The Eagles Have a Benedict Arnold in the Locker Room!

So, an unidentified football player released a book titled ‘NFL Confidential: True Confessions from the Gutter of Football‘ authored by “Johnny Anonymous.” The book is more or less written about how a current NFL players hates the league and the sport of Football. Already sounds unlikeable, right? Well, now add in the fact that it may be someone currently on the Eagles’ roster, and it gets my blood boiling.

A current pro player takes fans on a pseudonymous trip through one of the most infamous years of football—the very long, sometimes funny, often controversial 2013-2014 season—sharing raucous, behind-the-scenes, on-the-field, and in-the-locker-room truth about life in the National Football League.
 
“Well, to hell with being safe. I’m going to be honest.”
 
Johnny Anonymous’ life goal was to be nothing greater or less than the Best NFL Back-Up of All Time™. For two years, he was content earning hundreds of thousands of dollars to stand on the sidelines doing absolutely nothing. But early in his third year, a starting lineman is injured, and he suddenly finds himself on the field.
 
For most players, this moment is a dream come true. But not so for our author, one of the incredibly rare birds in football who reach the highest echelons, but who actually hate America’s favorite game. That’s right. Johnny Anonymous hates football. He hates what it does to his body, his brain, his life. Luckily, he can see the humor in his own situation, but also in the machinations of the NFL.

Well, now we have a description of who this player is, and he sounds oddly familiar, doesn’t he?

Clues from the book and epilogue are:
*He’s a fourth year pro who became a starter in year 3 for an unspecified amount of time due to injury.
*He’s 6’3″, 279 lbs.
*He’s a center, and he was cut in year two from his first team.
*He’s White
*He plays on an NFL team where a diva WR (called Dante) got dropped for asking for too much money
*A starting offensive linesman got dropped too, because he was getting old. He decided to retire.
*Another starting offensive linesman wasn’t dropped, is getting old and is still Pro Bowl-worthy.
*The NYTimes Review mentions he “was named one of the top linemen in the nation while in college, playing for a major football school.”

At first I started going through all the starting NFL Centers in the league. I thought I had a good lead then I read another review that said the player was mostly a 3rd stringer. I stumbled upon this graph with Heights/Weights of NFL players. I noticed there aren’t many offensive players between 270lbs-290lbs so I sifted through the few that were. Source

From this my top candidate became David Molk and here is why I think he is Johnny Anonymous:
*He’s white and listed at 6’1″, 290lbs
*He was drafted in 2012 by the San Diego Chargers.
*The Chargers cut him in the 2013 pre-season due to injury Source
*The Eagles sign him in 2014
*In Sept 2014 Eagles Starting Center Jason Kelce suffers a hernia and David Molk is named the starter (same source as above)
*Molk played at Michigan and won the Remington Trophy for being the nation’s top Center in 2011 (From wiki article) *Former Eagles’ WR Jeremy Maclinstalled in contract negotiations with them this off-season and bolted for the Chiefs Source
*Eagles OL Wade Smith retired on 4/14/2015 Source
*Former Eagles Pro-Bowl OL Evan Mathis was in a holdout and eventually released 2 months after Smith retired. Plausible that this book was finished between April and June 2015 where Mathis hadn’t been released yet Source

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Clues don’t necessarily line up perfectly, but as others have pointed out, that could be an attempt by the author to throw people off the scent of who it is.

Also, the one and only Molk “Johnny Anonymous” did an interview on Sirius radio. During that interview one of the hosts allegedly called the player “David Anonymous” and was corrected.

I will absolutely be reading this book, as it should give a window into some of the disfunction we never really got to hear about from the Chip Kelly regime. However, David Molk can get his whining, sensitive, doesn’t deserve to play football, undersized ass off of my team!

See ya, Benedict Arnold!

H/T to our guys over at BGN