PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - A.J. Brown, Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles most likely to improve the rest of the season

Episode Date: October 7, 2024

It’s an optimistic Monday here at PHLY HQ, after Bryce Harper and Nick Castellanos lifted the city on the Eagles’ bye week Sunday. Which Eagles can follow suit? A.J. Brown for sure, Jalen Hurts if we’re lucky. Does DeVonta Smith have more to give? Can Josh Sweat or Bryce Huff look capable? Is Jalen Carter for real? What about Quinyon Mitchell? Jordan Mailata and Landon Dickerson?Join Zach Berman, Fran Duffy and Bo Wulf for a draft of the 12 Eagles they think are most likely to improve in Weeks 6-17 after the first four games. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to a beautiful Monday afternoon in Philadelphia. We are here to talk about the Eagles, Bow Wolf, Fran Duffy, Zach Berman. The gang is here. We're going to try to be positive. As you like to say, Zach, you know, the sky is not falling in Philadelphia today. The vibes in the city immaculate. Nobody had to watch the Eagles play yesterday. They got to watch the Phillies win.

And most importantly, the city is selfishly. celebrating the fact that one of their own has joined the immortals. Where are you going with this? Well, it's a big day, big morning. Big morning. Yeah, everybody's celebrating. Bo Wolfe finally doing it. Go ahead, flash it up, Julia.

Oh, no. Oh, no. What is going on here? No wonder we're going to be optimistic today because I have joined the realm of the immortals, Zach and Fran. Everybody's very excited. That's right. Wyrtle in one. Made it happen.

All right. Okay. Very exciting day. None of us have any idea what you were doing. Congratulations. Congrats. Thank you very much. A big day for you, big accomplishment. Yes.

I've seen over your shoulder the amount of time and energy you put into Wardle. I don't put much energy or time at all. So usually about a 25 second endeavor. The unfortunate thing is we can't ask you what the word was because I'm sure there are viewers and listeners that haven't played yet so we don't want to spoil it for them but tomorrow i'll ask you know yeah very exciting how you doing friend i'm good got those got those guns out today looking good yeah the sun's out

guns out uh well not at all but no it was a uh fun uh fun weekend you get get to spend a little bit time away uh but basically just watch what you guys do me and frances had the weekend this week so meg was away meg take it's everyone's a lot so for bye week uh either all of us go away together or Meg will go away my wife will go away yeah and then me and Francis will have the weekend and that's exactly what we had this weekend So Meg was in Chicago with her sister and me and Francis had the weekend it was a blast we had a lot of fun about you ZB Had a great weekend Similar to Fran I I picked up a lot of the father duties this weekend So I had a like football game I had two soccer games

I did we do spend quality time with the kids They had a lot of fun and that's what matters but I've re-played well in football I don't believe you yeah read played well in football and I believe that Sloan soccer they don't really keep score okay but no we

we went out for lunch for dinner for dinner again we had a great time double dinner we did like McDonald's on the way home from football it was convenient otherwise I would have had to make dinner pretty late so it worked out great And had a great, had a great weekend with them, watched football, watch college football.

Yeah, it was awesome. Is Reed a trash talker in football or in sports? He's not a trash talker, but he, so he plans his touchdown celebrations. Nice. Ooh, I love that. So he, in the car, we're driving, and he was deciding between cradowing the baby and spinning the football. And so he spun the football. Very nice.

He did that. He's subtle. He scored a touchdown flex. He scored two. Oh, baby. So did he spend the football both times? He scored one touchdown and then through a two-point conversion. Okay.

Nice. I've come to realize that Francis is a natural trash talker. So he had soccer this week and he likes playing defense and goalie. And it was like three on one and the kids couldn't score on them. And he then started to do the, go ahead, it's open. Go ahead. Try it. It was amazing.

amazing. I was just cracking up on the sidelines. Jerks and ProFar will be proud. Yes. Did you see that last night? No, yes. Okay. Okay. So you compliment me or like you played along with the reference. Yeah. Yeah. So he he robbed the home run in front of the crowd and then he like

pretended for a moment like he didn't have it and then one of the great bits. Yes. It's awesome. Yeah. Black profile. Okay. Why? You love him? I didn't use it were love. I mean, we're not like that stage. I thought you said I love profile.

I said I like a pro far. Didn't he say love? I honestly didn't hear either way. Did I say love or like? I'm pretty sure he just said love. I said you won't tell this audience at the end of a show when you're hosting that you love them, but you love Jurexon profile? I think I said I like a pro far. Did I say love?

I mean, check it on the chat. I am. Okay. I would say 90% sure you said love. But no, I had him on my fantasy team a few times and he's performed for me. Okay. Well, I mean, what about the good people who? watch this show every single day.

I think I said, I love the show. How about that? Not at this particular moment, but... Do you love the people who are coming to the event tonight? Yes, extraordinarily grateful for those coming to the event tonight. Excited to meet and greet, so to speak. And I'll talk to them about whatever is on their minds. Probably how much you love jerks and pro far.

I can't imagine that's going to come up tonight. I mean, it's 100% coming up. Claire is going to be there. Claire is definitely going to bring it up. Okay. Yes. Well, he's a former top prospect, right? So he's benefited from a change of scenery.

You want to talk about change the scenery guys who've worked? Juerks and Pro Far is one of them. There you go. So is your boy. Oh, no. The door is open. Where's this going? Well, I don't know if you, I'm not if you're going to be called to be a character witness for

Gibral Pepper? No. Bo. I advocated him as a good safety. Okay, let's move on. Let's be optimistic today. We got a lot to talk about. The Eagles are back.

We didn't get to watch them play yesterday. So I think everybody's feeling probably a little bit better. Like you're looking on the bright side of things, right? And what can we be hopeful for for the second, or I guess more than more than half, the last 13 games of this regular season for the Eagles? They're two and two. It's been an okay start so far. How are they going to be better?

So we're going to do a little draft today. The players or coaches that we are most confident will be better post-by than they were before the guy. Injuries play a part here. So there's a couple obvious answers here. Zach, it's your day. So you get to go first. We're going to go snake, you, Fran, me, and then back. We're going to go 12 players total.

So four rounds. Are you ready to kick things off? I am. And not because it's my day, but rather because I can't screw it up. if I have the number one pick. Aye. We've seen that too many times in the show to know that that is not true. Trey Thomas will be offended here, okay?

My pick here is A.J. Brown, okay? The Eagles have played four full games and three quarters without A.J. Brown since he's come to Philly. And those five games, they've averaged 14.2 points and 196.2 passing yards per game. A.J. Brown has missed the past three games. The one game he played, the Eagles scored 34 points. the offense looked completely different than it did the following three games. I don't think he's a panacea, but I do think he changes so much within the offense,

as it should. He's one of the elite players in the NFL. But I think that a lot of, not all, but a lot of these questions on offense can be close to being solved by having a player like AJ Brown on the field. That is the hope. Yeah, right? I mean, he is the best player on the team, probably.

He's one of the very best players in the league at one of the most important positions. He changes the offense. When you get A.J. Brown back on the field, the entire offense should look much better, right? I mean, the best game that they had all season was the first game on offense when he did play. Did you have it on your list? I did. I did. You did not?

I didn't have it just because I was like, the injury guys, mainly A.J. Brown, I almost like just didn't include it because it's been such a small sample that I feel like, yeah. He will definitely be better than what we saw the last. Well, and even with AJ Brown, you know, Zach's texting before the show. I don't know if I can get to 12 guys. Yeah, I got to. So what's funny is that I told Bo this earlier, Zach, is that I, when I just basically I went through the entire roster and just started, these would be people I would consider. And I got to 11.

So I struggled getting to 12, too. And then I went through the second round and got to 14. So I've got some leftovers. Yeah, it's tough. In my spreadsheet next to one of the players for the rationale is can't be this bad. Like that's, that's basically. Basically, that's basically like, I don't have several. Yeah, and that could be like four or five different people.

Like I don't have statistical data. I don't have the matchup that he's playing. It's he can't be this bad. So I don't know if that's a good sign, but, well, it's certainly not a good sign. But A.J. Brown, I can tell you, we'll make a dramatic difference for this team. And do you think it's that simple on offense? I mean, I think I think what we learned in weeks two through four is that it was disappointing that the Eagles didn't seem to have a backup plan for no AJ Brown.

They spent all off season imagining the AJ Brown offense. That's what they rolled out in week one. And then whatever their counterpunches were, were pretty underwhelming. Obviously, they've had the buy week now to be able to figure that out a little bit. But maybe it is the case that all they need is AJ Brown out there. And whatever offense they fashioned in training camp is the offense that they can play with. Yeah, Rich and I talked about this on Friday was like the fact of the fact.

enjoyed it by the thank you thank you the fact or fiction idea of a j brown devante smith smith lane johnson fixing 90% of the eagles issues on offense i don't think it's quite 90% but i do think it's more than 50 right i think that you get all those guys healthy this unit it should be a top 10 just by default just because the star power they have on that side of the ball you know what you did on friday by the way that was impressive what's that first time you hosted the show yeah you made sure to tell everybody that the show is presented by our good friends at bet three six five Download the Bet365 app and use code PHY365 when you sign up. Whatever the moment, it's never ordinary at Bet365.

Go ahead, Zach. I was having a conversation with someone over the weekend about Kellan Moore. Flex. You're on one today, Bill. I told you. I started the day with a one on Whartle. I've been flying high. I had part two of the root canal today.

I'm feeling great. Awesome. Good. Awesome. Awesome. Really happy. for you. Gratitude's important. So in

the conversation with this said person was this really doesn't look like Kellan Moore's offense in the past few weeks. And one of the explanations or rationalizations, if you will, was that without A.J. Brown, they maybe simplified

some of the complexities of it when you look at maybe we keep talking about motion, but that's one thing that we expect to see more of. That perhaps, without AJ Brown, they did simplify it. And with AJ Brown, we'll see more of this Kellenmore offense. Yeah, I think, and even beyond the motion stuff, I mean, the numbers of the two-by-two sets that you talked to us about last week, Fran, were, I mean, pretty

dispiriting, I would say. Yeah, and to me, like, the whole idea behind the ways you can use motion is to try and simplify things. Now, I do think, look, there was one of the things from my notes, and I thought I didn't think about it until you just said it, Zach, was there was a play against Tampa where Jahan Dotson came in motion with Johnny Wilson lined up in the slot and the timing of the motion was thrown off. And when Jalen dropped back and he went to go throw the ball to John Dotson, Dotson wasn't where he needed to be. It was a simple like quick game throw and I forget what the result of the play even was,

but the timing was off. Probably not a Dotson catch. It wasn't a Dotson catch because he ended up having to scramble and roll right. And it may have been a positive play, may have been a negative play. But either way, you know, there is timing that is required with those motion plays. So there could be something to that. I still don't think it'd be that drastic of a shift to go from 58% down to close. to 40%, but yeah, that could explain some of that.

All right. Are you ready to go with your first round pick? I am. The second overall selection. And this was my, the top guy on my board was Jalen Hertz. And the way I look at it is when, I don't know where I'm going to go. Yeah, well, because the way I look at it is you get AJ back. You get Devante back.

You get Lane back. Yes, that is going to certainly help Jalen Hertz's chances. And then you get into the turnover stuff. And, you know, whether you just say that turnover's happen in bunches and it's going to regress back to the mean, you know, whatever it is, I'm. I think when you look at it, you would anticipate that Jalen is not going to continue on this pace that he's been in terms of turning the football over. You know, you can look at Bo's favorite stat, the turnover worthy play rate from pro football focus. And we'll look at that that's just the number we have, right?

That is what it is. But so far right now, he's the worst in the NFL, 6.8% at the quarterback position in terms of turnover. That's interesting. I had about 6.4. Well, he would still be worse with that with that. No, that's not true, actually. in 2023 he was 24th in that metric at 2.3% 22. He was even lower on that metric at just 1.9%.

So he's never been at the rate that he's at right now. And in fact, it's like the complete opposite end of the spectrum. And so you would say just naturally he's going to regress. But even then I think still looking back, yeah, like he's going to get back closer to what we've seen from Jalen Hertz. You get all the talent back on the field. I think it should be better. Now it is it is not just the turnovers. Sure.

All of his numbers. are the worst they have ever been in his four years as a starter. EPA per dropback, worst. Net yards per pass attempt, worst. Sack rate, worst. Time to throw, longest. Success rate, worst. Even as a runner, first downs per rush and third down conversions per,

when he runs on third down, does he get a first down? All of those are the worst. Some of them pretty significantly, the sack rate especially. Yep. And so, I mean, I would imagine that that means some of those things are going to bounce back and obviously he gets A.J. Brown back. One of the things that I think is curious, and I wonder what you think about it, Fran,

well, two things. One is, remember the description from Tim McManus's article about the Jalen Hertz, Nick Siriani dynamic, being that Jalen Hertz is the one who wanted to throw the ball over the middle of the field more. He's in a new offense. He's throwing it over the field, the middle of the field, even less often than he did last year.

Worse in the league again. And you look at where he is throwing the ball downfield. The only place where it's significantly different, all of his passes, not all of them, but the majority of his passes relative to years prior, like the zero yards to five yards down the field. That's where the biggest bucket is coming from versus the rest of the league. That's the place where he is more than he was in past years. Why? Is it just A.J. Brown? Well, and that's what I almost want to see the middle of the field numbers and what they looked like.

in week one versus the rest of the the rest of the slate and just see if that was affected so largely by not having AJ on the field I had heard that stat last week about the middle of the field numbers being lower. I think it might have been with Sheal and I think that's that's really interesting to me I hadn't even it hadn't even occurred to me that they would

be worse than they were a year ago because this is like someone's going to draft Bryce Huff and then like that he can't be but he can't be worse. Yeah I do have some interesting numbers on Bryce off we'll get to that a little bit but no I I do think that look we're still and that's the weird part about having the early buy is that for this team because we've seen like some really high moments and then we've seen some really bad moments from this offense and from this defense it's such a small sample still especially when you

factor in like Brazil week one like was kind of a weird game and then uh you had the what was essentially like a blowout where you were starting the game at you know down 21 nothing in Tampa that's going to throw some of some of some of these numbers off from uh the the way that they wanted to approach things from an offensive standpoint. I think it's a weird time to try and project if this was a week eight by, you have such a big sample. Still with only a four game

sample, it's going to be interesting to try and project this team forward. So go ahead. Yeah, so shout out to Ruben Frank for this number here, but I found this to be staggering and correctable, which is that J.1. Hertz is 25% of the red zone

turnovers in the NFL this year, among quarterbacks. That there are 12 over overall Gion has three of them. No other quarterback has more than one. Nine overall among every other quarterback in the league. And so look, red zone turnovers. That's a little noisy. That's very noisy.

Yeah, it takes points off the board. Right? And so if you simply like cut down on red zone turnovers, that has a material effect on scoring in games. Yep. Yeah. I mean, so beyond that, just over the course of a game, league-wide, 16th and APA for dropback,

14th and success. 22nd in net yards per pass attempt. I mean, that seems like what he's playing like, if not even a little bit worse. Yeah. And so, yeah, I expect that he would play better, right? He should be better than that. And that's kind of the way I looked at it.

And that's why the first point is A.J. Healthy, Devante healthy, Lane Johnson healthy, that should result in Jalen Hertz. Like, those bottom line numbers should all improve with the talent at his disposal. Okay. All right. I will use my first pick here. I'm going to continue the ripple effects of AJ Brown. Okay.

And I'm going to go Devante Smith here. Now, Devante's been productive in the games that he has played. The reason that I am bullish on Devante Smith is related to, I think, the week one offense we haven't seen since week one. And you look at the usage. And I know that Devante in the slot is sort of a pet topic of mine, but I will go back there. Week one in the snaps when they were in 11 personnel. So there were three receivers on the field. 71% of his snaps were in the slot.

Week 2, no AJ Brown. It was 50%. And remember that was they started the game, like putting Britain Coveillette on the outside so that Devante could be inside. Right. They sort of got away from that. And then in week three, it was down to 32%.

And then they also played more 12 personnel. So I do think that in the ideal version of this offense, Kellen Moore wants to have 11 personnel and Devante in the slot and Jehan Dotson Dotson the outside. and Devante can take advantage of his superpower, which is that ability to manipulate space as good as anybody in the league and find those open zones. And Jalen Hertz, probably that's where his passes over the middle of the field

are going to come from is Devante in the slot, right? And so I think Devante also raising the ceiling of the offense by being able to win inside. Yeah, and I think the fact that you're talking about Devonte in the slot being more correlated to those middle of field plays, I think that's actually a more valid point even than AJ, because AJ was known as that middle of the field demon in Tennessee, but that's not been how his usage has always been here in Philly.

He's been more of that outside the numbers, a lot of the downfield stuff that we've come to expect from AJ Brown here with Jalen Hertz. But having Devante in the middle of field should increase the volume of some of those throws to that area. Did you have Devante on your list? I did have Devante on my list now, injured player, but also I do think he's a more, he'll have more of a luminous production. than what you saw earlier on. I had in our predictions before this year

that he would be a 100 catch player. I still think he can be that type of player. I expected more volume from him. And yeah, I think you'll see more of that from Devante. All right, before we get to round two, time to hear a word from our sponsors. Game time has a new feature called GameTime Picks that makes getting tickets to your favorite live events

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But I'm going to go with Quignan Mitchell. And I think this is a tough one because he has played probably better than anybody else on the defense. And the reason that I'm going with Quina and Mitchell, he's going to get some picks at some point. Yeah, right? We have seen those instincts. He's gotten his hands on the ball. At some point here, he's going to come down with those. and maybe take one to the house.

And I don't, I mean, I don't expect him to take that much of a step back. Right. I mean, he's a player who should be ascending. He's getting more reps. You know, he's seeing these guys in person. And so as everybody on the defense hopefully gets a little bit more acclimated to Vic Fangio's defense, I think Quinnie Mitchell can be even more of a playmaker in the defense. I'm really worried that I'm playing like a different game than you guys are

because you guys have picked three players that weren't on my list of 12. So I'm like scraping the bottom of the barrel here, I think. But yeah, I do think that you can expect that Quignan's going to have better production from in terms of ball production that we've seen so far. And I do think he's like he's been a hairpin away from being able to pull away an interception so far. He's one of the best in the league right now when it comes to forced incompletions, just getting his hands on football. So I do think that that's something that you can count on him down the stretch here. The reason he was not on my list, I don't believe in like a one-size-fits-all approach to commentating. So like when you say, oh, he's going to hit the proverbial rookie, I'm sorry, proverbial rookie wall.

That's not always the case. But it does concern me in his particular case because there's going to be more exposure on him now. Like we're right. Like teams have more film on him than they did before. He'll face really good wide receivers going forward here. And when you talk about the rookie wall, you also talk about the amount of snap someone takes. He never played more than 14 games in college, right?

And so I do wonder if he's someone who come December is like ready for the offseason. I don't know that to be the case. But that was why he was not on my list. Okay. Interesting. And he's played well so far. So I think it's a high bar. He's the only one on my list who is like,

I'm expecting him to get even better than he's been at a high level. But yeah. Yeah, I'm expected big things from him. And so I wouldn't say that he has like surpassed my expectations from the first four weeks. Because I had had pretty high thoughts on him coming in. But I'm expecting that to continue. The conversation you had with Rich on Friday about like, do you expect him to be a pro bowler?

I think it's good. We've, fair to say that you expect him to be like a, not a proverbial pro bowler, not at like a professional bowler. the the the certain level but like a guy who every now and then like like like darrya slay level i think that he's going to be a legit like number like viewed as a number one corner guy but not like that elite tier that would be my guess i think that's i think that's realistic yeah yeah um all right

over to you all right so this is my first coach uh yeah i i'm gonna go with vic fangio here um i thought you might go singleton i'm i'm gonna go i'm a big singleton guy though but uh i'm gonna go Vic Fangio and I'll start with cherry picking a stat from our friend, Sheel Capadia last week over on the showers. Speak for yourself. Yeah, but there was a great number from Sheel. Last year in Miami, the 2023 defense, they were 32nd in success rate after the first four weeks of the year.

And then they were fourth in success, success rate from weeks five through 18. Can't even make it through. Oh, I got through it. Despite those injuries. And so I do think we've talked about how the, the Vic Fangio defense can. can lend itself to being a little bit of a slow starter, takes time to get the guys acclimated to the system, and up to speed.

That could be something that we see here with this team. And I think that we've seen some ups and downs, certainly on the back end for me is where we've seen more volatility. Week three against New Orleans, I thought the execution on the back end and the secondary was really, really strong, and then it took a huge step back against Tampa, where you saw miscommunications and the coverage was too soft and too loose. And so to me, I think when you look at it from the back end

and you say if that execution is better, that should give the front and four some time to get home. Maybe that helps the pass rush a little bit. So for me, I would look at it as that defense, especially look at the next few weeks. I think there's going to be an opportunity for this defense to put up some good numbers and that success rate and the EPA per play and all those different metrics should improve here for this unit. And so why would that be? Why would Vick's defense in particular take extra time? I think when you're talking about, and I remember thinking about this in 2022 when the Eagles

went on that Super Bowl run and they you know, Kaiser White was new, C.J. Gardner Johnson was new, James Bradbury was new. The way that they were able to execute back then, you know, in terms of passing guys off and the communication in zone coverage was so good, so fast. And I said, because you typically don't see that. Typically that takes time when you have zone heavy schemes and there's a lot of that communication that's required. That's a timing and feel thing. That's a time on task type of thing, especially with CJ being traded for the week before the season. I anticipated that there would be a little bit of a slow start for the Eagles in that way because you're asked to do some different things. And you had new players on the back end working together for the first time. And so especially when you throw rookies into the mix, I think, you know, Nicopi Dean, C.J. Gardner Johnson, they've had a lot of mistakes in terms of passing guys off. You look at Quinnian Mitchell as well, being guilty of that. And so I think when you look at overall, those are mistakes that should be ironed out over time. Sounds like a well-coached defense in 2022. I knew you were going to say that. Danard Wilson did a great job with that secondary.

That's exactly what I was referenced. And they gave up like 40 points of the lines in week one. Right. Whatever it was. Wow. Jeez. You really don't like thatard Wilson. I was referencing Danard Wilson.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Not to be a defense coordinator. Oh, well, that too. Yeah. Yeah, both of them. Do we need to get back to your boy? What?

So. Look at that. Well, I hear you on Fangio. I was deciding between the two coordinators, and I don't want to jump on anyone's, you know, future pick here. Yep. But I favored more, Kellynne Moore, in this exercise than Vic Fangio, because I think Vic Fangio might have a personnel issue, right?

And I think I don't know how much of the problems on defense are scheme-related compared to personnel-related. And I think that I'm underwhelmed so far by the personnel on defense. And they've also been healthy on defense, where they haven't been healthy on offense. What spots are you most worried about talent-wise, though? Edge-rusher. Edge, off the edge.

Josh Swet. Yeah, I'll conclude Josh Swett. I mean, Josh Swett hasn't played well enough. Price Huff hasn't played well enough. Certainly. And I think, like, if Bryce Huff was your fourth rusher like he was in the past, then, okay. But when he's counting on to be your number one rusher, yeah, that's a concern to me. Their defensive line depth beyond John Carter is a bit of, you know, I haven't seen enough from Jordan Davis this year.

that that's not depth though or or I'm saying they're so I actually think they're their defensive tackle depth is pretty good yeah so yeah the gamma depth yeah you're Thomas Booker oh Jima Ojima uh Jima Jima Jima uh yeah and then we can go on through all all three levels but yeah I I think personnel is a question on defense I also think much like we talk about the turnover regression I would expect on offense I do think you can expect that a little bit point they got to get the ball. It's going to go back the other way. We laughed at it because it was in the extreme in 2022.

And the coach is going to say, oh, we coach this and gets better. But I do think that there's the bounce of the ball will come back in the defense's way. I mean, we've seen a handful of dropped interceptions from this team so far. Quinion Mitchell, he mentioned, has been this close to getting an interception a couple of times. C.J. Gardner Johnson had one go through his hands on a tip ball. Nicobi Dean had the drop interception against Green Bay. Three of those go the other way here in the second. I keep saying the second half.

And a couple of things. I know, I came to something. But, yeah, after this, I think. And Sack, Sack production leads to fumbles. Yep. Right. So I think that's all correlated. All right.

Go ahead, Zach. I feel good at getting one of my high picks here in that if we actually had a scoring system, I would feel strong about my group. So the one game that I feel good about, we don't actually score it. I'm going Cooper to Gene here. Okay. That's a good one. Because Cooper the Gene has been a bit player for the Eagles through these first four weeks.

his playing time, you're looking at eight defensive snaps through the first four games. I expect him the potential we get eight defensive snaps on the first series next week or certainly in the first quarter next week because I think he's going to become the Eagles starting slot corner

and I think he can have a... You think it will happen as soon as this week? That's what I think. Now, look, I could be wrong here. When they signed Avanti Maddox I didn't think it was to be their starting slot. Certainly when they drafted Cooper the Gene, I thought that it was going to happen sooner rather than later.

The injury during the offseason affected his timeline. Yep. But now you're over a month of him practicing and playing. You're about six weeks of him practicing four games in a bit role. I can see Cooper the Gene getting in there. You spoke about the Eagles needing ball production on defense. The friend Duffey scouting reports during his time at Iowa praised his ball production there. I mean, that's one thing he was able to do.

he's proven, at least in college, to be a good tackler, right? We'll see how he is in terms of coverage. I can't, you know, there's certainly going to be an adjustment there. But I think in terms of tackling and in terms of interceptions, two areas where this Eagles defense needs help, tackling and interceptions, I think Cooper the Gene can be a major boost to this defense. I do think that the disdain for Avanté so far is probably a little bit overblown. I don't think he's been as bad as most would.

make you think to do that he's been but uh i do think you want to try and get de jean in there as fast as possible yeah to me it's it's it's it's even less about avante that it is like let's let's get the more talented guy on the field let's let him learn on the job let's let's get the uh let's let's do what's in the best service of making this the best defense in december and not this week no that's the the the uh tension we've talked about for a long time with nick syriani and howie roseman but yeah i mean they got they got to get him on the field yeah and actually i think i think there will be growing pains yeah like that is a tough position the same thing we what we talked about with the last the last point about the deep of the communication on the back end

right insert another rookie into the mix it's like that and that's harder than it is on the outside yeah right yeah so actually I actually think like there will be a there will be a bit of a dip with Cooper to gene before there is a rise but I think you're I mean certainly gonna be more involved yeah and by the way what you just referenced my understanding is that's what's kind of kept him from being the top guy is the communication aspect of it Nick Siriani said in an answer two or three weeks ago that it's not just what you're assigned to do. It's making the adjustments when they make their adjustments, right? And Avanti Maddox is experienced in that area.

Cooper the gene is not, but I think you will have to take the peel often and let them play. All right. You get to go again, Zach. Oh, okay. So this is, I'm feeling good about this here. So, I mean, I could go obvious here, which is the next one, on my list is Sydney Brown. I'm not going to do that because it's a similar logic of AJ Brown. Like he hasn't done anything yet. He's going to play. So I'll defer to you guys if you want one of that.

It's not on my list. That's where we all have Albert Okwebun on our list. At some point he's coming. Yeah. I'm actually not sure about that. Yeah, me neither. I think he's Barrett. Yeah. So let's go Milton Williams. Oh, interesting. Okay. Because I thought about that again. I thought about how. having him on that. Yeah, because I think if you just watch the way they're playing, Milton Williams deserves more playing time. I know PFF is not a reliable indicator from your perspective, but it is a, it is one data point we can use. It's a data point, right? He's ranked number 12 in pass rush, you know, a pass rush rate

from the interior. And I think that we've seen him, you know, make plays during the first four, you know, he has a sack through his first four years or his first three years and the first four weeks we've seen more of it they're using bow's idea of getting him on the edge to kind of get maybe their best unit out there at times and i think as this season progresses it's going to be pretty clear to vicangio just play your like like play your best combination right and i think there are combinations i think milton williams his versatility allows him to be in some of these best combinations. I was surprised by this when I looked at the the eagles who have all had at least 30 pass rush snaps. You know, we like the the hard data. So give me the quarterback hits per pass rush

snap. And again, this is a, I mean, it's a small sample size. It's only four games and there's a lot of noise in here. But who do you think is number one? Josh sweat. It is Josh sweat by a pretty significant amount. He's at he's at 6.1, which is I think 14th in the league for guys who have had at least 90 pass rest snaps. Are, wait, are you introducing that as a surprise? or as just like a thought. I'm, it's a fact. Yeah, okay, because it's not a surprising fact, but okay. I think it is a surprise.

I mean, do you think he, does he look to you like he's played great? Zach's leaning into the bit of him being a Josh Sweat two minutes ago. I know that is. And I actually thought you were going to draft Josh Sweat. Uh, look, I, I do it. I do a sweat on my list. Go ahead if you want to flash it up, Marissa.

Marissa. I did, I made a prediction before the show. I just, I wanted on the record. Julia, not Marissa. Was I said Marissa? Wow. Yeah, you did say Marissa. Oh, Julia, I'm so sorry.

Wow. That's embarrassing. It's Browns Week. It's Browns Week. Yes, that's true. So, yes, I said Zach is going to draft Joshua in round three. I went very specific. So after sweat is Brandon Graham at 3.4%.

Jalen Carter at 2.6%. Then Milton Williams, at 1.8%. That surprised me. I think that's the function of most of his snaps are coming from the inside. Then Jordan Davis, then Ajama, and then both Bryce Huff and Nolan Smith at zero with zero quarterback hits. And they are one of a very small handful of players in the NFL who have had as many pass rush snaps as they have without a single quarterback hit.

So, yeah, I mean, on Milton. I think some more production could come from him, probably at the expense of Jordan Davis snaps. Yeah, but I think that I have to look at it, but I don't think that he's been like starving for snaps, right? Yeah, where's he rank right now? Like in terms of the snaps on prime. have that up up, I'm sorry, I have that up here.

He is fourth. He's played 46% of the defensive snaps. J.1. Carter has played 76%. Jordan Davis, 50%, Brandon Graham, 49%. William's 46%. Okay. Yeah, I'm actually surprised that Jordan is ahead of him. I would anticipate that probably flips at some point.

Yeah. Man, the Brandon Graham snaps are nuts. Yeah. Imagine you're looking at that before the season started. You would have the most of the edge rushers. Right. Yeah, I don't anticipate that continuing. All right.

All right. I'll go to me. This will be in like the, the Quinnion Mitchell tier. Oh, I actually struggled here. After Fangio, I was like,

all right, that's a tear break for me. And so this one's Jalen Carter. Yeah, I think that's fair. Yeah, I think that we've seen, obviously we've seen some really high moments

from Jalen Carter so far. This one I didn't even like look at data. I'm just like kind of the saying that this one is just like anecdotally. We've seen some really high moments from from the second year defense to tackle. Now it's just about the consistency. I think he's got some good matchups here coming up in the next few weeks. working inside. Obviously, a lot of teams struggle on the interior in terms of pass rush.

And that's what you're hoping that Jalen Carter can bring. It could start this week going up against Cleveland. I think when you look at Carter, what he can bring to the table, I would expect more from him. And I think the Eagles are expecting more from him from a productivity standpoint moving forward. Yeah. And it doesn't even need to be like week three every week. It's just better than weeks one, two, and four.

And four. I actually think that four wasn't as bad. I think there was more that. That was the ball coming out because he had some really. really good reps in week four against Tampa. I just think that you're hoping for a little bit more consistency overall. Yeah. And I think of all the answers so far, aside from the quarterback,

and I guess the wide receiver is like, that's the most important one. If you can take a step forward, that will make a big difference. Yep. I agree. Okay. All right. Before we get going with the last four picks of this draft, we take another moment to talk about our friends. This time, it's our friends at Empire Today.

With Empire Today, you get shop at home convenience, the right product for your needs, quick and professional installation, and that sweet, sweet price match guarantee. Empire Today is the best place to get new flooring, so of course they have copycats, but those copycats can't beat Empire Today when it comes to quality, service, speed, all that good stuff. So they're going to try to undercut, they're going to advertise low-quality products that the good folks at Empire Today simply would not carry. Empire Today will not promise the lowest prices because anyone who does that is putting flooring in your home that they wouldn't put in theirs. Schedule, a free in-home estimate with our friends at Empire Today Today.

All listeners can receive a $350 off discount when they use promo code P HLY. Restrictions apply. See Empire Today.com slash pHLY for details. I'll now talk about our friends at Rite Aid and talk about the importance of getting your flu shot. Obviously, there's a lot of big games this week. We got a lot of flu shot. We got Eagles. I'm not just moving on from that one.

Eagles Browns, obviously, a big one Sunday, but we've got a couple of big Phillies games this week. We've got Sixers back in action as well. You don't want to miss big games. You don't want to miss. We got Halloween in a couple weeks. We've got Thanksgiving. We're hitting the holiday season. You don't want to miss any of these important dates.

So it's important. Go and get your flu shot. at your local right aid while you're at the pharmacy you can get the latest COVID-19 vaccine you can step to date on everything else that you need from a medical standpoint you can even ask your pharmacist for a vaccine review or recommendations it's back to school season which means everything is getting passed around whether it's stomach bugs different variations of the flu you got colds you got the allergy fall allergies obviously a person's immune protection from vaccination it declines over time so if you got your flu vaccine last year it's

It's time to get a new one. It's that time of year. So you want to make sure you help protect yourself against the flu by getting that annual flu shot at Rite Aid Today. According to the CDC, flu vaccination may reduce a child's risk of severe life-threatening influenza by 75%. Help protect your family by getting flu shots at Rite Aid today. Things to remember is that, look, flu viruses, they are constantly changing.

So this year's flu, it's different from last years, and next years will be different than this year. So get that flu shot. It's formulated specifically to help protect you against this year's expecting. flu strains. The flu vaccine does not protect against COVID-19. So the COVID-19 vaccinations do not protect you from the flu either. So you want to make sure you get vaccinated from both. I don't know about you guys. Do you guys go one shot in either arm or you guys go both in the left? Both in the left arm. I mean, I do opposite arms. Why? Spread the pain around? The doctor recommended that.

Really? I trust the doctor. Oh, well, I would, yeah, I haven't gotten that recommendation. Okay. All right. Oh, no. Left side only because you never know if someone's going to need me to throw a pitches. It could happen. Okay. They run out of arms. They need somebody. I'm here.

Well, get me on the bump. Well, look, when Bo is at the pharmacy and he's getting them in both in his left arm, he can also stock up on cough, cold, and flu, and of course, all the fall allergy essentials as well. Rite Aid has what you need to get you through flu season. Just walk into your local Rite Aid or schedule at RiteA.com. State age and health restrictions do apply.

Ask your Rite Aid pharmacist for details. All right. I've got my two picks here and I will take the guy who has the lowest floor on the team so far and that is Bryce Huff you know he has been Garbonzo

probably on track to be the worst Howie Roseman free agent signing in his history and so you know this is one where I was wrong on it in the off season we joke about the Josh Sweat comparison sack but they paid him more money

than they're paying Josh Sweat certainly they were expecting him to be more productive. It is the sliding doors of the off season. They could have paid, as we talked about last week, a little bit more for Jonathan Grinard. Maybe they could have paid for Xavier McKinney instead and not signed CJ Carter Johnson, and then he played for a different edge rusher,

all these different things. However, the problem is, I mean, the, I feel like the focus on him being able to be a full-time player and playing on rundowns is not the problem. like that would be a bonus. The problem is he can't even get after the past after the quarterback in these obvious pass-rest situations.

He's been terrible. And I just have to believe that even though he was the fourth option for the Jets and was maybe taking advantage of, you know, attention being paid elsewhere and maybe those numbers were too high, even with that, like they have to find a way to get him

playing like a regular NFL player because he has looked completely lost. And I know Baldi has talked about the four-point stance versus the two-point stance. If maybe there is something to that, if there is, maybe Vic Fangio will let him do that. But I mean, zero quarterback hits. He has to be a little bit better than that. Yeah, one thing I was thinking regarding the Bryce Huff conversation is, like, this is also the value of us watching training camp every day, right? Because you can hear all the things they say, excited about this player, so on so forth.

Worth, if you go back and read our training camp notes, one of the consistent themes was, like, Bryce Hoff's not getting to the quarterback. And you kind of put it, oh, he's going up against Lane Johnson. Now, this is where I actually do think in training camp, the comparison to Hassan Reddick is appropriate. It is not right about, like, the way that Hassan Reddick was rushing early in his career with the Eagles in regular season games. But in training camp, it did look like this for Hassan. Sure.

But Bryce Huff is, like, I'm trying to figure out what he does really well, right? and he's he's not like particularly a bendy around the edge he's supposed to have more power i suppose but you don't really see the speed the power come through when you watch him play um yeah i mean and then i watched the jets yesterday it might just be that that that system or and that personnel frees guys up um you know they they're they've guys down the depth chart getting to the quarterback uh surprisingly germain johnson is one of the other guys who's who has no quarterback hits he's injured He's hurt. I know, but even even when he had.

Yeah. Yeah. So I am, um, look, I said going into the off season that price office like I would target. I was looking at those numbers. I was looking at the age profile. Um, so I got to say I was wrong here too, but I'm not paid to make these decisions. Right. Uh, so this is, this has been underwhelming in a major way.

And I imagine it is, it is mystifying to them. Right? Like, well. Well, I would imagine mystifying the Howie. We don't know what Vic Fangio wanted or look. Sure. Yeah. So that's certainly mystifying the alley.

So the way, though, here's how I approached it because I had him on my list as well. And so I was like, all right, if I end up having to make the argument for why you would have optimism. Like, if there's a path to him turning this around, what would the path be? One of the markers that a lot of people look at for the successful pass rushers is you go to next gen and you look at the GPS stuff and the movement and the get off. And if you look at like the average getoff time and you say, all right, who are the guys that are first out of their stance? That is typically a really good marker for who some of the top pass rushers in football are. And you go every single year since NextGen has made that data available. Again, whoever's at the top, it's usually a pretty good marker for who is getting after the quarterback best.

Last year, Bryce off was fifth in that metric. And so far, through the first five weeks, I checked this morning. Right now, Bryce off is tied for ninth in terms of his average getoff. You have Nick Bosa and Miles Garrett at the top. Then you have Leonard Floyd, Will Anderson, Von Miller, Trey Hendrickson, Greg Rousseau, Daryl Taylor, and then it's Bryce Huff tied with Max Crosby for that ninth spot.

So, like, he knows how to get off the ball. And that would be what I would say to point against Baldi's point about the, like, the two, three points out. He's getting off the ball, okay. He's just looking, he's, like, stumbled on that second and third step. He's getting pushed to the ground at the point of contact. So unless this guy just looks like he has a plan at contact, right? And that's what I mean.

Like, unless this guy just completely forgot how to rush the passer, he has, like, no confidence right now. That's why I look at it and say, this is something that you in theory should be able to get flipped. Like, unless his brain just got left in North Jersey, like he, he's done it before. He's still getting off the ball. What's the path to him trying to figure this out? The next few games, Cleveland this week, that offensive line has been a Siv. And the right tackle.

They're missing their best player. Well, Michael Dunn, was activated this week. We'll see if he ends up getting inserted in the starting lineup at all. But they're 31st right now in pressure rate. DeWan Jones has really struggled with speed at right tackle. the Giants, their bottom half in the league in pressure rate, Jermaine Elinor, fourth most quick pressures allowed at right tackle.

Amarius Mims, the right tackle for the Bengals. The Eagles play them in three weeks. He got carded off yesterday in the game against the Raven. So you go down the list, Jacksonville, Dallas, Washington, the ramps. Offensive line issues galore. So the opportunity is there for Bryce Huff. It can't be what we saw the first four weeks.

It's got to be better than that. I would say he's a good candidate for this conversation. And if he can just be a third down specialist, that's a win. That's fine. Yep, that's a win. That's fine. If he gets to the quarterback, yes.

Right. Yeah. If he's just providing some pass-rest juice, that's all they need. The get-off is that all the marker, that to me, that would be like the number one marker you look for and it's there. So there's no reason to say that unless he just completely forgot what he's doing, that it should continue down this road. Well, now, by the way, I feel underprepared and disappointed myself because Fran just had

terrific points and he was the guy on my spreadsheet that said, can't be this bad. You know, the one that I mentioned, like, just says can't be this bad. bad. All the other guys... I'm sure you would have said more if you had to. I have numbers. And, well, if it got to that point on my chart, I would have just said, can't be this bad. Okay. All right.

My last one, uh, there's some options here. I talked about, uh, Albert O, obviously, you know, can't be, uh, less of a factor than he was these first four games. I'm going to go, I'm going to go Tyler Steen. Interesting. Oh, that's a good one. That's off the board. That's a good one.

Yeah. And I think for a few reasons here, uh, what we saw in that last game where Cam Durgan's went out and lena dickerson went to center and tylerstein went to left guard was very interesting to me and that to me makes the case that tylerstein is the backup at the all three interior four positions right yeah and if fred johnson didn't play great i mean he didn't play well at all not even in that right and so i'm starting to wonder if there's another injury at tackle if they're moving things around because tylerstein played well there's a lot of paths to success i think there's a lot of paths to Tyler Steen getting on the field and playing pretty well.

I mean, you agreed that he did play well in that week three game, right? I agree. So I think that Tyler Steen has a chance to be one of the feel-good stories of this season for the Eagles, given the dip of losing the presumptive right guard job in the summer and then becoming a borderline reliable player for them on offense and maybe even penciled into a spot moving forward to 2025. Yeah, that's a great. That's a misstep on my part.

I didn't even have them on that list. I think that's a great argument. we've seen a similar movie before Isaac Samaulu third round pick who the organization had hopes that he would turn into a starter like year two did not happen he was

you know he he lost his job was a valuable reserve and then he got to a point in his career where he was ready to start and he was a major part of successful offensive lines like not all development curves are the way you might see on year one you learn year two you start right and so

So, yeah, that is a good one. I did like the way he played in that game. I asked Nick going back sometime late summer. Are you going to start playing Tyler Steen at tackle? You're getting ready for a swing tackle role. He should be able to play swing tackle, right? He was a tackle in college. He was a tackle at times last year.

So, yeah, I like that one. You could even think about if, like, let's say, knock on wood, Lane went down for a significant time. You could think about moving Bechtin over and keeping Steen at record. I don't think they want to do that. I think it would be more likely that they would just do Steen. I mean,

I think they would probably give Fred Johnson another shot first, but that's a possibility. Were you surprised, Fran, at the, at the Dickerson to center? Yes. Especially in-game, right? I think that, especially when you had,

you know, we kind of figured that would be like the Nick Gates. That's literally what else are here for. I guess he's just further down that pecking order. I mean, it's why, like, why is Darren Kinnard there, if Fred Johnson's going to get the start,

and if Tyler Steen's going to be the next guy up on a bunch of spots. So I think he's just, those guys are down the line. I think we're all thinking like this is what Dylan Nick Mann should be here for, but all of us are thinking that. Yeah, well, one of us,

so we'll think of that. I do think when you, yeah, and I wonder if it would be the same if they had, like if Cam Jergans missed a game, if they would still do that. I would think so. Yeah.

I mean, if they, if, to me, if you're confident enough to do it in game, then you would be confident up to do it for a long-term replacement. And I mean, if you just think about it, it makes sense.

You have more confidence in Tyler Steenland. You do a Nick Gay. So if you think that Lennon can handle the center, then that makes sense. I think if you're, if you're, it would be the inverse would be the question. If it was like, oh, God, got missed. But if, well, would they do that if it were in the game? The fact that they're willing to do it in the game, I think makes that they would do it if you were to miss a game.

All right. Who's your round four pick? All right. So let's have this conversation. Because I think that there were a few of these that were kind of like tied at the hip. And it really comes down to how did the offensive staff handle this by week when you're looking at the offensive structure. And we talked last week about.

trying to find an identity for this Eagles offense and leaning into what you did well in the first four games. And to me, it's okay, the Kellynne Moore offensive structure and the philosophy there. We talked about it a little bit earlier with Zach's point about missing AJ Brown and how that affected motion rates and things like that. The impact of who is like calling the shots with the offense and all of this, because I had like Nick Siriani game management further down my list as well in terms of like power rankings. But I think all that's intertwined is when the team kind of, when the team kind of, kind of because the coaching staff, they spend a chunk of the bi-week, introspectively looking at what you've done well, how do you lean into that,

what didn't you do well, how do we get away from that? Will we see more creative and creativity and more stuff that we saw, honestly, like in that week one game, will that be more of the norm than the exception than the final 13 games? So who are you picking? I picked the Kellyn Moore offensive structure. Yeah, I put that together. Yeah.

Okay. Because you were saying like we talked about earlier. Yeah. I thought you were leading up into, and so I think that Will Shipley is going to be more involved in the offense. No, he's going to play two snaps. It's the Kellynmore offensive structure. I think that's, there was a little bit further down my list than some of these others. I think it's important for us to have that conversation here in the show because it's one of the biggest things I think that's most important for this team here in the after the buy.

It's a little bit like the Bryce Huff conversation in like you've seen it. So you have to believe it's in there. we saw it in week one it's got to be in there and maybe it is maybe it is you know j jr brown is the panacea right um but yeah i mean now it does also go to the conversation of it's not like kellen more was like the the most attractive offensive coordinator candidate of all time like he has had his own struggles and so it's not you know he's not uh he's not even vic fangio right and we talked about maybe they should have chased more of a more of a ceiling there but certainly He's looked better than what he's seen, what we've seen the last three weeks.

Yeah. And to me, it just comes down to, like, how confident are you that they were able to get together and fix the problems in the last eight days? And the, I think that this is supposed to be the optimistic episode. Yeah. But that's hard for you, though. Well, I'm a realist. You're calling it as a sec. Yeah, all right.

And so the palace intrigue of the byweek coming at this point is very interesting to me. And you could see a situation where Jeffrey would go to Nick during this time off. This is the time to do it. When there's no game coming up and being like, hey, I told you to stay out of the offense. Let this be Kellyn's offense, please. I don't know. And the game management part of it too. Yeah.

It turns like the fourth down. Hey, listen to what they're telling you. If you were going to do it, this was. was the week to do it. Yeah. What would Philadelphia be like this morning if Nick Siriani did what Sean McDermott did yesterday? You inform us. Let us know.

What did they do? Oh, did you not see it? Or you just want to tell the afternoon game? I was watching the Mets. Red October. A lot of our viewers may have missed that as well. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. So the Houston Texans, our boy, D'Amico Ryan, punted with about 40 seconds to go. Okay. Oh, McDermott. I thought you said McVeigh. No, Sean McDermott. Okay. Yeah.

This was the one o'clock game. This I did see. Yeah, pinned them back. And they had all three timeouts. I think that's something that's being lost in the national timeout here. Yeah, I didn't think it was that bad. Yeah. So, well, he needs to have more high percentage passes, I think.

He was three deep shots there. Yeah. What you're trying to do is you need to, you're... You just try to get one first down. Yeah, exactly. And then maybe you get some type of momentum there and you can get in field goal range. but he goes three deep passes. I think only 16 seconds go off the clock.

The Texans need to pun it. I'm sorry, the bills need to punt it to the Texans. You know, Texans have, they had their timeouts, and they set up a 59-yard field goal to win the game. I know Philadelphia sometimes doesn't like Nick's aggressiveness in some of those situations. He would be lambasted for doing what he did. I don't mind passing in that spot,

because if you just run, run, run, he calls three-time outs than your punting. But what you want to try to do is if you're passing is not having a completion, right? You want like a high percentage pass that's going to get at least the clock ticking a bit, get you some cushion as opposed to what happened there. I don't hate it, though, because you have one of the best quarterbacks in football. If he completes one of those passes, all of a sudden you need like two more completions and you kick a field goal yourself. I don't know.

What else is having Josh Allen for? I also think that that probably in the Eagles structure I feel like that would be more on Kellen, right? Do you think more of it? Yeah, I think that would be more on Kellen than on Siriani. Yeah.

Make sure that you become a diehard, by the way. And if you are a diehard, I think it's probably too late now, but we could make accommodations because tonight we have the Zach Berman book event and how about this super chat from no semicolons who says he just checked the mail

and got his signed copy of the franchise. Zach is the absolute best for helping us help us help helping out us folks who don't live in Philly anymore. I appreciate that. I sent about 38 books out on Friday. About? Yeah.

I have a spreadsheet and I promise you I'm going to get to everyone. I need to keep a certain volume of books for tonight's book event. So I couldn't send out my entire allotment. I have more books coming in this week. I'll also see how many I have after tonight. I will send out another shipment, end of this week, but everyone who reached out to me, I promise you I will get you books. And if you want signed copy, you can message me, DM me, or my DMs are open everywhere,

Instagram, Twitter, and I will send you. I will, you know I wanted to say OnlyFans, but I didn't. I don't even know what that means, though. You know what that means. Don't pretend you don't know what that means. No, I know like the concept. I've never gone, I, I, I don't know how that works is wrong. Okay.

Yeah. So, no, I don't know what that means. But in any event, yeah, reach out to me if you want to sign coffee, but I really appreciate that message. By the way, I saw, I don't even know what the show is, but there's a new HBO show called The Franchise? There's an HBO show called The Franchise? I think so. Oh, really? Perfect timing.

Yeah, hopefully that helps the SEO. HBO. Oh, it's a comedy series. Okay. Yeah. Oh, I love comedy. Caterical comedy, so it's right at Pose Alley, created by John Brown and exactly the thing.

You Lo's satire. It depicts the issues faced by. It depicts the issues faced by a film crew in production on a superhero film. I'll check it out. It came out last night. There you go. Another super chat from Chase Daniel Plainview, who says this season,

Joe Flacco has the most passing touchdowns of the Eagles' 2021 quarterback room. Did Howie make a mistake in trading him, trading away such an elite player. I actually was thinking about Joe Flacco yesterday in the context of like this exercise that we're doing like getting guys better, guys getting better. And like Joe Flacco when he was here didn't look very good. Then he goes and you know, he looks really good with Stefansky.

It looks pretty good with Stuyken. And I think part of the larger coaching conversation with Nick Siriani is even beyond the game management. Like how many players have really gotten better over the past two years significantly better it's a pretty small list and there's a lot of young guys on this team like

I don't know I mean AJ got better going from Tennessee to Philly right but it was even then it's just fall you you know like look DeAndre Swift got better here now I don't know if that's a Nick thing but yeah they have had guys for that career years here have gone on

been paid elsewhere I think it's the the big thing is like two years versus four years. I think by selecting a sample of the last two where everything has looked bad versus like over the course of 20-21, right? Yeah. You know, the team has not looked good in the last 18 months.

Right, but from a player development standpoint, like, you know, you use a first-round pick on Jordan Davis, the guy who has all these tools, who are going to get the most out of him. Haven't really seen it. Similar experience with Dylan Smith so far early in his career. Yep. You know, he plays hard, but that elite athleticism has not necessarily shown up. Like going down the line.

I'm not here to defend Nick here, right? But if like if an offensive lineman improving is credited to Jeff Stoutland, then a defensive lineman not improving shouldn't be like put on Nick Siriani. No, but it's his coaching staff. Sure. And they have made changes on the defensive line coach. Yeah. But I hear your point.

I think it matters. I think quarterback in particular is where you can say it. now, Joe Flacco was barely here, right? They traded for Gardner Minshu after the final preseason game, and then they traded Flacco the day after the Raiders game. Flacco barely played. But he wasn't great that summer, sure. But yeah, I mean, Flacco's in a terrific role right now where he's just like, he's like the backup quarterback who comes in, fearless, throws it all over the yard. And I actually enjoyed his post-game press conference last night where He was pretty honest.

He was talking about how he had once been in like Anthony Richards situation. I'm sorry, Anthony Richardson's situation. And he was like, yeah, I did everything to get back. I didn't want Lamar to play at all. You know, basically saying like he knew Lamar was going to get the job. Right. So. Okay.

Nice one for me. You have Mr. Irrelevant. Yes. And this guy's not Mr. Irrelevant. He's relevant to me and he's relevant to our viewers and a lot of people in this area. Shipley? Jake Elliott. Okay.

I knew you were going to make that face. Okay. Jake Elliott has... Especially with the buildup of this guy's super relevant. Jake Yowgli has attempted four field goal attempts so far. Yep. Okay? And if you look around the NFL at the way 50-yard field goals are kicked,

there have been 96 field goal attempts of 50-plus yards during the first four weeks in the NFL season so far, right? That does not seem right. but let me double check it but that's what I'm saying it. I'm saying 90. I'm saying 90. All right. I got to go back and look that stat up. But there've been a lot of 50 yards. anecdotally, there have been a lot of 50 yard field goals.

Jake Yalli is 15 of 17 in the past three years in 50 plus yard field goal attempts. Okay. I think that this is a spot where you could see the Eagles lean into this more. He's only attempted one field goal attempt of over 50 yards. this season. He's 30th in the NFL and field attempts overall. I get it. You don't want your kicker kicking a lot of field goals because that means you're inefficient in the red zone, but that doesn't explain 50 yarders,

55 yarders. And Jake Elliott can be a weapon there. We've seen the Eagles go for fourth downs, but the Eagles, if you're talking about someone who's going to have a better final 13 games than first four games, I think Jake Elliott's an obvious candidate for this list. He's one of the best kickers in the the league and he yeah he's only kicked four field goals so far okay this is this is this is my version of your your brice huff i don't have much to say but i believe you i mean kickers around the league are you know nailing these 50 plus yards i think but there wasn't a couple weeks ago i think

it was a story that the uh the kicking success had gone there was like the the flash moments of like 60 plus yard field goals but uh overall there were like more miskicks yes because of the volume yeah More teams are attempting those kicks. Right. Than ever before. So maybe the 96 one doesn't. Actually, maybe could, could that be right? Or is that season?

I mean, 16 games a week. Yeah. In the weeks one through three and then fewer. No, this is through the five. So, yeah, so you're looking at six attempts of, yeah, yeah, six attempts a week of 50 plus yards. I don't know. It sounds high, but.

It does sound high. Who has time to look these numbers up? I did look up. I was excited for this Jake Elliot one here. I have the true media page up here. Who else did you guys have on? Who was also in consideration for it?

So I had CJ Gardner Johnson. I had Josh Sweat. I had Jordan Davis. I had the Siriani game management. I had Devin White. And, David White, that's a good one.

Yeah, Dallas Goddardt, Kenny Gainwell, John Dodson. I had Sidney Brown. Yeah, it's funny that none of us said Dotson. I well yeah yeah Dots is on on my list here I had Sydney Brown I had Cam Juergens thinking that

you can get more time on task there yeah you mentioned Dotson I had Lane Johnson because he missed the game here and yeah kill him more okay Dotson is tough to envision because if the other guys are getting healthy yeah like he's not going to those chances are going to

I mean he would think that he's going to be a little bit more efficient because he's been like the least efficient in a long time but yeah I mean it's I don't think it's going to be a volume that that matters. Yeah. Shepley. I had Trader Jr. potentially.

No. Okay. That's really about it. I think the CJ Gardner Johnson one is a, is a concerning one. That he didn't quite pass the test for any of us. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's a good point. All right. Field goals, 50. Yeah. That's 96, right? Seventy-four of 96 in the NFL this season. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. So that, That number is correct. There you go. Man, the last thing I want to do is put out false information. Go ahead. We'll leave it.

We'll leave it a little bit. All right. Thank you to everybody for watching the show live today and listening after the fact. Good to be back in the saddle. Full week of shows coming up tomorrow in the Fran Duffy seat. It's going to be our friend of Vinnie Curry. So it's going to be me, Vinnie, and Zach. Looking forward to that.

Wednesday, you got Jamie and Rich, Thursday, back with me and Fran and Zach at the facility, and then Friday with Danes joining the fray. So for all of us here at PHLY, we thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. We will talk to you tomorrow at 2 o'clock, and as always, we love you.