PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Fran Duffy explains how DeVonta Smith DOMINATED in the Eagles’ Week 7 win

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

It’s time for the Monday Xs and Os session as Fran Duffy breaks down a day of explosive plays for the offense thanks to a career day from DeVonta Smith and Jalen Hurts, with A.J. Brown chipping in as well. How was the protection? The scheme? Is this a sustainable way to play? And while the defense made its share of key plays, should we be worried about their performance on a down-in, down-out basis? Fran breaks it down with Bo Wulf. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

show i eagles podcast live from the exfitting mobile studio presented by bet three six five and actually umbo will join today on a monday by the king of the snappy snaps the snappoos that's right it's our eagles man our state maven our NFL draft animals in the office friend how the heck are you bo it's it's uh it's a good monday anytime we can come off off of a win it's just like a little bit of an of an easier morning like a less angs getting ready for the show like oh like what else we got to talk about negativity the fans don't like it the chat doesn't like it you got argument in the chat there will probably still be some arguing in the chat today but uh it'll be a little bit more peaceful i think half of the people are

saying gilin hertz is terrible what are you guys talking about half of the people are saying gilin hertz is great what are you guys talking about it's all familiar this is we're in our element uh it's it's late it feels like late october now it feels like late october i like that um okay let's let's get to it, Fran. No more nonsense. No more chuff. Let's get into it. Devante Smith, a monster career game for him. Uh, the long touchdown, all of that stuff. He's demanding it. E.J. Smith breaks it down for us. He's going into the locker room. He's yelling at people. Give me the goddamn ball under center play action. I know it. I know what they're doing. What did you see from Devante specifically? And as we work through this, I want to ask you if you believe as this

team looks for an identity, maybe, maybe Devante is the key to figuring out what works when I'm on office. Just listening to Devante at all times. Offensive coordinator, Devonte Smith, sounds pretty good. Yeah, I think the, make sure you go, if you're, if you're not a diehard, become a die hard, go check out EJ's piece from yesterday to give you some of that access from inside the locker room and the lead up to that second half explosion we saw offensively. But yeah, I think that certainly a lot to take away from this past game and the way they performed. We talked about some of the new wrinkles that we saw yesterday on the post game show, but all the under center play action and what that can do for an offense or what that can do

for a passing game. And we'll get into, you know, what is the identity of this team moving forward? And, you know, is this all, is this what we're going to see now moving forward? Like, I don't know. I'm fascinating to see if that's something that they're going to continue to incorporate or not, because we've been down this path before. And that's why, like, you know, a lot of the talk, you know, from the fan base and, you know, with some members of the media when it comes to like, oh, it's, you know, look at Kevin Patulo, Kevin Patula. We've, we've had these conversations.

Like, we've had these conversations over the last few years. And it's, as you said in the beginning, it's a, it's familiar territory. So before we get into the actual, the, the Vante's day and the big touchdown, did you feel rewatching this? You know, it's never as good as you think. It's never as bad as you think. I mean, it was weird coming off of that first half where, they have another stretch of three straight three outs, and then they give up on the final possession of the first half, to then come out of that and like,

oh, this was the best game of Jalen Hertz's career by EPA per dropback. You know, they're throwing them all over the yard. How did it feel rewatching? It was definitely, to me, this is a, our friend, Dennis Selman, the professor, did a great job of illustrating this on social media after the game last night. In terms of success rate, like this was not a high success rate game, but from an EPA standpoint, you get the explosives,

you know, you have the ability to strike fear into the heart of defenses down the field. Now of a sudden, you just have a different feel to the past game and a different feel to how defenses are going to try and play you. And so I do think that that ability to stretch the field and be aggressive, yeah, that adds another layer to this offense. We can talk about like how you get to that point, but by hook or by Kirkland, if you are more explosive,

if you are more aggressive, that makes you harder to defend, even if the success rate is not there on a down-to-down series-to-series basis. And so to me, that's the biggest change. And now we'll see if they're able to build some continuity there in terms of how they get those explosives. Okay. I was going to save this for later, but this is the big picture conversation I want to have with you. Okay. So we'll just push Devonti off for another minute.

Yeah. I feel like, and I have not tested this, I have not looked into this. I'm just thinking about it today because we'll get to the defense, and I'm a little bit worried about the defense. And my thought is, on offense, I care way more about EPA per drive and, you know, the EPA measurements, then the success rate. Because I do want you to look for explosive plays. And I think that that is okay. If you are not successful on a down and down on basis, but you are potentially opening things up to then hit the long ball, I think that's fine. Whereas on defense, I care way more about success rate, then EPA per play and EPA per drive.

stuff because I feel like if you're if you are a good defense on a down and down on basis, the turnovers are going to come stuff like that. And we'll get to that from a defensive side of the ball. But I don't know. Do you agree with that? I do to an extent. I think the big thing for me, right, is that you when you look at how both past games operated yesterday, the when Carson Wentz held onto the football for long periods of time and

tried to be aggressive down the field, you saw some of those turnovers, right? you saw the interception, obviously, Drew McCuba in the second quarter. But largely on those plays, it didn't go well from Minnesota. And then for the Eagles, conversely, it went really, really well. I think that when we see some of these plays, we're going to break it down and we'll talk through it as we go. But like the Devante Smith, 79-yarder, yes, like that's great. Like you can, you can count on those. Those are to me, are like sticky kinds of plays. If you're going to play this way week over week, now you're talking like some of the best offenses in football operate this way. we're going to invite the defense to crowd the line of scrimmage.

And then we're going to use play action. We're going to find chunk plays. Like that's within structure, you can count on this level of play. When you get into like the AJ Brown touchdown, the first one on the opening drive, where it's scramble drill and Jalen Hertz drops back and he's like, oh, he's not sure what he sees. And now he's he's looking around. The protection's holding up. And then he points AJ Brown.

It just happened that AJ Brown was matched up on a safety and they were able to take advantage of that matchup in that one instance. That's not as sticky. That's not as easier. So to me, like it's how you come by those explosives. No, but then you think about the Lamar Jackson Ravens offense. If that is part of your DNA of leaning into that, that that's not terrible. It's not terrible.

It shouldn't be what the offense is built on. Right. It's not terrible. It's just volatile. And so if you are going to live that way, there's going to be volatility with the past game. And that's where I do think that right now, the 2025 Eagles, they are a passing team. And I felt that way over the course of this is a team that they have not been able to run the ball. with consistency. We're not seeing explosives. We're not seeing success rate or positive EPA from the

run game. You're not you're not getting either right now. And so I think that the best version of this team is through the past game. Now it's incumbent about Jalen Hertz and the coaches to make sure they're getting the most out of that past game. So if they are not going to do the under center play action and a lot of the motion and the most of the bunch the bunch sets and all those different things that we always talk about that all the other offenses are doing, if you're not doing the empty sets and finding layups for the quarterback. And if you're going to go on these like low probability throws, it's going to be volatile.

And so if they don't have the run game to lean back on, I think that's going to be the state of this offense moving forward. Okay. Let's get into Devante and let's do it, Fran, through the prism of the ACE hardware temperature check because you know that after a game like that, Devante is heating up. That's right. Ace Hardware Home Services. Visit Ace Hardware Home Services.com to get started on your next project. Okay, take us through the first of what I'm sure is many screeny grabs, grabby grabs, screeny shots to come. Let's go to the first shot here. Julia, let's go to Devante TD. So we're going to go to the first one. And as E.J. was able to share with us from the locker room, this was something that Devante Smith saw early on. in the game. The Eagles ran a handful of 6-0-line sets, 12 personnel where the second tight end

alongside Dallas Goddard was offensive tackle Fred Johnson. And when the Eagles lined up this way, the Vikings responded by crowding the line of scrimmage, bringing up the safeties closer to the line. And so you had Josh Mattelis, who is their big nickel, they're starting strong safety. He becomes a big nickel for them. For most downs, he plays kind of like a hybrid role. Harrison Smith, crowding the line of. Scrimmage and Devante Smith saw that very early a very first nap you could see he's like eyeballing it he's all right this is the way that they're lining up and you saw that once you take a look at that you could see like okay he he's got eyes on the way that Minnesota is lining up here they ran it

they ran the same set again and Minnesota did the same thing this was this was the first one this was a run for Saquan Barkley for a handful of yards to the left side they ran it again and it was a penalty from Jordan Milata that came back so they ran it twice before this before they come out and they run this next play, which Devante was calling for it. And basically, again, you can kind of see from this shot, look at all that space. You bring all those defenders up close to the line of scrimmage. There's a lot of green grass, a lot of real estate for the receivers to be able to work. And so Devante Smith called for this play.

Julia, if you go to the next shot, we'll see now that they're calling it. This is just a classic post cross combination where you're going to have the post route vertically over the top. You have the cross or the dig route from the opposite side. And then you have a checkdown underneath from the tight end. So Jalen Hertz, you're basically working touchdown to checkdown on this play. You've got the touchdown potential for Devante Smith. If the safety is sitting on top of that post route and you can't go there, all.

Well, then the dig should be open to AJ Brown. But just in case one of those underneath defenders gets into the passing lane, then you're going to Dallas Goddard. So you're going one, two, three. It's an easy kind of progression, all within the vision of the quarterback off of play action. It's basically a max protection look with six offensive linemen. is a really, really well-executed, well-drawn-drawn-up play concept, and it's pretty common throughout football. Now, the thing is, and Devante talked about, hey,

they've crowded the line of scrimmage. One thing that Brian Flores did often in this game, and Julie, if you go to the next shot, one thing that Brian Flores did in this game was he did bring six-man pressure. So, like, what would equate to a cover zero blitz, where, all right, you're going to bring six, and you've got five in coverage against five eligible receivers, but it was not your typical cover zero where it's just, all right, it's man on man, no safety help.

It was a zone defense behind it. And this was something we talked about last week with Dana is going back to that 2023 game where they played kind of like a soft like sticks defense and everyone was passing routes off. In this game, they did it like three or four times in the first half and even into the third quarter where they played with two deep safeties and then three defenders underneath. So it was like a version of cover two. Obviously, there's only five defenders out in space. So those guys had to cover a lot of ground.

But it really felt like Brian Flores wanted to major in these split safety zone coverage looks and try and try and confuse Jalen Hertz because it's something that Hertz has struggled with over the course of this season. And the first time they ran it here on this play, Hurts ends up, he doesn't like what he sees. He bales and he rolls to his left and he runs into a sack, runs out of bounds. And so on this play, this was early on in the game. They ran this exact coverage.

So they come back. Let's fast forward. Now go to the next shot here, Julia, and you can see they're going to run the same exact coverage. Again, loaded line of scrimmage. You have all these guys up. It's going to be a six-man blitz. Two deep safeties. One of those safeties is going to be Isaiah Rogers. So it's a version of an invert covered to Rogers, the corner to Devante Smith's side.

He's going to drop as a deep safety. It's going to be up to Devante to defeat Rogers on this route. He's got to beat him inside. And so Devante runs an unbelievable route here. This was a great job from Devon. If you go to the next shot, Julia, you're going to see that Devante's going to work off the ball. He pushes fast vertically. So he's really selling a vertical route.

And then he starts to leave. He works inside the numbers. And then you can see here at the bottom. He's right at the 35 yard line. He starts breaking outside at full speed. So now Rogers is in panic mode. He knows he's got a lot of room from the numbers to the sideline. So now he starts to flip his hips back around.

So Devante gets him completely turn out. If you go to the next shot, you could see that Isaiah Rogers is now. facing the sideline. He was facing the field. Now Devante's got him completely turned around and Devante starts working towards the post. Now, Devante said the one thing with this route is that he had to keep it skinny. He had to keep this tight. He couldn't drift too far towards the middle of field because you're worried about that safety on the opposite side. So Jalen can't put this ball too far out front. Devante can't run this route too far towards the post. A.J. Brown does a great job of selling vertical and holding that safety there on the hash. So AJ does his job on this play.

did an outstanding job with his route. And then you got, Shailen Hertz delivers a beautiful throw. We go to the next shot here. That's just A.J. Brown circled. Again, just holding that safety. And that's the last one from that play. But just a great job, under center play action, attack downfield. It's beautiful, beautifully done all across the board.

And does this seem like something that can be sustainable to you? Yeah. If you do the under center play action, you know, this is something that you can decide. to do it. Now, if there, it would be one thing if this was the only under center play action in the game, bow, but they, they stuck with it. They did, they did a handful of these. I know insane. And they were able to get chunk play. The very first one went to day, it was like a just a basic play action boot. And this is like, you know, like a high school type of play. Every team in the NFL runs this play. And it went to Dallas got it for two yards underneath. Like not a big deal. But then after

that, it was chunk play, chunk play. And we just looked at the second one. That was a big one. but julia if you go to devante pa there's a there are a couple more here where again like they come out in a heavy type of set and it invites the the defense to crowd the line of scrimmage this one so it'll be devante pa one uh this first one we're looking at they come out in a six offensive line set so you have fred johnson out there and they come out with us the same idea they're going to crowd the line of scrimmage and the eagles just take advantage there's a lot of space to work with. You see here that you've got the, you've got the heavy set. It's a similar type of route concept against the same exact coverage. Julie, if you go to the next play, you're going to see

that the Vikings drop out into that two deep three under kind of look with a six man pressure. So to the far right, you've got the six defenders coming. And you've got Devante Smith working on the deep in cut. And again, there's just a ton of space to be able to work with. If you go to the next shot, I made the circle as large as I could. And there's not another defender with. within that radius to attack Devante Smith. Now, this ball did come out a hair late from Jalen Hertz. You'd like to see him kind of cut this loose a little bit faster. And now you're hitting Devante in stride.

And now he's got the ability to create some yards after catch. But he is able to hit Devante for first down this one. Devante took a shot, you know, from Harrison Smith there on that play. But they came back again and they ran another version, different kind of route concept. But same idea. Julie, if you go to the next one, this one was not a 60 line set bow but this one uh and e j somewhere is smiling uh because you

have cam lots who on the field this is to a 12 personnel but all right you're the same idea we're we're selling run right so you've got 12 personnel condensed formation this is like kyle shanahan washington rg three type of stuff where it's like hey we're going to major in the run game we're going to we're going to condense sets we're going to bring everybody in tight and then we're going to throw out of those looks we're going to make you predictable uh and dictate from a coverage standpoint. We're going to basically cut your coverage menu in half. If we're going to say that we're going to force you to play close to the line of

scrimmage, well, you're either going to disguise yourself out of coverage the way that we saw on the Devante Smith touchdown, or you're going to play cover one or cover three, and we're going to attack that coverage. If you go to the next shot, you're going to see Devante Smith running a deep dig route. And he's, I mean, there's nobody close to Devante Smith. And Jalen hits him here for another chunk game. And so to me, like, this is something that, yes, I hope that the Eagles are watching this over the course of this week and saying like, yeah, like, let's do more of this. Right.

Well, more of these kinds of plays because this is Jalen Hertz within structure. And by the way, this is like Jalen is holding onto the ball for a decent amount of time here. This is like he's, he's, the average time to throw is going to rise with plays like that. But that's why I always say that holding onto the ball for a long periods of time, it's not, that's not created equal across all. plays. And these are good examples where it's okay for him to hold on to the football as long as you pay it off in the end with some big chunk plays down the field. I think this was like the third longest time to throw he's had in the game in his career as a start or something like that, to your point. My question is it working so well and, you know, Devante being so open,

will that be the case if teams don't think that this team is so committed to running against a brick wall that they're not willing to do that? Well, and that's where you have to start. start getting, all right, well, if the, if the run game's not working, then you mix it in with, like you get the RPO's working with the slide routes, Dallas Goddard in the flat, like, anything to say, like, okay, like, because you, they do have to stay committed to the run game to an extent. They can't go full Cincinnati, Joe Burrow, you know, in those, that end of it, where it's like, all, we're not going to respect their ability to run it at all. I do think that they're going to continue to try and find ways to see, they got to get Seekung-Go, because

honestly, like, he had a couple of runs yesterday. I'm like, man, like that, he did a great job of finding seven yards on that play they're just not getting consistent blocking right now man and again it was more the same like there was some was like oh brett tough lost at the point of attack or you know all right tyler steen lost to jonathan allen here on the backside or you know cam jurgens couldn't get up to the linebacker and he misses on blake cashman and it goes for for four yards instead of eight it's just they just got to get well you know they just got to get a little bit better everybody's got to get a little bit better at the point of attack in the run game fourth longest time to throw of his career go i correct myself

Okay, let's take a quick break, hear from some sponsors, and we'll continue going with the review of the offense and a career day for Devante Smith and Jalen Hertz on the other side. So Julia had a good weekend, went to the Notre Dame game, had an awesome time from what I understand, but she said, hey, Bo, like, while I'm gone, do you mind house sitting for me? I said, sure, of course, I'm happy to go. And I get there, and I want to watch the games. Unfortunately, total mess when I got there. I mean, glitching, switching between apps, trying to find the game, lagging, buffering. I thought she was a big fan, but it turned out I was fan-fished. I was house-sitting fished.

Unbelievable. However, the good news is, came home, got my Xfinity set up, good to go. Perfect fan flex. You get all the action right in your living room, plus Xfinity's best picture and sound with enhanced 4K. So clear it feels like you're in the stadium. On top of that, real-time notifications, live stats, right on your TV. It's the best seat in the house every time next game day. Make sure that big fan isn't a big fail.

Learn more at Xfinity.com. Xfinity. Imagine that. Restrictions apply. Multi-view requires Xfinity 4K-capable TV box. Well, now I hear from our friends over at Ace Hardware Home Services, because I was driving Francis in school this morning. And when I was out, I saw one of the Ace Hardware trucks out on the road.

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Let Ace Hardware Home Services, get it done right the first time. Visit Ace Hardwarehomeservices.com to get started on your next project. All right, back of the PHAY Eagles podcast presented by our friends at Bette 365 and Ashley. And Fran, where do we go from here? Let's go. I want to take, all right, you know, let's talk about the- You want to ask you a question because you mentioned before when I was asking about, like, you know, how sustainable is this and you know,

this is when you lead into the RPO's. Didn't you, like, we've talked about how it feels like every game plan, they've got one thing. And this week was the under center play action thing. And it was weird that like, we didn't see the RPO's in this game. Like, it's weird that there's only only ever one menu. They did run a few RPO's. It's just that Jalen handed them off every time.

I don't think, I'd have to go back and look at my nose. I don't think he threw one RPO in this game. And there were a handful that they did run and he handed them off. And there was at least one where I was like, oh, he probably should have thrown that one. So I would like to go back and check. But there was at least one for sure. I'm like, oh, he probably should have thrown that one.

It was they ran the one that they ran the most in this game was like, kind of like an inside zone with Barclay. And then you had Dallas got it running like a little like arrow, like a quick in cut behind it that would have gone for some from nice yardage, at least one or two of those occasions. Okay. So you are not willing to see. say that the passing game is fully fixed.

Yeah, because I think that at the end of the day, we still saw some of the things that have plagued this offense. And that's why, you know, when I was looking at the success rate, you know, looking at the, just honestly, like just the general feel walking away from the game last night and then also just watching the film this morning, there were still a handful of players where I'm like, all right, like, they have to continue to tighten these up and just kind of, you know, get a little bit better in these situations. And there was one play, Julia, if you go to, unsuccessful is the one. And this one, it goes down as a completion.

And so to me, like there were, there were a handful of plays where it's like, all right, like, the completion's good. Like that helps the efficiency numbers in the box score. But that doesn't mean that there was a great outcome there for the offense. So what we saw from Minnesota a number of times, as all right, they're going to play. I mentioned they played a lot of split safety looks. Once split safety look, they played a lot was Tampa 2. and this is a second and long.

It was a second 11, second and 13, early on in the game. And this is a Tampa 2. Look, you've got the two deep safeties, and you've got the middle linebacker there, running the middle of the field with four other defenders lined up underneath. So typical Tampa 2. Now, the Eagles expected that they were going to get Tampa 2

because they run a concept that's actually pretty good to attack it. I really liked this concept. Jalen Hertz hits the top of his drop, and you can see if we go to the next shot here, Julia, the two soft spots in Tampa 2. if you're going to try and get an explosive play, you get at the middle of the field between those two safeties over top of the middle linebacker,

or you get right in that turkey hole. That turkey hole. Outside the numbers over the corner under the safety. Those are the two, like the weak spots there when you're attacking Tampa 2 coverage. You see the Eagles have Dallas got it working down the seam towards the middle of the field, and you have AJ Brown working outside the numbers

to attack the turkey hole. Now, what they did to try and occupy that middle linebacker to say, all right, We're going to try and make it so that he is not going to run down the seam with Dallas Goddard. We're going to run a receiver right at that middle linebacker and have him stop and look right at Jalen Hertz. If you go to the next shot, you can see that you're going to have, I believe that's, that's Devante working right towards the middle of the field. He's going to run at that linebacker, cross his face, stop and turn it hurts. And that's going to hold the linebacker.

It does a great job here on this play, and you're going to get Dallas Goddard working behind it. So top of the drop, to me, this should be lofted. over the linebacker, right down the teeth of the, right down the shoot, right between the hash marks to Dallas. Gotter. Jalen Hertz does not throw this ball. Now, if you go to the next shot, you could see that the safety did kind of cheat over that way, right? So you're like, all right, next progression should be, in my opinion. I mean, if you're working that side of the field, you should be going to AJ.

And I think AJ knew, yeah, this should be mine. If you go to the next shot here, Julia, AJ is like, yep, I'm open. I'm ready, right? Now, the ball did not go to AJ in this case. And Jalen kind of, he broke down in the pocket a little bit and then up settling for the checkdown. He throws the Saquan Barkley top of the screen. You see him working underneath. And he's tackled for a loss.

It goes for like minus two yards. And it brings up third and long. And the Eagles are forced to punt. So it ends up being a three and out in this occasion here for the for the Eagles. So then they come back. And it was like one of those plays where I'm like, all right. He's not. That's a play where he did.

The defense kind of beat you. the quarterback should have gone to that certain to that spot. Whatever, that's fine. We move on. You're not going to hit on every single one of these plays. So a couple drives later. They come back and it's second and, I think this one was second and 11.

So it's a second and long play. Julie, if you go to the next shot, they run the same concept, same exact play. So they're going to run, or they're going to run a, like a deep hook route towards the middle of the field. You're going to get the seam running, running right down the middle.

You've got AJ working vertically down the field. They expect, Coach is thinking we missed a touchdown on the last play. Let's call it again. Let's call it again in the same down and distance. Second and long, second and very long, second and 10 plus. Let's run the same concept. Minnesota is going to run the same coverage.

Well, this time they didn't run the same coverage. They ran quarters. And on this one, like so now everybody's buttoned up. There's no, there's no clear throw here for Jalen Hertz. And he ends up taking a sack. If you go to the next shot here, Jalen ends up taking a sack. This one, I believe, was the Eric Wilson sack. And so this was just the,

it's tough man because like there are some plays where you look and you're like all right you want do you want jalen to make that first throw do they do they try what are the what are the what are the coaching points what are the discussions being had in the sideline all right we're going to hey we're we're going to go back to it on the next one but the defense kind of fooled you and they said that they thought you thought you were going to get one coverage you didn't get it does jalen have that ability to quickly make those decisions to say all right we're going to get you out of that now it's great that they started leaning into more of the the undercenter play action and we'll get we'll talk about like the use of pre snap motion and how some of that stuff can help you but if you're just going to live on the straight drop back pass game uh i don't think that that's jalen's

strong suit and so just say in terms of like when i say straight drop back i mean with no frills like no motion no play action no nothing uh and just saying like jalen read it out he's going to have some plays that are really good and he's going to have some plays that are bad and they're going to have and then there's going to be that chunk in the middle where you're going to get in the scramble drill and it's just a matter of like do the scramble drills work on that day or not. And if they do, you're going to have a great day like you did yesterday in the box score where the numbers are going to look awesome, but then there are going to be some where they don't look great.

And we've seen a lot of those over the last few years as well. Well, and I think that goes back to the big picture conversation we were having about success rate versus EPA per drive, which is that if you're going to be big play hunting, it's okay if you miss a couple, if they're going to be more to come. Right question. and that was a point that I remember I don't remember which game it was it was one of the early games where

they were it was we talked about how like they're not running vertical routes they're not running anything down the field and so if you only run three or four in a given game and you miss on two of them all right well the margin for error is so small and so now that you are seeing them be more aggressive down the field

to your point like yeah you're you're going to hit on some of those plays you're going to make the defense pay okay all right let's take our second break come back. I think we've got one more thing to talk about on offense, maybe a little scramble drill discussion, and I want to hear your thoughts on the running game, and then we will get to a defensive discussion after these words from our valued sponsors. If your home needs a little TLC or you're dreaming of that next big vacation, maybe even to see one of your Philly teams

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gambler all right back on the p h why eagles podcast friend let's get to the scramble drill touchdown on the drive. And I think, you know, as we're thinking about what, what did they do well in this game that we haven't seen them do? You know, the, the under center play action is certainly one. I thought the second touchdown pass to AJ Brown was kind of one of those seeing J.L.A.L. Attack the middle of the field downfield in that way. Maybe not since the Dallas Goddard touchdown against the Rams, but also they haven't been great at the scramble drill. No. So it was nice to see them do that in this game. No. And honestly, again, going back to like last year, that was an issue last year. We talked about all. on those plays where Jalen held onto the ball for long periods of time.

They were not explosive enough in those areas when they hit that dry spell in the middle of the season. And so it was good to see them be able to hit on a few of them. There was one. Certainly we're going to break down the AJ touchdown. So that'll be the next one here, Julia. AJ touchdown one. Go ahead. No, we saw the AJ touchdown.

There was a Devante Smith one late in the game as well where they were able to hit on some of these explosives. And what you see here on this play is, again, this is this fourth down. The Eagles come out in a bunch set, which we don't typically see. from them. They come out in bunch. And then it's a three by one. And what you're going to get here is the Minnesota Vikings are going to be in man to man coverage. And we're going to go to the next shot here. And you can see they're going to bring A.J. Brown in motion from right to left. And Isaiah Rogers, he is going to follow A.J. Brown to the other side. So, all right. So Isaiah Rogers on A.J. Brown. That was the pre-snap matchup. Now, when they bring A.J. over. So we go to the next shot,

you're going to see that Josh Matteles, who, again, he's their big nickel. He's their hybrid guy. typically he is the tight end matchup and he is matched up on dallas goddard they were lined up in like kind of a y-iso set uh with goddor as the iso receiver to the boundary side so metellus is lined up on goddor pre-snap but after the motion and i don't know why uh but if you go to the next shot they switch responsibilities so now rogers instead of being on a j even though rogers like you can kind of see like rogers he's at the very he's right on the uh on the zero on the 30 yard line he's lined up outside. Like it looks like he's ready to guard AJ.

But for whatever reason, Mattelis picks up AJ. And so now I don't know if the call was basically like, I'm going to, I'll take whoever's long and then you take whoever short. Because AJ stays short initially and Goddard works down the field. But for whatever reason, Mattelis picks up AJ.

Rogers picks up Goddard. So you got a mismatch right away. Now, the Vikings here on this play, they start. You can see this looks like a one high safety shell. So it looks like it could be cover one. Maybe a blitz here moved,

bit mixed in. But if you go to the next shot here, Julia, you're going to see that they rotate out of this. So they disguise the coverage. It is going to be a too high look with man to man. So this is one of my favorite coverages in football. They're playing two man. And not just two man, but Julie, if you go to the next shot, it's two deep safeties, man to man coverage with a spy. So they said, all right, fourth down, we're going to spy Jalen Hertz with one of our linebackers underneath. So he's got eyes on Jalen. You've got very aggressive man coverage across the board. So everybody's playing really aggressive because you have those two safeties over the top. So everybody's clamped down. You have the, you have Mattelis being really aggressive with AJ. And basically Jalen drops back

against a three man rush, great pocket, great protection. Jalen says, all right, I've got, I've got my ability to to kind of survey here and decide which matchup I want. He points to AJ and says, go ahead, AJ, go work down the field. And he ends up delivering a great throw, bucket throw over the shoulder at AJ Brown for the touchdown. But again, like, that's an Unforced error by Minnesota. Like if you're the Vikings, I'm sure they're probably talking to like, all right, well, why did Josh Mattelis and Isaiah Rogers switch there? But that doesn't happen if you don't have the pre-snap, if you don't have the motion, right?

That's one of the benefits of using a pre-snap motion is that you can force the other team into mistakes. And clearly on that one, Minnesota, I think assignment wise would like to have that one back. And this was one of, you know, like two or three successful dropbacks for the Eagles in the first half. I know we have a graphic on just how much that flipped from how. half one to half two. And it really went from like the only things that worked were kind of out of structure to,

you know, eight for 12 successful plays in the second half. Anything else that jumped out to you in terms of what changed? No, I think the big thing was that we just saw, you know, we saw more of the under center play action. That certainly took hold once you got into the second half. I think that just overall, I mean, Jalen was efficient throughout the course of the afternoon. And shout out to Danes, by the way. These are numbers from Dayniz on Twitter and on Blue Sky.

So shout out to Danez. We took those numbers there from him. But I think when you're looking at the way that Jalen played this one, he was very efficient, obviously did not make many mistakes in the game in terms of putting the ball in harm's way. That was ultimately a difference between his performance and Carson Wentz. Like Carson put the ball in harm's way too many times. But I think the big thing was that Jalen was just very efficient,

but then on top of the efficiency was very explosive. And they were able to attack downfield for a number of these big plays. Okay, you want to talk run game for a couple of minutes? Like, any hope? Is it just blocking? It's just blocking, man. Like, it's, it's literally, in my eyes, it is just, they've just got to be more consistent across the board. I thought that, like, Lane, Lane, right?

Like, I don't, I'm not seeing any drop off there from number 65 on the right side. It's more the same, though. I think that, actually, I thought Landon looked pretty good. I thought Landon looked the best he's looked this year. year. So I think that's a positive thing. I would say that Landon had had some really good reps early on where he's getting some movement. You're hoping that, all right, if Landon's 100%, maybe not 100%, but if Landon's getting close to that, you pair him with Jordan, if Jordan's starting to get a little bit healthier, now that left side gets ironed out. I guess we'll find out to see what the deal is with

Juergens and what that means. But no, I think the overall, they just got to get a better across the board. Tooth? More of the same. Like there were a handful of players where he did like Jonathan Allen stood him up on one. You know, he's just, he's a, he's a backup player. He's a reserve player. And he's the, those guys are going to lose against starting defensive linemen. Well, if, if Juergens is out for an extended period of time.

Yeah. Would you, would you prefer to see True Kendall get a shot? Or. Or Jason Kelsey comes out of retirement? No, no. come. Oh, you got to bring them off I are. I don't know if they're going to.

Got to get Willie Lampkin in there. No, I would like to see Drew Kendall. I think that if, if Cam Jorgans is out, ideally, I think they're, you're, I think you're at a spot where you just have to be able to see. And actually, shout out to BLG. BLG, but a great point with Shield over on the Philly special podcast on Sunday night, that Brett Tooth has had major issues with shotgun snapping over the course of his career, like in practice. And so is that a reason why they went more under center in this game to avoid that?

I think that's a very, very good point. And again, like, is that something we're going to see next week? If Cam Durkins is back, all of a sudden, do they feel better about getting, you know, staying more in the gun? I think that's a really, really good question. Yeah, that's fair. All right, let's talk about the defense, Fran. And let's flash up the graphic of where the defense stands just on the course of the season. And so, you know, obviously they're not the defense they were last year when they were arguably the best defense in football, second in EPA per drive, fourth in success rate. This year, they are living on and subsisting on big plays. So they're 10th in the league in EPA per drive on defense.

But on the course of the season, they are 25th in success rate. So bottom quartile and success rate. And that's why in this game, when you get Gieland Carter back and Quigionette Mitchell back, boy, is it great to see that make the big plays? I'm sure we'll get to the jail. but you did a great job on the postgame show, breaking down at J Alex Hunt, pick six, Jalen Carter flashes a little bit. They continue to be great in the red zone, holding the bike into one and six.

They make big plays, but I worry about how sustainable it is. Yeah, and I think that that is a valid concern. I do think that this is the kind of drop off that I personally expected, just in terms of you lose the talent that you did lose and you're leaning on young players, So I would imagine, like, yeah, the success rate's probably going to go down. It's a, I don't want to say, like, I expected them to be bottom quartile of the league in success rate, but especially considering the injuries, I could see how they've gotten to that point. Now, it is good that they've been from a turnover standpoint, that's strong. The red zone defense, absolutely alongside the turnovers.

I mean, that that is why this defense has been as successful as it has been this year in terms of like points per game and, you know, some of those other metrics. you're preventing touchdowns at an extremely high rate when you're forcing turnovers and you're stopping them inside the 20-yard line at the rate that they are. Third of the league in red zone efficiency, 43.5% of the time opposing teams are getting a touchdown. Do you think that if we're thinking about Howey's plan of attack for the trade deadline and what he can, if let's say he's got one major chip to use, would it be worthwhile to try to bandage over a defense to turn it from okay to good?

Or do you think it would make more sense? And I don't know what this would be on offense, but would it make more sense to try to turn the offense from good to great? I don't know what you're adding to this offense personnel-wise to that would give it a boost. I mean, like, I don't know. I mean, I'm asking honestly. I don't know what kind of player they were going at that would do that would that actually would be usable. Yeah.

Right? Like, like what are they going to? Guard. I don't know, but like, it's not like, that's the thing. It's like, like, steam. I know. It's like, like steam hasn't been bad.

And it's so predicated on guys knowing exactly where to be and right. Right. And playing next to each other. What about another tight end? I get. I mean, yeah. Like, you know, if you want to get someone that can be like a strong blocker. but I don't know.

Let's just go with more Fred Johnson in that role. I'm good with him playing nine to 15 snaps in a game. So I'm okay leaning into that. Yeah. I'm just where like there's so many resources now like draft pick wise on defense. I don't know. Well, that's, I think when you get into next in the next spring, that's a different conversation.

But it's hard. I don't know what's fixing the defense. I mean, I think that if they if they found a way to get an upgrade at the other corner, corner. I think that's that's worth it. But it's got to be the right move. To your point, you said this yesterday on the post game show, like you already traded a pick for for Giacori and Bennett. Um, you know, I think that that's, that's valid. And we'll see if they make a move here on the defensive line, uh, in the in the coming days. But I think when you're, when you're

looking at what, what can they do to help that defense? Uh, it would be like, all right, you find somebody to be the other starter opposite Quinnian Mitchell. All right. Uh, let's take our last break, friend, and on the other side, I want to hear what the Eagles plan was for Justin Jefferson, holding him to five catches. And really, if you, you know, if they just made a tackle, we're talking like five catches for 40 yards, essentially. Yep. Other than that, but we'll get to that. And what, maybe they might need on the edge if they could add somebody in the short term, Fred. Holiday steals are here at Ashley. It's the perfect time to get your home ready for the season

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