PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Can Kellen Moore & Nick Sirianni press the right buttons for the Philadelphia Eagles vs. NYG?

Episode Date: October 18, 2024

The Eagles begin their NFC East schedule with a trip up I-95 to play Daniel Jones, Dexter Lawrence, Malik Nabers, Brian Burns and the Giants. What gameplan will Kellen Moore and Nick Sirianni put together against a defense that leads the league in sacks? What kind of production should we expect from A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, Grant Calcaterra and, the player of the week, Saquon Barkley?Deniz Selman joins Bo Wulf in studio for another session of class before Zach Berman joins midway through. 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.HOY Eagles podcast presented by Bet365. Download the Bet365 app and use code PHLY 365 when you sign up, whatever the moment. It's never ordinary at Bet365. Welcome in to a football Friday, the first NFC East game on Tilt, Bull Wolf, the professor. Danis Selman in studio. Zach's going to join us at some point if he can fit us into his schedule. How are you doing, Professor? I'm doing well. Thank you. How are you? Do you get as a fan a little bit more jacked up for a division game? I always kind of hated the Giants the most, I think. Okay. Proximity or what? Yeah, I don't know why. Maybe proximity, maybe just like a lot of years of Dallas not being very good, like in my formative years.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure exactly why. The faux sheen of class. Yeah, that too. I don't know what it is. Like there were a lot of big games. Like I remember this isn't really growing up. I mean, I was in grad school already, but when the Giants were the one seed in 2008, Eagles went up there and won. They were defending champs and the one seed.

That might be like my favorite Eagles game that I didn't go to. Like it was a game that I watched on TV. Okay. So yeah, there's just something about the Giants. I don't know what it is. It fires me up. But you are not necessarily extra jacked up because it's Saquan going back to play the Giants. No, no, no.

Yeah, not really. no okay I'm happy I'm happy that is that cover that for us yeah exactly we will get to that a little bit let's let's get down to the business to brass tax and let's start with the start of games yeah good job with the bet 365 at the start today I feel like I have been like the Eagles yeah yeah I mean well I mean you've gotten it right a few times yeah I have again I accidentally backed into it a couple times unlike the Eagles who remain pointless through five games yeah on the very first drive, just one first down. That's, you know, that's five times, you know, five first drives, 22 yards total, just one first down. Difficult to achieve. Yeah, kind of shocking. As many turnovers as first downs through five drives.

30 second an EPA per drive when you include the second drive as well. So over the first two drives of these games. So that's 10 drives total. So the sample size is getting to be a little bit larger. That's about a full game's worth. Do you see any correlation between the teams that are good at the first two drives, like being good offensively? Yeah, when you do like a scatter plot of first two drives versus all the other drives,

you don't get that many teams that are wildly opposite. Okay. Now the Eagles. So there's the perception, right, that I want to give credit. I think it was, I think it was Orlovsky. And nobody in the world can do what he does. And I believe that he said the perception being like, The first couple of drives are coaches.

The rest of the game is players. You think that's fair? Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. Looking at the individual plays, we've talked about this before, there is a little bit of a pattern of trying different personnel groupings. We saw, like, in Tampa, they started with 21 personnel. They didn't run it again the whole game. There was another game where I think it got Shipley.

It gets Shipley on the field. Shipley's on the field to get the start. Maybe it was in his, like, rookie contract or something. Yeah, get one start. That's true. But the like was Vince was Ben Ben Samirin was that the second drive? I have to check one note. I'll check my notes during the break either the second or third.

It was definitely in the first half. Yeah. I think it was the second drive because we were talking we were talking about like different personnel groupings early in the game and that game was probably the most extreme example. But this is something we've seen in the entire Siriani era. Doug did this a little bit too where you start and you just want to see how the defense is going to play. And we've heard both players and Jason Kelsey's talked about this a lot in his like, you know, million hits that he does all over the place. He said that against Jalen Hertz, a lot of defenses play differently than they do against other teams.

And so the Eagles more than other teams are focused on learning how the defense will play them. Okay. Against certain personnel groupings, against certain formations. And so they're using those first couple of drives to see how they're going to match to 12 personnel, match to maybe 13 personnel. you know, a match to Will Shipley. And so maybe that's part of the reason. Like they're not trying to maximize the probability of moving the ball. They're trying to learn more for other drives.

Now, the good news is drives three through the end of the game. Yeah. The Eagles, and this might be shocking to some people, are second in EPA per drive in the whole league. Only Washington has been better. So if you were to eliminate the first two drives of every game for every team, the Eagles would have the second best offense in the league. So I don't know.

I mean, just for the listeners, you're generally thinking eight to 10 drives a game. Yes, there have been on average 10 drives, slightly less than 10 drives if you take out the kneel down drives. Eagles have had 45 real drives in five games. So that's, you know, nine drives a game. So we're not talking about a small sample size with that second number. That's a lot of drives that the Eagles are second best in football. Now, again, I don't know if it's just because of.

I mean, it feels like it has to just. be noise, right? I hope that that's the case, though, like we said, there is a little bit of are they just trying so many random things? And then, of course, there's like a little bit of a snowball effect, like if first down doesn't work, now you're in second and long, and like, now you don't get to, yeah, I don't know. Now, last game, a quick note about the last game, it seemed like their solution coming out of the by week was to almost pretend like it wasn't the start of the game. They came out and they ran to the line and they ran tempo on the very first play. Which I thought was interesting.

They snapped it quickly. Jersey's dirty before the first drive. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, it was just a run play, but like they snapped it quickly and they ended up getting like their best fun of the game. Well, yeah, I mean, but here's the thing, right? Like when we talk about like going quickly in tempo, Siriani's talked about this. We've heard Kellynne Moore talk about this now. We've heard Lane Johnson talk about it.

And we'll get more on that in a second. It seems like tempo is their solution to everything. And we're going to talk about all the tendencies on offense that we've been talking about now for a full. I feel like it's been 12 months now of talking about this. 29th in motion, 25th in play action, 31st and under center rate. Over the whole game. Over the entire season so far. Okay.

Yes. 29th in pass rate went under center. So they basically never run under center passes. And depending on where you look either 31st or 32nd in middle of field target rate. I want the reason I'm mentioning all of these is because I want to I have like something to say about each one of them but but they but a bunch of them they've related to tempo right like so when you ask Helen Moore like how come you're not using as much motion he referenced tempo and Zach asked him how come you didn't use play action and he referenced tempo again like it's like it's like the answer to everything is like well we were using tempo and I feel like and I don't yeah intellectually I don't understand why tempo means none of that other stuff right right. Right. And Kelsey talked about this a little bit on WIP as well, that sometimes when the offense wasn't going well, they would change gears. And he said, you know, and we would run tempo, right? And the way he talked about it, it was like coaches have talked about it this way as well. It's like a whole bunch of plays that they can always run, whether they've used, whether they've practiced them that week or not. And so by nature, there's simpler plays and tend to involve less motion, less play action. Now, to me, just logically, one of the reasons that you would have, not involve play action or motion especially is because they're designed for two-minute situations, right?

Like you design a part of your playbook for two-minute situations where you have to go fast. So first of all, you want similar formations from play to play. So guys aren't spending valuable seconds, like if the clock is running, like you don't want guys like figuring out where to line off. Personnel in the field. Same personnel, same like typically two-by-two sets and, you know, like typically the same route combinations

that we see the Eagles run a lot. with the game clock being a factor, I get that, right? But when you choose to run tempo to spark the offense from the first play of the game, can't you just snap the ball fast and then run a schemed up play that you practiced all week? Like you can get to the line of scrimmage, toy with the defense, you know, regarding when you snap it and things like that. And then you should be able to run any play with motion, with play action, et cetera. And sometimes I feel like it's like there are different chapters of the offensive playbook.

That is what it feels like, right? You talked about the Frankenstein of the coaching staff. Right. And it's like, okay, you get to be in charge of our tempo playbook. You get to be in charge of our motion playbook. You get to be, and everybody's doing their own little thing. And it's not born of the same DNA. Right. And I would love to hear more from coaches and players about this. Like, you know, maybe this is something like Zach can ask them, et cetera, or you guys can ask them. But like, it's like, do you really go into a mode where you're in tempo? Right? And that just means like, okay, none of that other stuff. Like, we're in tempo now. Or is there a way to marry those two? concepts together and get to the line fast while, you know, while doing the, while doing play action and motion. Sounds like a good idea for a bit on the show as we create a marriage between tempo and motion. It's like, you know, the marriage between the past game and the running game, we could have Skangarela be the efficient.

Oh, all right. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Now, look, the play.

We're gathered here today. Yes. No, I got you. Yeah. Yeah. With play action in particular, Zach wears a dress. I'm sure you would, I'm sure he would agree to that. We kiss. It's all the thing. He would agree to all of that, for sure, for sure.

You pee sitting down. Is that part of a traditional wedding ceremony? I don't know. I mean, maybe it is in some cultures. I don't want to make any assumptions. Now, the play action thing in particular was driving me crazy last week. Okay. Because they ran two snaps of play action. It's crazy. In the entire game.

It is like, I mean, and it is, it is so everybody in the football consciousness understands that like in today's NFL, that is the easy button. Right. Like it is always more efficient to run play action. You can't just run it on every play. But like in a game, when they were running so much, yes. You would think they would set it up a little bit. The football analytics nerds have proven over time that it doesn't even matter. whether you run it a lot or whether you're running it well.

But the Eagles run it most, fourth most often on neutral downs in the league, in general. This was their most run-heavy approach of the entire season. 17 of the first 25, like, normal plays on offense were runs in this game. And they still didn't switch to play action. You know, like, it's like the two plays of play action, by the way. There was a pistol outside zone action boot that schemed up Calcutera for 34 yards. You can see the flat defender on that play is, chasing the run to the other side. So Calcuttaire is wide open. The linebacker actually chased it too.

AJ Brown is also wide open on the play. And as an example of two wide open guys on one play, clearly because of play action. And then the 13-yarder to Dotson on the backwards pass. It counted as a run. That was a pin pull action to the left, where two of the linemen are pulling to the left. Dotson's orbit motioning to the right. And he catches a swing screen. Motion and play action on the same play? I mean, the orbit motion and the play action. are what springed out play that's a 13-year game and jehan dotson there you go so you got everything that have all been missing there you go yeah technically a run so it's it's it's perfect for you but it doesn't help him in that in your favorite stat yards per run but uh yeah no so i mean basically there's it's

it's really hard to tell why this is that the guy who yelled at syriani allegedly was talking about how like after sake one gets five yards on first down why don't you run it again or whatever who knows if that was even the guy but i'm sure it was just that polite suggestion yeah i'm sure was but but i'm thinking the opposite i mean there were there were two different instances in the first half of this game where the first down was an eight yard run second down was a one yard run and then third round third down was a tush bush it's just like second and two like maybe instead of running it for one more yard yeah like take a shot and this is something that in the syriani era the eagles have not done is take shots on second and short they did it in brazil and i mentioned it and i talked about how

exciting it was they haven't done it a single time i actually like i haven't gone back to just watch that week one game uh in a couple weeks i think it would be it would look like a totally different offense yeah now there were some wrinkles in this game you know a couple of things like the a j 22 yarder had like an exit motion by the tight end that like set up a j against the guy or whatever so there are small wrinkles where you can see uh motion working uh so i don't want to make it sound like there's like nothing um you know in the offense using motion or or gaining a advantages from it. It's just so much lower a rate than every other team in the league.

Again, 29th in the league in motion. I joked. When Kellynne Moore got hired, I tweeted, safe to say the Eagles will rank in the top 31 in motion this year. Hey, and I was right. I was right. 29th, baby. We will hear more about those tendencies in just a minute. Hello.

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You want to start with motion and play action? Well, I think we covered motion and play action. Under center is the next one. Okay. And Jason Kelsey talked on WIP. He heard of him. He was a center. So who better to talk about under center? He said he always preferred running like stretch play action from under center rather than shotgun. So we can rule out now that it has carried over from Kelsey to jerkins. It had anything to do with like Kelsey's butt.

I think that's probably right. Also, you know, similar body body types between those two centers. So that's probably not what it is. I don't know. It's a good question to ask. Yeah. Well, we don't need to ask a question. We can rule it out. Okay, yeah.

Let's rule that out. Now, Kelsey also said that he said, first of all, I said the RPO's don't seem to be working as well this year. And when that happens, he thinks that being unpredictable is the most important thing when you run a play. And by that, what I think he meant is that Jalen's skills are, like, there are more threats and shotgun because you're keeping the quarterback run in play. Okay. So rather than having him turn his back, and we've heard all of this, you know, we've heard all of this before. But basically the idea is like if they're dedicating a guy to kind of like waiting on the backside of the play for in case Jalen keeps it, running the play from under center eliminates that. He said you can have a dynamic offense and shotgun still, but still have to be more creative.

Now, the reason I'm the main reason I'm referencing what Kelsey said is because I thought it was interesting. He said the shotgun offense is quote unquote more dummy proof. And I don't know. I'm not sure he's calling somebody a dummy, but that is what he said. So I don't know. That's interesting. Well, I mean, also, we know that when you're in shotgun, it means that you can be scanning the field while you're carrying out your fakes.

You don't have your back turned to the defense. So there's a little bit more time to process, right? Right, right. Well, since you mentioned that, I was going to mention this later, but Kurt Warner said this week that when he watches quarterbacks, he says young quarterbacks especially, He said a lot of them are starting their reads in the wrong place, and they're just kind of staying stuck to that and throwing the ball where it shouldn't go,

given the play call and the defense. And he said that Jalen isn't like that, that he's good at knowing where to look first, but he needs to improve speeding up the progression from one to two to three. And I found that interesting. It does seem like there have been plays this year where it looked like he never got to one side of the field. Like there was a guy open, but he never got to that. He just ended up throwing it to the other side.

He's still the third slowest in the league to throw the ball, averaging 3.1 seconds per throw. But I do wonder if the coaches think, well, look, he's kind of slow going through progressions as it is. If we start that progression later because he's under center with his back turned, by the time he turns, is it too late to go through a real progression? Really, we're talking about like let's have three plays a game like that, right? Yeah, no, I agree. instead of one every three games, which is kind of what it's been.

This relates a little bit to the last point of the tendency, which is the middle of field rate. I saw a graphic on Twitter, I think it was from Football Insights. I don't want to get that wrong. But they plotted all of the quarterback seasons from the last four years based on middle of field pass rate. And three of the four lowest seasons are 2021 Jalen Hertz, 2023 Jalen Hertz, and 2024 Jailen Hertz.

2022 is the only one where he was like, you know, close to not at the very bottom, basically. And anecdotally, like when I watch the film at least, and I always pause it at the top of the drop and kind of see what he's looking at, on the ones where, and this is totally unfair to the quarterback, obviously, we all know this, like, you know, plotting it in slow motion and looking at the whole thing. But when I've said, hey, he had this guy open for a deeper completion, it's typically a guy in the middle of the field and he threw it to the outside to AJ or Devante. and I'd like to, you know, I'd love to hear. I see Fran's on the chat. I'd love to hear what Fran has to say about that. There were some examples in this game. Very first draftback of the game.

Second and five, Schwartz runs a cover one, blitz, and they completely bust the coverage. Two guys cover Devante running an inbreaker, and Dallas Goddard is wide open, running from the middle of the field to the corner, but still, like, I mean, he's just wide open, and Jalen throws an ISO go ball to AJ, which falls incomplete.

And Dallas decides to fake an injury and says he's never playing for this team. He only played one more play after that. And who knows who knows what we're going to see him again. And you're absolutely right. You can't see the injury on the film. So who knows. Not to start conspiracies. Not to start conspiracies.

But we wouldn't blame him. No, we would not. A couple of times the Eagles ran these like two by two Hoss concepts that the Patriots were famous for. So Hoss is hitches outside slots seams. So both of the slots are running seam routes. And Jim Schwartz famously runs a lot of single high safety. So the idea is like those seam routes are supposed to put the post safety in conflict. And there was one play in particular where Duante and Calcutera are just like screaming open at the one high safety.

And he kind of cheats towards Calcutera. And A.J. And instead it's just a hitch to AJ on the outside. So that's another one where he's not looking at the middle of the field. There's an excuse on all of them. Like they started and too high on that one and they rotated to cover. three so maybe Jaylen's thinking that it's not a single high play um i don't know i mean he did hit calcutera on the 120 yarder uh on the on the seam route in the two minute drill and that's one where schwartz

was rotating his guys into an exotic um tampa two and he threw it anyway and and it was open and and it was open and it's it's really like you can look at individual plays the one that jehan dotson calcutera's open for a touchdown the one on the last drive uh maybe it was better better better to milk the clock can score touchdown so so it didn't really matter but rodney mcclough is in the post to start the play vacates it in the famous Schwartz Invert 2. By the way, I realized how much I missed Jim Schwartz when I watched this game on film. I was like, I was like, I remember the Invert 2, you know. But the Calcutera is just wide open, like screaming at the post there.

And Jalen doesn't even really look there. So anyway, there's an excuse on all of these. What are the Post due to him? Well, we're never going to know because he didn't get to get his revenge. And now what do you make of the talking point this week about the, He was getting to the line late. Yeah, so if anyone missed it, Lane Johnson expressed concern

that they were snapping the ball too late in the play clock, and that led to defenses being able to run their packages more, that kind of thing. He said they're also just better in tempo. So thanks to true media, I was able to do a little bit of a deep dive into this. I want to distinguish two things. One is huddle versus no huddle.

Okay. And then the other is how fast they snap the ball when they're in, when they're not in no huddle. And when they're in no huddle, they're snapping it fast. I mean, just like everybody. Now, the Eagles do run no huddle 25% of the time,

which is fourth most in the league. So there's the Kingsbury. Kingsbury commanders are like over 50%. It's like almost like Chip Kelly. And then everyone else is like more reasonable. But the Eagles are still fourth highest to 25%. For what it's worth, league-wide, success rates are higher and no huddle than huddle.

So you have to kind of understand that that's like the baseline. And there's a couple of reasons for that. Some of them are game situation. But the Eagles are 42- Higher in huddle than no huddle. No, no, no. huddle has always been more successful. Yeah, okay.

And that's always been the case. Yeah, yeah. So the Eagles are 42% success rate, which is why when the offense is struggling, you hit the tempo button. Just hit the tempo button and go no huddle. And I'm not even kidding. Like, that might be like something that the teams have looked at and just been like, and that's probably what Chip Kelly believed in too.

I mean, like, now the no huddle league average is 48% and the and the huddle average is 41%. So there's a big difference in success rates. And the Eagles are pretty much exactly average in both. So they're 42%. huddle 48% no huddle this is success rates on place so they have been more successful when they're when they're in tempo this is just true and this is true when you control for not two minute drill as well okay um so lane has something there now can you build the entire plane out of

the box a black box or whatever right like chip kelly tried and it didn't you know end up working in a sustained way right because the number of plays you can run all that or that comes in well yeah That's why I'm trying to squeeze as many of these things in as I can before it gets here. But getting to Lane's point, when they huddle, when you take out the fourth quarter, because teams are intentionally milking the clock in those situations sometimes, and you take out all the no huddle plays, the Eagles have the second highest rate of letting the play clock get down to five seconds. 46% of the time. So it's them and the Jets are both around 46%.

The third highest team is 34%. So the Jets and the Eagles are outliers. There's no other team that's letting the play clock get down to five. Siriani said this morning that in practice they have a 35 second clock instead of a 40 second clock. So if they practice like they play, that's a delay of game, 46% of the time. So I'm assuming that's not the case. But yeah, so I thought that was interesting. When you do two seconds, you might think five seconds is who cares if it gets down to five.

When it gets down to two, you're normally in that frantic mode where the quarterback is like clapping his hands and stopping a speed. knows the snap is coming. Yeah, like there's a guy not lined up or whatever. The Eagles are the second highest in that as well. 13% of the time. They let it get down to two seconds. Now, when you look at what's happened on those plays, this is a lot of noise.

Like the AJ Brown 22-yarder, the play clock was at two seconds. The Sequin touchdown in Brazil. The play clock was at one second. So there are examples of plays that work, and the Eagles have not particularly been worse. On those plays. But league-wide.

So, okay, so two questions, right? one is this new this year and two doesn't matter right in terms of success so the answer to the first question is yes this is new this year this 46% letting the play clock get down to five this is new under seriani in the last three years it's been 33 30 and 35 so it has jumped this year okay now why is it because jalen's calling the protections is it because there's slightly more emotion than there was is it because seriani's like talking some nonsense to kellen more about game situation and the headset and it's taking too long it's probably it's probably both the changes to who is calling the stuff pre-snap and it's a new offense right it's there's a lot of new things right yeah that's probably right i mean it seemed like uh was it brooks uh who was asking about this this morning like we're like he was trying to get answers from syriani about what's causing the slowness and he kind of said it's kind of everything right and he mentioned that one of the things is him talking to kellyn about game situation yeah um so yeah i don't know um so look league wide success numbers do drop

when you let the play clock run down, right? It's 38% when you let it get down to 2, 43% when you don't. This is only in huddle situations. So, and this is since 2020. So like when you look at a large sample, it's generally not a good approach to let the clock run down. And also, you guys talked about this yesterday. I don't think Lane Johnson would bring this up in a locker room scrum

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and use code P-H-L-Y for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem with code P-H-L-Y for $20 off. Download Game Time today. What time is it? It's game time. All right, Danes, let's keep our discussion going. Where would you like to go next? Well, I'd like to say hi, it's back. Thank you. Great to see you. Yeah, good to see you. Eager to be on the show, eager to be in studio.

Excited to be here. Good to see you. How are things over there at the Novacare Complex? Busy, good day today. Good locker room. I left early, but caught up with Jordan Davis, caught up with Devante Smith, chatting a bit with Brandon Graham. So, yeah, good locker room today.

I had a chance to speak to Nix Siriani with Boe today. was on the practice field. I think most note worthy on the practice field is that G. Allen Carter and Darius Slay were out there. So that could be interpreted as a positive sign. We'll see about their status for this week. I think you could say it is definitely a positive sign. We don't know to play it, but we would imagine they will.

Yeah, it's certainly a sign of progress. Now, Eli Ricks, was not practicing. That'll be tough with Malik Damer's coming back. And it appeared that Danny Gray, the practice squadwide receiver, was not practicing. Just trying to give everyone the scene there. Now, what about Byron Young? Was he, I think he was practiced?

Was he not practicing yesterday, I believe. Because it seems to me like they could be trying to send Byron Young down the Generius Robinson Highway to Relevancy. Genarius Robinson disease was last seen. Alberto was the last one to have Generous Robinson disease last year. Pumphrey. Let's know what we're talking about. I think Byron Young was out there.

I'm trying to look at my photos. Yeah. Would you have taken? In a photo environment? I guess you take the wide angle. I think the wide angle on the zoom. Exactly. But yeah, speaking with you

learn from Devante and Jordan Davis. Well, Devante Smith, it's kind of been the theme of the week, is getting up to the line quickly. And he said that. And he said, you know, he was getting all these questions about the offense. And he said, he just wants to make it clear. They're not going to have a perfect game.

Right? And I said, well, like, what does a perfect game look like for you, Devante? And he said, getting out the huddle quickly. He said getting out of the huddle quickly and getting to the line, which I think is actually a pretty low baseline for a perfect game.

And then he said executing thereafter. But look, I think all the topics we've discussed throughout the week, I haven't listened to the first 20 minutes of the show today, but I imagine it were the first 26 minutes of the show. But I imagine Professor Selman got into a lot of those topics. And yeah, they're aware of it in the building. And I think you're going to see more. Like actually, I'll give a shout out to NJ.com's Chris Frankel.

And he took a good photo at practice today. of the quarterbacks practicing snapping from, or I'm practicing taking snaps from under center. So maybe this is something you're going to see more. I think the middle of the field usage, play action usage, but really the big emphasis from Devante, from different offensive players, was getting to the line quicker. And he talked about all the things that allows you to do, getting to the line quicker. So that was a point of emphasis. You know, there's some Sequin questions for him.

And he said, frankly, he wants them to focus on Seekon. Like said that they focus on Sequin, the wide receivers are free. You know, he spoke a lot about Cleveland's coverages dictating what they did, what the Eagles did. And he said the Giants are a much different defensive team than that. And difference than in the past, when you went against this defense in the past during Devante's time here, you knew it was going to be blitz, blitz, blitz from Wink Martindale. Right? It's a different defensive structure here with Shane Bowen. So he said that this is a different scheme.

So he kind of said, and it's interesting, when you think of offense, you think of being on the offensive, right? But he said, really, on offense, you react to what the defense is doing. If they're presenting a coverage, then you're tailoring what you do to that coverage. So the way they played against the Browns last week was based on the way the Browns played them. If I can follow up on that real quick, they clearly went into that game against Cleveland, thinking a lot about the opponent, right? The aggressive D-line, the heavy-pressed man coverage and all that. And they came planned against that.

Yeah, absolutely. And Jim Schwartz, you know, like a lot of the tendency numbers for that defense, for that Cleveland defense were kind of extreme, like extremely high man coverage, extremely high press man and all that. The Giants defense is far more normal. They rank basically in the very middle of the league in every tendency metric you can think of. There's 16th in man coverage, 14th in blitz rate. And when you break down the zone.

coverages. They're 13th in cover three, 13th in cover four, 20th in cover two, 19th in cover six. They're middle of the league and everything. So Shane Bowen, as Zach was just saying, is very different from Wink Martindale in that sense. Wink Martindale had the like crazy dollar personnel and like the, uh, the, all the heavy blitzing. Um, we should get a better sense, therefore, of the Eagles like opponent neutral game planning this week, right? Like, it can't be the opponent every week. Like, like, they can't say every week. Well, the reason we didn't run play action and motion and any of this is because of the opponent. This is about as middle of the road a defense as you're going to get in terms of,

not necessarily in terms of talent or whatever, but in terms of tendencies. And the other thing is, Eagles were very run heavy last week, and this is a follow-up to your comment about Saquan and them focusing on Saquan. For whatever it's worth, Shane Bowens, the last time the Eagles saw Shane Bowen was 2022 when he was with the Titans. And the Eagles had one of their heaviest past games of that season, I mean, they ran the ball like very little. That's the AJ revenge game.

AJ Brown had a monster game. Giants are very strong up front as well against the run. So maybe we'll see that thing again. Giants also seem to be double teaming Jamar Chase a lot last week. Like we saw them like with active double teams in man coverage and also a lot of like a lot of cone coverages over him as well. They'll probably handle AJ the same way. It'll be interesting to see how that chess match goes.

And Bo remembers of course one of his favorite scenes from Hard Knocks was when they were deciding to hire Shane Bowen and Brian Dable's like, look at this run defense here. This is like his eighth and rushing yards allowed per game. It's the most basic. Yeah. That's how they did their hire. That's Sean Peyton, when Carson Wentz throws for between 103 yards and 171 yards. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, so with presumably no Dallas Goddard, you talked about the heavy personnel stuff, what is it on your mom? mind in this matchup on that front uh yeah so you're not you're not good did i should we should we save the end of end of half time management thing which is which is driving me crazy let's say that for after the next we can save it got one more ad break kelly you asked ellen more this question i believe um on uh tuesday and he confirmed my suspicion that all the 12 personnel even without goddart um was to get coverage identification from schwartz right they especially ran that and this is very to see when you're watching live as well. They ran a lot of the two by two where both wide receivers are on one side and both tight ends are are up, you know, are in line on the other

side and you get a great sense of like if both of the corners go over there, right? If they're matching with base and they only have two corners on the field, if they're both going over to the wide receivers, you have a decent sense that it's that it's man coverage. Both of the mesh plays, the 13-yarder in the first half and then the big 45-yard touchdown came out of that where they identified man coverage and then they were able to run that play. So we'll see if there's a lot of 12 personnel again in this game. But the Eagles were over 50% 12 personnel in that game. 34% now for the year leads the league somewhere.

Paul Domovich is smiling. He's going to come out of retirement. Now the tight end numbers with Goddard the last two years, Zach referred to this a little bit. 2022, five games. It was stolen Calcutera then as well. They caught a total of 11 balls in those five games for 20, for 20, yards of games, so not a big impact. 2023, it was even worse.

Dallas Goddard missed three games. Stole caught two balls. Calcutera wasn't targeted. Albert O was targeted once and dropped it. And Julio Jones, who I'll throw in there as an honorary tight end because the Eagles ran a hilarious amount of 10 personnel in those games. Caught three balls for five yards. Julio's coming.

So 22 yards total in those games, including the Julio Jones, and that's in three games. So basically, the Eagles, have just like ignored the tight end in the passing game when Dallas got it hasn't been in the game. So hopefully the Calcutera numbers from last week will be an indicator that it's a little different. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I think Calcutera, and I said this on the show, he's someone who they are bullish on in the building. You know, speaking to Devante today, that came up.

I'm curious to see because, yeah, Jack Stoll, that's not what he does well. And we did see a lot of Jack Stoll in the past. And I think the big difference this year is it's going to be the Calcater show at tight end. The Gakatera show. Is it the mustache? He doesn't have the hair anymore, but he has the mustache. He has the mustache. That's the difference.

Yeah. From Super Troopers. Hmm. Yes. No. We've never seen? No. No, you should.

Yeah, I should. Yeah. How about No Jordan Milata? Yeah. So Fred Johnson said yesterday in the locker room. Your boy, Fred Johnson. Yeah, my boy, yeah. You know, I don't see him as often as Zach does, but I don't know how often you see him in the wild.

but three days a week I see him but not in the while not in the while he said he wasn't expecting help he said that if they were ever going to help him they would have last week when he had to when he had to block miles garrett one on one and some key plays at the end of that game the eagles rarely leave guys in to protect that way you know other than having the running back scan for blitzers and stay in if there's a blitzer it's rare that the eagles will chip it's rare that they will do anything other than leave their tackles on an island and that's been true and it was like jack driscoll playing in past years and things like that so brice Do you think this is just a Jeffrey Lurie top-down, no-chips-allowed policy? I think they just like really, oh, wow, that's good. That's good. I like that. Yeah, that might be right. Yeah, obviously, they've invested a lot in the starting tackles, but it's interesting that they continue that way when it's a backup.

Which shows me it's a Stalin thing. Yeah, I think that's probably right. Now, Fred Johnson, I feel like in the plays where Fred Johnson gives, and Fran talked about this as well, but you can really see. see it on film. Like the plays where it gives up pressure, it's usually because he's not anchoring and he's getting bull rushed. The Giants have used Dexter Lawrence as an edge rusher. They've done it against the Eagles in the past. I don't know if you guys remember when Lane came back from that injury in the playoff game two years ago. Dexter Lawrence, there was one snap where like he had like,

you know, like it really tested Lane's injury. Like he was like, yeah, I had to stop a Dexter Lawrence bull rush on that one play. So I guess I'm back or whatever. And they had and they did that some against Cincinnati last week. So they move guys around, as Fran was talking about yesterday, a lot. Like they, you know, they have, they have Burns standing up like Michael Parsons does sometimes. They have Lawrence lining up all over the place. 93, the guy was on Tampa, Nunez Rochrez. He lines up on the edge and inside as well. So I am expecting that Fred Johnson will be tested in every way, like by Brian Burns, by Dexter Lawrence, and we'll see if he holds up. In the games that I watched, it looked like Burns coming around that side far more than anybody else.

So I think that's the matchup. He started the season more on the other side. But last week, he was on the left tackle side, almost the entire game. They also ran a bunch of stunts with him that were successful. So yeah, I mean, that'll be likely where he lines up again. And the book on Fred Johnson, and we've talked about this, more comfortable on the left side. He said that this week, much more comfortable on the left side. big bodied guy

Don't the same athlete that Jordan Milata is but he's someone who's developed in the past year and a half that he's been here he much prefers tackled a guard he's made that clear prefers left side to the right side

so this is if there's any game where it's like more natural for him it's this Sunday I think there is a little bit of King Dunlap to Fred Johnson's game where he is bigger than he is strong you can get inside Fred Johnson and push him back if you're a defensive lineman. Agreed.

Quick thing about the Giants, they'll use penny fronts a decent amount, or at least they did last week. I imagine they'll do that against the Eagles as well. That way they can have the five-man D-line to stop the run and still play nickel behind it. Now, when they were in man coverage last week, they just completely lost track of Joe Burrow a couple of times. I mean, Burrow had a big scramble up the middle for a first down,

and then later he had a big, like, like, 40-something-yard touchdown on a scramble where they were, were in-man coverage on both of those plays. I'm guessing they'll keep Jalen in mind a little bit more than Joe Barrow. I imagine so. All right. We're going to have a, what I hope is a classic Dana's rant coming up in just a minute. We have one more ad read to tell you about it.

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in the last seven seasons. And what better way to allocate them than all in one year? So, you know, we'll always have that 2019 title. And yeah, I mean, I think UVA basketball was very entertaining to watch under Tony Bennett. I mean, like, the number of the short-cloth violations, the slow tempo. If you're into shot-clog violations, which I am actually, on both offense and defense. I mean UVA was was was yeah it was it was fun but yeah it was a good era when I was there we had you know Pete Gillen and he he he was a lovely man he was really he was really good with engaging

with the fans like he would like take us out to lunch and things like what did you call him did you call him ugly that's not nice though um I didn't say lovely you said lovely you said ugly did you say ugly or lovely I thought you said lovely that's a very I'm so confused right now. I still don't know which one you said. I'll say I have great respect for Tony Bennett as a person. You know, I look, I kind of a dick move to wait this long, huh? Why you actually disagree on that.

So I, I, let's get into it. Okay. Yeah, well, so you think Kyle, do you think Kyle will be the coach at some point? Well, this year it's Ron Sanchez. Right, no, I know. I know, but just going forward. I mean, do you see a Kyle Guy era coming up? Not in the next like three to five years, but maybe down the line.

There's plenty of people who would make sense for that job. This is for my friends in the audience, like the seven people who care about both. Yeah, Ryan Odom. If they went outside of UVA Ryan Odom would make sense. It's a dick move because he's choosing to be loyal to the guy who's going to be the coach, right? He wants his got to take over. That's fine. but now the kids can't transfer.

Well, actually they can. There's a 30-day transfer period after coach resigns. Yeah, after coach resigns. But you're not going to transfer like once the, yeah, he's trying to keep the team intact. He's trying to keep the program from disintegrating. He's taking over the players. No, because the, I mean, no. Unless they knew.

Well, I think that they, well, he did sign a contract extension this offseason. But even he acknowledged, he acknowledged that there was kind of concern and trepidation. And as I was saying, Tony Bennett is a, he treats people very well. Everyone, like, this isn't like someone who's just nice to the media. Like, he's known for his grace. You know, I think there was a poll among college basketball coaches if your son could play for anyone who would it be. And it was like disproportionately Tony Bennett. Like that's just the kind of person that he is.

Yeah, I have a lot of friends who have met him and like, you know, like also like he met their kids. and, like, you know, play basketball with them and everything. And I haven't heard anyone say anything bad about him. And then... Except for Bo. Then he develops players. He's not a saint. And then he doesn't say he...

It's a basketball coach. And then he develops his players, right? And I think he's... So I think he deserves his flowers. He gets criticized for the style of play. I get that. But I tell you, I don't have any problem with that. He's trying to win games.

I covered a lot of losses at UVA. And after I left, you know, so I covered Tony being hired. I covered Tony's first year. I covered going... into his year two. He's won a lot of games since then. And, you know, the program is in a better shape than he found it. All right. Let's get to some super chats before we keep going from Roheed, who says, would pistol help? It did on the 34-yard to Calcuttaire to Calcuttaire. There you go. I'm going to make a gun joke. I don't like gun jokes.

Musa asks, is the lack of Jalen's throwing over the middle of the field? Does it have anything to do with his relative shortness and the tallness of our own line. Becht in as a guard is 6-7. I think there is potentially something to that. I mean, it has carried on for so long. It is one potential explanation for why he doesn't throw the ball over the middle of the field. I mean, Cam Juergens wasn't particularly tall last year, but I see your point. Well, it's relatively speaking, but I see your point.

I think it has more to do with perhaps his proclivities, perhaps the way they use. Perhaps his proclivities are related to that. He can see it clearer on the outside. yeah but i don't think it's the height of the offense line maybe i'm wrong there well yeah i think it's jalen's not that short i mean i don't know i just i just can't imagine that that's really the reason true brief i don't think there's any one reason to i think it could be a part of many reasons yeah i think it's yeah i don't know no eagles do run the ninth most pistol in the league for what it's worth okay uh cdp asks uh the eagles were assigned vilma last week and

got flexed out next week, what hijinks can Nick pull to ensure we get Romo or Brady in the near future? I just think the Eagles need to win games, right? You know, it's... Nunity could help, but... They got Mark Sanchez this week. I'm looking forward to the playback with Mark Sanchez. Always enjoyed Mark Sanchez when he was here.

I'll say that, look, the... I know the sky's falling everywhere in Philly. If they win this game, they're four and two, right? So, no, so... Great. No, I'm just saying, like, if you judge wins and losses, they'll have one of the best records in the league if they win this game. Or they'll have one of the best winning percentages in the league if they win this game.

I talk about wins a lot. But, I mean, in this case, there have been five games. They're not playing well. Four of them were coin flips. I agree. They have a negative point differential. The one game that wasn't was a blowout loss. Yeah.

So, I mean, like, we're still waiting for that game, where after the game, we're not only going to say, okay, the team won, but that was a comfortable win. It was a good win against a good team. talk more about the schedule coming up. I'm not sure when we're going to be able to say that. And, you know, DVOA is more predictive than wins and losses. Oh, I agree. The offense is 12th and the defense is 26. And that's not where we wanted either of those.

No, I was speaking about it as far as the flex, not defending the way they play. It is that the reason why that Eagles, Bengals game about Flex is the Eagles are three and two, the Bengals are, what, two and four right now? And so you're looking at a game that's, that's kind of a sexy matchup between the number one and number two picks. So that makes sense. but you're not going to flex a game out that's that has two teams with like, you're right. So that's, that's what I mean is that if they win this game, they're four and two. I imagine a four and two team with high profile players is more enticing to the networks

than a team that's three and three. And they're all the talks about the coach getting fired. Now, there is a, I mean, there's a chance that the Jacksonville game will get flexed. I mean, that's a Sunday night. Yeah, that's a Sunday nighter against a team that's currently one and five. That's true. Yeah, so Yeah, the Doug reunion doesn't have quite as much juice

Especially if Doug even be there, yeah, exactly Last Super Chat, Zach, who's your favorite Lord of the Rings character Outside of the Fellowship? Never seen Lord of the Rings Couldn't tell you a single character in it Julia just gasped Yeah, you can't be surprised by it

Yeah, she shows over 20 I eat for 28 years Yeah, this shouldn't surprise me at all I've never seen I mean, Legolas is kind of an athlete I've never seen a Lord of the Rings episode. Yeah. If I'm not watching something that's nonfiction, it's like, I'm watching the Aaron Hernandez

thing right now. That's not a good. Just trying to imagine where that would rank and things I want to watch. I mean, the clips that I've seen online are very funny. Yeah, it's not the best show. But you've got to watch it. You have your precious, like, 45 minutes of free time. It puts me to sleep at night.

Okay. How about you, Dennis? What was the question? Your favorite Lord of the Rings guy? Oh, I'm not a Lord of the Rings guy either. Sorry, I was hoping that you weren't asked me. Well, I have to ask for the Super Chat. All right.

Let's get into the thing that is on your mind, and it is not the way that the games are starting necessarily that has you aggravated it, is the way that the first halves are ending. Yes, I think, you know, all week long, everyone talked about Nick Siriani, mainly because he seems to be degrading into insolidating. sanity, with the shaved head and the way he's acting and everything. But the real thing that sparked the criticism of the head coach more than anything else in this game was the end of half sequence, right? And part of the reason is because this was not the first time. In fact, the Eagles have now had the ball at the end of the first half in three of the five games. Thankfully, in the other two, the other team had it. And the way it's gone, every single one of them had the exact same thing happen. The Eagles completed a pass in the middle of the field with around one minute left. Again,

this happened three times. This happened in Brazil. This happened in New Orleans. And it happened in this last game against Cleveland. And in all three of them, the Eagles had timeouts to spare and did not call timeout. Let the clock run down from one minute down to like around 35 seconds. This happened in all three of them. And then had to frantically rush on the rest of the plays. It led to having to settle for a field goal in Brazil where they just ran out of time because they didn't call time out. They timeouts in their pocket and they just ran out of time. The infamous fourth and one fake tush push in New Orleans doesn't happen if they don't let the clock run down from 58 to 34 for no reason on the on the on the on the catch like just two plays before it or whatever it was.

And now the blocked field goal that led to the touchdown. So the results have been getting progressively worse having to settle for three not scoring at all and now just letting the other team score and it's like the punishment is getting worse but the but the crime is the same every time. It's not calling time out in that situation and it's and then we had the end-of-game fiasco in Atlanta, which I've already ranted about. So that's four out of five games now, where Nick Siriani is completely messed up, either an end of half or an end-of-game clock management situation. The only one that he didn't mess up was Tampa Bay, and that's because he didn't get the chance. Tampa Bay had the ball at the end of the half, and then it was a blowout,

so there was no end of game. So, I mean, if this is all Nick Siriani does, he has to do better, and it's driving me crazy that the same thing keeps happening. And for all the talk of learning from your mistakes and, like, not repeating the same mistakes and all that kind of stuff, it's It's precisely the same mistake. Call time out if there's a minute left and you catch the ball in the middle of the field and get everybody settled. I mean, you don't have the luxury there to waste so much time. Yeah, I think his rationale here, or at least what I would anticipate his rationale being is somewhat flawed in that because it hasn't come to fruition here. He's kind of, he's really into not giving the ball back.

Oh, yeah, you don't want to give it to the Sean Watson with 30 seconds left. So he doesn't want to do that. And so you're at the middle of the field there if you call time out with a minute to go, right? It's getting too cute like I did on school pre-ester day. Yeah. So then you're in a situation where if you don't get the first, you're giving them the ball with a chance to drive. So he tends to like to wait for the 30 seconds there. But I agree.

Like, A, it hasn't worked out. B, you know, you have plays like Sequin, you know, short of the sticks this week, right? And it just screws up that whole plan, if you will. So I agree. It's a flawed plan. it's a flaw in a plan because it hasn't worked and I think the sample size is large enough there a matter of fact you might be able to make an argument that if you score quickly you can potentially get the ball back like if you have an explosive there from midfield

you have timeouts for them on defense and you can potentially get the ball back but besides the point or besides that I think he tries to bring it under 30 seconds preserve his timeouts for a few quick plays before the half because he is like obsessed with this concept of trying to score before the half and getting the ball out of the half even though they weren't getting the out of the half last week. Whether you're getting the ball out of the half, it shouldn't matter. I mean, the coaches talk about that, and it should have nothing to do with the decision making at the end of the half, but whatever.

One last thing on the offense, and this is more about the upcoming games, this is kind of crazy. I was looking this up. Seven of the remaining 12 games are against defenses ranked 27th or worse by DVOA. 27th or worse. So bottom six defenses in seven of the 12 games left. Now, two of those are Dallas, two of those are Worse. two of those are Washington.

But still, and the best defenses left are Pittsburgh, which is 10th, and Baltimore, which is 13th. So basically, in terms of the offense being challenged by the schedule, that's not really something we're going to see. It's different for the defense. We'll get to that in the second. But the offense does not have any daunting defenses on the schedule, and they have a lot of defenses that have been playing terribly so far. So, I mean, whatever, like we're waiting for for the offense to get unconstipated, to use Lane Johnson's expression. The schedule should should... Time for them to get off the pot.

That's exactly right. As they say, make sure that you become a diehard for good conversation just like that. All right, let's talk Eagles defense. Yeah, defense 26th now, my DVOA. We're waiting for that number to get up to average. Hard to judge playing against that Cleveland offense, how good they were. Despite I thought a very good performance by Michael Donne. It was great to meet Marissa in person for the first time.

We watched warm up. We watched warm-ups together, and I learned from her that Michael was starting. It was exciting. Backing up at center. And she also said, yeah, when Nick Harris goes down right away. She just kind of mentioned that as an aside, she's like, Michael's the backup center today. And he's never really played center. And I was like, oh, yeah, okay, you know.

And as soon as the center got her, I was like, oh, my God. Like, Michael's the backup center. Yeah, no, that's right. That's right. But I thought he held up really well. He certainly wasn't the problem. But yeah, the one main takeaway, and I know a lot of people have talked about this this week, so I'll keep it short. It was great to see Cooper Jean play, right?

Fangio talked about how he would have played earlier, except they always walked through on Wednesday. That was my favorite. It's such a great Fangio moment where he was like, ah, we don't ever practice. So how would I get him in there? So a couple of tendency things. There was much more man coverage in this game over 50%. The Eagles are now up to seventh. in man coverage rate for the season, which you don't normally associate with Fangio.

In this game, I was wondering if Cooper DeGine was one of the reasons that they played so much man. I think it's a little bit easier for the nickel to play man rather than try to match to routes. And that's something that we've seen issues. There were some issues in this game where, you know, Deshaun Watson just sucks. So like he didn't punish this. But there were guys running wide open in particular crossing routes and particularly against own coverage. Isaiah Rogers was to blame for one of them. That one they did complete.

And then Cooper de Gene was definitely to blame for at least one or two. He's had issues in general where he has outside leverage and somebody runs a crossing route, where he's not sure whether he's supposed to follow that guy or someone on the other side is supposed to match to him. And that's happened now in zone coverage multiple times. And so it'll be interesting in this game because the Giants run a lot of those kinds of crossers. Like against Cincinnati, you could see them running plays where like three guys are running deep crossers. So against zone, that's going to be something that's tested in this game. But it was great to see the famous Fangio, what's known as slug, when you bring the slot as a blitzer, and then you drop the defensive end on the other side.

Did that three times. Two of them resulted in sacks. So, yeah, that was great. And that's something that we, obviously, Avanti Maddox wasn't bringing that. Like, I mean, Cooper did you just have a play strength and a speed. That's a little bit different. That would have been a game plan, even if they had Avanti, but it's hard to believe. Yeah, I mean, Avanti Maddox splits maybe three times in four games.

in four games and then Cooper de Gene three times in this one game yeah and one of those was Fran broke this down in his video I thought it was really cool when the defensive end drops like that it's almost always zone coverage but one of those was man coverage and Nolan Smith dropped as a as a whole defender I thought that was

a cool that was a cool wrinkle in this game now Zach on defense seems like there's been a pretty heavy emphasis on on one particular thing this week for the Eagles in the building tackle Go get the ball.

Oh, go against the Giants offense. Yeah, takeaways. That does turn the ball over. That and tackle the safety coach, right? Joe Gaspher. Yeah. What a job. That must be.

Yeah. The takeaways have been a problem. It's been an emphasis. Now, as we've discussed, I don't think you can coach takeaways. Like, they've talked about it. But they're not, the ball's not even coming loose. It's why that swoop right. I'm about the fumble recoveries is still present.

It's not becoming it. So this is a team that you should be able to take the ball away against. If they don't do it this week, it's probably, you know, the trend becomes a little more alarming. I don't think like turnovers comes in waves per se, but I also think game flow matters too, right? I mean, I think that typically if you have a lead, you force a team to be one-dimensional, especially a quarterback like Daniel Jones, that could work in your favor. Do you think the turnovers are coming? I mean, I hope that it's one of these things where it's not the coaching.

It's not because they haven't practiced it or whatever. I heard Sheel talking about this yesterday, so I did a deeper dive into this. The Eagles defense is current. Interesting. That's a bit of a, like, it's good that you're giving Schill credit, but now you're saying he didn't go deep enough. Like, you can go deep. I think it's safe to say that I dig a little bit deeper into true media than

than Shield does. And that's not because of anything other than I just have more. free time on my hands. No, I love the custom, I love the custom pages that Professor Selman's created. It makes sure me to even better. There you go. There you go. I bet she'll wish he could get some of those.

Yeah, I'm just saying. So the Eagles defense is currently creating less than one expected point per game from forced turnovers. And if you wonder how that compares historically to other defenses, of the 798 defenses since 2000, and that's the entire true media data set. That would be 798th. No defense has ever caused less damage from turnovers. And 764 of the 766 before this have at least had double that number.

So this isn't just like the Eagles are in a little bit of a drought. This is like a historically bad. I mean, there are only two turnovers, two read Blankets of Interceptions, in five games. And now one of only two teams not to have recovered a fumble. surely the regression is going to arrive at some point. To some degree, yeah. An average team forces a little bit over five points worth of game per turnovers,

and the Eagles are at one. So if the regression were to go all the way to the mean, that's four points a game that the Eagles would gain from this. So like, let's hope that it's random, because four points a game will get you a lot of extra wins. Now the Giants is, the offense is 26th in EPA per game lost from turnovers. They're losing almost a touchdown per game, from turnovers. So maybe this is the week that that regression begins. The Giants offensive line

is banged up. You know, in terms of like pass rush creating turnovers, we know Andrew Thomas is on IR. Joshua Eze Udu was terrible in the games that he played last year. So we'll see how that goes. In terms of the pass rush actually getting there, one thing to note, the Giants only send all five eligible into routes on 60% of their dropbacks. That's dead last in the league. So even with Andrew Thomas healthy. They were leaving guys into protect more than any other team in the league. And so it's just something to note that the Giants are not

the kind of team that leaves their tackles on islands normally. And they certainly won't with Ez-A-U-Du playing. The tight ends are basically extra offensive linemen. They only target the tight ends 9% of the time, which is dead last. Although Theo Johnson, they've been using him more in these

past two weeks. Now, the part of that might have been Malik neighbors, his absence. And I think you know, in looking at the Giants, the real big difference is like when neighbors is there and when neighbors is not because he is so heavily targeted that like they force feed him the ball so that's going to be a major thing this week.

Right. Overall, 76% of the targets go to wide receivers, which is the most in the league. Wondell Robinson gets a lot of targets as well. I would like to propose a mini game. The three of us are going to predict who's going to be involved in the next

Eagles turnout. Takeaway. Okay. And the prize is one turkey with which to add to your swooper stakes and you're going to be Fran's proxy. Oh, what? I don't think Fran would agree to this. You get one turkey.

Bo's just trying to add to his reservoir. Yeah, Beau. If Fran is in the child, if it is a fumble, you only get a half turkey. Unless they both force it and recover it. All right. I'll go first. Go ahead.

Fran, do you agree to this? Well, yeah. Fran agrees. It's one turkey. Fran. Why don't we just let Fran say his own choice? Yeah, I'm going to Covee to G.

Fran, why don't you say your choice? Fran, why don't you say your choice? Yeah, yeah, yeah. By the way, am I pronouncing his name incorrectly? Or was Kenny Albert last week just totally off on it? What did Kenny Albert say? He was doing like Dejean, Cooper Dejean or something. Oh, no, that's wrong.

It's DeHont. Yeah, it's Cooper DeGene, right? I believe so. Like the genes, like, like denim. I mean, I don't think his like great, great, great grandparents pronounced it that way. No, but I'm pretty sure that's how he pronounced it. Yeah. Yes.

I'll take, uh, has, has Fran gone yet? He just says that he agrees to the terms. So he wants you to take it. Wait, you want me to say it for you? Come on, Fran. I'll go. I think Quinyan is too easy. I'm going to say that.

You get the first pick now, too? You're just making all the rules? Oh, sorry. You're allowed to pick the guy. Who did you say? Who did you say? I said Cooper. I said Cooper.

I'm going to. to say, I'm going to say, maybe this is just because it's what I want. I'm going to say BG. Oh, okay. Yeah, okay. I like that. The Super Bowl. All right. Before we get going, you got to give us your uniforms.

Oh, yeah, yeah, uniforms. Oh, quick thing about the upcoming schedule, the defense will be tested. Yes. And I would actually like to see, like, Jalen Carter's had one good game. And it's because he played against Cesar Ruiz, right? Like, like, it would be nice to see this defense. play well against, like, individuals, like, playing against, like, you know, like, higher talented opponents, and it would be like to see, like, the team dominate somebody

other than the Cleveland Brown. So the Bengals are eighth and DVOA, two games against Washington. They're second, and the Ravens are first. Those are going to be the four big tests coming up for this defense. Bengals coming up in just a little over a week. The Eagles, again, like the offense in terms of the schedule has a lot of cupcakes coming up, but the defense does not, and I just want to see the defense perform well against better teams, and hopefully all that stuff we've heard about learning the Fangio defense and all that stuff

will come to fruition against those good teams. Have the Eagles announced the uniform? I know they're wearing white, but have they announced the pants? I don't think they've announced it. I'm not familiar with that at this point. Under Serriani. Yeah, under Serriani, the Eagles dominant in the white jerseys, regardless of the pants. White on black, five and one, white on green, seven and two, white on white, six.

and two. So it doesn't even matter. Take your pick. They're now down, they're now 14 and 16 when wearing green on white and 25 and 6 otherwise. So they should be fine, in any case, wearing white in this game. They will have to wear green next week against the Bengals because the Bengals have announced that they're doing the all white, including the white helmets against the, against the Eagles. The Eagles could go black, I suppose. Oh, could. Could. Could you celebrate the wedding. Oh, that's what it is. Oh, that's right. That's right. And the Eagles could go, could go all black. And then it would be like, Brian and Groot.

Exactly. There you go. Okay. Anything else to say? No, this is a good show. Yeah, so I'll give my... You're thinking, tears off, was it worth me leaving the locker in early to get here?

That's what's going on. No, no, no, no, no. I got to roll out in the next four minutes. That's what I was thinking. We all do. Yes. My son's got a playoff game tonight. Oh, baby.

Yeah. And if they win, it's a championship there after. This is flight football? Flight football. Oh, they're already in the playoffs. Yeah. Everyone's league is... Yeah.

Significantly, the playoffs aren't until late November. I've been hearing about this for every single, every, this is the story. Yeah, this is big stuff. Brandon Graham's excited for, yeah, so we're all excited for it. Yeah, I think the Eagles win this game. What is he playing against Brandon Graham's kid? Maybe. Maybe.

Okay. So Eagles Giants here in the, I like the Eagles in this game. I think they're the better team. I think that even with the injuries to the Eagles, the injury to Andrew Thomas is significant for the Giants. I like this Giants defense quite a bit. The Eagles offense must play better. But I am picking the Eagles to win here.

They are three-point favorites. The overrunners are 42 and a half. Okay. But you know what? I actually think they're going to, the Eagles, I think, are two and ten in the last 12 games. They're a favorite. But I think the Eagles 24-20?

Is that where you're going? I am going with the Eagles 28, the Giants 19. Okay. And then I also want to say, too, if you are in the Fairless Hills area, Oxford Valley, or even if you're not, but I am signing books at the Barnes & Noble tomorrow at Fairless Hills from noon the two. Nice. The Oxford Valley, the Oxford Valley, Barnes & Noble from noon to two. So stop by.

Eagles and I'll be at the Shane Gillis concert tonight or Shane Gill's comedy show tonight. So if anyone sees me and they want to come say hello, I would love to talk Eagles with you there as well. And then make sure we have a great event on Sunday as well, PHLI. Media. In media. Yeah. State Street Pub.

Stage street pub. Yeah. Eagles did announce black pants. Now they have only lost in those one time with the Syriani. The bad news is it was in this stadium. I remember. Garden of Michigan. No.

Oh, no. The Jets last year. Won the Gardner Mintry game. It was the Jets last year. Yeah, exactly. Bryce Huff game. Bryce Huff? Jack Triskel.

It was the Bryce Huff game. Yes. That's right. First time I ever lost to the Jets. Franchise history. Oh, well. All right. That'll do it for this episode of the P.H.O.I. Eagles podcast.

Go check out Zach tomorrow at Noble and Barnes. And we will talk to you on Sunday, the full slate of coverage, kickoff show, half-time show, post-game show, all that good stuff. Lots of stuff to read as well. on all-Phly.com so you can become a diehard and make that happen. And we will talk to you on Sunday for all of us here at PHLY. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening.

And as always, we love you.