PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Fran Duffy explains how Jalen Hurts’ Philadelphia Eagles offense exploded in win vs. Bengals | PHLY Eagles

Episode Date: October 28, 2024

It’s the Day After pod, as we bask in the glow of the Eagles’ best performance of the season. Jalen Hurts looks spry, A.J. Brown did what A.J. Brown does, DeVonta Smith made big plays and the backup offensive linemen all did their jobs while Lane Johnson played at his usual level. On defense, Vic Fangio is getting the most out of everyone, including Isaiah Rodgers, who stepped in for Darius Slay, and Cooper DeJean, who looks precocious in his ability to read the game.Fran Duffy joins Bo Wulf to explain what the tape has shown about the Eagles’ 37-17 smacking of the Bengals. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello everybody and welcome to the P.HLY Eagles show presented by Bet365. Download the Bet365 app and use code PHLY365 when you sign up, whatever the moment. It's never ordinary at Bet365. We are here on Monday Day After podcast, Bo Wolf, Fran Duffy and No Zach Berman. That's okay. We're going to forge on without him. You know, as we get older, Fran, sometimes those wedding hangovers hit you the second day after. as opposed to the first day after. I'm just going to go with the excuse that his arms retired from flying out there yesterday.

It was a long day of flying for Zach yesterday. So I'll give him the day off today. Yes, Zach, it will be livid at that insinuation. Yes, very much so. He's in travel difficulty. And so we will talk to him tomorrow. A bit of a trade deadline primer that we're going to do tomorrow. But today, Fran, we are getting into the weeds.

And it's going to make Zach, Even sadder that he's missing this episode because we are all football all the time on this podcast, Fran. We are going to go drive by drive, starting with the offense and then going over to the defense on some of your takeaways. You have just gorged on the film over the past 12 hours or so. I have nibbled at it, but I'm going to let you do the heavy lifting, but I have lots of questions for you because this was a very interesting game. And it felt like in a lot of ways, they're most mature. their best performance of the season. Yeah, and certainly the numbers bear that out, right? I mean, you went through a lot of it last night on the post game show, just to, you know,

from an EPA per drive standpoint, one of the best performances we've seen from this offense in the last couple of years in the Nick Siriani era, and certainly this season. So, you know, and they were able to move the ball on the ground and through the air. So a lot to break down, certainly. All right. Let's start with the offense. Yep. Drive number one. Drive one. And, you know, we know the Eagles have struggled on their opening drives. They did get a field goal out of this drive, but a couple things interesting that I want to go through. First of all, you tweeted the clip of the second play of the game on offense, second and three on this play. And boy, does Lane do something very interesting here. And it was actually, to me, looked reminiscent of

the only third-down conversion they had last week, where maybe the protection call is not perfect, but Jalen's ability to escape and make plays with his leg sort of saves the team there. Yeah, no question. And so what you saw was a kind of the play action protection where Tyler Steen is at right guard and he's pulling from the right side over to the left side to block the defensive end and then you've got Lane Johnson blocking down. But it's kind of weird because nobody accounts for the the linebacker on that side. There's a blitzing corner coming off that side. Seekwan does a nice job of kind of abandoning the play action fake. And you see Lane after he passes the defensive end off, he kind of peels

off him and doesn't outstanding job of picking up the linebacker. And it's a ridiculous play. And it's funny because you look at it. You don't typically see a play like that, but, you know, Elaine with his athleticism and also the discipline on that play because it would have been very easy for him to get a block in the back or a holding penalty or obviously give up a hit on Jalen Hertz. But the athleticism and the discipline there to be able to make that block and help Jalen get free was certainly big. So I have a funny, I have a funny little anecdote here. Okay. Because I think it was it was either two weeks ago, I think it was two weeks ago.

Penae Sewell makes a similar play. and I think Nate Tice had tweeted about it. And I went in, I wanted to ask Lane about that play. And I showed him the clip on Twitter. And it was like, oh, yeah, like that happened sometimes. And I was just talking about it. Like, does that ever happen to you? When's the last time it happened?

I was like, ah, I'm trying to think it's been a couple of years and all, you know. And so I think there's a chance that right after the game is over, he sends that to Mannyweather, his boy. And he's like, get this out there. I did the same thing. Peney's got nothing on me. It's just a, and what's crazy about it, too, is that, you know, I made this point when I posted the clip is the,

that I always equate defensive backplay to offensive line play just because those guys, you know, it's an unnatural kind of thing to move in reverse. You're defending and trying to block guys that are coming at you moving forward. And it's a very defensive back-esque type of movement, what Lane does on that play, where he kind of flips his hips and does a great job. He looks like Keeley Ringo being a jammer on the punt return unit doing a nice job there to spring open Britain Covey or Cooper DeGine. So outstanding job by Lane on that play. we talked about some of the protection issues on the protection calls being an issue last week. This probably was a little bit on Jalen for the call.

Throughout the course of the game, though, was that the case? Or was this more of an aberration on this Sunday? Yeah, I think that it was more of an aberration. I mean, the numbers from a pressure standpoint, I was probably like halfway through the game. And I'm like, man, like these pockets for Jalen are just ridiculous. He was barely touched in the game. And so I stopped like halfway through. And I said, I got to look at some of these numbers.

He was pressured four times. zero unblocked pressures, which that was the first time that's happened all season. Four pressures this year is by far a season low. The previous season low was 12, and that was last week. And they had 12 the week before that as well. So it's getting progressively better from a pressure standpoint. We've said that that's been one of the differences for Jalen this year is that he has just dealt with more pressure. So the Fred Johnson games and stuff like that,

kind of carried a little bit more weight just because that Tampa game, he was under duress, almost every single drop back. But when you look at him in this game, I mean, he was. who's barely touched, outstanding job from the offensive line in this game. All right, let's move on later in that drive. Tell me about the second and eight, they hit that big crosser to A.J. Brown,

and you didn't love the design of that play live when it first happened. Not in this specific situation, but in general, you don't love when there are crossers coming towards each other because you're inviting an opportunity for maybe one of the other defenders

to come into the throwing lane and pick it off. But when you saw the All-22, did your mind change on this design? design it definitely did a little bit just because i saw what kind of happened on the play we got we didn't get the all 22 angle of it uh on the broadcast now i still don't love it but i like it's a little bit easier for me to swallow uh watching the replay back and it's funny you're you're actually going to love this one of the reasons why it worked to the extent that it did was that you know so basically they're running a dagger concept one of my one of my favorite plays uh i break it down all the time

you see it they constantly throughout around the nfl uh the bengals ran it a couple times times in this game where you've got the number two receiver, the slot receiver running vertically up the field kind of clearing out the middle for a deep dig route or a deep in breaking route behind it. And so that's what the Eagles are running to Jalen's left. It's a, it's in the clear out route is being run by Devante Smith and Jahan Dotson is running the deep dig. Now Dotson gets jammed up at the line of scrimmage by Cam Taylor Britt, who's in press coverage there at the top of the screen to the offenses left. And so that kind of delays the timing there for Jahan Dotson. And that's why like Dotson and AJ aren't like on top of each other at the catch point.

It was because Dotson got delayed kind of getting out of it, which I'm sure again, I knew that you would love that aspect of it. But that's very funny. Yeah, but to me, I still don't love the idea of throwing a couple of end breakers, especially like basically at the same level. I mean, AJ and Jahan are like two yards apart in terms of where their routes are crossing. And so if the if the Bengals were running a different coverage on this play, they were running Tampa two, which is a great play to run or a great.

a great coverage if you're running dagger like you love that they're running Tampa too because that linebacker is running down the middle of the field it should be wide open for it and end up being wide open for AJ Brown it's a big reason why I went for 29 yards and and to be fair dealing with a nice clean pocket but a very

good pro from from Jalen Hurts on this play no question and again you just want to they did a lot of play action in this game and this was one of those examples where he just kind of dropped back and the beauty of those play action plays is that by the time that you get to the top of your drop as the quarterback because of the play action fake.

Things have already kind of developed downfield. And so it should be a more defined throw. There's a little bit less reading involved, typically with some of those play action throws. And as I as I told you before the show, I was going to save it for the show, but I didn't, I didn't let you know. Over the course of the season, Fran, the Eagles, when they run play action, number one in the league in EPA per dropback. The best offense in football when they run play action. And yet, over the course of the season, they're only running it somewhere in the mid-20s, depending on how you define it.

But, you know, let's keep it going. And a ton of under-center in the game yesterday as well. Now, I think that's a little bit skewed because so much of it was those last two drives. And there were a bunch of push-push-pushes in the game, too. So that'll lead to it as well. But I think that that was definitely notable. It's the second game in a row where they came out under-center on the very first play of the game. Yes, exactly.

Now, for a second here, I have to divert because the chat is going a little bit silly. Zach has sent them on the wrong path. No surprise. Zach is trying to stir things up when he's not here. I'm not taking credit for Lane making that play. I'm saying there's a possibility that the reason it was tweeted right after the game by Lane's buddy might have a little something to do with that. Not the play itself. And trainer, I will say more than just his buddy.

Duke is his trainer. I thought that you said that you basically, you texted Stout and said you need to do this four four lanes. So I think that adds up. Give you a break. Debrones. I got, I got to go.

I got something else to say about not the sickos, but the morons on social media in a little bit. But we'll get there. Okay. Another play very quickly. The first and 10 quick snap to Devante for where you're like, oh my gosh, another catch for negative yards for Devante.

AJ just misses that block. Yeah, no question. That's one where there are our people. on that play. AJ just misses the block on the, on the number two defender. So Mike Hilton goes in there and makes the play. That's the second time they ran that RPO on the drive.

The first one went for two yards on the little sweet play to Sequin Barclay, where Pratt kind of out leveraged it. Fred Johnson couldn't get up to the backside linebacker where they came back and they ran it. I actually thought it was, look, it was very telling. And we talked about how conservative the approach was early on in this game. But it was, you know,

you saw the, a lot of RPO's, a couple of screens, like they wanted to kind of ease jalen uh into this game and we know how much it opened opened up by the time you got to like midway through the second quarter but early on very conservative and we saw a bunch of r pos early on some of these comments are very funny uh my favorite so far is the only thing that beau didn't invent was the journey to the draft podcast uh because of course you know that obviously ran that him with his entire self uh we had that ticky tack hold on uh on tyler steen uh on the jalen scramble which i thought was a you know a good scramble where where there wasn't necessarily

anything open on that one. And then one other thing that just, you know, you stands out every game you watch, just the, the extra little hidden yards that Sequin gets almost every single time he touches the ball and that little, little swing pass they throw to him where he just makes one cut. And it looks like, you know, this is going to be a play that game's one or two yards and he gets like six or something like that. And there are so many runs throughout the game where he's, he is, he's moving the pile. It is, it's just so impressive to watch. Yeah. And that's, you know, it's the, it's the, it's the double-edged part of that play is because, look, it's second in a mile, right? It's second and 22.

I don't love running like swing screens on second and 22 because even if you have like a nice gain, which that, you know, that picked up seven yards. That's nice. It brings up to third and 15, right? And so it's, I don't love the idea of that. But Sequin, certainly in those situations is going to do better than your average back. And then third and 15, the drive ends as we were watching the game live, Fran, they're lining up and you're like, all right, here comes the fate to AJ. And that's what they threw. but on that play on that design seemed like the fine decision just just the not exactly a perfect throw yeah not the best ball just landed out of bounds to the right but you know that's the you know when we talk about uh i know zach is in the chat and one of the things that you'll consistently hear the players and coaches say to say to the reporters and zach has reiterated it to us is that you know what you don't account to with these numbers is that that's a j brown on the other side and it's like well not every one of these throws every one of these dropbacks is going to be extremely catchable.

right, there are layers to it, and certainly that was a good example of it, where AJ was open, like it was there, but that's a tough throw to always make time after time after time, and this one was just a little bit outside. And by the way, if you have also been impressed by every time Sequin touches the ball, the amount of extra yards he's getting, you can show your love at the all-P-HLY locker by getting that Sequeen shirt. And there's a few other little Eagles shirts available for you, so check those out. All right, move to the second drive, the only drive in this game,

in which the Eagles did not score a point, Fran. And one of the, there were several moments of cackles, I thought, on the film. One of them is the, is the Landon Dickerson, an eligible man downfield one. The timing just gets messed up on the screen,

it looks like, but he just starts running. Yeah, it was, and this one was not on Landon. The ball should be out by that point. It was just bad timing between Jalen and Stakelund gets, gets sort of caught up there, right?

Yeah, he gets held up, and Jalen didn't want to kind of cut it loose yet, just because it was a little bit muddy there. But to me, like, the best part was that was, this was the Anaya Smith sighting. He's the motion man taking some of those motion snaps away from John Dotson. Yeah, good stuff. On third and ten, good timing on the, on the throat of A.J. Brown, top of the drop, gets it out to A.J. on the outside for nine yards.

And then they can do the, the tush push. And then the drive ends basically on what was the worst play of the day from Jalen Hertz, I thought. And, you know, on the, you know, as long as, as long as you don't make the same mistake twice, it's okay to make mistakes. I mean, this is the same mistake he made. And I think it was the Packers game when he throws that ball to Kenny Gainville here to the sideline. And it's a pick six waiting to happen. And the Eagles are lucky that it is not. Yes.

So that one, basically he wanted A.J. Brown on the ISO slant to the right side. That got taken away. And so I think just he was, he was, his clock was a little bit fast. and he was like, okay, if this isn't there, my other quick game routes aren't going to be there yet either. I'm going to go immediately to the checkdown. And so like almost blindly went through it. And lucky it wasn't picked off by Logan Wilson.

Yeah, that's a tough one. But really his only bad play of the day. Yes. Okay. Drive three. Eagles are down 10 to 3 at this point. And this is their own, this is their last drive of the first half. And now here's where I got to sound off a little bit, Fran.

Okay. They have this third and one, tush push on this drive. and I tweeted during the game, I said something to the effect of, like the third and one tush push from the 46-yard line is lazy offense. And I believe that to be the case. And all these mouth breathers are still coming after me,

like, oh, like giving me the sponge bob thing. Like, oh, this plays unstoppable. It's so efficient. You don't want them to run the play that nobody can stop? Yeah. Hey, moron. The whole point is that if nobody can, can stop it. You can do it on fourth down. Okay. It's the perfect place in the field where you know

you're going to go for it anyway. So do something different. Now, as this game goes on, we see all different kinds of interesting things on offense, but to this point of the game, we had not. And so, like, don't come at me. And I got to say, you know, as we are, as we are fretting about the state of the country. And it's, it's always disconcerting just how many racist people there are willing to be racist. It's also disconcerting. Just how many. dumb people there are there and uh we know that they are they yeah well without getting too deep into it yesterday was an ugly day uh for a lot of reason but uh yeah i do think that um when you look at back going back to that play call that was one like in the moment i was i was surprised that they were

going toish push third and one especially look they they came back after getting that after getting the first down then they go out and they and they run a nice like a little spread concept a little smash route and they hit grant cockatara for 19 yards down the left sideline that was the right. Did you think he should? It looked like Stoll was open on the post there. You think he goes there or Calcutterra's a nice safe? No, I think Calcuttaire was the right read on that one.

Look, versus, verse cover two, the post is open, the middle of the field's open. But I think that just in terms of like the progression and how that was working out, I think that was the right read, especially in that situation. Like, but to me, like that that third and one decision to go for the to go for the push, that kind of goes to like that conservative mindset early on in the game of, all right yeah let's just convert this year's let's get to the next set of downs as opposed to like saying all right you know we want to take a shot with our quarterback here like we you know we have a lot of faith in his ability to kind of drop back and get us this first down um so yeah that that was that

it's the same thing as trying to draw them off sides on the on the two point conversion it's like let's let's approach this game like we are the big bad like stop trying to take eke out little like first downs here like you know play for something bigger but uh as the game goes on they things uh things open up basically like from this this point on was where thing kind of opened up. And honestly, it's like I was asking you before the show about the motion numbers. And the motion numbers were very high for them, right? 63% is well above their average.

It certainly looked like that. It felt to me, as this game goes on, that like, oh, this is the week one offense again. It's as if weeks two through six were just some parentheses that had nothing to do with the rest of the offense. I don't know why it was like that. I don't know what changed things, but all of a sudden it's like, oh, this is, this is the offense again. The, the, I mean, we'll get to it, obviously, but the convert the, uh, the play they hit Calcutera in the fourth quarter to like kind of cement seal that drive. And I was like, I'm pretty sure that was the same play. The Sequant Barkley touchdown against Green Bay with the wheel out of the backfield.

It was. It was the same exact play. Uh, and again, we haven't seen that since week one. We said on the show like, how can we haven't seen that? They ran it so much in camp. And then there, there's, uh, here in week eight. All right. Uh, sticking with the, this, this third drive here. Another very funny moment I thought is the, Devante false start as Jalen goes up to to change the play on the line. And then he goes out to tell Devante and AJ what the play is. And AJ's like, what's the call? And Devonte's like, no idea.

Shows his arms up. And then like that's how you get the false start. And then we talked about the BS Tyler Steen penalty. Yeah, terrible. It's got to be, I mean, like, you got, blow the whistle or don't on that one. And then if you watch it, if you watch the, just the broadcast back, like, you can see like the whistle is being blown after Tyler is already like basically there. Like he's crazy. He's at top speed.

Meanwhile, the other ref is like pulling his flag out as Tyler's running towards the pile. Terrible. Just terrible. Really bad. But in terms of the execution and also just how important it was to the flow of this game, the third and 16th throw to AJ Brown from Jalen Hertz is as big boy of a throw as he had to make in this game. And as impactful as it was as it leads to a touchdown. Great progression reading from Jalen Hertz.

He looked calm, poised. This was a, you know, a clean. pocket. They're playing a version of cover two where you've got six defenders underneath. It's third and 16 and it's drop eight coverage. So you've got two deep, six under. It's just a three-man rush. The offensive line did a great job of holding up in that three-man rush. Kenny Gainwell was giving Fred Johnson some help there on that play. He chips the defensive end, Hendrickson, and then Fred was able to pick him up after that. But outstanding pocket, he starts to his right. He wanted Devante Smith on like a deep outbreaking route. That's taken away because of the underneath

coverage there. And so he gets his eyes back across the field and he finds AJ. AJ found a soft spot in his own coverage. And he rifled that ball in. It was a it was a great drop back from Jalen Hertz on that play. And again, a very, very clean pocket on that play. To talk big picture of the game, you thought Fred Johnson acquitted himself pretty well, right? Yeah. I mean, they look, they they helped them on a number of plays, right? We saw some where it was the running back, somewhere it was the tight end. But there are a number of plays that I pulled that that I'll post on the breakdown where it's third and six and he's one-on-one with Trey Hendricksson and he does a nice job holding up. So it wasn't like, oh, they helped them on every single play, but he did a really nice job holding up against his former teammate.

And how about Steen? I thought Steen had a nice day too. You look, the two penalties are what they are. We've already talked through them. But I think when you look at the way that he held up, I mean, the whole offensive line, like it's going to be tough to say that any of them created poorly in this one just because of what they were able to do, both in the run game and certainly in past protection. I would say the pass pro was a little bit more consistent than run blocking in this game, but across the board, everybody performed well. And then my last thing on this drive is if you watch the Jalen Hertz draw,

which is a nicely designed draw, after the play, very funny dancing from Sequin Barkley. I miss that. Oh, it's a good dance. All right. I'll have to go and pull that. Jalen Hurts made a great cut on that play. It makes the linebacker missing space.

He had Cam Juergens at the second level, was really, really strong. That was the play immediately after the 17-yarder to, AJ. So 17 yards to AJ brings up first and 10. Jalen goes, QB lead draw. They ran the QB draw like three or four times in this game. So the quarterback runs were definitely in the play or in the game plan and Hertz comes through 12 yards and helps slip them up for a touchdown. This is maybe a little bit confirmation bias just because it was their best win of the season. And, you know, they're winning by 20 points at the end. But I felt like throughout the game, this was their best play personality of the season. Like you saw it like the like the Sequin. Dan.

Like when you see the offensive lineman all the backup offensive linemen all running to Will Shipley after he scores its touchdown like Darius Slay's dropping a shoulder on the outside on on Chase Brown. There's like a J throwing his hands up on the Devante touchdown. I thought like there was a like team celebration stuff. It felt like and that's what we've talked about like sometimes this is a front running team. But it was over the course of this game. I thought like just the juice that they had was was impressive. It's funny you say it because I judge I watched the offense first this morning and then the defense. I literally just finished the defensive film like 10 minutes before we came on.

So that's all I've been doing all day. And so I get to the end of the defense and that's when the turnover's happened. Right? You had the, the interception and then the fumble recovery. And when the fumble, there's the end the fourth, the turnover on downs, but when Cooper DeGee makes that tackle on fourth down, the, you see all these young guys on defense, like running the ball. And it couldn't, I actually like, I couldn't help but smile.

Like it was like, you could see like the energy with those guys. They played with some joy in this game. Yeah. Yeah. Like, it's fun to watch those guys. have fun for the first time because you know you're talking like moro jama and like nolan smith like guys where they they were here for the downturn last year and then it's obviously been up and down this year and so just seeing those guys kind of like cut loose and have fun and we talked about like

popping the seal with the with the turnovers yesterday hopefully that you know they say like turnovers come in bunches like hopefully now like those guys are playing a little bit looser we'll see if it happens all right well uh you can be a little bit looser with your wallet if you listen to our sponsor in just a second Most Americans think they spend about $62 a month on subscriptions. Their real number? Closer to 300. That's a big difference.

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Well, we talked a lot already about some of the changes we saw from the Eagles offense in this game. And when you think over the years, there have been certainly a lot of changes with this team, a lot of turnover and just different faces, different places, a lot of change. But one thing that has not changed over the course of over the course of the last few years with the Eagles, and certainly beyond that, Miller Light, the great taste of Miller Light. Another thing that has not changed, Miller Light is less filling. So what is the best thing about the original light beer? Miller Light sparked this debate.

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Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories per 12 ounces, fewer cows and carbs than premium regular beer. All right. Tell me what you think about this, Fran. There's a comment in the chat I see from YTube who says, I could see ZB with some reckless unorganized subscriptions. Dude probably has 20 subs to random newspapers. Now, obviously, I know that one thing Zach is never reckless with is the way that he's spending his money. There's no way. He doesn't know about the things that he's spending.

So Zach comes into the chat and says, yes, on volume of subs, no, on reckless or disorganization. However, it looks to me as if in the middle of this episode, Fran, Zach has changed his photo, his YouTube photo. So this is how he's spending his time in the airport. No, now it's back to the old one. What's going on? It's the, I mean, look, this, he could. He could have jumped on. He's saying now that he's compelled to jump on from the airport.

Is there a fake Zach? Is there a Zach imposter in the chat? That's actually a good idea. That could be it. Oh, with the hat, too. Wow. What's going on, guys? Good to see you.

There's Zach with his Rob Lohat. I have a lot of fomo right now about not being there in, well, I'm not in studio, but doing this full show with you. I've been learning a ton. from fran some from beau but a ton from fran um i can say the picture situation was on my phone i'm logged into my p h oi account my laptop uh my gmail account so i went from my phone to my laptop and uh and so then i quickly switched when i saw that but i don't want to take away from the show i'm happy to add to it um but i uh this is a great day after show it actually i i kind of

feel like I'm getting Wally fit to bit. No, it's even better now. Thank you. You sound like you are nursing the wedding hangover. No, I'm definitely not nursing a wedding hangover. I'm trying. I'm not trying to project my voice in Aloha fashion because I am in a gate in Cincinnati airport, as you can see. Yeah, it looks crazy.

Yeah, I tried to find, hey, I might be here for the next nine hours. So I'm trying to get I'm making myself comfortable. All right. Well, Zach, do you want, are you trying to hang with us or is this just a cameo pop in here? What's what do you think? Whatever you want, you're the host. I mean, I don't want to take away from from you and Fran. I'm joined the discussion though.

Okay. Well, you know, I would say how about go back in the chat and if there's something you feel like popping it on, we're here. Perfect. Perfect. Keep up the great work guys. Really enjoy it. Thanks, Zach. All right. drive four drive four first drive of the second half eagles come out get the ball uh 10 you mentioned i believe the the 28 yarder to grant calcutera and this is a funny one because a j's

holding his hand up and like he wants he wants the ball but there's a little bit of pressure uh holding up jalen and i thought i thought this was a nice uh calm decision and then he gets the ball to to calcatera for a big play yeah typically this is the one of the classic like three level stretch plays and typically when you have a three level stretch that's where you have receivers at all three levels, one vertical, one at the intermediate, and one underneath. Typically, those are designed to go to the intermediate route. That is typically the first read. Sometimes it could change by game plan.

Some coaches prefer to be more aggressive and say work deep to short. So AJ actually makes Camp Taylor Britt fall on the play. If you look at the bottom of the screen to the left-hand side of Jalen Hertz, he actually makes Taylor Britt fall. And so that's why AJ puts his hand up because he's like, oh, I'm wide open. You're going to have me here. But that just goes back to the conversation. had last week about like alerts and you say all right if they if he's if that's not where jaylin's

are going to start he's not going to see a j there especially because grant is starting from the opposite side he started his route from the other side also wasn't like on platform when it would have been the time to throw that ball exactly jaylert did a good job of recovering there but uh no there was a nice rhythm throw and it's coming off the heels of a third and five really nice rhythm throw to devante smith on a nice little uh hit route on the outside for the first down That was a good example of the Fred Johnson one-on-one with Trey Hendrickson. They left a one-on-one there, and he held up in a quick game concept. But the 28-yard at a Calcutara really got the drive going, certainly.

A few plays later, a second and nine, we get the under-center play action. And I think this is the play that, you know, Sequin drops in the Falcons game. You know, it's like the kind of half-hearted play action. You know, Sequin goes out. And he finds Calcutra on the backside. This one, he does miss a wide open, A.J. Brown. and AJ sort of gallops after the play. Like, ah, that could have been a touchdown.

Yeah, but you know what? I actually don't kill Jalen for this checkdown because Gino Stone was basically was in that window. And I could see why Jalen was like, yeah, I'm not going to push the issue here. You know, it's second and nine. It's the, you know, you can't go broke, taking a profit kind of approach there where he dumps that off to Jack Stoll as the like the as the checkdown option. And they pick up six yards to bring up third and three as opposed to trying to force that in.

And maybe it's complete, but number one, it could be picked off or could it be an incomplete pass. And now it's third and long. So I actually, after watching that, watching it live, I was like, oh, like that's, you know, I don't know. Maybe he should have tried to force that to AJ. But watching it on tape, I actually felt like I was okay with that checkdown. I just, I bring it up because there's the there's the two little moments of AJ like wanting the ball. And I think it's on purpose that the first play of the next drive. Yes.

They make sure. Yes. Play action. Get the ball to AJ right away. First play. A thousand percent, I don't think that was an accident. Yes, you understand your players. So that drive ends with the touchdown on the zone read from Jalen Hertz.

And, you know, listen, I know we have this conversation all the time. I did think that he looked faster in this game. I don't know why that is if it's just confirmation bias or whatever, but I did. And we haven't seen him turn the corner quite like this on those zone reads. It seems like in my mind. That sense he defense is not a fast group. Those guys look slow on that play, especially like, John Bell was the guy that was like just in the middle of the field and did not look like a safety should look trying to chase a guy to the flat.

I will say that that play was an audible from Jalen Hertz. And I do feel like that was something I feel that we saw. Look, there's no charting for this. Right. Like there's there there's no charting for like how often a quarterback audibles the line of scrimmage. That might actually be something that would be interesting to, uh, to, to have charted at some point. But, um, it felt like there were a lot of audibles from Jalen Hertz in this football game. And a lot of them were positive, right?

I mean, that was a, that one is certainly a good example. where he saw the look pre-snap and said, you know what, if we run a basic zone read here, it's me 101 with the edge, and he was able to take it. All right. So they go up 1710 there, drive number five. We talk about they start it with the completion to AJ Brown,

who we'd missed twice on the last drive. And this was an interesting one too. It reminded me again of Green Bay. They just do like just that little, tiny little motion on AJ. And it helps set them up for that route. Yep. And both guys, and Devante were tight splits on that play.

So that prevents typically a form of press coverage. You get those guys releasing up to the second level with a full head of steam. Basically, you had both guys kind of releasing and I'll do the visual for our, for our viewers here. But if you're an audio listener, imagine both guys basically running side by side, one goes left, one goes right. You know, or they hit an intersection and they both kind of go opposite ways. And it was a rhythm throw from Jalen. He just basically trusted that that AJ was going to be open there because of the formation, because of the alignment, the corner was not going to be able to make a play on that ball if he put it out

by the sideline. And they were able to convert there for 23 yards. And then the big play happens on second and eight. The touchdown to Devante Smith. Tell us about that concept what happened there. Yeah, so they went max protection where you basically had the tight ends were held in to hold against the defensive end, Trey Hendrickson. But this is a classic play that we've seen so many times from the Eagles over the year. and I think back really to me, like watching all of Deshawn Jackson's big plays over the course of his career, this was a play that they ran to Deshawn Jackson all the time in the early Andy Reid era,

where basically you've got a, there was oftentimes it was Brent Selick, like young Brent Selick, where he would run like a deep curl route on one side. So imagine like just a tight end over to the left. He runs the curl route. That was Calcutera in this instance. Deshaun Jackson in the slot to the right. And he's running like a deep over route, a deep post route, like running out, into grass in the open field.

And as long as the tight end or that whoever that receiver is to the other side is able to hold that safety there, then you should have plenty of space. Just let your guy go get it. And that's exactly what happened here on this play where Jalen Hertz was able to just kind of loft this up. The ball didn't need to be perfect. And it wasn't a perfect ball, but it was a more than good enough throw for Devante Smith to track this and make an outstanding catch over the shoulder.

You know, a classic like low probability throw from the Eagles in this office. but when you have AJ Brown, Devante Smith, those guys can make those plays for you on the back end. And so outstanding catch there from Devante Smith. But I really like the design as well on that play. The safety on that side, Von Bell, bit so hard on the play action fake. This was a play action throw for Jalen Hertz.

And it bit so hard on the play action that, you know, it gave Devante so much room to get over the top. And this was, you know, it's easy to say this because it worked out so well over the course of the game. but the balance in this game between those shots deep, but not just shots deep, shots in the middle of the field, you know, like those intermediate throws for like 20 yards. And then also stuff in the short game. Like the all around nature of the passing game in this game was impressive,

even though there wasn't a ton of volume. Yeah. And that's what, you know, to me, like the best offense is it's not just about like the 40 and 50 yard plays. It's the can you get those 23-yarders and those 27-year. yarders. Like, are you able to get those ways? And that's where like the middle of the field typically comes into play with those kinds of those kinds of. That's where the teams usually are able to find those big chunks is in the middle. Now, the Eagles, obviously, that's not where they find those chunks, but the Eagles in this game, we're able to get those. We talked about the first play of this

drive, that divide concept to A.J. Brown, you know, the Calcutara one on the, on the three-level stretch. And just finding different ways to be able to get those chunk plays through the air. Drive 6 happens after the turnover on downs, the play by Cooper DeGine, which we will get to in a little bit. This is just a field goal drive. Nothing too interesting here, but this is when like it really hit me that, okay, we're seeing all this motion again. Wow, this really does look like that week one offense. But anything from that from that drive that you feel like talking about. Yeah, I actually didn't pull a play from this drive.

This was a three and out, but there was a three and out that resulted in a field goal because he just started on plus territory. So they went to run plus zero to Sequin Barkley. Fred Johnson lost at the point of attack and forced Sequin Barclay to kind of stutter his feet. The rest of the offensive line didn't can push there. Then after that was an RPO where you had, honestly, it was the QB draw or the swing pass. Jalen had the option. I'm not sure actually why he didn't throw the swing. He ended up running this football.

Jalen did for no gain. I actually thought the swing was the better option there on that one, just in terms of the read and the deployment of the defense. But that brings up third and 10. They throw a slant to A. A.J. Brown, great release, great route from A.J. but goes for six yards. So it brings up 4 and 4 and they end up kicking a field goal.

All right. And then drive number 7, and this is the – This is just – I mean, this is it. Go out and win the game. And boy, do they. It's 2717, with 12-16 left. And they go 12 plays, 85 yards, 7 and a half minutes. Just awesome to see them do that.

And it starts. They open up first two plays. They do 22 personnel. They've got Van Sumer on the field with two tight ends. First run goes for 10 plus. Next one goes for six or seven. And they're starting to sort of enforce their will. But it's not just like a four minute running drive.

They're doing all kinds of stuff on this drive. But to set the tone there was kind of nice. Yeah, you went run, run, run, run, pass, run, pass, run, run, pass, run, run, pass, run, run. So, you know, it's definitely run heavy. But the big thing was on those pass plays, what have we seen from these drives that have stalled out? and you know this is kind of obviously it's silly you but i when you see those drives that stall out when they try and lean into the run game well you if you got to make those pass attempts you got to make those dropbacks count and so in this in this drive one third and seven the slants devante fantastic

yeah outstanding and the motion that was a great example of how motion sometimes like it's just about putting those guys the the defense and trying to force communication for the defenders and you can see that the motion kind of messed up the Cincinnati dbs and they were as the ball snapped those guys were just like getting down into their stance because they're trying to communicate of who's going to run with who. And it was a simple motion, but Devante Smith got matched up on DJ Turner. And it was against cover one, against man coverage. And Devante's able to win on a slant route for a first down. That picked up 11, or picked up nine yards on third and seven.

And there's another one to Devante on second and seven. Yep. You know, it seems like sometimes that like on these four minute drill drives that like Devante is the go-to guy. Like in the guts of the game for whatever reason, when you have to just win in space, sometimes it's Devante. Yeah, this was a one of two big blitzes on the day from Cincinnati. It's, it's second and seven. And they go full cover zero blitz, you know, six-man pressure.

And this was a rhythm throw from Jalen Hertz. Like no panic whatsoever. I don't know if he expected it or if he was just staying cool under pressure, but understood like, hey, this is where the ball is going to go. And his blitz numbers on the day. I mean, they only, actually, it was six dropbacks. One was a scramble, but he was four for five for 50 yards against the blitz. So just another very, like, efficient day for Jalen Hertz against the extra pressure.

The big Sequin run happens on second and six. And this is another one personality-wise where you see Lane, like really celebrating the run and like running down with his, with his fist in the air, which is awesome on this play. The second and 10 play action to Kalkatera. This is like a nice, another sort of mature throw from Jalen where he could like, you could think about taking a deep shot. He takes the 11 from Kalkatara, although I do think this is the only time in the game. where Jehan Johnson would be right to be upset for not getting the ball. Well, no, this is, this is the, this is the, this is the, this is the, so Kenny Gainwell is running the, the, the play through the formation, and he's running the wheel down the left

sideline. So he's running down the left and you have Calcutara working across, and he's right in the field of vision. So that, that, that's the second read there for Jalen on that play. Jehanah on that play, he's basically just clearing out for Gainwell. I know, but he's wide open. He's wide open. But yeah, that's, the he's the he's the he's the clear out route uh on that play and so um it goes to like why i love that play so much is that that that's that going going back to what we said last week jackath he was like if you if you're uh kellen more like what do you do to try and fix this is get some more of these like pure progression throws in there for jalen where he can kind of work from one to two

to three to four across this field of vision and this was a good example where that first reeds taken away all right my second one is right here walking into a way running into my vision and he's able to hit calcutera uh it was 17 yards on first and 10 or no sorry a 11 yards on first. 11 yards. Yeah. Yep. And then the run down to the one.

That was 17 yard from Sequin. What an unbelievable run that was. An awesome run. It makes it that of nothing there. And this is what you want is you want to get, you want to try and force the corner to make a tackle. Like that's what every, basically every run play is designed.

Like, all right, how do we get our running back one on one, either with the safety or with the corner? They bring Devante Smith in tight to the formation. He's going to crack the safety. And now it's, hey, if Seaquin could get to the corner,

make the corner tackle. And the corner was not able to make this tackle. And also just a great finish from Sequin where you see he's got the speed to get there. But you see like he kind of just, you know, not to get into like the nitty gritty of like the biomechanics of it, but like engage his core and just lower his shoulder into that safety and just run through contact, tightrope the sideline. If it nearly scores, that would have been a ridiculously athletic play if he scored there. It goes down at the one.

Probably should have rewarded him with a touchdown, but that's okay. And then last drive. Yeah, I mean, but that drive itself was like, okay, this team wants to be for real, go out and like ice this game away. Boy, boy, did they answer the call. So that was really great to see. Last drive, I don't think we need to spend too much time before we get to our ad break. But the Shipley run with that guy, that got called back is a very nice run. There's also a really, really nice gain well run on that drive where he does a little hesitation thing was awesome.

Yeah. Those kind of plays, I kind of struggle. I'm like, oh, like is that indecisiveness or patience? right or on that one like that that's a zone run where I wrote down like I wish he trusted it more because it was open early I it was open early like if he hits that with a head of steam like it's almost like honestly it's like Shipley it wasn't it was actually the same run to the other side obviously the defense kind of played it a little differently but shipley hits that with a head of steam and he's and he's out the gate and he ends up scoring you know Kenny did a great job with his feet of kind of making the guy you know navigating through that tight space and he picked up 11 so it wasn't a bad run. but I actually wish he kind of just hit that from the jump, and it might have gone for more. Oh, that's so funny. I thought that was like his best run of the season.

I thought it was cool. He had a couple really good ones last week, Kenny, so he's been feeling it. And then last thing to note, the offensive line at the end of the game was left to right, Fred Johnson, Darren Kinnard at left guard. Interesting that Juergen stayed in at center.

Nick Gates played right guard and Steen came off, and then Driscoe was at right tackle. Just a little something. We know how much you were invested in that, in terms of how that depth, is deployed. Well, you know that. That's the only thing I care about. Yes. The only thing you're going to care about is this ad read that's coming up in just a second. True Mark Financial. Our friends are locking it down there. He locking it down. He lock is the home equity line of credit that

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Regain your confidence, visit Gladhaer MCTR.com or call 6109804,000 to get started. All right. Let's move on to the deal. Any other final thoughts on the offense? I think we can. No, I mean, there's a lot to cover there on that side. and it was obviously as a great day in both phases of the game. So a lot to break down.

And I'll probably write off the offense first for pHly.com. So that'll be a piece I would say realistically is probably coming up tomorrow on all phtly.com. All right. Let's talk defense. And it starts on that first drive where, you know, the Bengals methodically moved down the field, a bunch of third down conversions. Third and one it starts with. You get Jordan Davis on the field.

There's a sort of a solid Bryce Huff rush. but, you know, Borough finds he's got Gassicki one-on-one with read Blankenship and delivers that one. Yep. So there was the, you know, the motion kind of created the one-on-one there. Gisiki to read blanket ship, that was a matchup that they wanted. Cincinnati clearly felt good about that throughout the course of the day because they went to it a handful of times. You know, and Gisiki, look, he's a limited player, but what he does is he's very good at the catchpoint and boxing out and kind of using his size to his advantage. and that's what he did a couple of times in this game.

I just think overall we're going to talk through the rest of the drive. I think a lot of people will be quick to say like, oh, this is just like Tampa in terms of like Tampa, just kind of marched down the field. I felt, I actually felt the opposite. I pulled a bunch of play. Basically when I'm going through in my notes,

I'll like color code each, each like line in the spreadsheet of the notes. And if it's like red play for like, oh, there's something really bad here or there are green, something good. Far more green from this drive. I really felt like the Eagles made them earn it. Like this was like, this was a tough drive for Cincinnati where they threw everything they had at the Eagles defense from a schematic standpoint. And I thought that the Eagles really were up to the challenge.

Now, you got to go off the field on third down. And there were a couple examples here. But they had one play of more than nine yards on this drive. Like they really made them earn it. This is kind of like what the Fangio scheme is like all about, right? Limiting those explosives and really making you kind of think and dunk. I had a similar takeaway that this was like this was actually a pretty good defensive drive. And you know, you're going to get beat on third down sometimes.

And it happened. But I was also impressed that like just. the, you talked about how much the Bengals were throwing at the Eagles defense, Vic Fangio is trying a bunch of different stuff on this drive too. He's not just sitting static and it's like, you know, the perception of the Fangio defense where it's like, okay, drive down the field, drive down the field and bend but don't break. Like they're trying a bunch of different stuff. There's different sim pressures throughout this drive.

So I sort of has a similar takeaway. One of the nice plays, the, the TFL from Nacobi on what looked like sort of a weird screen design that I don't know if they just didn't account for Nacobo Dean, but that's a nice play from from Nikobe. The number one rule when you're running a screen is that you have to block the guy who is defending the player that you're going to throw the ball to, and they did not do that for Nogobi Dean. So like Nikobe was unblocked. That said, Nukobi actually had a couple stops on this drive that were like tone

setting type of like contacts with the ball. And he, this is a couple weeks in a row where he's done this. And honestly, that that whole defense has really been flying around these last few weeks. And so I do think that that was a good example, certainly on that screen. You know, BG, like they're trying to block BG with a tight end. like I don't know what are you doing there um you know Cincinnati if you're Cincinnati but I think I think overall we saw some really good and you talk about like the mixing things up uh from Vic and I think one good example of that we've seen teams all year

long the the Eagles have been one of the uh the most what's the right way to say this teams love to run empty against the Eagles they've seen more as much empty as anybody in football and a big reason of that is that you know they come out they play they'll match personnel right so if you come out in 12 personnel the Eagles typically go on base and And that's how they get Nolan Smith or Josh Sweat matched up in the slot, is that they're going to come out in base personnel and go empty and try and force those matchups. Well, the Bengals came out early and they, they said, all right, we're going to try and do this

year in this game. And so, all right, what is their empty check? If they're in base, how do they want to play an empty? Because typically a team will go into a given week and say, all right, if we're in base and we get flexing to empty, this week we're going to play cover two or this week we're going to play cover four, or we're going to play cover three, whatever that is. So they come out in the very first empty, they play cover six. It's okay.

Let's see what happens a little bit later. While they come out and it's same thing, there was a little bit later in the drive. This was the second play I was thinking of Nkobi. It's first and 10 down in the red zone. They come out and they play in or no, this is the second and 10. They throw the quick out route to Zach Moss in empty where Zach Moss is lined up as the running back to the far left. Nicobi Dean's out there. So it's not going to be zone coverage.

They end up playing man. So all right, they play two different coverages now out of empty with the running back lined up. out wide. So now if you're Borough, if you're Zach Taylor, I'm not sure exactly what their coverage keys are going to be from a coverage standpoint, really good stick there by Nacobi. This was a recurring theme that, again, I just finished watching the defense. I haven't charted this all the way through. But what they did from defending empty in this game, I thought was really, really good stuff from Vic in terms of just keeping the offense guessing and not being predictable. He said he did some wacky yes. Yes, we're going to get into it. There's one later that I

almost like I don't want to get ahead of myself because it was like I had to rewind it like seven or eight times. Like am I seeing this right? But we'll get to it. Okay. I thought actually the, the third and eight where they convert was a good example of the thing on the, on the, on the on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, on the, they're like, are they going to send six? They both drop out. And the Kobe, he's not big enough to get into the throwing windows. He and Zach Bond are, are, are there I mean, he gets to where he's supposed to get to, but the lane is still there for the slant to Jemar Chay. Yeah, he needed to buzz out of there faster, you know, in that situation.

Just knowing like how fast Joe Burrow wants to get rid of the football. My guess is the coaching point there for Nkobi. Like, you know, as Vic Fangio and his, the linebackers coaches are going through the film and he said, like, you got to get out of there faster and get to your landmark faster trying to deter that throw. Okay. Third and six, one, this is the checkdown to Chase Brown. It looked like it's well covered downfield.

and, you know, Burrow has to sort of settle for the checkdown. Is that, like, should Nacobi come off of that sooner? Or is that, you know, Bonn is the one who ends up making that play? Bonn ends up making the play. And I thought it was a solid job by him. It ends up going for nine. He was probably a little bit extra yardage there than you would have liked to see. But, no, I thought that was, look, he got to the checkdown fast there.

Like, the ball came out. Or he was really, really quick to get to that checkdown. Joe Burrow wasn't messing around with trying to get the ball out fast in this game. He did not hold it long at all. So, no, that one was, more so like for me like that was like bond like i i want a little bit more stopping power from you on that play but uh as we talked about like zach moss and chase brown two guys that that can be tough to get to the ground uh second and four you had a really good jordan davis run stop rep uh really nice play from

from him and then they convert that again uh then you get the first and ten really nice pass rush rep from jaylin carter uh when burrow throws it off of nolan smith's face mask that was a good rep right yep another good example of just like the ball coming out fast joe burrow starting to his leg left. He that ball that's taken away. And so he starts to look right. And Jalen Carter's already like bearing down. So Burroughs like, I got to get the ball out. And he ends up chucking this to the right and bounces right off Nolan. Good job by Nolan chasing that ball down just in case it was a lateral throw or a backwards lateral. But no, the Jalen Carter quick win. He had a couple of nice quick wins in this game that just like just because the ball being out as fast as it was, he was not able to capitalize for

pressure. And then you loved what they did to what the Bengals did to scheme up the one-on-one with Jamar Chase and Nolan Smith for the touchdown. Yeah, it was, look, this was just, this is one of those where, you know, you just got got from a, from a scheme standpoint. They put Jamar Chase in the backfield. It's 12 personnel and the Eagles match it and base down on the goal line. You figure, all right, like, this is a team that wants to be able to run the football. You know, they're going to make sure our base defense is out there.

They put Jamar Chase in the backfield. As we talked about, the one, like, creative thing I feel like the Cincinnati Bengals do is they move a decent amount. Chase is obviously a guy that they like to move. So they put them in the backfield. they had two receivers to the right and they basically just took those receivers and said, all right, we're going to run you guys to the left

and we're going to leak chase out to the right. And because the Eagles were in base, that left Nolan Smith as that player by himself in underneath coverage over there. So he got matched up. It was Jamar Chase on Nolan Smith one on one. And Burrow knew it. And he like basically just like took the snap

and just kind of like walked to his way. He's waiting. He's waiting. Waiting, waiting. Like uncover. All right, here go pitch, catch touchdown. So that one was just that that's a really good scheme play from the offense.

All right. Second drive for the Bengals. They're up seven three. What happens on the 28 yarder to Eric All? So this is an interesting one. So basically it's a three level stretch play, but not too dissimilar from the Grand Calcutara catch that went for also 28, I believe. You know, Eric All starts this on the left side. And so it's not like he's running it from the opposite side of the field. But him running it from that side is actually what makes this a very clear coverage bus from C.J. Gardner Johnson. the Eagles are in our cover four there and so basically if you're in cover four essentially it's a zone coverage but at a certain depth those routes become man to man and so you had a deep post route and so that's that's from the number one receiver quinyon Mitchell's running with the deep post and cj gardner johnson he's lined up to that side he ends up running with the post as well but eric all worked up the field vertically so he should have come off on that running with him at first but it's not nikobie's job to then peel off to the corner with him. Yeah, he should have stayed there with the, and you can actually see Reed on the other side, like pointing like, you know, basically like, I'm going to help with the safety or with the, with the post here. He needs to be going over there. And if you look, you actually can see one of the assistant

coaches for the Eagles, like talking to to, to CJ after the play, like pointing like, yeah, like, that's you, like, that's you, like, that's you, like, that's you, like, that's you, on that play. So, so, so, that's explosive, allowed there from CJ. Uh, you also on this, right? And this is another one where it's like, there's some some good stuff happening. And then there's some, some, just unfortunate stuff happening on third down, but you get the Nolan Smith sack against Amherst, which Milton Williams cleans up. But three weeks in a row now with at least a half sack for Nolan Smith,

he does really seem to be on the come a little bit. Just, I mean, so, so crisp a move. He really hit it well. He actually hit another move a little bit later, a ghost rush. It was on the, I think it was on the, it might have been on the interception, actually, of the CJ Gardner Johnson interception,

where he sticks the long arm out and then like dips under it. We've seen Josh Sweat use that at times, but that's two really nice, clean wins from Nolan in this game that we haven't really seen him win in those ways here in the NFL. So he's clearly gaining some confidence and starting to get some of those wins that you're hoping to see there from a young pass rush. All right. Well, you have said that you're going to write up the offense first, but you're going to write up the defense as well. And if you are a diehard, which you can become today for the best price that you're going to get, big discount. if you want to join and become a diehard and read all the fran duffy content all the zack burman content all the les bowen content all the kyle newbeck content all the derrick bodner content all the good stuff much

best deal you're going to get in the city now is the time to do it become a die hard and we're going to keep on moving on and if you want to stick around let's find out the play that made fran gasp in his house because it happens on this drive fran what was it so it's second and 22 And it's the dropped interception from Cooper dejean in the middle of the field. And as I'm watching it happen, I'm like, I see the play. It's it's dagger, right? So it's the it's the clear out route from the number two receiver. It's the deep inbreaker, the deep dig coming behind it.

And Dejean does an outstanding job of passing off the day. And he turns around. He looks at I post. I had to stop what I was doing. I was like, I have to post this now before somebody else post this. And so like did the full post. It did the pull right up on it and posted it out. So Dijin did an outstanding job.

And actually on the opposite side, so basically this was a version of dagger where it's called cross-country dagger where you have a deep over route lined up from the number three receiver. And that was Jemar Chase. So that's actually where Joe Burrow starts. He starts on the cross-country route.

Quinnian Mitchell saw that coming from the opposite side of the field and got underneath that route to Jemar Chase. So he takes that away. And then to see Cooper Dijin like make the play that he does of reading the dig route behind it. What a great like encapsulation of both rookie corners. just playing at our high level early on in this game. That's awesome.

Yeah. He reads it and I was like, oh my, like I knew he didn't make the interception, but like when a defensive player, like one of the best individual plays I've ever seen was Luke Keeckley picking off a dagger route in the middle where he's like running down the field, turns and like just and steps into the window and picks it off.

And it's like one of my, Fred Warner has made that play. Like that's like a pinnacle play from a middle of the field defender. And so for the Cooper DeGene to like make a. similar type of read on that play in his third start. That was like gasp worthy stuff. Awesome stuff.

Yeah, I mean, it certainly seems like between the two of those guys, they have hit on something. And I think you can make a case that it's even more impressive from DeGine, given that he wasn't there for most of training camp. And from a from like a knowing what's going on ahead of you standpoint, it's a tougher

position to play. And they put a ton of face. in Cooper Dijin in this game because look, Quinion Mitchell, you know, we glossed over. There was a play on the first drive where Quinnion Mitchell, like, erases Jamar Chase in a play. He's playing aggressive press man coverage and takes them off the progression from Joe Burrow.

They left Quignan one-on-on-one with Chase at times. They left Cooper DeGine one-on-one with Chase a bunch of times in this game and we're fine doing it. And yeah, he gave up, I think, like one or two catches. There was one on third down on a slant route in the middle of the field, on a blitz. There were a couple of those. But you showed that a lot of the amount of faith in your rookie corners and certainly in Dijin in the slot to go up against Jamar Chase.

Then also like the amount, we talked about this yesterday too, the amount of faith that they put in Cooper Dijin to also be present against the run because the number of times in this game, they matched 12 personnel to with their nickel package. So they're like, all right, like Cooper Dijin, like yeah, at times you're going to be manned up on Jamar Chase 101. And then also you're going to have to mix it up in the run game as well and handle bigger bodies. So that's the, that's what you were hoping for with Cooper Dijin coming out, coming out of

the draft. Super chat from Chase Daniel Plainview who asks has Howie Roseman apologized for yelling at the fan at the 2002 Texans game yet he had just traded for Robert Quinn and should have been more humble

that's that's that's that's that's good stuff there from CDP I forgot from my memory yeah it's it's you know the DNA of that is not totally dissimilar from from Nick yelling at the fans I guess but yeah that's uh it's uh That's a good one.

Okay. Andrew also has a super chat and says Eagles D. Very good since Cooper DeGine. Did he make the defense very good? Ah, there we go. Him make DV good. Yeah, I mean, I think that's probably like circumstantial. I don't think now that's like he's played really well, especially the last two weeks.

Like I know we all got excited by like the three blitzes against the Browns and like, you know, him getting home for the sack and stuff. but what he's done the last two weeks has been really, really encouraging. So he's played outstanding these last two games. Okay, so the rest of this drive after they get that dropped interception. It's the third and 22 and sweat has a good rush inside, but then they lose Gisicki coming down the field. And what's funny, the back end, the coverage was awesome on this play to start. Like there was like good passoffs and like everyone was in spot.

that's why like you know joe burrow had nowhere to go with the football and he rolls to his right and gisickey was like the checkdown he was like in the flat there on this play and because it's third and twenty two borough's not looking his direction at all but as he's rolling right gisicky's starting to leak out and cooper dsine sees it first he sees that burrow's going to scramble and he says all right i'm going after him he know he kind of sees like all right reads behind me uh i think say a sleigh at that point was behind him so he's going to go one of these guys is going to pick up uh gisicke he so he lets gisickee release behind him. Cooper is, or read blanket chip, rather.

He gets his eyes looking backwards because he thinks Burroughs going out of the pocket. Let me make sure there's no one behind me. So he doesn't pick up Gassiki. And so it was just kind of like a Gassiki kind of got lost and lost on the weeds there between those two. But yeah, that was unfortunate. Look, you're Josh Sweat. Like, you need him to make that play.

You know, that's not killing sweat. But at the end of the day, like the scheme worked perfect. Like the Tee stunt worked to a T. He comes in Scott Free. you just got to be able to make the play. And then that drive ends on the PBO by Darius Slay in the end zone on Jermaine Burden. You know, when you watch the TV copy, it's like a wobbly ball, which it's hard to see on the All-22. But good play by Slay.

Great, good play by Slay. The play before that was second and four in the red zone, too. And I thought Nicopi was awesome on that play. I talked last week about Eric All and how he has been like a hammer for them as a blocker. and he came in and inserted on a counter run play blocking Nkobi. And I'm telling you, like, I've seen Eric All dismantle linebackers all season long on that play. And Nacobi met him in the hole with force and stood him up. It was awesome.

Nikobe made the play. So, yeah, I wanted to shout out Nikobe there on that one. All right. We're going to finish up in a little bit. But before we do that, let me also tell you about something else we've got going on. And that is the next Eagles watch party. That's coming up on November 10th. taken on the Cowboys

4 o'clock at the Rook in Mannyunk. Oh, Mannyunk, my old stomping grounds. Me too. How long did you live in Mannyunk? Meg lived in Mannyon for two years when we were dating. I was there often.

So we were on the, I guess it would be like the western part like over like Umbria Street, like over that way. So yeah, it was a good couple years. Actually, when you and I first met, I don't know if you remember, Well, you drop me off at her apartment at Maniote. Oh, that makes sense.

Yeah, we're driving back. My first two years in Philadelphia, I lived in Mannyok. There you go. That makes sense. So, join us at the Rook for the Cowboys game on November 10th. Okay, let's move on here. Drive number three. This is, you got a good, I have here a good Jordan Davis bull rush on first and 10.

Yeah. That affects the Joe Burrow throw for an incompletion. And then an unreal. throw from borough on the the deep completion to Burton past uh, Darius Lay with a with a muddy pocket. Yep. And a great rep from Burton on that play. Uh, to me, like, Jermaine Burton, I know like he's obviously he's a rookie third round pick. Not a lot of people may may be aware of him. Uh, Burton, he was a like top 50, top 60 type talent that there was like reported like personality issues. And that's why he fell to the third round. He would have been like a

first or second round pick. Um, I, if, uh, if you're just going straight off talent. So, uh, I don't think that that's like shameful that that sleigh got beat by him there was a great rep from burton great throw from borough like you said uh that goes for 41 yards but after that uh the defense tightens up and they get stopped uh i also have here this is what i was talking about uh there's a there's a run wide with chase brown where sleigh which you don't always see him do like really lowers his shoulder and makes this tackle uh oh you're you're not in your head and then you left left me alone oh no this is tough uh maybe zach will come in a little bit um the problem here is that this is the last note that I have on this drive.

I'm back. I'm back. Save me. Sleigh lowers his shoulder. Nice play. Yes. And what was most impressive about that was that that was the play immediately after he gets beat down the field. So Slay bounces back and makes that stop in the flat. Anything else on that drive that you have? That's their last drive of the first half. Really aggressive jam against Andreoshevas on the second and seven was incomplete over the middle of the field.

Cooper de Gene matched up on them in the slot and jammed them up and created the incompletion. And then third and seven, there was a little dump off to Mike Kisicki that was incomplete. Blanketship saw it really fast and flew down to downhill. Impacted the play, nearly tipball interception. So a really nice play by blanket ship there on third down. All right. Drive number four now.

The Eagles are up 1710. It's the first drive of the second half for the Bengals. I have a they go this is they they didn't blitz a lot in the first half and so on this drive first drive of the second half they come out and do it a couple times it starts on second and six bond blitzes and gets home forces the incompletion a nice and sort of a nice adjustment from him on where to go

what so did you notice what was going on in the back on the back end on that play oh no I don't think so so this was the empty check this was this was another empty check here oh this is the one this is your place the one Um, so I mentioned like, all right, like they come out and let me, let me double check my notes here. All right. So yeah, this was. Yeah.

Okay. So they come out in 12 personnel, uh, the Eagles match in base and they go empty. So the Eagles are, it's another like empty check from base. And they decide that they're going to play the, they, the, the Kobe and Bonn are both basically like tight to the formation. So it doesn't look like it's going to be man to man coverage at like at all. Because it did you have Jamar Chase inside. If it was going to be man, you'd have Quinnian. Mitchell, you'd have Cooper DeGine in there, you know, whatever.

You'd have, you'd have a corner matched up on Chase. But it was man-to-man coverage with the Blitz. You mentioned like Bonn loops inside. He gets in free and Burrow just like kills this play. And you're like, why did both kill it? He was completely fooled. He had no idea that that was what was coming. Dude, they left Nikobe Dean one-on-one with Jamar Chase running down the scene.

It was like the play I thought of was the Steelers. No, no, it was. Oh, Nate Gary. Nate Gary with Chase Clayton running around the team. Yes. Now, that was a little bit different, but it was Nicobi Dean one-on-one running down the field in man-to-man coverage with no, there was a safety in the middle of the field, but running down the field. And you had Nolan Smith one-on-one with Mike Gisicki. So they're like, they're two top targets.

You had Nicobi Dean and Nolan Smith one-on-one in man-to-man coverage. Just like diabolical stuff from Fand-Go. And again, like, complete. But to me, like, this is the, this is like what makes. Brian Flores so good is like you have like these wacky plays where you're like that's that's not how you would draw it up like that's not that you're the offense

you're not planning on that to happen and you just you roll the dice and say like all right let's let's see if this works and they were able to get Burrow to kill the play I like couldn't believe it as I'm watching I can't believe what I'm watching right now I would like to I think we need to start having a camera on you watching the film

we need a film of Fran watching the film yeah I don't know if we want that okay and the next play they blitz again but this time they get beat Nicobi blitzes and then they find Gassiki for the first time. Gisiki and corner route.

It was like the same thing that happened on that opening drive. He just boxes out blanket chip. Gassi had a good game. He had a couple of nice routes and obviously it was a big target for them, certainly on third down. Then there's the third and eight scramble.

And this one where it's like you do, I mean, Zach Bond's job is to spy Burrow on this play. You would like it if he doesn't get beat for an eight yard, a nine yard scramble. Yeah, they left Cooper DeGine one and Jamar Chase on this play in the slot. They played two man with a QB spy.

So it's just a three-man rush essentially for the Eagles. And it's two high safeties, man coverage underneath. You left Cooper DeGine one-on-one with Jamar Chase. He's got safety help over the top. So he got to be aggressive in man-to-man coverage. And then Bonn is the spy on Burrow. And he just kind of loses contain there. Good inside rush there by Josh Sweat to get Burrow off a spot.

But that's why Bonn is there to kind of clean that up. and unfortunately unable to clean up and he goes eight yards and scramble. And then Bonn sort of misses a tackle on Zach Moss, a couple of plays later. That goes for a first down. So Zach Bonn has been awesome. Yes.

But a couple of missed tackles, which happens. Yeah, a couple plays later was the second and six. And that was another one where Jalen Carter had the quick win. Burroughs Sees it quick and just like gets rid of it. But Jalen Carter had a nice win on that drive too. And you have anything else on that drive? Let's see. There was the penalty on Queen-on-Mitchell.

I thought that was more like to me that what that screamed there's contact here and it's Jamar chase versus a rookie the flag's on the rookie. I felt like Jamar Chase actually initiated that contact personally, but that's fine. So they come, they bounce back off that. The touchdown, you know, we were as we were watching this. So first you had the great tackle by Cooper Gene in the flat and that was called out in the broadcast. So that brings up second and four.

As the play started, I'm like, uh-oh, like Eric Hall is coming across the formation. He gets the seal on the defensive end and Chase. Brown walks in untouched. That was a bad fit from Reed Blanketship, too. He should have been there in the, in the sea gap to be able to stop that run. He cheated inside. And so that's why Chase Brown was, was Scott free there into the end zone. Got it.

Drive 5, and this is a good example. And I think a good reminder of as feel good as this game was, it flipped so quickly. I mean, until late in the third quarter, this is a nail-biting game, like could go either way. and in the span of however many defensive plays, it goes from, you know, we'll get to what happens, but they get the stop on fourth down. It goes from a seven point game to the Bengals run like seven more plays the rest of the entire game and lose by 20 points.

Like it flips so quickly. And so that drive, I mean that three play sequence starting on second and two with Bonn, who after the previous drive had missed a couple tackles, makes this really, really heavy run stop for a one-yard game. And also on that play, both rookie D.Bs, I thought were really, really good. Cooper DeGine and Quinnian Mitchell in the run fit in terms of just getting that to Zach Bon one-on-on-one. So, Zach Bond makes the tackle. But I will point that out on the breakdown on the defensive piece this week is the rookie's role on that play.

Then next play, third and one, you get the Brandon Graham stop. BG stands up a double team and creates kind of. So basically they're running a counter-run play where-as-you-do. As you do, at 75 years old. Yeah, I mean, he, so he's taken on a double team. They're bringing over a tight end who, because BG stands up the double team, the tight end runs smack back, smack dab into the double team. So essentially, you've got three bodies at Brandon Graham.

The tight end ends up working off to try and get over to the defense event. And because BG created all this traffic, the running back kind of has to like stop his feet. The safety on that side was really decisive getting downhill. And because the safe, so the safety comes downhill, the double team on BG kind of dissipates. And so now it's one on one. BG gets off the play it gets off the block and makes the play so like the all starts with BG

and ends with BG on that play it was an awesome play by 55 and then on the next play you have the Cooper DeGine stopping of Jammar Chase in the backfield they motion him it's man to man he sifts through the muck and makes an awesome play

yeah I mean and they basically like confirm that it's man to man they keep moving chase like back and forth back and forth and it's Cooper de Jine running with him back and forth uninspiring play to be honest like We're just going to throw this to the flat to to Jamar Chase. I will say like,

oh you say like Charac Chase is an alien, like go through my notes on the Bengals last week and he was so good after the catch all season. He was like, I think it was seven and a half yards. Hold on. I have the numbers here. So yeah, 7.3 average yards after catch per reception. Think about that. Like seven yards after the catch per reception on average for Jamar Chase going

into this game. In this one, 2.7. That was his lowest on the year, his second lowest in the last two years. So the Eagles defense did an outstanding job of limiting yards after catch with Jamar Chase. Now, obviously a TFL for minus two, you know, helps you with that in terms of that number. But just an outstanding job by Dijina is running through that, showing confidence. Isaiah Rogers you can actually see on the film too. As Chase is like running around in the backfield, Rogers is like doing this, like pointing like it's coming this way.

It's coming this way. And so, you know, I'm sure he's voicing that as well. Like, hey, like get ready to run over this. And so Cooper did an outstanding job and finished it in the flag. that perfect. And that was the one going back to earlier in the conversation, like the energy from the defense out. You see like Morrow Ojoma and like Milton Williams and Nolan Smith and all those guys celebrating. It was awesome to watch. I like the comment from Seth here who said that played a chase reminded me of something stupid the Eagles would do. Yeah, but like, you know, typically

it wouldn't be like in the flat. It would be 40 yards downfield. But yeah, that's like it's like the quiz screen. Like yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. That's true. Exactly right. Um, um, And so then the game changes again for the end, really, on the next drive, which is for all intents and purposes, the final drive, the interception by Isaiah Rogers on the third play. Yep. So you got one of the classic like exchange blitzes where you have no or you have Nicobi Dean blitzing from the second level. You have a defensive end dropping out on the other side. It's picked up pretty well. But just an outstanding play by Isaiah Rogers.

You know, he looks and leans. He presses, chase the sideline, attacks the ball in the air, highest point, knocks it to his teammate. And CJ Gardner Johnson, Gardner Johnson, it gets stuck to his jersey and they come up with the interception. So great play by Rogers, by CJ Gardner Johnson. This was also the play. I referenced earlier where you had a really nice rush from Nolan Smith on that play, where if the ball doesn't get out quite as fast, this was, this was like a rhythm fade from Joe Burrough. So the ball came out pretty quickly. But if the ball hadn't been out as fast, you know, I think Nolan gets home for at least a pressure on this play.

Now, I was going to see if Zach was still with us. and I had a question for him, but I just got the notification that Nick Siriani's press conference is beginning, and so I think we can wrap this bad boy up, Fran. Good stuff. What a good Monday. What a good day after show.

I'm surprised I wore the hoodie today. I was surprised he didn't try and show me up with the jacket, but maybe next time. I should have done that. I should have done that. You know what? I'm getting old. I'm losing my touch.

Well, we thank you for taking us through it, Dr. Duffy. And we thank you to all the sickos for joining us for this episode. We're back tomorrow. So Zach and me, we're doing a little trade deadline primer one week away from the most important day in this nation's history, the NFL trade deadline. So we're looking forward to that.

And we'll be with you all week at 2 o'clock. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. And as all, I was, you know, I was thinking about making a moro talk to you tomorrow, uhjima. And that tripped me up. So that's the behind the scenes there.

Yeah. Thanks for watching, everybody. I'm losing my time. I'm losing it. I'm losing everything. Thanks for watching. As always, we love you. We're all silly like the mayor.