PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Can Jalen Hurts make better decisions as Philadelphia Eagles prep for Atlanta Falcons on MNF?

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

Friday the 13th! Nothing spookier than a ballhawk like Jessie Bates when your team’s quarterback is being loose with the football. What can Kellen Moore expect from Jimmy Lake’s Falcons defense? And what are the specific tweaks we saw from Moore in Week 1?Deniz Selman joins the show for his typical Friday classroom session with Bo Wulf, before Zach Berman joins to give the updates from the NovaCare Complex. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

to the P HLY Eagles podcast on a Friday app. We're presented, as always, by the good folks at Bet365. Download the Bet365 app and use code PHLY365 when you sign up. Whatever the moment, it's never ordinary at Bet365. Bo Wolf, joined in studio by the professor, Dan is. And we're going to hear from Zach Berman in about, let's call it 40 minutes to hear the scoop from the Novacare complex. We're three days away now from week two. Monday night football, the Eagles against Kirk Cousins and the Atlanta Falcons,

and it looks like we've got Fran Duffy in the chat. So we're rolling on all cylinders. How you doing, Professor? Oh, I'm doing very well. Thank you. I'm excited to get to go down to the link on Monday night and bike down there and feel the energy of the crowd and all that. What is your, you know, the season ticket holder, the schedule such that there are, you know, so few games at home the first half of the season. And what's your perspective on that?

Yeah, you know, you have to look at life, you know, on the bright side. You know, we get four of the last five at home. And hopefully those will be important games and real football weather, you know. Tougher biking weather, though. Tougher biking, that's true. Now, if it's like a blizzard, I will take SEPTA. Okay. But yeah.

So Joe Webb, that was SEPTA? Joe Webb, I lived in Istanbul. So that was me getting up at 3 a.m. to watch the game in Turkey. So I had to do that for the six years that I lived there. Not worth it for that one. Well, you know, it's always worth it. You know, that's what being a fan is.

All right. So let's, what we're going to do, the first, you know, two-thirds of the show. We're going to do a little Eagles offense versus Falcons defense and vice versa. Some of the leftovers that we may have not gotten to over the course of the week. I know that you've been digesting all of France content as you should. But, you know, we can't pick off everything. There's a little bit of meat left on the bone here. So let's let's start with the,

the Eagles offense. So much talk about how much motion we're going to see from Kellen Moore. Specifically what jumped out to you about all that stuff. I mean, Fran is awesome. He's the best. And I think he did a great job in both his piece on the site

and also on the show Tuesday talking about the motion stuff. But just watching live. I mean, I just kept on, I kept turning to Emily during the game and like pointing out things on the replay and stuff. And I was like, look at that. Like that short motion is like, that's chappy tweet except you're saying that's motion?

Yeah, basically. Yeah, yeah, exactly. No, it was just, it was just very encouraging. I mean, it was almost like, what would the best outcome be for the motion stuff, right? And like those stats that have come out about the Eagles with motion versus without motion, how much better it was with motion and all that. In one game, that can be small sample size and noise. But then when you look at the film and you can just see, not only was the motion,

creating open players sometimes where there was like an exit motion one direction and then you know pass going in the other direction or that the short motion by a j brown which gave him the proper leverage to run that you know things like that not only did we see that but there was also on the film you could see that the way that green bay was reacting to the motion was giving had become predictable like there was this one motion that it was like jahan dots and doing an orbit motion they did that like several times and every single time And I'm not smart enough to understand like what that means for the, for the, for the, where the ball ends up. Right. But I can say that every single time they did that, Green Bay checked it. You could tell they were checking. And they checked into cover three buzz, which is like this very specific coverage that they played every time where the safety like, you know, buzzed down and one of the linebackers kicked out. And they did that every time. And obviously if I can see that, they can see that they can play.

They can call plays based on that. And then Kellyn Moore and Expressor this week specifically said that, just. Jalen was very good at seeing how they were reacting to it, which I was extra encouraged by because that was the biggest fear of going into the season and talking about, well, why don't the Eagles do motion? What's the disadvantage? Like, is it because Jalen doesn't want it? Everyone talks about how Peyton Manning didn't like it.

It seemed like if there was a fear that Jalen would have issues with the motion and that it would be a problem, that at least in week one, they did not show up, that he was very good at seeing what the defense was doing. Did you make anything of the split that they didn't use motion as much or much at all on third down? I feel like that is usually the case league-wide. I'd have to look at that. That's actually a good homework assignment for me for next week to see if that's been the case league-wide. It's a good question.

Some of them were third and long. A lot of times on third down, you're less likely to use certain things like, you know, you're less likely to use play action because it's obviously going to be a pass, you know, things like that. So that might be part of it. Also, one of the things that a lot of times people will say, like, it's a little bit more predictable what the defense is going to do on third down sometimes because they have certain tendencies and things like that. And it's obvious they're trying to protect the sticks.

So you don't want to, you don't need to do it as an indicator. But yeah, that's a good question. I'll have to check if that's something that, first of all, we'll have to check if that continues to be the case for the Eagles. Right. But also, yeah, I mean, there were some third and longs. Okay. What else jumped out to from the film that we have not yet covered?

this week um i mean i just i was very happy with just the general structure of the offense looking different right like there's a little bit of a fear like is it just going to look the same and uh j t o' sullivan had a really good breakdown of the game on his like q b school youtube page which i always recommends like just very yeah i mean j t's it's crushing it's so long like it's like 50 minutes like i like i like i mean like franz breakdowns are awesome and then it's like jt o'os And it's like you have to put aside like three hours to adjust at all. But in that, in that he was, he did make fun of how often the Eagles used Hank, like, which was something we talked about last year. Like you remember talking about that.

Yeah. And they're in this thing called inverted Hank, which is basically the tight end runs a little ball route. Okay. And then the guys on the outside essentially all run little hooks. So like it was just like. Okay. I feel like inverted Hank is a guy whose birth name is Hank, but he goes by Henry instead. Interesting.

Interesting. Yeah. Well, they had a, I mean, JT had this whole, like, graphic on the screen that included a bunch of guys named Hank and including, and he included Hank basket on there, which I thought was very funny. It was like Hank Aaron. It was like more famous Hanks. As area? There was, thanks. Possibly.

I have to check. There were like seven guys. Yeah. But anyway, not to turn this into like an ad for J.T.O. Solven's like. Hank E. Pankey. That was not one of them. Okay. Yeah, no, that wasn't one.

But, yeah, no, I thought the, I thought the, I thought that stuff was funny. but even that you could see, like, they were running it well, he was reading it well, and all that. A big deal was made out of how good the offense looked against the blitz. Like you guys talked about it at length on Tuesday, all the numbers on that have been talked about all week. One thing to remember about that, and we talked about this when I was on last week, the Eagles were perfectly good last year against five-man blitzes. The thing that they were bad against was six-man blitzes. It's insane that they didn't send a single one last week.

They did run. They did send one. It got negated by the Lane Johnson, Illinois. formation penalty. So the services don't have it, though. But if you grind the film, you know, you can see, they did send both linebackers one time. Okay. And it was a six-man blitz.

And Jalen threw it hot to Kenny Gainwell. It was the number one receiver and empty for a first down. Like, like, it was awesome. Like, it was great. And then the Lane Johnson thing negated it. Got it. But the ball came out fast. It was hot.

And on that video, JTO Sullivan was like, this is the third hot he threw. This is amazing. You know, like, and I thought it was interesting. the way they handled it was similar to what had happened in past years where this might just, this is probably just a stout one thing. You'll notice on a lot of those that the free rusher is coming from his blind side. So the corner route, the 20-yard corner route that he threw to A.J. Brown, the nickel is free, and he ends up hitting Jalen, and it's from his blind side. That happened two times, I think, it's coming from his blind side, and he's throwing the other way. And I guess, like,

Some teams like to have it so that it's coming in your face, like, so that you can, that's going to be a bad drop. But like so that it's like, you know, in your vision so you can throw right past the blitz. That was not the case. So that was not something that seemed different. And one of the things that I'm very curious about throughout the season is how much of the offense was Jeff Stoutland, right?

And how much of it was like Stike and Siriani? Because the Stike and Siriani influences, I would imagine, are going to be mostly gone by the end, by the end of the year. We would imagine. Yeah. We'll see. Now, you put out the tweet on this chart that you put together, expected completion percentage and completion percentage over-expected,

and where Jalen lands on here. Tell us why this is interesting. Yeah, so a shout out to Doug Analytics on Twitter. It has this really cool page where you can put together these charts. What a fortuitous last name. Yeah, it's really amazing. He was born to do this. Yeah.

Yeah, but yeah, the the two things we're comparing are expected completion percentage. This is according to next gen. They use the GPS data on all the players to tell, like, at the moment that he throws the ball, like, and where he's throwing it, what is the expected completion percentage? So basically, if you make a lot of checkdowns and easy throws, you're going to be high on that list. And if you are, you know, throwing long bombs to E.J. Brown into triple coverage, like, you're going to be, you're going to be, you're going to. to be near the bottom and jalen hertz last year famously was 31st or 30th or something by the end of the season in expected percentage but he was very good at completion percentage over expected in that so basically the theme was he was making very difficult throws and he was completing them and one of the

things that people said well now the kellen morse here the hope is that he's making easier throws right that was not the case so those of you who can see the graphic only anthony richardson had a lower expected completion percentage in week one jalen's uh completion percentage expected completion percentage for the for the game was actually significantly below what it was for last season small sample but on the film you can obviously see examples like and some of them are good and some of them are bad yeah so you know throwing across your body um into the end zone sure that's not great though i'm curious what the um next gen number for that throw was because a j brown did look open for a moment and all that i'm wondering like how they model that but um but a good example Dallas gotert as for pointed out is wide open on the sakewon

markle wheel uh touchdown and that is one where um you know no one's saying like why did he throw it to say quang right so and that's the thing it's like you you have to take the good with the bad i don't want jalen hurts to be like in the top five and expected completion right you know like like that that's that's for like a rookie quarterback who doesn't have good players around him uh to to be yeah i mean you can think about it intellectually that if you have really good receivers, your expected completion percentage is going to be a little bit lower because you're willing to throw it to them

when they are covered. Yeah, exactly. And when you have AJ Brown, I mean, like some of the touchdowns that he had in 2022 in particular, I mean, they're running a dagger and he's the clear out and he's not even expecting the ball. He's not even running hard.

And Jalen would just throw it up to him. Against Pittsburgh, I think. I remember that. With like, you know, like he was double covered in the end zone. expecting the ball and he still caught it for a touchdown. So, you know, we can't get on Jalen. Now, I was impressed. Do you think Jalen's been different this year in the pressers a little bit? I mean, not, not to a huge extent to you. I was just wondering. I mean, like, I think there were, there were some situations last year where I feel like he wasn't taking as much accountability.

I thought he took more accountability than normal yesterday for the interceptions. He said, you know, he said he can't do that. He said, it's not hard. He just has to not do it. He's like, you know, you look at the film, you correct and you don't do it. He could have been, I thought he could have been a little bit more standoffish about that like he has been in the past. But anyway, I was just curious what you thought being there. I do think that public accountability is not his favorite thing to do. Okay.

Right? I mean, I think we have enough. It's not to the extreme of like Donovan McNabb where it was always, I don't know if you remember like Donovan McNabb was always like we, you know, he never said I like made a mistake. It was always like we have to do better, you know, whatever. Like I feel like he does use the word I at the start of a kind of apologetic sentence a little bit more off. It's a pretty low bar, but yeah.

Okay, sure. Fair. Okay. What else did you want to hit on on the offense? We thought maybe we'd see a lot of under center. We did not. Right. We did not early, right?

Well, yeah. I mean, the first snaps, Sequin falls down, loss of five. There was another under center run that got like three yards that wasn't that great. and then there was one snap of under center play action which did not go well either it was incomplete so that was not a big part of the game it just wasn't a big part of the game plan now it might have been the opponent it might have just been

they're going to work that in slowly I don't know what it is but the in terms of the QB run game stuff not great either I'm really starting to wonder if they're only doing it now to set up other things you know like they don't necessarily think like it's going to help for Jalen to keep the ball on some of those defenses have

I wonder I wonder if Jalen wants that stuff even in the game plan yet like I mean I wonder if he's pushing for that like he wants he wants to to show that he that he is a multi-faceted player I don't know interesting there's definitely been and because it's not as effective as it was

no I mean obviously well there's been a there's been an evolution in the way the Eagles have run some of the some of the some of the especially the inside zone reads and the way defenses have played it yeah and I feel like the defenses have become more sophisticated in the way they play against it and the Eagles have become like in this in this last game had almost devolved into like a version that you it wasn't clear what the goal was okay so not to get like too into the nitty-grity here but basically those own reads like this is like the way it's always been like coming from college. The whole point is that you leave the backside edge rusher unblocked.

Right. And the quarterback just looks at him. Right. And if he looks like he's collapsing on the running back, you keep the ball. And if he's kind of surfing out there waiting for you, then you hand it off. Well, that's how the Eagles ran that in 2021. And then at some point around the middle of 2022, correlated probably with Jalen's injury in Chicago. And then pretty much all the last year, they started putting a tight end on that side.

You're right. And now sometimes that tight end runs around, but it'll always chip when he runs around. And sometimes he just flat out blocks the ad dresser. Now, Jalen is still reading, but he's not reading the edge anymore. He's reading either the linebacker or the safety or the nickel, whoever the next guy is. Right. The guy that they call the scraper in those situations. Yeah.

So they're using that scrape technique. I feel like defenses have gotten more sophisticated with the scraper. And then the Eagles have often tried to use like backside slants or something, like an RPO to deal with that. Yeah. And put that person in conflict. That was not the case in this game. Like in this game, they had like those kind of lazy bubble screens that you can tell the wide receivers like, no, they're not actually going to throw the bubble. Like you can tell by both the way the blockers are and the guy is supposed to get the ball that they're just going through the motions.

Like it looks like a walkthrough during the game. It doesn't look like they're actually playing that bubble at all. And people can see that on film. I can see that. Obviously, defense coordinators can see that. They're like, they're not throwing that bubble. Do you think the defenses are then trying to bait Jalen to keep? Yeah, I mean, I think that's the whole thing now is like that edge can just play normally. I mean, he's normally being blocked anyway.

So he can just play normally without worrying about the quarterback. And then the scraper is often coming from a distance where I think if Jalen was as confident in his self running the ball as he was in 2021 or if he didn't have A.J. Brown like in 2021 or whatever it is. Like if the offense was a little different and it felt more of the need to keep. carry it that way. I think that he would have kept even more of them. So I think the read is keep more than it's been. And he doesn't always keep it. Yeah.

And then when he does keep it, it's completely muddled because the scrapers do show up and he doesn't seem fast enough or whatever it is. So yeah, I don't know. It'll be interesting to see. Now, I will relate this to this coming week. The Falcons just played against Justin Fields. And it's actually kind of nice because I always watch the film of the Eagles next opponent. and if they if they play it against like a completely different kind of offense

it often looks nothing like what it looks like against the Eagles so it's like oh man I watch these guys they didn't do any of this and now they're playing you know completely different I think it might be similar this time where they play you think so uh yeah I I do actually okay like at least at least in terms of the way that they do their fronts because the Eagles do have okay with Sequin you know they have the run game and also the the the Jalen Hertz like keepers are still part of the playbook. Yeah. I don't mean in general like it's going to look similar.

Right. I mean, they have to actually worry about the passing game. Of course, yeah. But in terms of like the way they do their fronts, Fran mentioned that they do disguised fronts like 3, 4, 4, 2, 5161. They have Kate and Ellis, and we'll talk about the Eagles defense in a bit. Caden Ellis. Great bloodlines. Incredible revenge game for him. I mean, not one, but two of his brothers were cut by the Eagles within the last year. I mean, this should be the number one story going into the game. I totally agree. Two of his brothers. Like,

when's the last time? I mean, we need, we need, like, the stats people to get on this. Like, when's the last time

an NFL player played against the team who cut two of his brothers and within the last, within the last year? Yeah, come on. It's a great question. Yeah.

This is like an incredible. So, yeah, Caden Ellis is kind of their Joker, the way Zach Vaughn was for Fangio in this game, where he will line up on the defensive line, and they play a lot of base defense as it is. Well,

they'll have five normal defense of linemen. And against Pittsburgh, when Pittsburgh was in 12 personnel, they would often put Cadillis on as a sixth one, almost using like a six-man line, which is what Todd Bowles did against the Eagles in the playoff game last year. I'm curious if they're going to do that kind of stuff and kind of discourage some of the some of the QB run stuff. But we'll see. They flashed to Howie in the box and he's got six fingers on his right hand. This is like Cade Nellis is a Oh, right, right, I got you.

I got you. Yeah, I got you. Yeah, I got you. Yeah, I got you. Yeah, okay. You wanted to talk about the series conversion rates. Oh, yeah.

This is one of my favorite stats. A little class in session for the viewers on your favorite. If you follow me on Twitter, you'll notice that this year I've been, I'm going to be posting some fancy little charts that are generated using true media, which is awesome.

True media. True media. Fantastic. The series conversion rate is something that I've always thought should get more attention. Basically, it's the, like, when a team has a first down, what happens next? Like, do they get another first down or a touchdown? Or do they punt or, you know, have to kick a field goal or turn it over? So if they get another first down, that's a success.

And if they don't get another first down, it's a fail. And it doesn't matter what down it comes on. So, like, success rate is something that people quote a lot. That's a play level thing. If you throw two incompletions and then get a first down. first down on third down, the success rate is only 33%. But the series conversion rate is 100%. And you could argue that the second number matters more.

Like in football, like it matters more if you got a first down, it doesn't matter what down you got it on. So a series conversion rate captures that. And then when you break it down by which down the team got the series converted on, that gives you a sense of whether it's like an explosive offense that's getting a lot of first downs on first down or if it's one that's kind of like, you know, playing for third down, that kind of thing. So the Eagles under Siriani historically have been near bottom of the league in converting first downs into first downs.

So like using first down and get a first down. And then near the top of the league every year, each of the last two years at least, in eventually getting in eventually getting first. Right. Like the thing that the bottom line. And so in this game, I thought it was interesting that it was very similar. Like the Eagles only converted four of 32 first downs into a first down, which was bottom 10 in the league. And Atlanta against Pittsburgh actually allowed the fewest

first down conversions in the first downs. This is silly because it's only one game. Right. But as the season goes on, I just kind of want to introduce like viewers to these stats because like I think it's going to be something that I'll probably talk about

throughout the season. It's one of those stats that I think marries well to the film too. Like when you look at the film, you can kind of say like, okay, I can see why this team doesn't, you know, doesn't convert a lot of first downs in the first down.

They're always running the ball. Right. You know, that kind of thing. So, um, So the Eagles ended up with the sixth pass. Yeah, I wonder what the, if you were doing the, uh, the graph of series conversion rate and, uh, neutral pass rate, like what that would, like how that, if, yeah, like on early downs versus like on exactly.

Like if, yeah, if you are like the Eagles were last year, if that's a, early down run team. Um, that can be something I, uh, and last year and the last couple years, I, well, no, last year in particular. It did feel like they were overly reliant on like, oh, let's get to fourth and one. Um, so that we, because we know that we can span this easy button of the, of the, you know, the tush push. Yeah.

I don't know if, well, let's see if it goes beyond this. Last year, we had a lot of evidence that, especially in the red zone on third down and like seven or whatever, they were running the ball. Quarterback job. No one's going to see this coming. It was, yeah, that was maddening. And it really came to fruition in that Arizona game down the stretch of that Arizona game, which was an otherwise good offensive performance. But like, that was like the epitome of. of that.

But yeah, so in this game, the Eagles were kind of similar to what they had been under Siriani with not getting first downs on first downs, but then getting them eventually. So just something to keep an eye on to see if that ends up being the case throughout the year. All right. Something else to keep an eye on. Ace Hardware Home Services. Because at Ace Hardware Home Services, whenever we get ready for the next job, we remember

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All listeners can receive a $350 off discount when you use the promo code P-H-L-Y restrictions apply. See Empire Today.com slash p-h-l-Y for details. All right. Anything else on that particular matchup, Eagles Offense versus Falcons defense? Yeah, well, one of the things I was looking for during the game on Friday night was, is this Eagles offense going to surprise me? with things that they didn't do in past years. And it was two plays in a row.

Okay. It was first in 10 as the clock was running out on the first quarter. And I said, they're not going to snap this ball. Classic. It was the classic, like, go up to the line. Like, you know, like make it look like you're going to snap it. But the play clock is off. So it's like you're just, you know, you don't have to actually snap it.

And I was confident. I was like already like, you know, I was about. Yeah, I was like running to my computer to check the stats for the quarter and stuff. And they snapped the ball and threw a bubble screen to Devante Smith got nine yards. Great blocked by Johnny Wilson, by the way. Yeah. He's looking good in the bubble game a lot better than Quest. Quest. One of the worst bubble screen blockers in history and was used in that role a lot.

So yeah, the bubble screens might actually work this year. So that was cool. And then in the very next play, first play of the second quarter, second and one. This has driven me crazy the last three years. Second and one. I'm sitting in the stands. Let's go. Take a shot.

Take a shot. Come on. You've got the quarterback sneak ready anyway. Yeah. Take a shot on second and one. They would hand it off. They would do whatever. Like they'd throw a little, they'd throw a little, they throw like all hitches or whatever.

What do they do? They pull the right guard, power, play action, four averts, take shot down the field. Now, look, it didn't work. Okay. But just to see them run that kind of play. Good process. Yeah. And actually, Dallas Scott,

it was open and then he kind of ran himself into coverage and it didn't end up working out. And then what do they do? Quarterback sneak. That didn't work either. And then the quarterback sneak on fourth down and they got it. So the point is you have the quarterback sneaks. You have the chance to get it second and one, take a shot. It was encouraging to see that on the first second and one of the year.

So yeah. And then the only other thing on this matchup, Caden Ellis memory, since I know you want to talk about Caden Ellis more. You know, I do. Last time Caden Ellis was at the link, he had one and a half sacks on the first two plays the game. Ooh. Which is about as,

I mean, you can do a little better than that. Is that the 2020? 2020 against Gardner Minchew. Yep. And then the really avid

listeners of the show will remember me talking about this, he should have had three and a half sacks for the game because he got a strip sack later in the game that he did not get credit for,

not because there was a penalty, but because Gardner Minshu managed to get sacked twice on the same play. That's right. He recovered the fumble and got sacked again and only the second sack counts,

which I did not know. You would think the first sacks should count. You wouldn't. The first sacks should be the one that counts. Honestly, they should both count. It's two sacks on one play. Absolutely. Yeah.

But definitely the first one. If you had to pick one, there should be no limit on the number of sacks. Yeah, it's not zero some, yeah. Yeah. If you just keep on fumbling the ball every time you get sacked, you should be able to get sacked.

Now, do you think that split sacks should be full sacks? I know PFF does it that way. They do? Yeah, they do. Well, then all of a sudden, I'm on the other side. I think players, agents often quote the PFFs. PFF numbers. Okay.

And people are like, what's you talking about? Yeah, I think that there should be a distinction for, I'm okay with the half-sac count. Yeah. But there should be a second number that says like on how many plays those games. Right. Because I think it's more valuable to get five sacks on 10 plays than to get five socks on five plays. Sure. You know.

So. All right. I agree. All right. Vic Fangio, your initial impressions of having a grown up in the room to run the defense. Yeah. Look, the defense wasn't incredible, right? It was middle of the road.

In terms of EPA per drive, series conversion rate, things like that Green Bay was, you know, 11th and EPA per drive, 15th and series conversion rate for the game. They had a lot of explosive plays. I think they had the most 20-plus yard plays of any team in the league in week one. Really bad game for the Siriani explosive play battle turnover battle. Right. Yeah. Did not do well in either of those battles, but won the game. game. So I was... I liked him using the word sustainable yesterday in his press conference. Yeah,

that was good. No, I like that. It's not sustainable. The only team that won while losing the turnover battle. Yeah, 10 and 1 or something. Yeah. Yeah. Look, I mean, we know that in general, it's not a good idea to turn the ball over a lot and to give up explosive plays. The explosive plays were very different from each other. But there were plays where, you know, people were just out of gaps and things like that. But some of it was just week one, slipping on the field. Week one, like no one remembers how to tackle. You know, hopefully some of it was stuff like that. Having said that, all the other teams in the league, you know,

had to remember how to tackle too. And they seem to be tackling better. So Fran already got into a lot of the Fangio big picture stuff. I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the usage things that Fran didn't get to. A couple of interesting things that I noted. Well, I mean, Fran talked about the more important things already. So one of the things was, Fangio's usage of the safeties.

He's known as using the safeties. I feel like we could do, and I'm dropping the ball here because we didn't do this when we had the roster conversation. Okay. But Frangio is sitting right there for us. I mean, that's got to be a weekly segment. I mean, he can bring the hat back, bring the sweater back. Oh, that's good. Let's do Frangio.

Yeah. You guys should do that every Tuesday, right? Yeah, I think that's a good idea. Yeah, Fran's in the chat. In the chat. Let's see what he thinks about this. are about the weekly Fran Gio segment. We know the reason Fran's in the chat is because he wants to know what I think of his

swooper performance. Yes. Yeah, he's been like texting me. Oh, well, I don't know how I feel about this. He can't be inside conversing with the guy he's offering up. I might have to block him or something. He just keeps on texting to ask how he did. You know, I don't know.

I mean, but the level is outrageous. The level of preparation by Fran. I mean, like he said he went back and watched the third. film of old swoopers. Remarkable. I mean, you have to, yeah. What a scandal this is? What if Fran says he's not

cosplaying as Vic Banjo every week? Let me remind you, Beau, that I'm not the judge of Swoper. Like, I don't get to choose who wins Swooper. Why does it matter if, well, I'm not giving him advice. He's just asking me how he did. Yeah, but if he knows what's coming, he can plan his turkey accordingly. I'm not going to tell him what's coming. What do you think I am?

I don't know. This is, this is outrageous. I'm a professional professional. professor, I write exams. I mean, my job is to keep the questions of the test away from the students. So, what were we talking about? Safety usage. Frangio.

Vangio uses the safeties as queens on the test board, they say, right? The Fangio people, like the Sean Syedds of the world who study Fangio for a living, like, say this kind of thing. Very interesting that in the last three years, when the Eagles have said, have had Fangio disciples as the defensive coordinator, they've always done left safety right safety. And in terms of like the advantages and disadvantages of that, when you have left safety, right safety, it can disguise a little bit from the, you know,

from the defense, what you're going to do with the safeties, like who's going to roll down, who's going, who's not. And also you get used to playing with the same corner. So sleigh typically is the left corner. So the left safety gets used to playing with him. And then the right corner and the right safety are together. In 2022, when C.J. Gardner Johnson was here. he was the right safety and Marcus Epps was the left safety and that was on like 99% of the snaps.

It had to be something really weird for that not to be the case. And again, it lets you get used to the corner on that side. You know where to line up every play. You don't have to think about which hash the ball is on, things like that. Since the start of camp, from what I've heard, from those of you who are at camp, this year it's been different. C.J. Gardner Johnson is now the boundary safety. And Reed Blankenship is the field safety. And what that means is that when the ball is on the left hash, so that side of the field is shorter, C.J. Gardner Johnson goes to the side where the ball is, plays to the shorter side, and Reed Blankenship plays to the wider side. And it was that way 100% of the snaps in week one. I was wondering if that was just like a camp thing and it was going to be different by opponent or whatever. 100% of the snaps in week one without exception, C.J. Gardner Johnson was on the boundary side. Read Blankenship was on the field side. What that means is when you call,

certain coverages, it's more likely for one of them to end up in the box and the other one to go to the post, things like that. So that was one thing that I noticed. Atlanta's defense, I'm switching to the other side of the ball real quick, as a contrast to that, they use Jesse Bates as the left safety and Justin Simmons as the right safety on every snap, even though they don't keep their corners on the same side. So I'm not sure why they do it that way. But like, if you want to avoid Jesse Bates, you can avoid him by throwing it to the right side to the offense's left because he's not going to be there. Right. So, I mean, that'll be something that's interesting to see, actually, on Monday night. If, like, that happens. I know what's his name, Pittsburgh's offensive coordinator was saying that they were intentionally avoiding Jesse Bates. It's interesting because you would think that C.J. Garner, you would want the guy with the better ball skills to be on the field side because that's more likely to be where the pass is thrown, right? Yeah, I think one of the things is, and Fran said that he expected to see more cover six maybe in this game. Like one of the things that it does if you're in cover six and you're on that a lot of times like the the field will be the the field will be where the It changes from from it can go either way like I know Greco sell always talks about like the distinction between the two things On one side it'll be quarters on one side it'll be half and I think what about cover two Buster well

I mean we can have a whole show I think we should have a whole show next week on on two Buster Maybe Frangio can first snap that I think is two Buster this year I will definitely text you immediately and we can just have an emergency pod. But, you know, the cover... We love a joke for four people. I think, yeah, exactly. The logic of having the faster safety to the boundary is that he's more likely to be alone on that side.

Like on the field, you're more likely to be in, like, working together with the corner. That makes sense. Right. Whereas on the boundary, you could be left alone and be the only safety on that side. The other thing it happens, and it depends on the way the rotations work. So Fangio loves to rotate one of those safeties down at the snap. That's like the famous Fangio thing. Usually, and I know Sean Sayat talked about this earlier when he was on with Shield,

but with Fangio disciples like Gannon and Desai the last years, we've seen a lot of what's known as Cover 3 Sky, which is that safety rotating to the flat opposite the nickel. So it would be like the nickel and the safety on the flats, and then the two linebackers are left in the inside. In this game, I was surprised on the film to see how much cover three buzz there was, where the safety just goes straight down,

and then two linebackers end up on one side. So the two fast guys end up on one side, and the two linebackers end up on the other side. And some of that's because Green Bay was doing a lot of three-by-one stuff, so you're okay with like the linebackers being on that single side. It'll be interesting to see how that changes with the opponent during the season, but there were a bunch of things that Fan Gio did that I thought were encouraging

and that he wasn't just kind of playing his hits that he had clearly thought about this game and this, you know, this set of players and all that. And so in this game where our expectation is that the Falcons are going to be pretty boggy, right? And not pushing the ball downfield and probably playing a good amount of heavy personnel. Yeah. What are your expectations for how Fangio will play that stuff? unbelievably boggy. I know Fran talked about it at length yesterday, so I don't want to get into it too much.

but Kirk Cousins doesn't look like he can move. Yeah. I mean, he's catching the ball on the snap and just throwing it right away. And he talked about how predictable they were and that they threw it out of shotgun every time and they handed it off. I think it was like over 80% of the pistol snaps. He was getting rid of it fast. And BG was in the locker room yesterday talking about how they're only going to have

two to two and a half seconds to get there. So the pass rush is not going to be necessarily, it's not going to be one of those games where we have a lot of time to get there. And so the question is what can you do? I think the best thing to do against this is just take away the checkdowns, right? Like, I mean, he threw it to the, he threw it to be John Robinson a lot. He threw a lot of, he threw a lot of like short passes. If you can take away those checkdowns, if you can tell where those checkdowns are going to be and take those away, I think that's more valuable than heavy blitzing, for example.

And one of the Fangio staples, and we talked about it last week, was he does like to drop the edges. Encouraging that in the first game, he dropped the edges four times. the fourth one was a was a late game completion a short completion but the first three he dropped brandy graham and he had zach bonn blitz off the other edge and zach bond got a sack on that there was a jalen carter like post snap penalty on that one but the sack still counted the play still counted and then there was one where he dropped price off and he brought bond off the other edge again bond got a quarterback hit uh josh sweat spiked inside to kind of open the path for him and it caused an incompletion.

So that worked as well. And then the best one of all. That's play of the game. The interception where he drops Huff and Bonn, who are on the edges, blitzes Nekobi up the middle, and it causes the interception because Bonn is running with the tight end.

And as Fran pointed out on Tuesday, they had run a cover zero out of that same look earlier in the game. So I know like when Hassan Reddick was dropping last year, people were very upset. And we said, like, listen, the edges are going to drop sometimes. But if you can get a sack, a quarterback hit, and an interception on the first three times you do that. It feels like a guy who knows what he's doing. Yes, exactly.

Doing it with a purpose, not doing it on the first play of the game to set like some sort of weird precedent. And as you talked about it last, like, it was just manipulated like last year. Like if they line up this way, then they know that Hassan's going to drop. Like it's obviously, it's not like that. Yeah, exactly. And aggressive for the game, too, overall. So, I mean, including those exchanges. rushes, exchange pressures

that I just talked about. Bon blitzed 13 times in the game. I don't know if these are the official numbers. This is what I charted because this includes like penalties and stuff. Nicopi blitzed 18 8 times, bond blitzed 13 times and then Avanti Maddox had a blitz. Cooper de Gene had a blitz. So I was willing to bring pressure

especially in the red zone. I thought that was encouraging because I think the red zone defense has been a problem and that's something that it's nice to see that Fangio's philosophy in the red zone is to be aggressive. Yeah, I feel like in this game, like, make them prove that they can beat you deep, you know? Yeah. Like, even if you, even if you get beat deep a couple times,

like make them prove it. I watched the broadcast copy of the, the Falcons, Steelers, and then I watched the film. And it's rare that the film doesn't add anything. They didn't run any deep routes. I mean, like, no one was off the screen on the TV. Yeah. They threw an interception on a, on a wheel route where they had two receivers on that side and normally if you're going to throw that kind of wheel route it was against cover three the corner is ready to sink against a deep route and there just was no deep route so he was able to sit on the wheel come out and get the interception i thought that play was like a really good um it really like kind of exemplified like what happened in the rest of the game they're not it's one thing not to throw it deep kirk cousins was

the only quarterback in the league to not throw a pass of 20 plus air yards the whole game He was the only quarterback in the whole league. It's not just that they weren't throwing deep. They weren't running deep. And that's something you rarely see. I mean, Fran was talking about how they were lined up condensed, and they stayed condensed, and they didn't use the space. It's not just that they didn't, I mean, they didn't have like the, the Kwez Watkins clear out.

You know he's not going to get the ball. They didn't even have that. I'm skeptical that that's going to be what they are again, just because it's so like in week one, you can sort of get away with that because people don't know who you are yet. I feel like this, they're going to at least like put something. in. I don't know. You talked about Sean McVey copycats in that ad read. I mean, Zach Robinson, I think Sean McVeigh is going to tell him to take his name off

as, you know, the references list on his resume. If he has a few more games like this, I mean, I don't know what that was. All right. Before we get to Zach, let's hear from our friends and Shady Rays. Get ready for the season ahead with quality shades built to last. Our friends at Shady Rays have it covered. With premium polarized shades that won't break the bank, Shady Rays is an independent sunglasses company. offering a world-class product rated five stars by over 300,000 people. Their shades have durable frames and crystal clear optics, making them the perfect choice for all your outdoor adventures.

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Miller Lates sparked this debate in 1975, and we still haven't settled it. but poc no los dos. I mean, you can have it both when you have Miller Light. Great taste. Less filling. Less filling. Great taste. How about both? Miller Light keeps it simple. Undebatable quality, great taste, and only 96 calories. It is the beer that strips away everything you don't need and holds on to what matters most. A light beer that tastes like beer. Less filling and only 96 calories. The original light beer since 1975. You don't have to choose what's best. Miller Light has great taste and is less. Filling tastes like Miller time to get Miller Lite delivered right to your door. Visit Millerlight.com slash P.HLY. Birds or you can find it pretty much anywhere that sells beer. Celebrate responsibly Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories per 12 ounces, fewer calories and carbs than premium regular beer. All right. We turn now to the Novacare Complex and our dear friend, our Eagles insider, Zach Berman is looking sharp. His eyes are wide open. Zach, how you do it?

I'm doing well. Great to see Professor Simon. Sorry, it's not in person. I was listening to the show yesterday, and you guys were dogging me for being late, even though I gave notice. I texted you. I'm waiting to talk to a player. I'm going to be five minutes late. Today, I left the locker and made sure that I was here, and you kept me waiting seven minutes. So, I mean, I don't know if we're even or not, but I figured that I just bring that up. I didn't waiting seven minutes. I kept you waiting four minutes. That's four minutes after you were supposed to come on. I did the ad reads. You know, that's okay. I didn't know if you were going to be on time, so I had to build in the possibility that you might be late again. Yeah, no, I depart. There's one particular

player that I'm trying to track down. He did not come through today, or he might come through in the next 10 minutes, and Dave Zengarro will get him, and I will rue that. But I wanted to make sure that I was here so I could have some more time on the pod today. All right. What did you learn from the locker room this afternoon? Oh, so it's a little personality stuff that that could come through. Darius Lay's locker is next to Quinion Mitchell's, right? It might be a small thing. That's by design. Darius Lay requested to, he, he told them he wants Quignan's locker next to him. And he said that it's kind of like his, the reason he's, he's on this earth is like to help

other guys out is to help these these, these, these, these, these, players out and he thinks back to when he was a rookie and Rachine Mathis. Rachine Mathis was not, you know I asked who his locker mate was. Roshin Mathis was not the locker mate. You can guess again though. Glover Quinn. It's someone who, boom, well done. You know your sleigh, man.

Well done. Yeah. And he said that it's the conversations in the locker room that he called a locker room talk, which is what keeps, which is what keeps him going, which is like the best part of playing football. And so, you know, he had some good insight there that maybe we'll turn into a story at some point, just a little tease for the audience. As far as football perspective, I mean, Cooper the Gene is focusing on slot corner right now. Like that's, that's kind of where the bulk of his attention seems to be, which which we expected. But I would just pay attention

of that. Kunian Mitchell, he played fine, you know, he says there's some things that he needs to work on. He's a big film guy. He did not get to watch film on the flight down to Brazil as he intended. Unfortunately, he said the Wi-Fi was spotty. Now, I'm curious, I thought you can download the film. I thought you can download the film, but I know all about spotty Wi-Fi and how that could affect you. So that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, I came up. I talked to a few more guys about the Nick Foles memories. That story will be coming soon. And I had some casual conversations with some people in the in the locker room. And, you know, yeah, I worked my way around. I made sure I said my hello's. I'm almost at like 53. Well, almost at like 64. But got a few more to go. Are you keeping count?

I mean, there's, well, I was kind of exaggerating there, but yeah, I mean, I know the guys I haven't seen this, this week. I put it that way. Okay, fair enough. Danes, what did you make of Zach's super performance yesterday? Oh, my goodness. It is so fun. Those of you who are audio listeners, just for the swooper segments, I highly encourage you to watch on YouTube. Anytime one of my submissions comes up, Zach's face changes, he like.

He moves slightly away from the camera. Like, like, he wants to make sure he doesn't accidentally mutter something into the mic. Like, he is staying so far away from, it's like a normal auction. The Eagles are going to run one under center play. And he's like, I'm staying away from this one. Like, the professor's going to get me. So I really like that bit that Zach will just not bid on any of my. I really hope that he doesn't bid on any of my items the whole season.

So that'll be my goal. I will bid when I feel it's necessary. to bid, but I think it's, it's, uh, I think it's important to know, like, you don't have to, uh, I, I don't have to pick every game per se, right? You know, it's, it's, it's like if you're, if you're betting on games, you don't have to bet every game on the slate, right? You just bet the games you like. Well, I'll be sure to, I'll be sure to work in some auction formats that don't let you just, uh, don't let you just sit out. Well, that's my word. That is, that is, that is, that is my worry. I don't like those off. I believe very much in, in carrying over.

I love the graphics you put together. I appreciate you doing that. I think, though, what I want to highlight is the leftover turkeys because you have one person in the deficit. You have another person who really didn't save much for a rainy day. And you had someone else who knows that this is a long season. Great. So, real quick, is it okay if I ask a quick football question?

Please, please, please. I'm curious if you get any sense from the building if Isaiah Rogers is ever going to be anything on this team other than depth. Because there was talk that he would be starting week one and then Beau did a great job pointing out that he wasn't in the building in that last preseason game. And it turns out he was injured. But then he said, I didn't come all this way, you know, just to be a backup and all this kind of stuff. He said to be a healthy scratch. To be a healthy scratch. That's right.

So the question is, is he going? to do you think he at this point do you think there's any chance especially with how good quignon Mitchell looked on the outside do you think there's any chance that he will that you know without someone else getting injured whether whether he would play good question because my guess is that cooper de gene will be the slot corner sooner rather than later and I don't think they're going to mess with with with quinine going inside and out now now Vic Fangio as you know I don't need to tell you I'm telling the audience because I know you listen to every press conference

the fan Gio said that the reason why Quinyon stayed on the outside and Maddox played on the inside, that was their best combination with Isaiah down. Left unsaid is what would have been their best combination with Isaiah up. And kind of implicit in there is that Isaiah on the outside and Quinyan on the inside, I think after the way we've seen Quinyan Mitchell play and knowing kind of the upside he has, I personally would not move him around. That's me talking. That's not the Eagles.

I think that the way this chinked out, to answer your question is that Isaiah is quality depth and that if something were to happen with sleigh or something were to happen with quinyon he would be the next guy upstarted uh there's there's also we haven't seen even if if if cooper plays in the slot in nickel i'm curious to see what they do in dime do you play avante and dine with cooper and in that case do you move quinine inside and dine and play rogers on the outside i mean my my guess is is assuming you know at some point here, the jean's the slot, it beat the gene and Maddox inside in dime.

But to answer your question, I think Rogers is his quality depth at this point. And as you've documented it, and we've all documented, I mean, Darius Lay is one of the oldest cornerbacks in the NFL. We'll see if he can play 17 games, but it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility

that Isaiah Rogers gets in there. That's why I like to, I know you didn't ask this question, but, you know, when, when Nick Siriani says they might need Devin White, or they're going to need Devin White this season, recent history suggests they're going to need Devin White this season, right? There's only been one year in the past five years when they've kept the same linebackers,

I mean, health aside, like where the same linebackers have been the guys that they turn to throughout the year. So it happens more often than not that they need to go to a different linebacker throughout the year. So that's why Isaiah Rogers could well be in there at some point. It didn't sound great yesterday. Devin White was asked.

if they had talked to him, if Vic came to him and they talked to him about his role and he just said, no. And then they asked him what his role was and he said, Zach, were you in on that? I'm not sure if you were in on Devin White yesterday. I was not, I was on the show. Doing the show, yeah. No, it's not burdened. I want to do the show. I took this job.

I took this job to do the show. I love that. That is why I'm here to do the show. I want to make that abundantly clear. So, uh, waiting and reporting. I think it was in the locker room.

I think it was ESP. Asked him, uh, if, uh, if he was, uh, sorry, this is too easy.

I'm sorry, Zach. Uh, asked him if, if, uh, he knew, figure out cloning.

Yeah, there were two Zaks. Yeah. If he, if he knew what his role was and he said, you have to ask them or something like that. So it didn't sound great. Like,

it didn't sound like the Devin White, you know, current like, you know, his current, yeah, thoughts about his role and all that are super healthy but if no one gets hurt it doesn't matter yeah i mean he doesn't play special teams he hasn't played as he said and i watched back that press

conference or or the interview rather um he he hasn't played special teams in his career and so i don't know if what he he could be a a healthy scratch frankly if if he is healthy and he was a participant in practice yesterday so was i zaya rogers so yeah we'll see jack you have a you have a story up on all p hly.com with some of these notes some of these things you've talked about one thing in there that i want to ask about which you know nick touched on but i want you to sort of speculate on what the reason might be and the reason that you are in this pickle now of having to choose between uh locker room and the show why did the eagles change their practice schedule this year do you think yeah good question so as nick suggested last week this was vanger's idea uh and u.s nick yesterday

He did not want to get into the change because I guess competitive advantage. He did say he that the it's stupid for coach just to do things the same way because they've always done it. And I would agree, not just coaches, but people too, right? I mean, you should always be learning and evolving and growing. But the core values are set in stone, he said. Like that those. The core values are set in stone.

Although the order changed. Yeah, the order might have changed. So my understanding. understanding, yeah, my understanding is that they flip the meetings and the practice. So the way they were doing it before, they were meeting after practice. Okay. And my guess now is that the meetings are before practice. Maybe that allows for more engaged meetings.

That's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's speculating. But yeah, I mean, I do know from talking to these guys that practice is now like the end of the day. So when they finish practicing, like they were able to go home. You know, there's a player I was talking to today about something going on tonight. And he was like looking at easy. He's like, yeah, get out of here at this time. So I can get to that by that time because there's nothing after practice. Did you learn where the party was?

Yeah, this sounds very interesting. It's not a party. It's a father. It's dad's being dads, right? It's, yeah, Nick Foles will be proud. What's what you know, yeah, Nick, Nick, Nick Foles is. Yeah, it's dad season. No days off, he says.

But there's no days off for moms either, right? So as he referenced in the Kristen. Zach, Evan starts his flag football league tomorrow. And Emily, my wife, Emily, is going to be one of his assistant coaches. And so I told her she should feel free to hit you up with, you know, for coaching advice. I know you had a bunch of players for your team. Yeah, I appreciate you bringing that up.

We did not use the depth and breadth of my playbook last year. I realized pretty early on to keep it the basics. I'll say this. I had a very new age approach to coaching that some of the kids appreciated more than others. I believed everyone at that age, I believe everyone should play. I believe everyone should touch the ball. I can say for a fact, not every coach in the league takes that approach. Some of the coaches just say, like, you know, they're being Bill Belichick out there

and they're looking for a schematic advantage. One of those coaches, so it kind of, so we lost the game last year. We're like, it was like, I was like, come on. Like, seriously, this is, this is what we're doing here. Like, I wanted, at that age, no, I'm not one of these people who thinks like high school football, everyone should be playing, right? But seven years old, six years old, you're trying to get everybody to continue to enjoy the sport. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. Exactly. Like I, I tell my son all the time,

I don't care how you do, I care how you do it, right? Like I, you know, what matters to me is, is like, are you enjoying yourself, or you being a good teammate, having fun, are you getting something out of it? So I would say that, but to answer your question succinctly, I've used that expression too much this is true. And I, learned this from coach flint actually shout up coach flynn is that the uh the center is is like a tricky weapon in the offense so the center snapping but the center is eligible to make the catch and typically the defense is not accounting for the center so i did run a touch

my money play in in the goal line last year was because you couldn't run the ball inside the goal line was the center snap it take two steps turn around put the hands up and boom that's that's a money play they have to get into the into the five-yard line for that play to work but that play did yield a number of successful touchdowns for us yeah I was I was I played center in college intramural flag football so I know all about that but like you know just yeah just the the quick little center ball route for the not a lot of yak but you know that's okay yeah all right Zach before we let you go What else is on your mind? Yes, so like I said, some of the Nick Foll's stories,

you'll see that on all phti.com this weekend. Among the Eagles receivers, oh, I'm sorry, among the Eagles corners, there's a great deal of respect for Drake London in particular. Like the, I got to admit, Kyle Pitts' name hasn't come up when I've talked to people, unfortunately, this week. I'm like, he's from right over. Drake London respect.

This is like, we know that this guy didn't have a good week last. week. Let's talk him up so he doesn't feel extra motivated. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. I did ask Slay because Slay has three career picks off of Kirk Cousins. I asked Slay about what, you know, he saw in that first game, if this looks like a different Kirk Cousins than the past. And he says his, his mind is not messed up. So, you know, he said he can still, you know, his, he's never been a scrambler. He didn't say how he looked dropping back or in play action, right? But he said that he's someone who can beat you with his mind. He's got a lot of respect for him, but he's gotten three picks off him in his career. His favorite one was

that game two years ago at Super Bowl year when he had two against the Vikings, Justin Jefferson, shut him down, gave the interception to James Hardin. From the injury report, I will be out at practice any minute, and I will be looking at Milton Williams. Milton Williams was limited yesterday. Saw Milton in the locker room. Don't anticipate that that being a big deal. It seems like Deals have a pretty, you know, clean build health, relatively speaking. But really what I'm paying attention to is the depth, I'm sorry, it's a slot corner situation. And also I'm curious to watch kickoff returns this week because I'm curious to see if there's any change there after Gainwell's fumble last week.

All right. Well, I think Denny's has some thoughts on that. that we will get to you in a second. But, Zach, thank you very much. We appreciate it, and we will stay tuned to all phtly.com to see what else you have coming. Thank you so much. You got it. Thank you. All right.

Yeah, let me give you a second to get on your soapbox here about the kickoff. See, I was excited about the kickoff. And, you know, I talked about it when they made the change. What a rube. What a rube you are. When I saw so manipulated by the NFL. Come on. When the XFL did this, I was tweeting like three years ago that the NFL should do.

this. It's cool. I like it. And they actually returned the kickoffs and it's not just all touchbacks. And I thought that the problem in the NFL was that there were too many touchbacks. I thought that was the main issue. And I thought that's why they changed the rule. Now, I've heard rumblings about the way that this went down, but the original proposal, this is public information, the original proposal was for touchbacks to go to the 35. And the whole point of that is to make it so teams don't want to kick touchbacks. You figure you can stop the returner before the 35. And then one of the groups involved in the negotiations argued that it should be the 30.

The richest group. Possibly. And I'm not sure exactly what they're going for. Like if they just want to appear like they are making it safer, but they also don't actually want any returns at all. because the touchback rate has gone down a little bit from last year so far, but there are games where every single kickoff is a touchback. And Michael Clay talked this week about how he thinks as the weather gets worse

and guys can't get it to the end zone. Like there are going to be more returns. But, I mean, that was the case before. Guys can get it to the end zone. Like that doesn't happen very much. Like there's not that much weather anymore in which guys can't get it to the end zone. Plus you have so many domed stadiums now and everything. So I think it's, I thought,

I think the return rule is very good, except I think the touchbacks should be punished more. I think you should really be incentivized to try to kick it in the landing zone. And if you're not going to do that... Why not just move the ball back five yards? I don't know, man. The kickers just keep getting stronger. Some of them are kicking it like into the stands on these kickoffs. Like I don't know how much that would change.

I think just like I'm the game theorist. Like I'm going to talk about incentives here. It doesn't matter where you kick off from. If you make the touchback be such a bad result. that you're that you're not going to want to do it. Like I think the rule should be I would honestly make it the 40.

They just put it at the 40 on touchbacks. Like guarantee basically that there's going to be a return on every kickoff. And they do have the cool rule that if you can skip it through the end zone, it goes to the 20, which is kind of neat. Like if it can bounce in the landing zone. I didn't know that.

They do have that and happened in a few games. But then if you, you know, like if it doesn't get to the 20, then it goes to the 40, whatever. But I just think like the kickers are so good and so accurate now. Like they can pretty much put the ball wherever they want. You have to incentivize them to kick it in the area where it's going to get returned. And I just wish they had done that.

And because they didn't do that and it's still all these touchbacks, the narrative around the country is the kickoff rule is stupid. You know, like it looks stupid. You know, like, and it does look stupid. It looks stupid because it's still a touchback and they're lined up in the wrong side of the field. So it looks weird. You know, like it's like, whatever. I also like Kili Ringo moved on the very first kickoff of the whole season. Yeah, it's like the one thing you have to do is not move.

Yeah. You have one other pet concern that you'd like to discuss and it was hinted at in super sortcasting yesterday. I was very surprised watching the film of the punt team. There were two punts maybe in the game and then there was one punt return. Jeremiah Trotter Jr. is a backup linebacker. He's dressed. and he didn't play on any other punt snaps. This is not normal.

Like, I just, I mean, those of you who don't grind special teams film, I can tell you that you losers, like 99% of backup linebackers play on punt and punt return. Like, that's the body type you want on the field. And, you know, the Eagles on the punt team, if anyone wants to, you know, know who was out there, Keeley Ringo and Tristan McCollum were the gunners, will she please the personal protector. And then you had Nolan Smith out there, Grand Calcutera. you had Ben Van Sumeran, Oren Berks,

the long snapper, of course, Patrick Johnson. Rick Levado was the Eagles. Of course, we know that, and that's probably the guy that Zach's trying to talk to about Nick Foles or something, yeah,

and Zach Bonn, who played every single defensive snap. Now, yeah, that is interesting. That is weird, right? You've got a guy who's playing every single defensive snap.

It's the punt team, so he's about to go out on defense, and he's running down the field, full speed on punt, and Jeremiah Trotter's on the sideline. So I'm not saying that this is like the end of his career or anything, but like it's strange to me. It's weird. He's out there just standing around on the kickoff touchbacks, but he's not playing on the one element of special teams that actually matters, which is pun.

So just the thing to note of early Jeremiah Trotter usage. I mean, nowhere near as curious as the Dylan McMahon situation. Okay. Fire everybody. All right. Well, I guess I'll do it for this episode of the P.H.O.Y. E.E. podcast. Make sure that you are subscribing and evangelizing about the show, all that good stuff, download, you know, spread the word, spread the gospel. We will be back on Monday at 2 o'clock. We got a regular

2 o'clock show with me and Zach before we even get to the pregame show and the watch party and the halftime show and the post game show with Fran Duffy, Jamie Lynch, and Vinnie Curry, along with myself. So we're looking forward to all of that stuff. Got you covered. Zach will have it covered for whatever happens at the NoviCare Complex. tomorrow. He's going to have Nick Foles coverage, all that good stuff. We've got lots coming your way as the Eagles prepare for week two against the immobile Melvin himself, Kirk Cousins. That'll do it for this episode. Thanks to Danes for coming in. Thanks to Andrew for stepping in behind the scenes. We'll talk to you later. Have a good weekend. And as always, we love you.