PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Fran Duffy explains how Jaelan Phillips ENERGIZED Eagles’ pass rush vs. Packers

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

It’s time for the Monday Xs and Os session as Fran Duffy breaks down Jaelan Phillips’ dominant debut, Jalen Hurts’ uneven passing performance and the Eagles offensive struggles after a big win over the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Everybody live from the Xfinity Mobile studio. This is the P.H.O.I. Eagles podcast presented by Bet365 and Ashley. I am Bo Wolf, joined by E.J. Smith and Fran Duffy, who has prepared the snappy snaps. all the film snapshots of what you need to know from the game last night, a 10-7 victory over the Green Bay Packers. And no, no, the NFL doesn't allow us to show video. So get out of here. Stop complaining about it.

This is what we have. We make it work because Fran is the best in the business. How you doing, Fran? Look, when it comes to trying to abide, I know there are other shows that are, you know, they'll use some video here and there. All I'll say is the NFL's coming for everybody. You're playing with fire if you're using film right now, I'm monetizing.

Wow. Reality of the world we live in. That's what happened to Tagliaboo? No. Oh, come on. Fred is saying he's going to kill Bryce Harper and I can't make a joke about Polly Tags on one hour of sleep. Come on. He just for you.

He lived a great long life. We're okay. I haven't been on a loopy Tuesday in a while Yeah, let's say welcome to looping as it gets, my friends PJ, PJ, how are you? I'm doing well, yeah, I got the cough syrup in the corner here, but I'm feeling better, I'm feeling better. So I'm excited to get into the film with Fran.

You know, maybe Fran and I, we discussed the film a little bit today, you know, but without you. But, you know, this is, this is, I mean, I might leave. This is so offensive to me. You guys are allowed to text on the side, but not about the show. It wasn't about the show. It was about the show.

It was about the film. You just said, Franz, the best in the biz. Of course I'm going to text. You got to let me in. How's my new mic sound? It sounds good. Although you yelled into it. It was a lot.

Yeah. Getting used to it. Yeah, it's good. All right. Everybody? Buckle in. because it's time for the big deal presented by Cherry Hill Jeep.

The big deal? I know people get jeeps elsewhere. I just don't know why. Fran, let's talk about it. The defense, what a performance giving up just seven points against a talented Green Bay Packers offense. One scoring drive and a big deal for the Eagles was the insertion into the lineup of Jalen Phillips

and also Nolan Smith and Brandon Graham, but really let's focus on. the big man, the new guy, Jalen Phillips. What did you see once you were able to settle in with the snaps? Yeah, really active. You know, in the run game, in the past game, you know, he was constantly pestering Jordan Love throughout the course of the night. You saw him used on stunts.

He saw him used on twist. He saw him win one on one. There was a play where he lined up inside, and he was used in that way. So it was, to me, like, the utilization was cool. And we'll get into some of the reasons why I'm particularly excited about it, just based off some of the things the Eagles, have done in recent history and then our kind of projecting that forward with this group now that

Nolan Smith is healthy and you have BG in the fold. It's a the bones are there for something that could be very, very fun. Okay. Let's get into it. Let's get into those bones. Let's get it done inside the studio here, the Xfinity Mobile studio. Fran, what do you got for us? All right. So Lindsay, let's go to, let's go to front one. So this is a long one. We got a lot of things going on here. But basically I just kind of went sequentially. And these are all examples of plays where the Eagles, and I've talked about this, how they've gotten a little bit more multiple in their usage of various fronts and different alignments and especially overloading the front.

You know, where you have three guys over to one side. We know that they love using the linebackers blitzing from depth. So if you have that opposite, an overloaded front, you're basically forcing a protection, a protection scheme, a quarterback, the center to really kind of pick. You pick your poison. How do you want to match up against this? If you're going to just block with five, are you going to go big on big and say, all right, we're going to take the guard and he is going to block

Nicoby Dean, say, so you have the left guard there, number 65 to the left of the circle there. He's got eyes on the Kobe Dean. Is he going to just block Nicoby Dean and then it's just four versus four the rest of the way? Or is that guard going to slide towards the circle where you've got the two defensive tackles located over on the offensive right side? You've got Jalen Phillips over to that side. You slide that way. And that's the thing, essentially, again, you're forcing the offense to think that.

this through it's not your you're just typical four down linement there's going to you're forcing them to have these communication have this communication before the snap every single play now on this one lindsay if you go to the next shot on this play the guard actually does stay just in case nikobie dean does blitz now nikobie doesn't blitz here but just in case he does that guard is there he's got eyes in the second level he's he's retreating now so essentially this becomes a double team on nolan smith because the linebacker doesn't come nolan smith has lined up on the opposite side but what is that mean? Well, you've got essentially a few one-on-ones over on the other side. And that's the beauty of this as well, is that if you've got Jalen Carter and Morrow Jomo and you've got Nolan

Smith and you've got Jalen Phillips now and you start working and you're like, all right, I feel good about this group, you know, one, two, three, four, five, six deep. Well, now if you're, if you're lining up in a way that is going to dictate one-on-one so the offense, you're counting on your guys to be able to win one-on-one. You know, that doesn't happen on this play. But again, it's just again the bones are there for something for me to get really excited about moving forward if you go to another example here uh lindsay and guys i'll stop after this play just to catch my breath when kind of talk through a little bit if we go to the next one here uh this was i believe in the ensuing drive and this another one where you have this tilted front that's jalen phillips

always going to try to point him out on the front here uh where again he's lined up to the overloaded side you have jelix hunt now this time on the on the opposite side here now what is how is the offense going to protect are they going to blitz or are they going to slide the protection in that way, or are they going to say, all, we're going to keep that guard on the other side? You'll notice that you have Cooper Dejean there in the middle. They're kind of the Eagles are reacting to a motion here. So Jihad Campbell gets pulled away. So now they're like, all right, we feel good. This is going to be just a four-man rush. So Lindsay, if you go to the next shot, you can see that they go full four-man slide over in that

direction. And so, again, I think that just it's not necessarily like, oh, man, look at this play, look at this play, wow, look at all the great things the Eagles are doing. it's more I like that they're really trying out more of these friends I haven't charted it but it feels like they're doing more and more of it as the season is going and I think that what they're doing now is that they are going to force offenses to really have to go through their paces in terms of what the protection plan is going to be and it's not just hey and we'll get into it it's not just they they line up with the same guys in the same spots all the time once you start mixing and matching that just adds another layer of complexity to it as well

And what's also interesting is there you saw on those two different snaps you showed us, two different linebackers, right? Nikobie Dean and Jahad Campbell, who they're continuing to mix a match, but both of them are different kinds of threats coming forward. And then, as I'm sure you're going to show us, you get into the other machinations of, you know, Brandon Graham is involved and all the other different edge rushers who all have different styles. Yep.

It is a lot to keep track of for Vic Fangio. I mean, obviously he's up to the task. but once once you have all your pieces and you can figure out how to mix and match and deploy them differently, it is even more for the offense to then handle. Yeah, no question. It's very similar to, you know, and, you know, look, we talk about this with some of the best defenses that the Eagles have faced this year. You talk about like the Brian Flores defense and some of it.

They give you a lot to think about on a weekly basis. I don't, they're not, we're not to that level yet. But I think that it does certainly present a lot of challenges to an offense, to a protection scheme, and to your point as well, when you've got Jehad Campbell and the Kobe Dean, but then also Zach Bonn, like all three of those guys can be used in these ways. And it's, uh,

it definitely, you know, it's a nice way to throw changeups at the protection. I remember like when, honestly when they hired Sean DeSai, like studying like the Vic Fangio, like some of the things that you can expect to see from a Fangio scheme. And I remember seeing fronts like this.

And it's like been interesting like, Fran to see like Vic Fangio sort of like generating pressure through the scheme this year. Like whether it is like the, creativity with the fronts or the sim pressures that we saw him use a lot more you know earlier in the season it seems like he's really like uh like he will will it to happen if it's not going to happen and now it you know to be able to like you know for like you said free up those one-on-one blocks it's it's it's like really aligning well i guess i would say like well aligned with um

you know the additions they made up front yeah if you had to if you had to guess inside vicks mind who in particular he's really trying to free up with these alignments who would you say i personally i feel like it's probably jalen carter uh right but that's the thing is that now when you throw in nolan and you throw in jalen phillips like now it's like are you you've got multiple guys you kind of feel good about being able to win the one-on-ones you know i i always kind of go back to um you know when i think of like these overload looks and teams that have been really good at utilizing them in the past i go back to like the brandon staley uh and um the the, the, Rahim, Rahim Morris, those Rams teams with Aaron Donald.

They would utilize these, these kinds of looks with Aaron Donald where it's like, all right, well, sometimes he's going to be a part of that three-man overload front. They're going to run different games and twists, and you've got to deal with that. Sometimes they're going to line him up as the far defensive end on that side. And if you don't like your matchup with Aaron Donald versus that defensive tackle, you have to slide to that side. You have to slide away from the three-man game because now you've got Aaron Don. you want to make sure you double team Aaron Donald,

but now you've got one-on-ones on the three-vers-three side, and you're running different stunts and twists, and you're going to get somebody free there. So I think when you have a great player, even if it's a really good player, I feel good. I want to get this guy one-on-ones. By lining up in this way,

you can really open up a lot of different possibilities. Were you surprised at all that it was Nolan Smith and Brandon Graham who ended up moving to the right side to make room for Jalen Phillips to mostly focus on the left side? I was a little bit. Yeah, I thought that that was one of the things I think we talked about that in the in the pregame show yesterday that, you know, I was kind of interested. Like, how are they going to utilize Jalen Phillips just in terms of the sides just because we had seen Nolan play on that side for the majority of last year? Now, you know, his rookie year, he was mixed in at different spots and at Georgia, he mixed in at different spots.

But I thought that that was interesting, certainly. Yeah, I kind of read it as one, you're asking the guy to adjust to a new defense. my like let let him stay on the side that he's natural with and i also think of it as he's the new i mean he's the new top dog there right like he's he's the guy and so you want your guy to be the most comfortable i think that's right yeah and also uh i'm correct me from wrong nolan it's his right side is his right peck right so if you are this is what they did in training camp for a couple days where like yeah one shoulder was hurt and so they've moved him to the right side for that reason yeah so if you if you are a

left defensive and left outside linebacker trying to take on blocks with your inside shoulder and your inside arm that's going to be your right arm and so you know it might be an easier transition for him lining up over on the defensive right all right this is left left arm by the way friend it is the left okay so there go take that throw it out the window all right that'll do it for the big deal presented by jerry ljip but we continue on here friend with looking at the front let's let's move on to the next yeah so again these are these are all sequential so lindsay let's go to front five ej that means in order yes exactly yes thank you um so this is another example this time it's a what i would call a diamond

front a five-man front where you bring a linebacker from the second level and he's going to line up inside the formation you know where it's not necessarily always lined up off the edge that's zack bond circled lining up over the right guard you've got jalen phillips lined up outside of him then you've got jalen carter ojamo and jailix hunt and again you're just doing all these different things and i loved seeing this week one with jailin phillips because what do they do here on this one you go to the next shot, you've got a two-man game. They're running a stunt with Zach Bond and Jalen Phillips. Now, this ends up creating a pressure, but what I really like about this is that this isn't a blitz. This is still a four-man rush. If you go to the next shot, Lindsay, you've got

Jaylux Hunt dropping out on the backside of this. You've got Ojamo essentially eating up a double team. You still have Jalen Carter one-on-one. So if you're trying to get pressure on Jordan Love, and we talked about that last week, hey, his numbers and his efficiency all dropped big time this year when he was under pressure. That was still the case last night. He was terrible when he was pressured. Well, all right. Well, what are the best ways we can get pressure?

Let's find ways to get Jalen Carter one-on-one. Right here, mission accomplished, right? Now you've got, you have an exchange pressure. You've got a stunt. You have different ways that you can get to the ultimate goal here on just one play. Lindsay, if you go to the next shot, you can see that you're going to have Jalen Phillips flashing across Love's face. Now, this was one of the few successful plays where Love was pressure.

and he ended up dumping this off to Josh Jacobs. I thought that Cooper Degine got a little nosy inside here on this play and lost leverage. So he dumped this off to Josh Jacobs. But again, I like the thought process of what the Eagles are doing here on this play to ultimately get home to Jordan Love. If you go to the next one, Lindsay, this is number nine. This is, again, a different combination where you've got, again, Jalen Phillips lined up on the far left. This time, you've got Zach Bonn on the far right. You've got Nolan Smith lined up over the right guard with the two defensive tackles

lined up inside so all right like if you're if you're the defense how do you want to protect you set your protection call great all right well very late in the pre-snap phase the eagles make another adjustment and linds if you go to the next shot nikobi dean creeps up to the line of scrimmage so now you're adding another layer very late in the pre-snap phase a well-disguised pressure look here where all right now you've got to account for nikobie dean who's going to block him and if you go to the next shot you can see that uh nolan smith drops out jalen phillips drops out it's a four-man You've got Nicoby Dean blitzing inside, and he's able to get inside here. If you go to the next shot, he's actually actually able to get inside the guard and get

Jordan Love off of his spot. And what I really love here from this, but this was a really disciplined rush from the entire group, because Lindsay, if you go to the next shot, you can see that both of the defensive linemen that are containing here on this play, Ojamo and Nolan Smith, as soon as they get to the far depth of the pocket, you can see Nicoby Dean is behind the quarterback now. He's behind Jordan Love. you're not getting anybody when you're behind the quarterback both of these guys do a great job ojamo and nolan smith when they reach the depth of the pocket they understand typically what the tendencies are

of an opposing quarterback hey he likes to get this deep when he's in the shotgun so we don't want to get any deeper than this so they did a great job of making sure we get to the depth now they get square to jordan love they don't let they're not giving him an escape path either way here this ends up being a sack for nolan smith because he's able to retrace and he does a nice job of being able to get home. Sorry, I thought you were going to say something each other. That was good stuff. Look, I'll keep going here.

Lindsay, I know you've got to catch up because there's a lot of here on this one. Let's go to shot 15 here on the front. And again, it's like, when you've got all these different, it's a long night. It's going to be an even longer morning. When you've got, look, when you've got all the different possibilities here, you know, this is another one where you've got this time, Jalen Phillips lined up. inside that's just so the this was the one snap okay yeah this was his one snap where he was lined up inside so you've got phillips lined up as the as the over the right guard that's ojamo lined up

in philip's previous spot as the defensive end and again you're just there's all the different possibilities here in terms of all right like if if phillips is lined up inside what does that mean are they going to run any kind of stunts or they're going to run any kind of twist what i didn't love about this one if you go to the next shot linds i would love if you had a nikobie dean kind of bluffing blitz a little harder if he's trying to disguise this like he he he's he's playing from depth the entire way so there was no threat to the guard here right so the the guard never had to really think twice about hey i want to make sure that i am uh that we are respecting the kobe dean's ability to blitz here on this play we talked about that last night i did i didn't include it in this one but uh nicoby dean the sack

fumble where all right well that was a play that was a blitz that was designed solely to get nicoby dean one-on-one with the back right like that was that was a win for the defense So I think, again, when you're just finding different ways to be able to get home to the quarterback, impact the quarterback, it's a, it's a skeleton key for this, for this defense. This is this is not precisely related to those snaps, but it's just a usage question. We haven't really checked in on like the breakout year for Jordan Davis that we saw in the first quarter of the season. And it coincides with the emergence of Moro Ojimo, E.J. But Jordan Davis is really no long. longer a part of like the third down package he took one snap yesterday a pass rushing on third down which was his fewest of the season you know generally it was more in like the six

seven range earlier in the season do you view that as just uh an ojamo thing that he's he's he's leaped past him can we borrow a couple jalen carter snaps or do you see something with jordan davis that has dissipated which is to be fair something we have seen from him in the past where he he has had these pops and then kind of fizzled a little bit. I don't think that he's fizzled. I think it's more just a like, this is an embarrassment of riches. I don't think you want to take Ojamma off the field. You don't want to take harder off the field. There was, you mentioned there was one third down snap yesterday. There were a couple plays where he was able to get penetration and push the guy into the back, push the blocker into the back field. He had a couple of really nice

reps in the run game yesterday. So I don't think that it's necessarily been all like, you know, Jordan Davis is falling off. Now, is it popping as much? No, it's, but from, from, a past game standpoint, I would say that his value is kind of is always limited. I think it's more, hey, like we're seeing him be one of the better run defenders at the position in terms of being like that

pure like run first nose tackle. Like from what I haven't watched, I don't watch every single team every single week, but from what I've seen like he has developed into one of those guys where it's, you know, he is one of the better pure like run stuffing nose tackle types in the NFL. And yet he was not on the field on that fourth and one, although I think

that's because the giant, the Packers didn't want them to sub. Yeah, so they want to hurry up. Yeah, I feel like he just doesn't have like the pass rush upside, especially with like you see Morroa Jomo and Jalen Carter, like the versatility that they have to play other spots. Like I don't, it's like do you want to have like the one dimensional nose tackle out there, especially if he's not like Dexter Lawrence, you know,

he's not going to be consistently winning. So I just remember like the one pass rush opportunity. I like keyed in on him. It's like he kind of has like his like normal like, you know, he pushes the pocket. at two or three yards and that's about what you can expect from them. All right, time to take a quick break to hear from some

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let's have let's have the linebacker conversation hmm so seemed like at least to start this game they were going two series at a time nikobitin gets the start uh jihad campbell mixes in a little bit on the edge, and then two series for Jahad Campbell. Towards the end of the game, it was Nikobe. Like with the game on the line, they wanted Nikobe on the field. What do you make of it all, Fran? It is a complicated situation, and it's telling us a lot. But I also, I don't, it's hard for me to really disagree,

even if in my heart of hearts I would want the first round pick to be on the field. So, Bezla, this one was actually very easy to track because Jihad Campbell didn't get hurt in this game. and he got dinged up against the Giants two weeks ago. So it was a little bit harder to kind of parse it out. This one was very easy. They went two drives at a time. So it was two drives. Then Nikobe gets to start in nickel.

He starts the fifth. So every time they played nickel, the first two drives, Nikobe was in there. Every time they played nickel, the second two drives, it was Jihad, and then they went back and forth in that way. Whenever they played base, Jihad Campbell came down and played outside linebacker, and Nekobi came on the field.

And so that was basically the role. All right, Jehad Campbell, you're going to be our backup, middle line, backup weak side linebacker. in nickel and you're going to rotate in and then you are going to be a starting outside linebacker in when they when we go to our base defense i don't know if that's like the best i because here's the thing last night they played against the packers who are a multiple have been a multiple tight end offense throughout most of the year but obviously we know they lost tucker craft and so craft gave them that ability to be a really dominant like two way like a you know run

equal run pass opportunity team when they line up in multiple tight end sets last night they really wanted to assert themselves on the ground and they played i think it was i think i counted it was 12 uh 12 snaps of multiple tight end sets was actually a pretty low number for them and they only they only threw the ball one time out of those looks they ran it every other time so when i look at the the usage for jihad campbell and i say all right like he's going to play outside linebacker in their base defense if we think of the times where hey they line up in base and you've got essentially five defensive linemen and you're still dropping jailix hunt and gets that pick six because he's an outside linebacker and base dropping against 12 personnel jihad campbell

does that and he could do that great but when you play against the team like green bay where the hey they're going to line up in 12 personnel and they're going to try and run the football i think it's a little bit of a different story and so i grabbed a couple of clips um where you are looking at jihad campbell lined up off the edge and i don't want to say you're starting at ground zero um but it's essentially like He's going to have to, he has to like relearn some things because he's been working the entire season so far, his entire NFL career, seeing things from depth and reading the triangle from depth. This is the position he's played now for the last couple of years. He started as an outside linebacker for Nick Saban at Alabama, but made that transition to middle linebacker. And so now he's got to have to relearn if you're seeing the game from a new angle.

So being able to do that now in the NFL with NFL speed, it's a whole different animal. So, Lindsay, if you go to Edge 1, this was the first snap of base defense. for the Eagles in this game. And again, you've got multiple tight ends on the field for Green Bay. You see Jahad Kamba lined up as right outside linebacker. And basically, the Green Bay Packers are running a counter run play right at him. And so if we go to the next shot, Lindsay, you're going to see that there's a kickout block coming from an offensive line and coming right in his direction.

And we saw so many great examples of this last year where how fast Nolan Smith would violently explode down the line of scrimmage and just meet that blocker at, you know, close to the formation as close to the middle of the field as possible and really squeeze that lane for the running back well you had a little bit of misdirection involved here so jihad camp was got he's got to read one extra step he's a little bit slow to see where you know where this runs going to hit and if you go to the next shot you can see he meets the he meets the the pulling guard that kickout block closer to the numbers than to the hash mark right so you've got a wider lane now for that running back for josh jacobs to be able to hit this inside if we go to the next shot this is a play i believe

this was the next series if not it was the series after so it's again base defense out in the field multiple tight-end sets you've got jahad campbell reading things down as a as a down on the ball linebacker and if we go to the next shot you're going to see that this is going to be a basically a pin-pool type of situation where you're going to have a wide receiver trying to pin that block jahad campbell but jahad just he doesn't he doesn't recognize this block's coming so he doesn't uh the attention paid to this block is not what it should be he's getting blocked by a smaller body here on this play it's going to be a perimeter run play and he gets blocked by a wide receiver and if you go to the next shot you can see like there there's there's the crease for uh you know for josh jacobs and he's

into the open field and so i think that i'm not saying that campbell can't do this but i do think that it's like not an ideal spot for him right now and it's he's definitely going to be learning on the job now is this are we going to continue to see this as no one smith is healthy my my guess is probably not and so does how does that impact jihad campbell snaps is that is that Is he going to still play in a rotation in that spot? I don't know. It's tough. But the other hard part about it is that Nkobo Dean played awesome last night.

Like he did a great job playing downhill against the run. He's seeing things as fast as he's ever seen them. But it's tough, man. Because even like Campbell last night when he was playing in Nickel, he had a couple of really good plays against the run. Like he did a really good job. And I want to see him continue to grow and get those mental reps. it's it's it's it's tough though so you're you're more imaginative than at least me friend i'll leave

bow out of this one like what would you want to what would you want it to look like you know like for me it seems like there's no way to have all three of them on the field and let each of them do what they do best so like i guess like what what's like the if if you know if vicangio called you up he's like man how he's really on me about playing jihad campbell like how do i do it what would you what would your answer be um i think the way i would probably do it is that when we play bass nikobie's out there uh and when we play nickel jihad's out there i think that's the way i would do it and that's a that's probably like a you know in some games that's going to be like a four to one snap share that maybe even five to one snap share and in some some games like last night that might

be more of like a you know it might be a little bit closer to 50 50 in some games like if you you you play Sean McVeigh, you play the 49ers, like, that means it's going to be a lot of Nacobi. And when it's on games, when it's not, then you're going to see a lot less. Yeah, I mean, it seems like an underutilization of Nekobi Dean in that scenario. But I'm sort of with you just because, like, we did see Jihad Campbell's like ceiling. You know, we saw the potential that he has. And it's like, it's not like he's playing bad. It's just like the Kobe's playing really well.

I don't know. Like you said, it is tough. I'm sort of going back and forth on this I actually think they're doing a really good job here and it's really it is not a good problem to have but it is an interesting problem to have

it is yes and it is a true luxury problem to have because there are not a lot of teams that can afford to have a first round pick who is good enough to be on the field and yet you can use like on field time to develop him in a way

And it is just in the way that we, I think, philosophically would like Jahad Campbell to be on the field to get these reps in service of him being better at the end of the season and better at the end, you know, in the middle part of his career, you know, maybe these reps on the edge are going to help him and allow him to be eventually more of the like Zach Bond clone whenever it is, that he can do it all. And like, yeah, I could argue, okay, maybe maybe if you're going to have off three on the field and base and you really think it's going to be run, maybe he's going to be run. maybe Zach Bonn should be the guy on the edge and Jihad and Nikobe can be the people in the middle. There are lots of different ways to use it. And yeah, maybe when Nolan's healthier, you're going to take some of those reps away from him. But in search of wanting to continue developing the player,

while keeping Nikobe Dean on the field who has been really good and better than any reasonable expectation could have been given the surgery that he had, I kind of think they're doing well with that. because it would be so much worse if we have seen situations in the past where it's like, I'm just going to have the guy on the field who's the veteran and, you know, player development be damned by a coach. And they're finding a way to sort of do both right now, even if Jihad being on the edge in the,

in the situations you're showing us, Fran, is not ideal for the defense right now. They are a little bit having their cake and eating it too. But don't you feel like Jihad Campbell's like earned it? it's not like player development for like like charity's sake you know it's not like oh well we just but that's exactly right he's earned the chance to be on the field and they are finding a way to get him on the field at the expense of probably who is the better player right now even though they both have different strengths yeah and that's what it's it's really it's really complicated this is like it is this is a fascinating situation it is especially i mean especially given the fact

that nicobe is going into a contract year right like it's So, you know, there's lots of arguments that you can make in either way. I will say, too, the going back to what I talked about with like the front multiplicity and stuff like that, like, I like I like Jihad Campbell's value in those kinds of scenarios more than Nkobi. Like I think Nikobe can be like I, you know, it's a good blitzer. Like he's a good blitzer inside, but he's not the same type of blitzer from a, hey, if he's on the line of scrimmage, he's not as explosive. He's not as big. he's not as strong he is more like i'm going to time this really well from depth and hit this at full speed and i'm going to go a million miles an hour um you know and really maximize everything i've got

so i think that with campbell like he's got more physical tools you know in his body uh and so he's got a little bit more value that he can bring in that scenario too is there a world where like nicoby dean plays well enough this season where the eagles resign him in the off season because it's like he's too good a player to just let him walk you know there's no way i can't i can't imagine a way to keep him? I don't know. The other thing that I think we have to say is that resource allocation-wise, it feels like that would be insane.

But you talk to people in the building, like when he's on the field, the Kobe is the leader of the defense. And there are, it's not just that he sees what his job is quickly. Like, there are people who say that, like, he makes everybody else quicker. on the defense because he's seeing it so well.

I think it is probably impossible to really pay him. But I don't know. It's not the craziest thing in the world. Then they shouldn't have drafted Jahad if that's the case. If he was like that vital and it was like, hey, like this is the guy that we can't live without, then you can't pay bond what you pay bond. And then draft Jahad Campbell in the first round.

Like that's tough to justify. I think that's true. But I also think we can't fault them in the moment for not knowing what you'd look when he come back. We're recognizing that Nikobe is way better right now than they thought he was going to be. But if he's like that guy, we're like, oh, we're going to resign him. Like, I don't know.

I think the moment you draft Jihad Campbell, you are saying goodbye to giving significant money to Nukobi Dean. And by the way, I also, if we're just thinking about the long-term planning of it, it's not just that they drafted Jihad Campbell. It's that they tried to trade up to like 22 to draft Jihad Campbell. Right. right it was not just like oh we we can't afford to pass on this guy because he's that high at top of our board it was like they went to go get him yeah if if you know knock a wood i'm just i'm

saying this out loud like if it was zach bond that had that injury right and it was like oh well like we're we're still we're gonna pay zach bond to keep him here because you you feel like you're essentially like doubling down it's like we feel this strong that this guy is going to come back and so like if you felt that strongly about nikobi then to me like you don't make that Campbell selections. It's, it's tough. It's a shame because Nicole's been awesome. It's been so awesome. It's been great to be able to see him bounce back the way he has, but I just don't see how they're able to work around that. All right. Good discussion. Take a quick break here from some sponsors.

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So while I was hanging out in this frozen tundra, you know, in Green Bay, Matt LaFleur invites me over his house. He's pumped to watch football on a Saturday. And I go over to watch football on his setup is a total mess. Lacking, buffering, and switching between apps, trying to find the game. He claimed he was a big fan, but I feel like I had been fan-fished. If you call yourself a football fan, you have to have to have. have Xfinity. It's the ultimate sports destination. I can find the best games in my favorite

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I am curious about Jordan Love looks so flummoxed. In terms of the coverages the Eagles were playing on the back end, did you see Vic doing anything? curious or was it just the case of sort of the rush getting into his head? Yeah, I think that he never really looked settled. I do think that the rush had something to do with that. They didn't do anything like, oh, my God, look at what they, look at all the different things they did from a, like, this cool, funky coverage or yeah, they, they did what they do, right?

I think they played some cover six, they played some cover three, they played some man coverage at times, like they mixed things up. They weren't predictable. And so they just kind of kept Jordan Love guessing. You know, and I think that that ultimately was like my big takeaway from watching. I think that Quinnion Mitchell had an awesome game. I'll probably post a clip of that. Just kind of just showing a few of the reps from him.

But we know that this receiving core was decimated from Green Bay. And so, you know, they're taking Bo Melton and moving him from corner and putting him back a receiver just because they're down bodies. But I think when you look at what their plan was from a coverage standpoint, it was we're going to do what we do. we're going to out-execute them from that standpoint, and we're going to try and let this rush get home. At Quinny on the PBU on the crossing route, I mean, that was awesome. That is like just an unreal play.

Yeah, he had a couple, like, away from the throw, too, where it was like there was one, like a double move. I think it was against Christian Watson early in the game where I'm like, man, like he's so good. Yeah. Imagine having questions about Queenie on Mitchell. So we've always been on the right side of history on Quinnie on Mitchell. You're lying to the audience.

How about Adore? He looked like Adore. I think we were all surprised that he was not targeted more. So was it the case that he should have been targeted more? There were a few where I was like, yeah, like they're lucky that he wasn't. There was, I'm trying to remember. It was the one play. It was one of the plays in the front that I talked about earlier,

where the pressure was able to impact Jordan Love early. Adore was beaten downfield on a double move and Love was going to go that way until the pressure was able to get him off his spot. So there were a couple where the pressure kind of saved them. There were a few where it was like, you could sell like this is a guy

that's an older player coming off injury. The sooner that they can get that rectified and figure out like, and who knows? Like maybe this is the plan moving forward. You know, that is going to be Adore and Michael Carter's a reserve. But yeah, that was that was an area that Green Bay could have attacked.

and did not take advantage of last night. Do you think that like Nick Siriani did like some kind of like shady like deal with some kind of like, I don't know, mythical figure where like, oh, we'll only throw to AJ Brown three times if it means that Dory Jackson can only be targeted three times in the game. Like is there some kind of voodoo going on right now? Could that explain some of the things that we're about to discuss about A.J. Brown? Well, E.J., speaking of shady deals, it's time for the future is bright.

by Shady Ray. And Fran, if you have to, lie to us, but tell us why you think the future might be bright for the Eagles offense. No, I mean, look, it was a very frustrating watch. There were, it was one of those things where, like, when I'm watching it, I was, I think I was like 20 plays in, and I actually texted Danes and I know like he you know because it's Tuesday so now his

week is all thrown off we know his routine right uh so he's not going to be able to get to the film until like late tonight I was like you're going to be you're going to be angry watching this film because I know the things that that get under Dana's his skin um look the the the the AJ Brown stuff I mean he had two targets in the first two drives and then was was barely seen the rest of the night uh wild why no I said wild oh wild yeah I thought said why also but also why yeah yeah but also why and how yeah look there were one thing that definitely stood out you know green bay one of their one of their plans coming in from a defensive game plan standpoint was that they were going to play a decent amount of cover six where they were

going to have cover two to the boundary this is a coverage the eagles play a lot where you're going to have cover two to one side of the field cover four to the other thing you know quarters coverage to the other side so it's a combo coverage um you know and it's meant to like provide help to one side of the field over the other. And one of the things that Green Bay did often was that it really popped up on it because the Eagles didn't have a ton of like pure dropback like Jalen Hertz is in the shotgun and because you had the RPO's. You had plenty of under center play action, move the pocket and that kind of clouds coverage looks and, you know, kind of makes it a little bit difficult, cuts the field in half. But in terms of like pure dropback, one of the things that we saw a lot was that they played this cover

six where they played cover two to the boundary side. So you had a corner underneath in the flat and then you had a safety over the top it just so happened that a j brown lined up to the boundary on like all of these dropbacks and so uh you can sit back and you look and be like oh that they've got a safety shaded over to a j brown side now they went to the locker room and half time and then they came back and it's like all right let's what's our plan to attack this and they ran a bunch of cover two beaters to the boundary you had the the dallas got her 22 yarder they ran that played down the scene to calcutera where uh were hurts over through it but um Lindsay if you go to cover six one uh you're going to see that again like this was a a very common theme throughout the

first half of the game first three quarters of the game where jlin hertz would drop back and all right there's a safety shaded over to a j brown side this is one drop back uh lindsay if you go to the next one um you know this was this was actually this is actually a three play sequence where jlin hertz drops back and a j brown this one is a double move he's running like an out and up and he's running it directly into the safety let's go to the next one very next drop back again he's running this to the to the boundary and there's a safety shaded over that way and then one more just for good measure where he's running it again you've got a j brown working up the middle of the field uh or sorry working working down the numbers here but there's a safety right there now some people are going to

look at that and say oh they they were constantly shading towards a j brown side here's what i'll say there is no there is no perfect coverage there is no like you know skeleton key like oh this is the easy button that this we're going to take this guy away if you want to attack a certain coverage. There are routes to attack, you know, the Packers ran a great cover six beater on that final drive after the A.J. Brown incompletion down the field to Christian Watson, it was a great way to attack cover six. And they'd say like, hey, we're going to try and get a speed receiver open down the field. There are ways to attack every single coverage concept. Can you say like that? If the Eagles wanted to get A.J. Brown open and say,

like, we're going to find ways that we are going to get him the ball. There are ways you can do it. Now, does everybody want to do it? Like, that's the, that's the question. Like, does Jalen Hertz want to do that? Is it at the top of the pecking order for the coaching staff? Like, I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know what the, what the mindset is. It might not be. And it's just like, hey, like, AJ, this is the way we're going to play, like, kind of deal with it. But it's, it's a situation that's, I don't know, again, I don't know if it's going to get a lot better. The future is dim. because you're wearing your shady rays. Let's take a quick break to hear from some sponsors. We'll talk about this more on the other side.

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minutes, but it makes a big impact. Take a moment, head to all PHOY slash survey and let your voice be heard. Respondents have a chance to win a $100 Amazon gift card. Again, we appreciate you all for listening. all right back in the phto white eagles podcast um i guess let's stick with the passing game uh what do you what are you smiling at friend it's it's better if we don't talk about it uh nick seriana got an endorsement from somebody that uh in terms of who could be the better who could be a great president uh from an NFL from being an NFL coach oh god i just saw that we don't we don't need to dive in

I know I see this too it's literally at the top of my feed I don't know what you think all right so well you know what

then let's talk about it let's what do you think happen at the end of the game on a fourth down so you're correct me if I'm wrong um now I did I didn't see, like, I didn't see video of the interview, but I saw it. So, like, you know, this could be completely made up.

I believe I, it was, Devante Smith said afterwards, like, it's, hey, whatever, like, one in 11 want to do. So it kind of insinuated that those guys basically drew the play up. Is that, is that fair? So, yeah, I trust one in 11 is essentially what, what he said. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, I think that that's, I think that's what happened.

I don't know that that was necessarily called in from the sideline. That said, there were some things from that final, like, honestly, the last two drives that were, they just kind of left me to scratch in my head in terms of like what the decision making was there, you know, before that fourth downplay, the incompletion, they had the third and seven. It was a third, yeah, third and seven where they come out in, you know, we're going to run the ball, we're going to try and eat up clock. And this is a little thing, but it's like they have, you know, look, Camlato, I mean, this

honestly you want to go back to like the the text messages from me and ej from earlier of the day the first one though was him sending me a couple clips of cam latu doing a serviceable job as a lead blocker uh as a foolback and i basically where where we landed is that he is like the the paul turner Alex Singleton of fullbacks and you know and lead blockers on the move Alex Singleton come on what's that don't throw Alex Singleton under the bus that's worse than the tag league booth thing oh it's nice pretty easy fine, he's good. He's good, yeah. Come on. I mean, honestly, it's like not a, it's not a, it's not a, it's not a, it's not a, it's not a, it's not a, it's not shade at Alex Singleton. We're saying he was solid, but he's like, I told him. I was like, look, I'll send you like, you know, what a, what a good, like, dominant, like point of attack fullback looks like in, in, in, in today's NFL, Latu is, he's doing just fine in that. Like he's not someone we're like, oh, got to get him more snaps. Like, I was like, they do. They need to get him on the field more. Well, well, he's feisty. Yeah. Well, well, they. They. They. They. They. They. Well, well, well, they. They. They. They. Well, well, they. They they put Kylan Granson in that role

on the final run of the day and I'm like, well, why is Grantson out there doing this instead of lot to? No practice. Coaching malpractice. There were a handful of plays down the stretch that were, you know, where I'm like, I'm not sure like what the goal is with this one. Listen, I, especially

given this context, I'm happy to get on Nick for a lot of the dumb stuff in this game, especially the end of the half stuff. but I just don't believe there's any chance in the world that he called that play. Now, he sent them out there. Right. I believe this is a guess.

I think he was just trying to draw him off sides again. And that's partially because there's nothing that gets Nick going more inside and outside the studio than trying to draw a defense off sides because then you get to fourth and one, then they can go for the touch push. I think that's what the plan was. was and then AJ saw, you know, Jalen saw something that they thought was going to work and catch him by surprise and they went for it. And I'm sure that he has the leeway to be able to do that if he sees something. But I, I am putting, given the context of having seen this

before, I'm, I'm putting that on Jalen. That's a, but that's a big leap that Nick sends them out there without like a play call. I think it is possible that, that Nick had a different play call out there. Yeah, I think, well, that's probably the more likely I'm gonna say,

I think that's what's most likely in that scenario, like him sending the offense out at all to me is what the mistake is. Like that, like I am. And if they're sending them out

even with a regular play call, it is only snap the ball if this looks good pre-snap. Yeah, especially because he didn't mention the possibility of setting the punt unit out after the game, which I think is what we all agree

would have been the right decision. Yes. So like the fact that he didn't even mention it was bizarre to me like i understand people are saying like oh because he's lying it's because he's taking he he's taking the bullets yeah yeah okay but it's it's but i'm with you setting the offense out still to me is the mistake you know what i want there jillan is a student of history he loves ranal cunningham let jalen punt the ball snap it to him on fourth down let him punt it what's the worst that can happen it goes in the it goes in the end zone that's

fine honestly that that's i yeah i would like that that's a good idea that's the what's missing from this offense that wants to be conservative every drive into the kick do it on third down why not can we can we talk about third down i just yeah we can talk about third down but i just i know that there's the three versus six thing which i actually don't think applied in this situation because there was so little time on the clock there actually would have been some value explaining that to uh what's the three versus six generally you don't want to go from three to six in a situation where you are incentivizing the offense to have to go for a touchdown because the the history tells

us that if they only need a field goal to tie they will settle for the field goal but that is more about with like a minute 30 left or real time for them to have a drive in this scenario when if they had kicked a field goal it would have been 20 seconds left they're you know it's a Hail Mary anyway so I think that would have been fine I just I don't I don't think I don't think I don't think they were all on the same page there all right what do you want to say about third down I mean you've been all over like the the cowards draws and you know just the the the overall conservative nature of this offense on third down and I mean it's it is so it's it's crazy you know because like

when you look at this team and again we've talked about this this is this is the highest paid offense in football. You have all this money put into this, into this unit where you've got one of the highest paid quarterbacks, one of the highest paid offensive lines, one of the highest paid receiving cores. You have a top 10 tight end, top eight tight end in terms of APY, in terms of salary. You have all this money, all the money in the running back. If this was the defense where it's like, oh, you know, you lose Milton Williams and Josh Sweat and Darius and CJ Gardner Johnson, you know, you have Nicobie Dean coming off injury, like, oh, you have all these starters that weren't there for the Super Bowl run. And, you know, you got to,

adjust. All right, let's keep this high floor. Let's be conservative. No, like you're returning 10 of 11 starters. And again, the highest paid offense in football to have this conservative mindset week after week after week. And then I'm looking. I'm like, all right, because EJ mentioned like, oh, you know, third down. And I was like, all right, well, let me, I'm just going to chart the third down plays. And so I'm looking at the third down plays. And it's like, all right, you got 16 third downs. Eight of those 16 third down calls were successful plays. Now, one of them was the QB draw that hurts fumbles right but he ran for a first out absolutely like yeah successful play call so right off the bat like 50 so that means you had the other eight that were unsuccessful

of those other eight like four of them were straight give up plays yeah so it's like you know one was an incompletion on a like on a miscommunication a bad landmark from jihad dot saying like you had you know you had your normal like messups that was a couple weird jailing throws in this game that was one of them but yes yes there were there were a couple where it was like oh like the guys weren't on the same page you know that kind of thing um but like when you have if you if you are going to play offense like if you were going to say like we're going to be a running team we're going to be concerned you know that in that way and what this we're going to we're going to win dirty we're going to win that we're going to just find a way to win you can't just be giving up possessions like i it's it goes it goes against like if that's the way you want to play then you have to be capitalizing all these opportunities you can't just be giving possessions away but they shouldn't be doing this anyway because you've got all this talent like it just i was sitting there last night and i just i just i can't can't believe I'm writing this again. It's the most frustrating thing about the team, I think, honestly. To me, the perfect encapsulation of this was two, I think they were

back-to-back sets. Maybe it was a little bit separated, but you had the one in the red zone proceeding the field goal where it's third and seven. Yes. And oh boy, here comes another delay of game. Great. You don't call time out. And on third and 12 at what, what was it like the 28 or something like that? We very clearly within field goal range. you have the little give up screen to Will Shipley. And it's just, that is so weak when you are in the red zone. You are already, you are already in scoring position, go for the first down. And if you feel like 12 yards is too far for you to go, then, yeah, then waste your time out and go and go for it on third and seven.

Like that doesn't agree with itself. And then, I think two drives later or the next drive is then it's third and 12. 12 backed up. And guess what? It's the exact same distance. And Jalen throws a perfect pass to Devante Smith, who has a great route on the outside. And it's like, oh, yeah, this is how easy it can be. And so why are you so scared of this?

It's like unbelievable. You had a third and seven. You had a third and long where it's like up, like, all right. If you had just run the Cowards draw there, you're off the field and you're punting. But instead, you called a downfield route concept. you had mirrored routes you know going across field and it wasn't there jalen didn't force the issue he was conservative like did a good job taking care of the ball and he hit saquan barkley on a checkdown and 41 yards later you're one play away from scoring a touchdown yeah instead of going coward's draw like

it's it's it's one honestly it is the most frustrating thing and especially because i'm looking at some of the plays they ran on third down i was like oh i like that oh that was a good play oh this was a really good jelan hurd's play oh this was a really good route from devonte smith on a 16 yarder oh like There's the Sequin play. Then you had the full back belly out of the pony set. Like, there's fun. There's some creativity. Like there's it.

But then you, when you just throw away four possessions, like just, it's mind blowing with this, with the talent on this team, there's, I don't, why that's the mindset.

I just, it doesn't make any sense to me. Now, I'm sure like, because I'm sure Nick Siriani and Kevin Petula will both be asked about this, probably tomorrow. And they'll both reference the fact that,

oh, when you're in third and long situation, like that. It's really hard, especially, and I saw Devante Smith said after the game, it's, oh, well, you know, the Packers are in a lot of soft zone coverages. It's hard to take shots down field against those. But honestly, like, especially considering the Eagles are, at least last I checked, dead last and three and out percentage in the NFL, like, you don't have the luxury. We talked about they're not a success rate team right now. You know, they're not a team that stays on schedule. They don't have the luxury of being like, oh, well, every time we're

behind the NFL, we can take shots down field. 26 in the NFL and offensive success rate. over the course of the season right now. So, like, being in third and long situations with the talent that you have on the perimeter and the way that you've played this season, it's not a good enough excuse anymore. And we can continue this conversation. E.J. in Bovertah.

It's crazy. It's crazy. And you're also right, friend, like the long Sequin catch and run is another good example of it. It's like, you know what? Just try something. And you might luck into it because your players are just that good.

It's also a way, you know what it is? It is also a waste. This staff loves to talk about how much time they put in during the week. Like, you know, just grinding and sleeping in the office. It's a waste of your time. Didn't like, oh, oh, it's third and 11. So we're just going to give up. We're going to, we're not even going to use a play from our playbook.

It's like, what are we doing? Because that's not like, uh yeah we're being a dead horse but it's it to me again it goes especially seeing like you know the the the doug pearson third down offense where it was like hey like we're we're just going to go for it you know like we are we're going to be we're going to be aggressive we're going to like to live that way to and it goes to like the dan campbell lions and like oh you'd say hey like we're going to be aggressive because we have belief in our players we have belief in our talent uh to me like you are sending this message like yeah we'll figure it out later like uh

like we're just we're just playing not to lose it's just it's i just don't agree with that mindset and a fair point from pat finis in the in the super chat who says the other side of this is they're in third and long too often right too many first and second down conservative play calls which is absolutely yeah absolutely yeah absolutely the thing is though like uh it's not i don't necessarily always look at it as like it's conservative play calls now some of them are it's less than ideal outcomes you know and that goes to the success rate you know the fact that this is a the number one most expensive offense in the NFL has the 26th rank success success rate but there were there were this the place the play callers like called some aggressive plays

yesterday that weren't taken advantage of for one reason or another like maybe oh pressure got you know there was a actually here's a let's let's go to one more shot we actually didn't do this one um Lindsay let's go to wheel let's go to this the last one here so they're in the you're in the high red zone you're in the fringe area here and you can see it's a condendent set 11 personnel and the eagles are running a play to attack the packers in zone coverage and this is going to be a post real wheel route where you've got calcutera at the bottom of screen he's going to run a vertical route uh down the field and they're running saquan barkley on a wheel against the green bay linebacker he scored on a wheel route uh last year in week one in brazil uh it wasn't the same play

but a similar type of design here um so linds if you go to the next shot you can see that sayquan releases up to the second level he's going to be one-on-one with the linebacker calcatera releases like there's plenty of green space out that way. Now, I think the linebacker, Adrian Cooper, he actually did a really good job here on this play, and he kept up with Sequant. So this throw was not a clear, like, green light for Jalen Hertz to be able to cut this one loose.

Now, that said, the second read on this play is a shallow cross coming from the other side where you had a three by one set over there. You got a tight bunch set, and the shallow cross is coming from A.J. Brown. This was the third snap of the game where you got man-to-man coverage from the Packers. This was in the second half.

This was it. So they'd been playing heavy. zone coverage. So you finally get man to man. You call a concept that should be good against man. And, you know, as I'm watching it from this angle, you can kind of see that the defensive tackle that's right on the hash mark there, working up against Brett Tooth is getting ready to cross face and, you know, to flash color in front of Jalen's eyes. And I'm like, oh, the pressure gets to him. But Lindsay, if you go to the next shot here, uh, AJ is wide open in the middle of the field. He is the, he's the second read. Like if you're, to me, like, it's the

post is a that's the that's the eye candy right like that's that's the vertical stretch element you're trying to get the wheel route if the wheel route's taken away the second read like with your eyes if you're working from right to left would be to the middle of field route that's a that's a j brown who is wide open uh it's essentially gets it's like a rub play over on that side where the corner over a jr brown gets picked off by the action on the inside a jay is wide open jalen's taken off i think that he left a little bit early um and again this is not a uh oh this was an egregious miss by jalen hurts this is like a man like i i really would like you to make this play if we're going to talk about like you know jayl's a top five quarterback right like

that that that's a play that a j brown if he's upset on this one he should he should be he should have gotten this ball and honestly he probably scores uh on this one so fran like i want you to tell me if you if you agree with the sentiment because in my notes i i kind of got dramatic here i wrote pulling my hair out because this is a a few plays before he jalen misses on the calcutera throw down the seam so it's like to me like the first half a lot of what was frustrating about watching the eagles passing game is that it just didn't seem like they had very many answers for what the packers were doing in the secondary like they just didn't seem like there was a lot of openings you know it didn't seem like they had good

design against it and then it seemed like in the second half at the beginning of the second half it's like all right they drew some things up they got some guys open and then it was jalen like missing on two or three key throws that kind of just like just tanked the whole thing uh so for me like this was probably the most frustrating part about it because it's like okay they finally figured it out and now jalen is like kind of the one holding it back from finally getting into gear i honestly felt that even in the first half um you know the there was the the first third and long uh where he broke out of the pocket and he hit will shipley on the run like that was that was a nice throw obviously the throw to Devante Smith for touchdowns, you know, it was a good ball.

There were, there were some good throws throughout the course of the night. And I'm not say it wasn't that Jaylin was bad, but it wasn't like a good. It was like a solid performance by his standards. I would say that this was like a suboptimal performance for him. And a lot of it would be like, hey, like, why did you go to this side instead of that side, right? Like how come you're working, how come you're throwing this? There are times with a running mirrored routes. You're running like a corner route with a flat route to both sides.

and again going back to like them playing cover six and it's like all right you're you're running this concept to the cover two side a j brown's wide open in the in the turkey hole right like to me like if you know that they're going to be running cover six and they're going to be running cover two this side like why is the ball going there and not over there um so it's like it was one of those where it's not like oh man like jalen was terrible and you know that it wasn't i didn't have that feeling watching it this morning but it was more just like all right like you know i i had more questions than i had like definitive answers walking away from the film he was also also like uncharacteristically inaccurate a couple times.

Yeah, that's definitely part of it. Yeah. I mean, you know, there was the there was the throw he never makes, which was almost picked off, which was like shocking that he made, which was, you know, rolling to his right, throwing to his left, which was completed. And I like, he never makes that throw. The end zone angle on that throw is really tough. Like, because I posted it because Cam Latu had a nice block on Michael Parsons there.

Like, the byproduct is like, you see the end zone angle of that throw. It's like, oh, my God. Like, what was he thinking? Even, you know, even the, even the big Sequin play was like, he almost, he almost dirted that ball. It felt like, I don't know if his arm strength wasn't all the way there last night, but it was, it was an uncharacteristic performance. I think it's fair to say. Why does this team, whenever there's like a slick surface, like they can't get like the cleats right? You tell me.

I don't know. It's wild. There was like the second or third drive of the game. And Claire pointed out in the chat. That's why I, because that was one thing I wrote down, watching the game last night. And also, the other thing about the offense that. I texted you guys about this morning.

Like, don't let me off the hook. Don't let me finish talking about the offense, stop bringing this up. I think they are so worried about being predictable that they like set themselves back by trying to be unpredictable. And I think the biggest, the number one thing that I point to with that assertion is looking at the running. game they and we talk about like okay good example the we talked about the play last night and

everyone's seen it now on social media like moro joe pointing out like oh inside zone are their inside zone this way all right like they're lined up in the shotgun the running back is offset to the right almost always it's going to be a run to the left it's going to be inside zone because it's just the flow of the play it's going to carry that way the running back is going to work opposite of his initial alignment so the eagles know this they've had issues in the pad like you go back to like the chip kelly years like they were extremely predictable from that look. We heard early this season that defenses were calling out their plays pre-snap.

Right. And so what they have done, and to me, like, I think they're going too far the other way is they are running more of these same side plays where it's like you're lining up in the shotgun and let's say the running back is to the right. It's going to be a run to the right. The problem with those plays is that you have awkward footwork and like QB to running back mechanics in terms of like the handoff and they are. slower developing plays which allows the defense and when you have a fast defense like the packers

have like they've got fast players at the second level they've got a fat you know you've got micha parsons you've got guys that have twitch that can win up front um you are inviting guys to be able to get into the backfield at a faster rate and so you know they had a number of like those same side runs in the first half they did it especially in the first half last night where uh it's just like man like they do this so often and i think i think it's with the sole purpose of we don't want to be predictable And it's like, to me, if you have an offensive line that can't manhandle people, that's okay. But if you have an offensive line that is capable, where you have Milata and Dickerson, who is healthy now, and you have these guys, and you're like, yeah, like, we've got Lane Johnson.

You got even like Fred Johnson. Like this is one of the best things he does is like, I'm going to, I'm going to mash the guy in front of me in front of them. I'm going to push this guy forward. Like, to me, like, you don't need to worry about that as much. They're so worried about it that I think that there are, I don't want to say wasted plays, but you have a number of them. I'm like, man, like, just, just, just run inside zone. Yeah, just run duo or get under center. And if you want to, if you want to be less predictable, go under center or run out of the pistol more often, which they're doing.

But like, then they get into the gun and they're like, all right, well, then you don't need to be, you don't need to do this as much because you're doing the stuff from under center into the pistol. Like, you know, open it up a little bit more from the shotgun. Get under center. Get Willie Lampkin in the game. Get Cam Latu in the game. Just give the people what they want. I mean, if they let's, if they let Willie Lampkin do that, it's going to be the last you ever heard of Cam Lottu.

No. No. They can coexist. To this point, a super chat from Polar Jam who says, what was the under center percentage in this game? And I can tell you it was 35% according to True Media, which was the third highest usage of undercenter for the Eagles this season behind the two previous games with the, Giants game at the top. I don't want to steal Danes' thunder for when he comes on the show

later on the week, but that was one thing he texts me. He's worried that they're doing too much of the heavy personnel under center stuff. Is that, do you, like, in terms of like, I don't need to see Grant Calcutera and Kylin Grantson out there in place of AJ Brown. Do you guys, are you guys feeling that way or like, where do you guys sit on that right now? I think it's a good point. Like, you know, when you, you push back on my idea that this could be like a heavy personnel team going into the year it's fair like their best personnel is probably 11 personnel but they've been more productive at a 12 which is why i think they're leading into it so yeah i just it it plays into the same thing which is that it is it is rare that we see them this season change what their game

plan seemed to be midway through the game right this is they came in thinking this was going to be a big uh heavy personnel under center game and despite the fact that it was their worst performance on offense all season long, they kept, you know, bashing their head against the wall. Like, I would just like to see them be more willing to change up in the middle of a game. So I have a question for you about this, Fran. So do you think that the way the offense looked against the Packers is more about like a styles make fights type of scenario where like the Packers are his own heavy team and, you know, they're obviously a very athletic front that can present the Eagles very specific problems? Like, or do you think this is something that can

linger into a game like you know against the lions who are a more man-heavy team because to me i do wonder if it's like this packers defense is like kind of equipped what they what they major in does give the eagles a lot of trouble i i would i'd love to say that it was a one-off thing and this was a match-up thing but this one game didn't make them 26 and success rate or like one of the worst third down team football right like i think that these are issues that we've seen throughout the course of the season um and i would expect them to continue you to be honest now there to me that i think they will have more success against certain defenses that they face you know you might make the point that uh detroit is a little bit more uh aggressive

and they'll play a little bit more man-to-man so that's going to dictate a little bit of a different game plan um but you know i don't know if like hey like you lose lane johnson in the first half and now all of a sudden you want to be a little bit more conservative but i don't know man like you have you have so much talent on that side of the ball yeah not to completely uh you know go back down that path. But it's a frustrating unit to watch. All right. A few more super chance before we get out of here.

Salute to Jocko says the fourth down throw to AJ. It was one thing. But please tell me why did they run it up the middle three times in a row before? So inconsistent. Yeah. That's why it doesn't make sense. So you get into like the outcomes razor. It's like, all right, that wasn't called from the sideline.

Conservative, the whole game. Right. Extremely aggressive. The one time the analytics, probably tell you not to be aggressive. Speaking of which, given the Siriani news you shared with us earlier, friend, which NFL head coach do you think is most upset about that news?

Hmm. Give me a second. Going through the roll of decks. Mm-hmm. It's tough. A lot of contenders, no doubt. Yeah, a lot of contenders, sir. I think I'm going John Harbaugh.

yeah i think that's right i was actually was leaning towards another former eagles assistant interesting the mcdermit yeah no that's a good yeah uh peter mccarthy with a final super chat says it is brett toth an upgrade on jurgens not a healthy jurgens now um i didn't think i thought toth was he was fine last night It was not as good of a game as it was against the Giants. All right. That'll do it for this portion of the PHL Eagles podcast. But thank you to Lindsay for saving us just under the horn because I forgot we have a Brandon Graham interview to play for you from this morning.

Brandon Graham, I arrived at the office this morning at 7 a.m. After leaving the office at 2.30 and I get there and BG is there sleeping in his car, which we talked about in last week's episode. He loves a car nap. The man landed on the tarmac, made it over. That's how dedicated he is to the good people who watch Unblock. So check out this conversation with BG. Thank you, Fran. Thank you, E.J.

Everybody, we will talk to you tomorrow at 2 o'clock. It's Amina Kimes Day. We look forward to that. But until then, enjoy Brandon Graham, and then we'll see you tomorrow. Welcome back to the P.HLY Eagles podcast. Who do we have, Brandon Graham, from the set of Unblocked. And we are, I would say, say minutes after

you landed in Philadelphia. So if you think this is the yawning segment in the past, this is next level here. What a dedication from you to get here this morning, BG? Yeah, man. You got to do what you say you're going to do. And so

you know, I'm glad we got to win because that makes it better. Oh man, this would have sucked if you guys had lost that game. Oh, God. Definitely. So sleeping sleeping through it a little bit, it's like ah, like my bad. But, That would have been brutal. I got to ask you tough questions.

You're falling asleep. Oh, my God. It would have been bad. What was the most impressive part about that defensive performance to you? I think it was just everybody played a part in it. Everybody made plays. And it was cool to see Jaylon Phillips come in and make a big play like that in the end. And, you know, yeah, the good game, all game.

So it was just good to see, like, some of the new additions is holding the end of the bargain. There's got to be kind of a weird thing for him where he feels like, You know, he's the new guy coming from a bad team to the defending Super Bowl champions. He's got to feel like he probably needs to prove himself to his teammates. Oh, for sure. But he ain't got to do too much other than that because we know we've seen your film. We see exactly what you are and who you are. And all you got to do is just keep getting better.

What was he like in the week leading up, you know, as you got to know him in the meeting room and stuff like that? He was pretty chill, pretty chill, open to hear how we do things around here and talked about Miami me a little bit and how they did stuff around there. I mean, it seemed like he had a good culture down there too. It was just more about just sometimes you're just losing and it's tough. I always, I have

a theory that it's very difficult for an NFL team to have sustained success in Miami just because of everything that goes with like being a young professional football player living in Miami. Yeah, it tests you for sure. The first, like

if that's your first time or first or first, like really your first time living there because you're playing there. And so I'm sure during the off season, you ain't got to go, you ain't trying to go home because if you can just pay for your spot there, that's a good spot to be while training. Yeah, that's my theory. We'll see if it gets, you know, proven wrong at some point. But in terms of Jalen Phillips and the week leading in, like, did he tell you anything about how he was feeling?

Did you hear him say that getting traded to the Eagles was probably the best thing that's ever happened in his life? Yeah, we talked about that because. the Dolphins tried to make it or they took a clip of it and tried to make it seem like he throwing a shot at the Dolphins and I know we talked about that but he really wasn't he just was just saying

that he excited to be on the winning team you know you get traded you don't know who you're going to end up with and to come here and to know what they're dealing with as you know Dolphins even though they just won the last game they you know they're dealing with a lot of stuff that he might have not approved

but he's happy that he's here with us because we've been the promise land last year and then we got a shot to do it again this year what's your what's your jalen phillips moment what's the greatest thing that's happened to you in your life

greatest thing in football could be doesn't have to be greatest things my kids being born you know that's the greatest thing yeah but it's really cool to see just how how well he fit in our room and then how about you

getting those snaps getting back out there I know you were on a pitch count How did you feel being on the field? I felt good, a little nervous, just more like... What made you nervous? Because, you know, you want to have a good showing. You want to have a good out. Of course, it ain't going to be perfect, and it was far from perfect.

But I feel like it would get better and better as I continue to keep running. That TFL, we almost had it. I know, almost had it. But you blew up to play. I know, but it's like, for me, just... Did your eyes get a big? You're like... You just want to make a play.

Yeah. And for him to... just fall right up off me it's like oh man come on b you gotta get that but it was cool though i was happy to uh cut them off and that's really what you wanted and get outside of me and uh read and all that was right there i mean that's classic that's classic bg it's like keeping on keeping the back side there didn't what did the guy say to you after that play uh this was you know we always just patting each other you know on the back and then we end up you know it's really the next play mentality all right i mean we're not gonna we're not gonna keep it too long here but uh you had

the flight home tell people like what the what the flight is like yeah so like as you get you know you're getting some sleep but you're a little bit cramped back there so yeah I mean this time around we got first class seats normally you know the coaches up there so we know we be in the back we make make do it with the rows that we do have so why why did you guys get first class this time because that's usually for the people who pay attention that's usually why like the eagles don't get good grades on travel because it's usually coaches in first class Yeah, and it's just, I mean, I think coach is doing a better job of it because they don't want to have a bad grade and that. Right.

And on top of that, I think he's, especially the longer playing rides, he wants us to be able to be comfortable. So I got to give him credit. A short week, maybe part of it, who knows? Yeah, but. But not everybody can sit in first class. So who gets to sit in first class? Just most of the starters, most of the starters and people that got seniority. okay say and were you first class on the way out probably not

oh you were yeah okay so maybe things are changing on the way out uh then like if you on the way out then you come definitely coming home on uh on the same seat okay yeah but it's just if you don't have it in the beginning nah who was your seat mate no you don't have well for me i don't have one so it's like that playing it's like the three the three on the outside and the four in the middle okay so it's two in the middle. You know, if you got somebody with you, two in the middle, then you get, like,

it depends on vets. Okay. Because sometimes you got two guys in those three seats. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So one by the window and one, okay. And in the middle be open. But for me, I got that whole... You get the whole three to yourself? Whole three when we're in the back.

Okay. But when we got in the first class, we get in the pot, so... Oh, you're in the pod. Mm-hmm. Oh, that changes everything. and what a great deal. I know, that's what I'm saying. And then you wish that flight was longer because you could have slept more.

Trust me. And then the crazy part is, you know, when we don't get first class and then we got to walk through first to get off the plane. I'm like, man, look at y'all. But it'd be cool, though.

It's all good. I didn't even think about the pods. The pods are great. I know. They're nice. They feel good. Is it big enough for you guys? Oh, yeah.

The pods? Well, I mean, for me, yeah. And I'm 6'1. I mean, Jalen Phillips maybe or Jordan Davis I will say like Fred and all of them probably be stressed up for Fred

long legs and I mean it's just part of Hey that reminds me The one thing I didn't ask about On the show today Lane Johnson Doing what he did Suffers an ankle injury

And then comes back like late in the game Not what was that was nuts What did you think of that That just show you Lane Show you who Lane is as a player you just don't want you to feel like he quit on you quit on y'all you know and if he can play he's going to play and i mean i know that about him but to do that you know i could have understood him coming out at half time right let's say he gets he gets shot up at half time and there's more

adrenaline but to have been like sitting on the bench for most of the second half and then come in like that's crazy to me it is but that's lame and that's why i love it because he is crazy but in a good way The other thing we talked about on the post game show I mean Lane is so cool That beard That beard is getting out of hand It's getting there It's getting there

But I don't know where he's going with it But it is It is kind of like just spreading it It's like if you messing with it Yeah But yeah he might be on this Kelsey He might be on his Kelsey Last thing

The uh the cleat situation Because a bunch of guys were slipping In the first half What did you like Do you have to tell him like You gotta wear the studs When you're in Lambo Yeah they told us

They told us to make wear the seven studs, seven in studs and some people listen, some didn't. I didn't really have too much traction problems, but some people did. Did you go studs? No, I just had my molds on. Okay.

Yeah, not the studs. Because I really felt like in pregame I really wasn't slipping, so I feel good about it. And why would guys not want to, like why do you not go studs? Is it like you feel a little bit more stuck? How does that?

You know what? Or is it more of a look thing? No, I didn't even look, but it's just, I don't know, I just feel like the Moles is good, too. The Moles is good, too. It's just not as deep as the seven-sevenist does to kind of dig in to where, if it is,

if the surface is slick, you know, to help you dig under that. All right. Good stuff. Check out this week's Unblocked. A really, really good indication of just how hard and how dedicated BG is to this podcast. Check that out.

And just keep everything going on P. Thanks for watching back with more here on the PHOI Eagles podcast.