PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Eagles Film Review: Sean Mannion’s Third-Down Offense Is A Horror Show | PHLY Eagles Podcast

Episode Date: October 5, 2026

If you really want to be scared this month, dial up the film of the Eagles offense in their 24-20 loss to the Los Angeles Rams Sunday, which included a shocking 0-for-12 performance on third down, a bloody 172 yards of total offense and a terrifying lack of cohesion from the offensive line. Fran Duffy breaks it down with EJ Smith and Bo Wulf and tells us what’s worth holding out hope for.   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.H.O.Y. Eagles podcast on a disastrous Monday, live from the Expedited of the studio and presented by Toyota. It's a film review Monday. Oh, Wolf, the great analyst, film maven, Fran Duffy, and the husband to a pregnant wife, E.J. Smith, who's telling everybody, make sure you'll hit that like button yeah do me a favor do me and my pregnant wife a personal favor and do it for me over my pregnant wife over here

hit the like button let's get some good early like momentum going as grand breaks down the film and let me give you some insight little like button Smith do any day there's no like goal under the sun that's going to make that happen unfortunately all right we got a lot to talk about

we are going to focus today primarily on the putrid, speckless offense from the Eagles yesterday that set all kinds of records for futility for the Nixiriana era, including a disastrous O for 12 on third down.

And let's get to the armchair analysis presented by Settle In. Let's get to Settle In, presented by Ashley, Armchair Analysis is what the segment is called in the post game show. Of course. Presented by Ashley.

We love Ashley. What's Better Than to Ashley's, nothing. So your big takeaway from watching this before we get into the grabbies, how bad is it? If you're apportioning turkeys of blame,

where do they go? Do people even want to keep watching? What's the deal? Yes, keep watching, especially keep watching this show. Look, I think that coming out of the film, I would equally distribute blame here. I think the quarterback played poorly,

I think the game plan overall like the route like concepts not great run game not great offensive line execution not great the pass protection plan was the most offensive part of the entire operation

as bad as I've ever seen it like that was there are so many plays and we'll get into it but there were so many plays where I'm like this it doesn't make sense the decision making pre-snese nap. And that is the difficult part is that we don't know on the outside who necessarily to pin that on, right? Is it on Drew Kendall? Is it on Jalen Hertz? Is it on Chris Cooper? Like,

is it on Sean Mannion? Yeah, I don't know. But whoever's in charge of putting together the protections, got to go back and redo a lot of this stuff because it was not a well, it did not look like a well-prepared unit in this game on Sunday. E.J., what was your sort of takeaway? I know you did a little buster of the film as well, but also talking to guys in the locker room afterwards. Yeah, I mean, to Fran's point, like, I do think that Nick Siriani after the game saying everyone had a hand in it, I do think that that shows up when you watch it. It's not, and I guess that's not necessarily good news, because it's not like a simple fix where it's like you have one thing that you have to address. You know, hearing from guys in the locker room, I think the execution was really at the forefront.

You know, Jordan Milata talking about, they're just not winning on downblocks. You know, Jalen Hertz talking about poor execution, and he said it like four or five times in his press conference. And yeah, I think that this is a team that's getting a little frustrated, trying not to panic, trying not to have an overly concerned approach to this, but frustrated about the fact that things have just not gone well so far. Eagles are through four weeks of the season,

29th in success rate, 30th and EPA per drive. Obviously, that's heavily weighted from the last two games because they performed okay. The first two weeks borderline top 10 unit. It's been ugly. The second halfs have been ugly. They don't really do anything well right now. No.

And that has been settle in, presented by Ashley. Stay tuned for Sunday when you'll get the armchair analysis. Look forward to that. Now, let's get to the grabbies. Are we going, are we going sequentially? Sequentially. Yeah. 12.

More than that, because there's a couple fourth downs, right? A couple fourth downs in there. I left a couple, like the very last third down, like the heave downfield. And I didn't put the push, the failed push push in. So there, you know, I left a couple, but it's, maybe it's every other one except you got a, you got to, you're going to have to reckon with the fact that Willie Lampkin success rate wise over two. Oh, can't put that on Willie. Far from his fault.

Yeah. I'm just saying the, I will say, like, I mean, he got a positive grade on the second. That second one is just, I mean, just road grading. Now he's, it's a combo. He and Camp Juergens and E.J. Jenkins. A great combination there. All right, let's get to it. All right, let's go through it.

Now, and if you are listening, it's a good chance to hit on over to the YouTube. You're going to want to watch these. Give us a like, you know, make sure you like the video. And maybe we're going to wash your eyes afterwards. Yes. So we're going to go through again, sequentially. So we're going to start the very first third down of the game.

First drive, ends up punt. You go run on first down for one yard, which we will come back to later in the show. First drop back of the game, Elijah Moore gets yelled at. The safety doesn't respect his clear-out. It's a three-level stretch. I mean just like literally like first drop back of the game and you you have a veteran receiver who the quarterback's got to yell at to make sure he's doing the right thing I'll guess what like what was the highlight of Eland Moore summer the play after he got yelled at by Jalen Hurd's like it's not a surprise to them very good point a great point so he throws a check down for three yards now that brings up third and six eagles come out 11 personnel you've got three receivers to the left you got Johnny Munt as the loan receiver to the right hand side they come out in a bunch set now Jalen sends McCannes

Kai Lemon in motion just before the snap to try and force communication, right? So now he is the new number one receiver. This would be like kind of like a mini version of what you would call a divide concept where you're going to get Mackay Lemon working upfield. He's going to work to the outside. You have Devon. Tay Wicks, he is working upfield as the new number two receiver. He's going to work the in-cut.

Darius Cooper is basically going to sit down and run. It's like an option route essentially where he's going to run the stick underneath. You've got, again, Johnny Munt on the opposite side. This should be an immediate tell, by the way. that this is zone coverage for the Rams because you've got Munt over on this side lined up across from him you've got the corner Trent McDuffie so that should be immediate like look like all right like that's probably going to be some sort of zone coverage and it is zone coverage they're running cover six over to that side cover six meaning that you've got quarters the two quarter safeties

you've got cover two over on this side and you're going to get somebody from the up front here kind of buzzing underneath to get underneath. So this is going to be quarter's coverage over to the left side of the field for Jalen Hertz. Now, this is supposed to be a rhythm throw, right? You want this, Jalen hits the top of the drop, cut this loose, grip it and rip it, right? And so now you're going to drop to get to the top of this drop

and here he is. He's hit the top of the drop. This should be the opportunity where you're going to throw it. And honestly, either one of those two routes is open to him here. If he wants to throw the outbreaking route to Mackay Lemon, that throw is there because you've got Emmanuel Forbes sitting giving him

free access here. You've got the end breaker to Tay Wicks. And this is what Tom Brady pointed out in the broadcast. This is going to open here in the middle of the field. And he gets to the top and he just does not throw this football. And so that is frustrating from that standpoint. Now he ends up drifting in the pocket. He ends up rolling to his right and throwing it away. So it's a left, it's a throw that's left on the field. But let's look at this from a protection plan standpoint. Because, and again, like, that's open. This is going to be open. If he waits to too long for this, yeah, then now that's not going to be open anymore, right? So this has got to be a rhythm throw.

Like hit the top of the drop, be decisive, get rid of the football. But again, he ends up drifting and throwing this away. I want to get to the protection plan end of this because what's funny about this one is that they actually ended up being right from the protection call standpoint. But I, based off how the rest of the game went, I'm like, I think they might have just gotten lucky here. Because what you're seeing here, and this is going to be kind of a resounding theme in this one, is that what is the job of the offensive line

and any given protection is you've got five offensive linemen, you want to account for your four defensive linemen, and then the most dangerous threat after that. Now, the Rams are in a four-two-five nickel package here where you've got four down linemen. You've got one, two, three, and four. You've got a couple of linebackers here lined up, mugged up on the line of scrimmage,

and you've got the safety, Quentin Lake. So you've got seven guys that are potential rushers here on this play. You've got Johnny Munt, who is going to be releasing out into a route, but so that means you've got five offensive linemen and you're running back. So it's six versus seven. You got a pretty good feel that not all seven of these guys are coming. But you want to make sure that you account for this. Now, again, what you typically want is your offensive line to, again, account for the four down linemen. So when you've got one, two, three down linemen this way, stands the reason that you would go one, two, three, slide to the left hand side.

And then you're probably going to have the running back account here. And then you're going to basically a block it that way. That would be the typical way that you would see in teams block it. The Eagles are blocking the opposite way. They are sliding protection the opposite way. So Drew Kendall sliding to the right against the linebacker landman.

You've got Cam Juergens worried about 91. They cut the defensive end Josiah Stewart loose. No one blocks him. And now, again, he ends up dropping. That's a good call. Good job deciphering through that pressure look. Again, based off the way the rest of the afternoon went, I kind of think that they might have just gotten lucky here.

And you got a stunt working on the inside here between the two linebackers. Sequin Barclay looks like he's indecisive. He's not sure, should I release out into a route? Should I come back in and try and help here? So it was just a lot of indecision, a lot of like, I'm not sure like what I should be doing here on this way. And that's what it was just a,

a lot of second guessing from guys in this game. And so that does give me a lot of pause. And you saw it on the very first third down of the game. So. If we're, if we're going to blame somebody, let, you know, if we're going to decide each play. This is a, this is one that's on Jalen. I would say this one, Jalen's got a grip and ribbon on the thing. But I'm curious why you think on the first third down of the game,

he's hesitant to sit in the pocket and throw the ball. Yep. Is it the ghosts from last week when he throws the interception and he does, you know, it's a similar look. Is that what it is? Because he shouldn't yet be at the point, even though he knows he has no Lane Johnson, that he can't trust the pocket in this game. That early.

Yep. I agree with that. Very valid point. And so maybe it is that it was just so similar to the T.J. Edwards play from last week where you've got the defensive end, Josiah Stewart kind of buzzing under that from the same alignment that T.J. Edwards did last week. But that was an outbreaking route from the slot. This is an outbreaker route further from your number one receiver outside. Like, again, I don't know.

You think you'd be able to trust the Mackay throw there. You would think so. Yeah. That should be that's one that he has thrown in the past and thrown with success. Now, my other question is, who do you think is responsible for setting the protections? Because if it is the case that it's Kendall, I can get there on Jalen being a little bit hesitant

because he maybe doesn't know who's going to come loose. But if it's the thing that he talked about, remember the first year post-Kelsey, where even if you're wrong, you're right, because you know where the weaknesses are. If he's calling the protections there, then all the more reason that he should feel comfortable in the pocket to throw the ball there.

I don't know. Yeah, and that's what's difficult. I would say in the tree that Sean Mannion comes from, typically that is on the center is the one that is setting the protections. And I know we've heard behind the scenes that the Eagles have so much faith in Drew Kendall and, you know, in his brain and all the pre-snap organization and, you know, understanding responsibilities from a protection standpoint. All I can say is that this game was a mess.

It was a mess. We'll get into that. Okay. So this one is we're not putting it on scheme. we're not even putting it on execution from the offense or the offense line. This is a pretty clear. Jalen's just got to make that.

To me, this one is Jailant's got to throw that ball. It was a very unfortunate start to like watching the third downs like just an immediate what I would call a clear turn down from Jalen. Like you see it open up, you see the window and it's just like this is,

these are the place people point to when they say like Jalen doesn't throw over the middle of the house. Yeah. Yes. All right, let's get to the second one. All right, second one. And Brady went after this play in the broadcast

and I agreed with it, especially given the things we talked about in the preview episode last week. Now, again, this is the second drive of the game. This ends in a field goal. They get the ball off the short field with the Drew McCuba interception. So Sequin gets hurt in the very first play,

six-yard run. Really good seven-yard run from Tank Bigsby. To start his day, Mackay Lemon, Markell Bell, did a good job blocking up front on that one. Then they go with an empty quarterback counter for Jalen Hertz for five yards. Second and five, they go for another run.

This one picks up, four yards. It brings up third and one in the low red zone from the six yard line. So they come out here in this play and it's 11 personnel. You've got Zach Gertz on the field as you're in line, tight end. Now, they're going to bring Darius Cooper in motion from left to right. He's going to go around the quarterback, around the running back here, and he's going to basically run a bubble screen over to that side. And so it's potentially, it looks like it might be an RPO where he can either to decide, you know, Jalen, he's either going to hand this off to Bigsby or he's going to throw the bubble screen, which I'm sure everybody would have loved to, to Darius Cooper.

We talked about how the Rams are so good against screen passes, right? And they're, they are really good. And why? Why are they really good against those perimeter plays to the outside? Because they love to play in sub-package with a lot of speed on the field. And it is a fast flow defense. They are, it is extremely aggressive. And so you throw something, you chum the water, they're going to run after it, right?

And so anything that's east-west, that plays right into their hands. It's third and one. I don't love the idea of. of the, hey, we just moved the ball. We just went downhill on this team. Inside zone, inside zone, counter, like a lot of, like, at you runs. And now the first third down, it's a lot of perimeter stuff. And you have the ability either to hand it off on the outside zone

or throw the bubble screen and go east west on third and one. Like, I just don't love that against this defense in particular. So there's not an option for Jaylin. I don't think, again, I don't think for him to keep this. To me, this was either handed off or throw it. Now, what happens here on this play is that Zach, Jack Hertz ends up getting stood up by the defensive end, Josiah Stewart. He gets no push.

And then what happens is because Zachertz gets stood up on this play, I want you to watch the feet of Jordan Milata here. He gets tripped up. So now Jordan's on the ground. Cam Jorgans loses play side. The defensive tackle goes backdoor. So now you've got a firm edge from the defensive end. You've got early penetration from the defensive tackle in this spot.

Bigsby has to take the long way around here on this one. And he ends up trying to bounce this. and there's just nowhere to go. He gets, he gets corralled. There's all these white jerseys there, and this one fails. So I didn't let, now, for a lot of different reasons here,

but this one, this one obviously fails and they end up kicking a field goal down in the reds. So are you putting that on the call or on the execution? I don't, I mean, the call was bad. I don't agree with the call and the execution was bad.

And it's one that the Eagles and Sean Mannion kept in the back of their mind because Zach Ertz played 12 snaps in this game. And that is the only snap when they ran the ball. Yep. Every other snap he was on the field, they passed the ball.

So they did not trust him to block after that one snap. And these are tendencies that other teams are going to be aware of moving forward. Do you think that that is an occasion where the down blocks, like the struggles on down blocks that Jordan, a lot of points to do you think that this is one that might have been in his mind, especially because he got tripped up by Cam Juergens there? Yeah, there's going to be other examples. That was the most glaring in a high leverage spot.

Yeah. I thought Juergens got killed on that play for the record. Like, I mean, I put it out in the moment. And I mean, it was ugly on tape. If the front side, like, if the Earths Milata block does not happen, then the Jurgens one doesn't hurt them. Okay. Because Bigsby carries that out.

He bounces that outside anyway. So it starts to me with that first block just because that's what forces, you know, that's what forces the initial. And I feel like this is a conversation we've had many times. Yeah. But third and short, to go horizontal means that you are inviting a real loss of yards, right? Whereas if you're going downhill, the worst is you're going to lose one yard, right? And you're going to still be able to go for it if you want to.

There were so many plays in this one where they ran inside zone or they ran duo, like throughout the course of this game. And it wasn't perfect. And it wasn't blocked up perfect. And Tank Bigsby is just running into a car wreck inside. And it goes for three yards. Yeah, exactly. Like in that instance, that's probably the route I would have gone. on personally.

All right. We got to take our first break here on the PHA Y Eagles podcast. We are through two plays. Both of them unsuccessful. We've got 10 more to go. Maybe a spoiler. A few more. We'll see.

Maybe the second time I'm rather, they're going to pick one up. Stay tuned on the PHA Yagles podcast. The football season is on fire. We got a barn burner coming up tonight. Falcon Saints. Lindsay cannot wait to watch that NFC South match up.

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Restrictions apply, select plans only, Xfinity, Internet, and compatible equipment required. Back in the P.H.O.I. Eagles podcast, Bo, Fran, and E.J. A couple superchants before we move on on the Money Down conversation. Joel Bryant asks, Fran, do you prefer the 2027 quarterbacks

or 2028 guys? My go-to response for this since last draft season was, I don't talk about quarterback classes until we know, like, who's in it. I would say, like, the landscape, the quarterback landscape is very, very promising. There are a lot of really exciting young quarterbacks because I'm going to be honest, there's a bunch of the guys that we were talking about for 2027 that we were talking about for 26 and a bunch of them went back. And I think it's possible a bunch of them go back again.

And so, you know, we'll see what it looks like. The 2027 class regardless looks really, really good. like there's a lot of talent in this class. But I'm, that's good. I'm so tired of like, this is a bad draft class. Yeah, no, that's not. That's not, that's not. Okay.

I'm happy to hear that. CDP. The Jags have a second round rookie tight end contributing to their run game. Is that allowed? Apparently, apparently it's allowed. Not a different sport. Yeah, they're still a bad pick,

but, because they could have had him in the third round. Maybe. Have you, you might have heard that like there's this tight end renaissance going on right now. Teams are trying to get these. guys. Yeah. I mean, plus, this is going to be out of the league in three years, but I have, it's not true. I have a quick point to that. Like, I totally understand if you were going to list the most important members of the Eagles offense that not named Jalen Hertz, they were missing

four or five of those guys for most of the game. I understand that argument. But when people are saying, oh, well, the receiving core was Don Tavian Wicks, Tewicks, Mackay Lemon, and Darius Cooper, it's like, McCoy Lemon was a first-round pick, you know, receivers. And it's not like, I understand you have to temper expectations a little with rookie receivers, but I don't know, there are productive rookie receivers in the NFL. Like, it's not like it's a position where, like, even early on the right-off. So, yeah, I still think that that receiving core, while it's not amazing, that's a good enough receiving core to win a game.

I don't know. The way that people talk about McCoy Lemon in this context, I think, is forgetting the draft capital use on them. Yeah, I think, I think, you know, If the fourth and goal from the two, if Juergens doesn't get in the way, or the third goal from the two, or Jalen doesn't boppel to snap,

they score a touchdown there, they probably win the game. Like, that is the margin that we're talking about. Or if Jonathan Jones catches that interception, they win the game. And we're talking about how the medal of this team is really impressive, and Nick was able to get them ready to go.

I understand that the margins are slim and shaped the narrative, but that's like the micro of the game, the macro of what's going on with this team right now, and it doesn't mean that they're not going to be good in December or whatever, but right now, it's not a good team. No,

it almost would have been better. Even if they had won the game. It sounds crazy, but it would almost would have been better if they got blown out. It's just like the way that they lost the game was agonizing. Right. Yeah. Okay.

Let's get to play number three. Third drive. Ends in a field goal. Starts with a tank Biggsby run for four yards. Mackay Lemon catches a ball and a curl flat in rhythm, but it gets throttled, a successful catch, super point hits.

First and 10, 12 personnel play action. Jalen, nowhere to go with the football. Seven in coverage. A two-man route. Half-boot. Elijah Moore runs a post. He's double-covered. Tate Wicks covered over the ball. He's double-covered. Jalen has nowhere to go. Scambles for a sack. So the play action numbers are, right?

I know Day Niz posted a graph on it, like, abhorrent. They are terrible. Second and 10, Zach Hertz for eight yards. Somebody should be counting all the different adjectives for bad. We're using it in today's episode. We'll keep it rolling. All right. So that brings up third and two. So now, the Eagles come out, 12 personnel, under center look, condensed set.

This looks like it's going to be some kind of a run look in third and short. So that would make sense. You're going to bring Darius Cooper in motion. He's lined up out wide. They're going to bring him in short motion to sell duo, as if he's going to insert here, and this is going to be a straight at-you-run for Tank Bigsby, which makes sense. They've been running the ball fairly well so far to start the day. Get that vertical push, fall forward, get a first down, move the sticks.

but it is actually going to be an under center play action play where you're going to release, you're going to release Cooper up the field. And again, like these, we've seen this time and time again against the Eagles, by the way, right? Where you're going to get that receiver. And typically what we see from these plays is that when the receiver releases inside the core of the formation,

he's going to like attack a void and coverage like on the opposite side where maybe he's outside the vision of the underneath zone defender. You're trying to take advantage of some kind of matchup, some kind of void. that's not what the Eagles decide to do on this play. And also, off of dual play action, usually because it's a straight at-you run, it's usually a straight vertical play action, right? Where Jalen is going to drop back and the pocket is kind of set here.

The Eagles do a front-side boot action on this play where instead of Jalen dropping straight back, he is going to start rolling. And that is a, it's fine. It's like a change-up, but here's what happens here on this play. the receiver, Cooper, he gets held up here. The bigger one is that Jalen's eyes immediately go to the flat. And as you could see, there is no one in the flat. The player that I think he's expecting to get to the flat is Johnny Munt,

who is trying to initially block the defensive end, and the defensive end completely jacks him up. It holds him from releasing into the flat. So Jalen is looking to where Johnny Munt is not there. The route that he want to hit, typically on the, this is the intermediate crosser and that's coming from Tay Wicks who is matched up on Trent McDuffie who has been playing as one of the top corners in football especially from a coverage stand a cover like pure man to man shadow corner standpoint he's been shutting everybody down

they've been going up against all season long so it's play action you've got the first the underneath route is nixed this one is completely erased and you would think that like oh that Cooper is going to run like the third level but he's not running like he's not part of the progression he's actually just running straight down the field. No, man. So that's, that is a non, that's, that's not in the read here for Jalen Hurd. So Jalen is off the fake. That route's not there.

This route's not going to be covered because you've got the, one of the best corners in football, and that's nothing, right? So literally, Jaylon's got nowhere to go at the ball. Yeah, can we, can we just appreciate this screenshot for a minute here? Because when I watched this back, I was just befuddled. No, the next one, sorry, friend, the next. Got it, yep, where it is like, Johnny Munn is face. racing Jalen Hertz with a defender on his back.

And E.J. Jenkins and Tank Bigsby are literally like blocking each other. It's like every end. By the way, Darius Cooper and Tay Wicks are also right next to each other because one of them is running a clear-out route. I just, when I watch that exact moment, I was like, what are they doing? Like, how could, like, they worked on this stuff, presumably. But to see how it formulated in the game, it was just, it was unfounding. I do want to talk about why it is. is that for the 15th year in a row,

every time Jalen Hertz rolls out to his right, there's nobody for him to throw to and he has to throw the ball out. But this is different than those. This is their plan. Yeah. This is the play that they drew up. Yeah, this isn't awful scramble drill

or the timing is messed up. And that's like, you look at this and, yeah, to EJ's point, he's completely erased here on this play. And that's the thing is that typically when you have, again, when you have these plays, you're trying to put players in conflict. Like you're trying to put zone defenders in conflict.

The guy that you're trying to put in conflict here is this corner. And because this route, again, like this route is meant to be what's called flat control. Like control the defender, this guy in the flat. Hold him in the flat so you have room to be able to drop this in. But since that receiver is out, there's nothing holding him here. So now he can retreat and he makes this throw harder. This safety, he can crash down because there's nothing threatening the safety. Right.

So it's just impossible throw and Jalen ends up just throwing it out of bounce. So yeah, that one, that one's D-O-A. I've been thinking about how Johnny Munt is the meme of accidentally became important and working at turning my life. Like this guy who's just been coasting by on being the best third dead end in the NFL, it gets to play two snaps a game and, you know, go to like, and now he's an incredibly important player. The worst first identity of the NFL.

And it's like, well, yeah. Yeah. And honestly, Honestly, what is E.J. Jenkins doing on the roster if he can't just take those snaps now. Just give him a shot. He might be able to ship that guy and get open in the flat. I didn't look at snap counts for the title. I'm assuming Munt led.

Munt led. Yeah. I have it here. E.J. Jenkins played like 20 snaps. 12 snaps, the same as Earth. Okay. Yeah. It's just so hazard reporter.

I can't say it. And it was flopped where he was only on for four pass snaps and eight. it runs naps. As someone who covered this team throughout training camp, it is, I would say, moderately frustrating to have thought about the time that I spent here telling our viewers, they're working on under center play action, they're working on, you know, the outside zone run game, and they think that E.J. Jenkins can be a combo tight end for them. To see that play, you know, each film review I've asked Fran about the lack of play action attempts and the fact that they aren't in favorable enough situations a lot of the time to get to them, like this is third and two.

is where you want to be able to get to that stuff and for it to look like that it is it's very disappointing now we should say we have made it to week five so if you're looking for some help with the tight end blocking good news is grand calcutera and eli stowers are both eligible to be come off i are this week praise being oh uh i should make it known the next play is fourth and two they convert this fourth down we're breaking this playing down. Okay. A successful play. Wow. Everybody, stay tuned. After this break, we're going to get to a successful play right after this.

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Bo, E.J. and the Duffman. And let's get to that successful fourth and two. Fourth and two. This is going to be a completion of Mackay Lemon on that crossing route. This is the only money-down conversion of the entire day for the Eagles. They went one for four on fourth down And then O for 12 on third

They come out 11 personnel Our guy Johnny Johnny Munt He's lined up slightly detached to the formation To the core of the formation on the left side You've got three receivers over to the right Now the Rams, they're trying to get lined up They there's some communication there on the back end Trent McDuffie is here

And he's trying to communicate to these DBs He's saying hey, rather than me manning up on Johnny Munt Like don't waste me here like put me on a receiver Let me match up on Lemon in the Slopheyes but then they say, hey, you know what, like they're already up the line of scrimmage, like you just stay here. So there's some confusion on the back end here that the Eagles could try and take advantage of.

Now, what the Eagles try and do with Will Shipley is this is actually a motion they did a bunch throughout the course of the afternoon where it's what I would call like a return motion where you're going to send him as if he's going to release to the flat just to see how the defense reacts and then bring him back, right? They're saying like, all right, like give us some kind of a man's own tell for the quarterback. And so they're going to send Shipley in that. return motion, send him as if he's running, and the linebacker goes sprinting with him.

And so that immediately tells Jalen Hertz, all right, this is going to be man. Now, again, Will Shipley's going to turn around. He's going to put the brakes on and come back right to where he started. But the information has now been acquired for Jalen. So it looks like it's going to be mad. Now, again, what is the role of the offensive line in protection? Okay. What is the number one job?

You want to account for the four down defensive linemen and the most dangerous rush threat after that. five blockers on five defenders. So four down linemen and four. What direction should the offensive line be sliding on this play? You're left. It is like clear as dead. You've got two defender.

You've got two defensive linemen over on this side. Okay. You've got two offensive linemen over on this side. You should be sliding one, two, three. And maybe you've got the running back helping out with anything here or worse case. he's kind of chipping in to help out anything like that. But two verse two slide to the left. The Eagles slide to the right here.

And it's nonsensical. I don't know why. It doesn't make any sense. So here's what I would say is that what I believe is happening, what I believe is happening, is that it supposed to be a four-man slide, which is just fine. You're going to basically insert Chippley here

to block this linebacker and Cam Jorgon's going to block down in the defensive tackle. I don't love this. I don't think it's the best answer, but it's the most like the most sensible thing for me based off what we're seeing now if that's the case if they're going one two three four man slide jordan myelotta one-on-one with the defensive end shippley inserting here against the linebacker assuming that this library's linebacker's dropping out and that

mcduffy is manned up on johnny munt i don't know what jurgens is doing on this play right jurgens ends up he's supposed to be going down here to block the defensive tackle but he ends up trying to also block the linebacker that's blitzing in his outside shoulder and his outside gap, but that's where Shipley's supposed to be. So there's like, again, second guessing, guys are trying to do more than they're supposed to. This, it's just, it's a poor job, right? And now, I don't know, like, so you've got two on one here. For me, in my mind, no reason for this to be a two on one.

So yes, this is an error on Cam Jurgens. But I would say pre-snap, this protection calls is just bad. Like, it does not make sense. For them to be in this spot, it's an unforced error. from an assignment standpoint. And, yeah, like, Juergens blows this protection in my mind. Like, if I were to put a grade on it, I would say, like, Jurgens messes this play up.

But I would say this is more on the call, and it starts there as opposed to even, like, the execution, which was also poor. And there's going to be a handful of these where it's like, don't love the call, don't love the execution. And they luck out here because it ends up getting, they end up getting a catch here.

I was going to say this is the win because McCoy Lemon comes across and Jalen ends up just lofted this in. But you can see, he's making this throw with a defender in his face. That's Cam Jorgon's guy. Right. So there's just a bad process, good result here for the Eagles and their lone conversion

of the day. Is there any chance that the reason they're sliding there is just, it's pounded into Drew Kendall before the game. We got to protect Markell Bell. He wasn't supposed to play in this game. He didn't practice all week. We're going to just send everything to his side. I guess, but even still, it's not like, yeah, it's not like.

He's still one-on-one. Yeah, he's still one-on-one. Sorry, Lindsay, I'm going back to the screen. But yeah, like he's still one-on-one on an island, right? Like, Markell Bell is all by himself here. So, you know, he's helping out Tyler Steen. But, yeah, that's nonsensical. Like, that's one where I'm looking at.

I'm like, I don't know why, why are you the way that you are? I don't know. That was a rough one. Okay. That's the good one. That's a good memory. All right, let's get to the next fails third down. All right.

So they keep this going. This is the third drive of the game. Same drive. So, well, after this. Yeah, we got a long way. Shibley goes for four yards,

rhythm throw the Taywicks. First down holding on Johnny Munt brings up first in 20. First and 20. By the way, you said before, like, it's,

it's the way that's lining up. And we got Trent McDuffie one on one with Johnny Munt. Like, oh. Nuclear bomb versus the coughing baby. So first and 20, you get a catch by Mikey Lemon

for six yards. That brings up second and 14. They try and throw that corner out to Ertz against the, against Quentin Lake. Both guys were in contact, yep. So that goes incomplete.

Brings up third and 14. So let's go third and 14. Okay. 13, you know, that's a tough one. Now, this is the play we actually did in the postgame show yesterday. I showed it from the broadcast copy.

And I thought, you know what, I probably, usually if I don't double dip, I don't show the same thing. But I thought that, you know, the angle from the end zone angle really helps to illustrate how offensive this was

and why I was just so, like, bothered by it yesterday. Because you just really see, like the, again, like going back to like the indecision and guys second guessing. And that's where I get into like the prep rate. Like it looks like an ill-prepared unit watching that group operate yesterday. So let's go to the, let's go to the tape here for this one. Again, third and 14.

He wants McCai Lemon on crossing route. Jalen Hurts. Mackay Lemon is on the on the left slot. He wants Mackay here on the left side. Now remember five offensive linemen. You count for the four defensive linemen and the most dangerous. Not necessarily the guys are the five guys that are down in the line, but where is the danger?

most likely to come from. So you've got one, two, three, four defensive linemen, and you've got a fifth down player with the linebacker, Nate Lammon down on the line of scrimmage. And so you would look at it and say, all right, well, yeah, maybe we're just going to slide this way, right?

We're going to slide the center, that direction, and account for those five. Now, what typically happens here is, you know, that'll work out that way. The running back,

he's going to be, he's going to account for that. If this safety were to blitz from depth, that's on the quarterback. Now, what happens on this one is that Shippley is going to end up sliding out here a little bit the offensive line does slide this way

you've got one here you've got Tyler Steen matched up on that defensive tackle you've got Bell on the defensive end but you've got two rushers coming from depth here it's going to be a five-man pressure from the LA Rams and the numbers are not in your favor now this safety he ended up coming down very late in the pre-snap phase and starting to get it so that may

Maybe if you're Jalen, if you're, if you're Nick Siriani, you're Sean Mannion, and I'm not sure how much time was left on the platecock here. Maybe he clocks this. He sees, hey, you know what? This guy's rolling down. We got to change this protection. And it goes back to Bo like what you're saying. Like even when you're wrong, you're right kind of deal for the quarterback.

But that does not happen here on this play. So regardless, what I again, like don't love the, the call's wrong, right? So that you're sliding away from where the pressure's coming. But then I also just don't like the execution here. because you've got one, two, right? So now it's, you've got basically three versus, you've got four rushers versus three blockers. Shipley should be keying off of this player.

So if this player starts to blitz, Shipley should be stepping up into this B gap. But he's sliding outside. And I don't know why he's sliding outside because this is a pass rusher out here. He shouldn't be like chipping the defense. He should be stepping up into this B gap to block the blitzer. But he doesn't.

And he ends up kicking outside. So he's sliding outside. And you can see he realizes it. He's like, oh, crap, I'm wrong here. So he frantically tries to get back into his gap. You still have the safety coming. And so now Markell Bell, the rookie right tackle, making his first start. He's got two versus one.

He's got the safety from depth. And you've got their best pass rusher, Byron Young, lined up against him. And Markele Bell basically tries to block two here on this play. And he ends up by trying to block two, he ends up blocking neither. So the safety, Quentin Lake, he's going to scare Jalen off his spot. Jalen is going to retreat here because Shipley was late on the block. Markell Bell, because he was trying to split the difference,

doesn't get a piece of the past rusher, Byron Young, and Young just flies right by him. And so, again, just kind of shows the indecision and just the lack of detail from that group. Now, this is where we need to have the coaching conversation. Not the head coach, the offensive line coach, because obviously they've moved on from Jeff Seventh, Island. They brought in Chris Cooper who was kind of run out of town in Minnesota. We talked about it

in the offseason. Yep. And, you know, early, early signs are positive, but the execution there and the call, how much would you put that on? True Kendall getting prepared for the week by Chris Cooper. It's tough to say because, you know, like, it's possible that Chris Cooper like told him the right thing. Yeah, exactly right. Somewhere along the line, like in the, the link somewhere. There's a chain in the link that's broken somewhere. So I don't know if Cooper's given in the right info

and Kendall's not processing your right. I don't know if Kendall's making the right call and got like that's the thing with that previous one where Jurgens doesn't step inside on the four-man slide. It's possible that Kendall made the right call and said like yeah, it's a four-man slide

but didn't communicate it loud enough or maybe our Jurgens didn't hear our Jorgans went rogue on the play. Like it's tough to say, but somewhere along the line like the right call got worked. Not good Okay

I think we're going to take our last break We'll come back We got more We got a long way to go still Buckle in You are grinding Through rec league playoffs chasing your kids around the yard

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New York Giants in first place at 3-1. No. Eagles and Cowboys tied at 2-2. Here's their breakdown. Cowboys, fourth in offensive success rate, second in offensive EPA per drive, but 30th in defensive success rate and 31st in defensive EPA per drive. The Giants, 23rd and 24th on offense, 26th and 19th on defense. The Eagles, 29th and 30th, in offensive success rate and offensive EPA per drive,

and 23rd and 20th on defense, who you got? I probably am going to go with the Cowboys. I just, I want to say the Eagles. I know I took their under and spread your wins and fly. Is that what you're about to say? Cowboys. No, I was going to say, how about them, cowboys? That was good. That was a good delivery.

I could see the Cowboys figuring it out defensively as a year goes on, at least like to become league average. Literally. The only one unit of those six units that's above average is their top five offense. Yeah, but what I'm saying is I think their defense could get to average and then they could win the division that way. I think the Eagles could absolutely win the division. No doubt.

But I do think these next four weeks are going to, be really important and I think it could go sideways. It's really like do you, what group do you have more faith in the Cowboys defense to turn it around or the Eagles offense turn around? Yeah, I think that's good framing. And to your point, EJ, I think like I, I think the Eagles are a should have a better team. Yeah. I worry about things totally unraveling over the next.

I agree. Yes. Like, and you know, people will ask me, oh, what are the vibes like in the locker room? Is it, does it feel like 2023? Does it feel like last season? doesn't feel like 2020 even though I wasn't in the locker because of COVID. I don't think we're there yet ask me again in a week. Ask me again when this team

gets back from London. If they lose that game, I think we might be there. I think it's starting to ratchet up the intensity and the scrutiny. Five's not great. All right, that was the Hendred Delton presented by Parks Casino. Let's get to third down number five. Yep, fourth drive. This one ends in a punt. First play the drive. Jalen Hertz.

double clutches on the play. It was an inbreaker to Tay Wick. So he ends up completing, but he gets tackled right away. Seven yard gain, penalty tax on adds 15. So get another first down. They run due out of 11 personnel. End up being a run for plus one. Second and nine.

You get the PBU by Cam Kinchins right at the line of scrimmage on the checkdown to Will Shipley. So that brings up third and nine. You get a false start from Cam Juergens on third and nine. So that brings up third and 14. So let's get to the third and 14 here on this play. So the Eagles come out. the idea here is basically big crossers.

You're going to get Darius Cooper running a fade down the left side line. You're going to get Mackay Lemon running a deep crosser. And you're going to get Tay Wicks running a deep crosser. And so for anyone that's sick of like all the deep curls and three, all right, well, they do something a little bit different here on this third and long play. It's got seven man protections. You've got the tight end, Johnny Munt and the running back staying in for protection here. So only three guys out in the route. And really it's just kind of, again, like it's all.

all ice it's not like the routes kind of play off each other so it's essentially like all right guys we want you to go and win here um wicks gets completely taken out of this by mcduffey again mcduffey has been playing at such a high level if mcduffey's one-on-one with you like especially if it's not devante like to me it'd be one thing if it were devonte smith all right give the guy a chance this should have been like an automatic no for jaylon like jalen in my opinion should not have been started if if trentcfie is if you think it's manned coverage i don't care who on the eagles is lined up at him one-on-one, I'm not starting there early, you know, on these different route concepts. Now, you've got Mackay working out of the slot against off-coverage, and he looks like

he's going to win on this route, and he does win on this route. Mackay actually does a good job here of breaking open. This is the very top of the drop. Pockets not great, because we're going to get a free rush or get to that, but Jaylen is already cloistered up here. Like, he immediately is already, like, breaking down at the top of his drop. Like, like one, two, three, bam, already breaking down. And you think he could right at the top here layer that ball to McCaugh? He's going to get throttled. But yeah, like that would be the idea.

It's like, all right, like, you're going to take a hit. But you loft this up and just let your guy go and get it. You know, so I'm of two minds on that one. I'm sure that the coaching point, like from the quarterback coach, you know, from everyone involved in the passing game is like, all right, like, yeah, we got to figure out the protection, which we'll get to. But Jalen, like, you know, kind of want you to just step in and make this throw. Because again, like, lemon's there with with room to run.

But it's already a mess back there. So let's get into it from a protection standpoint. You know, again, like five offensive linemen, account for the four D line and most dangerous. So I'm going to say that's home blue in the face today. One, two, there's three, and there's four. So you got your four down linemen. There's two linebackers here over on the right side.

So which way do you want to kind of slide? Which way or, you know, how you want to handle this? you're going to go one, two, three. That's exactly how they should have handled this. So your offensive linemen are accounting for the three down linemen. You've got linebacker, linebacker, and then an extra rusher here. Shipley does a decent job stepping up, but he's going to end up losing here. But again, like that's kind of okay here on this one.

Like this isn't ideal where you're going to get that rusher. But again, like I think on this one, you see the Mackay's about to break. You got to throw it. You want that to be thrown there on this one. So, you know, Jalen, you know, hits the top. He's got to wiggle out of trouble here on this one and ends up just kind of rolling out and it ends up, you know, again, like you've got Braden Fisk one-on-one here with one.

Basically what happened here on the play is, again, he kind of left Mackay with a two-on-one. And so he's got the defensive end. He's grappled up with the defensive end. Markell. Markele. Yeah, what did I say? Mackay. Mackay, yeah, sorry.

Markell Bell is one-on-one with the defense. and he's then he's locked up then again like that's fine he's got the safety coming down late and he tries to do what he did with the last one where he tries to block two he comes off the defensive end or the defensive tackle Fisk and blocks the safety so now you got Fiske's coming through probably not the the best choice there from the rookie from Markell Bell so I'm sure that's what Chris Cooper is going through with him there is that you don't you don't want the defensive tackle free now again the safety is probably looping around to try and get to hurts anyway, but again, to me, like, this was one where I'd say, like, all right, like,

Jalen probably should cut that loose, even if he's about to take that hit. Jalen said after the game that the second most thing he said after poor execution was finding a flow, not being in rhythm. That kind of did look like an example of that. And at this point in the game, I think it's fair to say that they were out of rhythm. But the question that I presented to Fran last night when we were talking through some of this stuff that I want to bring to the to the show. I don't expect you to answer this question because I don't think,

anyone knows the answer. How did so many of the things that we talked so much about last year, or two years ago or three years ago, how did they survive like a complete scorched earth approach? Great question. On the coaching staff. They overhauled the entire offensive coaching staff. I think that's why Nick Siriani's gotten a lot of criticism today.

Jalen Hertz has gotten a lot of criticism is because I think people are looking for an answer. Like, how did all this stuff linger? How did it persist? You blew up the building, but the cockroaches are still on the baseboards. It's like, how are we still talking about this stuff in 20? Yeah, the third quarter curse is still there. It's very bizarre.

It is. Because I'm not of the opinion that it's like, it's Nick. It's obvious that it's Nick now. No, I don't think so. It's Jaylen. It's obvious that it's Jaylen now. But I think it's fair to say. The things about Jalen here that you're pointing out, those are things that we have

seen before. Yeah. Where the pressure mounts. Yeah. Not the emotional pressure. The pressure from opposing defenses. and he starts to trust the pocket less. And he starts to flee the pocket too early.

That is a familiar thing for us. And that's the thing when you talk about a quarterback of Jalen's caliber, and there are a lot of quarterbacks in the NFL that are like this, where they are capable of high levels of play, right? Super Bowl MVP caliber levels of play. And Jalen Hertz, we know is capable of that. Can the Eagles win a Super Bowl with Jalen Hertz? Yes, we know this, right?

We've seen it. the problem is when you have a quarterback of that caliber that isn't always playing to that nonstop then you need other areas of the operation to be able to lift up yeah it's not so in the past it's like oh well the eagles have a championship level run game oh well the eagles have outstanding talent around even if the talent's not there or the the run game's not there you've got a j brown and devante smith and dallas goddard and saquan barkley and you've got a great offensive line that obviously has been stripped away oh the defense is playing at a really high level well, the defense isn't always playing at a high level right now.

So when you strip all that away, that's when it looks like a two and two team. It's also just, you know, it's a bad habit. And two weeks ago, it looks great. Yeah, right? Right. That's what I mean. The pieces weren't that different.

You know, he has Devante Smith. Right. Obviously, and he has Lane Johnson. Sequin. And I did like the way that handsome Rich put it about like every little, literally every position group they're missing. Maybe they're most important. Right.

But, you know, he looks great two weeks ago. Yep. But he's got a bad habit. And it's like, okay, I can go to the gym five days in a row and then I skip a day. And then all of a sudden, you know, a donut looks good the next morning. Like, you know, shame on me for falling back into old habits. Like, it's the same thing with Jalen. He starts fleeing the pocket.

And he can't help it. Yeah. And he looked really good on late downs early in the season. But I feel like the one thing we probably know about Jalen at this point is you're not going to have like a high. volume, stay on schedule passing attack with him at quarterback. And that's fine. You know, like it's a limiting factor maybe, but again, he's played at high levels without being that type of guy.

But to Fran's point, when you don't have a running game to fall back to, that's how you end up in so many disadvantageous situations where you're in second and long and third and long because the run game's not working the way you want it to, and you don't really have like a good solid foundation of a quick passing game right now. All right, let's get to play number six. Play six. Well, third down. Yeah, third down.

Yeah, right. Six drive. So it's first down to get an out route to Earths for five yards. Second and five, incomplete on a fade to Tay Wicks that goes incomplete. So that brings up third and five. Another penalty. Markell Bell, illegal formation. So the third down, third and five turns in the third and ten.

So let's get into the third and ten. Now, what you get here from the Eagles is you get a late shift where Johnny Munt is going to cross the formation. He's going to go from left to right. McCoy Lemon is going to come from outside and he's going to come to the slot to essentially kind of form a stacked set here with the receiver on that side. Now, what you're going to get is that they're running

basically double slant. They're going to run tosser here where you're going to get I'll actually bring this back. You're actually going to get Mackay Lemon. He's going to run the first crosser. He's going to run that through. And then Darius Cooper is going to run the backside slant. And then over on the opposite side, you're going to get Tawicks

one-on-one where he's basically just going to run a, let me see the route, he's running an out route to the stick. So he's basically going to just kind of work upfield press man coverage against trend mcduffey and then work towards the outside towards the sideline so johnny mutt and will shippley here they're going to basically check in protection and then release on the play so top of the drop again same thing jalen's already breaking down now you can see here on this one there's a free right there's a there's a there's a clean runner here on this one um i would say that the route concept of the

bottom is going to work right that first through route from mckeye lemon that is basically created two create space inside for for cooper to be able to win and cooper this is a really good piece of route running from dari's cooper he did a really good job of understanding that he could throw a little bit more sauce on the top of the route here to work for hold that fast vertical stem right because he's got he has to allow time for mackay to get through and create that space so he can push this vertical and really kind of sell it before breaking inside he did a great job McDuffie locks up hey wicks like it again like that's a matchup like the rams will take that 99 times out of 100 that McDuffie overwicks.

Now, to me, it looked like that's where Jalen wanted to go with the ball initially and then come back, but either way, it doesn't matter because he does not have time in this instance. So let's get to the protection plan. You get over on that side? And this is also, we should say, a route combination where

this is not things working into his eye, right? Right, yeah. He's here and then he's got to get all the way back over here. Right. It should be a rhythm type of way. Like, you know, kind of pick, like where you're going to go, by the time you do the second, they're like,

that's dead. All right, let's get to the protection in, third down time. heinous time. All right. So. Arbonzo time.

Another example where, all right, we got five offensive linemen. You're going to count for the five, or for the four down linemen and the most dangerous. This one should be cut and dry here, right?

We're going to slide this to the right. And the Eagles do slide to the right here on this one. You're going to get, you're going to slide. the offensive line this way. You're going to get the man-to-man protection over on the left side. If you're Shipley, you're just making sure that, you know, really, namely this linebacker or this DB does not blitz on this one.

Now, the main block to watch, and I want you to just keep, let's look at the placement here. Look at Drew Kendall's foot. Okay. Drew Kendall's right foot is right in the middle of the hash marks. And since he is sliding to his right, you want to be able to see like, all right, like you want to see the visual. How much width does he get with that first step?

How much ground does he gain with that first step? He gains no ground, gets no width. And you can see that he's out over his toes after the snap on the ball. And he just, he loses the outside shoulder here. He loses the outside half. So you're going to get, the Eagles are sliding in this direction. He loses here on this initial, he gives up initial penetration. These guys are sliding this way.

Johnny Munt is staying in before releasing. Again, you're looking at shipping. Shipley is making sure, all right, is this safety going to blitz or not? If he does not blitz, all right, well, now I'm going to release into the route and I'll be available for a checkdown for Jalen Hertz. Now, what the Rams are running here is they're going to run the defensive tackle straight up field. They're going to run another defensive tackle straight up field. And then they're going to take Young and he's going to loop around.

This is that pirate stunt, right? The three-man game where he's going to get that looper coming from distance. Now, when you're passing off a long stunt, long stunts are tough because it requires multiple blockers to communicate and pass this off. And so you're putting a lot on the rookie right tackle, the first time center, you know, and the veteran guard Tyler Steen to communicate this. And, you know, it doesn't go well. So you've got Shipley releasing.

Now, I do wonder how they would coach this if they would say like, hey, I know your man, Will Shipley, I know your man's not blitzing here and he's actually a man-to-man coverage, but keep an eye out in case there is anything else coming your way. And you could kind of like throw him a shoulder or like anything on the way out. But he does not do that regardless. this first pressure that Kendall allows, and I don't know if this went down in the pressure numbers as a pressure for Kendall,

but this is on Drew Kendall, gives this up that initial pressure to Jalen Hertz, and he's able to make that first man miss, but the second guy gets home, and that really impacts Jalen. So this is the looper coming from that side, and Jalen, oh, he actually does, he wiggles out of this and ends up throwing this away.

But third and long, ends up being a throwaway into the sideline. Put that on execution. Yeah. Okay. Seventh drive. Seven. Seventh drive.

Did it continue to be abominable? Bad. Odius. Did you look them up or are you just doing this off the dome? I did look up at one just now. Okay. I compliment to you that I thought you were improvising.

I just wanted to keep the bit going. I love it. Seventh drive was the touchdown to Darius Cooper before the end of half. It's like seven drives in the first half. Yeah, a lot of drives in this game. Yeah. A lot of free out.

So it was a short field after the Britain Covey on return. So that sets up the Darius Cooper touchdown. They dominated on special teams. Such a team like, L.A. did everything they could to give the Eagles this game. Insane. All right. So eighth drive, this ends in a punt. First down, under center, outside zone goes for zero yards.

Cornerback blitz right into the run. And we've seen this time and time again, especially in the second half of games. as teams are selling out to stop the outside zone from under center, the Rams to run a blitz right into the path for Bigsby there. So that brings up second and 10. Slant flat, he wants Biggsby in the flat versus a linebacker, errant throw, incomplete. Brings up third and 10.

The Eagles run one of my favorite plays in football here on the time. One of my favorite plays is a version of one of my favorite play. They run mesh. Now, in this version of mesh, go ahead. We're doing the mesh handbook. I mean, it's more like... Yeah, I understand. It's okay.

Still. Just wanted you to pick up what I was putting down. That's all. Life is pain. So what you get here from the Eagles is you've got a deep corner route from Tay Wix.

That's, I guess it's an alert here on this play. You're going to get Johnny Munt running a route over the ball. But the big routes here that you're worried about are McCai Lemon running the shallow. He's going to run the high shallow and you get the low shallow. Hello.

That's great. That's a great song. Bradley Cooper. Shout out, Abington, Jenkinstown. So you guys, Darius Cooper running the low, shallow here on the mesh route. And it's basically going to be a two-man route. And it works fine. Mackay Lemon, great job.

Outstanding job running the mesh play. Does a good job of setting the rub for the defender. That's Trent McDuffie in pursuit of Cooper. McDuffie does a good job of staying with it. Ends up tackling the catch. If this was third and five, if this was third and four, if this was anything else, like we've seen a couple third and shorts already in this game. There was the third and two. That was the play action that didn't go anywhere.

This would be a successful play and they gained it. But third and ten, I didn't love it. Now, friends off the deep end watch as he falls in. What's the last part of it? My feet don't touch the ground. Yeah, right. I'll never hit, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, she heard her voices. Ridiculous. Shout out. protection. Again, offensive line account for the four down and the biggest danger.

This one's pretty cut and dry here. It's basically five down. Three men slide to the left. Shipley keys off the edge rusher over here or the edge rush. Now, what's interesting here, okay, is that on the last third down, the Rams ran that pirate stunt, right, where you're going to go one, two, three. And this, the safety that was down ended up, being in man-to-man against Johnny Munt.

That tight end is not here on this play. So this safety ends up rushing. And so now you see that Will Shipley, he's got to come across and block this guy. So this is a good, like, this is how it should look based off the one that we saw previous, where how does this side of the line handle that pirate stunt, that long stunt?

They do a better job of passing this off. And I don't know if this starts with like Milata calling out for it. And then that alerts Juergens. and that alerts Kendall that, hey, like, alert for the, for the looper coming around. But Kendall falls off. He blocks the looper. So now that Jayland's got a bit of a cleaner pocket here, Juergens wasn't, it wasn't as strong here on the inside.

And so you get a little bit of leakage here right in front of Jalen, but he's still able to, it's a crowded pocket because Chippley doesn't do a great job. Chipley's just not good in protection. Like he's just, he's not good in protection. And which is unfortunate for a third down back, for a guy that you would think is a third down back. but Jalen's able to step up and hit Cooper for completion. But again, is that throwing platform from Jalen.

Well, that is a, because he's feeling, he's feeling hot. He's, he's lukewarm here on the planet. He's got Russia, but yeah, he makes an off platform throw, gets it, gets it in, but Trent McDuffey tackles the catch and it's, uh, yeah, the Eagles are forced to find. I thought that was an awesome play from McDuffey. Like, he's got no fear of the pick that McKay Lemon's set in there. Like, I mean, he, he tucks in a little bit behind Darius Cooper on the play,

but like, that was like a, I don't know, When I watched it, that was the first thing I noticed is just how fearless he was in that, in that situation. Okay, so this is one, we put on the call because, but this is the least egregious of them all. They're in their own territory. They still complete the ball. It's okay.

Yeah. Another one. Ninth drive. Ninth drive. This one ends up on. That's a hard one, yeah. First and 10, they go under center, outside zone for five yards. Good job on first down.

Second and five. They go stretch toss. It was a play action stretch toss. We're going to fake the toss to the right with Ertz is the lead blocker. the defensive end backside does not buy whatsoever that this is going to be a run play and he's in jalen hurts his face right away forces the forces a throw early mckeye lemon runs right into a dropping defender from the line of scrimmage it's incomplete so like it's just like another play action play that just it's just dead on arrival uh so that brings up third and five on this third and five eagles come out in a two

by two set it's 11 personnel uh and what to me what this looks like is you've got a man beater on the left side and a zone beater on the right side. The man beater is a slant from Darius Cooper with an outbreaking route from Zach Gertz. If you think of it's command of man coverage, you're going to work that side. On the other side, you've got a zone beater where you're basically, it's a high, low read with Elijah Moore running like a little sit route and Mackay Lemon running an in cut behind it and whoever the underneath zone defender is here in this spot, you're basically playing off that guy. Because again, it's third and five. So, you know, this is one where you're, you basically kind of read if you're Jalen like is it man is it zone the rams have a pressure

look here with a five-man pressure um they're they are going to drop one guy uh you know back back off of this and he just happens to put it right into the throwing lane of the in cut and so that kind of speaks to the idea of like are the eagles becoming a little bit predictable because they did they dropped somebody right into uh the area where jalen could have in theory made a hot throw but it's man to man across the board now on this one Cooper stumbles uh kind of running this and again it's like he's going up against McDuffie here and it's

it's just like yes they're playing man to man and that was your man's side but again we're going against McDowellon's eyes are starting where again on the receiver that's going up against McDuffey and you know Ertz like routes at this depth that's not

that's not going to be that's not going to work for Earth at this point in his career right so he stumbles out of the break here Cooper and ends up going to the ground and it ends up falling incomplete. So yeah, that's a no-go. Yeah, that's the tip of the cap to the other team, but it's a question of personnel usage.

Yes. Yeah. Right. Yes. Okay. Next. Next. This one goes on turnover on downs.

This one was actually, I kind of nifty play. Oh. I kind of like this, but then we get into, like, details. It's a theme on this track. or on the next couple of drives. First down, under Seno, they go duo for four yards. Plow forward into a car wreck, four yards. Mr. Plow, that's his name, that name again is Mr. Plow.

Shotgun, Pinpool Suite to Biggsby to the right-hand side, go for two yards. So that brings up third and four. And I like this play. I like this idea. They're going to, they have Jaylen Hertz in the shotgun. They're doing that same return motion where you're going to send Will Shipley out to the left and then return and that's going to force all right that's going to force some communication

all right we saw what they're going to do now you got the linebacker blitzing up and the Eagles start faking like they're making changes at the line all right so like Kendall and you can kind of see everybody stands up and everybody's like loose and it's like oh like they're up to their old stuff again they're trying to figure out the hell's going on

these guys are lost and then really quickly Kendall snaps the ball and I'm like oh I like this is really good It's just going to be inside zone from the shotgun. Inside zone. Block to the left. Everyone step left and block. Oh, no.

And get downhill. Left, left, left, left, right. Tyler Steen blocks the wrong way. And because he blocks the wrong way, that leaves the nose tackle unblocked for a second. He realizes it late. Like after he takes his first step, he's like, oh, crap. And he adjusts. But instead of that block happening...

Too busy selling. I was just about to ask that. When you watch it, Tyler Steen is like looking the wrong way at the start of the play. And then he kind of is like doing that after the play too. He's an actor at heart. He's not a football player. We're finding out that what is true passionate is. What, yeah, what is singing from his soul is the opportunity on a big stage to show his acting jobs.

And he forgot to keep the main thing the main thing. He did too good of a job of looking lost on the play. and instead of the block happening there. But the next football movie we need to film, Tyler Steen, you got yourself a roll. So, yeah, Shively now, he ends up still going for positive yardage here. He goes forward, it's third and four,

and he picks up three, and it brings up fourth and one. Yeah. And then the Eagles come out and do the touch push, and they fail. So they turn over the, turnover on downs. Poor detail on third and four. Is there any chance that they didn't tell Tyler Steen

that this was all a rude? and he actually was like, wait, what's the call? I don't know if that would make me feel better or worse. That is very funny. All right. So far, so far execution is the poor execution is the poor execution is the leading in the clubhouse so far. But we've got three more to go. Well, let's add another one on the list there.

So 11th drive, this is another one that ends on turnover on downs. Pivotal drive in the game. As bad as everything has been to this point. Yeah. They win the game on this play. No question. So they come out, I believe it's nice straight. And by the way, I think we have a super chat on Siriani criticism.

Nobody here is saying that Nick Sierani made the wrong choice to go for it. No, for it down here. That was absolutely the right decision. You're going up three scores. The difference between being up 10 and being up 13 is almost a negative effect in the game. You're making them go 98 yards. This is a no-brainer, right decision. I think the super chat here is blacklist.

In 24 versus the Falcons, a bad mistake forces them to go. for it or pick. Everyone complained about the field goal. Now Nick goes for it and people still complain. I know that there are people complaining about that. Yeah, they're all. Yeah. Nobody here is complaining about that.

I think it was, I know it was direct decision. You were livid after that one. I remember in post game. Yeah. Yeah. I remember that. That was awful.

Yeah. I got into an argument with Anthony about it this morning because I am in favor of playing possessions at that point in the game. If you score there, you get a touchdown there, you effectively win the game. Yeah. Game's over. Yep. Yep.

the offense hasn't been able to do anything. This is your shot. This is your chance to do it. Because if we saw that, that's why when they got the ball at the end of the game, that's why I didn't even pull the plays for these breakdowns because I had zero faith that they were going to move the ball at that point. Take advantage when you got it.

All right. So let's get to that play. All right. So one. Yeah. I mean, everybody knows. Right off the bat.

Like 19 yards to Bigsby. They go counter for seven. They got a QB run mixed in. They ran a bunch of different plays. Nine runs in a row. Nine runs in a row. One of them scrambled. But yeah.

Yep. That's fine. and the scramble was not a great play. That was a turn down from Jalen Hertz. He had an in-breaker to Wix that was open in the middle of the field, doesn't throw it, ends up getting out of trouble, runs for 14.

But then they go outside zone for three. Then they go inside zone for seven, like good run for Shipley. Like they're moving the ball on the grounds. Now that brings up third and two. The Eagles come out in 14 personnel. Now first, they come out in 11.

Right. Shotgun. Right. And then call time out. Yes. So it's not like, Like this was the play that they dialed up all along. Right.

And then they come back to it. I wonder who made the call. Wasted the time out too. I wonder who said like, hey, this is it. This is the time to do it. Who was the Nick Falls?

That feels like a Nick to me. Don't you? I don't know. I wouldn't be so. There's no way it's the other way where Nick wanted them to be an 11 and then Mannion's like, because Nick's the one calling time out.

Right. So I don't know. I feel like, I don't know. Nick's one calling time out. Yeah, right. So maybe Nick, Nick's the one calling timeout to two to run that play. Maybe.

All right. Well, either way. They come out in 14 personnel. And 14 personnel, one back. Four tight ends. Offensive snap of Michael Morris's life. That's right. Well, NFL offensive snap.

Yes. So you get two tight ends here on the right side with Johnny Munt and E.J. Jenkins both in line. You've got Mike Amaris here as your one tight end. And you've got Willie Lampkin as your move tight end here on this play. So he's going to pull from the left to right. The whole right sound. the right side is blocking down.

All right. So they're all blocking down this way. The guy to watch is E.J. Jenkins. He's going to try and block this defensive end, Wesley Bailey, and try and block him down. And the reason why is because you're going to have Willie Lampkin try and block that same guy into the D-Gap

and you've got Cam Jerkins, Juergens also pulling, and they're going to block all three guys are going to block this defensive end, basically whoever the most dangerous is in that B gap and just create a crease for Tank Bigsby. Now, as we probably have seen, this was a busted play,

and the reason why it was busted is that if you look at Cam Jurgens, Jurgens already is coming off the ball. It is like fraction of a second early. So it's not even like a blatant false start, but he comes off the ball, fraction of a second early. And by him being a little bit early,

that's going to create a little bit of collision here. Now, in my opinion, personally, I would look at this, and I say like it's still not the most efficient drop back from the quarterback center exchange from Drew Kendall to Jalen Hertz. It's not perfect. When you're in that kind of a spot, when you're under center and you've got a puller, basically I mean, again, it's happening right next to you.

It is incumbent upon the quarterback and the center. That ball's got to be into the quarterback's chest into his core immediately as he's stepping out. You don't want that ball exposed because there's all kinds of. body parts flying around down there with Juergens coming across. You don't want his knee. You don't want his wrist. You don't want his elbow to come in and potentially poke that ball out. And so it's incumbent upon the quarterback to pull that into his core immediately and protect it.

Make sure that you're focusing on that ball security and get out of there. That does not happen on this one. So I know we've seen the camera angle and you can see it here. Jurgens bumps hurts here on this play. You get more contact as the plays got. So the snap of the exchange is from. here. This should be a handoff to Bigsby, and he will walk in here. I mean, you've got, you've got Lampkin coming this way. Here comes Jurgens coming this way. You're going to

basically create some kind of a car wreck there and just drive those guys backwards, and Bigsby should be walking in. Biggsby should have the ball here and should be following these blocks. Instead, Jalen Hertz has the football. I actually really like what Tank Biggsby does on here. Once he realized, I don't have it, he backtracks instead of attacking this gap, he instead comes out to block McDuffie. So really good job, really good heads-up play. But her table, he gets back to the line of scrimmage to basically make it a zero-yard run, which I guess is not the worst outcome there.

You think Jalen could have done better there with the ball in his hands? Maybe like three or four years ago maybe, but yeah. Yeah, it was tough. That's a lot of white jerseys over there. Now, this is one where, yes, on paper, you've called the right play. They should have won the game with this play. Should have won the game. Yep.

but this group has never, I mean, how many times have they repped it? We don't know the answer to that. You know? But like, but the thing is that the guys in the day one stuff, if the guys who are messing up are. If it was Willie Lampkin running into Jalen Hurts had the one thing, like, I mean, it's Cam Juergens at left guard, but still, I think the exchange point, I mean, it's him working with Drew Kendall.

I don't know. I guess there is something to be said there. So I'm like, so part of me was thinking like, oh, you know, let me see, maybe I can go back and I could find like an example of like them running under center. counter or under center power where especially with Juergens maybe from earlier in the last couple weeks. I didn't have to go far. First play of this game.

Under center. Jalen Hertz. Cam Juergens and left guard is going to pull right in front of it. Here it is. Jalen gets a ball. And he's got that he pulls the ball right up into his chest as Jurgens is going to pull. You can see he pulls it. See how it's tight into his core as he's as he's stepping out of there.

Now the timing was a little bit better, right? with Juergens isn't as early. But that's what I mean. And that's why I don't think that this is solely, oh, man, like Juergens did make contact, but I don't think that the exchange was perfect between Drew and, look, this might have been a Drew Kendall thing. I'm not saying it was completely Jalen either.

Like it might have been not a great snap from Kendall in that spot. But regardless, there's a reason why the quarterback and center go over the exchange as often as they do. Jalen said after the game, it was a bad exchange too. Right. Yeah. So I, you know, it's possible that it's completely on Jurgens. I think that it was more on the exchange

and that led to the issue with Juergens, creating that pile up there. Okay, and then the fourth down call there? So fourth down. Cover zero look for the ramps. They've got a bunch of guys up in the line of scrimmage. This looks like straight man to man across the board, right? So you've got Trent McDuffie one-on-one with Wix.

Do you like going shotgun here? If you're just going to do like this kind of a rhythm throw, yes, I'm fine with that, especially after having the center exchange go awry the last one. I'm fine with not doing that here. So you got one, one, one. So it's man to man across the board. You're in the low red zone.

Cover zero look. This has to be bang, bang for the quarterback. This has to be decisive. I can't be running around. It's got to be hit the top of the drop, get the ball out because you're in a confined space with lots of speed on the field. There's not a lot of time for routes to develop.

And basically you've got two routes here. You've got Tate Wicks running an out route against McDuffie. Again, one of the best corners in football. You've got a stop route essentially from Cooper in the slot where he's going to kind of work upfield and then turn and face the quarterback. Mackay Lemon here, this route is useless except for a scramble drill situation. He's going to work up the field to basically the end line here, to the back part of the end zone, and then run across the back of the end zone.

So this would only be a Jalen started running around and then he found Lemon late. What I'm doing? Yeah. So like it's literally like, all right, like pick one and go. But it's got to be fast. Jalen drops back. And again, like I just, I don't like that matchup, right?

Like it's Wix versus Trent McDuffie. Yeah. To me like the awareness, like like you should be looking instead at Cooper personally. Especially, especially him going to the outside. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

He's a, right now. like McDubby's got outside leverage man yeah and I get it they're like you know Wix is the he's the he's the man be the man be over the he's the man coverage guy but he's going up against this it'd be one thing if you had Devante Smith over the other side holding McDuffie and he's going up against your your CB2 even if it was Jalen Watson right they're their actual CB2 and it wasn't a backup corner I'd say all right it's a little more forgivable we got you you know it's man-to-man can we get these routes working together in some way please you run the run that route The rough concept of the top.

Yes. But even still. Yeah. Cooper wins here on this play. Yeah. Cooper wins on the route. But his, yeah. But Jaylen started over here by the time he gets over there.

Like that ball should already be on Cooper's back shoulder or on his front shoulder, I should say. That should already be there. But now it's too late. And then to make matters worse, because it's now scramble, Cooper starts working inside or like back to the ball. and Jalen throws this outside. And so now you're resulting in like a diving attempt to catch this at the goal line and it goes incomplete.

So like to me I put this on the quarter. I put that play on the quarterback. Okay. Like a bad pre-stamp process that made him late post that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Not the most inspiring play call on the play to win the game. Right. Yeah. But that's like, this is like a tale. We've said this how many times. It's like, you call these plays that I don't think are great for the court. Like it's never been Jalen's wheelhouse to make those kinds of plays.

Yeah. Do you keep calling them? Right. To say like to kind of like pound it in and say like this is what we want. We want you to you need to make these plays or do you just throw that out of the play? I don't, you know, I don't know. And is it a Jalen thing of Jalen cannot help himself from just starting every week, every read with this is my top receiver.

I have to start here. I'm going to start here. Right. Yeah. I. the amount of times where he started on McDuff, like the guy that was guarded by McDuffie. Like I just, I don't get why that happened so often

in those high leverage moments. Okay, I think we got one more. We got one more. We got one more. We have one more. Okay. All right, so this is the drive. They're up 20 to 17 at this point.

So like, you're still ahead. You have the ball near midfield. You should be feeling pretty good here in this spot. To say like, all right, like, we go, let's get a drive together and like milk some clock at the very least. Um, shotgun counter,

tank gets hurt on the first, on the first play from scrimor, first play the drive, run for one yard. Second and nine, they throw a wide receiver screen to Wix for five yards. Might have been their best receiver screen of the year, outside of they guess to play to Devante last week.

So that brings up third and four. On this play, this is basically, all right, guys, go win. They go empty. Now, I like this.

This should have been an answer they went to earlier in the game, in my opinion. When a team says, like, all right, we are going to go and we're going to crowd the line of scrimmage with all these bodies. We're going to put a bunch of guys up in the line of scrimmage. Spread them out. Spread them out. And say, like, all right, we are going to force you to declare.

We're not going to let you disguise through these restaurants. We're going to go empty. And now you can't put seven guys in line of scrimmage because you've got to cover all these guys across the width of the formation. So they come out. And the eagle say, okay, we are going to run out of 11 personnel. We're going to run tosser on the left side. So we're going to run double slant where you have Zachertz running one slant. And you've got Cooper behind it, running a slant versus McDuffie.

on the opposite side you've got Mackay Lemon also running a slant I don't love personally running two slants running into each other I don't love that but that's fine

you've got the running back running the little hitch route with the idea of this is a slot fade to Taye Wick so you're just basically occupying this DB to give Wix room down the field so it's third and four essentially you're saying okay

do you want the slot fade or you're gonna work the double slant route maybe you're asking Ertz to win one-on-one here and like that's the idea. And that is where Jalen's going to go with this football. Pocket's pretty clean here. Again, it's pretty cut and dry.

It's five down linemen for the for the Rams and all five rush. This is straight one-on-one across the board where it's straight man-to-man, one-one, one-high safety, five-man rush. ISO, like ISO football here. And Jalen wants that hurts to win. There's contact at the catch point. He puts it on them and he's just not able to come up to catch and the Rams get off the field, another three and out. So, yeah, the last third down that was like doable and the Eagles can't get it done.

You're okay with the call? Yeah, like I don't love it, but I think it's more positive than not given the adjustment of going to empty. I would have done it earlier personally. You know, just again, like they're guys like we said it last week after the Bears game. They're going to keep seeing this stuff. Like all the crowd of the line of scrimmage, you know, a bunch of guys, you know, a bunch of bodies, like high levels of pressure.

Jacksonville's doing this next week. Like, you're going to see this in London on Sunday morning. So they got, they have to, stop saying that in that, they have to have answers to it. So those 12 plays. Okay. Here's the breakdown of the blame.

Okay. Three of them on the quarterback. Okay. Two of them on the call. On the straight on the play call. Straight on the play call. One of them was just kind of fine. Right.

That was the mesh play. I'm guessing? Uh, yes. And then, no, no. Yeah. three on, three on the quarterback, two on Manion. One of those two was the one. Oh, oh, okay, got, got to, got it.

And then seven on execution or execution. And of those seven, five are on the offensive line. And one of them is on Johnny Munt. So for a team, call what it is, where like detailed is one of the core philosophy. It's like not detailed. And for a team that takes pride in investing a lot in the offensive line. Now they've had a lot of moving pieces, but still. Not great.

No. Okay, so, I don't know. Can they get better? Yeah, they can get better. That's the thing. It's like, you know, how hopeless is it? How dire is it? A lot of the stuff is correctable.

But it's a matter of like how confident are you in them correcting it, right? They stuff that on young players like, you know, Mark Hellbell like blocking two instead of folk, you know, like trying to get the safety instead of blocking the defensive end. and then that pressure, like, all right, like in theory, that's correctable. Or, hey, like, Lane Johnson should be in there, right? Like, if Lane Johnson's in there, that mistake probably doesn't happen. And, you know, maybe that throw gets off. Do you know anything on the Lane Johnson front, E.J.?

You want to save it? We can finish this conversation that I can give you some updates from Nick and we can talk about it. What I have to say is probably more long-winded than what you are asking for here. Well, all that to say, yeah, a lot of it is correctable. And it's just a matter of if you have confidence that they're going to be. fixed. And I agree with EJ's point from earlier. I'm concerned you lose Sunday. Like Carolina's playing good football. Yeah. And then you're coming back. Does it does do things like spiral. You know, like, and that's what you worry about. And I'm not saying it should. I said this to E.J. last week.

I said like I was worried that if they if they lose this game to the Rams and then you lose Jacksonville like the damn breaks. And he goes and immediately, what is he? do. He immediately is like, oh, hold on a second. I've got receipts and he goes, he finds the clip from like May of saying like, oh, yeah, like they probably start two and two after the schedule release. And I'm saying like, yeah, I'm not saying that it's right. But like, I'm saying, on the outside, we should be like, yeah, give it, give it time. Yeah. But the vibes right now, like from the, like, internally, it just does not, it's not great. You know, some of us have our finger on the pulse of what the organization is like. I don't even know what you're talking about. We argued. We are passionately.

It was pretty about whether or not if the Eagles wound up in this exact situation if there would be heightened scrutiny and if there would be exactly what's happening right now. But what he's saying, no, that's right. He's saying it's scrutiny versus internal pressure. Yes, but that's always been my argument.

I didn't say that I would be crushing the team if they were two and two. I said, I think that the organization, there will be some angst and there would be some stress on everybody if they started the season with two and two in the fashion that they did. I didn't say it needed to be a top five offense,

but I thought that it would have to look encouraging. Otherwise, I thought that exactly what we're seeing now would unfold. If you're doing like an Eagles chat, like E, A stands for extreme. A stands for angst, like extreme angst in the NovaCare complex. Like Eagles Journalist Smith. What is the G stand for? Extreme angst.

Growing. Growing. Growing louder. Every day. every second every second every second that's really good

that's it the 2026 Eagles that's pretty good all right what's the new all right so Nick Siriani talking now

so this is courtesy of our friends Dave Zangero and Zach Berman so Nick Siriani said that he's pleased with Cam Juergens

said that they're not making a change at left guard. To be fair, he said the same thing about Lennon Dickerson. Yep, he did. I'm just telling you that he gave a vote of confidence. He said there are plays at Juergens would want back, but that's not all on him.

But yes, he has given players' votes of confidence before and not actually stuck with him. He said that there's no update on Lane Johnson. We can talk about Lane Johnson. The other thing that I wanted to add is that Ian Rappaport's reporting that Jonathan Granard is considered day-to-day with his ankle injury, so nothing serious.

I was asking about Queenie on Mitchell earlier today. It seemed like they were still waiting to figure out the severity of the injury, and I don't have an update beyond that. And Sequin? I don't have an update on him either. I mean, hamstring, it's hard to envision that he's going to be back out there for a lot of it. Yeah, I don't feel good about Seekwan going for next week. I don't feel good about any of the offensive guys.

I mean, Lane's kind of a separate thing, but I don't feel good about Goddard, Devante, or Seacquan playing in this game. I agree with you. and so you know we don't even know about Tank too who left the game

he left late he left late he's going to be a Will Shipley Damien Pierce game for the Eagles you got somebody else in mind yeah

I like a Damian oh and Jayne oh Jayden Blue wow you want to you want to really blow the mind of people in London and you'll be there that's true

I would just say that in the English accent give me tomorrow to think about it but they're going to you know they call it they call it something different over there oh i didn't know that yeah i don't think i know that i don't want to know though no no uh maybe tomorrow on the show you could join us remotely and do like one little thing on the defense

because i know you did some i did a couple places but honestly like the defense it was i did a couple plays for the defense something uh so lara yeah it's you thought it was okay i thought the defense it was mostly good i think they held up there and And I think it was just at the end. Look, it's the conversation we always have of them being out there for a long period of time. We saw some of them throw a couple new wrinkles in. Two plays that I counted of where Jalix Hunt, Gernard and Nolan Smith all on the field at once.

Who called for that? Who's pulling a clips now? Well, it's very interesting because so they did it the first time. And it was like, he's lined up off the ball, Jailix Hunt and came in on a stunt and worked with Jalen Carter on the play. And then the next one, they just, like, played him like a normal linebacker in coverage on first and 10. Like, the first one was the third and long and the second one was a first and 10. And I look at that as the complete opposite of the Zachert's 11 run or 11 passes to one run. It's like, hey, like we want to make sure that if we're doing this stuff, that we're not completely predictable with what we're doing with it.

So tat tip to Vic Fangio from that standpoint. That said, after the Queen-on-Mitchell injury, they were. they scrapped at. They were like, we got to make sure we're diverting resources to cover up Jonathan Jones.

And I think that actually came back to bite them in the final couple stretches. Because what, basically what they were doing, they were playing a ton

of cover two and a ton of cover six to make sure that you had cloud corner, cloud safety coverage over Jonathan Jones's side. And the Rams

just started picking at Jehad Campbell underneath on those final couple drives. And it took advantage of some matchups there. So yeah,

that's kind of what happened down the stretch. Mm-hmm. I don't know what's really going to be for. I don't know. What did you think of the timeline last night? I have no idea. I got no idea.

What's true on there? What's not true? Yeah, I got nothing to say. Maybe he was trying to tell us who's going to play running back this week. I can't verify that. So I'm not getting involved on that way. You know what he's sorry? No.

Really? consider yourself lucky. Good stuff. There's a lot of misinformation out there. I actually do know when you're, yes. Okay. Now I know. Yeah.

I do know. You got to watch on social me. You can't be. Yeah. I mean. Can't be loose with those fingers. No. You're going to be retweeting.

You can't be retweeting that stuff. Let's get to the rest of the super chats. Rivera. Seemed like Jalen killed a lot of plays at the line. Does it look like? Jalen is changing plays into bad looks. A question for you. I didn't think so.

A lot of like the changing plays of the line, like when you're like doing like, you know, kill kill and like stuff like that's, that's like, you go to the play with, or you go to the line of scrimmage and you have a couple plays like in the holster ready to go. And so you're like, you know, canceling the run play to go to the pass or vice versa. I don't think it was like an ultimate like, oh, like Jalen is completely changing what's going on. That was my read on it. I'll be curious to hear from day news later in the week about.

how often they were letting the play clock run down. Actually, the picture I put on my story on all PHAI.com become a diehard so you can get access to my coverage and Franz draft guide, of course. The picture I put on my story is literally Jalen looking at the play clock at one point. Anecdotally, it felt like they were getting close

to the end of the play. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing on the fourth downplay too, which we didn't talk about. They snapped that ball. In the third down play, too, both of those plays. Yeah. And one of them's out of a timeout snapped with two seconds

or one second left on the play clock. Yep. Again, this goes to the thing you said before, E.J. How is it that these things are still popping up? Corey Sito, is there a run-pass tell? Defenses are keying in and play action. The play action numbers are terrible. Eagles are getting blitz at a very high rate.

Third-th and league in success rate against the blitz. But, I don't know. We talked about Zach Erz, but. Yeah, in this one, I mean, we saw play action on third down, which we had. And that's what I've been saying for the last couple of weeks. is that, hey, when you're behind the sticks as often as they are, you're not facing as many, that kind of removes a lot of the under-center play action looks

from the playbook. But they tried doing a couple on third down, and they were still not good. And there's different reasons for some of these, right? Like, some I don't love the route concept. Some, like the blocking was bad. Dana is brought up the one last week where Jalen drops back and there was a defender right in his face against Chicago,

and it's because E.J. Jenkins missed the block on the backside defensive end. To me, that was, that was, bad execution from E.J. Sorry, E.J. I'm familiar with that concept. But yeah, it's, like, different reasons every time.

Go Bird's XTL. What would you say the main difference between the play calls on between this week and week two, or was Jalen just on a heater? I think Jalen was more on a heater.

Yeah, I mean, he was... And he had Devante Smith. Yeah, he had Devante. And they didn't have Trent McDuffie. Right. Yep. Yeah, that secondary was... Bad secondary. It was bad seconder of the first two weeks.

Yeah. What's that? Mikey Sammer still. I mean, my timeline has just now gotten cleansed of Mikey Samir still hate for some reason. I like, I maybe found one tweet funny about him. And we know what has replaced it instead. Oh, no. No, that is not true.

Max Horvath with a generous donation. Thank you very much. How much play to play veto power over offensive play calls do we think Nick exerts? good question. Is there a real reason to think he's meddling? Also, Love EJ's calm disappointment in the team. Going to be a great dad. I appreciate that. It's true. Don't make me cry on the show. Please. I feel laughing all the time. There was a lot of that, like, on, you know, and like my mentions and stuff yesterday. There's a lot of that in the chat yesterday. It was like, no. Oh, like, so you could tell like Siriani was in on the fourth quarter. It's like, I don't know. Like, yeah, it was terrible

of all game. Yeah. Like I don't buy into that. Now, I'm not saying that Nick doesn't have like some kind of veto power at certain areas, you know, like,

I think he wants to know what fourth down play calls are. I think he wants, you know, he needs to communicate if this is a potential go-for-it situation on fourth down. I don't think that's, I don't think he is calling plays. No.

I don't think so either. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think so. Got no reason to believe that. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Finally, school boy says one question.

How much more could Jalen have done? I mean, you talked about three, three of those third downs. And there were, and there were a few more. There were a few other dropbacks where it's like, yeah, and that's,

there's going to, I think those are going to pop up. They got completely outplayed in this game, but they were one play away from stealing a W. And that's what, not only were they a one play away from stealing a W, there were one play away from winning by three scores. And then it was like,

we would have talked about, so I wouldn't have about the whole show on this, right? But like, would have talked about it. And there would be a section of the fan base that would say like, yeah, but they won. Like, so it doesn't matter. It's like, no, like all these issues

are still would have been present. If Jonathan Jones catches the interception and they win by one score, you know, you're still having the same conversation. And not for nothing. It would have been the type of game script that a lot of us thought they would win game, how they would win game in the first place,

which is the defense just showed up against a really good offense and, you know, set the offense up with short fields and effectively won the game. Fran? Outstanding job. Do you want to talk about, Lane before we get out of here or no.

Yeah, let's do it. So Nick Sierra and he said no update. I was on Anthony show this morning. Anthony says don't be surprised if Lane retires, which raised my eyebrows. There was definitely like some chatter about Lane in the locker room after the game. Players, you know, didn't really know what was going to happen with Lane. Like they didn't know what was going to happen with Lane, but also they all found out that he was not going to be at the game that morning. This is tricky because when a player talks about their struggles with mental health.

openly. I always try to make that a big part of the context when we discuss them. I think it's only fair. You know, I always commend these guys for being so open. So I think, you know, I've seen criticism of Lane, probably more criticism than I would have expected. I think from like how I'm going to talk about it, I hope everything's okay with him and everything's okay with his family. Sure. I think from a very objective, like detached standpoint, it's fair to say like him being a late scratch really did hurt the team yesterday. And I think you've seen that sentiment out there. So I don't know.

I think you can be sympathetic to Lane, but also acknowledge that. And I think that's kind of where things are at right now. Anthony's saying that. I mean, he's been dead on on a lot of stuff this season. So it's on my radar. Does know what, what happens next for Lane here?

I think that's well said. I hope everything is okay with Lane. Yep. I think whatever happens to me is connected to what happened in the summer. Yeah. And I think we will,

I think that Lane was a little bit more up in the air about things in the summer. And I think the Eagles made a, made a real concerted effort. Yeah. To bring him along and say, you know, we're going to pour our resources into, this is your last year. And I,

I don't know how it's going. Right. I have no idea. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we talked about it on the show throughout the summer. like the thing I heard at the end of the season was 50-50

and the reasons for the 50% considering retirement were all the reasons he laid out in training camp his family situation, the fact that you just don't get this time back which is something we all can understand and identify with and respect and should respect. So yeah, again, it's something that will be on my radar in the next couple of days. Especially when you're facing like, you know,

like I said, the vibes have not been great and like there's adversity facing this team. So like when you're going through like just the normal like grind of the season and you're not getting like the fruits food on the other end, you already had like one half foot like in, one half foot out like in the buildup, like that makes it hard. Absolutely. Yeah.

And I don't think like we necessarily, well, we aren't doing this. I don't think that he should be like vilified for struggling with these things. Absolutely not. Right. No. Well said. Okay. Nice full long show today.

long show. It's okay. There's no show on Wednesday. You get a little double for you. Two o'clock tomorrow. We're back. Thursday as well. BG unblocked Wednesday at noon.

And then. I gotta get my arms ready. I hate that Lindsay laughed at that. A long way to go. I don't get out here. All right. Thanks, everybody. We will talk to you tomorrow at 2 o'clock.

Thank you, Lindsay. Thank you, E. Thank you, chat. Comment below. What word for bad we didn't use in the show today that we could have used. And we'll talk to tomorrow at 2 o'clock. As always, we love you.