PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - After HUGE trade, how does Jaelan Phillips fit on Philadelphia Eagles defense?

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

Howie Roseman and the Philadelphia Eagles made a major splash at the NFL Trade Deadline, acquiring former Miami Dolphins edge-rusher Jaelan Phillips for a third-round pick. PHLY Sports film expert Fran Duffy breaks down how Phillips fits on the Eagles defense, as he is reunited with defensive coordinator Vic Fangio. Fran, Rich Hofmann and Jamie Lynch also hand out midseason awards for the 2025 Eagles season. Jalen Hurts is the MVP, but what else? The guys reveal their picks on the PHLY Eagles Podcast. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the PHLY Eagle Show live from the Xfinity studio and presented by Bet365 and Ashley Furniture. My name is Rich Hoffman. I am here with Jamie Lynch and James coming out of the by week. We got some stuff. How we? How we? He does it again.

This guy's out of his damn mind. I love it. I've made the comparison. Chappelle show to Tyrone Biggams, man. He needs. The man is jonesed to make another trade. And unlike the one we saw over the weekend with Jair Alexander, this one didn't involve a sixth and a seventh swap.

Do you think, by the way, real quick, that Howie got in on the six, seven TikTok trend? Because he made two trades in the last week where he was swapping a six and seven. Never mind. Let's not go down that whole road. Rich, my daughter said it to me the other day. She was like, six, seven. And I was like, stop that. It's not funny.

It's not cool. I was like, that's brain rot, drop it right now. She's like, what does it mean? I was like, it means nothing. Stop it. I had to put my foot down and try to squash it. We'll see if that's effective. I doubt it.

Good parenting by you. I don't mind that at all. So we thought, okay, how he's making these sort of peripheral moves. He gets Michael Carter. He gets Jaya Alexander in the secondary. It felt like there was another shoe to drop, though, that they were going to make, you know, we talked about it last week on the show. Are they going to make one size of,

move, particularly for an edge rusher. Was he going to dip into those kind of mid-tier picks, third round, fourth-round picks? And we did. And this is the big deal presented by Cherry Hill Jeep. And that's how he did make that move, Jamie. He goes out and he trades for Miami Dolphins edge rusher, Jalen Phillips, and he trades a third round pick to acquire him, per our friend Jimmy Kemsky. it is the Eagles pick in the third round.

Which is better. Not that ultra-val Jets pick from the Hassan Reddick trade. And I also saw, I believe it was Albert Breer to facilitate the trade. The dolphins agreed to pick up a pretty sizable chunk of Jalen Phillips' remaining salary for 2025. So they paid the actual salary to get a better pick for the Eagles in the deal. So, Jamie, I guess one thing, and thank you to Lindsay for putting up the graphic there. We see is 20, 25 stats, three sacks. We'll get to Fran a little bit later.

Very high pressure rate so far this season, not finishing with sacks as much as possible. What are your initial reads on the situation here? It's great. You know, it's clearly, I think the best thing about Howie Roseman, my favorite thing, your favorite thing. Let's get some thumbs up in the chat here for Howie Roseman is he's never satisfied, like you said.

Like it's clear, he doesn't deny that the edge group needed help. like he's not going into it going well Nolan Smith's coming back and we got BG he's like no I need more it's like the Star Wars meme more he doesn't he doesn't live in a state of denial of saying like so-and-so is going to come around this is going to get better out of the buy

Nolan Smith's going to be back he goes out and he addresses it and it's part of why he accumulates so many picks when you see him you know those pick swaps oh change is seventh for a six with another team He does it to build an arsenal to go out in season and do things like this. Is Jair Alexander going to work out for the birds? Probably not, but he addressed it.

He's taking a shot on somebody. Carter probably will play more of a role than Jaya on this team. And you were just thinking as a birdsman in the back of your mind like, okay, that's well and good, but you also need defensive edge help. And that's what he saved his big piece for, the third round pick. He went out there. And if you're a Dallas Cowboy fan, Or you're a Green Bay Packer fan who was like, hey, our team needs some edge help.

You're waking up this morning and you're like, damn that Howie Roseman, he gets us again. And he jumps everybody on the edge trade market and takes care of business. So what's not to love about Howie Roseman, honestly? Well, and he gets a former heel in Philadelphia. Now, let's be fair. It was only one night. But Jamie, do you remember when the dolphins played in Philadelphia in 2023? I think I was here doing the post game show.

so there's some recollection buried in my brain of it. As Bo always says, it can be tough to remember back that far. So I'm not judging you if you don't. Yeah, no, everything kind of blurs together in my brain, but yes, a little bit of the game. It was one of the Eagles better wins during that 20, 23 season, during that 10 and one start.

They beat the Dolphins on Sunday night football. They were wearing the Kelly green jerseys. Anyway, Jalen Phillips was, he was the antagonist that night. There was a snap where he beat a very hobbled, Lane Johnson for a sack. And then like the 2005 New England Patriots in the Super Bowl did the mocking Eagles flap. Yeah. Very, and the crowd completely booze.

And actually, the good thing is that was during the PHLY's run. I looked up what I wrote in the newsletter that night. And here's what I had. Phillips team was losing by a touchdown when he pulled out that celebration. They ended up losing by two touchdowns. And when the Eagles were kneeling the ball. to salt away that massive lead, Phillips decided to play extra physical

against the victory formation. So an eventful night for that loser. Jalen Phillips, welcome to Philadelphia. Yeah. Yeah, so he was very involved. Well,

that'll play well here if he's wearing an Eagles uniform. I mean, he's already got the natural built-in celebration, so that's good. He's already practiced it, rehearsed it.

It's ready to go. We like an antagonist in Philadelphia. And that was the big deal presented by Cherry Hill Jeep. Yeah, it was, look, I am pretty excited about this. Now, I am too. Now, let's go over some of his bio, because I think that's important because not everybody's keeping up

with the dolphins on a regular basis. It's his fifth year in the NFL. They picked up his option, yeah. All of which are with the dolphins. That makes sense he is a former first round pick. They can play five years on that first contract. And that obviously also means that he is a free agent next season. Yes.

And does count towards the conference. formula for the Eagles. Always. Which has to go into the, you know, the calculations for Howie. I know Bo said this morning on the emergency pod, I don't put too much stock into that. It's fair. But Howie probably, you know, when giving up a third, knowing if he goes out there and gets you seven, eight sacks for the remainder of the season and becomes a double digit guy,

you're getting something back your way. Totally. So Jaylon Phillips, productive player early in his career. So his first three seasons with the dolphins, eight and a half sacks, seven sacks. And then six and a half sacks in 2023, which, and we're going to get to this point later, that was the year that Vic Fangio was the Miami Dolphins defensive coordinator. And then he tears his Achilles. Jamie, this has been a recurring issue for him.

This is a guy who has been banged up a lot in his career. Tears Achilles, obviously a very serious injury. Comes back to play last year, tears his ACL. And that's the big worry with this guy, is that he has been banged up for a lot of his career. I believe he had multiple concussions. during his time at UCLA. I think Fran said this morning, if he had three is like first year or something.

And he briefly retired for a little bit too at UCLA. So is that a little bit worrisome? Absolutely. And, you know, but when you look at when he has been healthy, he has been a moderately productive player. A couple other things that stand out to me, prototypical size for a defensive end.

I remember this from when he beat Lane Johnson. He looks like that that's the type of edge rusher. that Vic Fangio wants just a big guy at 6-5-260 pounds as well. Fran has mentioned that a lot of his success early this season, which I did not know. I'm not watching the Miami Dolphins on a snapback. Nor should you. That is a terrible team.

Nor should I. Nor should I. They have kicked him in a little bit as a defensive tackle and used him on stunts, which I think should play well for this Eagles defense because that is something that they've done a well. that's something that the Eagles have done a lot, sorry, so far this year. And he's also a pretty solid run defender as well. Okay, so with all of that in mind, is this enough?

I assume this is probably the last move. Yeah. Eagles are making last huge move. Yeah, I think Fran and Bo also touched on, you know, could you possibly trade like a Keely Ringo for a potential late round pick from somebody because there is a little bit of a numbers crunch here with the roster? Yeah, something like that could happen. but I think this is it.

And I think it's really all you can ask for. You know, you had two positions of need. You went out and addressed both of them. I think defensive edge got addressed in a bigger way than cornerbacked. Absolutely. Because Phillips is, you know, a potential, if healthy, you know, eight to ten sack guy easily. He brings immediate help to the defensive line,

which now getting, you're getting three new edge rushers this week. You saw last time they were out there, you know, Jehad Campbell by necessity was forced into an unnatural position that Fingio doesn't really like him in. So now you're adding Nolan Smith, BG, and Jalen Phillips. I mean, what a tremendous upgrade to the defensive line. I think the thing you said there about Vic Fangio holds a lot of weight with me because Vic Fangio was not too complimentary of that Dolphins defense when he was there. You know, I know some of the guys in Miami were celebrating the fact that I think it was Javon Holland. Losers.

Yeah, like these these just absolute losers were like celebrating Vic Fangio's departure when he left there. And Vic Fangio basically all he said was like, you guys don't practice hard enough. You don't want this. So for Jalen Phillips to be one of the guys he was okay with because according to reports, Jaylon Phillips was the guy Vic wanted. And I think it's beautiful because it shows that Howie Roseman respects the hell out of Vic Fangio. And Vic Fangio respects Jailen. Phillips enough to go one him.

So that means he works hard. He's going to be a fit ideally in this locker room. And Vic doesn't see any problems there. So I think there's a lot to like from that, Rich. I'm pretty excited about this move. Yeah, I'm pretty soaked too. I mean, you got Nolan Smith and him as your starting edges. That's pretty exciting.

And we're going to ask. Galen Carter's probably damn excited about this. Yes. Some attention will be taken off him for sure. We're going to ask Fran to what the edge rush of room is going to look. like in the I'm very curious what he says about what the the snaps will look like for every player because like yeah said you're getting three guys who are going to be part of that edge rotation back in the fold well it's going to mean fresher legs down late in the season right you're

not going to have to wear down some of these guys and maybe with ojamo's kind of surgeons here uh jalen carter and jordan davis can can save some energy in those legs uh this is a team that just pushed all in and they're going to have a really good shot to make a super bowl run again so I think ultimately it means for the defensive line just some fresher legs and bodies for the remainder of the year. Totally. And at worst. You know, Jordan Davis was playing a bunch of snaps earlier in the year.

There's probably a trickle down effect there. By the way. Jalen Carter was playing a few snaps on the edge too. We saw that, you know, sort of, that was more experimentation, but you would figure that probably ends. Jordan Davis knows ball too. Alex Coffey wrote a piece about Ali Love and Peloton. Allie Love, she has a hard ass class, man.

Yeah? Yeah. Allie Love and Emma are my two, my two girls on Peloton. That was a great article. Yeah. By Alex Coffey. I love that Ali Love because I was always an Allie Stan for like the first year and a half and then I became an Emma guy a little bit.

But to hear that Ali loves now a Byrds fan from afar, I love that. It is interesting to, it's a story about like the pariscial relationships that there are that you have with your Peloton instructor who's just teaching a class in New York and you're following along, but you get you get pulled in and then you feel like you know that person. So that was pretty interesting. Okay. Before we get to a break, though, I do want to get to all of the reasons that I am personally high on this move as an Eagles fan.

And let's start with the caveats first. And we already touched on them a little bit. I know that Howie has a checkered history, particularly with defensive ends and particularly with mid-round picks for defensive ends. And that injury history on Jalen Phillips really scares me. Okay, let's just push those things to the side. Look, you're not going to, unless you make that suspend reality here. Unless you make that three first round pick trade for Miles Garrett,

which probably wasn't even available anyway, you're not going to get a perfect player. Okay, but number one, the Eagles had two clear needs on their roster, and that was CB2 and pass rush. And realistically, you're only going to be able to address one of those in a major way. Maybe they would have been able to get to, but it's clear that the supply at the edge rusher position was great. greater. So they said, okay, let's go attack that position. So that makes sense to me. That's Howie Roseman

not really deviating from what fans think. I think all of us sort of see, all right, they have these two major needs. And he saw the same thing. And he's like, well, the easier one to address is Eddrush. So I think that is just pretty smart and pretty simple and basic. And that's good. Yeah. And I think it plays off the versatility of the players, like in a break glass in case of emergency case, you always have Cooper who can go to the outside. If needs, be and Carter can play more of the inside stuff. And the nice thing with Phillips is, is Fran's going to explain to us in a little bit?

He has no problem going against centers and guards on the inside of the line. So a lot of player versatility on this Eagles defense now. Yeah. And so number two, I would say prototypical size for an head rusher. Yeah. It's just big guy. And like you said, he can bump inside.

He can do a few different things. And that's the next point I had. I said he seems like a pretty well-rounded player. like decent against the run, can do some twist, like not just a complete speed guy. And so this is the big thing is that this seems to have Vic Fangio support. And really, when you look at all of those things, Jamie, big guy, decent against the run, productive, like has a bunch of pressures and seems to get the quarterback off his spot a bunch, hasn't been able to close on a ton of those sacks this season.

We know that Vic Fangio doesn't really, doesn't care quite as much about sacks as maybe the average defensive coordinator. And the fact that he also co-signed this, right? Because the, I would say the common knowledge on this, the popular thought on this was that everybody on that Dolphins defense hated Vic Fangio. And Vic Fangio hated everybody on that Dolphins defense. So the fact that he was able to just look back at that, I mean, the fact that he remembered the guy anyway in the first place was like, oh, yeah, that guy's pretty good. Yeah, he was one of the ones I didn't hate. Yeah, bring him on in, Howie. He had some success.

Like that, that Dolphins defense definitely tailed off in the second half of the year. Well, Jaylon Phillips wasn't there. Because they didn't work hard in training camp. Yeah. Vick could have told you that right away. And they were much better earlier in the year. And that is when they had Jalen Phillips there. And so, and then the last thing I would say, Jamie, is that this, like, look, they are defending a Super Bowl here.

Has the season been perfect? No. Is the entire rest of the league very flawed? Yes. Oh, yeah. I watched those Packers and Lions games yesterday. Look, like. I'm a Jordan.

Love Hater. So like, that was perfect. Worst throw I've ever seen in my life. He is just like at best mid. And you can debate it so you're long in the tooth. If you have Jordan Love as a top 10 quarterback in the NFL, you're doing it wrong. Like that guy's just mid. I hate the Packers. Eagles dominate the Packers. So to see them go down to see Detroit go down, the Eagles are in a great position, Rich. And we have a wide receiver drama, wide receiver quarterback drama. You know, the defense has been beat the hell up. the defensive line was depleted all year. All these things have gone wrong, and you're still probably the best team in the NFC. Yeah. Well, and as Jim points out in the chat, Tucker Kraft also tours a huge loss for them.

Tucker Kraft is pretty awesome. He's probably the best fight in the league this year. And now Zach Bond doesn't have to worry about him on Monday night. Or Jihad or Nikovi or whoever. There were injuries all over the place. Jane Daniels got hurt as well. That team looks like a cross-off, the most obvious regression candidate in the history.

of regression candidates, Jamie. They did some regressin this year. So look, the NFC, even though I still think it's better than the AFC, wide open this Eagles team as flawed as they have been in the first half of the season. I think Howie owed it to this roster to bolster it and give them the best chance to compete both for a high playoff seed and then in the playoffs as well. I feel pretty good about it. I think this is the best they realistically could have done.

Absolutely. Yeah. So I'm pretty high on this Jalen Phillips thing. Now, am I aware that this whole thing, he could get hurt right away, and we're sitting here in March, be like, man, it'd be nice to have that other third round pick. Yes, I think that is certainly a scenario. So it's all good. They do have the Jets pick. And they still have a bunch of-

And how are the Jets doing this year? Not so good. So that's going to be a high third round pick. We'll get over it. You know, I think you see how we get in the respect around the league, whether it be from a Dan Orlovsky or an Ian Rat. Like people are just amazed at how constant he is in his pursuit to improve the roster. So as an Eagles fan, that's all you could have asked for. I think this is pretty much best case scenario.

Yeah. So we're both pretty good with it as Eagles fans. Now we will turn to Fran Duffy in the next segment. He will explain to us how is how Stalen Phillips going to be used? How is the edge rusher rotation going to shake out? Fran will make us smarter, as he always does on Mondays. He doesn't have a game to talk about. this week, but he does have a trade to talk about. So we will get to Fran and a few other fun things

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You can discover great deals both in store and online, only at Ashley. Okay, welcome back. to the P.HLY Eagles show presented by our friends at Ashley Furniture and Bet365. We will have Fran in a little bit here, Jamie. But yeah, I think when you look at Jamie...

Do you think Howie's a little upset that Ashley hijacked cozy season away from Howie season? I think you can have both seasons, right? I guess. Do you think Howie's a cozy guy at home? You think he like bundles up or is he a football guy just like chewing nails and... Unlike some past hosts of this show,

I do not think about how we Roseman 24-7, 365, including whether he's a cozy guy or not. I don't see him being a cozy guy. Okay. Slippers and PJ pants with a blanket on the couch, watch him on a night and football. I don't see that. I mean, now you're making me picture what that looks like. So that would be pretty funny.

Yeah, just texting. I will say, to your point, it does seem like how he just text people more than, than other GMs. Like, like, he just is active, man. Like, there is not going to be. There's not a call he doesn't make. Yeah. To your point, whether it be, I am kind of fascinated.

Is that just like a text over to Cleveland? Like, hey, you thinking about shopping miles? Was it a call? Hey, how are you doing? How the kids? You know, like I would love to see him like a 48-hour kind of, you know, GoPro during the trade deadline just to see how that all goes down. Yeah, no, it would be, it would be good.

No, I think Howie Roseman, the fact that he's so active and he gives us all of the emergency pods. It's a great situation. I guess what did you think of the whole Jaiyre Alexander acquisition? He couldn't crack the field on a really bad defense that was pretty beat up for a while. So I'm not overly optimistic. He's going to work out here. But I'm a sucker for a name. He is a name. He was one of the best cornerbacks in the league. He was the guy this offseason I brought up while doing the show like, yeah, I would go kick the tires on Jair Alexander. they're like, that's a really good player. If he gets healthy, he could find himself again and you struck gold.

The fact, he couldn't really crack the field on Baltimore. And they kind of like pity traded them to go pursue a chance to play somewhere. I mean, it's a trade for, what was the seventh rounder and a six round swap. Yeah, you do it. And you hope for the best, but I'm not too optimistic. He's really going to contribute much. No, I think from what we saw from him this year and just, I mean, the fact that we really didn't see him the past three weeks, he basically has not been on the field.

He's either been inactive or basically like a healthy scratch. It's probably not the best sign. It's probably not the best sign. But it's a great name. It is a great name. He was a great player. I think looking at Jaira Alexander and the fact that he's lost some athleticism at 28 years old.

That's troubling. Yeah, it sucks. It makes me a couple things. Makes me a little worried about Quinyan and Coup. And it also makes me appreciate Darius Lay a little bit more. we were just talking about was it me you and Fran talking or me you and the prof

were talking about Darius Slay last week like people kind of would like jump on Slay a little bit last year and like in our Discord channel here would be like oh Slay Sox Slay this Slay this yeah not not really like for what that guy was doing at age 33 34

now he got cooked a couple times this year in national games and people kind of rebrought that up again No I think they actually He was very good he was very good last year I think the Eagles got out of the right time. At the right time. It's just it's crazy that the right time is 33, 34 years old.

Really impressive. Darius lay, a hell of a career. Yeah. One of the benefits, I would say, just in reading up on Jaguar Alexander, is that Christian Parker, who is this Eagles defensive backs coach, who seems to be one of the most well-regarded assistant coaches in the league, young guy. When he got his start four or five years ago,

it was with the Green Bay Packers as a defensive quality control coach. and it seems like a lot of his work, this was an article in The Athletic from a few years ago with Denver, a lot of his work was with Jair Alexander on, on sort of being prepared for the routes that the opposing number one receivers were going to run. So like, is there a chance that he could just be a good voice in that room? Absolutely.

I would hope so. And I really like the cohesive nature of the Eagles. And I don't know if every team's like this because I don't cover every team like we do the Eagles, but like the fact that both two-thirds, and look, Joe Douglas, you know, has a lot to say about Carter, but the fact that Christian Parker and Vic Fangio

are leaned upon by Howie Roseman in these situations, like, hey, do you like this guy? Do you think he can help? Is he a fit for the locker room? The fact that they all, like, collaborate on this stuff together, I think is a really good sign of the organization as a whole. Yeah, I think so too. Okay, let's bring in the man himself,

the man that everybody is waiting for, Mr. Fran Duffy. Fran, how's it going, man? It's going great, guys. I had a nice morning plan of like, I'm going to go through a bunch of college tape. I'm going to grind through a bunch of games from the weekend. And instead, I spent a large chunk of the morning talking and thinking about Jalen Phillips. And Fran joins us on the Xfinity mobile call in line here. So, Fran, you looked at the film and the footage of Jalen Phillips this year.

I know you were kind of, you know, cramming it in this morning before you. the emergency pod. I'm sure you've looked at more since. What jumps out to you? Yeah. And also a piece just went up on all p.hloi.com. So become a diehard. You can go check out my full my full write-up on Jalen Phillips and what I think the role is and what I think about the trade overall. I would say, you know, the big thing. I mean, the traits are definitely there. You know, this is a guy that obviously went in the first round for a reason. He went in the top 25. He was a five-star recruit coming out of high school, was a top three player in the entire country when he was coming out. This was This is a guy that's got great athletic pedigree.

He can win with quickness. He can win with power. You know, he can win with technique. There's plays late in the down. And he really developed into one of the best young rushers in football. You know, like a really just a rock solid player that can win in a lot of ways. He wasn't bad against the run. Like just you checked a lot of boxes with him.

Maybe not an elite player, but just a really good player across the board. Obviously, the injuries have taken their toll over the last couple of years. And so, you know, when I went into it this morning, having not really. watched much of Miami this year, I was like, all right, like, this is a clean slate. You can't go in thinking like, all right, I'm going to lean on my pre-draft evaluation and what I've seen from him, you know, even early on in the NFL, because I wanted to see what the athleticism and the movement and the power looked like coming off the torn Achilles and a torn ACL. And it was pretty good. I thought overall the film was pretty strong for what I've seen so far

this year. Now, the usage has changed, which you guys talked about earlier in the show, that it's not just purely, hey, line up off the edge as the left outside linebacker in a three, four scheme and work against the tackle. They are moving him around, and it's happened a lot in the last five, six weeks. And in that, the pressure rate has gone up. His ability to win some of those matchups on the interior is important. The big thing that to me, like, that I'm keeping in mind here moving forward with the Eagles is, does he need to play that way now? Like, do you need, Do you need to be creative with him and kick him inside? Is that something you're going to feel open to doing early on?

You know, when he first gets here against, you know, Green Bay and Detroit and you go into the meat of the schedule? Or is it like, hey, we want to keep him outside because that's where we need them? I'm going to be fascinated to see what the usage looks like with Jalen Phillips as we get into the meat of this schedule. Fran, I know there's always the eternal struggle between QB pressures, QB hits. But if you look at the pressures so far this year,

it looks like Jalen Phillips has been, has been pretty good at least getting near the quarterback. I guess what have you seen from him in that regard? Yeah, he's definitely been active in terms of being around the quarterback. And this is a great graphic here from Lindsay looking at the quarterback pressure rate. This is something I pulled from next gen stats, all edge rushers with at least 175 pass rush snaps here this season. Jalen Phillips ranks fifth on that list. Now pressure can be kind of a wonky thing when it's like, oh, what does that actually really mean?

really it's a do you get in the vicinity of the quarterback do you have the ability to impact the quarterback because you can't get a sack you can't get a hit without getting a pressure right and it's like when you get into baseball and you're trying to determine like uh you know future success and sample sizes and things like that it's like all right well you can't hit the ball hard if you don't hit the ball right so you look at contact rate it's things like that where it's like all right how often is this guy getting into the backfield and getting around the quarterback and i think when you're looking at phillips a lot of the things and there was a lot of the feedback i got on social media as I was posting some of these clips this morning was that oh well he can't finish a lot of

Miami people in the in the mentions like oh this is this is him in a microcosmins like yeah right now this year his pressure rate has been high the quarterback hit rate was low the sack rate was low there are times where you see like he struggles to kind of break down and finish but then there are other times like all right like he he had a clean shot at Justin Herbert and Herbert wriggled out of it and made a throw and made a catch like that's a great player making a great play that's a bad beat right Like that that just happens with pass rushers. And the note that I made in the piece was that's why the saying exists of like sacks happened in bunches because those kinds of things just happen.

Right. Like it's a tough life as a pass rusher sometimes. And I think when you're looking at Jalen Phillips, you can, you can certainly look at it and say like, oh, like, you know, they had to scheme up a lot of stuff for him and he's in the backfield, but he struggles to finish. But then you can also look at it the other way and say like, all right, like coming off an injury, it was a little bit of a slow burn early on the season. But once he got into his groove, he was able to consistently win no matter where he's

lined up and he was able to impact the quarterback. So Fran, two-part question, both having to do with our, our uncle Vic here. One, I assume the language kind of remains the same here and he's more or less already plug and play ready to go week one. And then two, I guess Vic kind of knighted him as not a soft loser from the Dolphins defense that the rest of the team was and he kind of passed that approval rating with Vic. Yeah, there was definitely been some reporting over the week. again that Jalen Phillips was a player that Vic Fangio had given that stamp of approval to.

And I will say, like, based off conversations I've had that has kind of confirmed that. It's like, yeah, like, this is a player that Vic Fangio did want Howie Roseman and the Eagles to go after. So I think once you kind of made that point, it's like, all right, you've got that green light. You know, they've made a big deal in the past of like that cohabitation matrixes. Anytime they make a hire, whether that's front office, hire a scouting assistant, assistant GM, or if it's a quality control coach on the coaching side, it could be a player, right? Like anyone you bring into your building, you're an eagle,

all right, well, who else have you worked with in the past? Do you give this guy, is this guy going to be a fit here or not? And I think that this is a good example. You mentioned it was the case with all three of the guys that they have acquired here this week. And I think that when you look at Jalen Phillips, that's certainly an important part of the puzzle. And real quick, the language of the defense, like he's ready to go right away, right? like there's no not much of a learning curve i should say or or is there some tweaking my yeah i mean

my my guess is there might be a little bit of tweaking oh i'm sure vic fangelo get asked about that uh it is press conference this week uh i doubt it's like a pure like apples to apple standpoint but that said of all positions in football like i would say uh you know pass rusher is the one where it's like it should be the most plug and play and like at the very least week one next Monday night in Green Bay for him, you know, he should be able to come in and like be able to give you some snaps, right? Like maybe he's not playing the full workload. But I would imagine you have a package or two where he's familiar with this set of play calls. And that leads us in to the future is bright presented by Shady Ray's. Fran talked about how that Jalen Phillips could be a

plug and play type of player. Is Shady right here in studio with us? I'm not sure if he is. But Fran, what I am curious about is what this does. to the overall edge rusher rotation. And J.B. mentioned earlier in the show, they could very well. We'll hear about what Nolan Smith is, what his return is, but you could get three edge rushers back this week.

You could get BG making his debut. You get Jalen Phillips and maybe Nolan Smith as well. I guess maybe, Fran, like in an ideal world, how do you view this whole edge rusher rotation shaking out? It's going to be very different than when we last saw them play against the Giants. Yeah, no question. Look, if everyone's healthy, And even if you're not saying that you get everybody at like their critical, you know, peak,

whatever their peak would be here in 2025, everybody. Oh, no. Oh, no. The Matrix. We got zapped. Hashtag Fran's Wi-Fi. Should we knock out some of our friends and reconnect with Fran and pick up on the other side here? I think that's a good idea.

Way to think on your feet there, James. Yeah. We'll reconnect with Fran in a second there after we hear from a few of our friends. And guys, whatever the moment, it's never ordinary at Bet365. Bet365 has 90 million users worldwide and live streams 780,000 events each year with early payout offers across the NBA and the NHL. But they also have that football early payout offer jam, and that's my favorite thing. And with Bet365's early payout offer, you're a winner if your team goes up by 17 points with an instant payout on straight bets and parley selection. selections marked as winners. You can just download the app and use code P HLY 365 when you sign up.

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There we go. There he is. Hey, what's up, buddy? Yeah. So just the same question that we had for you is that in an ideal world, how does this rotation, breakout. Like you don't have to give me a specific number of snaps, but, but is Jalen Phillips going to play as much as Nolan Smith? Where does BG fit in? How do you see all of the pieces fitting in now that they really have bolstered this position over the past few weeks?

Yeah, I think if everyone is the best versions of themselves and even close to it, you know, maybe not at their physical peak, I think you've got Nolan and Jalen as your one, two. You've got BG and you've got Jalick's Hunt as your three, four. And then Josh Shouche is your like, is he active, you know, he's your fifth guy. That's how, and then you have Jihad Campbell that you're able to sprinkle in as well. So I think between that, I mean, honestly, like, that's a pretty good rotation. I think that's something that you feel good about as you go into the second half of the schedule. Fran, how happy is Jalen Carter today?

I think all those guys would be happy. You know, and I touched on, I touched on this in the piece that's up on LPHOI.com now is that, you know, looking at some of the things that the Eagles have started to do with. with the defensive front in terms of some of the unique alignments. And you put three guys over to one side. You bring Zach Bond down and have him work over the guard. Now you're forcing offenses to have to kind of decide what they're going to do from a production standpoint, which where are you going to slide?

Having a guy like Jalen Phillips where, you know, again, I talked about like how he's had a lot of success this year working against guards and working against centers. He's had seven pressures against guards and five against centers so far this year. A third of his pressures have come against interior offensive linemen. So if you have a guy that has that scale. skill set, which we know Brandon Graham can do, right? And you know that Morojo can line up a little bit outside. Jalen Carter can line up a little bit outside. You can really tinker with protections and really, you know, kind of mess with quarterbacks pre-snap with which way we want to

slide. Because if you're going to slide over to the heavy side, the three-man side, well, now you guarantee on the other side that you've got one-on-ones, right? So I think that now you can really play a lot of games up front with what they've been able to do in the last few weeks. I'm excited for what that could be four or five, six weeks for now once the Jalen Phillips really. has his feet under. Before we move on to our mid-season awards, I do have a couple more fan geocentric questions. And Vic has blitzed more this year, right?

I think he's like disguising his blitzes. I think some of that is that he has to because the edge rusher group has not gotten home as much as maybe last year's group, especially down the stretch did. But he also has a couple of chess pieces and Zach Bonn and Jihad Campbell and also Niko Bede now that he's back in the fold.

do you think this acquisition affects maybe his calculus or is that sort of going to be a wait-and-see approach depending on what he gets from Phillips, what he gets from BG, all of these guys? No, I still think that that'll be a part of the game plan on a weekly basis. And I think that with Jalen Phillips, you know, he has actually dropped more in coverage this year than he has in any other point in his career. You know, they're pretty multiple with what they do down there in Miami with that defensive coordinator or Anthony Weaver coming from the Baltimore tree. So they'll drop those guys in coverage and do different things. So Phillips won't be, you know, he's not, that's not going to be foreign to him. And the second most often he did it in his career was under Fangio in 2020. So I think that Phillips, I think that they'll be fine dropping him in coverage when they do decide to bring Bonn or bring Jehad Campbell or Nacobo Dean from the second level.

So I would expect that to continue with Phillips in the lineup. And the last one on this too, and you sort of touched on why I was going to ask this, he does feel like a Fangio player where he's not just a speed edge rusher where he's decent against the run. multiple things in terms of pass rush, play multiple positions, and as you just told us, he can play in coverage as well. It does feel like a good fit for what Vic ideally wants from his edge rushers. Yeah, no question. And I think that when you look at, honestly, I made this point when I was on with Cuzz this morning as well, one player that should really benefit from this as well is Jalick's Hunt. You know, because Hunt has a very similar kind of skill set and obviously still a young ascending, developing player. So having a veteran in the move that are in the room that

has really has made that ascension right like he was a largely an unrefined player a flash player when he was at ucLA and then at miami uh the university of miami i should say uh when the time he got to the dolphins and really developed he's developed into a savvy rusher like he tempos his rush as well he's there he knows how to set moves up and you know have complimentary rushes so you know having a veteran presence like that for jelix hunt and a guy that has a similar type of skill set that could be really good for hunt down the road as well uh shout out joe rockhead using some custom in the chat here from our supporters club. We see you.

We appreciate you, Joe Rockhead. And if you want to become a supporter with us, you can. You get some custom emojis behind the scene footage and all that stuff here at PHLY. Fran, you mentioned Jahad Campbell. I think he was kind of forced into playing the edge position out of necessity the past couple weeks.

Vic has kind of alluded to like not necessarily wanting to put him there. What does, now that he's freed up to go back to the linebacking position, what do you think the effect is with Nikobie? Jehad and Zach Bonn. How do they, how do they divvy this up? What do you see happening?

This is the best question. Yeah, I'm fascinated by this. Yeah, I mean, your guy's guess is as good as mine. My, my feeling on it. Yeah, I mean, my feeling on it is like, look, because some of those reps were in the base defense, right? Where it's like, all right, like, yeah, he's going to slide down to and he's going to do that. We've seen him already do some of that as like the second off ball linebacker.

And then they come down to those six one fronts. The same thing they did with Zach Bond. last year and they did it with bond a bit this year as well. I would expect that to continue. I think, and this goes back to the conversation we've had after the Michael Carter acquisition, they're just going to have a few different packages, right? Like I think my, my guess is how this kind of plays out over the next few weeks is that we see that they have their base defense, where all three of those linebackers are on the field at times, potentially. Then you're going to have your nickel, you know, you might have a regular nickel defense. That's, you know, against like,

you know, three receiver sets where you know they're going to pass. And that might be Cooper Dijin outside a corner, Michael Carter at Nickel, and we'll say that's Jahad Campbell at linebacker next to Zach Bond. But then if it's going to go against like 12 personnel and there's a threat, more of a threat of run, well, maybe now Cooper Dijin's in the slot and Kiwi Ring goes on the outside. And Nikobe Dean is in at linebacker and placed Jahad Campbell. There's a lot of substituting that has to go in a place here. That's something that Vic Fangio has not liked to do in the past, but they have done it

here in Philly and, you know, some of the Fangio offshoots have done it. Fangio himself has done it in the past. I don't think that's the way he wants to play. He wants to do like what he did last year. It's like, all right, we're going to play 13 guys. And that's it. I think that that's the way he ideally would like to play. But something tells me that this is the way that they're going to,

they're going to trend here. Rich, did you catch that? That was just complete Jacori and Bennett erasure by Fran Duffy there. Didn't even mention them as a possibility. I'm not going to get on. I might be with him on Jacorian Bennett. Yeah, I'm a little worried, though. It does sound a little 2023 what Fran just mentioned there.

And that's, look, maybe I'm basing too much off of one disaster stretch with Matt Patricia. But hey, Matt Patricia is probably the best coordinator in college football right now. So things change, right? And honestly, this is what they were doing when Sean Desai, who was the Fangio, you know, the Fangio disciple there. That defense wasn't terrible when Desai was the defense coordinator. I know that he got fired, but. I don't know.

It was just a, to me, that was a weird situation. I don't know that that was necessarily like, you know, obviously, look, a lot happened after that move, but they had some good moments, you know, doing those types of things from a rotation standpoint. I'm probably over-indexing on it too much. Okay. That is enough on Jalen Phillips. Fran has got Jamie and I both even more excited about the move.

It moved. I'm excited to see what the edge rusher rotation looks like. We also How we give him a problem though There's just too many dogs on the defense now You know there's dogs everywhere There are dogs everywhere And and we're gonna talk about it

Not Georgia bulldogs Just dogs Just dogs Yeah no I got you Yeah I just want to clarify We're gonna talk about a few more dogs On the Eagles and around the league Because we have prepared for you

Some midseason awards Where we took Eagles MVP Eagles offensive player of the year But we also added Who we think is the leader In the clubhouse at that award around the league. And I guess before we go to break,

why don't we just do the Eagles MVP first? Because I think we all had the same exact answer on that one. I checked that the Eagles MVP for this season is Jalen Hertz. And I think that's pretty self-explanatory on that. And when we look at the NFL, Jamie and I actually agreed, I don't think Drake May is going to win the award. I don't think so either,

but I wanted to give him his flowers at the midway point. Like he's turned around the Patriots. He's on record, I believe, to smash Brady passing records. Like, Kit is lighten up in New England. So, yeah, I just kind of wanted to throw some bouquet his way. I wanted to give him the award at midseason. I think Fran's pick of Josh Allen, I think, is likelier to win the award down the stretch. It just feels like Josh Allen has these just dynamic closing stretches where he's just running over people even in December and January up there in Buffalo.

I guess one thing we would say, guys, with Jalen Hertz. having the last two weeks that he had, it's not out of the realm that he could, he could get into these discussions. He's probably in the top five question mark. Yeah. Yeah. Look,

what we've seen from this award in the past is that it typically goes to the quarterback of a one seat, right? Maybe, you know, maybe the quarterback of a two seat. And so that's why I didn't go with Drake May just because I know that, you know, this is how it sits right now.

I don't know that it'll be there two months from now. But to me, yeah, I think Jalen hurts, especially, look, if the offense continues to play the way, the way they have over the last six, seven quarters, and he's able to be efficient and explosive, the numbers will be there to back it up. Who did, uh, who did you guys consider if it wasn't Hertz? Did anybody like jump out to you as a clear number two? Because I was, the reason I went with Hertz not to discredit him was like, I don't know who

else like Zach Bond comes to mind a little bit, but like there wasn't really clearly a number two here. Fred Johnson. Who? Fred Johnson? Yeah. We should have just had a Fred Johnson award. Just the guy who captured our hearts, especially when they go to six offensive

linemen as well. Okay. So I guess we did that one pretty fast. I guess we can do one more before our final break. And this one was also an agreement. Now, guys, the rest of the awards, there is some disagreement on those. But the offense, like, you know, as we mentioned, Zach Vaughn might be the pick, might be Quinnian Mitchell for MVP.

if it wasn't Jalen Hertz. The offense, it was a little bit of slim pickings in terms of offensive player of the year. I think there was a clear answer for that one as well. And it's the guy who was stepped up over the past few weeks. And that's Devante Smith. Look, Devante, I think that the fact that he showed up last week, even with AJ out, it's not a matter of wanting AJ to not be a part of this. But I think it does go to show that Devante does have more in him.

And we always talk about that. but it is just quite a luxury for the Eagles to have a guy that sometimes he only gets like, you know, four or five targets a game. But if you make him the unquestion number one option on offense, your offense can run pretty smoothly. He's damn good. I mean, he is the potential to be my favorite Eagles receiver of all time. Like, he is that good. I'm so impressed with like his toughness, maybe most of all, his ability to go across the middle of the field,

the play through injury. The guy, I don't know what he, I mean, Baldy had a breakdown two weeks ago where he was talking about how good his blocking is. Fran, is there anything he doesn't do extremely well? No, I mean, and that's the thing is when you look at him and obviously, look, Rich, I loved your phrasing when you said it's slim pickings. I don't know if that was purposeful or not.

Yes. It was not purposeful. But when you're obviously very unassuming from a physical tool standpoint, right, when you walk up on them on the hoof. But I think when you look at the. Devante, he just checks so many boxes. He's got so many answers, whether you're talking about him as a route runner, his ability to get open at all three levels of the field. He's got speed to work vertical. He's good after the catch. He's tough. He's great at the catch point. Again, you just check all the boxes with Devante Smith.

And we were pretty unanimous on the other one, the league wide, huh? Is that the Sequin of this year? Yeah, I think that one's easy. Yes, I think so. With John Taylor. Crazy numbers. I know they struggled a little bit yesterday, but I've been so impressed really by what, what everybody has done. Fran, are they the best offensive line in the league this year? I think that just the overall health of that offense. And I think, look, the line is playing incredibly. I don't know that I would definitely say it's been the best line. But I think that when you look at it, I mean, it's a really good group.

They're really well coached. Schematically, they're doing a lot of different things. They're keeping defenses on their toes. Obviously, yesterday aside. So, yeah, it's a really good environment for healthy offensive football. All right, we have a few more awards to hand out defensive player of the year, defensive rookie of the year, offensive rookie of the year, coach of the year, and we will get to those after we hear from our last bit of friends here.

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So let's go to defensive rookie of the year next, Lindsay, if we can do that. Because I actually think this one is interesting. So we all had the same answer for the Eagles defensive rookie of the year. Sure, Fran, explain to me why Jehahad Campbell is not the NFL defensive rookie of the year at this point. He very well could be, guys. I think that when I was looking at this one, I said this one can go any number of ways. If you watch that Sunday night football game, if you want to tell me that Nickymanwari, the safety from the Seahawks is the defensive rookie of the year, you absolutely could make that argument.

I think when you look at Abdul Carter, who I ended up going with, I just think that if it ended today, the name recognition, the fact that, oh, that that defense has been a little bit feisty, he's been really high in pressures, but hasn't had a ton of sack production yet. I think this one will come down to who makes the most splash plays in the second half of the season. I think that it is a production-based award more often than not. I think when you're looking at that, that's one of the reasons why Quinyan didn't win it last year. One of the reasons why Jalen Carter didn't get it the year before. I think that when you look at what Jihad Campbell needs to do, a couple more sacks,

another pick or two. You need those splash plays, I think. But again, it's not like Abdul-Carter has the splash plays either. I think it's more like a name recognition thing at this point in the calendar. Mine was a coin flip decision. And I had to go with the LaSalle College High School kid. I mean, I'll throw my personal bias out there. Even if he doesn't have a sack yet on the season.

He's got a lot of pressures. A lot of pressures. He loves the Giants. We know this. Yeah. He does have some juice for sure. Yeah, no, he's a good player. But I did pick him because he's a LaSalle kid.

Fair enough. Okay. Offensive rookie of the year. is next for the Eagles. I mean, Bo Wolf, tune in right now. Oh,

boy. By just how you all drew it up. How about those snaps he had last week against the giant? It hurt. It has an IRR stint for the middle of it. Hey, look, the Eagles offense,

we know. They have a lot of veteran talent, a lot of high-price veteran talent on this group. Not as much going on there. I guess you guys, did you guys both go? with, I want with egg,

Egbuka. Fran, why him over Tyler Warren, who I don't understand why he wasn't the first tight end off the board? I would watch Penn State last year.

He was like, this guy's amazing. Now, in fairness, Colston Lovelland, nice catch at the end of the game yesterday. That was, by the way,

the Bengals defense, I've never seen anything like that in my life. They're so bad. It's unbelievable how much fun their games are. Okay, I'm getting off topic. Fran, why,

why Igbuka over Tyler Warren? I just think that the position that he, plays, you know, the fact that he has made some just ridiculous highlight grabs. I mean, Warren has had a great start to the year, but I think when you look at like the attention grabbing plays, Egbuka is going to have him beat out there. I think he's going to have great opportunity here down the stretch as well. When you look at Mike Evans being out of the lineup for Tampa Bay, he's going to be the go-to guy. I know Baker-May feels a little bit of a downslide,

you know, and turn over the last couple of weeks. Now, they've got the buy week, so he's been a little bit out of sight, out of mind. But I think when to get into the second half of the season, And I think like Buka is a guy that is going to probably steal that award. Yeah, he's, he's just a beast. Just take an Ohio statewide receiver and you're fine. He's, he's sick. Yeah, I mean, he's awesome. It feels like he's opened downfield like three times a game too,

and Baker is getting the football. Him and Jackson Smith and Jigba, like just lighting the league up. Crazy. Okay, so I think we can refer to Darius Cooper from now on as, as the offensive rookie of the year for the Eagles. So I think Bo can take that with pride. Okay, so what I guess what we have next is most improved player for the Eagles and around the league. I went with kind of a goofy answer because I enjoyed the last few weeks of Brett Toh at center.

I understand that this is probably an overall season, but Brett Toh, seeing how excited everybody was, and Brett Toh sort of holding court in the back of the Eagles locker room and Jordan Milata and Lane Johnson and all these guys saying, man, we knew what we had in this guy. He's a pretty good player. That was a sentimental award. I will let you two talk about the two defensive tackles who are the right answers, I would say, for this award. Yeah, I'll kick it off.

I think Morrow has, you know, stepped up. You know, I don't think it was a rocket to the moon type of like ascension, but I think he's gotten better every single week, whereas Jordan Davis kind of came out and stole it early. So like I think that's a very good vote as well from Fran. But I think OJMO has, he impacts plays in a lot of different ways, whether it be the run. He's getting quarterback pressures.

I think he's just, what is he, 23? You know, I think he's a guy that you see the building blocks getting better each week. So I'm just really excited for his future. I think he's improved a lot. Yeah, I agree with everything he said. I think I went back and forth between Odomo and with Jordan Davis. I ended up going with Davis just because of, you know, honestly, my own expectations coming in. I think that he has surpassed those.

Look, it was a little bit more eye-catching early on. like you mentioned Jamie, like the first like two, three weeks. It was like, oh, like look at, look at what he's doing here. He's not like tearing it up as a pass rusher right now. I will say that I think that he is doing some of the dirty work as a pass rusher in terms of like setting picks on stunts and some of that stuff to free up players like Ojamel looping inside. But I do think when you look at Jordan Davis, he is more than checking the box as a run defender. Like he has been more consistent in my mind like, you know, in terms of what he's been doing at the point of attack playing at a high level, you know, what you expected of him when you draft. to him 14th overall. So I think for me, it was it was Jordan Davis, but by the slimmest of margins.

And friend, he deserves a lot of credit for the amount of total snaps he's playing this year. He is taking on a ton of snaps for a line that is just depleted. And that's equally as impressive. Is that Peloton, man. It is. It's Ali Love, man. She kicks your ass. I think that that absolutely should be taken into account when you're talking about Jordan Davis. Definitely. Okay. We will hear our picks for coach of the year, both around the league. and with the Eagles in overtime. All right. So coach of the year with the Eagles,

we said, okay, you know, you could pick anybody on the staff. It can be a position coach. Michael Clay didn't get any votes. It can be a coordinator. Hey, he's had some good years. I don't think he is the winner this year. I think Jeff Stoutland could probably just win this every single year,

although they've been a little more up and down so far this year. He's got his work cut out in the second half of the year. And so this one was also a clean sweep. I did consider Christian Parker, though. Yeah, I mean, I think he has a very important job, especially over the second half of the year because he didn't get the type of reinforcement that Howie gave the edge rush group.

I think Christian Parker is very good. But all of us went with Vic Fangio and then our old guy, Shane Steichen, for the NFL coach of the year. Fran, I guess the thing that has impressed me the most about Vic so far this year, because last year, it just felt like everything fell into place, right? When they got Cooper de Gene, they were able to play, as you said,

13 guys for most of the year, doesn't have to blitz in the Super Bowl, just because he doesn't have to, because they're just playing awesome on all fronts. He has had some legitimate weaknesses to work around so far this year. And the fact that he is trying different things, like I think of Jalick's Hunt's pick six against Minnesota a few weeks ago. He's been dialing up enough creative pressures to keep these guys afloat. I know this defense on a down-to-down basis has not been quite.

quite as impressive, but in the red zone, they have, they have been good. They have been stout. And I feel like he's gotten the most out of these guys. But I just like the fact that he's willing to try stuff. And it seems like he's done that so far this year. I do like the fact that Jimmy Garoppolo is in the chat pining for Kyle Shanahan to get our coach of the year votes in the NFL. No, I think that to me with Vic, Rich to your point, like last year was a perfect storm.

When you look at like the talent acquisition of the offseason, the way that that group bounced back. You had like just the right mix of youthful exuberance and like the toughness and the, the competitiveness. But then also you had like some of those vet mentors and you had so you had that perfect blend and it turned into one of the best defenses in football. And this year, like, because you had that group last year and you felt so good about it, you were playing the same guys week after week and you didn't have to change up too much. You had your identity and that was that. And so coming into this year, you had the turnover up front. You had two new starters on the back end. You had a new linebacker.

because of Nkobie's injury, what was it going to look like? And they've had to change their ways. They've had to play more man coverage. They've had to blitz more. They've had to change some of their coverage calls within their zone coverage concepts over the course of this season. And they've adapted week to week. Some weeks they're extremely blitz heavy.

And some weeks they completely call everybody back. And so to me, this one was an easy one for me just because when you look at the multiplicity of this defense, they do what you need to do to win every single week. And it hasn't all looked pretty. but I wasn't expecting it to look pretty because of that turnover and because you're playing a couple rookies and some key spots and some inexperienced players and others. So to me, yeah, Vic Fangio definitely deserves this one. And Shane Steichen, I mean, I thought he was going to get fired. Unreal. Before the season. And I cannot believe like, I know they struggled yesterday against Pittsburgh and

Pittsburgh, sometimes they just have some weird games where Pittsburgh is one of the weirdest teams. Well, they just get all these turnovers and Boswell is making like 60 yard field goals. It's not sustainable for that reason, but they do have those games throughout the year. But I feel like Indy, especially with Steichen, I think they've been the most consistent team, at least through the first half of the season, just week to week, you know what you're getting. The resurrection of Daniel Jones and his career, I have been really impressed by what Stuyken has done. And that makes sense because I was really impressed by what he did with the Eagles. Good to see that he got back on track before he got fired. Yeah, I mean, Daniel Jones is this, maybe the top storyline in the NFL this year. It's incredible.

And what's the most impressive thing about what Stuyken has done so far this year to you? To me, it's been eliminating the negative plays from Daniel Jones. Because we've seen those kind of, and again, like yesterday was one thing. I think everybody's been waiting for yesterday to happen. I do think that we've got enough of a sample size at this point here in 2025 to make me think that, yeah, this is sustainable. My guess is that Daniel Jones is going to get a bag this offseason. Like, he's going to be a franchise quarterback, you know, whether it's for India or if it's somewhere for somebody else. So my guess is it's going to be for the Colts.

I think when you look at what they've done and created that environment and say, hey, we're going to major in the run game and then play action. And you need to make X amount of throws a game where everything's on the line. But other than that, we're going to keep things well defined. I think that's a winning formula for them. They've beaten some good teams this year.

I'm excited to see what they can do moving forward. Yeah, it feels pretty sustainable to me. Maybe they won't be the number one seed in the AFC. But I don't think they're going to be limping into the playoffs or anything like that. They've put a lot of good stuff on. on tape so far this year. Yeah. So I think those were pretty easy choices.

What kind of guaranteed money you think we're talking here with Daniel Jones, Fran? Like, is he, has he shown enough to make the Colts give a, you know, a five-year deal with 140 plus? More than that. You know, like, guaranteed, like. You know, I don't know about, like, the guarantees, but I can tell you, like, for just from, like, an APY standpoint, like, I'm looking at. It's like 50-bill, right? Jared, Jared Goff and Brock Purdy to, those guys all got 53. Trevor Lawrence got 55.

That's what Jordan Love got 55. He's going to be north of 50. He's going to be like in that 52, 52, 53, $54 million range. That would be my guess for Daniel Jones. Unless things, you know, just completely go in the tank. Now, that's kind of what happened with Sam Darnel in Minnesota last year. And so then he's, well, what did Sam Darnel get on the open market this year? year. Sam Darnold from the Seahawks. Let me just pull up that number really quick. He ended up getting

33 and a half. So good deal. You know, to me, like if things go south for the Colts, I still think that's probably the floor of what you're looking at, which is, by the way, like, you know, Miles Garrett got 40, right? Like, so it's not like, oh, man, it's not like there's a huge chasm between, you know, what I mid-starter would get versus some of the best players in the league that are non-quarterback. To me, like, I think it's going to be on the 50 range. And I think that's more just projecting forward what I expect here from the Colts moving into the second half. How damning is this on the Giants coaching staff? Oh, it's not a good look.

Yeah. It's definitely not a good look. How do you keep day ball? Yeah. I mean, that's, but that's a million dollar question. I know, but it's not a good look for anybody. It's not a good look for anybody, especially you let. sayquan go last year and then Seacquan goes off and then you let Jones go this year and then Jones

goes off. It's a it's not a good look. Wow. My giant's thought by the way is that I like watching Jackson Dart more than I thought, but he's going to, the fact that he takes those hits every week is, is crazy. He's not going to be walking in a few weeks. Rich, we talked about Jaden Daniels taking those hits, like one of the first two weeks of the season. And I mean, yeah, like these guys have to look. Like you can say what you want about Jalen, but the Jalen's and Russell Wilson. of the world. They knew early, like, to preserve myself in the style of play I want to do, I can't be taking

these hits. I got to get out of bounds. I got to slide. Like, these guys, like, you got to learn from these guys. Yeah. No, and it would be funny if Daniel Jones, right, like as Fran said, all those guys who made 50 million, the way it usually works is if you're in the club of the top tier quarterbacks, you usually

just get more than the next guy, even if you are a few notches down from him. Has he gotten that high? I don't know, but that's probably going to be a really interesting question for the offseason. Okay, we have one more that I forgot that I skipped over, which we had some disagreement on this one as well, and that is defensive player of the year. And thank you to Jamie for bringing up Miles Garrett, who was my pick for actual defensive player of the year. And you know why I picked him? Because he had five sacks a couple weeks ago.

That's why I picked him. Pretty good. For a defensive player of the year. But I think the Eagle side is much more interesting. We picked three different people, and those are three of what we would consider before the year the Eagles four elite players on defense the fact that jalen Carter is not involved with that i don't think that's a that's a mistake that he didn't get mentioned because he has had a little bit of a down year so far i guess i'll start with you james why why coop uh i just think he's been maybe the most consistent player up there with zach bond week to week um i think he's the surest tackler on the team his tackling's unbelievable he's such a good football player and you ask him to kind of play

everywhere and anywhere. The play against Justin Jefferson was probably on the forefront of my mind when I cast this vote. Like that, that basically won them a game. I just think he's so consistent, so good, never messes up that he was my pick.

Fran, you went with Q. You didn't go with you. I know. That's my boy, Fran. Wax, poetically here, please. No, and look, Q, Q may forgive, but he never forgets, Jamie. So, you know, I don't know how you're going to come back from this. No, I just think that when,

you honestly, you could have told me that I was very close to doing Bonn. I thought about Cooper. To me, all three of these guys, I think, are definitely deserved to be in this discussion. I think when you look at Quignan, all from the same off season, too, Fran. That's wild. I know, crazy. It's crazy. But to me, like, when you look at Quinyon with what he's asked to do in terms of shadowing the

opposing number one receiver as often as he does, there was a piece that NFL. come put out last week, I believe, where they just kind of looked at some next gen, next gen stats, metrics and kind of they tried to project that in terms of qualitatively, like ranking corners, who were the top matchup matchup corners in football. And Quinyan Mitchell got number three, I believe, on that list, just looking at how often he matches up with the opposing number one target and what he has done in those matchups. I mean, it's outstanding. And so when you have a player that you can say, hey, go erase this guy from the game, that's

So that's an invaluable resource in today's NFL. Man, I need a cigarette. I would argue Q, best individual game I've seen this year from a defensive player. Really, maybe any Eagles player, maybe outside of J-1 against the Vikings, was Quinyon against Tampa. That was unbelievable. Yeah, Mike Evans knows who he is now. Yes, he was so damn. The year prior, he was like, who are you?

And he's like, yeah, I'm Quinyon. I just went with Bonn. I just think on a down-to-down basis, the fact that in one year, he has ascended to that elite tier of linebackers now that Fred Warner is out for the season, too. Like, you could tell me he's the best linebacker. Not taking a step off of what he did last year might be the most impressive thing he's done. In football. But I think all of those guys are good picks.

So I think that about wraps it up for today's show. It was good talking about Jalen Phillips. I feel very excited about that. I'm certainly excited working into next week. another Monday night football two weeks in a row where we have Sunday off yeah because the Eagles exciting playing on Monday night friend I know you don't know but are you expecting Nolan Smith to suit up Monday um I don't know if he's going to suit up I go we'll figure but I but my understanding is he'll be back at practice this week and so you know I guess we'll see how his body responds and all that

we know that he's going to be gearing up to go uh so I would definitely not move it out you know I don't I don't know. Once EJ's back, uh, state side and is back in the building. We, we will hear that. I mean,

again, Packers, tough matchup. You guys both had, I believe Michael Parsons as, uh, I had Miles Garrett. You had Miles Garrett.

Franon and Michael Parsons. The stuff he was doing a couple weeks ago against Pittsburgh. I was like, I was blown away. He's a free. The stuff that he does on stuff like, they have like three guys blocking him sometimes. It doesn't really matter.

So he is obviously very good. So big, big week coming up for Jordan. My lot of times for Dallas right now. Losing Micah, the Eagles go get one of the top edge rushers. They're down bad. Yeah, their defense. They should play Cincinnati.

Yeah, the score would be 50 to 50 at some point in that game. So we will have a bunch more. We'll hear more about, you know, is Nolan Smith back at practice? E.J. will be back to give his Rick Steve's travel guide, you know, what happened in France as well. Fran, are you on? What days are you on this week? I'll be back on on Thursday with those guys

we'll preview the game Swopper the whole deal And I believe we will have Bo and EJ back for the next few days as well By week's over Everybody We're back We're back on schedule

And make sure to check out What else we have at PHLY Today I believe we have a Sixers pod Going on They are live now Yeah you can hop right over And get your Sixers fix You can head on there

And Fran will say goodbye to you Thank you for your help. Thank you for everything. Appreciate it. Appreciate it, guys. See, sickos. Yeah. Yeah, go hang out with the Sixers guys.

Of course, you know, we got a BG show this week coming up. We have an exciting mics this week as well. We do. I believe they're recording today because of the clunky week. But the Sixers are going on now. And then, of course, tomorrow morning you got Anthony, Bill Adelphia, which we love Philadelphia. If you haven't been checking it out,

make sure you do 130 every day. Bill's the best. So yeah, we got a lot of great stuff cooking here at PHLY. You know what? You know, does not have great stuff, Jamie. YouTube TV, because I can't watch. Real quick. This is such a joke by ESPN to beg their consumers to do their bidding for them.

Like, oh, go call your representatives and call YouTube TV. No, you're the one naming your price. You want people to go to the ESPN app. I hate that, like, Scott Van Peltz and these people I love on ESPN are asking. asking the consumers to go do their grovelling for them. No. Don't. Completely agree with you.

But you're getting the shaft in the end, you know? I'm not picking sides, but I will. I don't get anything on ABC. They better have this fix before Monday night football next week. Or you'll be hanging out here with us. Oh, no. Well, I can log into it via. We can find other ways to watch it.

But that's bad. Yeah, that's real. It's such a bad look for everyone. Also, like, I want my action news fix. Like, come on. Oh, yeah. I want Rick Williams at 11 o'clock. Rick Williams is a beast.

It's a legend, right? Yeah. Taken over for the legend as well. It's so funny how six ABC, like newscasters just become like legends in this town. Oh, interesting. So we have... By the way, I agree that they've become... I saw Rick Williams once in the gym and I was like, oh my God, it's Rick Williams.

You know what? I've seen Rick Williams at my gym as well. Was it Quatic and Fitness Center? In Ballah? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. I wonder if he still goes there. It was like 15 years ago. Yeah, no, they're celebrities. The other 6 ABC celebrity story that always cracked me up. Vernon Odom rang the bell at the Sixers game. Place went wild, one of the biggest pops.

Vern. Bigger pop than like some like huge celebrities, rappers, actors, and anybody. No, Vernon Odom. That's so funny. I was one of them as well. I gave him a nice clap. Yeah, I love Vern.

We also have one super chat before we get out of here from Ryan Madden. The best coordinator in college football is Indiana. defensive coordinator, Brian Haynes, in his opinion. You know, I got to say, I haven't followed the Indiana football program closely. I know Signetti is the head coach. Yeah. Whatever they're cooking there, it's one of the best coaching jobs. It's the transfer portal.

Very impressive. So the idea that, as Ryan pointed out, that their defensive coordinator can help them go win at Autson Stadium in Oregon, I believe it. I believe it. The coaching job that is being done there is pretty great. Okay. So thank you to all the sickos for hanging out with us today. Thank you to Lindsay. Thank you to Lindsay for handling the graphics, bringing in Fran and dealing with all the chaos that comes on a Monday show.

Jamie and I will probably talk to you next week, midweek next week, or we'll probably be back on Wednesday. I don't know. We'll figure it out. That's a long time. Good question with the Monday Night Football. I don't know how that's going to shake out, but we'll be here. Don't worry about it. We'll be back at some point.

But it will be Bo, E.J., Fran, and the professor. you home for the rest of the week. And as always, we love you. Go, Merritt.