PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Eagles-Browns postgame: Drew Mukuba impresses as Jalen Hurts watches from sidelines

Episode Date: August 16, 2025

Drew Mukuba stole the show for the Eagles in their preseason game against the Browns, while Ainias Smith, Kyle McCord, Dorian Thompson-Robinson, Jakorian Bennett, Kelee Ringo and Mac McWilliams all factored into the conversation. We’re live from the LINC with everything you need to know about preseason game No. 2. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Everybody and welcome to the P. H.L.Y. Eagles postgame show following the preseason second game. We are here live from the Xfinity Mobile Studio. We're also presented by Doodat Dental, True Mark Financial Credit Union, and Xfinity. Bo Wolf, Jamie Lynch here after the Eagles, I believe, lost this game. 20-something to, I don't know, doesn't matter. Jamie, how you doing? We're going to be in and out because the Wi-Fi could go at any time, the mic could go at any time. This is going to be a 10, 15-minute banger. How you do it? Yeah, good. You know, look, there was a lot of jobs on on the line today. Primarily a cornerback two. I was focused a lot on the secondary, that back, that third quarterback position, because we all know Tanner McKee has already goaded into that second position. So I was paying attention to that a little bit. So there was there was some positions up for grabs. Like you said, I didn't care one iota for the score. I was more looking to see who kind of stepped up with their final opportunities here. Let's talk about the defense first. because I think that was where it was a little bit more interesting.

And you looked at the group that started today between Jihad Campbell and Jeremiah Turner, Jr. starting at linebacker, Sydney Brown and Drew McCuba starting at safety, and Keely Ringo and Adory Jackson starting with Jacorri and Bennett coming in and Mack McWilliams coming in later. You think about that back seven. There are at least, or there are somehow, three week one starters there. We don't know who they're going to be yet, but there are starters out on the field yet there. And, you know, Dylan Gabriel, the third round pick rookie little mini guy from the Browns,

looked pretty good against the Eagles defense. Now, the Eagles defense, the pass rush was not great in this game. It looked like the Brown's offensive line was making their way with them. However, there was one player in that secondary who really flashed today. And that was Drew McCuba, who was responsible, Jamie, for our Ford play of the game to learn more about Ford, visit your local Ford dealer. And Jamie, McCuba was responsible for. for two turnovers in this game, but the really big one was a pick six where he sort of knifes

his way in between two Browns receivers on a play action boot for Gabriel, makes the nice catch and then sprints away for a 75-yard touchdown. What did you think of that when you were watching at home? Yeah, I thought it was a pretty bad route concept there by the Browns. They kind of had two guys stacked on top of one another, which allowed McCuba to play both of them. But I learned after the game with John Clark, it was Drew McCuba's first ever pick six, I believe at any level.

Really? Kind of hard to believe for a guy that always was known to be around the ball and a playmaker, but it was really nice to see him. Just one cut and gone there. Really nice play by Makuba. And then the second one, it's not, I guess not too often a safety is going to end up with a fumble in the backfield.

But Makuba just kind of right place, a botched handoff. It wasn't, this was not a forced fumble. It was just a botched handoff and the ball, you know, balls to the ground and basically just finds its way, you give him a little bit of credit for being in the right place at the right time. But the

pick six was the big one. It was almost like his slight frame worked to his advantage a little bit because he was sort of like hidden behind the tight end in Gabriel's eyes. And I also thought the receivers could have done a better job there. But you give McCuba all the credit in the world. Now, this was interesting because Maccuba missed the first preseason game because of the shoulder injury. And I think everybody sort of agreed that at this point, it was probably, more likely that Sydney Brown would be starting opposite Reblankenship week one than MacCuba. But after today, I feel like we may look back at week one and say this was the turning point. And it's not just the flashy plays.

And there was one play where MacCuba was covering a tight end who, or it was, I think it might have been, what's the guy's name? Anyway, he beat, he beat MacCuba. Actually, it was a, oh, what's that loser's name? Let's go to the- Cedric Tillman. Cedric Tillman. It got up on him and hit him on a corner route. It was like an 18-yard game and left McCuba in his dust.

So listen, it wasn't perfect. But I think you see that if, in my mind, if McCuba is capable of doing things like that, and if he's not going to be a liability as a tackler, then you might as well let him grow on the job, I feel like. How do you feel, Jamie? Yeah, I mean, Sidney Brown has had kind of every opportunity in the world to seize this job.

You've been at camp every day with Fran and EJ, kind of, I'm sure, paying attention to that. I don't know. I'm kind of with you. Like the upside to me is more intriguing than the known with Sidney Brown. A guy, look, good luck or not falling on that fumble. Some guys just have a knack for being in the right place

at the right time. And sometimes the ball is up to have to be. Yeah, a little bit. So like, I'm kind of with you. I like the upside more with McCormick. Coova than going to Sidney Brown. Look, Sidney Brown, you know, get a depth job, man, you know, like secure your spot. And I don't know. I kind of want to roll the dice a little bit with old Drew McCuba. Yeah, I mean, I like Sidney Brown. He is a great guy to talk to. Works really hard. He missed a tackle in the open field today. I just feel like, you know, they dropped to this guy in the second round to be the starter. He's going to be starting eventually. Let's, let's throw him into the fire. Like, let's throw him into the deep end and see if he can swim. That's kind of how I feel. Yeah, I'm with you there.

I have no problem. It feels like he won a job today. I don't know how that feeling was down to the link. We'll see. Yeah. It kind of feels like he made a stellar first impression and, you know, a little bit more confidence maybe taking that chance and starting them. Yeah, there you go.

Okay. Now, elsewhere in the second era, you mentioned it. And this was probably the most interesting subplot of the game to me was the way that Vic Vanjel handled the outside cornerback position. So first three. drives you get drive one it's keely ringo and adory jackson drive two it's adory jackson and jocorian bennett drive three it's keely wringo and jocori and bennett so each of those guys gets two series later on mac mac mc williams gets into the mix and for the most part it was mcwilliams and

bennett early on in the second half um and you know what these guys are all jockeying for for one spot jamey and that's why we're going to call it our righteous felon beef of the week How's that? That's pretty good. What can you tell me about the beef of the week? I mean, to me and my eyes here at home, you know, the beef of the week. And, Bo, I got to tell you, I had two road trips recently with the family. And I'll be honest, I nab the bag or two for the road trips.

And the righteous felon, beef of the week is delicious. And I approve it for every car ride. You can order online at righteousfellin.com. Using code P-H-L-Y-20 for 20% off. They have all kinds of cool variety packs and bundles on the sites. It's the perfect gift for the special meat snack lover in your life. That's a discount code P-H-L-Y for 20% off your order on righteous felon.com. So in terms of how these guys played today,

Chikorian Bennett probably had the flashiest play, which was a nice pass breakup on a play over the middle where he had to get a run with, I believe it was gauge. Larva Dan all the way across the field. What a name. You saw his length there. That was a really nice play from Bennett. Got Ross Stocker real excited on that play.

Okay. And I thought that was, I thought this was the best that he has looked since he's, since he's been at camp with the Eagles. I thought, Dori Jackson did not look great today. There were a couple of plays where it seemed like he was either out of position or I'm not sure what was going on.

And then I didn't think that Keelewingo was bad today. It's just that a signal we're getting from Vic Fangio that, you know, Bennett's reps are increasing. Keely is not getting quite as many. That's coupled with him not getting a ton of reps on Thursday's practice, which we wondered, okay, if he's not going to get a ton of reps on Thursday, is he going to get a ton of reps in the game? That wasn't really the case.

And so, you know, I would be a little bit worried about your Keely Ringo stock if you're holding it. And I thought Mack McWilliams looked pretty good today as well, but he's clearly being fourth in the jockeying right now. if it was just based on what we saw today, I would say that Jacorian Bennett's increased of winning that job. Yeah, I'm right there with you. Watching the game at home today, I thought Jacorian Bennett, and look, things can change in the next two weeks. I thought he won a job today. I think he showed the most promise. I don't know if you want to put Mac McWilliams in there, you know, baptism by fire week one, but that's what these next two weeks

are for, maybe week three. He has a big game and you feel better about it. But walking away today if I'm Jacorian Bennett. I feel like, and I thought it was good that he came back from the shoulder kind of a little injury twinge he had to kind of like fight for the job a little bit. But I have a feeling if it was week one tomorrow, Jacorian Bennett's your cornerback too, which I don't feel great about to be honest. I don't know if they showed on the on the broadcast, but after Bennett suffers that injury, he's like, you know, trying to convince the doctors to let him back in the game. He's doing little mini sprints on the sideline. He's asking for his helmet back. So there was a little bit of a push from him to get back on the field.

Yeah, that's good work by him. You know, you can't make the club in the tub. So he had to get back out there and kind of play through some pain a little bit. Yeah, and I thought he looked okay. I think you're right to be worried. And I think all the Eagles fans, this is probably their primary concern right now. And I think that's fair based on what we've seen so far. We saw John Campbell.

Feedback on tweets where like this cornerback too is not on the team, though. Like people are kind of freaking out a little bit. temperatures running hot out there. Yeah. I mean, the best thing you can say right now is just trust and Vic. That's all you got. Yeah. Elsewhere in defense, we saw Jahad Campbell, first series of the game, knife through for a sack with a nice blitz. Good to see Jahad. He has looked good moving forward all summer long.

Yeah, I mean, he's going to be starting day one next to Zach Bond. All of a sudden, that linebacking core becomes a really exciting duo. You see the speed. I think it was Ross Tucker, Scott Graham brought up. you know, Jaden Daniels. You're not going to be able to escape to the outside with the two of these athletic linebackers on the field. Jehad really showed his kind of patience while being, it was like a controlled rush where he showed his speed.

He kept it in check, read the play right. It was a nice first play of the game from Jehad Campbell there. He's really, he's kind of got the juices going here a little bit for me, Beau. I think that's fair. I think he deserves it to have your juices flowing, Jamie. On offense, listen, Tanner McKee. as you said, did not start in this game.

So it was pretty ugly on offense. You know, Doreen Thompson and Kyle McCord got all the work here, and they sort of split it up. During Thompson, Robinson went five of eight for 17 yards. That's it. Kyle McCord, meanwhile, eight of 16 for 47 yards, including a nine-yard touchdown pass to Anaya Smith. So shout out to Anaya Smith with his second touchdown in as many games.

Two catches for 19 yards for him. What's that? Very similar. Yeah, I think it might have been. Yeah. Yeah, it was a nice. Yeah, it was a nicely thrown ball. It was a nice job by Anias.

And I think he is right on the bubble, I would say, Anias Smith. But for him to make that play was encouraging. But yeah, I think, you know, listen, when you are watching a preseason game and you go from Tanner McKee to these two guys who are roster bubble players, like the overall quality of what you see on offense for everybody takes a bit of a dip. Yeah, I was thinking about this a lot today. I know you guys have talked about it on the show and make sure if you're new to the show, you tune into Bo, E.J. and Fran every day at 2 o'clock. But Bo, I'm kind of like with the thought of it's a third string quarterback. Chances are they're not going to play that much.

I'd rather go with the roster building kind of chemistry, you know, four years of Kyle McCord and developing him because DTR, you kind of know what he is. he has a body of work in the NFL, not to say it's bad or I don't know how much upside is there. With Kyle McCord, I think there's a little bit of upside and continuity for that position. If you asked me today to pick one, I'm slight lean towards Kyle McCord over him. But it's a good problem because, you know, that hopefully your quarterback three is never really seen the field anyway. I think that's right. And despite the fact that E.J. has been spending all weeks saying that Dorian Thompson is a starting

Calibald, quarterback. It didn't look that great today. Yeah. What did you? I'll tell you what my other, I'll tell you what's that? The AJ Dylan play.

What did you make of that? Did you think he was right for not knowing if the ball's a fumble at that point? Do you swat it down? My reaction was swat it down, but like that was a bad play by him, right? Terrible play. Yeah. Terrible play.

I mean, that is a, that is a me first, 21st century athlete if I've never seen one. Get me a catch for my, you know, for my performance bonus instead of doing negative 12 yards. That's terrible. Glory. That was terrible. If you didn't see it, uh, Dorian Thompson Robinson is trying to throw the ball gets

batted up into the air, two offensive linemen, then try to bat it down at the same time. And it then goes up into the air into AJ Dylan's arms. And instead of batting it down himself, he catches. Yeah. He said that he thought it was going to, it was either, where was where he was a fumble? No, there was people online being like, well, he might not have known if it was a fumble. the right thing, lose-lose situation. I was like, no, that was a bad play.

Yeah, I mean, we're joking. It's, it was not, I could see, I could see why you would decide to catch it. I guess. You know, these things are tough, but watching it live, yeah, I mean, cut the guy. Is AJ Dillon, AJ Dillon's a lock at this point, right? Oh, I don't think he's a lock. No, you think it's, I think he's slightly favored to make the roster. But Montreal Johnson, who didn't get a ton of work today, but.

six carries for 20 yards, not the world's best stat line. But I think he offers a similar skill set to AJ Dillon, and you could convince me that you would rather have the undrafted guy than the veteran whose contract would be vested if he's on the weekwind roster. I don't think that's a crazy thing, but I think it's still more likely than not that Dylan makes it. The other thing I was going to say, Jamie, is just watching this game. I think if cornerback two is keeping you up at night, I think the offensive line depth is the thing that,

is waking you up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat because there is not the same level that we've had in years past. I mean, think about last year, Tyler Steen is a backup. The year before that, Cam Juergens is a backup. You know, you had Fred Johnson, and there's nobody like that right now who you can really count on as if one guy goes down, we are going to be okay making it through the next game. I think there is, there are going to be some issues here if somebody gets called into to play. Yeah, I mean, the fact that Drew Ken, and Toth played the entire game and every single snap is, I guess those are guys they feel best about and wanted to get the most look at. What I actually found very interesting there, if you didn't see it, was that the game started with Drew Kendall at center and Brett Toh at left guard.

And right now, if the season started today, Brett Tooth would likely be the starter at left guard. But then in the second half, Tooth played center and Kendall played guard, left guard. and we haven't seen Drew Kendall play guard almost at all this summer. And so this was a good test for him. If he's going to be active on game day, we need to see that he can actually play guard. And I thought he handles himself fairly well just watching live. We'll have to see what the tape says. But I thought that was very.

Yeah, there was a they had Cam Juergens on a sideline interview talking about Drew Kendall and doing that, you know, switching back and forth between guard and center. Cam Juergens, look, he's on camera. He's talking about his teammate. He's going to be complimentary. but he was like you know drew kendall's in there every day working hard asking the right questions he's a really smart player uh as long as he has his mind straight it's not that hard to kind of just know your assignments and go back and forth and play the two so he was very complimentary of kendall um you know

as a young kid all right jamie i think that's all we got any final words any final words anything else you saw on on the broadcast that i might not be aware of um no nothing nothing too much on the broadcast Nicobi Dean tried to get his Landon Dickerson, vibrant stalking the interview with Zach Bonn. It wasn't as good as Dickerson, so that was a little bit of a mess there by Nicoby. He went with the double Gatorades, Bo. You know, Dickerson went with the... Worth a shot. Uncrustible.

Yeah, so he tried to get his moment. No, not too much else. I was on the floor on a heating pad, Bo. I had a dad injury yesterday. Back neck? What do we got? Back. it's down bad and nothing cool either to report just pushing on the swings i got i got a twinge

and i went down i went down real bad it's not good it's not good it's not good i'm sorry good good luck yeah better than our boyfriend duffy who was gonna get you some for an hours today he was in the car for 11 hours 11 hours he tested me right yeah how's the wolf family car on an 11 an hour trip. I mean, we had one recently. It was okay. Probably a little bit more throw up than you would like. Never good.

Yeah. All right. That'll do it for this episode of the PHOI Eagles post-game show. We will be back all next week, 2 o'clock, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, talking about the Eagles, E.J. Smith. Frame Duff is actually out next week, but he's usually there. Hansen Rich Hoffman. Jamie Lynch, everybody in the mix.

Join us. Comment below. Let us know what you thought of the game. Subscribe to the channel. That's all we got. Thank you, Julia, for making it happen. Thank you, Jamie. I'm Beau. We'll see you on Monday.

And as always, we love you.