PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Fran Duffy: How Kellen Moore set up Jalen Hurts & the Philadelphia Eagles for success vs. PIT

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

Jalen Hurts had arguably his best passing performance of the season, throwing to both A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith for over 100 yards, in the dominant win over the Pittsburgh Steelers. It’s our film review Tuesday to explain how it happened, as Fran Duffy details the scheme behind Hurts’ success, how Lane Johnson and Jordan Mailata were integral to the protection, and what it means moving forward for this Saquon Barkley-led offense. And don’t forget to give the defense its flowers, as Jalen Carter, Nolan Smith and Zack Baun continue to be bad, bad men.Join Duffy, Zach Berman and Bo Wulf for our PHLY Eagles show on a sexy Tuesday. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Download the Bet365 app and use code PHLY365. When you sign up, whatever the moment, it's never ordinary at Bet365. It's a Tuesday. You know what that means. It's a football Tuesday. We're talking about the film. Fran Duffy's here. I got my shirt.

Zach's here. We talked to the coordinators this afternoon. Much to unpack as the Eagles look like the team to beat potentially in the NFL. How's everybody doing? Doing great. I'm excited for a lot to get. through in a big win over the Steelers. What's up, Zee-B?

Doing well. Excited for the show. Want to make clear. Clothes are staying on. I don't know where that's coming from, but I... Listen, this camera only shows the top half. We have no idea what's going on. I don't want people sticking around for an hour and 20 minutes thinking that there's...

I don't want to make false promises. So, no. The clothes are staying... You just, you never know. The clothes... None of us knows the future. The clothes are staying on. But I'll tell you what.

I want to be loved in any facet of my life the way the Eagles love Kenny Gainwell. Bo asked a good question yesterday that Nick Siriani. Nick was, I mean, Nick's never been happier. Today, Michael Clay and Kellynne Moore,

everyone loves Kenny Gainwell. Here's my question. How do you feel about the way that this works in like the flow of the media ecosystem state where someone asks a question, you get an interesting answer, and then all of a sudden, everybody is asking questions about that for the rest of

of the week. I think it's okay if it's within the context of like something that just occurred. If if like if you were doing a story on Tyler Brown, okay? And like you and you get a good answer for Tyler Brown. And then the next like three press conferences are Tyler Brown questions. It's like that come on. You know, don't don't jump on someone else's story. But Kenny Gainwell, he had those two great third downs. Fran wrote about him today on all p.chly.com. Lane Johnson said he's the most underrated player on the team. So I think within that, it's relevant, it's topical, so it makes sense.

Yeah, I think it's totally fair game. I mean, it was like, it's funny because it's funny when the questions then get asked as if they are new thoughts when it's all a part of the same continuing conversation. but yeah like a guy like Kenny Gamel who who deserves his sort of moment in the sun i think that's nice yeah nick so uh to tell the audience when you asked the question yesterday and nick said players make fun of him like uh he knows they make fun of Kenny because they call him like nick's boy yeah yeah nick's favorite which which you've talked about on the show like nick loves Kenny gainwell number one but nick said he's like representative of the culture that they have here so that i thought

that was one of the more revealing things from yesterday's press conference yeah interesting good stuff all right uh do you want to talk about keny gainwell sure you're talking about him a little bit yeah i wrote about a little bit what pop for you in this game i mean he just he came through with three critical third down conversions so on scoring drives uh all in the passing game did a little bit as a runner obviously look we know that he's not an impact player from a uh like he's not going to give you consistent explosives week after week after week right but he's a reliable do everything player that uh i think the way i phrased it in the uh in the article that's up on all p hilly dot com right now is that he a die hard uh he's a guy that can plug it where it leaks as a as a in that running back room if you need someone to fill in as a goal line back like he can

do that if you need someone in pass protection as a pass catcher early down work no matter what you need he's got that skill set you know boston scott was that way that you know no matter what kind of uh role you need in your running back room that given week he's got that ability to help you there. And I think that's an important skill set to have. Okay. Let's get to the big picture conversation. And obviously the big story this week for the Eagles was the way that they were able to come out and throw the ball against this Pittsburgh Steelers defense. I guess my first question for you is how much was this a function of this is the specific way that the Steelers play?

And the Eagles answer the challenge of playing the way that the Steelers wanted them to and doing it well. And I guess how sustainable was what they did in this game. I think it can be sustainable. But I think now it's just a matter of like, you know, sticking to it. We'll get into some of the inconsistencies that I did see throughout the course of the, throughout the course of the game. I mean, I think that they were really efficient in the first half of the game. I think that Pittsburgh kind of dialed in a little bit in the second half.

And so you saw some more stops. You saw some more inconsistencies with the past game. But I think overall, I mean, they came in with a really good plan of attack offensively, you know, using the empty sets against a primary single high team like the Pittsburgh Steelers are. That could be really beneficial. because if the Steelers aren't, if they want to stay in that single high, there's only so much you can do from a coverage standpoint. Like it's, and that's the thing is that, uh,

if you're going to line up with a single high safety and you go into, uh, and you go and you go empty, all right, well, you're either playing cover one or you're playing cover three. There's not a lot of mystery there. And so it made the answers easy for Jalen Hertz before the snap. Once you got that man zone indicator and you saw that it's one high safety, kind of know it's going to be cover three. Or you kind of know that are it's going to be straight man to man coverage.

So it's made things a little bit easy. from that standpoint, will they, you know, get challenged a little bit differently by other teams if they try and use those empty sets, certainly. But I do think that, you know, they can take, there are some things they can certainly take away from this game. Now, the numbers reflect it. You know, they ran as many plays and empty sets in this game as they have in any game all season long. Zach Kellan Moore said that that really was the plan coming in. This was not a function of like they tried it and it was working mid-game. He said it was part of the game plan.

Yes. And I'm going to answer that. And then I have a question along with that. for Fran based on what Kellan said because you're right Bo Kellan said that as the week went on they thought this made sense against the Steelers based on the way the Steelers

were playing against Empty so they saw on film whether it was the lack of depth at corner perhaps that the Steelers had or just the way they presented against Empty this is something that the Eagles wanted to go into but Kellan Moore

in talking about it about empty he kept saying there's pros and cons and he says the cons in it is that teams don't like to run out of empty, but because the Eagles can run with Jalen Hertz, it gives them, it makes them a little more comfortable in empty. Is that something that you see? Yeah, absolutely. We know that, you know, when you have that QB draw element that the Eagles certainly have, you know, with the, with those empty sets, that gives you a little bit extra oomph to that package that not everybody has, because if you go with, you know, four down linemen and one linebacker in the box, that's five on five for the offensive line. That's. That's five on five for the

offensive line, that's a win for Jalen Hertz and the Eagles past game. And so that's something we saw them push that button late in the game. That was one of their last empty snaps was that 23-yard run from Jalen Hertz. So as long as you have that in the back pocket, defenses have to respect it. And so now it just becomes a numbers game in terms of how they can spread around their other available defenders. The Eagles were able to take advantage. And it's also, it's always interesting to hearing the defense's perspective on this. And good. thing is we have the defense's perspective on this because you had mentioned back in October that the Eagles were seeing a lot of empty.

Yep. And so Vic Fangio, I asked, I asked Vic about it. And he said it makes the game more one-on-one-ish. The ball usually comes out quicker. It tests your ability. It really does. So that's the defense's perspective. And so when you have wide receivers like the Eagles have who can win one-on-one, it certainly

seems advantageous. Yeah. Honestly, the screen grabs I grabbed on those empty sets. Let's kind of illustrate that a little bit. So we can jump into the first one, Julia is an empty one. So this is the first play of the game. And the very first play of the game, they go 22 yards to Grant Calcutara. It's called a stick nod route.

It's basically a double move where you're faking the stick route where it's like basically like go like seven yards and turn to the outside, maybe sit down in zone coverage. You're faking that route and then you're going to put your foot in there on and work up field. But this is the way the Eagles come out in this game is that you've got your running back, Sequan Barkley, far left of the formation. Lined up across from him is the cornerback, Joey Porter Jr. Julie, if you go to the next shot, the next guy inside of Sequin Barclay is Devante Smith. And when you got Devante Smith in the slot, they're all right, who's lined up against them. There's no one really across from Devante Smith. And really, that's the pass rusher. Nick Herbig is the next player there. So right away, you're Jalen Hertz.

And say, okay, this is absolutely zone coverage. You can see there's only one single high safety. And unless they're going to try and disguise out of this, which again, it's very hard to disguise your coverage out of empty sets because as Vic Fangio said, the ball's going to come out fast. And so if you try and disguise, you are going to disguise yourself out of coverage. You are not going to be able to get to your landmarks and get to where you need to be. And so that's why the empty can be so effective because it makes you kind of line up and say, this is how we're going to play. So right now, absolutely in her bag with this picture picture. For the audio listeners, yeah, on the screen right right now, we have the screen. screenshot from Fran, but then we also have the video of us observing this.

I, yeah, this is absolutely incredible. So, yeah, you get the single high safety. And Julie, if you go to the next shot here, with Jalen knowing that he's got Calcutera on the double move, the big thing that he's like, all right, Calcutera's going to win against Alton Roberts down the right scene, down the right hash mark. So I have to make sure I beat this lone safety. And so he's going to drop back.

He's going to stare to his left, stare to the middle of the field, just hold that safety there. And so he's just got to beat that safety and throw it over the top. And Julie, if you just go to the last shot. So you think Calcuttaire is the primary read on this. Calcutara is the primary read. Once he knows, this is what we're going to get. This is stealing here against the Landon Roberts. Calcutara is athletically just a mismatch against Roberts in space. The Eagles came out in heavier personnel and spread them out numerous times in this game to try and get those matchups. And they were able to do that there. Now, that's one thing that can happen is when you go to get into into empty, you get that zone tell now you're trying to pick apart zone coverage but you can also have a situation where

they line up and julia if you go to the next shot here uh this was on the third drive of the game this was that touchdown drive uh that ended with the touchdown a j brown second play they come out and empty and this time it's two receivers to the bottom of the screen so you see devante smith and a j brown well now they've got two corners to that side and joey porter junior is pressed up on a j brown now this is a play a concept that the Eagles ran six, seven times in this game. It's a, you're going to get a shallow cross from Devante Smith in the slot. You're going to get the tight end running a ball route right over the middle of the field. You're going to get an out route from the number two receiver on the other side. It's a drive concept that I've known it as. It's a West Coast staple.

It's been a staple in the Eagles past game. And again, they ran it five or six times in this game. So it's dressed up in different ways. Dressed up in different ways, mostly. They were they ran it from this empty set two or three times from the same exact look. And it was, and it was, worked for them. It's not that it didn't work, but here on this one, with AJ Brown getting press man coverage, Jalen didn't even read anything else out. He said, all right, I'm throwing this up to AJ. So once he, again, that's a, that's a quick rhythm throw. And Julia, you can go to the last shot. That's just him throwing this up to, to A.J. Brown and trusting that he's going to beat Joey Porter Jr. But the reason why he was so, he was so decisive with it, all right, he knew, like,

press man coverage, this is what we're getting. It's going to be cover one. I'm going to let it fly. And he was able to come down with a 20-yard reception. think that that's a throw he makes when you know the last four weeks uh i mean it's tough to say like with certainty but yeah he he hadn't been making those throws uh over the course of this you know over the course of this stretch and so um yeah so he took that there of course the the air yards and that were 19 yards and not 20 and that which affected swooper but uh yeah i think that no that those are the kinds of things that you can get when you get into those empty sets there's the um characterization of jalen hurts that he is like a a predetermined thrower basically like he will

look and see what the coverage is before the snap. And if he's right about that, he already knows where he's going to put the ball. Do you think that is a fair characterization? And do you think that that is even that bad of a thing? No, I think it's more descriptive than it is like, oh, that's bad. I do think it's fair that there are times where he certainly looks that he's, hey, you know what? I'm going to read AJ and forget everything else.

Like that's where now there are also times where the play calls for that. Yeah. Zach, you've talked to, you know, with guys and they say like, oh, that was an alert on that play. that's what alerts are basically dictate predetermination. So it's like, all right, if I get this look, screw everything else, that's where I'm going with the football.

But you just don't, you don't want to live that way. Now there are times too. It was the, I think it was a play actually that we're going to cover here. It was the, yeah, let's just do it now. It's the, Julia, it's Smith Catch 1. So this was, this one actually came from the discord here on this play.

And this is a second and 14. This is on the final drive. that 22 play drive to end the game second and 14 and a j brown comes in motion from left to right on the play so and this is this is a new thing i added for this one i july i should have i should have told you because i was worried that i was going to mess up your picture and picture as soon as i saw the picture you already adjusted this is unbelievable we're playing where this is this is now turned into a too high yeah but yeah so this one this one came from the from the discord from rich coat tight's ghost uh would be a be a die hard and you wow look at this you can you can

recommend plays here. Unbelievable. So AJ Brown is going to run the slant route. Well, that's taken away from the Pittsburgh defense. So rather than rethinking anything out on the other side, and you can see that the tight end is working over the middle. He's going to work over the middle of the field, Calcutara, and he will actually be open.

If Jaylen is reading this from right to left, my guess is that Calcutara would be the next read, but instead he comes all the way back over to the other side, and Julia, you can go to the next one to read Devante Smith. Well, Devante Smith is taken away from an underneath defender. They're playing cover two. That underneath defender is sitting there right in the hole. So now Jalen gets in the scramble mode.

And so what he basically does is he's going to slide to his left. And Julia, you go to the next shot. This is the play where he points to the left. And I don't know if he's like directing Sequin or if he's directing Devante. But Devante, he's trying to find space. He's trying to make himself available for the quarterback. He goes inside. So he's pointing left.

Devante goes right. He goes in the middle of field. And Julia can go to the last shot. And Devante's wide open for a catch. over the middle. That's a play where it is not predetermined. Well, no,

to me, like he, he went for, he was like, all right, I'm going to AJ. Right. And then I'm going,

I'm going, where's Devante? You know, I think he skipped a progression there. I think, uh, you know, I don't know for certain.

I don't want to say that I'm 100% on that, but, uh, with a way that he's not throwing it blindly. Yes. He's not throwing that blindly. Uh, but I do think that there are times where,

uh, he would say, all right, like, this is where I'm going, AJ, but that's you know i i think that's okay i don't think that's the worst thing in the world but i think that does fairly describe him at times i just want to jump in here too because uh you asked

fran if this is a play that jane would have made the past few weeks and i want to take this chance here before we kind of deviate from this to push back on the narrative nick seriani has right now which is nick is trying to present this point that there's no issue that there hasn't been an issue with the passing offense and that the uh if you look at their they've been so efficient over the past eight weeks he keeps pointing the passer rating uh which which is a misleading number but also his his general premise seems to be um you're focused on volume like you you you know and uh i just want to kind of push back on that because yeah he's either lying yeah i think it's okay to say they haven't been passing well in recent weeks in the two previous

games for instance um their explosive play in in terms of past percentage was four percent against carolina 4.8% against Baltimore, right? Think about that. So that's just looking at your percentage of passing plays that are 16 plus yards. The, the, the third down passing completion percentage, or I should say conversion rate on passing place, 42.9% against Carolina, 16.7% against Baltimore. So I think that it's okay. And this doesn't even get into yards.

I'm not talking about counting stats here. I'm talking about percentages. So I think it's okay for Nick to say, like, they did improve this week. This is something that they needed to improve and they improved. I don't think we should fall into the narrative where there was never initial along. Yeah. No, but I hear Nick saying this. Yeah.

And I think that it's just honest. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, trying to re-spin the conversation. Now, we spent so much time last week talking about that horrid chart that you put together of Jalen Hurd. and the amount of time that he was holding onto the ball and while holding onto the ball not doing things down field

and was super inefficient. How did he fare on that front in this game? It was one of the things I was most excited to see once I got through the film on Monday. Like, all right, what are the numbers that we looked at last week? How did that look in this game specifically? So, Julia, if you pull up Hertz chart in this one. So again, I was, look, coming off that game,

you saw the ball come out fast, you saw all the examples of this offense just looked faster. cleaner. It was as efficient as we've seen. At the top, you can see that this was the chart from last week. And at the bottom, I took Hertz's numbers from the last four weeks and then compared it to just this game with the Steelers. Now, I was kind of taken aback because I was like, oh, actually, a lot of these numbers are relatively the same in terms of the amount of time that he held the ball over four seconds was like basically, it was actually more than what we had seen in the last four weeks.

And you saw with what he did, he was a little bit more aggressive down the field, the EPA per dropback. the success rate was better in this game on those specific plays. But I was kind of thinking because I was like, oh, like, no, it felt like the average time to throw was better that there weren't as many of those plays. Then I went and I'm like, all right, like, look at, let me look at these numbers again. He had three plays in the first half where it was where he held the ball over four seconds. All three were sacks. So three like, and they were, they were bad sacks. They were, they were on Jalen all three of those plays.

Oh, you think so? I think so. Yeah. To me, like there was one where he had pressure. where he should have, like, he stepped up and stepped right into the sack. That was T.J. Watts first sack. That one that he fumbled. That was that was a rough one to take.

Yeah, there was. And the other T.J. Watts, which, to be fair, I was impressed. He was able to hold onto the ball on that one. Impressive for sure that he held onto it. But yeah, those were, that one he ejected through the back of the pocket. So that's, I'm getting into it with people on Twitter about, like, Lane Johnson versus T.J. Watt and, like, Steelers, Twitter. When I went nuts on the Elaine Johnson clip, but that's for another day.

What do they say? Oh, like T.J. Y, look at the box score for T.J. Watt. I'm like, okay. Yeah, it's not worth trying to get down to that rabbit hole. Lane Johnson was awesome in this game. And the fact that they left him one-on-one as often as they did against Watt. I mean, Lane is just ridiculous. It just means they're eating your pizza. That's a good thing. Yeah. Yeah, there you go. So, but, so looking at the first half, he was 12 or 13, Jalen Hertz, 146 yards and two touchdowns. 2.6 seconds flat average time to throw. that was his best in any half of any game this year. His quickest time to throw. Yeah, is his quickest. So I'm looking at this. I'm like, all right, well, if it was 2.6 seconds flat in the first

and he barely held on to the ball over four seconds in the first half, that means all of these numbers that were seeing that brought him back over to the other way, all happened in the second half. Now, I went through, you know, go back through the dropbacks and you see like, all right, well, what led to that? I think there were some plays where some of those same problems cropped up. Okay. I think there were some where the defense kind of,

read the concept and for you know we just looked at the one where uh and it was honestly the best play where he held the ball for more than four seconds was that devante smith 22 yarder uh where the first concept was kind of taken away he had to roll to his left and he was able to make a play um i think that's the difference is that you know in this small sample size that we're dealing with he was able to make like one or two plays that uh kind of tilt it but what i would say is i don't think that everything from this game was like perfectly clean in the past game and that oh yeah all problems fixed like all systems go. I do think there are things that they can take

and certainly ways to kind of build forward. But the second half was not as clean as though the first half was awesome. Second half was kind of more of the same, in my opinion. So what can they take and what do they still need to work on? Well, I know, you know, it goes into like the don't let action determine or define what the determination was, right? So like for Jalen, like I can tell you like,

all right, they did some things to help him get the ball out fast. I also kind of wonder, like, especially given how did he start that press conference on Sunday night? Like, he came out. Is that what you guys wanted to see? Yeah. I think there was probably like a thing with him like, all right, you guys think I hold onto the ball too much?

Like you think I'm going to get the ball out as fast as possible. But then as the game went on, you got to revert back. You take some hits. All right, we're reverting into the way that we want to play. I almost want to see like, all right, how does it look against Washington? How does it look against Dallas in New York to close out the season? Okay.

Do you smell on it? No, I was thinking about that jail on press conference. I was so frustrated. I couldn't get a question. I was trying. I got jumped on four times on questions. And I'm not saying my question was like the most amazing question, but I... Vic Fangio has accurately described you as the Mr.

Philosophical question. A plus tweet from you. Interesting. Well, I said that because that that actually came up with M.O.E. in the past 48 hours. Okay. Where, like, because she's very, Emily likes nothing more than like a conversation about like planning, like logistics. Like let's go over our calendar.

Okay. Every comment, right, she loves that kind of conversation. And every question I, not ever, a lot of the questions I ask her are like, you know, questions about the things I'm curious about, about her, about the kids, about the world, right? And so she's like, not every question needs to be. So I asked Vic Fangio a question today. And I get, and Vick's like, I can always count on you for these philosophical questions. But you know what? I take that as a badge of honor.

It's actually a question. I'm curious. I'm curious your answer for later. It's something Bo and I talked about, which is like, what makes this defense good? What position you think would look coolest with a tail? No. No. What makes this defense good?

In the sense, like, I've asked him in the past. I asked him what stat he most vans. values when he looks. So I'm curious how he thinks, right? You have access to the coach. I don't just want things that are like confirming what I already know or, uh, just insert this quote into a story. Like like, like tell me what makes this player, you know, I want to know, uh, yeah. How much does Nick love Kenne game? No, that was a really good question. But anyways, for, for, no, so what I was going to say with, with, uh, with Jalen the other night. I was so five years around Jalen, I, I have a sense of like, when there's something he wants to talk about.

Yeah. Okay. And I wanted to know why he picked this game to wear two different shoes. All right. Yeah. Right. And then so then yesterday he came out, you know, he had to, he had a whole, there's this whole campaign around the jail and two shoes.

But I was thinking about that press conference because like, Jalen, Jalen's not like, like Jalen goes into these press conferences. He's talking to the camera. He's not talking to the person asking the question. So there's certain things that he wants to. Except for that one guy. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So I was, I was kind of curious about why he picked that game.

So we're going to have to wait. That's what I was smiling about. Think about that. I was frustrated I couldn't get a question in. I'm sorry. That's okay. Such is life. You should have popped out of that chain of his.

The chain said breed of one. Yeah. Oh, okay. We'll talk about all of this a little bit more, I guess, in just a few minutes. I was looking up. What happened on the? this day in 1975. And I learned

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Four. Four combined. Wow. So there to go. Well done. Look at that. right off the dome right off the right off the dome now uh and and listen i'm curious about this because i know we're going to talk about this devante play um do you think that teams are playing them

differently because they expect them to run i'm just looking at the numbers i mean this year the eagles when they're inside the 10 yard line they run the ball 71% of the time that's the most in the league when they're between the 10 and 20 they run it 59% of the time that's the first in the league that would make sense if you consider that they are the most run heavy team in football right but even last year when they were the 13th most run heavy team in football they were still running it the most in the red zone last year they were even actually even higher inside the 10 almost 75% of the time so do you know do you do you sense that teams are sort of selling out to stop the run because it's what they expect and there are some some potential openings for them because of that

yeah i think that it's changed over the course of the season i think overall early on we'll say the first month four five six weeks of the year uh the eagles were near the top of the league when it came to light box run rates, then that's how often teams were stacking the box with extra defenders on Saquan Barkley runs. And that number started to drift the other way. Obviously, as Saquan found success as the identity chart started to shift.

I haven't looked at it, but I don't know how dire it has gotten. But I do think that, yeah, teams have definitely adjusted. And look, all you have to do is listen to opposing press conferences from the coaches to see, like, all right,

like their priority coming into every game is to try and stop Saquan Barclay. Like that's their number one goal. And they're going to try and force Jalen Hertz and end this past game to beat them. I think that's going to be the goal. Honestly, like I can't imagine that there's going to be anything that changes the next three weeks to say like whoever the Eagles play with their first playoff game,

Saekone Barkley is going to be their number one. Yeah. Right, exactly. But in terms of Sequin Barkley will be their number one goal defensively to stop him. And the interesting thing too about these next three weeks is just the way the schedule broke out is these are all repeat opponents, right? in like all three of these games are teams that they've already seen and teams that Sequins had big games against.

Yep, good point. There you go. All right, let's talk about this touchdown pass to Devante Smith, what jumped out to? Yeah, this one was a request from the, from the Discord as well. Julia, this is Devante TD. This one, there's a lot to this one.

I actually saved this specifically for the show. I did not put this in the piece. So this is the first time I've broken this down. So really interesting. As soon as I saw it, I said, oh, this is the same play they ran last week on the Devante Smith touchdown against the Carolina Panthers. And I want to start there because this is the touchdown against the Panthers where you see Devante, he is running the corner out as the number three receiver. And you've got Jahan Dotson and A.J. Brown to his left, Julie, if you go to the next

shot here, basically what you're having from those guys at the bottom is that they're going to run a little rug route, a pick play between those two. So Jehan Dotson is going to set the pick for AJ Brown to work underneath of it and work towards the middle of the field. Now, I can't say this for certain. All I'm doing is reading this based off of how Jalen read it on the film, right? But just kind of seeing how he read it on these two individual plays, Julie, if you go to the next shot, Jalen obviously is going to throw this to Devante. It's a Devante Smith touchdown.

And the ball comes out in rhythm. I think what he sees is that you've got those two corners, namely that outside corner, is playing with so much depth. he's playing off-man coverage that the pick play is probably not going to work. If he's playing straight man-to-man coverage, that corner should be able to play over top of the rub route from Jahan Dotson, and he should be in A.J. Brown's hip pocket on the throw. So if the ball goes to A.J., that corner should be there. Now, the two corners end up colliding into each other, and A.J. Brown is wide open over the middle of the field.

So, Julie, if you go to the next shot, you can see there's the, here comes the collision, and A.J. is wide open. And so people point to this and say, oh, like, this should have gone to AJ. I think the reason why he didn't go to AJ is that he knows. Like, based off the alignment of the corner, the throw is going to be to Devante Smith. I'm going to throw this to Devante. And it was a good throw. And it ended up being a touchdown. But if you're coaching this, you would probably, you would want him to just notice that the guy's wide up in the middle.

Yeah, but by this point, you can see he's already, he's already cocked a throw. Like the ball's already kind of, is about to leave his hand. So, you know, that decision has been made. And I don't think that that was like the wrong call. And again, I could be wrong in terms of how he's asked to read it. But that's just like my understanding of, you know, how I think it would be, he would be tasked with reading that play. Fast forward to this week. And Julia, we'll go to the next shot.

They switch roles here. So now you've got A.J. Brown. He's running the corner out. Jahan Dotson and Devante Smith are running the pick play underneath. Now, the difference here is that the Pittsburgh Steelers, they do what's called they use what's called a banjo call. And Julia, if you go to the next shot here. Exactly. I think that's exactly what the slot corner is saying.

He's doing that. As Devante is going in motion. So, Devante actually started in motion. Devante goes in motion to the outside. And when that happens, the slot corner and the corner on the outside, they immediately start communicating. What a banjo coverage is. This is actually, it's a term.

It's very widespread. I first learned it from Mike Reese. This was a Jim Johnson terminology as well. this is how they flex you know what you do is they say no Joe's allowed no what

no Joe's gonna ban all Joe's oh okay I don't mean you said there I was like wow you got me a little worry that's unfortunately a much different much different

somehow more pervasive call so basically banjo means it's an in and out coverage. And so the two defenders that are that are a part of the banjo, Julie, if you go to the next shot, the inside defender will take whichever receiver goes inside.

And the outside defender will take whichever receiver goes outside. And so right now, the slot corner is over John Dotson. The outside corner is over Devante Smith. But if the two guys switch release and one goes one way and one goes the other, these guys have it switched out like, okay, we'll just pass it off. And we're going, everybody else is still playing man-to-man coverage. but that's how we will do this. And that's called a banjo call.

Well, when teams, if you know that defenses like to have these banjo calls, you can have what is called a banjo beater, which is what the Eagles do have with this concept. Joe beater, not allowed in this place. Right. So basically what happens here. Jalen, once Jalen realizes before the snap, because when you see the banjo call being made,

those guys are communicating on the field, Jalen sees that, the receivers see that. So now it's okay. this changes the read for Jalen. So instead of him throwing the corner out to A.J. Brown, now he's going to play off of the pick play. He's going to play off of Devante Smith and Jahan Dotson. And so, Julie, if you go to the next shot,

the reason why this changes the read for Jalen is that corner, he's got whoever the outside receiver. He's basically going to pick up Jahan Dotson on the banjo call. Well, now he's in a position where even though he's going to be responsible of Jahn Dotson, he could also take away the throw to A.J. And so that throw is not going to be there. there if Jalen wanted to throw this corner out to AJ Brown. Instead, he's going to work the pick play.

And Julie, if you go to the next shot, Devante Smith works right underneath this play to Jahan Dotson, perfectly executed by Dotson. Really nice job here from Devante. He slips underneath this and he ends up catching the touchdown. What I like about this play, it's really awesome here from Kellyn Moore or whoever. I don't want to give it all the Kellynne because it might be somebody else that put this play in.

But the reason why it's a really good banjo beater is that, you've got Devante Smith coming inside, but then, Julie, if you go to the next shot, Jahan Dotson, after he sets the pick, he goes at that corner and then he puts his foot in the ground and comes back towards the middle of the field. And so that corner that initially was lined up over him, now now is following Devante. Well, he can't defend Jahan Dotson coming back. That corner is outside Dotson. So Dotson would be open. Let's say that corner, that slot corner, did a better job of defending Devante Smith on the pick play. Now Jalen could throw this to to Jahan Dotson and that would be a touchdown as well.

So really well-divized scheme that we saw them used in two separate weeks against man-to-man coverage. Both worked for touchdowns. Both ended up going to Devante, but both were obviously different routes, you know, thrown in their own for the touchdown. You know what the Eagles roster is these days?

There's are a Joe Walker coming. Ben Joe Walker. I knew it. I knew it. That'll do it for this episode. all right we already talked about gainwell so do you want to go through your gainwell snaps or i don't know how it's banjo walker but sure we know yeah we did the gainwell snaps just give your love to lane johnson yeah right well i mean we talk about lane lane lane was awesome uh look if you want to say like oh he gave

up one pressure or two pressures against what me personally like when i watched it at most i would say like one of the pressures were on him and none of the sacks were on uh were on lane so um and again like very little tight end help, no running back chips to that side. Like they left him one-on-one against, against Watt, the large, large majority of that game. Are the Eagles, are they better positioned to play empty because they have these tackles on an island? Yeah, definitely.

That definitely gives you a more. And honestly, like the way they play in the past game, they put more on the tackles. Like, actually, I think Brady even said that in the broadcast, that historically how they operate is that they will leave Lane. They did it with JP. They did it where they do it with Mila. They very rarely give those guys help.

It's more about like the interior three. Like they'll work in concert together. But yeah, this was all, this was a really impressive game from Lane Johnson. Speaking about the Eagles offensive line and Tom Brady, I thought it was interesting on that, on the NFL films feature that we talked about, about Stoutland, how much they were speaking about Vita,

about Halapulavati Vaiti. And Stoutland literally said, we don't win this Super Bowl, without Vaitai playing the game of his life. I thought that was interesting. It's probably true. Yeah. A lot of,

they don't win without a lot of things, but yeah. Yeah, but just on the topic of tackles being on an island. Yeah. Right. I do think we should go through the gain well plays, though. Okay.

Let's go. Let's do it. Okay. Julie, this would be Gainwell, gain well won. So, Raj from the Discord,

requested these plays as well. So I wanted to give a shout out to Raj. This is the one player we, yeah, we have not gone through. this is another empty play where you've got Gainwell out to the far left. And this is another thing that's good about emptying. It's when you know you've got man-to-man coverage, it's not just, oh, yeah, let's find our

matchup. It's also like you can run plays that are really good against man. And one of the things you can do against man is you can do different mesh routes and different pick plays and different screens and things like that. That's essentially what this is for Kenny Gainwell, where basically they're going to run him on a shallow cross and everybody else offensively is just running vertically up the field. And it's just going to create a lot of traffic for Patrick Queen to run through. And Julie, if you go to the next shot, you can see just below the 10, the, at the 10 yard line.

You can see the defender on the, yeah, right up that way. You can see that defender, Patrick Queen, he's on the ground. He hit the first defender there. So now Kenny Gainwell is going to be wide open. And Julie, you can go to the last one. Gainwell catches this pass at the 12, 13 yard line, turns up field. And he's got all green grass. Patrick Queen fell behind him because of the design of the design of the last.

the play like the eagles were able to that's something you're counting on there and he was able to get them inside the low red zone for a touchdown um so big play there to gain well but then you go to a little later and there was another play this was the one where he had the juke in the open field uh julia if you go to the next shot um this one gainwell's lined up in the back field next to jalen hurts you can see that the the Pittsburgh Steelers they're in a pressure look they're in a uh the sugar in the the a gap's there with uh you had two linebackers there uh over the center now josephs Jalen Hertz knows the tight end is releasing, the running back's releasing. I only have five guys in protection.

This ball's got, if they are blitzing here, this ball's got to come out and it's got to come out fast. It's third and nine. It's got to be out. The ball has got to be out. And so it's third and nine. The ball's got to come out fast if I'm going to try and beat this. And he knows, all right, I've got Gainwell running to the flat. Those linebackers aren't going to cover him.

The corner, he's playing kind of far off. You've got this height end working vertically up the field. He's probably not going to be able to get to him either. So, Julie, if you go to the next shot here, when Jalen Hurts drops back, he just takes a peek over that corner, make sure he's not going to be a threat here to gain well. He is in his pedal. There's no linebacker that's going to be able to buzz out there fast enough.

He dumps this off. And I said to you, as we were watching, you know, I was surprised on third and nine. They were okay, just kind of dumping this off so quickly. But he got the ball to gain well so fast that that gave Gainwell time to be able to, you know, gather himself. And he was so decisive. Yeah.

And if that ball comes out later, Gainwell can't be. that decisive and probably doesn't make that guy miss. And so that's why yards after catch, you'll say that that's a quarterback stat as much as anything because you want to make sure that you're getting those guys in position to be able to get off field. And so it's exactly what Gainwell did on that play and he was able to get them in the scoring range. Is it more a quarterback stat or coordinator stat?

I would say it's a little bit of both depending on situation and scheme because there are times where like a receiver makes a player like all right, like that play, that was a wide receiver stat. So it's a little bit of everything, but quarterbacks absolutely have a huge impact on it. Zach, one thing we haven't talked about is Kenny Gain Will Shipley. Is that something? I got to say, Bob, on these Tuesday and Thursday shows, the only airtime I get is responding to these crazy questions.

Yeah, I'm not sure sometimes asking about what the coordinator says. No, it's like, Fran, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like Fran. Tell me everything about what Kenny Cannon does on this plate. Zach, are we making a big enough deal about Kenny Gainwiltship? It's spot on. You know, like, Emily's saying, what are you doing, prepping for the show today?

And I'm saying, you know, I'm preparing for the potential joke in the C block, right? So, yeah. Well, let's find out what potential jokes we have in the D block after this ad break. Talk about our friends. It's C jam construction, family-owned home remodeler, specializing in decks, bathrooms, and flooring. Their goal is to help their clients alleviate the challenges and frustrations that come with home remodeling.

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any super chat who's putting Chase Daniel Plainview to the woodshed here. He says ZB, the franchise, can we get an audio book? He says he will be the first customer. Then we'll get to the next part. Yeah, I appreciate that. First of all, I appreciate the sentiment. That's beyond my control. That's within the hands of the publishing company.

My first book, The Franchise, I'm sorry, my first book, Underdogs. There is an audiobook for that. That was a different publishing company. I don't believe who did the reading I have like a audio book narrator on on site or it was not me which is good because the pronunciations are all correct in that audio book if you could pick someone from like the Eagles sphere to do the audio to do the read for the audio book it would be oh Merrill Merrill yeah Merrill and obviously because also Merrill wrote the forward for that first book but for for the franchise

Um, Bo. Yeah. Bo's a great host. Only if he does it is a L. A market voice, though. But, uh,

so, uh, the, so, you know, but put different voices for different quotes. Actually, I had my guy,

I might need to be careful with that. Um, the, uh, I don't believe that my publisher has plans for an audio. He was a Jamaican accent. All right. Is Kernn Cousins quoted about?

We are not, we are not to go. Leon Lewis. We're not going to go in Bo here. All right. I'm trying to think who would be good. Jason Kelsey did the narration for the Stalin thing. So let's go Kelsey.

That'd be good. Or actually Malcolm. Malcolm Jenkins wrote the forward. Yeah. Always like Malcolm's voice. The second part of the question here from Barron to he says that the defense, this eagle's defense, needs a nickname. Says his idea is the grinder.

Philly grind, green grinder. The fans and players could wind up a meat grinder crank after every great play. Propose that to Fangio next week. See what Fangio says. This eagle's defense. Find him on Grindr. Yeah, I think they do need a nickname. What do you think?

I don't know. Vicks. Like the fan geniuses. You're going back to your mangini well. Yeah. I mean, Vick's doing awesome. How about the fangs? Oh, I like that.

Yeah. I do. I'll pitch this question in the boat. I'm sorry. The friend, when I asked Nick yesterday and when I asked Vic today, which is what do you think makes this defense great? Or is distinguishable about them?

I know we have another super chat we'll get to. But I am curious about this because this question has been posed to me by multiple people, including someone elsewhere in the league who like wants to kind of get a sense of because they don't have that defensive player that year candidate. They don't have, you look at the roster, you wouldn't say this is like pound for pound, one of the great defenses in the league, but their numbers are through the roof. So what is it about this group that makes them so good? Yeah, they're incredibly sound in everything that they do.

You can tell it's a very well-coached group. You know, there are certain teams where you watch and say, like, all right, like, they've got their stuff together in terms of how they approach everything from their run fits, from the way that they play zone coverage on the back end. And we've talked about it, but I thought this game was a great example of it. And that's why, honestly, I felt like coming in, the Steelers were going to struggle getting out of the teens, especially without Pickens. But even with Pickens, that would have felt like this team. would have dominated that offense, just because the way that the, the Pittsburgh Steelers want to play,

where it's, hey, we're going to be physical, we're going to run the ball, even though the run game's not dominant, like they're going to try and run the ball. I don't know what's so funny. Bow's breaking next to me. But this team's going to try and run the ball. It could be just because he's,

maybe it's the Arthur Smith of it all. Man, he's losing it. But this offense, The way that they want to play, all right, we're going to run the ball, run the ball, run the ball, run the ball, and then we're going to create explosives. The Eagles prevent explosives as well as anybody. And a big reason why, like the formula you saw in this game was stop the running early downs, Nasi Harris couldn't get going. Jalen Warren couldn't get going. It's third and eight.

It's third and seven. It's third and nine. And they're just going to suffocate you from a coverage standpoint. They're not going to play man coverage on third down. They're not going to, you know, blitz on third down. It's going to be, we're going to rush four. and we are going to throw more bodies than you've got receivers at your side. And Julia, if you go to Coverage 1, there are a couple ways.

He's got film for the question. He wasn't even prepped for this question. I love it. This is why Franz the pro. Well, so this was one of the first third downs of the game. And you can see that they come out. And again, in that two safety look and that double safe, that double high look, this coverage one. Yeah, there it is.

Okay. So they come out, too high safety look. And it's a three by one set for the Steelers. You can see that they've got their three receivers to the bottom of the screen, loan receiver to the top of the screen to the boundary side, the short side of the field. Julie, if you go to the next shot, you're going to see that re-blanketship.

He's going to roll, essentially roll his coverage towards the three-receiver side. The Eagles play a ton of what is called cover six, colloquially amongst like analysts and like charting services. Cover six is essentially cover two to one side, cover four to the other side. right and so when you play cover two to one side you are rolling a safety over the top and then you are playing quarters to the other side and that quarter safety is blanket chip in this situation and when you are playing quarters to a three by one set even though that safety is lined up to the left he's got his eyes to the offense is right and so now uh what that does is again julia if you go to the

next shot uh you have safety help over the top so dari sleigh's got safety help over the top with c j gardner johnson who was probably cheating this a little bit more to the middle of the field than you would like, but still, essentially, he's going to be giving you that safety help over the top. You've already got two underneath defenders in front of Dariuslay, and then you've got re-blanket chip on the other side chipping in. What that means, Julie, if you go to the next shot, you're leaving your backside corner one-on-one. It's man-to-man coverage, essentially, for that corner. And here, it's Quignan Mitchell. They do this to both sides. This wasn't like, oh, yeah, they're always rolling away from, from Quignan-Mitchell, and it's Darius-Lay, always

getting the help in this game. You saw plenty of examples of it go in the opposite way where Slay was left one-on-one on an island and you had coverage rolling towards Quignan-Mitchell's side. But either way, again, at the end of the day, if you look at this shot, look at the bottom of the screen from the left hash mark down, you've got five defenders in coverage for the Eagles. You've got both safeties, the corner, and the two line and the two linebacker, the nickel corner and the linebacker. So that's five defenders over three receivers. Russell, you're suffocating that coverage. You're completely constricting the throwing lanes there for Russell Wilson,

and you're relying on your four-man rush to be able to get home. The Eagles are fifth in the NFL right now and sacrate on third down, where, again, they're not blitzing. They don't have a Hassan Reddick. They don't have like a peak Fletcher Cox. They don't have like that guy right now. But when you, when it's third and long, after you stop the run at such a high rate on early downs,

you're just basically take away those passing lanes. And the other big thing of it is as well, we saw it in this game. you're forcing those checkdowns, they're not giving up yards after the catch. They're coming downhill. They tackle so well. They tackle the catch at such a high rate. And that's Zach Bond.

That's Nicoby Dean. That's Cooper DeGine. That's both safeties. You have guys pursuing from the defensive line. They do such a great job. Just making sure that if we're going to force the checkdown and the checkdown's not going to beat us. And they just do it again over and over and over.

It's very repetitive. And it's just a really sound formula. But there is one guy who they have who is coming on lately. and let's talk about him through the prism of the Ace Hardware Temperature Check. We're going to check in with someone who is heating up or cooling off with our Ace Hardware Temperature Check.

Visit Ace Hardware Home Services online at www.aisehardware homeservices.com to get started on your next project. And Fran, as Joe Banner might say, no landsmith, no cry. No Landsmith No cry

It's not your best work You got Julia He always gets Joy Olaughey's the greatest audience Joy is an amazing producer But the worst thing that's happened For the show is joy Laughing at every joke that Beau makes

Because it just like It just emboldens him to have more and more this is where Zach comes back with that well three months ago you did not laugh say that for all thing right yeah all right well let's go to uh let's check in with nolan smith uh julia i've got it as uh nolan one um we actually had a couple people in the discord again become a diehard a couple people in the discord ask about nolan smith so uh you called him a menace he was all over the field all over the tape.

And this was a game where he played 95% of the snaps. So he was out there on nearly every single play. And when you look at the way that he was able to impact the game, yeah, he got the sack. That was nice. And it was, you know,

well deserved. He helped set up the sack for Josh Sweat as well, which we'll talk through. But run game, coverage. He's running wheel routes with the tight end down the field. He's hurtling running backs and pass bro. He's just doing all of these things that are just, I mean, he was all over the field.

Let's take a look at the pass rushes here where you see him lined up off the left edge and he's going to rush against his former teammate in Broder Jones here. And he's going to try and work the ghost move here. Julie, if you go to the next one, Nolan 2, where he's going to basically stick that inside arm out against Jones to try and sell it. Hey, this is going to be a long arm pass rush. He's going to try and get Jones to throw his hands early. He kind of mistimes it a little bit. And he ends up trying to dip the corner if you go to the next shot here. where the ghost move doesn't quite hit,

but because he's so explosive, because he's also very powerful. That's one of the things that stood out to me when I studied Smith at Georgia. People think, oh, he's 235 pounds. He's only a speed rusher. He's got really good power. He's a really dense athlete.

He's got long arms for a guy that is his size, his height. So he's a guy that has that ability to push the pocket. We've seen that this year. Even though the technique's not perfect, he ends up putting Jones right back into the quarterback's lap. And if you go to the next shot, you can see that Russell Wilson can't step up into the throw. He ends up having a step backwards,

and that's when Josh Sweat is able to get home for the sack. So Nolan Smith helps set up Josh Sweat for his sack. You go to a little bit later in the game. Julia, if you go to the next shot, you see Nolan Smith. He's going to come off the left side again, the offensive right side. And if you go to the next one, Julia, he's going to go, he's going to try and win just with a straight bull rush here. This is nothing special.

This wasn't like a really clean win, but he kind of bounces off Jones here, ends up basically level with the quarterback. If you go to the next one, you can see that he's now level with Russell Wilson at the top of his drop. Relentless. But the pursuit doesn't end, exactly. And so now he's going to,

the athleticism shows up, the balance shows up, and he's able to close and gets home for a sack. The sack was impressive. I talked about the wheel route. I talked about a hurtling the running back and pass pro, which he lost contain on Russell Wilson on that play.

So it's not like a really sound play. Frankly, would not have liked him to see that to do that. But stupid athletic play. Like a ridiculous. play. He was he is awesome in the run game and he was awesome in the run game in this game. And my favorite clip that like

I audibly gasped as I watched it for the first time, he's taking on Darnell Washington, the tight end. Another former team. Yeah, the 300 pound tight end. He fat shamed. Well, you know, it is what it is.

I'm not fat shame. The guys is built like antonus. He's just huge. Julia, if you go to the next shot here. So he's lined up against Washington on the edge, and he takes on Washington with full extension, locks him out, and it's like the scene we were watching, we were watching Elf this weekend, when Will Farrell goes through the spinning door, the rotating door in the hotel, and that's what he did to Washington. He put him in a spin cycle here.

Julie, if you go to the next shot, and you can see that he... I'm 259. I know. Zach wants me to tell the people watching on TV. thank you very much and check in on all p.hylide.com to catch the rest of the episode. If you say it at 301,

they won't hear it. So you gotta get to it. So yeah. He just wanted to see you sweat a little bit. Nolan Smith puts Washington on his back and was able to make the play. He was awesome in this game. It was a really great performance.

So I want to pump up the jam. What? Pump, pump the jam. I want to pump up Fran Duffer here, and Nolan Smith, both at the same time,

in that one thing that Vic Fangio was asked today is if he's surprised to see like this level of power, this level of toughness from an undersized player. And, you know, Vic kind of said,

yeah, you know, it's not something you usually see. I distinctly remember April 20203. I was, I was into California for Kelsey's story. I was taking a walk to a sushi place in Marina Del Rey, listening to Bo and Fran.

Fran talking about how many people he had done, right? Yes, yes, yes. Good memory, too. Did him. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yeah. How hard. We should give the context for that, too. I'll give the context for that too. Okay. But so the context. The context will come after after that. But Fran was kind of giving his draft evals.

in when they were going through Nolan when the two of you were going through Nolan Smith one point you made was like even at his size he is he's he's he's so powerful and tough against the run and so I think that it's easy to look at like a 235 pound I know he added weight this offseason out in California but that is something that that's kind of always been in his his hallmark if you will and he's had to refine the pass rush moves you know he was raw as a pass rusher but had great numbers of him coming out of Georgia where he didn't have the like sack production there but the power the toughness they they they showed there friend had that in his draft eval so I'll tell the audience like we're going to be so spoiled you guys are all of you are

going to be so spoiled in April when you know we have friend here on all city hopefully before then we're going to have some yeah news to spoil people on fran's draft coverage yeah yeah so that's I just like we Eagles fans saw this this it is also I mean it's a good exercise in patience with a player because I think if you had asked most eagles fans even as recently as like week one yeah when you know are you would would you be willing to write off no one's death or like if you could trade him for Joey porter junior or whoever somebody else who was taken after him I think most Eagles fans would have because uh that that rookie season was just so underwhelming and even even the summer and like he's just continued as vic Fangio said today

maybe not every single day but like every week he has gotten better and now he's he's a second year player who looks like an enormously important player for this defense, not just this year, but moving forward. Yeah. And now, if I can just say what you mean by, you know, doing him and doing him is that in the, in the draft lingo, the draft lexicon, if you will, Bo would ask about like a certain corner and Fran was like, I just did him yesterday. And then, or, you know, or I haven't done him yet, but I can't wait to do him, right?

stuff like that. Which clearly makes Zach very uncomfortable. I remember walking in Marina del Rey, writing down on my notes app, like, yeah, let's just explain this, this expression for those who don't fully know the triathlon. It means have sex with. It means watching film of. That's what it means. Watching football film of, okay?

Yes. Yes. I mean, it could mean the other thing, potentially. No, no, no, no. I mean. That'll do it for the ACE hardware temperature check. Ace hardware home services.

If you've got to leak your roof, you know, might be the place to go. All right. Do they have a meat grinder guy? What do you mean? An ACE hardware? Probably. Probably, right?

Yeah, imagine so. Anything else you'd like to get to from the Discord? That's on your list. I think that was it. Oh, the Bond, the Bond play. If you pull up a Bonn Flea flicker. this was a ridiculous play and we talked about it on the post game show Chris Sims burner asked about this on the Discord

how about Zach Bond on the flea flicker he played incredible defense from what I saw this was an unbelievable play from from if this had gone incomplete like this would have been something I posted like first thing Monday morning obviously was caught like should have gone complete yeah I mean it's look it's a linebacker essentially one-on-one in zone coverage it's cover three so just because of in terms of like how things kind of got matched up after the, not a play action fake, but after the flea flicker, you see Bond attacks the line of scrimmage. So he approaches the line of scrimmage here. As soon as he recognizes pass,

he gets back into his drop and Julie, if you go to the next shot, he immediately spies, all right, like here comes the route from, you know, from Calvin Austin. Let me flip my hips and I'm going to turn and chase a guy who, by the way, like ran 4-3 was one of the more dynamic playmakers in the country coming out of Memphis a couple years ago. Let me turn and match this route. And he ends up getting to the catch point and is there. Like, now, doesn't commit a penalty, just unbelievable coverage here. And Austin made a nice play on an underthrown ball that goes for 31 yards. Their biggest play of the day.

But Bonn was right there. And you couldn't ask for more from a linebacker in that spot. Great play. Awesome play. We have another super chat to get to from the handsome David Tomei. Says, Fran, have you noticed the Eagles offense running defenses out of two high shells? Pittsburgh plays a lot of one high anyway. So aside from them, curious if that is something you have seen on film this season.

They did. Early on in the year, yes. And that's why a lot of the light box run rates like early on in the season were very favorable to the Eagles. Like I said, when I checked it a few weeks ago, that was starting to come back the other way. And my guess is since then, it has only gotten, you know, worse isn't the word. But yeah, I would imagine that they're not as high on light box run rate these days as

they were in the beginning of the season. But yeah, I mean, that was something that. they certainly were doing. And now it's going to have to go, it's going to have to work back the other way. Like they have to be able to try and, uh, challenge defenses consistently on the perimeter and basically say like it.

And that's what, that's why a game like last week was important. And that's what the issue had been over the last few weeks was, it's not a volume standpoint. We weren't saying to, to Zach's point earlier. It wasn't like, oh, Jalen Hertz needs to throw for 300 yards and everybody would be happy.

No, it was that when you were asked when you, when you have those situations where it is going to, you do have to throw the ball. Got to be more efficient. You have to be more consistent. You have to be able to be able to be able to be to be more reliable to the point where you're keeping defense as honest in that way. Zach, once upon a time, you recommended that Wake Forest hire Dave Clausen.

He did a great job. You nailed that one, hit it on the head. Who are we going to hire now? Who should we hire? Yeah, so this one kind of caught me off guard. I didn't expect Closton to step down or be forced. I don't know the semantics that. I don't think he was forced to do anything.

It was voluntary. Yeah, apparently he's staying with it as an advisor as an advisor. Emotional press conference today. Yeah. So, look, I would go back up 95, just like they, well, they kind of did with Claussen. Claussen was at Richmond at one point. They didn't hire him from Richmond, but he was at. I would go up 95.

I would make a left on 66 and I would drive right to Harrisonburg. You don't even have to get the private jet. And I would talk to Bob Chesney at James Madison. He's a coach who I've been, you know, when he was at Holy Cross. That relationship to Kenny. No, I don't believe so. But look, if you were following the ACC this year, you saw what James Madison did to North Carolina. Bob Chesney had a good program at Holy Cross when Syracuse was looking at candidates last year.

I was talking about it. I was like, yeah, I'm they going to think about Bob Chesney. Now they made a great hire in Frayne Brown. But that's that's one coach. I would look at there. I haven't dug as deep into the Wake Forest job right now. A lot of these, I've actually been,

my non-football, my college football focus has actually been paying more attention to the portal. It's like following free agency right now, right? I mean, if you follow recruiting rankings, like every five-star quarterback who doesn't start just transfers a year later. So it's like re-recruiting all these guys. You know, Aaron Norland from Ohio State,

He just went into the portal yesterday. You know, Bob, a Pribula from, I hope I'm pronouncing correctly, from Penn State. Who's a good quarterback, local guy? He actually played against, you know, St. Joe's Prep in the state, in the state championship, Common Court senior year. And I kind of actually agree with James Franklin in this sentiment in that I'm all for player movement. But I think there should, I think the window should be after the playoffs.

I don't think because it's best for Bo Privile's career at this point for him to go elsewhere next year. Like Drew Aller staying. But he should be able to stay with his team. If he stays, he's going to miss this window to go catch on somewhere else. Like these, you know, it would be like if NFL had their free agency during the playoffs. It is a little bit silly. Why does it have to be now? Yeah.

You could condemn. I think it's done probably based on the academic calendar. Like you enroll for the fall semester. That's my presumption for the winter semester. But it would be like if Zach Bonn was like waiting on this big payday and he had to wait until, you know, and then team signed their linebackers. So I actually agree that they should figure out this calendar one way or the other. What's the funniest Bill Belichick pairing that Wake Forest could hire to go up against Bill Belichick on Tobacco Road? The funniest one.

Nick Holes. Oh, I like that. Head coach Nick Foles with GM, Ryan Rosillo. Something like that. Oh, you're going to like the media. Big Dick Nick. Big Dick Nick.

Very nice. Look at you. But no, I will do more digging on the Wickfarsh job and I'll come back with a better name. But just off the top of my head, you know, knowing that geography, Bob Cheson, he's a guy who I think would be interesting. Let's go on.

Okay. Unless you guys want to talk about. I'll jump in real quick here. Just some, just book. Okay. You're allowed to do what you were going to do anyway. Some bookkeeping things real quick. The NFL announcer schedule for week 17 today.

The Eagles are, Eagles Cowboys game is staying at 425. If you, I know that's relevant to fans who were thinking about tailgating that day or, you might be making plans for something else. That game wasn't moved to Sunday night football. It wasn't moved to 1 o'clock. It's staying at 425. That's a home game. So that's one thing to point out.

The Eagles will have a walk through tomorrow. Just like we predicted. It was interesting. Nick Siriani said Lending Dickerson was still undergoing tests. Now, Nick is cryptic with injuries. We know that by now. He's not giving you any injury information. But the fact that Landa Dickerson was undergoing test,

Yesterday is worth monitoring. So we'll have an update tomorrow kind of on what his status is. But that that would be a notable player to watch there. Vic Fangio had no update on Bryce Huff today. He said they would need to activate his practice window. He would obviously, like we talked about, they would need to see him over a period of time. So those are some of the updates. And then in Washington, you know, Zach Erich is in the Concussion Protocol.

So we'll get to Washington on Thursday. but that's something that came out of yesterday as well. Flipping up the schedule a little bit this week here on the P.H.O.Y. Eagles podcast. We still have Jamie and Handsome Rich tomorrow. And then on Thursday, it's going to be Daynees in studio with me and Zach. And also a special guest on Thursday, which we are looking forward to. And then on Friday, we've got the whole P.H.L.Y. schedule at Reading Terminal. So come hang with us.

Say hi. And Fran will be there as well. We're going to save Swooper for Friday this week as Julia flashes up the map there, the northeast corner by Molly Malloy's. That's where we're going to be. Come and join us. It'll be fun.

Looking forward to that. Also, shout out. It might be a nudity day. No, there will not be nudity there. But you can get great food. I mean, I have. Foodity. I have probably eaten at 75% of the places in the Reading Terminal.

Good for you. Love the Reading Terminal, but I want to give a shout out the Dom over at the Knicks. Yeah. listener of the show. I'm not saying this because it's a listener of the show, but or a viewer of the show. I love their roast pork.

I'm excited for Uncle Gus's to try that. So I haven't had one yet, but I love Angelo's as well. Danny from Angelo, shout out the Danny from Angelo's. So, yeah, can't wait for the good food and the good company at Reading Terminal. If you had to pick a food item to wear as clothes, what would it be? Something that covers me up.

So let's go. Yeah, let's go with a full wrap. Like, like, just a huge rap. A huge. A huge.

A huge. Yeah. Something that covers me up, something that I don't know. What will be a good answer is? A little shwarma. I don't know. You go,

I don't know. You go like watermelon. shell around your waist potentially. Your mind is a fascinating place to come up with this fascinating words.

These kind of things. Well, we said foodity. Nudity, foodity, yeah. You said foodity. You said foodity. You said foodity. 75% of the places?

Yeah, so when I worked at the Inquirer, our offices, I spent seven years at the Enquirer. And our offices were at 8th in Market. Yeah. And so look, now there's some terrific you know there's a great bond me spot right by there like in Chinatown um or it's on the edge of Chinatown but you know there's some other spots around there but the

redding terminal i would go to the running terminal often uh because i would walk i lived in um like grad hospital at the time and i would walk to work and i would walk you know by the by the renting terminal so i ate at so many of of those spots you know because you want to you want to try different flavors of of yeah my problem is i Sometimes I go, I just get paralyzed by choice, right? Yeah, different types of food. So yeah, and you like to support local vendors. So absolutely.

Meg just got, she came back from a trip a couple of weeks ago. And she came back with a like 10-sided dice that has different like food logos on it. So whenever we have, we were paralyzed by choice of what we're going to eat, roll the dice. Oh, like that. It's like, oh, we're doing tacos tonight or we're doing pasta. I like that. Yeah. Or you even find yourself like what you were rooting for.

Maybe that makes your choice for you. Well, that's the thing is that Francis likes rolling the dice. for himself, but the thing is he eats like three things. So he'll roll it and it'll be, you know, like seafood. And I'll be like, all right, well, you're not eating seafood. And he's like, oh, man, I'm like, well, what did you want? Pasta. I'm like, okay, well, I'm going to make you pasta.

Let's go do that. Okay. I don't want to just keep hanging out, but. This is fun. Any other things? Any other normal questions? Yeah, what do you want? What do you want for the holidays?

Just happy and healthy family. family and yeah no I'm I'm good honestly I'm I'm good I'm not a big gift getter how about edible clothes no not at all there I be weird I mean there's always like technology stuff on my list but course but now I'm good right now I'm good I'm good yeah do we do we want to get into the saga of the your latest technology purchase or should we should we save that what's the saga my latest technology We're about to find out. I probably don't want to get into this because I don't know what you're referring to.

You know what I'm talking about. Yeah. I don't know. Your home office. Oh, oh, yeah. No. No, we don't need to get into that. This goes into a topic of financial literacy, trying to reinforce things to my kids.

I look for deals. I look for promotions. I don't want to say manipulate the system, but if there's any way that I could, you know save a few dollars I I try to look to do it and I was on the lookout to save a few hours but the time exhausted was probably more than the uh and people want to know what is the latest on the fish fish is humming along yeah fish is humming along doing well only one yeah only one only one's something along but it's doing well so what's the name of the one that's survived Caitlin Caitlin Caitlin Caitlin Caitlin's going well she's a strong she's a strong

I walk by her multiple times a day. You feel comforted? What's that? You feel comforted? Yeah, I say, I say, Caitlin, nice to see you. I say, read, did you feed Caitlin? Sloan, did you feed Caitlin? I changed the water.

I'm the water changer. I'm the water changer. I do that. So, yeah, the fish is humming along. Do you love the fish? the chat wants to know do i love the fish no but i love my kids who love the fish so that's what matters i love your fish friend blue sky is uh is trucking along is uh blue it's still blue sky too there were some questions in the chat last week if we've gotten to blue sky three yet now

blue sky too is still uh just keeps swimming do we have another another super chat here we do we just got yeah we just came in grace oh grace uh says is it just me or can you tell tom brady hates the Eagles through his broadcasting. He said when he said the Jake Elliott was David Acres. Yeah, that was the other thing. That was funny. Oh, he called the Eagles the Phillies. He called the Steelers the Phillies.

Steelers, the Phillies. Yeah. No, I thought he was okay. I actually thought this was one of the, I haven't watched every Tom Brady broadcast this year. But I thought he was pretty good in this game. Honestly, it was probably the best broadcast I've seen from him yet this game. You're going to get Greg Olson and Joe Davis this weekend down in Washington.

better. Yeah. That's that's the crew. It's great. I believe that Zach, this is the grace who you met in California. Grace, great to see you, Grace. I owe you an email. I promise you owe you an email. I'm sorry. I haven't responded. I actually looked into what you asked about. I'm trying to get, trying to come back to you with substantive information. She's, she's looking for a jersey that's not available. And yeah. And so I actually did talk to people trying to figure out how you, how you can do it. So I'm working on that grace, but Grace was a Zach Berman jersey? No, it was not a Zach Birmingham jersey. But, you know, speaking of, I signed Grace's book out in California.

I sent 47 books out this morning. I think tomorrow is the last day that I can get books out to get it to you for Christmas. So please, if you want a book and you want it signed, I do have a signing on Sunday, I'm sorry, at Saturday at Wheelhouse in Wayne. But if you can't- You're the king of Wayne. If you can't make it there, Wayne's a great spot.

You should check out Wayne. It's a cool spot. But if you want a copy, please, I mean, you can get in touch with me whenever, but if you want it by Christmas, get in touch tomorrow or in the next 24 hours. I will go to the post office tomorrow morning. Great guys at the post office.

I always enjoy, you know, they know me well now. They were asking me today about, you know, Jaylon's finger. About Janeline's finger, about a bunch of different things about the Eagles. Okay. Yeah. Fran, if you could give any Eagles player a holiday gift,

what would it be? Any Eagles player, a holiday gift? Or an executive or coach. Man, I wish I had some time to think about this. You should have asked me before. Before Zach started talking about the book, I would have to think about something good. On the spot?

Hmm. Joe, Joe Hertz, a new finger? No, Brian, grab a new elbow. There you go. It's pretty good. Could BG back out there. Yeah. I was thinking about today, who would be the scariest round one,

round two match up for the Eagles, Adling and financial field? Packers. Packers. Packers. Which would be, if the Eagles were the one seed, right? And the Packers won, they would be locked into playing the Packers.

Right. If the Packers won. Do you think, though, that that is scarier than Todd Bowles? Yeah. I know. I think temper is up there, man. Even up here? Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. I think the Packers is probably scarier. I think that's a little, I think they are a better team. Yeah. But for this team, is that a scarier? But I would also like, if you're playing the Packers, it means that you're the one CD and you've got the weak of rest.

Sure. So that's a little bit. I like, I would feel better about playing the Packers. Right. the second round of the playoffs with a buy then I think I would hosting the hosting the bucks now I guess you probably couldn't host the bucks round one unless they were the wild card

which I don't think they can get right or can they could it's it's it's it's theory yeah right like the commanders lose out and then the falcons win the vision but that would mean that the eagles are the yeah I mean like I guess if they're playing the bucks it's probably the second round anyway yeah yeah to me the packers

just because like I think the Packers are a team that I can travel well that they can play in cold weather I think that the Packers would worry me the most I mean we saw last year the Packers were awesome in the playoffs right they they went in to Dallas destroyed Dallas in the opening round they played San Fran really tough so Packers would would definitely worry me would you put the box ahead of the Vikings I think I would. In terms of fear factor for the Eagles. Yeah. In terms of fear factor for the Eagles. I still think I think the Viking, what scares. I mean, Flores, that's the thing, is that Flores can do a lot of the same stuff. He's a crazy man.

You never know what you're going to get. Also, I didn't say this on the show yesterday, but because we had the coach of the year question mark on the headline for the show yesterday, as I think Nick's done a good job. But my coach of the year is, if I voted, I don't vote, would be Kevin O'Connell. I mean, just if you look at their preseason odds, I think they were over under was like five and a half. They were plus 10,000 to win the Super Bowl. This is a team that's 12 and 2.

Kevin O'Connell's just an outstanding coach. If he, you know, if they win one more game. What's that? Tall drink of water, that guy. From the area. He lived in Delaware for a period of time. He's from the area. He lived in Delaware for a period of time.

Yeah, yeah. He grew up a big Randall Cunningham fan. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, Kevin O'Connell's. If you could vote for any award, what would it be? I don't want to vote for the awards

because it has implications on their contract, but Walter Payton Manon in the year. I don't know. I actually don't know the answer to that. Awards are tough. I guess MVP. But that's probably become a quarterback award. That's why I'm curious to see what happens.

Well, Josh Allen's going to run away with that this year. Yeah. All right. I think we're good. The Ospreys. I've done enough. That'll do it for this episode of the P.H.L.I. Eagles podcast. We will be back tomorrow at 2 o'clock with Jamie and Rich. 2 o'clock on Thursday, 2 o'clock on Friday at Reading Terminal. Looking forward to that.

Thanks to everybody for watching and listening. Thank you to Julia for making it happen. Thank you most of all to the sickos in the chat. We'll talk to you tomorrow. Thanks to Jamaican Joe. And of course, banjos. As always, we love you. Thank you.