PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Around The NFC East: Should Eagles Worry About Caleb Downs, Arvell Reese? | PHLY Eagles Podcast

Episode Date: May 8, 2026

Time for a post-draft check-in on the rest of the NFC East as the Eagles enter 2026 as the first two-time defending division champions in over 20 years. With John Harbaugh in tow, the Giants seemed to do well in the draft, though they lost Dexter Lawrence and are still rolling the ice with Jaxson Dart at quarterback. In Dallas, the Cowboys stole Christian Parker as their new defensive coordinator and added Caleb Downs to what looks like an improving defense. In Washington, owner Josh Harris appeared several times in the Epstein Files. Fran Duffy and Bo Wulf break it down, with extra thoughts on Fran’s post-draft analysis. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

to the PHA Y' Eagles show on a Friday afternoon, live from the Xfinity Mobile Studio, and presented by Ashley Bo Wolf, Fran Duffy, getting ready to take a little spin around the NFC East. Fran, how are you? Doing great. It's a beautiful Friday. Excited for the weekend.

We got a big plans for the weekend. I'm excited for, yeah, it's going to be a good show. Shorts, light hoodie. That's, I mean, like a, like a little bit of a breeze, 68 degrees beautiful I think this all year all day long

what are you going to do this weekend well we got Mother's Day Sunday I'm gonna Happy Mother's Day Lindsay Yes happy Mother's Day Lindsay Yeah it's uh no it's gonna be a fun way we get So I'll go see my mom

Tomorrow we got a baseball game in the morning So Francis is excited about that Yeah no we got a fun weekend ahead Looking forward to it I'm looking forward to the show I've got a wedding this weekend Oh the whole family or just the just uh just you're just just just mom and dad nice yeah uh and we got a

non-name baseball game tomorrow so very nice should be a lot of fun there you go looking forward to the show we're going to talk about the nFC east little uh little checkin overdue checkin on the three other contenders pretenders in the division as the egos look to be the first back to back to back division champions and god knows how long Dallas cowboys Washington commanders new york giants How much have they improved? How much should you be worried about them? Interested to go through it. We also got the news today, Fran, that the schedule, we got the news about the news.

Schedule will be released next Thursday night. Classic Goodell. Honestly, he picked the worst night possible, but that's okay. Why's that? Well, Lindsay's already scheduled to be off. I got a baseball game. We got two other producers who were off that night. I mean, Roger.

Oh, I've got a baseball game next Thursday. He dripped and drab'd until the Friday before. Like, he gave us hope that it was going to be any other night. Classic. Classic, Roger. Anything Roger can do to make things a little bit more difficult for

everybody else, he's going to do it. How about, let's add one new streaming service to a game. Yeah. Throw it on the pile. We got some other big league news too today. Big League chew. The referees. The referee CBA. Very important.

important news. Yeah. Those of you who watched the interview with the great Kaelin Kaler from the owners meetings, he got the inside scoop on the points of contention between the league and the referees. Yep. But good news, good news for Eagles, for fans of the NFL, that the real refs, as much as you'd like to wish that they were better, they will be back and ready to go.

So that is good news. It's, honestly, I'm glad that we don't have to deal with like. I know. That's just what, yes. Even, even just a preseason's worth of like the posturing from the league of like, see, this is totally fine. Right. Like I am, I have not done any reading yet in terms of like where the concessions were made on either side. So I got to dig into that a little bit at some point this weekend. But I am glad that something got done.

Me too. And speaking of things getting done, you can watch, Fran, get things done. on Tuesday, a week from Tuesday, at the Fran's draft film session at the PHLY Studios May 19th, 6 to 8 p.m. We're going to go through, or Fran is going to go through, Mikhail Ely Stowers,

Markell Bell, Cole Payton, Micah Morris, Cole Wisniewski. I don't think he's going to be able to go through UR. Bernard, but maybe a little sneak peek at Kishon and James Newby. maybe a Maximus Pulley if you're nasty. Probably a Jonathan Grenard.

Yeah, I guess that's a good point. It'll probably maybe we'll end it with Jonathan Grenard, given people like the reasons to stay. Yeah, so we'll go through all the rookies that the draft picks first, then do some Bernard at the end. So check that out. Diehardt's. This is why you became a diehard to be able to get access to events like this.

Let's get to it, Fran. I think we should start with the most interesting team. Yeah. The Dallas Cowboys, a team that last year, just to remind you, had an elite offense, third and success rate, fourth in the APA per drive, by far the best offense in the division, and by far the worst defense in the NFL, 31st and success rate, 32nd, and EPA per drive, just be like an unbelievable disparity between those two units. what did they do this offseason to correct that?

Well, they fired Matt Everflus. They brought in Christian Parker. They traded for Rayshan Gary. They lost Oso Diggi Zua. And then they went defense heavy in the draft. They had Caleb Downs, the all-star safety from Ohio State. They added Malachi Lawrence on the edge, also at the first round pick. They drafted Jayshon Barham, moved him to linebacker, also added Jalen Thompson in free agency.

all of their work done on that side of the ball, aside from locking in the return of George Pickens to the offense, Fran, is it fair to be a little bit concerned you think about what the Dallas Cowboys could look like this season? I do think that they are the, of the other three NFCs teams, they are the ones to watch most closely. Now, I do think that there's some volatility there, and we come to expect that with Dallas, right?

I think when you look at this team as a whole, you would look at, all right, well, Dak Prescott, when healthy, is a really, really good quarterback, right? You talk about that offense last year. They return basically everything from that offense. You know, they brought back Javante Williams. Well, Williams was really, really good last year, but that was the first year he's been able to stay healthy in the last couple. So what if he can't stay healthy this year? They don't have great running back depth there.

So that is certainly something to watch. I really like that offensive line. They've got a lot of talent up front. But when you look at, all right, Giovante Williams goes down, are you going to lean on that offensive line? And then the scheme, like Clayton Adams is a really good run game designer. He's the offensive coordinator. Schottenheimer, Ryan Schottner has been known as a really good run game coach as well.

So I do have a lot of faith in the scheme. And then when you say, all right, you've got faith in the scheme, faith in the quarterback. You've got talent receiver. That's a good combination, right? So I would say the volatility there lies with Javante Williams being able to stay healthy. So key piece along that offensive line also being able to. stay healthy because both tackles have had injury issues in the last couple of years. And then the other one is the George Pickens of everything where, yeah, like last year went

really, really well. And he just got better and better and better as the season went on. This year, there's already like stuff about the contract and what is that going to look like. Is that going to bubble over by the time we get into the summer and the early stages of the fall? It would not be in August without something going on with Dallas and that happening. So I think at the end of the day, like when you look at that side, I think, think there's a reasonably like really high floor, but it's a little, it's a, it can be a little tenuous if some of the things go wrong there. The big thing is defensively, if they go from bottom of the barrel to league average and the offense holds their end of the bargain,

they're going to be a good team. They're going to be a tough out because, you know, I think there's a lot of excitement about Christian Parker and rightfully so. I think when you look at the additions that they've made, it's a lot of things that make sense for them and the way that Christian Parker wants to play. They added some young pieces in that secondary, not just this offseason, but even going back to last year. Like Chavon Ravel was a player I was really high on in the pre-draft process.

He fell due to a torn ACL. He's now a year removed from that. What does he look like? You know, when you factor in the fact, you know, they've got a lot of young pieces on that side. If Christian Parker can get them to the 18th best defense in the league and they're able to create some turnovers, that's a frisky defense.

And if paired with a top five, top seven offense, that's a good combination. Sure. I think they would take sort of an expected backslide on offense to, you know, from the third or fourth best offense in the league to the eighth or ninth best offense in the league, paired with the defense, you know, going to 18th in the league probably, right? And, I mean, just in the, in the reversion of it all, you could probably roll out the exact same scheme and the exact same players from last year and they wouldn't be dead last. They might be like 28th or whatever it is.

And then you look at the actual talent upgrades that they made. You know, you get a full year of Quinn and Williams. You get you at Ray Sean Gary. You get a healthy Chavonne Ravel as you're talking about. I think Caleb Downs can make an impact. I think there's a, I think there's a real chance that I would be surprised if this is not a playoff team. I think it would take injuries for that not to be the case, the way that I see it.

If we were doing like, you know, Super Bowl contenders in the NFC and we're like power ranking them, like they are a team that absolutely could represent the NFC in the Super Bowl. Like if all things like the Cowboys. What's that? If they weren't the Cowboys. Well, I mean, that is the toughest aspect of it. Like we could say all of these things about them. At the end of the day, I can look and say, all right, well, Dak Prescott and some of these big high leverage moments has come up short. some of it like buy his own door like because I'm not a big I'm not big on like oh like this guy can

ever get done he can't get them over the hump right he has had like some legitimately like bonehead moments in those like prime time situations right so yeah uh you know that one I think it's a little different than you know some of the other ones that we talk about around the NFL um well it's like faith in Brian Chattonheimer to like to raise them to that level and I think that's a fair question It's just that the foundation of the organization is shaky, right? It is. And so you think about it. Like if you've got a wiggly foundation, you can get a block on there.

You get two blocks. Like you get 10 blocks on there. You can, you know, but the further, the deeper you get, the more that thing is going to wiggle. And even, you know, just consistent success is probably. not going to be a thing for them so long as they have the current structural ownership. And I think they're fine with that, but that is the world in which they live. Yeah. Look, they are, if they stay healthy, there's no reason to think that that team won't be

one of the few best teams in the NFC at the very least. They could be one of the best teams in the NFL if everybody's healthy. I think that's right. It will be, it'll be an interesting matchup. You know what? As we think about the schedule, this is, I think I have this every single year. I don't know why they can't just have the division teams you play once in the first half of the season and once in the second half of the season. If we're going to get these two and three weeks, two and four weeks, like, it's so, it's so easy to do that. It's, it's, I don't know why the league has been okay with it.

It's really, it's been the last few years. And I think it's, I think it's because of the, and I, I think it is, and this is right up your alley. I think it's because of all of the, like, now, like, prime time slots that they have added to because of the streamers, that it's like, oh, well, we have to make some concessions elsewhere to give ourselves some wiggle room. And that is, that is that. It's like, all right, well, we're going to, we're okay with some of these divisional matchups happening cluster together if that gives us the ability to slide some of these other games into prime slots. I think it's the other way. I think it's their, they're trying to pick and choose these games for those potential one-off games.

Yeah, I guess that's, yeah. I think it's a little bit about it. I think we're saying the same thing. It's very easy to just make a rule in your, you know, scheduling model that these teams play once in the beginning and once in the end. Yes. Like, it's just playing twice in three weeks. It's so, it's so dumb. Yes.

Anyway, yeah. I think the Cowboys should be happy with their off-season. They should be. Honestly, like that's of the teams in the NFC, I'm looking around. I'm like, yeah, they had one of the best off seasons, not even just in the division, but in the entire conference. And you could argue in the league. It's been a good offseason for them. Now, where are you at on confidence in Christian Parker?

I mean, as confident as one could be, I think, right? To me, all the signs have pointed out that he's more than ready for this job. I think he's got a lot of tools at his disposal. When you look at some of the young talent, they put into that. secondary. We know that that's a defense and a scheme that ideally is built from back to front. And so when you add the talent that they've added on the back end,

there's a lot of reasons to be excited. It seems like, Downs was the guy they wanted. They wanted Caleb Downs. And you could see it, like even on the piece that has gone out, the ESPN, they did their draft room documentary. When they were able to make that selection, that room

erupted. So I it's good. That's going to be a fun defense to watch. The only thing I would say about Christian Parker as Paul aside from the fact that he's a first time coordinator doing it. You know, it's not like he got to bring the whole

staff with him. And part of what makes, has made Vic great over the past two years is that he has had this awesome staff with him. You know, he's got a former defense coordinator in Clint Hurd. He's got Christian Parker. He's got all, you know, he's got Bobby King. He's got all

these other guys. Christian Parker had to had to build a different staff I don't know that those guys well enough, but it's not the same level of expertise as Vic has had in the building. Yeah, so they added, you know, a couple of people of guys that he has worked with in the past, which you would expect, right?

Like Derek Ansley was the defensive backs coach and past game coordinator in Green Bay. They overlap there. He brought him in as one of his first hires, and he's kind of running the secondary in the past game coordinator role there. And he was able to get a couple of other guys that have kind of been around Ryan Smith,

who was pretty highly regarded college coach was at Florida for a couple years. He was in Arizona with the Cardinals this past year. And then obviously when they turned that staff over, Christian Parker was able to bring him in. That's one of the reasons why they were able to sign the safety Jalen Thompson over from the Cardinals is that he had played for Ryan Smith. They brought in the defensive line coach, Marcus Dixon.

Another guy who's got a pretty lengthy runway of being a young college coach has been in the league now for a few years and has coached some good players. So I think given the fact that he did have to build from scratch. There are some exciting names he was able to add into that group. Okay, good to know. And I also, as you say that, and as I argue with myself, there is also something to when

you are a young up-and-coming coach, you have a good sense of who the other young up-and-coaching coaches are. Right. Yep, that's a good point. All right. Quick break. We'll come back. We'll get into the Giants.

Why not? A lot of turnover with the Giants, including at the very tip of the top. Upgrade your home for less during Ashley's Memorial. Day event. Right now, you can save up to 20% on beautifully crafted Ashley furniture or take advantage of 60 months, no interest financing with no minimum purchase. If you're looking to sleep better, you can get free upgrades on select adjustable bases plus king size comfort for queen size pricing on select Ashley mattresses. These Memorial Day deals won't last, so don't wait. Shop in store or online at Ashley today. What if you could have reliable and intelligent

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And yes, I know you might be thinking, adult in the room. That's not what Steve Tisch wants to hear about, but he's gone. So now this is an organization that does want an adult. And I went back and forth on this. I was prepared this off season for like this is going to be John Harbaugh kind of losing luster. I was not super impressed with the staff he had put together. I agree. Because it was a lot of just sort of retreads.

It didn't seem like there was a ton of new life there. And the reports that they were, you know, you trade Dexter Lawrence. You have to lose your best player on defense because you can't keep him happy. And the reports that they were going to sort of go like skill hunting with those two picks, I was ready for this to be more of the same with the giant. And the way that they then now, we'll see about Arval Reese, if they're going to actually keep him at linebacker, that's one thing. Yeah.

But to go Arval Reese, Francis Maui Noah. it does make me think that maybe they have somebody making some sensible decisions for once. Yeah, I think that I'm with you in that moment. To me, when I look at you could have hired anybody. I know they wanted to bring in Todd Munkin, and if Munkin didn't get the head job with the Cleveland Browns, that he'd probably be the offensive coordinator. But I'm unmoved to put it nicely on the Matt Nagy hire as the offensive coordinator.

you know they brought in uh brian callahan to be the past game coordinator and quarterbacks coach which you know that's a role that he's had success before and he and he's you know but um i really i'm excited to see denard wilson with that group but defensively to see what they do i'm a big fan of denard wilson honestly that has been well i would say my consistent theme amongst all three of these teams i'm kind of i'm like intrigued slash optimistic to watch all three new defensive coordinators uh in these roles so uh well and we'll talk about the third, Durante Jones was Washington next. But from my coaching staff standpoint, I was like lukewarm.

I still want to wait and see about the Rvel Reese thing. I'm very interested to see that just because, you know, listing of it linebacker and then saying, yeah, we're going to leverage him as a rusher. I don't know that we've seen that defense do that with a player, like with that hybrid skill set. You know, and so I'm interested to see that play out. I agree, like trading Dexter Lawrence, not the best look.

They had to turn over a good amount of the secondary. They couldn't fix everything in one off season. To me, if you were just going to, if you wanted to take a linebacker at five, like Sonny Stiles is a better linebacker. So just take Sunny Stiles personally. And if you were going to take a guard, then just take Yawane instead of taking Maui Noah and projecting a guard, he's never played guard. Now, a lot of people think he can play a guard, that's fine.

And I like Maui Noah. It's not that I don't like the player. But there's projection. It's definitely not as like easy as, oh, yeah. like these moves all made sense. So I didn't love Colton Hood. The corner they took at the top of the second round. So I think that there's some volatility with the draft picks.

I think from a like free agency standpoint, because they wanted to get a running back like that. They were like, they were hell bent. We were hearing that from from Combine time with local reports out there. It was, oh, they went in on Travis Ashan. They went in on Kenneth Walker. If not, they're going to get Jeremiah Love. So I think they want to completely redo that the way they're approaching offense.

Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. I don't, I don't, to be like the Matt and Aggie Jackson Dart marriage, like, I don't know. I don't know if I'm fine. I agree with that. You go through the depth chart. It's actually a quarterback our side. It's a pretty good roster.

I mean, relative to the rest of the league, I mean, with Malik neighbors at the top at wide receiver, and between Darius Slate and Darnell Mooney, Calvin Austin, and even Malachi Fields, who they drafted in the third round. That's a pretty good room depth-wise. I like the Isaiah likely addition. And it should be a good offensive line with Andrew Thomas, John Runyon, John Michael Schmitz, Maui Noah, Germain Illuminaur. Solid.

Yep. That's pretty good. Yeah. And then the defense, I mean, listen, they're going to miss Dexter Lawrence, no doubt about it. But with Burns and Tibado and obviously Abdul Carter, Arval Rays and Tremade Edmonds, like that's a pretty good collection of talent um javon holland who i know you like yep i can get there and this is a team to me that could be i don't know exactly what their projected strength of schedule is but they could be a schedule merchant like i could see that i could see this team

beating bad teams on the way to nine wins or something like that i don't think it's a team that could be for real but i also i mean i'm a little bit skeptical of of jackson dart as as being a quarterback who leads the team to the playoffs i to me like i could just as easily see this team win four games as nine oh for sure like i i could see that getting like really ugly um but yeah i i don't know like i i wanted to like it a little bit more as like an objective observer like i wanted to like what they did a little bit more than now that i'm sitting here i'm like all right like the off season not not that it's over but uh i don't know i don't know i don't know that I'm like completely bought in.

I think that's fair. The other reason thing, I mean, Zach Bonn tells a bunch of different story, but to me I can sort of get to, okay, if you want to maintain flexibility with this guy, you got to start him at linebacker because you don't want him to play on the edge and then have to like get reps at linebacker later in his career.

But I don't know. Yeah, I was trying to think like, who are the players that, that have played in that defensive style where it's like, oh, yeah, they really leveraged a guy that had like off ball, on ball capabilities. And like that was a huge like piece of what they did. The closest I got in their different players is like Kyle Van Neuie like kind of did that early in his career. Now he's primarily been more of like a Sam backer. But he's not that it's what we talk about though with Arvel Reese where like the versatility alone is not enough to get you

drafted that high. It's the impact as a rusher that in my opinion, like gets you drafted that high. because as a linebacker, he's not like super instinctive yet. So it's like, all right, well, if that's the case, then just take styles.

I don't know. I would have landed there personally ahead of Reese in that defense. And then came scataboo, just performing vocal blackface on a weekly basis. How much does that help your team? Your mileage may vary. Yeah, right.

I mean, I think like minds may disagree on how, much that can help. And that'll do for the big takeaway presented by our friends at Exfinity. Yeah, you know who else they have on staff? The Giants? Matt Peas. Matt Peas.

I was close to saying it as I was going through some of the players. Matt Peas are the giant staff. Yes. Son of Dean. Son of Dean. There are a few coaches' sons on that staff. Frank Boyle. Bush, Dennis Johnson.

Although, former Eagle, Chad Hall on there, a couple former college head coaches on there. Willie Taggart has been with Harbaugh for a long time in Baltimore. He's the running backs coach, former coach at Oregon and South Florida. And then Mike Blumgren, long time Stanford offensive line coach, was the head coach at Rice and then moved into, he was at Cleveland last year as the O'Line coach.

And now with Harbaugh in New York. There are some great names. Skylar Morningweg. is a football analyst. Now you've got assistant director of strength and conditioning, Drew Wilson, which is, of course, what Tom Hanks' character and Castaway told everyone what he did when he was on the island. And he didn't want to speak longer than two words.

And you've also got, I don't know why I'm saying this, but a guy whose name I thought when I first saw it was Sam Chode, but it's actually Sam Code. I got nothing for you know that one. We'll come back and we'll talk about the Washington commanders. Tell you everything you need to know. And then in the D block, France got something he wants to talk about. And Linda's got a game. All right, guys, quick time out, and this one is worth hearing.

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I mean. in that ad read in particular I feel like that's a long time coming it was good that made me that made me laugh let's talk about the Washington commanders who last year obviously were coming off

the NFC championship game run and everybody sort of expected they were going to have a come down to earth season and they did they were not that good they were injured they were 12th in success rate and 16th in EPA for drive on offense so middle of the road

above average. Defense was bad, just like it was the year before. 26 and success rate, 31st in EPA per drive. And so Dan Quinn fires both the offensive and defensive coordinators. And they made some additions on defense, make a big ticket signing in Odafei Oway. They draft Sunny Stiles. They signed Chigua. E.J's guy.

E.J.'s guy. A few other names. Caleb von Jaison, Leo Chenal, it's an interesting. interesting addition at linebacker. Their secondary was bad. Amic Robertson. Rashad White, people are excited about it. I'm not so sure why.

Antonio Williams' third round draft pick. Okay. They've done some stuff. It seems like, though, Fran, aside from like O.A. and Stiles, they are banking on these coaching changes. And listen, this sounds familiar,

being what really moves the needle. Yeah. It's one of those things where this was a team by the end of the season. The sex appeal of the owner, but that's a given. This was a team that, you know, the Eagles played the commanders twice down the stretch last year when the wheels had fallen off, right?

And I remember getting ready for talking about that team and it was looking at the roster and saying, okay, they have no depth at pass catcher. The offensive line is okay, but not great. They don't really have a ton of talent at running back. You go over the defense. They don't have a pass rush. They don't have anyone that could cover. So it's like, man, like at some.

premium, like really important spots, they need a lot of help. And they did not have a lot of draft picks and they couldn't make any traits to get more draft picks. So they brought in some big names. They helped the pass rush. I like the O-Wa signing. They brought in Caleb on Chase on. They brought in a couple other names as well. Like, you know, guys that can come in and help that defensive front.

So I think they did enough there. In the secondary, you know, Amique Robertson's a nice player. But obviously, they couldn't like fully invest, you know, on that side of it. They're banking on Trey Amos last year, second round picked. come in to take another step. And then you got- Ross, the signing, which was first broken on PHO-I. That's right.

By a commenter in the dating apps. That's a valid point. But Nick Cross is like, okay, like he's fine. I am intrigued by Durante Jones, the new defensive coordinator. Now, Durante Jones, a long-time college coach was at LSU for a handful of years

before getting hired by the Minnesota Vikings and Brian Flores. So he spent the last couple of years learning from that defense, and it's been one of the more fun defenses to watch in the NFL. So I'm excited to see what that looks like. You know, I would imagine that they're going to do some really interesting things from like a front and pressure standpoint and be like fairly like assignment based on the coverage end. I'm excited to see what that looks like though, because, um, especially because of his college background, I think there, there's some potential there where they could do some like

fun like schematic things. Uh, what is, what is EJ's thing like a tactical? Uh, yeah, they get all the tacticos while riled up. I, I could see some really fun stuff there from Durante Jones. So, um, I'm excited to see that. That said, like this offense, Jane Daniels, they got to get the guy some help at receiver right now. It's crazy. Yeah, I mean, you're running back like Terry McClarn.

They went and brought back Noah Brown because he had success two years ago in that offense. He went to Jacksonville last year, got cut immediately. Diami Brown. Yeah, Diami Brown, sorry. And so they brought, they brought Deami Brown back. And that's it. Like I think they're hoping that are like Brandon I'm like Antonio Williams like yeah they know Antonio Williams is he's he's he's fine but there's nothing that's not keeping Vic Fangio up at night right

and to me even like relying on Brandon Iuke like John Lynch was begging people at press conferences the last few weeks like yeah if you can get a hold of Brandon Iuk like let it let us know that kind of thing so I don't know that that's something that I'm necessarily counting on him coming in and being able to make an impact maybe he does but you know I don't think San Francisco is giving him up for nothing. So I don't think they're going to cut them. They're fine, just leaving him on like the do not report list, it sounds like. So you're going to have to trade for them.

They don't have a ton of picks to begin with. So, you know, the run game, I'm not like super enthused by that. The running back depth chart's not great. So, yeah, when I look at the offense, like Jayton Dan, you've got to go win for us. And we're hoping that this defense is better than one of the bottom five in the league, which was for most of the last year. quarterback aside this is by far the worst roster in the division it's an ugly route it's an ugly group not even close yeah it's i mean

i would if you took every if you took the quarterback out and just looked at the 32 rosters i mean it's it's certainly a bottom eight roster i think yes yes they they they struggled for when adam pears got there they traded a bunch of you know john dotson was one of them like they traded a bunch of like the high picks from the previous regime so when you look at this group you're like man like well they have no young talent and then when they traded multiple picks for marshawn ladenmore and they traded multiple picks for uh for laramie tonsill who like they were they were not happy with what they got for with ladimore and like they they cut him this off season for that reason uh and but they are really happy with tonsill like then they extended them but even still like that

they were still paying for that this year they they didn't have a second and a fourth because of that deal from last spring so yeah you know they they they are paying for it and that's what they would have benefited from trying to find a trade down partner and they they couldn't they couldn't get a deal done for what I understand um you know otherwise I think they would have taken it uh so I think at the end of the day this is a this is a roster where you're putting a ton on jaden Daniels like a ton on him to just really kind of lift all tides on that side of the ball yeah it's kind of ugly yeah yeah it's not it's not a fun group on that side now uh new officer coordinator david blow it's similar to Sean manion where he was just playing two years

ago. And he was a very quick rise. He's been on this Washington staff for the last couple of of years. What is this offense going to look like? Right. That's the big question that everybody has. Since he's been on this offense with Cliff Kingsbury, he played for Cliff for one year in Arizona, but he also played for Ben Johnson for a year late in his career. He played for Kevin O'Connell late in his career. Like he played, he played for a lot of notable, like, impressive offensive minds. I still don't have like a great read on what they're exactly anticipating. identity to look like but um if the scheme can get them there that would be that was like if he's a real needle mover on off as an offensive coordinator that's a game changer for them right uh so i i think that's

the where the volatility and try to project them lies i want everybody to sort of follow along on a on a journey with me here i want everybody to get your phone and go to uh the commander's coaching page okay um and i want to be a narrow enough thing so that you can scroll one at a time. Okay, so I'm going to give everybody a couple minutes, you know, Google Commander's Coaching staff, click on that bad boy. You'll see the picture of Dan Quinn at the top, and then we can all scroll together. We're going to go one by one.

So you see Dan Quinn and go down one. You see David Blow. Good looking young man. Sure. Okay. Doesn't necessarily look like an offensive coordinator, but that's fine. You'll go, David Blow. All right.

Let's go down again. Oh my god. He wants to say his name. It's not his fault. Well, it's not even the way that he looks. It's just a terrifying photo. It's a terrible picture. It's terrifying.

It's like, I mean, it looks like an absolute serial killer photo. Oh. That's special teams coordinator, Larry Izzo. Not the most flattering. The most flattering. clearly there's a there's a handsome man underneath that but the the presentation there's a a lot of former players uh as i'm going through this uh as i'm going through this this coaching

staff um a lot of like young former players so like willie gay is the the defense backs coach uh former ls ucton daly etling is the assistant qb's coach bob i see bobby engram and i think he but I think he's probably not as young. Yeah, he's been he's been coaching for a while now at this point. And Norton Jr. was playing yesterday. What's that? Ken Norton Jr. Yes, right.

Kennerton Jr. there. And also playing David Ray as the passing coordinator. So, you know, I, Darrell Tapp, former Eagle, assistant Deline coach, West Welker, offensive assistant. So, yeah, a bunch of former players on staff. How would you look if you had to coach that team, Randy says. that said of the other teams in the NFCs this is the one I have the least amount of confidence in now could they finish second in the division they could because like I said if they just a long quarterback comes on awesome if he's Ben Johnson then all of a sudden like uh you know that now

you're you're cooking with gas there but um and if jaden Daniels can stay healthy which is not a given uh so I think that that's the I would say like of the the most pivotal jenga pieces for that team i think david blouse is probably number one i think that's the one that makes or breaks their season honestly sounds familiar right well i think the eagle's floor is probably well i shouldn't say it's hot yeah the eagles floor is higher oh for sure the eagle floor is higher yeah so doing this exercise bottom line you feel better or worse about the eagle's chances um Probably the same. Yeah, I think that because it's about what I expected,

just kind of going through back, you know, going back through it. Just watching Dallas kind of go through the offseason, knowing what that offense looked like a year ago. And just saying like, all right, it's Christian Parker hoping that he can raise the floor and then just throw a bunch of talent at it to hopefully raise that ceiling. Yeah.

I mean, to me, they are, they are the front runners to, you know, best contend with the Eagles in the top of the division. I agree. All right, we'll take a break. We'll come back. We'll talk a little draft inside process with Fran as he builds next year's database. And also we don't know anything about it. New game.

Except that Lindsay thinks Fran is going to dominate. And obviously, I take umbrage to that. So find out what Lindsay's game is on the other side. My name is Bo Wolfe and Parks Casino is my casino of choice. Parks is a great place for a night of headline entertainment. and award-winning dining. You can make the night complete and stay at the new beautiful Parksview Hotel,

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The Eagles podcast. I think we should do the game now to our conversation. I agree. All right, Lindsay, we're bringing you in. I'm here. Can you hear me? You sickos don't get to see her face. I don't have a camera.

You don't deserve it. Anyway, so okay, this game is going to be, you're going to see mystery teams players that they drafted with like their college. Like you won't see the players. You'll see their college.

You might as to say like the game is going to be What is Fran's son's birthday? Hey, I came out with this idea And then Fran ended up being on the show I thought you were playing E-J So All right All right team number one

That's the team by their draft class Oh, okay, I got I get you Ooh This is one I should be able to get Players Is it an order? Yeah, this is an order like the top row and then across the bottom row is um all right so

georgia i'm like going through is this the cults man didn't have a first round pick i was going through i was like who are the georgia bulldog teams there who grew the bulldogs are my first okay good one good one this is the cardinals uh nice who's slew there Oh, oh, Southeast Louisiana. That was Caden Proctor or Caleb Proctor. Oh, nice. Giants. There we go.

Nice. And I didn't even know we were going to talk about the Giants today. So that was it. Lindsay, I think instead of you doing the basic, like, the basic, you know, like no, no picture of you. You should have tried to get a picture of Larry is out of me because you were. Oh, yeah. Did you follow along on that, Lindsay? I did because he started to do it and I was like all right let me see what he's

and did you have the same reaction not quite but you understood through her phone across the room okay is that it yeah just those three okay I'm glad I got one I think I just thought it be a little fun little side quest let the let the record show that I won the most prestigious of the Lindsay post-draft games. That doesn't even have a name yet. That's your job. Alma matters.

I think we've done that before. We did that when we were at our previous place of employment. Yeah. What was that game? The game was you would you went into the locker, you went into the locker room and we would get

like if so let's say Alabama was playing LSU that weekend. You'd get like an Alabama player and an LSU player. and like uh yeah it against each other and that's right classic classic classic uh 2013 philadelphia eagles dot com those are greats all right what's this conversation you want to have so it's the time of year where i'm just kind of like uh you know getting ready for the next you know the next football season next cycle right and so one of the things i'm to you know

when i'm going through draft prospects i'm going through uh lots of data points right and i use that 10 sample like oh the last 10 years of drafts like how these players all uh you know great against each other so i wanted to ask you and i thought i'd bring this to like the the d block of one of the upcoming shows and ej's in the chat so you know e j can chime in he could text me later if he's got any ideas of this as well um as we were going through uh 17 games instead of rookie season yeah we could talk through that one uh as well um and honestly for people in the chat like i want to i want to here here as well. But as we were going position by position, since we just did this, I wanted to ask you, since we just did in the last few weeks and going through all these

positions, are there specific data points that would be interesting to be able to look at? Right. So like, you know, I'll look at things where it's like, you know, you think of like pressure rate for pass rushers, right? Or like target share for receivers and things like, position by position, there are so many different data points out there. In some positions, there's more than others. And we have more at our disposal for, you know, wide receivers than we do for offensive linemen. But is there anything that kind of comes to mind that, hey,

like, it would be cool if we get to, when we talk about next year's version of Eli Stowers to be able to kind of put him, you know, compare what he does, uh, at his position to other guys in this class or guys that have come,

uh, in the, in the previous 10. So, um, you know, like for, for instance,

I just finished actually like, uh, my quarterback, uh, template is created for next year. So if I want to start, this weekend I can start watching like Arch Manning and start plugging that report in for next year's draft guide. Happy Mother's Day, Meg. I'm sorry Mr. Birthday for the draft, but I am ready to watch Arch Mating all day long on.

We're ready to go. Well, so what I did for a quarterback, one of the things I added, because that's the thing is that if I'm adding something, I got to take something out because I only have someone to spread. Yeah. So I don't, yeah, I'm not like, I try to beat your dishes about how much stuff because otherwise I'll go nuts. One of the things I added was on plays, and we talk about this a lot on the show when it comes to, like Jaila Hertz and some of the struggles he has had when on the place where he holds on the ball long because a lot of the best quarterbacks in the NFL hold the ball for four plus seconds. That's where the magic happens, right? So I want to be able to, I wanted to be able to show what do players do at the college level on those extended plays. So I added that in the amount of times where they hold the ball for four plus seconds and then how many positive

dropbacks do they have on those plays where they hold the ball for four plus seconds. So that's not something where actually going back through the last 10 years, there were some interesting stories that were told with looking at that. So I'll probably do that. I'll kind of dive into that in the newsletter, the All NFL draft newsletter this summer. But is there anything that comes to mind for you when you're like, all right, like position specific, what are some cool data points that could be looked at when it comes to the draft? Okay. Well, I'm sure there's a lot of things that you already have thought of. What did you take out at quarterback first? So what I took out a quarterback there was a third down number um i think it was like big time throw rate on third down

i looked at it i was like yeah i'm not really getting too much juice out of this one i already do like adjust the completion rate on third down i had a couple other third down metrics already um and then i too and you're not getting tracking data right this is yeah i don't get consistent tracking data that's the thing is i want to be able to use it with stuff where i get a good sample yeah i might get tracking data on seven guys the one thing i might do because now that the league makes tracking data available for the combine and now takes also tracking data, but it's only for the combine. But then also the Senior Bowl makes track some tracking data available.

It's like, all right, that's a decent sample that if I were to look back over like three years, but then it's still only a three year sample. So I've thought about adding that in there as well. Okay. There's a troll in the comments, I think. Because, no, no, no, no, no. You want a question? like that answered you got it's a super chat that's not a mailbag episode i didn't know you did

mailbag episodes i do superchats you do superchats you i will pay attention to your comment if it's a funny joke but this is not this is not ask an answer that's true that's a good point okay there's a diehard event coming up you can ask that question that okay all right it's a valid point point right uh quarterback quarterback i mean you are you already have um like dispersion of uh middle of the field yes stuff like that oh yeah so i have for middle the field it's how often you throw to the middle of field uh and what your efficiency is throwing to the middle of field so those are numbers i pull and a lot of them i will look at just the final season because what i found when i do stuff certain things when you look at over the course of a career this is definitely the case

with offensive lineman as well when you have quarterbacks that play that were four-year starters, their freshman year was so bad in a lot of these metrics that it's like it penalizes them, even though like that experience was really valuable. So I find it to be more informed of just to look at the, let's just look at the last final season on some of those numbers. So that is one where I find that to be the case. Okay. I feel like quarterback, I mean, you have already, you have already thought through so much.

It would be, I would be hard pressed to come up with something you haven't thought of. I mean is it like you have like tight window throws is that a thing that is tracked I don't they they they have tight window so the charting service that I have access to does look at receiver separation I struggle with it for quarterbacks at the college level because there are so many like some coaches are really really good at creating space schematically that I have found that I have found. that when I like kind of wet my beak with it and took a little peek behind it, I was like, I don't know if it's worth me going down further down that rabbit hole. I've looked at it with receivers and I use it for receivers in tight ends. What about this is harder to do in a singular set? But one thing I am curious about, and it's more about it's descriptive rather than prescriptive. It tells a story.

But I'm always curious about about like the target share. So like how narrow is the spread of targets that he is mostly. throwing to. We know that Jill and Hertz over the past three years has had a very narrow target share pretty much, you know, 85% of the targets have gone to three different guys. How much are they spreading the ball around? And sometimes that is due to injuries or whatever it is. But that would be an interesting one. Yeah. Let me see if I can look at, so basically, some of these things, it's like you ask a question and it's like, oh, can I, can I look that up? And then that's how, so that's why I wanted to have this conversation because you might ask

questions I haven't thought of and then it's like oh I can I can look that up that's an interesting that's an interesting stat so I'm not seeing anything that would take me there though unfortunately that's an interesting one though it's like all right well you know they they spent you know Fernando Mendoza through to Elijah Surrat Novart Novar Cooper Jr on you know 85% of his targets that would be that would be an interesting stat to look at I don't think I could do that easily though okay I wonder if there's like a what's your official when you take out all of the targets to your top target you love stuff like this yeah like the running back uh that's like the running back yards per character yeah yeah um hmm

oh yeah can i can i do that i don't know if that's good or bad because you know if you have jamaur chase you're throwing the ball a lot well yeah right so let's see um the only thing with stuff like that I probably could do it, but that would be a time-consuming one. Because I'd have to manually do that for every player. I think I could pull that, but it would be a manual, it would be a manual lever thing for that one. Okay. That's a good one.

Let's do a running back. I mean, I'm sure you have like broken tackle rate. Yeah, mistackles force, all that stuff. Yep. Was it it a mistackle miss tackle rate or is it total? So I've got a mistackles force per attempt. I've got yards after contact per attempt. The other one I really,

I've actually come to really like with running back is the what they do against loaded boxes. So against, you know, what their yards per car? What percentage of their yardage came against light boxes and what how much, what percentage of their carries came against.

light boxes. That's what I actually, I just added that last year and I find that to be very informative. Okay. I don't know. I don't know what else is coming to mind. Yeah. The one you have like for for rushers, you know how I feel about pressure rate, but can you do pressure rate but take out games? Well, one thing that you will like is that the service I use for for pressures, it is a very cut and dry definition. So let me just pull up, one of my guys. So if you are with the dragon's breath of the quarterback. Yeah, yes, correct.

No, it is basically the way that they define pressure is that it is just sacks, hits, and hurries together. Now, hurries is the subjective one, but it's just like, all right, Saxon hits. I actually could say if I wanted to just look at Saxon hits, I could do that too. But yeah, so it's a little bit more like cut and dry, black and white with the pressure rate stuff. But yeah, I do. I look at pressure rate, pass rush win rate, but then also all those on third down.

So like just said, what do they do on third down? What does that look like? Pass rushers are that's one where it's like there's a lot out there in turn. And plus the other one that I like with those is. like alignment based stuff like oh like you know over tackle over guards you know in the A gap like that kind of thing yeah there's so there's some good there's good numbers out there for for pass rushers and defensive alignment do you have a like a pet favorite stat to look up once you've once you've input at everybody one of the first things they're going to go look at the sorting on

uh yeah i like the one of the things all because so one of the things i've started to do is now that we've next-gen stats with the NFL has gotten so big and a lot of people are doing a lot of great work in that space. I try and like reverse engineer that for my college stuff. So, all right, what are the stats that a lot of people like throwing out? Maybe I'll share like on the post game show, right? Like after an Eagles game. It's all like quick pressures. It's like, all right, pressure that is two and a half seconds under.

All right. Well, I can look that up. So I've now generated, right? And those are pretty, that's not everything is predictive. A lot of stuff is descriptive. but the quick pressure rate number, that's usually, that actually is a pretty good through line

to guys that have had good success on which percentage. That feels like an indication of like athleticism, he would take, right? Yep, and just like, a win quickly kind of deal. Yeah. And so I always find that to be interesting.

It's like, who are the guys? Because like, you would think Arvel Reese's would be high. It's actually really, his was like really bad. David Bailey's was really high. Keldrick Fox was solid, which was disappointing given how many snaps he had inside, but we talked about what that usage looked like. Ruben Baines was really high this past year. T.J. Parker's was average.

So it definitely does tell a little bit of a story in terms of usage and then overall, like, effectiveness in terms of winning as a rusher. Cousin Grange is a good question. Can you take the reverse the pass rusher stats to learn about offensive line? And an answer, an answer, brand that will come in overtime. Go ahead. That's essentially what I've done with offensive linemen. And it's that the offensive line stats are the are absolutely the hardest to come by.

And they are definitely the least reliable. Like it's just, you know, it kind of is what it is. And so one of the things that I do like about the service that I use, no free ads for the company that I use. but the one of the things that's good about it is that I can say, all right, let me watch all the things that they are calling pressures and I can just go and watch them. So I take the data knowing that there's like margin for error like plus or minus with all of them. But at least then I can just go and like watch.

All right, let me watch everything they're calling a pressure aloud and see like, all right, what happened on those kind of plays. I thought that because they will break things out and you've seen some people, some analysts in the space start to share some of this. I want to get your thoughts on this one, though. if I told you Micah Morris of all of the

past rushes he faced and he gave up let me say how many pre you gave up one sec all right Michael Morris last year only gave up four pressures no sacks in his career he gave up 11 pressures

does it do anything for you at all to say like what moves he struggled with like inside move outside move kind of deal like would you like would you buy that I said, oh, like, that's interesting, or would you be like, eh, like, I don't know if I'm getting anything out of that? Well, it's about sample size, right? If it's, there's, yeah, 20.

We're talking to four losses overall. He gave them four pressures, like, all right, so two of them came on inside moves. Like, yeah, that's not doing much for it. That's less interesting. That's more of like, uh, I would want to pass it along to the coach. Yeah. I mean, but I don't know that it's. That's why I have not.

What do you think? I have, I have not put those into the sheet for that reason because it's like, also I think they're kind of still beta testing that at an individual. on this company. They're a little cut. They have not added that stuff in there. There was a question about run stops. Yes, the run stops from our friend E.J.

I guess the run stops, meaning like tackle made against the run that results in negative EPA for the offense. I actually really like that stat a lot. And I do incorporate that for every defensive, every defensive player in the front seven. So edge rushers, defensive tackles and linebackers. I'll look at run stop rate. So of their run defense snaps, how many run stops did they get per run defense snap?

That was a big one. We talked to remember Schmar Stewart last year, who was like extremely unproductive against the quarterback. He also was extremely unproductive against the run as well. I wasn't creating any run stuff either. So it's like, all right, well, what exactly do you do? So that was a big point last year. Fran, Super Chat.

from a paying customer CDP says who does Siriani miss more stout or haliby Haliby yeah I would imagine that well that might be the case yeah

Siriani for sure yeah that's probably right no doubt about it I was talking to oh I was talking to oh I was talking to Cuzz this morning on the show about the first non-stout

practice experience. Okay. He thought it was funny too. Yeah. That's, I was listening to that episode as I was doing dinner. I was making dinner that night. And I was,

that was a rough listen. I'm with you on that one. I mean, it's a lizard part of my brain. Of course. That is not a real thing to believe, but it's very funny. Yeah. All right. Good stuff, everybody.

Yeah. What are you most? about when the schedule comes out? Yeah, I always look at like, bye week, holidays, you do that first. I'm very interested to see what the schedule for this team, I think what's most important for the Eagles is what the schedule looks like out of the gate.

Because I would imagine that there's going to be some growing pains offensively, just natural, like natural growing pains there. I don't think that this team can afford like a really bad start, though. like in the win-loss column, just because I think things could snowball quickly, like with everything around the team. And so I'll be fascinated to see what the schedule looks like in the first, like, six or seven weeks.

I don't think you want there to be like a murderous row early. I think you want the schedule a crescendo a bit. Hangary Dogs says, are there any virtual seats for this doing guys with Fran event? Unfortunately, this one is in-person only. But we thank you for the question. And I think we'll effort to make something happen virtually again. Yeah, I did the virtual Q&A right before the draft.

So I think we could do something similar after. Yeah. Okay. It's good call out. Wedding local or is it you traveling for this wedding tomorrow? Local, but suburb. So it might as well be getting on a plane. I mean, it might as well be in Virginia.

Yeah, it'll sure it'll be fun though. Looking forward to it. Yeah, I'm sure it'll be a blast. Someone you know. Oh, wow. Or flex. Yeah. Someone I know.

Wow. Okay. I will tell you afterwards. Got it. Not that it's not a shot to them. Yeah. All right. Shout out to Catherine.

That's all we got. On the P.H.O.I. Eagle Show. Back on. Monday at 2 o'clock all next week. We have not yet decided exactly what we're going to do for the schedule release. Usually we go primetime. We might do that. We'll see.

Stay tuned. But until then, enjoy our weekend, everybody. Happy Mother's Day to everybody out there. And as always, we love you.