PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Fran Duffy explains what the Eagles have figured out on offense as Saquon Barkley EXPLODES

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

Be on the lookout for pieces of Saquon Barkley in the city of Philadelphia after his explosion Sunday afternoon as the Eagles ran for an NFL-high 276 yards in their win over the Giants in a game they played without A.J. Brown. Fran Duffy breaks down the Eagles’ most complete offensive performance of the season and what changed on defense as the pass rush finally got home. Join Fran, EJ Smith and Bo Wulf for the Monday snappy snaps. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Global Studios, this show on Eagles podcast, by 365, 365, and Ashley, it's Monday. You know what that means? That's five for the snappy snaps. Fran Duffy, E.J. Smith, Bo Wolf, maybe some grabby grabs as well. And if you play your cards right. Fran, how are you?

How was going through the film and diving on in there? Jumping ahead first into the film this morning. It was good. It was a good rewatch. Honestly, a lot of takeaways. It was tough to kind of narrow down, you know, seven, eight, nine plays for us to be able to jump into. Thankfully, we broke down a handful in the postgame show yesterday,

so we didn't duplicate any of those. So if there was a play that you wish we broke down and you didn't watch yesterday's post game show, make sure you go check that out. We've got the whole bod posted as well over on the P.H.O.Y. YouTube page. Please do that. And E.J. Smith, how is your day going? Nice of you to join us on a Monday. This guy gets one connecting flight to miss one Monday show.

and now I'm getting shots right at the beginning of the show. No, doing well. Excited to talk through the film with Fran. You might hear my voice is a little impacted, just a little bit. I mean, come on. I'm just warning the listeners. You know, we're not bringing our full 100% vocal performance today, but I'm here to tough it out.

So I can beat the lazy on Monday allegations here. Well, yeah, but then you're going to take like three days off the rest of the week. So those will come back. Not because I'm sick, but yeah. All right. Let's get to it. We've got a lot to talk about. We're going to get to the defense, and I want to have an extended conversation, friend,

about what's going on at linebacker and whether you think this is how the Eagles are going to play moving forward. But we're going to start with the offense, and this was by the advanced numbers, their best performance of the season, the fifth best performance by UP or drive of any offense in the NFL this season, better than any performance they had in the regular season last year. Now, keeping in mind, they were going up against the game. a defense that entered this game, like 27th in EPPerd drive, 23rd in defensive DVOA, and they were missing a bunch of people. So it was not the best defense they were going against. However, you saw a lot of things in this game plan and the way they went about it, Fran, that were very

encouraging to you. No question. And we talked about the opening script yesterday on the postgame show, that this was one of the, like, most voluminous and diverse opening scripts I've seen from an Eagles offense in recent memory. You know, you're going back, like, I, I, like, I, I was trying to think back, like, when's the last time you saw all the variety that we saw in the first 15, 20 plays from an Eagles offense? And I had trouble thinking of it. To me, you'd have to go back to certainly the Doug Peterson era. But I think that when you think of this offense and all the different bells and whistles and all the different things like, oh, like they're so predictable and they do the same things over and over. That was not the case, especially early on in this game where, you know, you saw a wide variety of personnel packages, 12 personnel, 13 personnel, 11 personnel, but different versions.

variations of those personnel groupings where, all right, you're going to get 11 personnel with different receiver combinations, various tight end combinations. You had 12 and 13 personnel with Fred Johnson on the field as a jumbo tight end, and they're running and throwing out of those sets. You saw screens. You saw jet sweeps. You saw them complimenting inside run with under center play action.

You saw literally like all the different things you could have possibly hoped for, all the different things you're asking for if you're an Eagles fan or an analyst. You got it. and you got it in the first 15, 20 plays of this football game. Okay. And so obviously, they did not do this because they didn't have A.J. Brown on the field, right? This is not like, oh, AJ's out. We can finally show the offense that we wanted to have.

However, I'm just curious why you think it was that this happened to be the week that they were able to lean into all of those different things and be so diverse. Yeah, I don't know if it's one of those things where, you know, we talked about the reporting around all the different meetings they've had in the last few weeks. don't know if this was like a culmination of that where all right, we're going to, we're going to try and work our way towards this kind of outcome. But however they got to this point, I don't want to say like it doesn't matter, but I almost like don't care how they got to this point.

Now it's like, all right, like if this is what they're going to be, if this is how they're going to play, I think that's a great sign for this offense moving forward. Obviously, when you incorporate A.J. Brown into the equation, that would be even better you would think. You talked about some of the numbers. I think Dane is. I was trying to find the tweet.

Dana is posted on social media yesterday on blue sky and on, on various platforms where he said this was the best, best Eagles game EPA per drive since Super Bowl 52. I'm pretty sure that was. And it's like, well, I thought the NFC championship game was ahead of it. But hold on. I'm going to let me make sure. I want to make sure I'm citing this correctly.

It was, but yeah, I mean, this was a, and I was looking at Sumer Sports, the newsletter from our friend, Sean Syed. and they said this was a 100 percentile game from an EPA per play standpoint. It was a very, very impressive outing, certainly from this offense. And then from talking to guys in a locker room afterwards, E.J. And before we get to the specifics of some of the screen grabs, what was their takeaway on why was this game?

You know, I think a couple of things that stand out, A, like the efficiency on first down, being able to stay on schedule, I think contributed to things being, a little bit more diverse. Nick Siriani talked about that. And that really was just like the function of the Eagles having a productive run game really for the first time this season. Well, you know, an explosive run game or a run game that was able to keep them on schedule for the second and third downs. I think that that probably opened up the menu of play calling for Kevin Petulow. Now, again, like, that's not to say that, you know, that you can only do these things when you

are on schedule. But I think that definitely contributed. And then I also think, you know, Jalen Hertz talked a lot about the flow and the rhythm that the Eagles offense got into. to, I think because of the fact that they are starting to figure some things out. And because I think that, you know, we've seen the Eagles offense at times this season. Like when things are going well, they do get into that rhythm and they start to access different areas of the call sheet. And it feels like when when things are stagnant, that's when they really struggle to really figure out what the, what the, what levers to pull.

So I think it's a combination of things there. But yeah, I definitely think the thing that stood out most is that, you know, I don't think it's a coincidence that they ran the ball so effectively. and that kind of opened up a lot more of the play calling sheet for Kevin Petullo there. Well, it's funny because, you know, after last week, it was like, okay, they've shown they can do under center play action. Let's hope that they lead into center play action because nobody would have even thought to be like, oh, well, it'd be great if they did that and this and this and this and this. And like, you don't want to, you've been conditioned now for years to not be so silly as to ask for all of that stuff and then for them to do it.

But the inner center play action was a little bit involved here in the game. game plan for annon specifically with getting guys on in breaking routes over the middle of the field yeah and that's i mean davante yeah and honestly like that's one of the the things that you hope to unlock with the under center play action there's been so much that's been talked about with the lack of yards after catch in this offense and the lack of throws to the middle of field of this offense well to me that is a like a direct cause or a direct uh effect from not utilizing under center play action because that's the area of the field and that's a uh an outcome from a yards after catch standpoint that you typically get when you utilize under center play action.

And we've got some shots we'll look through a little bit later that kind of paint that picture. All right. Well, why don't we start there? Let's go with the play action to Devante here to kick things off. So, Julia, we'll go to PA1. PA1 is the one we'll start with. So basically early on in this game, we saw, I talked about like all the variety from a personnel

package standpoint, all the multiple tight end sets. And, you know, sometimes you had Cam Latto in the backfield. you had Granson and Calcuttaire, Grantson and Calcutera. Sometimes you had Latte and Goddard. I talk about the Fred Johnson usage. Well, look, they were going to put Latto in the backfield, and he is kind of like the Van Sumeran fullback, right?

That's the role we've seen from him when he's on the field here for this Eagles offense. This one goes for zero yards. They don't get a big pickup here on this play. This is going to be an inside run from under center. This was on the second drive of the game. And this one, again, goes for zero yards. If you go to the next shot, Julia, this one goes, this was on the very next drive. This one goes for three yards.

So you got a zero yard run. You got a three yard run. But these were inside runs downhill from a two-back set, essentially, you know, with the full back in the game. And then you come back later. And not just one play after another like we've seen a couple times. Exactly. And by the way, we did see that in this game. They did one of the 12 personnel like little stretch toss plays to the left-hand side where it's like, all right, they sell it.

And then the very next play, they ran the same action, except. they taught it was a play action rollout to the right so it was they did still and do the back-to-back plays but it was nice to see them sequence things to set up things later in the game and later in the in the quarter but this is a good example if you go to the next one julia the later on in that same drive you've got again a two-back look here with lots who has a fullback he's going to insert through the core of the formation as if he's going to block a linebacker but this is going to be a play action pass from from jalen hurts if you go to the next shot here julia you could see that Jalen drops back and he's got a relatively clean pocket.

You've got by lot of right to his left, but he stands tall in the pocket. He delivers and you go to the next shot and he delivers a strike to Devante Smith, right on his helmet, right on his face mask there for an explosive chunk game in the middle of the field. And you could see the space there, right? Like you got the linebackers attacking upfield. And as soon as they realize it's passed, now they, they stress to make sure,

I have to get to my landmark. I have to match a route in space. Like you're just, you're making them process. You're making them think. They're not just sitting back and just catching routes as they go into their area. And so putting those guys on the move and continue to find ways to put them in binds, I thought that was impressive. Could they have pushed the button a little bit more?

You know, it could have helped me with a swooper point here or there. But I think that even just looking at it, I mean, they had a couple plays. One play came back off the Lane Johnson hold early on. You had the one sack that was going to, there was the 21-yard loss from Jalen Hertz that set up that big play to tank Biggsby on the ensuing snap. So they ran it a few times, only a couple completions in this game. But honestly, I think it's an area that they can continue to pull that lever. Two quick things here. One thing, Jalen Hertz mentioned the word leverage a few times talking after the game yesterday.

And I think this was a really good illustration of that, you know, seeing like the linebackers, you know, like really drawn into the line of scrimmage and just like completely opening up the middle of the field, which is obviously an area that Jalen Hertz hasn't always consistently targeted. And then the second thing, Cam Latu. Let's again, let's let's calm down. No, no, no, no, no. Literally like, we are beyond the, we are beyond. I don't want to say like anybody.

Honestly, it doesn't matter who you're putting in that spot, but that's who they're using in that spot right now. We're not, I'm not calling him Kyle Use Check at this point. He should be tight in too. Did Dylan Hertz come up with leverage himself or did you ask him about leverage like you did with Blaine Johnson? No, this wasn't a Jordan Mila. It wasn't validating. It was validating now.

And Lane is a very interesting word. He said it was validating, and I asked him if it was validating. It's very funny. I've got to do a better job on that one. I can't ask leading questions to the, to the, to my, to my, to my, you can't say that he came up with this great word. Well, I mean, he, he validated my, my suggestion. All right, we're going to get, we're going to get more into this, uh, friend.

I know we're not going to break down the, the run game as much in this. game. But I guess I'm curious about, I don't know why this wouldn't be the case, but can they play this way against other defenses that are not so bad? I think so. I think a few things stood out. We talked last week about, you know, Landon Dickerson made his return and he was looking more like himself. That continued to be the case in this one. Like Landon looks as healthy as he has ever looked here this season. So I think that that's a huge boost, certainly, to the run game. I thought that a lot of the guys did a nice job in terms of just doing, do your job, execute your assignment. You know, Brett Toe, like, didn't have any huge minuses in the game at the point of attack.

I think when you look across the board, like, yeah, there were a couple losses. The one thing I would say in terms of the, you know, what stood out was, number one, with a ton of variety, like a lot of different types of run schemes. But then number two, a lot of their success was found, like outside the, outside the tackles. Like, they had some downhill runs. but I think that they understood, like, their success on the ground against this defense was going to be staying away from Dexter Lawrence and really making sure, like, hey, let's take a lot of of these outside. And so you saw a lot of different runs. They were able to hit outside the tackle off the edge there. You know, and the running backs were quick to bounce, but I think that

that was by design in this game. All right. Let's take a quick break to hear from some sponsors. On the other side, Fran explains why a particular completion to Devante Smith was one of his favorite plays the Eagles have run all season long. Bet365 has 90 million users worldwide in the live stream over 780,000 events each year with early payout offers across the NBA and NHL. Bet365 pioneer live in-game betting, and today they offer the widest range of games and markets available for live-in-game betting across 78 sports. Listen, Monday night football, you know what that means on Bet365, a 50% super profit boost

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It's never ordinary. At Bet365 must be 21 or older and physically located in Pennsylvania. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 100 gambler. You know, after the game yesterday, I was listening to the Giants post-game press conferences. And, you know, after Brian Daible and Jackson Dart and Kavon Thibodeau, after they got done complaining about the refs, I heard Brian Daibble telling a story about how he went over to Jackson Dart's house to watch the old miss game on Saturday and how he was all excited. And he was all excited. And he said, you know what? We're here or here to watch football. Let's let's turn the game on. The setup was a total mess though. And Daibel was, he was angry. Steam coming out of his out of his ears. A fire in his eyes. Because he had. lagging, you had buffering. It was clear Jackson Dark, despite that rookie contract,

he doesn't have the, he doesn't have Xfinity. So he had all the lagging, all the buffering, all the switching between apps, trying to find the game. Jackson complained that he was some big fan of Ole Miss, felt like he was fan, but he fanfished Brian Dable. So if you call yourself a football fan, you've got to have Xfinity. It's the ultimate sports destination. You can find the best games, your favorite teams, all in one spot. Now that's how you watch next level. It's the perfect fan flex, all the action. Plus you get enhanced 4K. So clear, it feels like, it feels like, like you're in the stadium. So make sure that you, if you want to make sure you want to watch the game, make sure that you are, that your big fan isn't a big fail. Learn more in Xfinity.com.

Xfinity, imagine that. Restrictions apply. Multiview requires Xfinity 4K capable TV box. All right. Now, earlier today, we're on the little text thread, the three of us, and Fran's asking us about one play in particular. And he's beautiful play, beautiful play. and he's asking about, you know, who's calling the protections there. We see Jalen pointing. We see Tooth pointing. All this stuff. A great adjustment.

Tell us what got you so excited, Mr. Duckman. Yeah, it was a third quarter completion from Jalen Hertz to Devante Smith in the middle of the field. And this one wasn't under center. It wasn't a play action throw. This was against a blitz from the New York Giants. By the way, like I thought that this game plan was extremely to borrow a term for one of our friends, an extremely uninspired defensive game plan from the Giants, in my opinion. There was just, there was not a lot of creativity in terms of like the different

coverages and the, and the pressures, like, just very vanilla game plan, very disappointing. After what they did, I thought there was a pretty good game plan a couple of weeks ago. They did have a bunch of guys out and come in and I don't know. I'm not making excuses for Shane Bowen, but. They had a full, they had a week to figure it out. It was an uninspiring game plan. to say least now that said uh i really liked this completion so let's go to the first shot here julia sort of beat blitz uh is the the first one i gotta say i think i think lindsay has taken over so let's

oh lindsay all right thank you and by the way in the chat please give it up give it up because it was lindsay's birthday on saturday we didn't even know uh hind it's unbelievable unbelievably poor job by us but happy happy belated birthday uh to lindsay so now let's take a look at this play basically what you're going to get is that a pre-snap and as soon this is the first frame of the film and you could see that Brett Tooth is already pointing out that they're going to change the protection. And so that's why I was texting you guys like, hey, can you pull up the broadcast copy? Who made this call beforehand? And Jalen did point this out.

So I was glad that E.J. was able to have to pull that. So Jalen points this out pre-snap. And I think what his tell was was that you had what is called a capped corner. So a cap corner is basically when you have the safety aligned directly behind a corner because that's a tell that it could, that corner could be blitzing. the safety is going to pick up his man and man-to-man coverage. So when you have the safety aligned directly behind that nickel corner, Jalen immediately says, all right, this nickel corner is probably blitzing here.

Let's slide the protection that way. So Brett Toeth slides the protection in that direction. So now if we go to the next shot here, Lindsay, you'll see that you've got Jordan Milata blocking the nickel corner. And the blitz is picked up perfectly. Outstanding job here from Jalen Hertz, from the Eagles offense. But what I like here most of all is the post-snap process. here from Jalen Hertz because, you know, typically when we say, hey, like, you know, they've done a good job against the Blitz. We know it was a disaster two years ago.

And that was the skeleton key to, you know, trying to attack this Eagles offense was, all right, we're going to blitz. Send extra defenders at Jalen Hertz. And last year, we've seen them make, over the last year, we've seen them make big improvements in this area where, hey, you know, he's going to throw into the teeth of the rush. And we know that he's got that ability to, you know, throw the fade, you know, be aggressive that way. But in this game, in this one, this was an example of like, hey, like, I'm going to trust that my protection is going to pick up this blitz. You had the pre-snap recognition piece,

but then also that ability, let's read the play out. And so what they had on this play, Lindsay, if you go to the next shot, you've got a double post concept to his left. So you've got those two receivers stretching vertically down the field.

They're going to run double post. And on the backside of this, you're going to have a backside dig from Devante Smith. But not only that, you are requiring these guys, the other routes here that are complementing Devanté's route. So if you actually go to the next shot, Lindsay, you'll see that you have Sequin Barclay and Dallas got it releasing late in the down after kind of helping out a little bit in protection. Those guys release out.

So Sequin Barclay's going to release to the right. Dallas got it releases to the left. And that's going to kind of part the Cs here for Jalen Hertz and make the throw a little bit more defined. But he's got to hang in there and he's got to stay patient, right? So it can't just be on top of my drop. I got to get out of Dodge because there's a blitzer coming. He stood tall in the pocket. He delivered here.

This wasn't like a one read throw. You had to let things develop down the field. And he delivers a strike. He puts this right on Devante Smith. If you go to the next shot here, Lindsay, you can see that there's Devante breaking open on the deep end cut at the 40 yard line. So this was one of my favorite plays I've seen from Jalen Hertz against the Blitz. Really, maybe in his career.

To me, this was like outstanding quarterbacking, you know, one you know the great example of exactly what you want it's not just oh yeah like he threw it deep against the blitz you had the pre-snap read the post-snap read this was really really well done from jalen hurts and as you say it is a it is a it is a different kind of answer for them against the blitz it's not it's not just a go ball down the field it's not just a slant or or like a swing pass that's just replacing where the guy is coming from yes you had to be patient for this trust it i think that's i think that's well said friend what what tier is like a quarterback getting to the backside dig against like a pressure look what tier of like quarterback processing is that for the

football guys you think what tier what tier of like uh yeah online tier one football guy just like oh man or is it like are we talking to i would say like on a scale of like um spencer rattler to uh justin herbert who is the greatest quarterback of all time um i would say like the the the football hipster society will probably grade that that'll be like a like an a minus type of play like this is like a really good play it's not like the best play you've ever seen but uh you know this will be this is a good this is a very good one in vacuum for sure that's a that is a herbertian play a little throaty like was that a little a little Collinsworth there you know yeah that's not really what i should be going for but no i i think of like i could hear like i'd say this comment

complimentary, not like to take a shot at any. Like I like, I like Nate Tice a lot, but I can hear Nate Tice mentioning. Like, he gets to the backside dig, you know, after the pressure. And he's just like, I can hear, I can hear the football hipster community getting, getting excited about that type of play. Yeah. It was a great. It was a great play.

And like that, that's what it's making those kinds of plays on a repeated basis is what gets people excited about quarterback. So to see Jalen make a play like that. And that's the thing is that we've seen Jalen like. make those kinds of plays. Like we've seen, I've seen him do it. And that's why me personally,

like I can't speak for anybody else, but that's why I hold him to a high standard. Because I've seen him make plays like this. I've seen him have games where, you know, he looks so crisp as a passer. So when he has games like he did against the Giants two weeks ago,

it's like, yeah, like that's not great. Like that's, that's, he's not playing well, right? And so to be able to see him, you'll have games like this, have plays like that, that's really, again, kind of meeting that standard.

And so why is it that AJ Brown doesn't want him to do that? It's a question that I don't know that any of us can answer. All right. Let's stick with the offense. And let's shine a light on the big man in the middle. Brett Tooth, who was all over the place, making downfield blocks, helping out in the running game. You were impressed with what you saw from the Tooth fairy.

Pretty good. Yeah, he was solid. He had a nice outing overall. I think that when you're looking at Tooth, you know, we talked to, I think it was a couple, I think it was last week. Like, all right, what does he do well? Like, what is it that they see in him that they keep, you know, calling his number and allowing him to be in the starting lap?

One of the things that he does bring to the table, he's an athletic offensive lineman. And so when you see him in the screen game, when you see him on perimeter runs, like he's got that ability to get out in space and make plays. And one play where that did stand out, I don't be honest, like, of all the plays in that opening script that we talked about earlier, the one that caught me most off guard was the running back, the screen on second along. Saigon Barker that picks a first out. Like, I'm going to be honest, like, hand of God.

Like, how many, like, pure, like, basic drop-back screens Jalen Hertz is completed successfully in, you know, in six years? Like, maybe one hand. You know what they had what? They had one in week one and week two, right? Right. And it was like, oh, this is. And then they had another one that was, like, mildly successful after that. You're like, oh, maybe this is like a little petula wrinkle we have in the offense.

But we haven't seen like a running back screen like this. This is like, this was a full. Andy Reid, yeah. And it wasn't even like anything crazy. Like it was just like a basic like three count screen. But it's not a it's not a throw or play that Jalen Hertz has shown like a ton of comfort in in the past. And so if we go Lindsay to Toth 1, we'll see what I liked about this play. So again, it was basically like three count screen where Sequin like it's one Mississippi,

two Mississippi, three Mississippi release out to the right, you know, as if he's going to chip the defensive end and then just kind of drops out and Jalen drops this out. Now, Denver had a lot of success throwing screens against the. this Giants front last week. So I get why they wanted to put this into the game plan. It's a good way to kind of slow down that rush, a rush that did give them some trouble in that game a couple of weeks ago, a couple Thursdays ago. But what I like here about Toth on this play, Brett Tooth, you see him, he's on the left circle there. It's his job to get whoever the most dangerous man is in the alley. He's got to get this alley defender. And that's

going to be the safety that's coming down from depth. Now, I remember doing a segment with Jeff Stalind when I worked with the Eagles a few years ago. And he talked about a scenario just like this, and the coaching point to Jordan Milata where, you know, a lot of offensive linemen, when they get into this situation, their instinct is, all right, I got to go get this guy, right? So I got to go attack and I'm going to go straight line right at the safety. But the problem is, is that this safety, he's not, he's not sedentary. He's not staying there. He's going to come attack downhill. So you're react. And if you're not going to be able to react to that, if you start working upfield,

you're not going to, you're 300 pounds. You're not going to react fast enough to be able to redirect. You have to trust that he's going to attack this downhill. So you have to stay parallel to the line of scrimmage. You have to stay flat here with your angle of departure, leaving your spot in the middle of the field. And that's exactly what Toh does. And if you go to the next shot here, Lindsay, you're going to see that Toh is able to meet the safety right there

towards the top of the numbers and then help spring Sequin for a first down. Again, it went for 12 yards, but second and 12, they had a successful screen that goes for 12 yards in a first down. this one stood out to me and it was a great block there. Lane Johnson, by the way, was a freight train. He delivers a huge block later, but we've come to expect that from Lane.

I thought that there's a really good coaching point from Stalyn that Toh was able to carry out into the field in this game. And EJ, in the locker room, to you, it felt like the guys were kind of like really going out of their way to talk about how good of a job and Tooth did in this game. Yeah, I think that there was like some, it's funny because Brett Tooth has never started a game at center in his career before, but I think, you know, Jordan Milata said afterward,

and he has been really kind of steadfast about this all week that, like, his natural position is center. I think it's a little bit ironic because he has had trouble with snaps in the past, but like just like from a stylistic standpoint, like what they want, what the Eagles do up front, like he's not really a guard and a Jeff Stoutland offensive line because those guys, I talked to Brad about it before the game and he said, like the guards of the workhorses, you know, you look at the body type of the guards at the Eagles covet.

He is not, he does not really fit that mold, but he does, you know, resemble at least stature wise, like some of the guys that have come before him. I don't want to, you know,

give too lofty a comparison there, but, uh, I do think that like, you know, just stylistically, he fits what they want at center. And I,

I think there was a little bit of like, you know, maybe validation's going to be the word of the day for me. Because I think that they, they did kind of feel like, you know, there have been questions about Brett Toh. And I think they've went out of their way to talk about how well he played,

not just played, but like, you know, of the process, you know, but making sure that everybody was on the same page. They talk about how smart he is. And we've talked before about how he's kind of like a teacher's pet for Jeff Stoutland, almost to a certain degree. Like, you know, they talk about how he is just really like the brain of the operation

there. So yeah, definitely a lot of credit given to Brett Toe in the postgame locker room. I would say too, Lindsay, if you just go to Tooth 3 in the run game, they were able to utilize that athleticism as well. You know, when you get under center, we talked about their ability to use. use duo, right? It's downhill double teams and, you know, point of attack, you know, mashing guys, quick hitting downhill run. That was the Sequon Barkley 65 yarder. Another run that they've been able to kind of unlock too by going under center is the sweep play with the center pulling out

as one of the lead blockers. And this is a good one here for Tooth where he's going to block the safety there. And this is just really well blocked across the board. You can see like hat on a hat, plenty of room to operate here. And this was the one, this is where Seekwon actually gets hurt. This is the 28-yarder in the second half. But, but Tooth out in front on this play as well. And again, you're kind of leveraging, what does he do well? He's good on the move. So you're able to leverage that athleticism here in a positive way.

What's been your favorite toth pun in the chat, Bo? Oh, I try to pay attention to what you guys are saying. Oh, okay. Come on. I try to be an active listener. My favorite was Sabre Tooth Tiger from Corey. I like that one. Am I at the risk of pulling in Egypt?

a Cam Latu situation here. Tell me if I'm wrong, Fran, but like Darius Cooper was doing some work as a blocker in this game. Yeah, I mean, he was mixing it up for sure. And that has been kind of the John Mecci role. Like, METCHI has been kind of like the dirty work wide receiver over the course of the first several weeks of the year. All right, they want to go 11 personnel.

If they're going to do, you know, like get creative in terms of some of the things they're doing from an RPO standpoint and ask the receivers to block, that had been METC. So the fact that they're willing to throw Cooper in there, I think he's showing some staying power in that kind of a role. How come he gets like his like favorite player? You're so supportive. And then with mine,

you're just like settled down. Mine's actually good. Cam Latu has proven time and again. Don't make this awkward, E.J. Not fair. Not fair. You totally sold that for him. You didn't need to do that.

You know what we need. Do we do need to talk about now? people are wondering have they've been following the swooper situation. Fran, did you see any of the Texas Mississippi State game on Saturday? No, I did not.

You guys tried to get me. You tried your best. I will say, EJ, I didn't think, I didn't tell you this. I told Bo this yesterday. So I expected you guys to text me some kind of a link to try and see if you can, you know,

fish me into, you know, clicking on a highlight. So my plan on Saturday morning was, I didn't block you guys. I didn't mute you guys. They mute the text. But what I did was I hid, I hid notifications. So that was like my reminder to myself for later on that evening for, okay, if I get a text from, from Bo or from EJ, I did it for both of your individual texts and then also our

group text. All right. If I get a text message from you guys, make sure I think, is this going to be a link that's going to take me to a Texas football highlight? Now, it ended up not mattering. But, but yeah, that was definitely front of mind on Saturday. I mean It was pretty good because I sent it

without telling you E.J. And you hopped on it right away. It was great. Now, do you think, do you believe him, though, Bo? Like, because he could have looked at it and then just gone, I'll just ignore this until tomorrow. Honestly, how dare you? How dare you impuging the integrity of Brando?

Do I trust him with my life? Yeah, this is all because he gazzed up Darius Cooper for you. We neither confirm nor deny. All right, let's take a break, come back. A few little things to clean up on the offense, and then I want to talk about the defense, and like, is there a case you think

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i j zadr i was smiling at friend drinking his little baby baby water it's a big water it's a big water i was trying to be subtle i know but the way that you went down to it Very nice. Okay, any, any, a big picture takeaways from the offense. And, you know, what do you think of AJ Brown? I thought we'd make it through the whole pod without knocking it out. Yeah. Look, I don't know.

If you could tell me that this was going to go any number of ways, and I'd believe you at this point. You know, I think that last week and how last week unfolded and all the reporting since then, I personally don't read it as a great sign for AJ's future in Philadelphia. I still think that it's most likely that he's an eagle in 10 days, so however far away we are from the, from the trade deadline. But I definitely think there's more of a chance that he's not than I did two weeks ago. Yeah.

How dire do you think the state of the offense would be without him? I mean, you feel better about it yesterday after yesterday. I think it's possibly you overvalue that considering the opponent. But I do think it's noteworthy that they just literally just faced this defense two weeks ago and looks terrible. And so, you know, it's better to look good against a bad defense than to look, than it look terrible against this bad defense. So, you know, I think that there's there's a case to be made that, yeah, like there's definitely positive, a lot of positivity from what that viewpoint could look like of this offense

and of this scheme and the situation moving forward. It just to me, it's like all of, of the things that they did, is there anything that they did yesterday that's like, well, if AJ was there, they couldn't do that. You know, if AJ was there, like, I don't, I don't buy this, like, notion. I don't know really if there's a lot of people out there. I've seen, like, a few things out there about, like, oh, like, you know, look at, like, the way that the offense looked without AJ, like, that's a message. It's like, to me, it's like, AJ. They didn't have to worry about forcing him the ball. Well, it's, I don't know. To me, like,

the Eagles offense could look exactly like that with AJ out there. And, um, and, um, and, um, If it, if there's a, like, I just can't wrap my head around a reason why I couldn't. So, yeah, I just, I don't, I don't really buy that. I don't put a lot of stock into that. I think last week, like the reaction to last week and the post last week, if it's the, you know, if we take it to mean what we think that it means, we take it as face value. To me, this is, this is bigger than football. I don't think this is like a targets thing.

I don't think this is like a usage thing. I think this is, it's clearly, it's, I think it's a person, it's devolved into a personal situation. Okay. A couple of super chats we can get to before we flip sides of the ball. Dr. Prince Blue is Smitty in the Puka conversation. Check the resume. I know you famously hate Pooka Nakuha, Fran. I don't hate Pooka Nakua.

I think he's an awesome player. He's a great player. I don't know. Like in the Puka Convo, are we talking like just in terms of like tier of player? Like, yeah, they're very, I mean, they couldn't be more different, honestly. It couldn't be more different, like stylistically. They're both great players and what they do. If you put Devante in that role, though,

I think that he probably is as productive, if not more productive. I mean, the role is very different. Like, in terms of, like, what they're asked to do. Like, I mean, Kuka, like, is used, like, almost like Cameron Latu-esque, like, you know, in terms of inserting into the form, inside the formation and releasing between the tackle and the guard

to pretend like he's going to go, block the linebacker and then, you know, run an over route out of that because nine times out of 10, he is blocking the linebacker. Like, you're not doing those kinds of things with Devante Smith, but Devante does things that Puka doesn't do. Like to me, like, Devante's a better route runner. Like if I just need a guy to get open one-on-one, like I'm taking Devante. But they just go about their business in two different ways. Without actually going through it, just like the proxy for this rank in your head, do you think that Devante would be near your top 10 receivers? he would be close i would say probably not but close probably not but close well speaking of

camo latu it depends as a pekinist migrate for friend cam lot to darius cooper and francis i mean obviously i'm nesting francis i'm going to uh i'm going to uh i'm going to migrate to and Peck Cooper. This was, this was rigged. It was so obvious. Joe Rockhead. And we'll,

you know what, let's say this one, because we're going to get to the Jalen Carter conversation. Jack Royer says, would you like to see Willie Lampkin in jumbo as the sixth offensive lineman

or is Big Fred doing a good job? I think you can keep going to keep rolling with Big Fred. I think that, because one of the things when they go six off. I'm talking about how, how Fred was kind of like getting in Lane's way a bunch. I honestly saw more of the from from grand calcutera getting in lane's way like I'm going to be honest like we're getting close to like four or five times where lane like stepped on calcutara's foot or got tripped up by calcutara's ankle and ended up on the ground like first play on the game first play the game lane ends up on his back because calcutera was like a step late getting out of his stance then there was another one later where he like tripped and fell it was like at least three or four times that those guys kind of got linked up so I saw that more happen with calcutera than when Fred. I think the big thing with Fred Johnson, like when they play in those six-o line sets,

the most, I would say the most common run that they've been running out of those looks has been duo where again, that's like point of attack, like mashing, like we're just trying to vertically displaced. We're trying to get defensive linemen off their spot and make a nice clean read for the running back because the running back is basically just reading the linebacker. Like, all right, linebacker attacks downhill. I'm going to bounce. Linebacker scrapes over the top. I'm going to hit this in between the tackles. Like very easy kind of clean read. And the more movement you get than the cleaner the reed is for the for the running back so uh having fred johnson out there uh where he's like all right you have a 320 pound guy as opposed to a 280 pound guy

i think that's a better uh spot for fred johnson now if we want to start you know putting uh willie lampkin into the cam lot too roll now at that now we're now we're cuckin with gas i like that now i will say i talked to willy lampkin last week it feels like he's ready to go he's he's he's a little bit itching to get back on the field he's never had to go this long on the sidelines not being able to play. So he feels like he's ready to go for whatever that's worth. I think he'll be waiting a bit longer, unfortunately. But we'll wait it out.

Fresh Prince says if Jalen has been seeing the field clearly, I can see clearly now. The blitz is gone. This season and getting some MVP buzz. Why is AJ upset? My boss, a Dolphins fan, said she would offer waddle and a, first for AJ. I told her no. I think they would take that deal. I think they would like that. I think they would take that. If you go bottle in a first, I think they would take that personally. But, um, but yes, that is, I guess that's the thing is like the, the, the, the Occam's razor of like, all right, well, if, if AJ's, he's the most targeted receiver in the offense and, you know, they had these, these games where they were productive and Jalen had one of his best games and he was still upset. Like, all right, well, then.

We'll say it's not a football issue, right? Like it's not a, it's not a production issue. It's not a feed me more issue. So yeah, I think that's just kind of where it's gotten to. Idiot sandwich. Brian Thomas on a fourth for AJ Brown who says no. I think the Eagles say no to that one. I agree with Fran.

I mean, the Dolphins pick could be like a top five, top 10 pick. Like you probably feel pretty good about Waddle in a first there. But I'd say no to the Brian Thomas at a fourth. It'd have to be a lot higher of a pick. maybe i think that's that's that's that's bright thomas junior was really good last year he's dropped a few passes this year so you know i think that's uh if you if you if someone had said that a month ago like i you know two months ago i i think people would feel a little bit better about the brian thomas said that man at greenwood says i know you guys don't want to answer any more a j stuff but man the way

i saw that play calling sunday j should be mad with the where has this been it would be i mean it would be funny if this is all just a very elaborate troll job back and forth between the two of them. Like, AJ doesn't actually want to go anywhere. He just likes making these social media posts just to get everybody riled up. But the Eagles are annoyed that he keeps doing that. So just to troll him, they actually called a good game on offense when he was gone. I think like it's funny because a lot of the things in the chat is like, oh, I can't believe we're talking about this again.

And it's not just today. It's been that way over the last week. I would love to be talking about anything else. Like, I would love to be talking about, like, other things with the team, but this is, it's a big deal. You, Bo, the first time we had to have the conversation, I think it was a show that you and E.J. did and you're, and you said at the end of the show, you're like, if you think that they're not having these conversations in the building, like, sorry, but that, that's, it is what it is. It's kind of, it is what it is at this point. And I think we, the, the sad thing is that we, there really is only one person to blame for it.

And I will tell you who that person is. during this ad break. Jay, it's me, Ray again. They don't want to give you the ball. Tweet, tweet again. Say, use me, but don't use me. Do it, do it, tweet it, tweet it. That is not the Ray.

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Thanks to Ashley, that could be real. We're giving away a $2,500 Ashley Furniture gift card. Go big on a sectional and some stylish pieces or trick out your space for game day. It's all up to you. Just visit Ashley Fancafax. cave.com, see if you're eligible, fill out the form, and you're entered. It's that simple. Enter now, and you might be watching the next big game in a fan cave built by you, courtesy of Ashley. All right, back on the page on my Eagles podcast. Let's talk defense. Fran, this is a high success rate game for the Eagles on defense. But I want to start with what's going on a linebacker?

Because Jahat Campbell was a little bit nicked up in this game, E.J., is that right? Yeah, Right around the time where we started to see more of Nekobie Dean, I saw Jihad Campbell on the sideline and a trainer was like working on something on his arm or his hand. So he said after the game, I think it was a Caden Steel that reported that he said he was fine and healthy after the game. But I did notice like as like you started seeing Noghine work more him with the nickel snaps that he was with the trainer. Okay. Now, so in this game, Nikobe like doubles up Jihad in snap counts. and for most of the game, when they were a nickel,

he was the guy next to Zach Bonn. How did he look, Fran? And what do you make of it all? So I went through and I just tried to chart, like, all right, like, what is there a pattern here in terms of the usage? And the injury, I think, could feed some of this as well. The Giants are a big 12 personnel team, like coming in, especially over the last couple weeks.

It had been a lot of both Theo Johnson and Bellinger. So they were playing a lot of both tight ends. So I think if they came, if they come in and said, okay, Nukobi's only going to play on base and then Jihad's only going to play nickel, it could have gotten a little topsy-turvy the other way, where it's like, oh, jihad's playing basically every single down. So I think the way that their plan was, at least kind of how the deployment was early on,

was basically, okay, when they play in 11 personnel with, all right, when they play in 11 personnel, I've got the notes here. When they play in 11, it's going to be nickel and Jihad Campbell's going to be on the field. When they're playing in base, then it's going to be, you're going to have basically that that's when you're going to see Nikobe Dean as a stack player. And then you're going to have Jihad Campbell down the line of scrimmage. That was the case basically every single time up until Jihad got hurt. Then you had like, there were two versions of the nickel package where you had sometimes it was Campbell and sometimes it was Nikobe. At first I thought it was going to be like every other series.

But then what I started to see was that it was depending. on the if it was going to be like a passing type of situation that it was more Campbell and if it was the threat of more of a threat of a run then it was going to be that it was going to be nicoby the thing that kind of throws it for a loop number one the injury but then number two was the uh the injury to bellinger because then they got to get away from 12 personnel so they were only playing 11 now what they started doing was they started playing with some bigger receivers so you had umfrey and then you also had bow collins uh bea ux collins uh in there so they and those guys are two bigger receivers. And so typically to those sets, you saw Nacobie. And then when it was like Slayton and

Wondell Robinson out there as the as two of the three receivers, then you saw the you saw Jihad Campbell. All that to say, like I think they wanted to go in and try and make it somewhat of a 50-50 split. But then because of those factors, I think that's where it kind of got turned off. I don't know. I don't know how I feel about it. I think we knew that if if Nacobie Dean was going to come back healthy this year and look to look himself, which he does. Like he, he looks good. He looks like NKobi Dean. And that's the pluses and negative standpoint.

I don't know. I don't know if it's like, my, my first question would be like if I were, if I were a coach in the building would be, or if I were a scout in the building would say like, is this hurting Jihad Campbell's long term development, him not getting out there and playing? If you feel that it's not, then cool.

Then this is great. If you are worried about that, then I would be worried about that long term. He, I mean, Nicobie Dean is, a better run player right now than the jihad campbell is i think the flashes are probably better with campbell but uh i think nicobe is more dependable on a down to down basis like playing down hill you know keem diagnosed you know getting you know putting a press in a lot of scrimmage like

nicobe's better in that role right now so it sounds like you're saying like it's more about nicoby like it's more about nicoby in the run game than it is campbell like it's more about what nicobe can offer you in the run game rather than i guess like what campbell's lacking in the run game because i know we've talked about maybe there were a few plays here and there where Bumble wasn't great against the run, but to me it didn't seem like he was a liability to the extent that like you would, you would move away from him in that, and that, in that role. No, that's the, that's the thing is that I've never watched it and been like, oh, man, like, he's really hurting them right now.

Now, it's like, all right, like, you're hoping you're going to see him get better. And I think we, we saw him. He was making marginal incremental improvements there at the point of attack. So that would be my concern would be, could there be a little bit of a setback here. I get like wanting to do right by Nacobi, who was a, you know, all intents and purposes. like I'm very happy for Nikobe Dean. Like I love that he's come back the way that he has and he looks the way that he does. But having paid Zach Bond the way you paid Zach Bond and invested in Jahad Campbell,

the way you invest in Jahad Campbell for 2026 and beyond, like I'd like to be able to see Jahad Campbell as often as possible. Well, and especially, well, two things. What is nice is that now they get to go into the buy. They have some snaps of this to evaluate. They can really think about how they want to actually deploy these guys. when everybody's healthy. But the problem is when everybody's healthy,

when you get Nolan Smith back and Brennan Graham is involved, to whatever degree he's going to be involved, you're not really going to be wasting those edge snaps on Jahad Campbell anymore, right? You're going to have actual edge guys on the field, most likely. So then you're talking about really like putting your rookie first round pick on the bench. And he like isn't playing bad. It's not like a deserved benching either. No.

And so like, and that's what, you know, if, if BG is coming in, in and if he's just going to take Zadarius Smith snaps, Zadarius wasn't playing any base defense, right? He wasn't playing off the edge and base. So if, if Jihad Campbell's going to play off the edge and base, all right, well, Campbell's got that and then he's going to potentially play off the ball and nickel and he's going to split reps with Nkobi there. Again, like I just like how they kind of tow the line there, I think that that's going to be interesting to see how they try and divvy up those snaps to where you still, you're not hurting Jihad long term, but still being able to kind of throw Nekoboia bone as well.

All right. Now, speaking of rookies, before we get to the pass rush, Dana is in a nice long conversation about Andrew McCuba on Friday and some of the things that he was struggling with. Early returns seem to me to be just reading, you know, Dana's Twitter and want to be GM, Blue Sky, rather, that he was better in this game, more disciplined. Yeah, I thought it was. I mean, he was definitely more disciplined than he was two weeks ago. I think that I think the big thing with McCuba is just,

just trying to eliminate as many of those mistakes as you possibly can. The tackling was better. Like we didn't have any, you didn't have any like big glaring mistackles out in the open field. I thought that was largely better in this football game. And so, yeah, this was, this was a much better performance there from the rookie safety from that standpoint, from that standpoint.

And how about Keeley Ringo? Yeah, same thing. I think there were, there were a couple. There was one play. It was like a, a corner route to the tight end in the first half. I want to say late,

late second quarter where it was some kind of a busted coverage between Keely Ringo and Reed Blanketship on who was supposed to pick up the corner route. I mean, my money is that that was probably busted on the keyly Ringo's end and not Blanketship's end, if I'm just trying to guess on it on pre, you know, project that. But it's clearly some kind of miscommunication on that end. But outside of that, no big misses there, which is good. I mean, look, that's what you expect going up against this Giants receiving court.

All right. Let's talk about the pass rush. Season high five sacks for them. To me, this is a bigger take with a grain of salt than the offensive. performance, even though the Giants defense was lower ranked than this giant's offense. Tell me if you feel like I am, I should be more excited about this, this pass rush performance. I'm not moved one way or the other by the performance. Like it was, it was a good, it was a good job of finishing. I think that you went up against a rookie quarterback that looked like a rookie quarterback.

I forget, it's funny. I think you, did you bring it up on the post game or the preface? pre-game show yesterday or to Jamie comparing Jackson Dart to Sam Howell? I did. Yeah. I had that thought last week when I was watching the Giants offense against Denver. And I was like, oh, like, they are kind of similar. And the ways that he's like having success is very similar to Sam Howell when he was the starter in Washington. And I just, I didn't bring it up on Thursday.

So it was funny. It's funny that you bought that up yesterday because I had that thought while watching him. You know, there's and I was getting texts. Oh, like, what did you think of Dart this week? you know, you know, from people. And it was like, I'm not pushing all the chips in that he's the savior of this of the Giants. He's doing some good things. But he's going to have to improve in some key areas.

And I think that you saw some of the drawbacks in this game against the, against the defense. He certainly looked better than any quarterback that they have had for a while. Sure. Yeah, for a while is. Yeah. But yeah, it's, yeah. The low bar. Yeah.

But honestly, like, Daniel Jones at his best, like, has looked better than what we've seen from from jackson dart personally in my opinion okay all right well tell us what you saw uh here from a from a grab-to-grab standpoint although i guess we should start with the kobe we didn't we didn't do the nicoby breakdown yeah i guess the the nicobe thing and this was so lindsay if you go to nicobe iso um it could it just gets back into the uh the drawbacks we've talked about with nicobe in the past you know the eagles uh one of their favorite coverages on third down. They did it a ton in this game is they're going to play cover six, which is a form of zone coverage where you're going to play with two high safeties, but against a three by one set,

which is what you see here, three receivers to the bottom of the screen, one receiver to the top, that safety to the boundary side, to the short side of the field, he's going to have eyes on the opposite side. And so what that now means, so Lindsay, if you go to the next shot, is that you are basically asking the corner to that side, which is typically Quinion Mitchell, they're typically rotating coverage away from Q. So Quinnion Mitchell is going to be ice. one-on-one and whoever that linebacker is is going to be isoed one-on-one with the running back out of the backfield. Now, last year, N'Cobi was the Mike typically, and Zach Bonn was the will typically. But now that we're in more of a rotation, Bonn has been more the mic,

and so that leaves N'Cobie is the will, which means in this kind of scenario, N'Cobie's going to get isoed up. Now, teams could do this to Jihad Campbell as well, but with Jihad Campbell's superior athleticism and with his superior length, I feel good about this kind of a matchup and him being able to hold up at all areas of the field. I think that you could see more scenarios like this, where Lindsay, if you go to the next shot, teams could try and isolate Nkobi in this way. If they're anticipating that it could be cover six, it could be this kind of a coverage look. Circle there is Quinnian Mitchell. He's covering the post route. He's locked up man to man. And you're getting a wheel route from

the running back down the field. And now that Kobe's in running chase mode, I think that this is something that you could see from opposing offense as if Nkobie's on the field in those high leverage spots. if you go to the next shot. This was actually an underthrown deep ball from Jackson Dart here. Had he made a better throw here? This could have been a touchdown. But the running back had to slow down for it.

Ncobie still gave up the catch. It was a great catch by the running back. It wasn't terrible by Nkobie. And I'm not saying he's a bad coverage player. But with his size and with his, you know, athletic limitations, there are going to be plays like this that do show up against, you know, better offensive football. You would rather have Jihad Campbell in that spot.

Yes. No question. Yeah. Okay. All right. Let's get to the pass rush. And let's start with Jelix Hunt, who has looked much more involved the past couple weeks. And, you know, with everybody else around him, either getting hurt or retiring, they've sort of needed that. And he's held up pretty well. Yeah. I thought that he had some really good moments in the game overall. I know there's some like next-gen stats numbers going around about like how many pressures he had. And they just, you know, I thought that he got the best of Aluminore, a number of times the right tackle for the Giants. I thought that they could attack at times. And I thought that Hunt was able to get some wins there against Germain Illuminaur. So when you look at his length and his explosiveness and his range, I thought that the effort from the defensive line was top notch in this game. And that's what, you know, we talked last week. And one of the ways I opened the show on Thursday

was like I felt like we would learn a lot about this defense and learn about a lot about this team, how they were going to respond after a couple weeks ago to me was really important. I thought this team responded really well. I thought the effort defensively, the physicality defensively, really that they took it up the level. And I thought that that was really good to be able to see this group respond the way that they did. A number of those sacks that they had in this one

were like second and third effort sacks, which you need to have when you go up against a quarterback like Jackson Dart. And this is a good example of that. So, Lindsay, if you go take a look at this first snappy snap, Fran, in. So yeah, let's take a look at that first one. So this is Hunt Sack 1,

Lindsey. So now this is a play down in the red zone. And you could see that late in the pre-snap phase, the Eagles look, this looks pretty basic. It looks like it's going to be four down linemen. You've got Zach Bond here playing from depth. But very late in the pre-snap phase, you get a front change here, a change in the alignment here from Vic Fangio's defense where Lindsay, if you go to the next shot, you can see that Jalen Carter, he slides over in the center now. It's like, all right, we got to change. We got to change the protection call. Zach Bond might be, might be blue. here from depth because now you've got an overloaded front. You've got three defensive linemen to one side.

And Zach Bond does end up. If we'll go to the next shot, Zach Bond ends up walking up to the line of scrimmage. And you can see the center, obviously we're not looking at video here, but the center starts like kind of spinning his hand. And he's like, he's making some kind of a call here because now they're up against it.

The playcock's about to hit zero here. So what happens? What's that? Nothing. Go ahead. Okay. So what happens here? is that, again, this is like one of the good things about when you do utilize these SIM pressures

and utilize your linebacker in the pressure packages is that you can dictate to the offense in terms of how you want them to protect and just kind of send them into panic mode before the snap. So, Lindsay, if you go to the next shot, the Giants left tackle, Andrew Thomas, he's got eyes on Zach Bonn. I think what the call that the center was making there very late before the snap was that he was telling the tackle, keep eyes on, but basically like go two for one here. You're going to help out the guard with Bonn if he does blitz. And then also just make sure you also get that outside arm on Patrick Johnson. If Patrick Johnson does blitz off the edge, a number of times the Eagles blitz the linebacker

and drop the defensive end out. So they're basically telling Thomas help out the guard here with Zach Bond if he does blitz on this one. But because the tackle, you can see his eyes are on Zach Bonn here. Patrick Johnson is able to get the jump on the on. on Andrew Thomas. It's a great player. Like one-on-one, like Patrick Johnson was going to lose,

99 times out of 100 and one-on-one reps. Like, I don't know, 90 reps out of 100 against Andrew Thomas. But here, he gets the edge on him. So if you go to the next shot here, Lindsay, you see he gets the edge on Andrew Thomas. He's able to pressure Jackson Dart. And you can see, like, Zach Bond didn't even blitz here. So because of that late stem,

they changed the protection call. They were able to get pressure on Jackson Dart. Dart has to step up. and they're running some kind of a stunt over on the other side. But what I love here from Jalick's Hunt, you can see that right on this spot, you see that Hunt is parallel with the quarterback. He's parallel.

He's not behind Jackson Dart. You're not sacking anybody if you're behind the quarterback. So it's for me that one of the things I'm always looking for with young rushers is that understanding of, I can't get deeper than the quarterback. When I get too deep in the pocket, I've got to have to retrace my rush. I've got to stop my forward momentum and work back towards the inside. And I thought this was a great example of that from Jayalick's,

If you go to the last shot here, Lindsay, he now retraces, and he's going after dark kind of wiggles out of trouble here, he's able to close here from the backside. Again, you've got Bond right in his face there, basically as a QB spy. But I just, I love the manipulation there of the protection from Vic Fangio's defense using Zach Bonn as a weapon in that way. You're able to get Patrick Johnson free, give him a little bit of help. And then you've got Hunt and his ability to close there on the backside. Very nicely described.

Correct me if I'm wrong here. Fran, I felt like, yeah, I don't know what this is about. I'm just choosing to plow through it here. It felt like Jaylix Hunt was pretty close to having like a statement game here. Like I feel like there were two or three other opportunities where he, I mean, he could have had a multi-sac game. I think it's fair to say. Would you have coined it the Jaylix Hunt game?

I would not have coined it. I mean, the Tank Bigsby game is a fun one. You know, I feel like that is like a fun thing to remember about this game. Yeah, it was a nice performance in Jaylex Hunt. Definitely one of his better games, certainly, since being in the NFL. I don't know if I'm like, you know, I don't want to go overboard. But I thought it was a, I thought it was a good performance. I thought that he showed well.

We'll get to an Ojimo sack in a minute, friend, but just on the edge guys, you feel like if this is how you're, if this is your edge group for the rest of the season, you feel okay about that? I feel fine with it. Yeah, I think if everyone stays healthy, you're getting Nolan Smith back. So you got a healthy Nolan Smith with Hunt with with with BG. Yeah, I think that I feel better about that group overall. So you would you would rather, if you have one big chip, you'd rather use it on a corner. I think so.

Yeah, personally. How about you, E.J.? I still lean ever so slightly. It has to be like an impact player. It has to be like the Max Crosby, Trey Hendrickson level of player. And I understand the price would be, you know, significant there. But if you told me that they could add like a star on the edge, in that edge rusher rotation,

I still probably lean more toward that. If you're telling me it's like a serviceable starter, then yeah, I'm with Fran. I think corner is the one that you would go with there. But difference maker, I'd rather have the edge rusher. I think I agree with that framing, actually.

Like if you said like, all right, like it's a, you know, an A level player at either spot, I'd rather have the A level rusher. But if you're, I think that that's,

that's just a harder acquisition to make. Yeah, it's unrealistic. With more competition in the market. So I think if you can get a serviceable starter, like a guy that you feel, yeah, like this guy's a solid player opposite Quignan and Cooper Dijin, then I feel like I'd rather see that at corner. An Alante Taylor, perhaps? Look, you have to give up a little bit more than what you think of him, but yeah. No, I saw our friend Jimmy Kemsky had a third, a third round pick for Alante Taylor. I don't know.

I personally think that he would go for more than that, but I could be wrong. What do you think is the funniest move of how it could make? Um, hmm. Two things come to mind for me. Trading for, uh, trading for, um, for Isaiah. That would be funny. I like the idea of trading for Bijon Robinson and just telling everybody that he's going to get back to Turner.

That's all he does. We're just finally solving the kickoff return game. Um, but more likely I think is what's probably going to happen, which is, um, a sixth round pick for Jack Stoll and a seventh. it's going to of course it's going to happen I do think that we have moved past the the need for them to make the trade for a blocking tight end I think now that they're leaning into the 6-0 line stuff

I think that we have we've moved past that or that's the only that's just what they're doing to give them leverage so that they don't have they don't get fleeced on that deal God forbid you get fleeced on the jack stole deal yeah that's like 5D chess right there all right let's get to the last series of snaps here friend and that is the Morrow Ojumosak.

So let's go, so Lindsay, this will be Ojamo sack one. And this to me, like this pairs really well with that last one that we show from the Jalax Hunt Sack because again, and we've talked about this in the past, that I love that we're seeing a little bit more of this from the Eagles this year where you're showing a little bit more variety with your fronts and with your pressure looks and how that can mess with opposing protections because you're forcing defenses or forcing offenses rather to choose before the snack. how do you want to block this up more often than not when the eagles bring a linebacker down onto the line of scrimmage over the guard or over the center typically they have gone big on big right where it's kind of

what we saw in that last one where the guard is going to keep eyes on that linebacker on zach bonn or on jihad campbell in this scenario where all right you're going to go basically you got five guys in line of scrimmage our five offensive linemen are going to account for those five players but because sometimes the linebacker comes and sometimes he doesn't teams can decide all right you you know what we're going to do this a little bit differently and we just showed you a play earlier in the game where they put bon up in the line of scrimmage and he ended up not blitzing and he ended up surviving so now the giants are like all right they're putting they're putting campbell down on the line of scrimmage we're going to bet that he is not blitzing here so they're

what they're going to do is they're going to have the running back block campbell so lindsay if you go to the next shot the running back tyrone chase tracy he's going to cross face he's going to block camp that's fine and the offensive line of the guard on that side they are going to run a four-man slide. They're going to slide the protection towards the overload side of the front. So now we talked about how typically when you have that overloaded side, that's where you're going to get all kinds of different stunts and twists. So maybe the tackles are going to twist or the end might loop all the way inside. The Eagles have had success running these types of games in recent weeks where, all right, we're going to run a stunt over to the other side,

and then you've got the linebacker rushing on the opposite side. Well, the giants are, all right, we're going to prepare for the stunt by basically making it four on three. on that side. So if anyone comes looping inside, the left guard's going to take him. And then the running back, he's going to block Campbell. The tackle is going to block the left tackle is going to block the outside rusher Josh Ushey over on the far left side. So this makes sense on the whiteboard. It's just a different kind of way that the giants are trying to approach it. Now, what happens on this play, if you go to the next shot here, Lindsay, is the running back, he's going to cross face and block Campbell. The Eagles are playing man-to-man coverage here. So Zach Bonn is responsible for the running

back in coverage. And once Bond realizes that the running back is staying in, he's got two choices. He can either drop back in coverage. I guess he could spy Jackson Dart, right? He could just kind of mush and kind of wait his turn. Or he could do what's called green do. He has the green light to attack the quarterback and basically replace Jihad Campbell in the pressure and become a part of the blitz package. So the running, all right, the running back wants to block Campbell. All right, well, now I'm going to rush and somebody has to account for me. So now you get the numbers advantage back in your favor as a defense. So once Bond makes this decision, this is great.

If you go to the next shot, Lindsay, the guard who was sliding to help with any kind of stunt, well, now he sees Bond coming. He's like, now I've got to pick up Zach Bond. What this does is across the board, it's one-on-one. Everybody's, it's literally, it's six on six across the board. And again, the Eagles, even though like, the edge group isn't what it was. The Eagles feel good about their ability.

Like if we're going to play one-on-one football across the front, we've got enough talent that one of our guys is going to win out, right? Like between the defensive tackles, you throw both linebackers in there, the edge rushers. Like one of our guys is going to be able to win out, especially if we're now incorporating different stunts and twists. And Lindsay, if you go to the next shot, the Eagles are running a TT stunt on this play between Ojamo and Jalen Carter.

Where Carter's going to knife up the field and Ojamo is going to loop around inside, inside the center. So you're going to get that TT stunt there and working, you know, against that side of the protection. If the guard hadn't been pulled in by Zach Bond, well, that guard is going to lay out more Ojimo. When Ojamo slants inside, that guard is going to lay out Ojamo. But because Ojamo is protected by Bond, now he's going to have a free run at Jackson Dart. You can see it really well the next shot, Lindsay. Ojamo is going to play off of Carter and he's got now a free line at the quarterback, Dart hits the top of his drop, and he's already getting ready to take off. He's like, oh, I got to get out of Dodge now. It's man-to-man coverage. I'm going to try and see if I can wiggle

out of here. I should be able to scramble for first down. So, and he actually does a pretty good job of stepping through traffic. So you go to the next shot, he kind of, there's a car wreck in front of him. He jumps over the pile. Bond does a nice job of like, all right, like I started rushing, but I see that the rush is starting to get home. So now I'm going to make sure that I try and mirror the quarterback here on this play. And what I love, is that you can kind of see like Ojamo is on the ground here like he tried to retrace and he he's like right on the hash marks there behind number 72 from the Giants. Ojamo pops back up if you go to the next shot. Ojamo pops back up and then he jumps over the pile and he's able to get home for the sack.

You can see Zach Bonn is there, Campbell is there. So they did a nice job of kind of meeting cutting off the quarterback at the past, forcing him to stop his feet so he couldn't scramble. And then Ojamo was able to get home. So this was a really good example. they're just playing man-to-man coverage on the back end. They're just playing it. It's straight. You have a single high safety,

and it's man-to-man across the board on the back end. The Eagles played less man coverage in this game than they did the previous matchup, but they picked it in certain spots. And to me, like the rush, the effort from the guys up front, they did a much better job in this game of corraling Jackson Dart, not letting him escape the pocket all that often. And then, again, a lot of those five sacks, at least three of top of my head were like second and third effort,

if not four or five of them, or second and third. Like, it was a really good job from that group overall. Which is good to see from an effort standpoint, but it's part of the reason why I'm a little bit nonplussed by, like, of the pass rushes back. You know what I mean? Because against most teams, the ball is going to be out.

They are, it's a smoke and mirror of pass rush. Like, it's good. But I think that's the, I think that's just the reality of the world they're living in right now. Like, especially without Nolan Smith, like, you're expecting Nolan to, you know, not just be on the field, but like taking that next step and kind of continuing his moment. for what we saw in the second half of last year. And so without him out there, I think you're looking and it's like, all right, like, yeah, like Jaylux is fine, but he's still a developing player.

Yeah, you're hoping to get a little bit more out of that group. I'm not going overboard with this five-sac-sac performance, but it was definitely a better showing than what we've gotten over the last few weeks. I'd be remiss if I did not bring up a certain stat. Camelotu. No, the Camelotu conversation is over for this week. Morrow-Jomo, up to four sacks on the season. One sack away.

You're 30 that you predicted. No, no. One sack away for Milton Williams' total in 2024. Also, a half sack ahead of Milton Williams' pace currently for this season. I will say, like, if you talk to anybody that breaks down New England, like Milton Williams has been awesome. No, I'm not, yeah. I'm not trying to say that he's playing better than Milton Williams.

All I'm saying is that, you know, the five sacks at Milton Williams. Williams had last year. Moro Ojo-O-O-Jomo. It's close to matching that total. All right. Let me give you guys one more question. And then I have something that has come up during this episode that I have to run by E.J. But since the three of us will not be together until next week, let me ask you this.

If you had to bet right now on the Eagles offense or the Eagles defense outperforming the first half version in the second half, which one would you bet on? So the Eagles are right now ninth in EPA per drive, according to true media, tied with a bunch of other teams, somewhere between ninth and 12th. Deviate doesn't come out until tomorrow. On defense, by EPA per drive, they are 13th. This is actually much more difficult than I thought it was going to be. Yeah, that is hard. I might go offense just a little bit.

I don't feel great about either of it, either of them. I mean, like, I could, I don't know. I think that ninth, it's hard to go up from there. But if the run game gets going is a little bit more, you know, on schedule and predict and, you know, just productive and explosive, then I think there's, there's room for the Eagles offense to go up from what we've seen in the first half. And I think on defense, like, I'm a little bit worried about more regression. You know, maybe it's because I spend so much time around you. but, you know, and I don't know. Ask me again after the trade deadline.

How about that? Just looking at the teams that they've got on the schedule. So like I was good. Green Bay, Detroit, Dallas, Chicago, Chargers, Raiders, Washington twice, Buffalo. I feel better about that slate of defenses and matches. Like I feel like I like the Eagles in the matchup against those opposing defense. as opposed to those opposing offenses. So I would, because I do think that it's close, like EJ said,

I like the offense outperforming their first half. Now, this one I will say, let's presume AJ Brown's here, because if he's not, I don't know that I would make the same bet. But I do agree, I think I have a little bit more faith in the offense. And listen, maybe it's, maybe it's a recency bias from seeing them pull out a bunch of tricks in this game. But as we talked about on the post game show, like, we have to learn this lesson every year that sometimes patience is required and like you know a first time coordinator is allowed to get better over the course of the season and so too is

a defense that is that is incorporating a bunch of new pieces so we'll see how it plays out uh fresh prints with a super chat says fran on the dots in 40 yard touchdown devante makes his guy fall with a stutter go route what determines the first read in the progression was that fourverts Yeah, it was, I mean, essentially fourverts, yes. Literally going through, I'm looking at the play right now. I think on this one, this was one of those instances where it's like, all right, like, kind of pick your match up here and see who you want to go to. And I think that you want to kind of throw, give dots a chance, a third and six.

And a decisive for all those clear out routes he's been running. Right. I think that this was like, all right, let me give dots and a chance to go make a play here. And Jack Royer enters the trade suggestion. with AJ and a fourth for Khalil Mack and Ladd McCunkey? I mean, aside from the fact that Chargers probably wouldn't do it. McCongy's good. More like Manky.

All right. On that note, I'm going to go to Nick. So on, E.J. Hold on. You see in the chat here. Sean Donnelly. I received a text during this episode from Sean Donnelly, who I don't know we didn't know we have this we have this mutual yeah I didn't know this

connection when my my hit my my lost two years out of the business in that in the in the in the in the in the in the in the PR industry I worked with Sean and he tells me he goes back with you to Penn State Berks you're in the student newspaper together yeah yeah no I when you said Sean Donnelly I'm like that Sean Donnelly yeah Sean and I we we we cross paths at the the pet the Berks Collegion is what we called that newspaper and yeah i think he handed the the reins to me as the uh student uh student student editor of that paper so yeah sean's a great guy i didn't i knew he was a sicko but i didn't know that you guys knew each other shout to sean wow there we go long live the burke's collegian he says yeah all right that'll do it for this episode of the p h oi egos podcast back tomorrow two o'clock

e j smith little brandon graham and we roll on uh some fun stuff coming on this week Fran, thank you as always for the snappy snaps and everybody. We will talk to tomorrow at 2 o'clock and as always. We love you.