New Year’s predictions: Bryce Harper MVP? Joel Embiid title? Jalen Hurts on top? Tiger’s chances? And Torts

All four major teams pretty much have their courses set, so as the new year approaches, what will it bring to Philadelphia?

I had some thoughts.

As I predicted four months ago, the Eagles will host the Cowboys in the NFC championship game. This means the Cowboys will beat the 49ers, and they’ll do it in San Francisco, the site of their 42-10 blowout loss Oct. 8.

The Cowboys will then travel to Philadelphia and beat the Eagles. The Eagles will be playing their 20th game, and thirty-somethings Jason Kelce, Brandon Graham, Fletcher Cox, Lane Johnson, Darius Slay, and James Bradberry will be held together by athletic tape and dried splotches of Ensure.

Jerry Jones will take over Vegas where the Cowboys will beat the Ravens in Super Bowl LVIII. I didn’t see the Ravens coming.

Eagles fans will spend the offseason blaming whoever the defensive coordinator was that week.

Joel Embiid will win a second consecutive MVP award, because he’s the best player in the NBA. He also will lose to the Boston Celtics again in the second round, which will be his fourth playoff ouster at the hands of the Sixers’ arch rivals in his seven trips to the postseason. He will play wonderfully, but the Celtics will muzzle Tyrese Maxey. Sixers fans will blame Tobias Harris.

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In a lovely twist, former Sixers guard Jrue Holiday — the trading of whom was the biggest of myriad mistakes of “The Process” — will win his second NBA championship by first leading those Celtics past the Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference final. This will be particularly delicious since the Bucks determined that Damian Lillard was a better bet than Holiday, so they traded Holiday to the Blazers to get Lillard.

Holiday then was shipped by Portland to Boston, to the dismay of Sixers fans and brass. They’d seen the Celtics trade their heart and soul, Marcus Smart, a former defensive player of the year, (essentially) for Kristaps Porzingis, a soft 7-footer who gets hurt at an Embiid-like rate.

The Lakers will reach the Finals after qualifying as a play-in team, but the Celtics will win it all. LeBron James will the Finals MVP nevertheless, following in the 55-year-old footsteps of fellow Lakers immortal Jerry West.

Former right fielder Bryce Harper will win a Gold Glove in his first full season playing first base, because he’s a superior athlete and most first basemen are not. However, he will not win the National League MVP. That will go to Kyle Schwarber, who will only strike out 150 times, thereby raising his average to a lofty .230; he’ll get more hits than his current .258 BABIP (batting average on balls in play) because he finally will take advantage of the rules prohibiting the shift.

His strikeout rate will plummet due to a long overdue acquiescence to balance, as he finally realizes he doesn’t need to hit 450-foot home runs with 115 mph exit velocities.

Not that he won’t keep launching Schwarbombs. He will match Aaron Judge’s untainted home run record of 62.

As for the team: The Phillies will once again lose in the NLCS, this time to the Braves. They, in turn, will lose the World Series to the Orioles. Nobody will watch.

The Orange and Black will make the playoffs. They will win a playoff series. John Tortorella will win coach of the year for the third time.

He won’t believe it happened. I can’t believe I just wrote that.

With Jon Rahm joining LIV Golf, representatives from the renegade tour will win three of the four majors. The presences of Rahm, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed, and Cam Smith — the most talented guy that everybody forgets about — are just too much to ignore or underestimate.

As for the big cat, Tiger will contend at the Masters, make the cut for the British Open and the U.S. Open — Pinehurst No. 2 is an easy walk — but he’ll miss the cut at The Players Championship, which always has the best field, and the PGA Championship, which he made his personal Valhalla in 2000 with his PGA playoff win over Bob May.

There aren’t any Bob Mays in the PGA field any more.

They’re all playing LIV.