PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Can Jalen Hurts have a great moment for the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday? | PHLY Sports

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith and Lane Johnson are supposed to be back on offense against Jim Schwartz’s Cleveland Browns defense. Now that he and Nick Sirianni are back in good graces, Jalen Hurts is the man in focus once again.Deniz Selman joins Bo Wulf for a game preview like only he can give before Zach Berman joins live from NovaCare. 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 the P.HLY Eagles podcast on a Friday, 2 o'clock, presented by Bet365. Download the Bet365 app and use code. PHLY365 when you sign up, whatever the moment, it's never ordinary at Bet365. We've got a lot to talk about. It's a football Friday. The Eagles back home on Sunday, 1 o'clock against the Mighty Michael Duns and the Cleveland Browns. We've got the professor. Dane is in studio. We've got Claire in the chat. We've got Fran in the chat. We've got Phil in the chat.

The sickos are all here. We're ready to talk ball. Danis, how you doing? I'm doing great. I got to get away during the bye week. Emily and I went to New Orleans. Nice. Just the two of us.

And yeah, it was a nice break from, you know, I love being back here, but it was a nice, nice break from thinking about the Eagles for a few days. And as you were, you know, I'm sure. going to nice restaurants, watching, listening to some music, out and about. Were you asking everybody in town

why Clint Kubiak kept in staying in big personnel against the Eagles? Well, it's funny. One thing we discovered while we were in New Orleans is that like half the people who at least work in the restaurant

and bar industry in New Orleans are from Philly. Like, you know, we were both walking around in Eagle Sats and stuff. And so people would immediately be like, oh, like I'm from Delco or whatever. And so, like, there was a lot of Eagles talk.

Didn't talk specifically about Clint-Cubi-Ack, though. I imagine you wanted to. We did see Fred Johnson at the airport when we came back. I feel like this is not the first time you've seen Fred. And by the way, red in Fred. Incredible Wolf's Den today. Is in there. But, yes, I mean, it's a big, it's a color war this week.

Browns against the Eagles, but the Eagles have two browns already on the team. Did you do an analysis of the Browns roster? They don't have as many colors. Oh, okay. No reds, no browns. So, yeah, Eagles have the advantage there. But yes, you've seen Fred in the wild quite a bit. I've seen Fred Johnson now three different times, completely independent of each other.

In the wild, I have not seen anyone else associated with the Eagles. Have you spoken to it? During that time span. No. Now, the first time. It's a little creepy now. By the third time, you've got to at least pull up on them and say, the swing tackle. I'm not hiding behind the bushes or anything.

Well, the first time, Emily and I were at the dinner, and he was at the next table by himself. He had just signed to the practice squad like a week before. And so I'm very familiar with Eagles players and what they look like and whatnot. But even I had to confirm, I was like, I think that's a guy from the Eagles practice squad. I had to check who it was. And immediately, I looked at the photos on the website. Now, Fred is a man of bulk and heft. And so he's, yeah, you're.

People are going to be wondering who that is most places he goes. But that time I was especially proud because he had been on the Eagles practice squad for a week. Okay. And I was like, okay, that's for. And this is, of course, back in the days when there was Fred versus Roderick, who was who, which ones, which. That's right. Yeah. Johnson and Johnson, of course.

That's exactly the kind of thing I was trying to confirm with the website. But then, yeah, two times I've now seen him at the airport. One was at the end of OTAs. I guess he was headed out of town then. and then this one at the end of the bi-week headed back into town. And Emily pointed out that maybe the reason you see Fred Johnson all the time is because you weirdly also schedule your travel around like all the Eagles by week and stuff, which is not normal behavior for a fan.

But in another life, you can imagine Fred Johnson at the airport. I mean, who would be a better prospect as a person to wave in the planes than him? I mean, the size. You don't think the swing tackle thing's going to work out. I'm just saying in another life. You know? Just like, you know, the Eagles are scouring the globe for these athletic marvels in Australia, these guys.

Don't you imagine that, you know, airports should be doing the same? I'm going to stay away from this one. I'm not sure what other qualities you need to have to do that job. Well, okay. I feel like it's just like a public health, public safety kind of deal. Yeah, yeah. It's precisely for that reason. Let's get our biggest and our best.

Yeah, maybe that's the problem. I mean, don't you think? Yeah, look at past accidents of airplanes accidentally running into the airport and see if the problem was that that guy was too short. Well, that's the thing, though, is you do have to think about from the airline or from the airport's perspective,

you know, Zach will tell us that maybe short term you would want the bigger guys, but that's going to mean more turnover because the lights band. Yeah, so if you hire short, you're going to have less turnover. You hire Zach, it's possible. and no one's going to see him, but he will be there. Forever.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay. Good stuff. Everybody ready for the game? I feel like we've set it up pretty well. All right. Now there is news, Professor, from the locker room.

Devante Smith and Johnny Wilson, who were both still in the concussion protocol, have been cleared. That means that in this game, most importantly for the Eagles offense, which has been without its full complement of stars since, Week one, they will have AJ Brown, Devante Smith, and Lane Johnson back for this game. That's got to make you feel pretty good. Oh, yeah. I mean, obviously that's what everyone's talking about because those three players are like three of the best five players on the team. And they both, you know, all three of them missed the last game. So yeah, absolutely.

I am, I am, you know, following the nature of this show, like, I wanted to ask you about whether you think they'll be happy with just four wide receivers dressed. or Paris Campbell is out of elevations do they add him to the 53 using the open spot vacated by Devin White? So they have an open spot right now because of the Devin White release

or is Sidney Brown ready to come back? Well that's the thing or do you just you keep it open because you're expecting next week you're going to bring up Sidney Brown. Yeah. If you do it now with Campbell then

you know next week if you want Brown up you've got to cut somebody i kind of i kind of lean towards they're just going to leave it open this week interesting what do you think that would surprise me to just leave it open completely i was thinking either sydney brown is ready and just just bring him up or they don't like just having four wide receivers dressed when two of them are coming back from injury yeah and and bringing up the yeah they did go with four last game but you know it kind of not that i don't know how much i'm mattered given the way the game went but two of them were out for parts of the game right and they had to play entire series of 12 personnel for that reason right now you could argue like what's the

difference like it was going to be you know but uh well seriously though like is paris gamble is there a huge delta between paris campbell being on the field versus them just having you know cockatara on the field yeah you know can well shippley get out there i don't know the seriani said in the presser today that his his numbers people told him that's it's paris can't Parris Campbell had eight catches on eight targets. It's good that they're diving so deep into the non-public metrics there that they're reporting to Sieriani that Paris Campbell has eight catches on eight targets.

Yeah, you got to, that's, that is it. I feel like that's probably not the numbers, people. I don't know. I don't know. And if so, are they happy with the fact that that's the way that they're being used? The numbers people should be telling them about the midnight green uniform numbers. Okay. You know, since we're starting off the show with a bunch of nonsense,

13 and 16. Give us the esoterica. 13 and 16 now with the Midnight Greens under Siriani, 25 and 6 otherwise. Like, I mean, what are we at this week? I'm not claiming, oh, it's Midnight Green on White again. Okay. And I'm not claiming causality here, but it's crazy.

But you also think it's statistically significant enough now that there's something fishy going on. I'm surprised given the amount of superstition that I know sports teams, organizations tend to have. that they're not at least trying like a different pants with the jersey or something. Like that they're still going with the exact same, you know, combination. And what would you recommend? I would love to see Midnight Green on black once. We've never seen it. Okay.

Ever. They've never done it. All green. I'm not into the all one color thing, but it would be something. Every other team in the league seems to do a lot of things like that. Yeah, they did that way back in the day, like in the vet. How about Midnight Green jerseys? pants. I mean, the way the season's going, that might be like a punishment or something, you know,

as opposed to a celebration? I know, we'll see. Okay. Well, good thing we didn't have anything to talk about today. Yeah, good thing we didn't have anything to talk about. Now, quickly for the Browns, meanwhile, things go in the other direction for them injury-wise. They are going to be without both safeties or starting safeties at least in this game, Grant Delpit and Ronnie Hickman. That means that presumably old friend Rodney McLeod is going to be getting the start. They're banged up all over the place. Offensive line, they've been banged up and continued to be banged up. Jordan Hicks is questionable.

So especially on the defensive side of the ball, another old friend, Jim Schwartz, is sort of working with some spare parts. Yeah, and Schwartz, as people will remember from his time here, likes to use three safeties a lot as well. It brings in a third safety as a big nickel and also in big dime. That had been Rodney McLeod. He was the third safety.

as you mentioned. He now has to start along with second year UDFA D. Anthony Bell who's their fourth safety who played a few snaps last week. But I mean, he had to come on as the third guy because one of the safeties was hurt. Most of the Hickman was out almost the whole game last week. So we got a sense of how they play with that. Delpit is a guy who is like a tight end matchup

plays in the box kind of guy. And I'm not sure if they're going to be comfortable using D. Anthony Bell that way, McLeod at the current age that he's at. I don't know if you want him that way either. So, yeah, I don't know. It would be interesting. There was a nice moment in the game yesterday, just in the game last week watching on film

when Zach Ertz dropped a ball and McLeod kind of taunted him afterwards. And I thought that was like a very cute moment for like, you know, fans of the 2017. Yeah, where does Rodney McLeod rank is unfair? But, you know, how high esteem do you hold him in? I was a much bigger Rodney McLeodd fan, I think, than the average, average Eagles fan.

I thought you're a bigger most things. Well, no, no, but relatively. That's true. I'm bigger Fred Johnson fan. Yeah. No, I think Rodney McLeod, I went to UVA and so did he, but I will, full disclosure on that, but that's not why. Like, I don't follow UVA football at all. Like, I didn't watch him play a single game of UVA football.

So that's not the reason. What's not? Now Zach's going to be mad, but go ahead. Oh, yeah, because I'm not, yeah, I'm just not into college football. We've talked about that. But when I was in college, I watched college football. That's, that's, that's, that's, and, and, and when I was in high school, I watched high school football. Okay.

And I think, and I thought, and I thought, and now that you're in the NFL, you're watching NFL football. And now that I'm a professional, I watch professional football. See, I think that this is like the appropriate, like, you know, you don't watch like seventh grade basketball, like once you're not in seventh grade or you know, have a seventh grader or something. But anyway, like, I just, I just think. Speak for yourself. No, well, I don't, I don't want to get into that. But, um, the, uh, Rodney McCloud, Malcolm Jenkins combination. was awesome and I thought they complimented each other really well and because Malcolm

Jenkins was like the coolest you know eagle ever it took away a little bit I think so right yeah I think he was one of the more underrated players from that from those teams based on like him actually being very good yes and there were certain actually like his best season might have been I don't remember if it was 18 or 19 yeah it was one of those when the team wasn't as good but he was just having like an incredible year overlapping zones, like doing a bunch of things that, like, I didn't really know he could do so well. And it's really impressive that he's still in the league, too. Yeah, I agree with that.

All right. Let's talk about this matchup, this side of the ball. He goes offense against the Brown's defense, which we touched on yesterday with Fran. But the things that are on your mind, and I guess your faith that getting those three stars back is going to be enough of a salve that we're going to see a high-powered offense on Sunday. I mean, like, playing against a good defense, like, there's no guarantee that that's going to be the case. I have, like, bigger kind of philosophical, fundamental questions about this offense. Sure, let's talk about it.

You know, and look, I haven't been here in two weeks, and you guys have talked about it a lot in two weeks, so I don't want to repeat too many of the things you said. But I have been wondering, like, about your comment coming into the season about the frankenstining of the coach. Yeah, right, especially on offense. Like on, on defense, you know, they brought in a bunch of guys, Vanjo brought in a bunch of his guys, whatever. On offense, it's like they brought in an O.C. and a quarterback's coach. Totally.

Who seemed to be the people that the quarterback talks to. But then everybody else, yeah, the past game coordinator who seems kind of important. Like, wouldn't you want the past game coordinator to be someone the offense coordinator wanted to have? Like, and the past game coordinator is Kevin Petulow, who's like Siriani's guy. Well, and Zach, as Zach told us on his Garrett Nussmeyer story on all PHOI this week, that is one of his main jobs is to call Nick out when he's being an A-hole. Yeah, which is probably very often.

So it's probably like a hard job. But look, I just don't like. I think this is right, though. It gets to the, like, who is running the offense, where are the bones of the offense being put together, the foundation. and when they have corrections to make, it doesn't even have to be that Nick is coming in over the top and saying, I think we should be doing this.

It's that the guys who built the offense that last year underperformed, those guys are still here. And so their answers are some of the same answers that didn't work last year. Exactly. And, you know, it's not all about like counting the number of times they've been under center and things like that. I know that's what the metrics tell you. But I tweeted a threat earlier this week about the under center usage

and the play action out of it and all of that and just compared this year's Eagles to past year's Eagles and then you know, Kellen Moore's passed. This year the Eagles are 32nd in under center usage. More on that in a second, by the way. There might be a good reason for that given how that's gone. 29th in pass rate when they are under center.

And that's because like a lot of them are quarterback sneaks and things like that as well. Kellen Moore in his four years as the Dallas offense coordinator was 40% under center. as opposed to 10% this year for the Eagles, including the quarterback sneaks,

and above average in passing when under center as well. So a decent amount of play action, under center play action. If you break it all down, about one out of every eight plays under Kellyn Moore while he was in Dallas, was an under center play action pass. The Eagles have six such plays this season, total,

in four games. And when it comes to why, like it's very like like the the first thing you think is like well syriani is still calling it shots like syriani's still or patulo or whatever like the seriani part of the offensive coaching staff right is still making these determinations the other big theory is the quarterback doesn't like it i think i lean on that specific thing towards the quarterback because we know that you know kellemore can do it right to me that that speaks to i i'm guessing that that's like a jalen hurts comfortability thing and you think that Kellyn Moore showed up tried to install it and it just

didn't go well in practice or Jalen said he didn't want to do it or something like how does that work I would imagine that it's this part of the process of yeah like what do you like are you comfortable with this okay and they go through it and Jalen thinks that he's not super comfortable with it interesting I don't know that is that is that is pure speculation now the quarterback on under center runs just hands the ball off right you would you would think he doesn't have that much of a preference with that part of the of the playbook so I went back and I just looked at all but does that that but all of those so many of those runs are our tush pushes right no no no like running back runs okay running back runs from under center so

so here's what I did I went back and looked at all of the plays where the Eagles ran on real plays from under Sun so nine quarterback sneaks five kneel downs one spike take those out okay 13 plays left over so it didn't take me that long to look at them seven of those were Sequin Berkeley runs from under center. Most of them were some sort of gap scheme. On those seven carries, the Eagles got six yards total. Okay. Were these all like short yard situations? Oh, interesting. No, they were mostly, they were almost all like first and ten. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. And then six dropbacks, two for five passing for three yards and a sack for minus four yards. That adds up to minus one yard. Okay.

Were they all play action, the dropbacks? Yeah, but it's like that like two of them were like the one, Berkeley flats. Oh, yes, yes. Yeah, yeah. But they were, there was a catch for Dallas. Catch by Dallas Scott or minus one yard that the defense was all over. A sack where like the play just broke down, whatever. 13 plays total from under center that they run.

And if you were wondering how they break down by week, it was 4, 4, 3, 2. So like, they've used it every week. Two for 13 success rate and five yards. Not five yards per play. Five yards total on 13 plays. So you know coaches. get spooked when things don't work, I'm wondering if some of it is just that like, we suck at this. Yeah.

Like, it's not just that like, you know, good quarterback doesn't like it or it's not in the playbook or whatever. Yeah. It's like, like, we're losing five yards on these runs because we don't know how to block it or we don't practice it or whatever. It's also the thing that was responsible for the most traumatic play of the season. When the sake one drop. Oh, yes, the drop.

Right. The drop on fourth down or third down. So maybe that's why they just, yeah, it brings up bad juju. And the very first play of the season. When Seekwon slipped and lost five yards was one of these. And maybe that was a sign of things to come. Like this under center thing is not going to work. Okay.

You got anything else there? Yeah, I'm going to move on. Yeah, the one other thing about the offense that was a big talking point coming into the season was motion. And I thought that this might be an interesting question to post for Fran, like maybe next week or something. And Wednesday's presser, Siriani was asked about why they have used less and less motion during the season. and he gave a bunch of coach speak like you know it's game plan opponent whatever but i thought one interesting thing he said was some games we want to use more tempo and then he said and i'm not going to tell you whether that has anything to do with how much motion we did it was like very clearly

saying that he thinks of those two things as substitutes it's like if we're not or at least that if they're using tempo they can't use motion now the eagles are fourth in the league at no huddle rate at 23% um and when you look league wide, you can see that the higher no huddle teams use less motion. Like, Washington is like more than half no huddle and they're like 29th in motion. Okay. Like, like, so you do see that. Some of it's like, when you're trailing in games and you're trying to go faster, whatever. I've never fully understood why tempo means you can't run interesting plays. Right. Like the Chip Kelly years drove me crazy. It was like, well, they're hustling to the line. That doesn't mean you have to run inside zone like every

single time. Like, you know, like you can hustle to the line and then run an interesting play. In fact, one of the great ways that you can use tempo is you can get to the line quickly and then you're playing with the defense They don't know when you're going to stop the ball you can use motion and all kinds of things like and so I thought that that would be an interesting question For Fran but just something to keep in mind going forward and to me that speaks to Motion in this offense is still Something that is like appendaged on right? It is not but it didn't look like that week one didn't look like that That's the thing. It's like,

where there like four concepts that Killenmore came up with and they used them week one and then they just like, they're out of things now? I mean, that just seems impossible to me. Like,

there's got to be a part of that playbook. Yeah. That has interesting usage of motion. But what I mean by that is it's not. Only A.J. Brown can do it. Let's hope. Yeah. But it's not,

it's not foundational. It's not part of the way that the offense was built. And that's like the Frankenstining of it, right? And so if they're going fast, it's like they have to think, about the way that they're using motion.

You know what I mean? Like they can't play fast and worry about what everybody's supposed to do in motion because not everybody is comfortable with it yet, maybe including the quarterback. I hope so. The Eagles are 20, they're exactly at 50% motion this year. They're 26th.

So like, you know, coming into the season, we were like, they're not going to be 32nd this year. And they're not, but they're 26th. And now some of it is watered down, I think, by,

I think they just didn't think like John Ross, like, knew very many plays. you know what I mean like like it was here all you was here the whole off season that's a good point yeah I don't know I don't know what it is all right but watching the end of that that's why because it I mean the last felt like if you don't have a j. Brown and you know when you don't have Devante Smith either like let's turn that dial up like let's try to get these guys who are not as talented some kind of advantage in the offense and instead it was the opposite the fourth quarter of that Tampa Bay film the game's out of reach eagles are down by 17 with the ball so you can argue

It's garbage time, who cares. But I meticulously chart every play anyway. And it was so funny to chart what the Eagles were doing and what Tampa Bay was doing. The Eagles were running two by two sets where all four guys are running like curls, like basically on every play. And then Todd Bowles is running like some of the most exotic.

Exotic, like cover two invert. Let's get the stuff on tape. Exchange pressure, like both defensive tackles dropping out. And like both the nickel and the safety blitz. You think he hates Jalen Hertz? I mean, I don't know what it is, but like he was having the time of his life. Like, it's like Tampa Bay is running some of the most complicated defenses and executing them perfectly where everyone ends up exactly in the right place. And they just end up in cover too, but like everyone's in a position you wouldn't expect.

Meanwhile, the Eagles aren't even planning to do anything like on the play. Like they don't need to be fooled or anything. Like it was just very funny. Like the difference in in like coaching level at that point. And again, it might be just because the Eagles weren't trying anymore. but it was a little bit embarrassing to see that. All right. Well, we have more to talk about on this side of the ball

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Ready, set, go to constant contact.com slash all city and start your free trial today. Go to constant contact.com slash all city for your free trial. All right, Dennis, let's talk about the quarterback. Yeah. One Jalen Hertz. And your thoughts on the way that he is performing when in rhythm versus out of structure and sort of the time to throw a breakdown. Yeah, so a lot has been made about.

how he's holding the ball a lot and that's leading to turnovers and that's certainly true. I looked at the next gen numbers on what happens when he gets rid of the ball under two and a half seconds versus when he doesn't. He's seventh in the league and EPA per dropback when he gets rid of the ball quickly this year, you know, under two and a half seconds. The problem is only 35% of his throws have been quick like that. And so, and he's 23rd when he holds it long in part because of the turnovers. Now, it was, yeah.

And I was going to say, first of all, it tracks with the eye test. Yes. Second of all, we talked about this, I think, earlier this season after week one or week two, how it was similar. And this also tracks with him historically. This has been the case for him over his career. Well, that's the thing that was interesting. When I looked at the breakdown by year at these exact things. So basically I'm looking at how good he was on quick throws, how good he was on slower throws, and then how often he threw quick.

So three different things. And so this year, again, he's good when he gets it rid of it quickly. He was, he's bad otherwise, and he's not getting rid of it quickly very often. When you go back to his first season, 2021, he also didn't get rid of it very quickly, but his most productive plays came on those longer, you know, weight to create, you know, kind of thing. He was 30th on quick dropbacks. Interesting. And seventh on the longer developing dropbacks.

Now, this is EPA per dropback, which is all I have access to from next gen. It's not success, right? So like turnovers could be doing a lot of this. Like I'm not sure. In 2022, his best season, it was more like this year where he was very good on quick, not as good. It was eighth and quick and 17th otherwise. But the big outlier number on this whole thing is in 2022, 47% of his dropbacks were under

two and a half seconds. Going through his four years, that number has been 35 and then up to 47 and then 39 and 35 again. So that was the one year that the biggest difference in all these numbers is that in 2022 he was getting rid of the ball quickly and that was his best season and you look at last year was actually more like 2021 where he was he wasn't that good on the quick draft tax and he wasn't getting rid of it quickly either. Just the eye test though tells you that the the quick answers like on some of the blitzes and stuff like we've seen it but just on average on regular. dropback plays, he's not getting rid of the ball quickly. And sometimes it's because there's just nobody open. You can't really tell like what he's supposed to do in the Tampa Bay game in particular. Guys were running like very lazy, slow routes at times. I know it was hot and all that. But like, you know, the play design seemed pretty good. But like the timing was off because guys didn't seem to be

expecting to get the ball. You know, things like that. Sometimes it's not on him. Other times it's like, yeah, there's a guy and he just doesn't throw it. And you're just or he doesn't even read that side or something like that and Fran was getting into some of that in his breakdown. I think for this offense to reach its potential, it can't just be Jalen's waiting for AJ Brown to get to a point on the field and throw him a jump ball, right? Like, it just can't be that. I mean, I know it was that at times in 2022, but I'm just not sure like if just those guys coming back is going to is going to do it.

Now at the same time, I think there is some hope there because if you're trying to explain those numbers, it doesn't have to be either or, but the two obvious explanations are either the structure of the offense was much better in 2022 or Jalen is hesitant and is not willing to pull the trigger quickly onto tighter window throws. And so when you get A.J. Brown and DeVante Smith back, theoretically, he will be a little bit more willing to throw the ball quicker because he trusts those guys more. Hopefully. Hopefully that's right. We don't know that. This game might not be the game for that. Just because Schwartz plays a lot of man and press man and things. like that and and jim schwartz i mean did not play this much man coverage when he was here he also

didn't blitz that much when he was here like like there are certain things about this defense that are a little bit different um they play the most man coverage in the league at at 47 percent of the time on dropbacks that's number one in the league um they're also third in the league at blitzing uh which which is not what we think of from jim schwartz and 11 percent big blitz on dropbacks that's fourth in league. And so, and he's not as into that, like, exchange stuff. Like, he's adding guys to the four. He's not putting, like, you know, Miles Garrett isn't dropping into coverage.

Like, like, they're rushing all four guys and adding on to that. Which is what Fran was talking about, why there is some invitation for the offense to turn that into big plays potentially. Exactly. Especially. Right. And 60% of those blitzes are man blitzes, which Fran referenced. And so, yeah, if the guy misses a tackle or whatever.

So yeah, maybe the blitzing will lead to the need to throw more quickly. But the man coverage and the amount of press man they play, you're not going to have those quick hitches available against Jim Schwartz typically. Well, let's turn this to Schwartz because I feel like if anybody has enjoyed this week's shows more than Jim Schwartz, I don't know who it is because he's got his flowers from Vinny Curry on Tuesday. He got him from Fran yesterday and he's about to get him from you again. Jim Schwartz is awesome. I always said that.

I always thought that I never understood people like badmouthing him talking about like the picket fence and all that kind of I was surprised actually that that sticks defense was not a swooper

item yesterday for anybody I also considered at one point like Jim Schwartz slams his what's it called his what's the thing that you write on the like a notepad?

Yeah his clipboard he slams his clipboard down either in celebration or frustration. Right, right. I feel like that's a Jim Schwartz thing. No, he's got those great sunglasses. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, just great vibes.

Yeah. Total badass. 2016 to 2020 is when Jim Schwartz was here, right? That's five years. Would you say that during those five years he had like an incredible defensive roster? Would you say that the general manager gave him incredible cornerbacks like Leotis McKelvin starting linebackers? His linebackers were.

pretty good. All right. I mean, Nigel and, and I guess not Hicks. But this is all five years. 16 through 2020.

Yeah. The numbers during those five years, overall, the Eagles compared to the rest of the league, Eagles defense eighth in EPA per drive. This is on defense. Third in series conversion rate. That's how often you let the other team get first downs.

Third in that, in the whole league during the time he was here. Sixth in success rate, eighth in points per drive, and sixth in red zone. percentage. Top 10 in five categories that I would say are maybe the five categories I look at before any others.

Like I did not cherry pick these. These are like the first five I looked at. Eagles defense since Jim Schwartz left, there have been technically four different defensive coordinators. Technically. Technically. I know. I don't want to count Gannon either, but you know, what can you do?

Actually, was Patricia actually technically the defense coordinator? No, but he wasn't, right? We did the defense coordinator of presser, so that counts. Okay, that's fair. Yeah. 21st in EPA per drive. Remember, it was 8th undersworts. 21st since.

Series conversion rate. Third under Schwartz, 29th since. Success rate, 6th undershorts, 28th since. Points per drive, kind of important stat. 8th under Schwartz, 25th since. And the red zone, 6th undershorts, 25th cents. And you would argue that on paper, the personnel probably better. I mean, maybe.

I mean, it's not definitely not noticeably worse. Yeah. And so this is the reality of Jim Schwartz versus this like weird myth of Jim Schwartz of like, oh, you know, just because Corey Graham didn't stand in the right place in Tennessee one time. Doesn't mean. That wasn't even the sticks. Wasn't even the sticks defense, by the way.

It was just regular cover three and he was just standing in the wrong place. Anyway, like his consistency with those not very good rosters. at times. And he had like top 10 DVOA defense in 2016 with no players is something that we're not even haven't been close to seeing since. And I know 2022 the defense looked good on paper because they managed to not schedule a single good quarterback until the Super Bowl. But like, yeah, I mean, it just just we miss that.

I mean like and I also think this bothers me a little bit too with the Jalen Hart's Siri on anything if the chat and like people on Twitter and stuff get on. me about anything the most it's because I tend to defend Siriani and Jalen more than more than other people this is what Siriani and Jalen have on the defensive side of the ball I just told you the numbers 24 ninth 28th 25th like the defense has sucked while Sirianney and Jalen have been here and they have won games at an incredible rate and and the defense is something that they can't control I'm just mixed the head coach

the whole football team look I'm not look look I called Nick a clown last week I stand behind that no I liked his explanation loved his explanation today about what makes the poster and what doesn't make the poster and that was incredible. I thought that was totally reasonable. It was, you know, it was three minutes of an explanation that could have lasted two sentences. He's a ball like this.

Anyway, I just, I just think the, his point was that the entire, the things that are up in the team meeting room are things that apply to the entire team. All right, we don't need to argue about that, but I do, I do think that the big picture of the defense was really good in the previous era. And it's been terrible in this era is something that should be noted when evaluating

whether the quarterback and coach are capable of winning games. Okay, but the coach is at least in theory responsible for who he's hiring on defense. He's not hiring anybody. Well, I know he's not, not now, but he was. They don't let him hire anybody. You know that they don't let him hire anybody. Why are you? They let him hire D.K. McDonald.

They let him bring Kevin Petul. low is buddy all right all right um well let's let's pivot from shorts to the current defensive coordinator yeah a man who i probably maybe has a a higher opinion league wide and vic fangio than then jim shorts whether that's earned or not uh yeah we're in the buy you're coming out of the the new orleans haze yeah how do you feel about this defense what worries you my first takeaway from watching the Tampa bay game was is this defense like fundamentally philosophically flawed against the quick game, right? Because it seemed like Mayfield's just getting the wall, like, you know, all those numbers, next-gen numbers on how quickly you got it out and everything.

You can see it on the film. They're throwing zero routes. They're throwing quick edges. They're throwing to the jet motion guy, like, behind the line of scrimmage and all that. And so I was thinking, like, is this an issue just based on philosophy, right? So I went to the ultimate source on all fan geotopics. Sean Syedad texted him late last night. Never heard of him. Sean Syed, by the way, and this is something that, so, you know, the person I bother the most about X's and those questions is Fran. Fran always gets back to me right away with a very detailed answer. Sean Syed, same thing.

Unbelievably quick, detailed, doesn't matter what time a day it is. And it reminded me of, you know, being in academia, I can tell you that there's this thought that if you're like a Nobel Prize, candidate economist or something with like you're very important person you're like the king of your domain you're probably not going to have time to talk to grad students or talk to young faculty and things like that it is exactly the opposite the people who are the most accomplished are also the ones who are the most comfortable with their own status and willing to share their time and their expertise with others when i was a grad student and when i was a young faculty member the people who were the most responsive and helped me the most accomplished people it's the ones who are the most accomplished people it's the ones who

aren't comfortable with who they are that are trying to gain importance. Yeah, it's like, oh, if I don't answer this text, that'll make me seem more important kind of thing. And I just want to shout out Fran and Sean Syed. I think they're both kings of their domain and what they do. And they're both also very responsive.

So I just wanted to thank both of them. And obviously, we talk about how great Fran is all the time. I'm not a great responder. I asked, well, yeah. Now that's not necessarily for. respond to me. I don't know how much you respond to others. Well, but this is more about like text. No, but I'm talking about people who don't respond for a week just and then write like, oh, sorry, I was busy or whatever. And it's like, you know, really, but whatever.

Yeah, sure. What I asked Sean Zayed, sorry about that like weird interlude there, is I asked him, would you say there's a consistent history of Fangio's defense is struggling against the quick game, like based on just how it's structured and cornerbacks can play off. You know, Fangio said himself, like the cornerbacks have freedom to play tighter. So maybe that's it. But is there something about the general Fangio structure of starting with two high safeties and giving up a lot of cushion more often than, say, a Jim Schwartz defense, which never plays with two high safeties, always starts with one safety in the post.

Even when they play cover two, they start with one in the post and usually invert it or something like that. Is there something about that structure? that lends itself to being open to quick throws. And Siyah, John immediately got back to me with some numbers on this. He said, if you look at the quick throw success of opponents, the Eagles are like 18th this year in that number, looking at it by EPA per dropback.

Last year, Miami was 14th. But then if you look back at the Denver years, they were top 10 every time. So there's no consistency that way. and he thinks that the main reason is because in past stops, his corners were playing tighter and that he thinks it's more of a player thing

and he said that if you could measure like after the safety is rotated and everybody's in position, if you measure the distance between the corner and the wide receiver, he thinks watching this year's Eagles team that these corners are just playing further off. And he doesn't think that that's like a Fangio philosophy thing. Now he did also say that if you look at throws behind the line, of scrimmage, so checking it down to the running back, you know, things like that.

The Eagles this year are 20th and EPA per drop back in that number and Miami was 29th last year, Denver wasn't that good either. He does think that that's one where Fangio philosophically allows those throws and then using his words, using Sean's words, he said, roll the dice on making the tackle. And we know that this year, between CJGJ and Nicobie and a bunch of other guy, Avanti Maddox, like we've seen big miss tackles that have let to big plays and that obviously is what's driving these numbers. Shout out to Sean.

Yeah, totally. So the question, so the question is now he's like, you know, next time I text him, he's like, not going to text me because he's like, I guess the question is then like, if it's not the, if that's something that can be cleaned up by just telling the corners to play tighter. And by the way, the outside corners are talented. They should be. They should be good, yeah.

The strengths of the defense in terms of the roster makeup. That is what it's frustrating to me, I think. Yes. So you wonder, and it didn't look like, I don't know, like, it's hard to tell. when you when you just look at it on film like is is quinyon mitchell like standing nine yards off because of because he's afraid of chris godwin doesn't seem like kind of guy would be afraid of chris godwin you know what i mean so it's like it's like what's the reason for this the other thing fran mentioned the other day which you're seeing a lot is guys just not

communicating you know like oante maddox is turning around and he's like you know like what on earth like who's supposed to have him you know and it's hard to tell too you watch and you're like was the keelir wringo messed that up there was like a snap of two-man on dime, which he used a lot last week for some reason. First time I've ever seen Fangio, like at least in the time that he's here, hadn't used that before. And those snaps were awful. Like, I mean, like, guys think that they're passing each other off. They weren't. Guys were running wide open. And this goes to the thing that, you know, I've heard Sheal reference as well, like, Fangio's been bad in the first month and good later. I think that's probably mostly

noise. Like, you know, talking about like how good Miami was in the first month last week versus the rest. But you do wonder if there's going to be a little bit of simplifying. Like in that first half against Tampa Bay, there was a, there was a sequence when Fangio was playing different kinds of different coverages than we've seen all year. Like there was this like very exotic cover two snap, which which came from nowhere. A bunch of man snaps where guys were confused. And then at some point it's like he said screw it. And there were like eight straight plays of cover six. And like, and that's when the defense finally settled down and started getting stops. And I remember Fangio's talking even in camp, in his pressors in camp, about he believes in throwing a lot of stuff

at the team, seeing what they can handle, and then simplifying if he did. That makes sense intellectually, right? Like that even if it is noise, that it's both. It's not just the players adjusting to the scheme. It's the coach understanding his personnel. Yeah. And that's a good segue way to if Cooper DeGene is coming in to play Nickel, which is what I understand this week, is he going to.

to fix problems or is he going to uh exacerbate yeah yeah i mean like cooper de jean this year i mean everyone's acting like he's a savior reasonable to expect that it's going to actually be a short-term drop in exchange for a long-term race i think so too and and in the context in which he's coming back let's remember cooper de jean started this season as the as the dime corner yeah he came on for six snaps of dime in week one in brazil and he's only played two snaps since and both of them were due to like injury and things like that. Sorry, do you have to get to... Go ahead, go ahead.

Yeah, okay. In Brazil, there was a snap where it was, I thought, the 70-yard touchdown by Jaden Reed, I don't know if anyone remembers that play. He ran like a deep over. People blamed CJGJ, he was in the post, people blamed Slay. When you look at that play, and this is just my amateur opinion on this, it really looks like Hooper DeGine's supposed to be in the flat on cover three, and he wasn't. And so when the tight end runs a flat route, Slay sinks down to cover the tight end.

and that like it's like a domino effect and Fangio said after that after that week he said we're trying to get Cooper de Gene used to one position so we stopped having him play dime because we want him to focus on nickel which is very disturbing to me

because the nickel and the dime are very similar roles they're usually both in the flat and cover three etc so hopefully Cooper deGine has figured it out since all right well that is a good time to transition because our friend Zach Berman is

ready to go live at the Novacare Complex, and we're going to hear from him right after this break. Because a lot has changed over the years, and one thing that hasn't is the great taste of Miller Light. Another thing that hasn't changed is that it's less filling. So what is the best thing about the original light beer? Well, Miller Light sparked this debate in 1975, and we still haven't settled it.

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For more information, visit trumark.com slash p-H-L-Y. That's T-R-U-M-A-R-K-com slash P-H-L-Y. All right. I thought a good idea for a local ad would be like Fred Johnson just walking down the street, like not in uniform or anything. And all the kids in the neighborhood are just like running after him.

Fred Johnson, Fred Johnson. And for what? Yeah, he goes into buy a hoagie or something. I don't know. Okay. You've been thinking a little bit too much about that Johnston. It was just like assumed that little kids would know who Fred Johnson is. No?

But they all have CGI faces of you on them? No, no, no. This was not about me at all. Okay. Zach, how you doing? Oh. We kept him through the ad break. And then we dropped in.

The poor guy must be going nuts right now. We hear you. Where are you, Zach? Zach? We don't see it, but we can hear you. So if you are crunched for time, oh, there you are. No, I'm not crunch for time. I got, I'm ready to go.

I missed you guys. I actually said, I was in great conversations. I said, I'm sorry, I need to go. I have a show to be on. How do those conversations go? Very productive, very productive, meaningful, productive, appreciate their time. Just like I appreciate your time today. Well, that's nice.

Now, after yesterday's show, Zach, we closed the show and you said, all right, I got to go. I got to go do Shields podcast. So we know which is most important to you. Do you have anything else on your schedule? Did you hear that nugget that Zach dropped on Shields podcast about how the Eagles players have hotel key cards? Yeah. Yeah, that seemed like something that would be really interesting to share with our member, our audience. I thought that was fascinating.

and I was, I'm almost sure I haven't heard it on this show. I know that I haven't heard it. Guilty is charged there. Yeah, it hasn't come up organically in our conversations like it did on yesterday's show. But, no, I was in the locker room today. Among those I spoke to were Devante Smith and A.J. Brown. I should say, Devonte Smith has cleared the concussion protocol. So he will play.

It's his first time speaking since that hit. He actually said, he said it's been a minute. It's been too long. as I would like to say to Devante. I always enjoy catching up with Devante. For the hit itself, he felt that the whistle should have been blown. He didn't feel as a dirty hit necessarily because the whistle hadn't been blown, but he feels like the whistle should have been blown.

So he doesn't blame the player. He blames the ref. Essentially, yeah. He should have been dead there. Yeah. He remembers everything up until he walked into the locker room. and then that's scary it's also scary that it took 19 days for the to get out of the protocol well i well i think that there was so with the protocols and this uh and and then to the audience

i think he had the practice and then have no symptoms following the practice and then so i i think that's why he was kind of still in the protocol i think uh in lane's case lane participating participated in a practice, not a contact portion of practice, but there was, there was kind of more, um, he had more contact, more activity than Devante did. So, but that's, uh, but yeah, so that's, that's, that's Devante, he'll be out there. A.J., uh, speaking to A.J. Uh, all the points we've kind of discussed on the show, he, uh, he, he would agree with. He, he doesn't, he said it was kind of a set up question. He doesn't want to sound cocky, but when we talked to, you know, I, I, I brought up the fact that the offense scored 34 points without him or I'm sorry with him they've averaged 17 points without him right I mean was that green bay game really the only time we got to see him or I'm sorry we got to see this offense as it's designed and he said yeah he thinks that's that's that's fair to say he recognizes he's a big part of this offense so he he would like to think that he would have this big effect on it it was really a freak thing that the injury occurred when it did he's had some good days and bad days since then he was really

really pushing to play. That doesn't sound good. Before the, before the buy. But he's, he's full now. He's ready to go. He's,

he's ready to play. He's thrilled that his first game back is at the link. Did he talk about the big matchup this week? With Denzel Ward. No, Brown versus Browns. Oh,

no, that did not come up. But there's a great piece in all Ph.L. Why not? He's playing against the team. I did not ask him. It's got to be awkward.

I mean, it's not as for it. Actually, interestingly, the first game you ever played was against the Cleveland Browns. Did you know? That's correct. Three catches for 100 yards. Yes. Good job. Well, well done.

And, yeah, he's all about. His performance against the Browns before doing that Wolfstead? He's one-in-one career against the Browns. He's averaging about low 90s in those two games. This is a rubber match in the big Brown versus Browns matchup. And this is the first time, I believe, he's ever had a teammate named Brown on the team. So this is the first time he gets to be the Browns against the Browns. Yeah, Sydney Brown.

Some of us knew Sydney Brown though right away as opposed to like a pond. But that that relationship you and Thomas Booker are building is awesome. I mean, that was really enlightening and enjoyable and funny. I need to know more about Thomas Booker's one. two and three because he's the fourth right yes well i i hope we get more my grandfather and his great-grandfather oh okay thank you yeah thank you okay we'll give it away uh so yeah so that was the yeah those are the big topics in the locker room today everyone wanted to speak to a j and devante but it was it was nice uh catching up with them it's it had it had been a minute otherwise um you know

practice it looked like everyone was out there i know nicovy dean has been on the injury report, limited with an ankle injury. Nicopi's going to play. I spoke to Nicopi about this yesterday. Nothing to worry about. Don't assign an injury on him, he said. I think I said that on yesterday's show. But, yeah, this team's going to be completely healthy,

relatively speaking, going into Sunday's game against the Browns. Any interesting nuggets that you've been saving for our audience that has not come up organically that you'd like to offload? Interesting nuggets. So I talked to you guys yesterday about the jail. Hunt Nugget, about the Landon Dickerson Nugget, about the Darius Slay nugget. Wow, compared to the hotel keycard nugget. These are...

It's a hotel keycard that interesting of a nugget? Yeah, I think it's interesting. That they have their core, that they have custom key cards with... Hotel key cards that have the five core values? I mean, that's a little... Is that, I don't know, is that, like, very normal in the corporate world or something? I don't know. I'm not the one who reported it. Oh.

So, no, so there's an in the, in the team's indoor facility here, they have this, it's like the core value logo, which is, it's, it looks almost like a dartboard with the core values around them and they kind of geared toward the, the middle section or point toward the middle section. It's that logo that's on the back of the, of the key card that the players have. Interesting. Yeah. So when they're thinking about breaking curfew and going to the club, they look at that and they're like, have you laid eyes on one of these hotel key cards? I have laid eyes on one of these hotel key cards.

Wow. Mistress talk on a Friday. But first off, no, don't ever accuse me of that. That isn't appropriate. No. It was sitting around in the You know in the locker room after the game, right? You see it on the floor right?

Eagle eye. Yeah, you have to use all your senses when you report. Hmm. Yeah, who tastes good. Well, actually, I was actually thinking about this recently. Okay, Julie is losing it, by the way. No, I think one of the things that I'm really working on as a reporter here is not being like,

no, let me finish here, is I think in my career, I've been a little too rigid about like my journalistic integrity, like I feel like my journalistic integrity is uncompromised, right? But there are things. So I'll give you an example. This is something that's, that's really bothered me. I did a story at the Washington Post on a heavyweight fighter named Tony Thompson. And he was fighting for the heavyweight championship of the world. And I watched the, he was, he was fighting in Japan. The fight was in Tokyo.

I, I did, I met him down in Vero Beach, Florida during his training. Then I watched the fight with his family in suburban Washington, D.C. And his grandmother, or I'm sorry, it might have been his mother or his aunt. I forget specifically who I have to look this up. But that's whose house I was and made an incredible buffet with like, the best mac and cheese I've ever seen in my life, or look like the best mac and cheese I've ever seen in my life. But I did not eat the mac and cheese because I felt like I could not accept,

I could not accept something from a subject. And in hindsight, I'm like, you know what? I should have eaten the mac and cheese. It wouldn't have violated my journalistic integrity. It wouldn't be accepting a favor or like trying to be the curry favor, but it actually probably would have enhanced the story. had I tasted that mac and cheese. So I'm sorry, I went on this tangent,

but I think sometimes I can be like, what's the expression like, you know, cut your nose to spot your face or something like that? Yeah, I think sometimes that I should, I should operate with more like a human touch as opposed to like everything being by the book. Jimmy Kemsky would are in the mac and cheese. Oh, I know that's, yeah.

Yeah, I think you can, I think you can, you can focus on the wrong thing and miss the forest for the trees there. Eat the mac and cheese. Yeah. Be a little bit more scrupulous about the lies that people are telling you. Wow. Not you specifically. This is a load. Oh, okay.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So anyways, but when you talked about tasting, I should have tasted that mac and cheese. I should have used my senses there. Okay.

We appreciate that. All right. Anything new? I know we asked you about it yesterday on the Cooper DeGine front, which Danes was talking about. Is your expectation it's going to be full go? He's the guy right now? Yeah. Yeah, that's my expectation based on conversations I've had based on the way this is trending. I think post-by week is a good time for it. So yeah, that is something that I will keep a keen eye on is Cooper de Gene in the slot. How about the Siriani Hertz, sort of great moments, mojo moments that they're having together, this little narrative that's going on? Is it all kumbaya behind the scenes with the Eagles right now? I think it's a little bit forced.

I think that narrative is a bit forced, if I may say. I've always said your coaching quarterback don't need to be best friends. Brady and Belichick weren't best friends, but there needs to be professional respect. that's more important than I think like the personal relationship is the professional respect. The quarterback must feel like you're doing everything that head coach is doing everything he can

to put you in position to win the game. And that matters far more than than like the great moments that you have together, right? So I think that's going to be the ultimate test here. But yeah, Nick Siriani spoke about that today.

How it was like a real productive bi-week in that regard. You heard jail and say yesterday the most efficient by week he's had since he's been in the NFL. I think what matters far more is having AJ and Devante back. But yeah, that came up. In the press conference today, it was interesting. Nick asked this question because this came up in our conversations this week about coaching turnovers.

And I remember a quote that Nick had back in 2022 when he said he resents the idea of turnover luck. And I hear, you know, turnover variance is something I believe that there's, that there's a regression to the means sometimes and that you're not always going to, you know, you talk about this all the time with teams one year to the other. That's not a sticky stat. Nick stands by this. Nick stands by that turnovers can be coached, that turnovers are a matter of emphasis, that turnover is not a byproduct of luck. Yeah, I think I think this is one where he's wrong, but it's okay that he's wrong. It's good that he's wrong. right it's good that he's wrong but he needs to believe that that it is coachable because he's the

one who's coaching it look that's fine yeah the eagles i mean i was going to say this later but this is the perfect time to to mention this the eagles are 28th in the league in epa per game lost due to turnovers and 31st on defense in EPA per game gained from forcing them okay and that adds up when you do all the you know you add it all up in total they're losing six points a game from turnovers. That's even when you add back the ones they're getting back on defense. That's a touchdown a game that they've lost

due to turnovers over these four games. If they could just get back to close to even on that, I mean, like that's six points a game. Like this is, I did points per game on purpose because that has like a good context. Like you know what six points in a game can do. That's, you know, like that would be enough to like suddenly make this a good, you know,

like a good team with a good record. And so hopefully it's just random. it's not because of the coaching and all that because it's because of the coaching and all that we're screwed right like it's the same coaches it's the same you know what i mean like it's like you you need this to be random yeah and also like and i actually do believe that this might have been part of your conversation on whatever that other podcast was yesterday sack but all of the focus on the turnovers the turnovers and like ball security and all that i mean you got to force them on defense yes but on offense it's just jalen like jailin's just making bad decisions Absolutely. And it's points off the board, too. So it's not just they're turning it over. It's where he's turning it over. I brought up the stat on Monday that I got from the EPA. The EPA like captures that perfectly. Like the six points is coming in part because of where the turnovers are. Yeah. That's a good point. I loved the Swipper submission yesterday that people haven't recovered a fumble this year. Right. And I think like, and Nick talked about this today. Right. Yeah, I don't remember how many were there were a couple. You said they're one of three teams. Yeah, you said they're one of three teams, right? One of three teams.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, three teams that hasn't recovered one. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And fumbles are the type of thing. You know, I spoke to players about this this week where it's literally like the bounce up the ball sometimes, right? A fumble can bounce into you or fumble can bounce away from you. I think an interception is a little different there.

And you can talk about like stripping, but you can have a great strip. and then the ball bounces out of bounds, right? Or the ball bounces in bounds. You pick it up, you scoop and score. So that's where I think that when I talk about turnover luck, that's what I'm referring to is that there are times when... Right, but you've got to force more fumbles to... Sure.

Yeah, I mean, like, J.O.K. for Cleveland made a play last week where he just, like, punched the ball out. It was awesome. Yeah. You don't see guys even trying to do that. You know, like some of it is like, yeah. He's a heck of a player, by the way. Like, he's my...

He's like my, he's one of my favorite players on the field this weekend. He's just a joy to watch. I love them coming out of Notre Dame. And did you throw a party last week, Zach, when Isaiah Simmons did something good in a football game for the first time in his career? Did you see that? I did not throw a party, no. But if you're referring to like how I view players like Michael Parsons and Derwin James and,

you know, like, Michael, Parkinson. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, if that's what you're referring to, that I find versatile players to be appealing in the draft process. Yeah. Like J. Oskar to make sure it was the same guy because he like, he made a. Yeah, like J.O.K.

Guys like that, you know, yeah. If that's what you're referring to, then absolutely. Players who can do multiple things. Everybody knows that the great thing about Micah Parsons is that sometimes he gets to play linebacker. That's what makes him. I think the great, I think the great thing about Michael Parsons is that he is a chess piece. I think the best thing about Michael Parsons is that he's one of the best four pass rushers in the league. That's what I think.

Yeah, but you can use him to rush the quarterback in so many different ways, right? He can, he can rush, yeah, it's not just one way. I mean, he's so athletic and so versatile. But that's besides the phone. We'll have that conversation. I'm teetering on the edge of actually getting a little bit annoyed. But so as I'm going to, we're going to stay. You know what's saying.

The day does end and why, right? Okay, now I am annoyed. It's harder to sit between you guys when one of you is on a screen. Anything else from, by the way, JOK, not one of my favorite players on the field this weekend. I only have one favorite player on the field this weekend and everybody else is tied for dead last. Michael Dund is my favorite player in the field this weekend. But yeah, I mean, I do really like, you know, Miles Garrett had enjoyed it. I was talking about Thomas Booker, but.

Oh, okay. Yeah, you guys are. That was a great conversation. I hope everyone checks that out on all pHLY.com. I love when the wolf stand appears. Anything else, Zach, worth, worth mentioning from the locker room and the press conferences this week? Well, just. And you have a prediction you want to get on the, on the record?

I'm sorry if this was covered. I am curious. I'm genuinely curious to see what the Eagles do about that roster spot. I'm assuming that roster spot is going to be Sydney Brown, that 53rd roster spot. I know there was a question today about Paris Campbell. The only way Paris Campbell can be on the team is if they bring them to the 53. I don't see why they would bring them to the 53. You know, you have Devonte and AJ back.

But the one thing I'll say is that the CJ Usama signing is interesting in that if you, wanted to cut jack stole basically you could use practice squad you could use three weeks of a practice squad elevation for c juzama and then bring back jack stole in three weeks if that's something you wanted to do i i don't think they'll get cute with that but that there is there is that potential i'd like to see more jack stole unless grand calcutera who's not good at anything it's not even more or less it's just that what why are they you know as far friend has pointed out. Why are they, why are they both on the field and Grant Caceterra is the one blocking? Yeah, I mean, that that's just, I mean, like, he's been so bad at the, like the, you know, that, I think Greg Cogter is a better receiver than Jack Stoll.

That's fine. I mean, a low bar, but sure. But yeah, I mean, the, the motion guy or the whatever guy. And like, sometimes you don't want to always have the same guy be that guy or whatever. Yeah. But I mean, come on, like. Speaking of C. Jay, he was back, you, you did tell us you were going to try to get to the bottom of the, the, the cadence stir. roster shenanigans. Do you have an update for us there? I don't have an update for you there. No, I'll have been working on some other things. But I will. Patrick King's Turns will be back, though. This Cleveland team is interesting to look at a lot of former Eagles on this team.

You can't have favorites when you covered, but some of the guys I've enjoyed covering the most here, Rodney McLeod, Jordan Hicks, really, you know, fun characters when they were here, real productive players. that front office you have cat hickman you you have Andrew Barry uh Andrew Barry's brother Adam there's a good piece on Philadelphia Eagles.com right now there's going to be 35 family and friends from the Barry family uh will be at this game um on Sunday so look out for that my prediction my prediction is what my prediction no the the Barry is in attendance I wish I wrote that story.

Yeah. I said, I said, very exciting. Oh, very exciting. Oh, I didn't.

You're clever. You are clever. Thank you. Yeah, you got a great line yesterday when I was listening back. When Fran was doing the ad reads and you said, you said something like, you'll sell that.

That was a good pun. That was a really good play on words. So you can listen back. You can listen. and back. It was really good. My prediction. Let's get to my prediction here. Okay. The, so I, I, I, I, I, I like this Brown's team better than their record indicates. I don't know what's going on with the Sean Watson. I think Nick does have like a little bit of, you know, I think Nick Siriani still sees the Sean Watson as of that player who was awesome in Houston. But the Sean Watson that you see on film right now is not that player from Houston. I think game script matter. here. I think what you're going to want is you're going to want to get a lead early. I am curious if Eagles win the toss, given the fact that they struggled in games if they, if they

choose to receive. That's not what they do. At start, you know, the slow starts, maybe if you get the ball quickly, you play from a head, you play with a lead. I think the crowd, I know they shouldn't think about this, but this crowd, and I'll defer to Professor Selman on it, this crowd will be really ugly if it's like a seven three game if eagles are losing a half time um i mentioned this on the show yesterday this is a fan base that is uh still in mourning over the phillies they're looking for like a reason to be excited i think this is one of those games where uh if you want the crowd to be into it you you you want to jump to unruly lead you want this to be one of these like fun eagles games um so that's something yeah yeah yeah thanks crowd dynamics wise you don't want the ball first i mean

because if it doesn't go well, I think the downside of the offense having a bad drive is, I don't know, I guess the defense, like allowing a touchdown drive would be bad too. But that's the Browns. But that's likely. Pretty good on their opening drive. That's true. That's true until the last game. The other reason, one of the big reasons that you do it at home, that you defer at home, is because, you know, as someone who has who has season tickets in the upper deck, like, especially, people are not even close to back in their seats.

at the start of the third quarter. And so you're basically giving the other offense a free possession of like no noise at the start of the third quarter when you take the ball first. And so a lot of teams defer because they want that possession at the beginning of the third quarter when it's quiet. Not it would be quiet on offense anyway, but like that you know, by the time your defense is out there,

the crowd is back in the in there. Whereas they are there for kickoff most of the time. Right. And we can. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I generally prefer kicking off because I, I, I,

do like the idea of trying to score into the half, getting the ball out of half time, doubling up there. But I think the Eagles playing from behind is a problem. And I think, so to get back to my point, with Cleveland, you don't want their play action game to be effective here. You don't want them to get some momentum running the ball. I think the Eagles need to jump to a lead here. I don't think this is going to be a blowout, but I just, I'm really not impressed with what I've seen from Cleveland's offense. I think the Eagles win, but don't cover. I'm going 24 to 16. All right. Well, Zach, we love you. Thank you for spending the time. Thank you for the insight. And have a good 48 hours. I'll see you on Sunday.

Can't wait. Can't wait. Sorry, I didn't see you in person, Professor Sondman, but I will be in next Friday. I promised you that these conversations I had with the guys today will not happen next week. So I will be in, I will leave locker room early next week to make sure that I am in studio. to get the full Friday, PHLY Eagles experience. Zach, you said Reed's going to be there, right? Evren is going to be there as well. It's going to be his first ever game. Oh, nice. Maybe we can introduce them before the game or something.

We'll talk later. That'd be great. Yeah, that'd be great. You didn't even compliment the professor on his once a year haircut. He's looking great. Six months, six months. He's wearing a hat. You're wearing a hat.

Come on. No, I'm wearing a hat. I always agree. Don't have hair. Yeah. I always appreciate a good hair. No, we know that's right. All right.

Thank you, Zach. Okay, Professor, we have a few other little things that you want to talk about before we get going. One of those? I guess you want to go negative or positive first? Do you want to go with the state of crisis or the reasons for our podcast? Well, real quick about the Cleveland offense, Chance Michael Dunn starts in the game. That's a possibility. No, we'll see.

They're their rookie third round. I mean, if they want to win the game, they would start Michael. Third round rookie right guard, Zach Zinter. Yes. Been playing poorly and was limited in practice during the week. And they've been, I mean, they've had guys injured all over the place. Right. The starting center is not playing.

Even beyond MD here, I do think I was thinking about this this week. It is a somewhat apocalyptic view of like what could be the Eagles future. if they move on at some point from Jeff Stoutland, right? Because this is the, this Brown's offensive line has basically been up there with the Eagles over the past, you know, five years or whatever, as the best in the league. Because they had these stalwarts, and they had one of the best offensive line coaches in the league in Bill Callahan. Yes.

He goes, leaves to be with his son in Tennessee. Right. Now they have a different offensive line coach. You don't know what you're going to get. And their veteran stalwarts have been injured. So if you fast, like, you know, if there's a possibility that moving on from Nick Siriani means. also moving on from Jeff Statland.

Right. And you have Lane Johnson getting hurt and whoever else, you know, Lana Dickerson getting hurt and coupling that with the question mark of, you know, the unknown of whatever this new offensive line coach is going to be. It could be a disaster. Yeah. And I mean, not to take anything away from Callahan and some of the guys that have been playing on that line.

But one of the things that really they benefited from a lot, too, was their scheme. I mean, so much of that play action bootleg type stuff where. you know, in like, you know, pass block win rate metrics and things like that. The Browns always look a little bit better than they might be because they're not really having to pass block on those play action plays and things like that. And you guys got into this a little bit yesterday, but they have not been doing any of that stuff. I mean, they're, they're like 29th in the league or something at lining up under center. Like they're not running any of that outside zone bootleg stuff at all. You talked about how they sold their souls to sign to John Watson.

But now they're also doing like straight dropping back and like right tackles. not just to sign him. Now they're just trying to give him whatever the offense they think he wants. And it's, yeah, and it's been brutal. And early in the week when I was telling everyone like, you know, like, man, Cleveland's offense is like unbelievably bad. You don't understand like how bad they look on film. People were like, oh, yeah, but the Eagles defense sucks.

Well, this is from Daniel Oia Fusi, Cleveland reporter for ESPN. He tweeted this week that when you rank the teams that Cleveland has played, the defenses that they've played by EPA per play, every single team they've played has been in the bottom 10 in the league. And that's including the game where they dominated the Cleveland offense. So Washington was 32nd by a mile. Now they're 28th because they've just played, but they're still in the bottom 10.

So like all of these teams, all the defenses they've played have been terrible. And they're still looking terrible. And so hopefully it really is like them being outlier level bad, like 32% success rate or something when like normally every team in the league is between like 43 and 49 or something. Like, that's not a, that's not a thing that has a lot of variance. They are off the charts bad in everything. And, you know, so if that team is moving the ball up and down the field against this defense, we have major, major problems. Yeah.

Unless it's a reverse Kubiak. Yeah. I don't think we need to talk about the state of crisis. We got it. We got into it enough with the, with the Siriani, you know, talk with Sack. Yeah. So, yeah, reasons for optimism. Number one, Everend will be at the game.

It'll be his first ever. game. He's very excited. So, I mean, we don't know. This could be... It could be a disaster. Yeah. You might not ever want to come to a game again. People have asked me, like, how old does that rent have to be for you to take him to a game? And I've jokingly said, like, I don't know, like 27, maybe, you know, something like that. Because I don't talk to the person I go to the game with. I have my notes. I have my

binoculars. I have my radio headphones in. Like, I'm not talking to you. I'm certainly not going to walk you to the bathroom or anything. So I am... I am... I am not taking Everand to the game just for full of stodium. We got him extra. At the vet, that would have been, that would have been the norm. My dad, shout out to my dad. He, as a birthday gift, wanted to take Evren. So I got two extra tickets in our section.

So we're all going to be together. So Emily's going to sit next to me. She's used to me, just ignoring her during games anyway. And everyone will sit with my dad and teach him a thing or two about the Eagles, because he knows a lot more about the Eagles than my dad does. Nice. Yeah. Like that.

So that'll be fun. That's the reason number one. Reason number one. Lane, AJ, and Devante coming back. We already talked about. We talked about the noisy turnovers as well. The last thing I want to get into, and I know people have been talking about this, but just to put it in context, the Eagles schedule so far, based on how the teams that the Eagles have played have been doing well, has been one of the toughest in the league. Like, we wouldn't necessarily expect it to be like that.

But Tampa Bay, Atlanta, New Orleans are all playing better than we thought they would be. from now on it's the third easiest in the league that's kind of where I'm going as well six of the remaining 13 games including three of the next four against teams in the bottom 10 by overall DVOA now that makes it sound easy

the problem is the Eagles are also in the bottom 10 by overall TVOA and so you have this question and the Eagles are 24th and overall DVOA which is not what we were thinking would happen after four weeks so I think when you look at it that way you have to understand a lot of these teams like we just don't

who they are yet. You know, like, so, so it's, it's dangerous to look at the schedule and be like, it's easy. I mean, this team lost at home to Arizona last year, you know, uh, et cetera. Though I will say there's an actual difference in the way the league looks this year compared to past years. When you look at those, uh, those of you are familiar with those like team tier charts, like so you have like how good the offense is on one axis and how good the defenses on the other. So all the good teams are in the upper right. This year, the upper right of that graph is basically empty. Like there are no teams that have like a very good offense and a very good defense. So when you look at it, there's like there's only four teams in the upper right part like clearly in the upper right part. And Kansas City, San Francisco, New Orleans and Buffalo are those four teams. Three of those four teams have multiple game losing streaks already. So it's not like they're turning them into wins. And there also aren't very many teams that are that are really bad by the way. Like most of the teams in the league for whatever reason this year are good on one side of the ball and bad on the other. And that's actually unusual. there are 24 teams that are above average on one side and below average on the other

that should only be 16 like if it were equally done and when I looked at past years you might say well is it because they're allocating their resources to one side and they can't be good on the other like no like in past years there's actually been a positive correlation between like teams with better offenses were more likely to have good defenses so the only reason I'm saying this is because it's just so early it might be because it's early but it also might be that there's some truth to what everyone's saying which is that there are no great teams that there are no great teams this year and every team really does have a chance. And I know that that's not like something to feel good about the Eagles about.

But if you were in a conference with like, you know, two historically good teams or something, you'd basically be like, what's the point? Like even if we're really good, we're going to lose in the divisional round or whatever. And that isn't true this year. Like there isn't a team in the NFC where you're like, you know, like the team with the best record has Sam Darnold playing quarterback. You know, like, so there's a, there's a real good chance that the absolute standard that you need to reach to like, get to the Super Bowl might be a little bit lower this year and that could be something that matters okay that's more real yeah the the the the ease of the schedule to me is like eh

who cares because like I don't know the Giants could beat this team the Bengals could beat this team but absolutely I think the point the overall point of yeah like the the Eagles don't need to be better than the 2002 Eagles necessarily that's that's that's what I was saying but but to your point the thing that makes the schedule look easy is when you start killing teams. And this team hasn't killed teams in two years. And now they've got a game in which they're favored by nine points. So we will find out on Sunday if they can do that. Thank you. Oh, we have a super chat before we get going. Chase Daniel Plainview says, why didn't the Eagles try to stop Jim Schwartz from leaving after 2020? They have been chasing Fangio with middling results.

Schwartz was assistant coach of the year with worst quarterback play than he had in 2020. I don't think the Eagles wanted Jim Schwarz to leave. Jim Schwartz, remember, left before the Eagles even fired Doug Peterson. So that was not going to happen. I think Jim Schwartz was done with the Eagles. Maybe why he'll have a little extra pep in his step this weekend. Do you think he knew what was coming? With Doug Peterson?

I think he probably knew that it was a possibility. Yeah. But yeah, I think he was done. But it's more about philosophically, because it's not, like the league is chasing the Jim Schwartz defense. No, right? No. It actually why is it that they are so enamored? It looks so old school when you watch it on film. They're playing with two wide nines and like, you know, four like very wide spread out defensive linemen when on base defense. They've got three stacked linebackers. Like these are all

things that are kind of outdated, you know, like single post safety on every single snap. And one of the things I'm going to tell I've read is like he's going to get to see the whole field, you know, like, and he's had ever done that before. I'm going to be like, notice that when the Eagles are on defense, there's always two safeties. And when the Cleveland's on defense. There's always one safety. And that's something where you don't normally see that kind of discrepancy. And you can't see that on TV usually. And that style with the one high safety is kind of outdated.

You're right. It's not the trend or anything like that. But it was the best defense in the whole league just last year. Yeah, exactly right. All right. It'll do it for this episode of the P.HLY Eagles podcast. Thank you to Zach for making the time down in South Philadelphia. Thank you to Daneez for making his appearance here in studio.

Thank you to Julia for making it all happen and all of the sickos for watching the show live. We will be with you on Sunday. Three shows, the kickoff show at 1230 with Fran Duffy, Jamie Lynch, the halftime show with a two of them and potentially Vinnie Curry as well. And then the post game show giving you all the analysis and reaction that you need with those three and myself. We look forward to it all. Enjoy the weekend, everybody. We'll talk to you on Sunday. And as always, we love you.