Halloween is spooky season, but this last month in Philly sports has been way scarier

Around this same time last year, The Inquirer’s sports team relived the scariest moments in Philly sports history over the past 25 years.

But who needs to look back a quarter century? Philly sports over this last month has had plenty of pearl-clutching, hide-in-the-closet, afraid-to-show-face moments.

What if we told you that the bulk of them have occurred over the spooky season of September and October, in which we saw the heart of the Eagles offense go down with catastrophic injuries, watched a nine-game losing streak unfold on the ice, and saw the Phillies postseason dreams last about 72 hours from start to finish.

In no particular order, here’s a look at some pretty terrifying moments in Philly sports over the last month, in a year with two months still to go.

It might’ve been one of the biggest vibe killers for the Phillies heading into the postseason. Remember, Arraez’s arrival felt like the reprieve this team needed, with Bryce Harper hitting spotty at best and Kyle Schwarber’s signature Schwarbombs having cooled off.

But then Arraez suffered a season-ending ankle injury against the now-World Series champion Milwaukee Brewers in a play at first that was just weird. It was scary because we’re talking about a player who was hitting .312 with 64 RBIs. And while it wasn’t the same injury, it did have shades of Ryan Howard’s Achilles tear in Game 5 of the National League Division Series on a … play at first, circa 2011.

As the city collectively hopes and wishes that “The Process” finally comes to fruition, early season reports of friction within the Sixers camp did create cause for concern. Fans have seen how locker room beef can derail a season (recall the Ben Simmons saga), so when there was a report that LeBron James got into it with longtime Sixers center and 2022-23 NBA MVP Joel Embiid over Embiid allegedly showing up late to practice, the “here we go again” alarm definitely sounded.

Follow that up with the report that Jaylen Brown and former Celtics teammate Jayson Tatum had an issue after Tatum recalled his surprise at Brown being traded. , Brown took to Instagram and dropped a cap emoji on the report, internet slang to show that the take was a lie. The issue continued when an ESPN report suggested that Brown “demanded a trade,” another point he later refuted as Sixers fans watched this unfold, assuredly while breathing into a brown paper bag.

This was supposed to be a season in which a young, hungry Flyers team was ready to take the NHL by storm. They had an engaged coach in Rick Tocchet, a front office fully behind him, a young phenom in Porter Martone, and another wunderkind in Matvei Michkov boasting about offseason weight loss that made him faster on the ice.

But it’s a scary thought that after 15 games, the Flyers have only three wins to show for it. It prompted a good deal of finger-pointing that on Thursday led to captain Sean Couturier calling the team’s play “soft” — and Tocchet not necessarily refuting that claim. It’s been a long time since the Flyers were a legitimate NHL threat. This was thought to potentially be the year, but it’s somewhat frightening to learn, even early on in the season, that they might be anything but.

The Union arguably have become the best story in Major League Soccer this season. An overhaul in leadership following just one win in 15 games has led to an unprecedented run complete with qualifying for the upcoming MLS Cup playoffs.

But lurking under the surface is the fact that there are multiple players with significant injuries, notably leading goal-scorer Milan Iloski. They’ve played six games in a month, with three games over a weeklong period twice since mid-September. Whether this team will power through or limp into the postseason is a real concern. It’s already been a remarkable season, but how long it can continue at this rate is a legitimate fear.

It’s frightening just how fast everything changed, and a good chunk of it happened over the last month or so. In the span of four weeks, the team bid farewell to longtime guard Lane Johnson, who announced his retirement on Oct. 6, and Cam Jurgens, who was traded to the Baltimore Ravens, just one day later.

» READ MORE: Lane Johnson retires as the greatest Eagle of this generation. | Opinion

Wide receiver DeVonta Smith is set to miss his second straight game because of a hamstring injury, and running back Saquon Barkley is doing his best to play through back and hamstring pain, including giving us his best Boobie Miles impression on the sideline in Monday’s loss to the (gasp) Dallas Cowboys. It’s even scarier when you realize that’s not even the worst of it.

That, of course, would be …

It’s a miracle that we’re not having an even more serious conversation about Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, who was found to have trained and played with a blood clot in his leg that later migrated to his lungs. To recap: He flew on a transatlantic flight to London and played four quarters against the Jaguars with the injury.

» READ MORE: A rough timeline of the Jalen Hurts blood clot event: Everything we know

And yet, all of this seems to have dissipated after the NFL said it found no wrongdoing, despite an ongoing independent investigation by the league’s player’s association into how team officials handled the situation. The team largely has remained mum, aside from a few comments by head coach Nick Sirianni.

For the city’s old basketball guard, there’s already a real fear that the Big 5, which has been losing mass appeal in the city despite changing its format, might sail off into the sunset. In fact, it’s been a fear for a while, with some even drawing conclusions that it could be a matter of time.

That’s all it was, until last week, when, ahead of the team’s season-opening trip to Rome, Villanova announced its intent to pull out of the Big 5 under its current format next season. The move effectively removes the one blue blood the other five mid-majors held themselves up to and gave fans a must-watch moment.

» READ MORE: The decline of Philly basketball's Big 5 started a long time ago

The notion was further realized with men’s basketball coach Kevin Willard called the current format “stupid,” all while throwing other Big 5 programs under the bus in the process and lambasting an Inquirer reporter despite nothing being inaccurate in his report.