Carson Wentz just got the boot again, Ben Simmons appears to be just about done, and Jahlil Okafor just signed with a team in the G-League.
It’s 2023 but not that long ago those three occurrences seemed incomprehensible. Not long ago, in fact, those three players appeared poised to lead Philly’s sports teams — the Eagles and Sixers — to the promised land.
The year was 2016.
Wentz was the second-overall pick by the Eagles and he had big plans. Simmons was the first pick in the draft by the Sixers that year, too, and Okafor was taken by the team with the third overall pick in 2015.
Nobody would have blamed those guys for feeling like kings in the city.
And it all led to a now infamous tweet that has worked its way into a meme that will never not be painful for Philly fans to see.
That tweet?
Carson Wentz’s 2016 tweet tagging Jahlil Okafor and Ben Simmons still stings for many Philly sports fans.
Wentz hopped on Twitter on June 23, 2016, right after the Sixers took Simmons, and tweeted, “Yo @jahlilokafor … We gotta invite that young buck @BenSimmons25 to join us for that cheesesteak.”
That was actually a response to Okafor hitting up Wentz on Twitter after the Eagles took him that April, writing “@cj_wentz Yo bro. Let’s go get cheesesteaks.”
As the three have faced their share of on-field and on-court struggles since, that show of love between them, unfortunately, continues to circulate and sting for their former fans.
“This is crazy looking back now,” one fan said while retweeting it on March 1.
“All time best aged tweet ever,” another wrote.
“Iconic,” another wrote.
“This might be the saddest (crap) I’ve seen inna while,” another wrote. “So much potential, gone.”
“Life comes at you fast,” another user wrote.
“What a dark time,” another said while retweeting it.
“Truly a Philly HOF tweet,” another person wrote.
Nearly 4,000 retweets. More than 528 quote tweets. Responses everywhere. More memes than you can count. If you are on social media and follow sports in the city, it will show up, in some way, on an almost weekly basis.
This one will never die on social media. The sting will never subside.
“This gotta be the most cursed tweet ever,” one fan wrote while retweeting Wentz earlier this week.
And, yeah, it’s just gotta be.