasn't incredibly fun until it wasn't. 

More painful than 2020?: No sir

2010

Eddie Jordan and Evan Turner were mistakes, the Phillies should never have lost to the Giants in the NLCS, and Donovan McNabb's final playoff loss as an Eagle was mostly memorable for that bizarre guitar strut he did in the tunnel pre-game. But we're not actually gonna compare this year to 2020 when it involved Michael Vick's Monday Night game against Washington, DeSean Jackson's Miracle at the Meadowlands II, and the Flyers' historic comeback from 3-0 down to beat the Bruins and eventually make the finals. Not gonna do it.

More painful than 2020?: LOL

MOST PAINFUL PHILLY SPORTS YEAR OF THE LAST DECADE: 2015