PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - How much of the Philadelphia Eagles offense is shaped around Jalen Hurts? Fran Duffy explains

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

Jalen Hurts’ offenses tend to have a pattern, whether Kellen Moore, Nick Sirianni, Brian Johnson or Shane Steichen is calling the offense. A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith want the ball? They better not be in the middle of the field.Fran Duffy has crunched the tape and the numbers, so he joins Zach Berman and Bo Wulf armed with info and insight on a variety of topics, including the limitations of the offense and much more. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello everybody and welcome to the PHOY Eagles podcast on a Tuesday, two being the operative syllable there, because it's 2 o'clock. I'm Bo Wolf, to my left, Fran Duffy, to his left, Zach Berman. We're here to talk about the Philadelphia Eagles, and it's presented all of it by our good friends at Bet365, where it's never ordinary. You know the deal. They are our presenting sponsors, baby.

use code PHLY365 when you sign up whatever the moment. It's never ordinary at Bet365. Zach, how you doing? I'm doing great, excited for the show. Always enjoy a Tuesday with Fran and you and Julia. And yeah, there's so much to discuss. This is not a quiet week in Eagles World, if you will. We talked a lot about Nick Siriani yesterday.

We're not going to spend too much time on that today, but very quickly. What did he say in his press conference after we spoke yesterday? Yeah, 24 hours after the game. he he apologized for the way his energy and enthusiasm was directed. He said he was trying to be energetic and enthusiastic, but he needs to direct that better. He needs to kind of focus it on his players.

And so he apologized for the way that came across. Do you think it's notable that he apologized? Do you think that was directed to him to do? I mean, he chose to do it, but I got to imagine there were conversations. behind the scenes. That story took on a life of its own. As we discussed on yesterday's show,

I can't imagine the Eagles were thrilled with that being the story after a win. And, yeah, he brought it on to himself. And again, it's like we discussed on yesterday's show, whether he felt it was merited, whether the organization felt it was merited. The reality is that there's a decorum associated with that job, and he didn't uphold the decorum expected of him. All right. Well, that's all we need to talk about on that front. We've got more to talk about. We've talked to the coordinators today. We're going to hear from Fran at some point about Jalen Hertz. But I actually think we should just keep this going. You and me, no friend. I'm enjoying this so far. This is the meta. You see, we're not using the middle.

That is impressive. You see what we've been doing. That's why it's the best host in the city. Best host in the city without doubt. Best thumbnail writer. So you see what that would also. Jalen space, space, space, space, space, space, hurts. You get it. But you don't want to explain a joke. You taught me that. No. I think when you explain a joke, it's okay. It's just that if it's not a good joke, then it's not going to make it funnier. So that's what I was supposed to learn.

All right. So there's one other piece of news, which I actually thought was more important news yesterday than Nick's apology. I understand that's kind of dominating the conversation. But the important news is that Jordan Milata is out for a few weeks. Nick very seldom discusses injuries, but something with term to it, like something that is going to be an extended period. He'll announce that. And so Jordan Mila is going to miss a few weeks. This is a big loss for a team going up against the defense this week.

That's number one in the NFL in Sacks. It seems like the plan will be Fred Johnson at left tackle. Fran. What's your expectation for a level of play and how the offense will have to compensate for that from its just offensive structure? Yeah, I mean, I think Fred looked good when he first got into the game against the New Orleans Saints, right? So Lane Johnson goes out, Fred Johnson steps in. He does a nice job, especially in the run game. But I felt like in the fourth quarter that the pass rushers for New Orleans really started to get a bead on how to attack him. And mainly the big thing was stress him early with speed and then attack him right down the middle and win with that bull rush.

Despite the fact that he is so big and just naturally strong, he struggles to drop his anchor. He doesn't always play with great technique. And so you see those bull rushes consistently able to work against him. And I thought Tampa really leaned into that. He gave up. It was something, double-digit pressure or something along those lines in that game against the bucks. And so the Giants are going to be watching that film, and they're going to lean right into the same thing. And theoretically, he's supposedly a little bit more comfortable on the left side than on the right side.

So maybe you expect some little bump there. But they do have options. Yep. You could move Mackay Bechtin, which I would find unlikely. I think they want to keep him at Red Guard. Yep. even if it is an extended absence or you could have a quick hook for Fred Johnson. And if he doesn't play a good game, then the next week maybe you go to Tyler Steen.

Yeah, I mean, to me, Steen would be a guy that I would look at pretty closely. You know, it's a position he played in college. We've seen him do it here in Philadelphia, not this summer, right? We didn't see him play left tackle at all in camp, but he is a guy that has experience playing that position. And so to me, that would be another option that I think is worth looking at, especially if you think my lot is going to be out for three weeks-ish, maybe close to four weeks, and you don't want to put them on injury reserve,

I would look at Steen and the potential replacement there. It's interesting to me, just by coincidence, but this is kind of how it works out. The positions we were discussing over the summer as, like, you know, depth is a concern here. Yeah. Almost all of them have been tested so far. You look, swing tackle was a big spot, wide receiver.

We talked about backup tight end. We don't know Goddard situation, but we saw that in this. this previous game safety in that Tampa Bay game, right? So they've they've really been hit at positions where the depth is a bit of a question. That's a good point. What else did you learn from the coordinators today, Mr. Berman? Yeah, so the conversation about Nick Siriani calling plays on defense now. Inconsequential, the Fangio says. Yeah, so actually there's there's a little more to it than I initially thought. I thought Nick was just kind of falling on the on the sword.

but they're next not calling plays but nick suggested this yesterday and vic fan joe confirmed today that a head coach kind of gives um follow i guess like a philosophy you know i that was our supposition yeah the aggressive here uh concede here retreat things of that nature right i just like the conceived retreat is very funny like uh you know well in in these situations i can't imagine you have these plunder round out conversations so there's probably certain words you know Retreat. The defensive line starts marching back towards the zone-in-zone. So that's what happened.

It was on a play. Retreat is hilarious. I think that's the word that Nick Seriana used yesterday. I'm not making fun of you. Okay. All right. I was like, just being a reporter here, man. And so a Vic Fangio said today that Nick, he made clear.

Nick didn't call and he plays. Okay, but he said that Nick, you know, kind of had an idea of a way to approach a certain situation. It was a little different than the way Vic Fangio would have. The Browns gained a few more yards than than Eagles wanted, but it was inconsequential to the game. And it's nothing, he really downplayed it as nothing to worry about. And then I asked him, you know, how does it compare Nick's level of influence on the defense to other head coaches you've worked for? and he said it's basically the same. Yeah, and I don't think this is Vic touting the company line because he has a way of getting

across things that he wants to get across. Like, he made a point of mentioning in his Cooper the Gene answer. Yes. He was like, basically the reason that the Cooper DeGene hasn't been on the field there is because they have too many walkers on Wednesdays. Yes, exactly. Yeah.

He's like, you can't prepare a guy if we don't practice. He's like Thursday, you're putting your game. You know, he's like, you're already late in the week. Friday's your Friday practice. I got to see the guy on the field. Yeah. So you and I both picked up on that. And it was a way, so like my interpretation of that is if Vic wanted to infer or imply rather that Nick has a heavy hand, I think he would be creative in doing that.

And I think I don't think this is significant. I also don't think he would accept that. Yeah, exactly. The Nick on defense has played out exactly as we thought. I think it's like, you know, he's allowed to be like, hey, like, you know, maybe be aggressive here or not. but yeah, I mean, he's not telling Vic what plays to call. Like, that would be insane. And then Vic wouldn't allow it.

Yeah, we talked about that in the postgame show. It just felt very unlikely that he was jumping on and saying, actually, no, we're playing cover three here. That was not the way that I interpreted that. And so the question from the super chat that we have here, and for you, Zach, is from Jason. Who does Nick's lie about overriding Vic's serve? I think it's Nick trying to come off. I said this yesterday, and I believe it, Nick's trying to come off accountable. and he

I'm in charge of everything and I'm going to fall in the sword for the stuff that's bad but it could come off disingenuous And then I think that's I think the more he does it That is how it comes off By the way, there is a piece of breaking news here

If I may add Please Oh Z-B Break it down No I'm not reporting this I'm just I have Twitter acts in front of me here This is per Jordan Shultz

Okay hold on Let's see if we can guess Is it Eagles related? No why don't I just tell you because we have great stuff from Fran coming yeah uh from Francombe yeah there you go okay so Amari Cooper has been traded to the Buffalo Bills oh I am on my fantasy team that's good I'm too trade for one of Docu Lee go last week so two what receivers traded today

Devonte Adams and Amari Cooper do you think that he got traded for more or less than uh John Dotsam good question that's a really good question because it was about the for Devante Adams was a for three right so it starts as a four it could go all the way to up to a two is that right yeah i believe so yes yeah i mean it's probably about the same if yeah i don't know yeah they've probably worked around what uh devante adams went for is my guess now you with with dots in as the comparison you're talking about like it's a it's a rookie deal you get two years yes that's the money's different but i mean it's certainly not players different too what they what they paid for here.

That's true. Do you think this is a precursor to the Browns tearing it all down? I mean, the thing is, is that what we said last week going into that game and not to get too deep into the Browns, but was that my, my guess was that the reason I hadn't benched to Sean Watson yet was that they wanted to see this offense with everybody installed with Nick Chubb in the lineup, the offensive line healthy. My guess is that Cooper was just, he was just fed up. We said that you could kind of see it on film, like the body line was starting to falter.

And so my guess is that he just kind of, he said, retreat, retreat. And he conceded. Yes, he conceded. And there was talk during the summer. He defected. There was talk during the summer of him in a Brendan Ayuk trade potentially. So this has been lingering. There you go.

Benedict Amari. Yeah, there you go. Good player. Liked him coming out of Alabama. What a surprise. By the way, you know who recruited? it. Amarie Cooper to Alabama.

Jeff Stoutland. Yes. Yeah. He was actually, I think he was, I think he was the first recruit of the, I think he was Jeff Stoutland's first big recruit, and Amar Cooper struck up a strong relationship with Jeff Stoutland's son, Jake. There you go. That's cool.

All right. Cover the Eagles giving you. That's right. I thought it was good. I thought it was good. Thank you. Another super chat from Khalif who says, Nick also said,

that he made a call directly after the game in the presser, he may have thought that his call was more consequential than it was. No, I think Nick's trying to fall in the sword. Now, he also talked about the third and one, which Kilimore addressed. At the end of the first half, you know, they could run the ball there. You could have a safer play. Kellanmore explained that essentially this was like an automatic check in the game plan. They were waiting for a specific look.

They had a play dialed up. and if they had been able to pick up the blitz, Kellan Moore said that Devonte Smith was open for a potential touchdown. Is that what it look like on film, friend? Yeah, I mean, Jalen goes to the line and you can see it on the broadcast. He changes the play.

And so as soon as, you know, just kind of going through and I'm like, all right, like, this goes against what Nick just said in the post because I'm watching that Sunday night. And I'm like, Nick just said post game that he made that call. But you can see Jalen changing it. So Nick may have made a call, but Jalen changed it at the line.

When he gets that alert, he comes out, he sees there's no safeties deep. So it's going to be probably. upper zero the full out blitz changes the play and kellyn said it was going to be a run play right so anticipate that they had a run up yeah so it was i guess they're going to run on third and one uh which would make sense remember they had they had two timeouts at that point uh they had plenty of time they were trying they were trying not to use up uh times but that's why they didn't call time out on that a j brown reception so um yeah i i to me you can get into debate whether or not jaylin should have made

that change there uh at that point uh that's a really tough sack to to take on third and one. Obviously leads to a much longer field goal attempt that gets blocked. Is it open? If, if, it was going to be open. If Sequin should pick up that blitz, if Seekwon picks up that blitz, the throw is

going to be there for Jalen Hertz. The guy that Jalen, because you would say like, oh, like, if it's zero blitz, there's one more that should have been picked up. The guy that Jalen was reading off of was nowhere near him. He should have been clean to be able to deliver that throw. You could be, I'm willing to be generous to Siriana here in covering for that. It could have been. He's saying that, like,

is the one who put that in the game plan, that this is an automatic check. Right. But still, it's not exactly what he's saying. Yeah, a pet peeve of mine generally is, you know, coaches or players when it's like, ah, that play was there. And I thought Michael Clay did a good job explaining this today. He's like, everyone says it's like they're one block away, right? No, the, the, yeah, in most plays, there's, there's something there.

The result of the play is what mattered. No question. Yep. I don't know if I totally agree with that. I mean, process over results. Like, if Sequin Barclay is usually very good at picking up blitzes and you're relying on him to pick up this one guy. And if not, it's a touchdown. I think that's probably a good process.

It's what Fran said. Like every blitz in theory should have someone open, right? Because you have a number's advantage. So most of the time when someone sends a blitz, you could always say that guy was open. That's the whole point of a blitz and a blitz beater is that. Well, sure. You know that there's a risk reward, but I think it's okay to say that that's okay process. If you're relying on someone who you can do.

I just don't like, I just don't like, oh, the play was there. Like, yeah, typically a play is there. But typically that's the case in blitzing situations. I think there are times when that's true and times when it is lip service. I do think, too, the process. I would say most times I would be perfectly fine with that process there. I think in that moment, situationally, I didn't love the idea to make that call if you're jamling. But you're taking yourself out of easy field goal range.

You could run the ball. You have two timeouts. Like, yeah, situationally, that's a. I think they probably would have been better served, probably running the ball, taking the first down, getting that next series, and then moving the ball from there. By the way, I see it in there. I just want to address this. We should have mentioned at the top.

AJ Jones in the chat says, why is no one updating Goddard situation? I did ask Nick about Goddard and Darius Lay. He said they're still working through that. Typically, what that means is that it's not a long-term deal, and they don't know if he's going to be there for Sunday or not. So Nick, Nick doesn't want to give that. he wants to kind of create, he either wants to create that mystery for the Giants

or they're still trying to see if the player is going to make it to Sunday, but it's not of the same classification as Jordan Milato where he knows he's going to miss a few weeks. Okay. Sorry to interrupt for that. No, that's good. That's fair.

Now, I guess we have the details of the Amaria Cooper trade, if you're interested, a third and a seventh in exchange for Cooper and a sixth. Okay. So basically a third. Basically a third.

Yeah. I mean, would you rather have? Oh, we have more news. Oh, hot and heavy. We got a trade deadline. This one affects the Eagles. Okay, okay. Can we guess?

It's got to be. It's on Reddick, right? No, it's not a player. It's a schedule thing. But this is, this is bad news for me. Oh, no. Jesus Christ. Oh, no.

What did they get flexed? The Eagles Bengals game is now at one o'clock. Oh, no. I still land in time. Oh, no. This is your wedding weekend. This is Nick Saturday, oh, that's right.

Yes. Oh, what a disaster. No, that's fine. That's okay. That's okay. The Cincinnati airport's close. I'll deal with traffic, but I will be there. The pregame show might be a little tight, but I will be there.

What time's the flight? I think the flight lands at 1030. This is like the worst news you could have gotten today. No. Realistically. Come on. It's not about me here. But anyways, the Eagles.

Of course it's about you. But the Eagles, Bengals game will now be wonderful. p.m. The spin on this is it's going to 70% of the country, much greater distribution. The Bears' commanders game is flexed to 425. So that's Caleb Williams versus Jaden Daniels. Oh man, what a disaster. The Eagles flexed out of the national spot, that 425 spot. How are you feeling?

I mean, it's probably getting another Kenny Albert Jonathan Vilma game, which does not make me feel. No, because this is still the, I mean, it's going to be the net. I think it's CBS. Yeah. Oh, it's a CBS. Okay. So potentially. How do I feel?

I mean, I love my brother. I can't wait for his wedding. I'm so happy for him and Jesse. And that's the only thing I'm thinking about. I care about the show. And I will do my best to be in that seat for my pregame spot. But the great thing. I mean, Cincinnati, you know, as long as we're not dealing with any weather delays,

I'll get there. 15 minutes to the stadium. I'll have the Uber driver drop me off like a mile away if I have to and then I'll walk. He can drop me off. You sprint like you're parking a valet, baby. Well, he can drop me off on the Kentucky side and then you can walk across the bridge. You can drop you off in Covington, walk across the bridge, get to the stadium. You don't have to deal with the traffic that way.

Okay. The airport in Kentucky. I think you should do, and I can already see people are clamoring for this in the chat. I think you need to do like a travel log. Diary. We love that. Of Sunday morning. Yeah.

What it's like for you getting. Yeah. I've done this one other time in my career. And that was when my wife was nine months pregnant. And I went to the playoff game in Chicago. And double doink. Worked out well. Yeah.

There you go. Well, that was a later start though. That was a later start. Yes. But that was also January, that game was January 6th. Right. So you're dealing with potential. Weather.

Weather. It's January 5th. Boy, did you storm right to that stadium, Zach? I don't appreciate that show. I mean, I don't think he needed to be prosecuted just for going to the game on the day of. Yeah, oh, God. All right, nothing to worry about here. Okay.

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1-800 gambler, we thank them for sponsoring our show. There's a part in brackets. Early on, I was in the same place at the end of that ad read where it feels like there's one other thing to say. And then you're like, oh, that's it. Okay. Before we get to the Jalen Hertz discussion

and Franz descent into borderline madness, going full Charlie Day, after all those charts that are on your store and all page, hly.com. I want to talk specifically

about the game plan in this game. Yep. And, you know, the wise man avoids all extremeness of it. Two plays of play action, the fewest that Kellyn Moore has ever done, the fewest that the Eagles have done dating back to 2016,

the second fewest of any team in the league in a game this season. Leaning into 12 personnel even without Dallas Goddard. First of all, Zach, what did Kellan Moore say about those things and the seemingly odd game plan that the Eagles had in this game offensively? He talked about how they were... And the motion as well. Yeah, how they were running a lot of tempo. And I guess the tempo is not conducive for that.

So that was his explanation for the motion. For the middle of the field, his explanation there is they like their matchups on the outside. And that it's the type of thing that, yeah, I mean, every game's different. They kind of looked at the Jim Schwartz defense, but they really thought the matchups on the outside were the way to go. When Nick was asked us yesterday, Nick said, Gehlin made really good reads. and then as far as the play action, he said that's kind of how the game worked out there, but they do want to, they do want play action to be a part of their offense. What did it look like watching it on film, Fran?

Yeah, I mean, and what could be a reason why you would avoid play action against Jim Schwartz? To me, honestly, the only thing I could think of would be if you ran it once early and you saw, hey, you know, they're not respecting the run at all and they're going to try and just go, you know, pin your ears back and go after Jalen. But it was not the case. Not the case. They went two for two for like to be explosive. one was in the second quarter.

It was that big play at Grant Hock and Tara. Yeah, the other one was the little dump off too. And they were running the ball so much. Right. You would think that they would have to respect it. Yeah, I don't have a good explanation for why they didn't have it in there. And even like if you wanted to say, oh, you know, you know, Cleveland's really good against play action. I mean, they were coming into the game.

So as the Eagles were putting the end of the game plan, they had seen play action Cleveland at the 10th highest rate in football. And they had the 11th best success rate against play action. So, you know, yes, like positive, but not. overwhelmingly so to the point where you would affect the game plan. And their success rate is higher against not play action first or coming to the game than it was against my action. So it's not like you were, you know, getting some kind of advantage based on the numbers at least. Right. And so then it comes into the thing of, you know, all right, well, did they. Just terrified of Miles Garrett? Like.

Or, you know, could it be that, hey, they called a few and the plays were changed at the line or, you know, you start getting into some of these other things of like, okay. That was why they didn't show up in the game. but to only have two play action throws. It just, we're going to get into the conversation later about just like the passing game in general. But if you don't do, that's what, play action is one way to create some easy throws. And so if you're going to say,

all right, we're not doing that in this game, or we're not doing motion in this game. We're not doing, we're not a good screen team right now. We're not a good RPO team right now. Like, all right, you got to find something. One of these things you have to be really good at in order to make things easier for your offense. It's weird.

Yeah. And I think there's a lot to get to, on the Jalen Hertz of it all. On the 12 personnel front, Kellamore did say something interesting, which was that, like, they thought coming into this game that, like, the coverage menu,

basically for Schwartz's defense against 12 is a little bit more predictable, essentially. Now, he wasn't, they weren't always matching base. That's insightful. They were saying a nickel sometimes, but that was sort of what he was hinting at. Yeah, and Jim Schwartz actually did something pretty unusual for him in this game.

Early on, they came out, not just in base defense, but in a base, like, three, four personnel defense where you had three defensive tackles on the field with Miles Garrett and Zadaria Smith outside. I hadn't seen that at all from Cleveland on film. So they came out and they did that early, namely against 12 personnel. I'm assuming to try and stop the run. And they did a lot to try and honestly, it's very similar to what Vic Fangio did against New Orleans of putting a bunch of guys up on the line of scrimmage to try and deter against

the run and mess with your run responsibilities. The Eagles had a lot of issues from an assignment standpoint up front in this game. And I think that that was part of it was just the the changing of fronts there for Jim Schwartz. I like to think of that as kind of a passive-aggressive message from Jim Schwartz to the Eagles organization. Like, not only am I the better defensive coordinator, I can even do your stuff better than you. Yeah, I think that... I want to put it past them. Yeah, I know.

I would not either. Now, they didn't do much in the second half, but I think, again, he came out and he did it in the first half. Over the first, like, two or three drives, saw it a handful of times. Go ahead. Yeah, you think about, like, decision journals in life sometimes. Like, you write about what you would have done, and then you kind of, to measure it against what happens. So when you and I were speaking on the pregame show before, you pointed out that the Browns were playing without their safeties and that the way the

Browns play, there'd be opportunities to go deep. And the explosives would be a big part of the offense. Do you think Kellan Moore's game plan made sense given the team they were playing, or do you think it's a convenient excuse? No, I think that certain, like the idea of going vertical against those guys. I think that makes sense. I think it's just like it's more about like the way they go about it is the it's the I don't want to say unimaginative. That's not like the that's a strong way of putting it. But I think that when you look at basically the way they go about trying to look, look the AJ Brown touchdown on the slot fade where you, you know, you had some motion, you moved Calcutera outside and that created some space for for AJ to work. Like that was that was a nice well

drawn up play. But too often it was just, all right, AJ's lined up outside the numbers. runs a fade outside the numbers. Devante Smith lines up outside the numbers. Devante Smith runs a go ball outside the numbers. Throw it. Let's see if you can get it. Now some of that Jalen talked about about some of those are alerts where hey, we're running three receivers over the other side, but I get pressed man on this. That's, that to me is an alert where I forget what's going on over here. That's my match. That's my throw. But so often to me, like there are too many of those kinds of throws and not enough like really well designed, you know, shot plays for Jalen Hertz in the offense.

Another super chat to get to, I believe, from CDP, who says, are these slow offensive starts due to the quarterback coach skipping work to go watch college football? Thanks for exposing the low work ethic of the care of Zach Berman. No, no, I can assure you that it's not the case. Everyone in that building made sure that I knew that Douglas Meyer was back for meetings that Saturday night. There was nothing to worry about there. And they did actually win the game that he.

That's true. Yeah, so they're want to know when he watches his son. He's spending all this time. Talking to prospective agents. No, I don't think actually in this day and age, they already had an agent. So, yeah, he has an agent. I like a Garrett Nussmeyer watching him play. Yeah, what did you think of that?

I think he's got some upside. He moves in the pocket, throwing the ball deep. I'm in. I watch those three games for that piece, Zach. To me, he's going to be in that discussion. If he decides to come out, he'll be one of the, he'll be talked about as one of the top quarterbacks off the board. There we go. Putting in that early work, baby. And you know what? You can if you haven't read it, you can subscribe at all phtly.com. I'm a diehard. Make sure you do that

because you get France film reviews. Like I said, every sport's going right now. We had a day this weekend when I think we had all four teams on the site, right? And I mean, I'll put our staff up against anyone's in the city. So yeah, make sure you check that out at all phtly.com. fighting words. Fighting words, yeah. I'm proud of our staff. I think the talent in this building is incredible, starting with our head of production, Julia.

There you go. All right. Let's talk about Jalen Hertz. Okay. And let's get into this with the ACE hardware temperature check. We got one of these a week. You know what the deal? Because with Ace Hardware,

you can visit Ace Hardware Home Services online at www. www. asehardwarehomeservices.com to get started on your next project. Our thing's heating up. Our thing is cooling down. I think staying the same. You dove into all these next-gen numbers, Fran.

You know, him when he's in the pocket, outside of the pocket, you know, completion percentage over expectation, when he's throwing the ball deep, all this stuff. What were your learnings? What were your big takeaways? So the genesis of this was the stat that next-gen stats had put out on Sunday during the game after A.J. Brown's talk. touchdown where just going back to it during the show you were very triggered by this and it sent you

down a rabbit hole well so it was there was after the catch and it said uh jaylain hurts to a j brown that's the sixth reception with an under 25% completion probability since 2022 so that's second in the NFL behind only jalen hertz and devante smith who has seven so the eagles have the top two players when it comes to making catches with less than 25% chance of being completed and so now you might hear that and obviously there's a lot of uh lot of verbiage that The big thing when you talk about like completion probability, you go on and actually I put a link to a video in the piece on all phti.com where you can go and look at what the how the next gen comes up with those numbers and really comes down to I think it's like nine or ten factors, but the five most critical basically were the depth of the target. So, you know, how far down the field the throw is. The separation of the receiver, the distance to the sideline.

So are you close to the middle of field or are you out on the perimeter? the separation from the pass rush, so is the quarterback under pressure, and then the speed that the quarterback is traveling at the time of the throw. It's harder to complete a pass, not in theory, but the data supports this, if the quarterback is on the run versus if he's stationary in the pocket. And so basically just did a deep dive into all of those different metrics to see exactly why things look so hard for Jalen Hertz and for the past game and how that has changed over the course of this three-year stretch where Jalen Hertz was an MVP candidate in 2022,

showed it at times, but certainly not down the stretch in 2023 and has not been that so far this year. To answer your question in terms of what some of my big takeaways were, we talked in the past about how he's not pushing the ball vertically down the field as much this year. It's been a little, the average depth of target would support that, the percentage of those vertical throws. That is supported by the fact that, okay, he's not as aggressive down the field here this year. Is that as simple as AJ Browns only played two games? Potentially.

but it also could be the fact that, you know, they're still getting blitz at a high rate, but the plan against the blitz has been much more defined, like to go to those hot routes this year. And so, again, those, you're dealing in small samples, and this is only a five-game sample so far. And so, you know, you have to keep the context there. But the thing that I found to be interesting is that, you know,

one number I know Dane is has talked about this with you guys in the past, is that Jalen typically ranks very highly in the completion percentage above expectation metric. And that's looking at that. probability chances that are you completing passes that you know the typical pass would not be complete by a typical quarterback uh it's still high for jalen despite the fact that the numbers are not he's not going down the field as much so i know when i was texting you last night that that was the one of the first things you said and i was the i saw that too it was like all right well then

where are these tough throws coming from if he's not pushing the ball vertically why are things so hard still right and what how is the offense making things easier for him right and so i spent a long time So on these numbers. I'm not going to share all now. You have to go check out the piece. Hold up very quickly. To give you a second to get your thoughts. Yes.

Zach, you're like you're smirking over here. What's going on? You have something that is like making you laugh over there. No, first of all, I'm enjoying this conversation. If A.J. Brown were here, he would tell you that those numbers don't take in account A.J. Brown. Right? You know, it's like I remember there was a Steph Curry thing about like a bad shot.

and they said it's not a bad shot when Steph Curry takes it, right? It's a bad shot when someone normal takes it. So I agree with those numbers. Like there's data behind it. But what AJ would tell you, if I brought that up to him, is that it doesn't factor in that AJ Brown is really good at catching a football. He is, but it's still like they threw four or five of those balls to AJ in this game and two of them were complete.

Good point. Like it's a hard way to live. And even like one of the tables I looked at was the, the rate at which Jalen has thrown those vertical throws over the last three years. And again, it has gone down every year. And this year, it's like middle of the pack, whereas usually he's in like the top quarter of the league. And you could see one thing I did was, all right, what rate is Jalen doing all these things? And then what is the EPA per dropback on all of these?

And if you look at the EPA per dropback on those vertical throws, I mean, it's, it's low. Like it's not just for Jalen, just in general. Those are hard throws to complete. For this year, over the last. You see that trend over the last three years for quarterbacks across the league. Like that's not an easy thing to always try and complete. Now, I would say one of the big takeaways for me, certainly the middle of the field. Yeah, I think that's one of the most interesting conversation.

Yes. So let me go to the middle of the field table real quick. The middle of the field numbers, we talked to a couple weeks ago. Zach, I know that you talked about this with Shield on his podcast last week. but I think when you look at the middle of field numbers, they are down every year for Jalen, and he's at the bottom of the league right now in terms of attacking the middle of the field.

And that's, again, that's just an area where teams across the league are able to find those successful plays. And when you look right now, like Lamar Jackson is averaging zero points. I'm not going to get into the exact numbers, but the very, very fertile part of the field to be able to find explosive plays, the Eagles are just not addressing that. Jalen Hertz right now. Over the past three years,

Jalen Hertz of the 43 qualifying quarterbacks, throws the ball over the middle of the field. 43rd. And by like a wide margin by four percentage points. Under 17% of the time. The two guys ahead of him were Justin Fields and Kenny Pickett. Last year he was 25th or 2022, he was 25th of 27. Last year he was 28th of 28.

This year he's 32nd of 33. That is three different offensive coordinator. Yes. Yep. So there is reason to believe that this is not just the offense. This is Jalen Hertz. So why would that be? So some quarterbacks, you know, feel more comfortable attacking different parts of the field than others. Could be that.

There was the reporting. Was that Tim McManus last year? Yeah, which is still so hard to believe. It doesn't jive with round. Yeah. In terms of that he wanted more middle of the field throws. Here's my thing on it. I think that there, let's say that,

Jaylen doesn't like throwing a middle of field. Let's say that that's the truth, right? I would also say that, all right, well, then there's an old coaching axiom where it's like, you're either coaching it or you're allowing it to happen. I'm pretty sure. And so to me, I think that when you look at it and you say, all right, well, right now they're leaning into that with Jaylon. All right, well, he's not going to throw the ball in the middle of the field.

We're just not going to call the way. Well, that's the other question is, is he passing up open guys in the middle of the field? Are they just not even really trying to attack the middle of them? No, Julia, I sent you a couple of pictures. Yeah, no, so basically looking at the route trees for A.J. Brown, for Devante Smith, for Dallas Goddard. You know, I think it's most pronounced with A.J. I think it's easiest to see with A.J. Just because he's only played two games, so it's less of a jumble.

But when you look at it, you can see, like, he's not doing a lot of work over the middle of the field. And remember, in Tennessee, he was one of the best middle of field receivers in football. That's where he did the majority of his work for Arthur Smith. and for Ryan Tannahill and for that team was on those in-breaking routes. So, you know, work in the middle of the yards after the catch. That's what we thought the Eagles were getting. When they made that trade,

we weren't even counting the fact that he could be a ball winner down the field and winning on the vertical game. That was a bonus on top of what you expected. And they're just not tapping into that part of his game right now. And so we know what Devante Smith can do with the ball on his hands. Dallas Goddard certainly over the middle of the field. But right now, they just aren't calling those plays. It shows up.

This is, I believe this is the AJ Brown tree. Thank you, Julia. So this is the A.J. Brown tree. And again, like you can see, the large majority, and that's not, that's not just all of his targets. That's all of his routes run. Everything is working hash marks and out, right? Everything is working, you know, out towards the perimeter of the field. And so just finding new ways to be able to get those guys the ball in the middle of the field.

The other part of this, too, and with all of these metrics, because I deal with a lot of these when I'm looking at draft prospects and you can get caught up with, you know, obsessing about one thing and saying, like, this is the magic bullet to fix the Eagles offense. For so many of us, it's talking about like motion. It doesn't have to be motion. It doesn't have to be working the middle of the field. It doesn't have to be play action. It doesn't have to be something.

It's got to be something. You got to find something to make things easier. And right now, it's just they're playing everything on expert level for Jayland. It just makes it, it's a hard way to live. One comment that I've heard from multiple fans is that this looks a lot like the offense from last year and not the offense that they were promised Kellyn Moore would bring. I did ask Kellyn Moore today how this offense compares to what he's run in the past. and he didn't give a succinct answer to that. He said there was a lot of kind of collaboration during the offseason.

The goal is the 2024 Eagles offense. Yeah, he said this is the 2024 Eagles offense. So keep that in mind, too, because there are, you know, I think Bo put it well on yesterday's show that this is Nick Siriani, Kevin Patuo, Jeff Stoutland. There's a lot of different voices in there when they put this offense together. And, of course, Jalen Hertz. because Jalen Hertz makes the, you know,

there was a process during the summer when Jalen Hertz looked at the menu and decided the plays that he thought fit him best. And that's where I think what you're saying comes into play, whereas like the more you do it this way, the more that you are passing up opportunities to make the offense better, even if it's not the thing that the quarterback is comfortable with.

And then, you know, there was the, when Matt LaFleur first got to Green Bay, there was like this big adjustment because Aaron Rogers didn't like motion, and LaFleur did. And so there was like that budding of heads initially. He did it. He did his own research and his own research said. He didn't want to use motion in their offense.

But I think when you look at the way, once he found ways to kind of meet him in the middle, they had a MVP year, right? He was one of the best pastors in football. So I think when you look at just finding ways to try and meet the quarterback in the middle there, I think it's incumbent upon the coaches to be able to wait to do that. I would say the other takeaway, as well. And this one was interesting. The last bullet point from next gen in terms of what determines whether a throw is a high probability or low probability was the quarterback on the move.

And that can happen for a number of different reasons. Obviously, quarterbacks that scramble and break the pocket, those guys are going to be on the run. They define on the run as moving at eight miles an hour or more. So how often does that happen with Jalen Hertz? Well, he's just going to, yeah, right. Yeah, you're going off the GPS number. And so the number for Jalen Hertz, he'd been Kind of middle of the pack over the course of his, the last three years, but this year he's last in the league in terms of how often he is making those throws on the run,

meaning he's doing it the most often. So just under 23% of his throws are happening when he's on the run. So he's doing that more than anybody else in the league? More than anybody in the league. That's like when all of his throwaways happen, right? Yeah, but also like to me, when I look at that stat, sometimes that could be telling of,

oh, this is a lot of, you know, like Kirk Cousins in another year has, you know, he's been up there. Derek Carr is up there on that. That's a lot of play action, move the pocket, under center of those boot plays. We don't, that's not here in this offense.

So you're leading the league in that category without having that. To me, that shows, when you look back in years past that who are some of the other quarterbacks that that rank that high, it's typically like rookies or guys that aren't playing well. And so that looks like to me, like a quarterback that doesn't feel settled with what he's reading out early in the

down. And now he's trying to break the pocket and try and make those plays. And so for that to happen, they have to find different ways to be able to get the ball out of his hands fast. Right now he's got the highest. I will say I started down the, the reason why it took me so long to get through this data is that I started going through like other metrics. And it wasn't telling the story the way I wanted to because you would look at like just clean dropbacks. And you say like, oh, like Jalen's his yards per attempt is up. The, the, all the, the things you would look for in terms of markers, like it looks pretty good. But average time to

throw was like the highest in the league along with Bo Nix. And it's like, all right, well, that why is that happening? But Lamar Jackson's up there. Patrick Mahomes is up there. That's not a huge thing in terms of, you know, getting carried away in terms of average time to throw. A lot of people will point to, oh, he holds on to the ball too long. That's not an indicator. Descriptive versus predictive, right? Yes, that's what I always try and say with all of these numbers. You don't want to get too in the weeds on anyone, one of those things. All right. Well, we will talk a little bit more about this in a second after another word from our sponsors. Now, friend, I heard you mentioned. in Arthur Smith in passing there.

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Rugged Road is your ultimate outdoor companion. Head to Rugged Road Outdoors.com and use code P HLY for 10% off. Super chat from Aaron who says is trading Devante for a number one edge rusher the path, Zach? No. No. Sorry, Aaron. Hey, they're not trading Devante Smith. Devonthe Smith is a core player here.

He's not being moved right now or I would imagine anytime soon. And I don't think that that's the avenue. The Eagles are going to explore. I think if the Eagles were to add an edge rusher, it wouldn't be like a top of the roster guy, I think it would be more like supplemental at this point. Because I, they already traded significant draft inventory, relatively speaking, to get Jahan Dotson. I don't think the Eagles are moving in another pick in the first three rounds. Well, let's talk about this. What, you know, I mean, unless it's like Miles Garrett. Heavy. Well, yeah, we got hot and heavy trade action today. Yeah.

If the Eagles were to make an addition, and that's certainly how he's MO to make something happen. What position do you think it would be? Well, I keep going back to Weddrrrrusher because I think that that is where they need help. Now, I thought Nolan Smith had a good game. Yep. Relatively speaking, last week, they're hoping Bryce Hoff continues to play better. As you said on yesterday's show, he showed some signs. I mean, Vig Fangio was today.

Yeah, about the four-point stance. I know that's come up. Vic Fangio said Bryce Huff's always had the opportunity to do or has been able to do that in third-down situations. It doesn't help them in first and second down. Well, the funniest thing was, he said he was asked like does that is that make it easier for him to go and fix like well he thinks it does yeah yeah that's kind of what i was saying last week like the get on the get off time was was the same but roughly the same from last year this year so i don't think that him putting his hand

in the dirt really changes that all that much yeah so otherwise um i mean edge rusher if everyone's healthy would be the position that i would say but look if there's an injury to tight end tight end is definitely a spot there um if if jordan my lot is out for and extended period. I don't think you go and you get a tackle. The Eagles have depth there. But that's, I think it would either be injury related or it would be an edge rusher.

Should they be buyers at the trade deadline? I mean, unless it's, well, I don't know. I mean, if we're talking like a marginal six-round pick for a guy who is an upgrade or can add to the edge rush group, I think that's fine. Yeah. If we're talking like a, you know, a monster addition of like, like, you know, sending a first-round pick for Miles Garrett or Max Crosby or something like that. I mean, I think that's risky, but you could talk me into it.

But it's that middle ground that always is the least efficient in my eyes. Like the John Dotson thing. Yeah, I think, though, that the Eagles are going to see an opportunity in the division in particular. This is a – I know the commanders are playing well. I don't think the commanders are, you know, like the Lions or a lot of the teams in the N.C. North, Franklin. The NFC North is loaded right now, right? I think, you know, the Cowboys are clearly struggling. We'll see the Giants up close this weekend,

but that's not a team that I think factors into the playoff mix. I don't think the Eagles push all their chips in. I don't think this is like the year, and they actually had the wrong kind of interpretation of their team, but when they were interested in John Ramsey or Minka Fitzpatrick, and those were both ascending players, but they were willing to trade first-round picks in those cases, right? I think the Eagles are going to hold those,

day one and day two picks pretty close. And I think if there's a move, it's like Chedavion Clowny type, who you kind of add to your edge rush or rotation. Well, we've also seen, and it's playing out in these trades, that the market for in-season trades is much more of a seller's market than a buyer's market, right? Like the prices are different. And so, you know, you can make a case for selling somebody

if that opportunity arises. Like, I don't know. I don't know who that would be necessarily. I mean, Huff? Slay. Slay. Slay. Yeah, Slay would be the guy.

But, yeah, and Bono, I talked about this last year during free agency. Johnson. I wish we had Fran on the show then. But really, the reason for this is a, teams talk themselves into like, all right, we're really close. We need a guy who can push us over the edge. And also, and the people making the trade, in particular the GMs, they're not as a invested in the draft process during the season. So that draft pick doesn't really have like

a name associated for it. I always say it's much harder for GMs that trade a draft pick leading up to the draft because you have an idea of who that guy's going to be. It's like, am I going to trade this pick who could be player X who we just met, who we had these meetings with? And during the season, those draft picks don't really have the group of players associated to them especially because in season it's we got to beat the we got to beat the giants on sunday there's a little bit more importance and uh you know put on you know winning in the now uh this time of year the uh scheduled free agents for the eagles on the roster now there's one guy on here who i think i would say is probably the most likely guy uh zach bonn mckeye beckton avonta maddox

josh sweat brandy graham obviously not milton williams fred johnson kennie gain well Isaiah Rogers those are the big ones to me if it's not if to me Isaiah Rogers is actually a guy who I could yeah that would be the one I would think of too yep although I didn't think he looked that good and limited action the other day but I see your point out I mean yeah true yeah I I could certainly see that when you look at the free agency part of it there is a world where they say like man you know Cooper the Jean and and and Quignan a really good combination here.

Do we move sleigh? But I don't think they move sleigh. Yeah, I don't think so either. Another super chat from JASDM who says, After the Milana injury, did Jalen make two quick middle of the throws for hitting Smith on the mesh touchdown is the best O line, a factor stunting Jalen using middle of the field. I do think that that is, and that played out in one of the things that you were looking at was like the time to throw on when it is a clean pocket, which you didn't end up putting

in the piece, but you were looking at last night. that to me is a reflection of it's just a good offensive line. Right. I think that that's a good point. I actually hadn't even put that together, but he was, again, leading the NFL in terms of the average time to throw from a clean pocket, meaning that he was holding on the ball the longest in those scenarios. I just think it goes back to the how many of those plays where we see him, you know, start to the one side, doesn't like it.

Now it comes back to the other, and that's when the scramble job. I feel like that accounts for a lot of that holding the ball. but he's granted that by the fact that he typically has had a good offensive line play in front of him. He's a little bit lower on the pressure rate this year only because of that that Tampa Bay game, I think carries a lot of weight there. And that's the problem with having the small sample size. I think that'll level out now that Lane Johnson's back in the lineup. Can we do a little just sort of rapid fire questions on the tape for you? I like this.

Yeah. Let me start with the running game. Why was the running game so much less successful for the Eagles in this matchup? The O-line did not play particularly well in the run game. They really struggled with moving down to the time. at the point of attack, their nose tackle for Cleveland. I didn't think that Cam Jergens played all that well. Him and Landon Dickerson struggled on their double teams on Tomlinson.

But then even with that, they struggled then blocking the backside. I think the Backeye Beckton and Lane Johnson, their timing on a lot of those blocks wasn't always great. I mentioned what Jim Schwartz was doing with mixing up their fronts. I think that led to some of the issues as well. And so, yeah, to me, it wasn't necessarily like a Sequan issue, but the run game itself, this was the first time. really in a while that I can remember where it looked pedestrian. They just did not look like they had.

They didn't have any of those special runs. They had a couple that went for like six or seven yards that there was like a nice game plan play. The very first play of the game, they came out in 12 first snow, the two tight ends outside. And Cleveland had trouble getting lined up to that. And they were able to get a cheap six yards there.

But in terms of like inside zone, downhill, they didn't really have any explosives in that way. And they've got the best nose tackling football coming this week. Yeah. And so they're going to need to play better. certainly at the point of attack in this one because the Giants have been much better from that standpoint. Did you see a market difference between Cooper the Gene and Avanti Maddox? I don't know if I would say market improvement.

I do think that Cooper played pretty well. It wasn't to the level of, say, Quinnion Mitchell's debut in week one against Green Bay. But I think he did some good things. There were some miscommunications you could see between he and some of the other guys on some of the motion play. Him and C.J. Gardner Johnson early had a miscommunication. but there was another one where there was a receiver running Scott Free. I want to say it was Cooper on like a 25-yarder going to the right side. But outside of that, I thought it was overall, it was not a great day, but it wasn't a bad day for Degine.

Feels like Nacobie Dean has backslid a little bit over the past couple of games. How much of a concern is that? Doesn't make me feel good, certainly. I think when you saw like that two-game stretch against like Atlanta and New Orleans, felt really good about where he was at in terms of just being a solid replacement-level start. starter and these last two games against Tampa and now against the uh against the browns not so much uh we've seen missed tackles uh we've seen the athletic limitations show up with nicoby dean we've seen the size limitations show up with the Kobe Dean at times he's gotten a little nosy in terms of

when he's one-on-one with a blocker because linebacker trying to fit up the run as a linebacker it's important that you maintain your gap right so even if you lose like it's important that you lose in your gap because uh at least then you are forcing the runner to go another way to often he's one-on-one with the guy and he tries to run around the block or he ends up losing on the block and gets removed from his spot. Now the running back's got that path to get downhill. It hasn't happened eight or nine times, but it's happened like three or four times in the last couple games and it's just something that he needs to get cleaned up, certainly. I wrote about special teams.

Yep. As one of my five takeaways from the game, I asked Nick Siriani about it, spoke to Michael Clay today. It's been three catastrophic plays and catastrophic is the term that the Eagles are using. in consecutive games. I know it's one play, but anything film showed you that Eagles can learn from there. Yeah, I mean, there was basically what Cleveland did was they held down the long snapper there and allowed Garrett to jump over.

And it was what the Giants did a week ago to get Isaiah Simmons free. So there's athletes, man. Yeah, if you got them, use them. Keely Ringo could be one of those guys. I think when you're looking at what they correct, I mean, all of them were for different reasons, right the punt block the field goal block they they you just kind of you can't go learn from them and move on i think that it's such a small sample uh to get overly concerned by um but they certainly you don't want to have those happen and certainly to the result in a touchdown we've talked about this uh for a long time it's a fun game by the way

the special team stuff and like my my plea to treat special teams like you treat linebackers just knowing that the guys don't invest in it and it probably takes in time for it instance, I'm just looking at their snap counts of the eight guys who take the most snaps on special teams. Six of them are playing for the team for the first time this year. There's just, there's so much turnover there. It takes some time. Not that they need to do better, obviously. Yeah. So I, you know, Michael Clay's the only one of these coordinators who, uh, has finished first in DVOA over the past three years. Yeah, I'm not calling for Clay's job, but I, I think this is problematic because it's one, like the expectation should be, all right, you don't have to be great,

just hold serve. Right? To have three plays where, like, the Eagles aren't a good enough team to give easy points or give a possession away. Yep. And so it'd be one thing if it's like the 20, 22 Eagles, and they're so good and it's like, yeah, special teams can get better, but it's not really like costing them games. Right. Like, they're not good enough that if you give away points or you give away possessions, it's going to cost you games. I agree with that. I think the blocked punt is the one that I would be the most concerned about because, like, you know, the Dijin fumble that's like, you just got to. a guy being a moron.

Yeah. Like, that's one thing. And then the Miles Garrett one is like, I mean, I guess you got to have a better plan for Miles Garrett, but that's like just an insane person doing a Superman thing. The block punt, like you got to have that short up. So I agree. All right.

How about like how is Mackay Beckton doing? A little bit up and down. I mean, the thing is is that I think he's been better overall in the run game than in the past game. But as I mentioned earlier, I didn't think he was particularly strong in the run game in this So he's coming along. I think he's been an average starter with moments of really, really good. And then some moments where, like, I think the teams have gotten after them with their stunts.

That's going to be a big thing here in this one because the Giants have been really, really good with their stunting and slanting. My guess is that they will target Mackay Beckton. Missing Kvon. Look, Kvon-Tibod did not play particularly well last year. I thought that he was just kind of a guy for them, hence why they went out and traded for Brian Burns. but I thought he was playing really, really well. Now, they've gotten really good play out of Azizzo O'Ojolari so far. Yeah, I was a big Ojalari guy when he was coming out.

I forgot that. Or no, his parents met in Philly. That's what it was. Easy there. I think when, but yeah, I think Beckton has played okay. He's not been great. He hasn't been bad, but just been okay. They were thinking about Philly when he was made.

No, they were, I think they met. felt awfully and then moved to georgia um sorry make sure you become a diamond yeah i heard uh you know someone said why aren't you talking more about grant calcutera is there a reason to talk about grand capitara yeah i mean he did some good things as a receiver in this game is certainly showed what they see in him as a pass catcher uh as a blocker like he's just a he's not going to be you know that kind of enforcement type he can do enough to where you hope that he like loses slowly like you want to get to to get to the point where he was Zach Ertz, right?

Because that Zertertz was never like a plus plus blocker. But if you get to the point where, hey, just don't lose right away, then that's a, that's a win. Too often he's losing right away for them at the point of attack. And that gets into the conversations we've had about you have stolen the 53, put him in those spots as opposed to Calcutara. My guess is that if Goddard can't go, we'll see the proper usage for both here in this one. I have one more question for you.

and we haven't talked about it yet you and i zach okay but uh the the pleasure and the joy of getting to watch michael dunn play in the stands uh on sunday i mean fantastic and what i thought what a job he did having to move from right guard to center mid game his his first extensive action of the season i think the long time sickos uh would have been moved by that as well how did How did our boy look? He looked pretty good. Yeah, he did some good things. He knocked Jalen Carter down on one where Carter went to jump up and trying to deter a throw.

Punish jumpers. Yeah, so he was able to punish the jumper there. He did have a couple of men on Irish, it seemed, where there were some passoffs on stunts. If there were a couple where I wasn't sure if it was on him or if it was on the rookie right guard, Zach Center, part of that also is that the fact that this was his first real action of the season and also had to change positions midgame. But overall, I thought he did pretty well. all right I think good

lock on a full-time job let's go I'd be in favor of that I'm looking up the Ojalari nugget here because I'm all worried that but I'm pretty sure

I see here according to Wikipedia Zach that he is the his maternal grandfather was the late Yoruban artist and musician twin 77 maybe that's what you were thinking about that's definitely not what I was thinking about here

let me see here if you can fill this up for I'll keep talking I thought Jordan Davis played better than people thought. Interesting. I thought some people, I forget exactly where I heard, but it was out there. Well, the fact that his snap counts are low, relatively speaking, and that Vic Fangio and

Jordan Davis talked all summer about that he was going to have to play a lot of snaps. To me, it comes down to what are your expectations of Jordan Davis right now? And if your expectations are what the Eagles drafted him to be a couple years ago, yeah, he's not that. But I think in terms of like how I'm viewing Jordan Davis right now, which is like, like a rotational nose tackle that's going to be able to stop the run for you on early downs and do some of that. Like he's doing that well.

Um, but he's not giving you anything right now as a rusher. Um, and he's not like, I thought we saw there were a couple plays in this game where he stacked the block like to, you know, put his hands into the guy's chest, locked out and got off the block and made a play. We saw two of those in this game. We don't see enough of that. Like he's not the dominant run defender that you want him to be. He's like, he's a good run defender.

Um, so that would, that would be, I would say like the. Yeah. I think you're right that it is it is hard to move off of the expectation that there's there was supposed to be more coming. Yeah. And maybe we have to adjust to like he's just a he's just a good first and second down player. I think that's kind of where I'm at right now. And if the rest comes, then I will be pleasantly surprised.

But I don't know that it's going to come. From a defensive game plan standpoint, did it look like, you know, Vic Fangio was sort of disrespecting the capability of the Browns offense? uh no i mean they they were pretty basic with how they lined up yeah yeah i think this was more of like an execution style game for the eagles defense where it was like hey let's go out let's line up and do what we do it's honestly what i was hoping we would see from the offense right like come out and just uh whatever the however you're only you know whatever you want to focus on coming out of the by like come out and like look good doing it uh i think that the defense came out it was mostly like four down looks they kind they came out and base a handful of times but it was mostly four down looks um and the guys played

downhill. I thought the defensive line played well. You got to keep in mind who they're going up against. That offensive line has struggled, namely on the outside on the perimeter. And Deshawn Watson obviously did not play well again in this game. And so you take that, you know, contextually here with this performance. But to get five sacks was good. Yeah, only had six coming in.

I think that's something that could be a jumping off point, given a little bit of juice moving forward. I thought Nolan Smith, as Zach alluded to, I thought Nolan Smith played well. Saw some good things from Josh Sweat in this game. He had a couple of nice rushes that I noted in my notes. So, you know, hopefully, that can be something that they can springboard off here moving forward. So here it is from our friend, Dane Bruehler.

Okay. Okay. In 2021, his mother, Boulonle and father, Monsuru, are Nigerian natives who met in the mid-90s after moving to the United States in parentheses, Philadelphia. They married and settled down in the Atlanta area. So, yeah, Aziz Ojalari, his parents met in, or moved to Philadelphia when they moved here. So it's a Philadelphia love story. Sure.

Yes. This is a classic, I think we can say. The first thing you do when you get the beast is you search for the word of Philadelphia. Guilty as charge. Speaking of Philadelphia, what did you make, Zach of Dave McCormick coming to the Eagles tailgate and then tweeting about the Steelers game? I'm not familiar with this. Oh, it's good. I'm not familiar with this.

Is that? Okay. Yeah. He tweeted out a picture of the tailgate and then said, Had fun at the tailgate today. Looking forward to the Steelers win or saw this all they along those lines. He said watching the Steelers. Watching the Steelers.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Your alerts are, yeah, you get more alerts than I do on the, like I. I don't think that's true. I'm not getting alerts for it. I had no idea this happened. I had no idea this existed. I was, uh, yeah.

I thought you covered the Eagles. I, it's about the Steelers apparently. Right? Was that in the Aziz Oswald or was it in BJOJLRs as well? This was Aziz. Got it was Aziz. It might have been in BJs, but I associated it with Aziz. Okay.

Well, good episode. Fun to talk, talk ball today. We thank you, Franon, for joining us. Thank you, Julia, for making it happen. We will talk more about the giants on Thursday and what they bring to the table. Tomorrow's show, you got Jamie and Les in studio. So we're looking forward to that. Zach, anything else to add?

The Eagles are back at practice tomorrow. Will it be a walkthrough? Will Vic Vanjo be able to assess his defensive personnel? You know, if they have guys beat up, it might be. But no, my guess is it's a practice. I will have a video update later. We have a column coming up in all-ph-l-Y.com from Les Bowen. We have a great piece up already from Fran Duffy today.

We have more for me this week. And then I will be on the show tomorrow. I will, at the top of the show, I'll give you a Nick Siriani update at 2 o'clock tomorrow. Did you have something? We have clamoring in the chat for a swooper. Oh, yes. Thank you for bringing it up.

Yes. Well, let's go through it. Fran, the Eagles recover a fumble on defense. Did not happen. Nope. The Browns convert fewer than their league low, 18.2% with they're down. I thought there was no chance this was going to happen. Yeah.

It was very close. I mean, it was very, very close. If that, it was the Mari Cooper catch at the end, and that does not happen. Yeah. That was the one where I was, I was very angry at Cooper de Gene while watching the film. I was like, Cooper, if you were just a little bit more outside there, takes away that throw. And then the Eagles defense forces at least two, three-outs. You hit on that one.

Yes. So one for you. Zach, the Eagles win by double digits. Did not happen. A.J. Brown has 120-plus receiving. Very close. Very close to happening, but did not happen. and an Eagles player has a catch for the same number of yards as his jersey number.

Did this happen? I believe that Devante Smith had a six-yard catch. I believe so. Good for you. Because there was one time when he had two catches for 19 yards and his long was 13. Okay. All right. Nice job.

If I did math. Yeah. Okay. And then I had Sequin runs for at least 100 yards. Did not happen. The Eagles score in the first quarter and late at halftime did not happen. James Winston throws more than five passes. Did not happen.

The Eagles get at least as many sacks on defense as they do offensive. touchdowns on offense that did happen. Yep. A PHLY employee tweets a photo of High Roseman and Jim Schwartz talking on the field pregame. That did happen. So I clinched there and then I also got the Eagles win the game, which I paid a lot for. So maybe I didn't need to pay all that much for it.

But if I hadn't, they one of you would have got it and someone would have been a push. Yep. So I tie Fran at the top of the scoreboard. However, I will be without 18 turkeys this week while the two of you have extra turkeys remaining. How many did we start with every week? 24. 24. All right, so you only have six turkeys going to this one.

Well, I'm going to be putting really rare items up for a bit, I guess. You'll be pulling a, pulling a ZB on Thursday. That's right. All right. Wait, my items, uh, uh, uh, I believe your items have the lowest hit rate. None of my items hit this week. Yeah, none of your items said this week again. None of my hands are like two for nine, I think, uh, on the year, something along those lines.

I thought that was the purpose of this. No. The purpose of this is to not have things happen. is to create an element of like, is to create a challenge. You decide, are you going to allocate your turkeys to this or not? Well, sure,

but I think to say that the purpose is to make things that are unlikely to happen. That's not the purpose. The purpose is to make the game a little bit more exciting, have something else to pay attention to. I mean, you also want to mix it up. You want to have some things that are likely,

some things that are unlikely. That's the dance. That's the art of the swooper. It sounds odd to say for someone who, is on a daily show, but I think scarcity is a good thing sometimes, right? And so, like, you know, scarcity of resources is a good thing. I don't think that we're talking about the same thing. Yes, I guess we are. Yeah, I'm saying like, you know, like you're the, it's, I'm not going to get into it. Already at three. You have 38 turkeys next week. I've got not a scarcity of resources.

Yeah, we have super chats coming. Oh, we go. Okay. The pump man, Brian Pumper, says, will slay Dodge MetLife. I sure hope so because we have other guys, but he is a known MetLife Dodger. I don't think that's what it is. I think it's a good conspiracy theory. That turf last night took Mike Williams down. It wasn't running the red line.

He said, it's got to run the red line. I mean, we have to trade for somebody. He couldn't do that. I've listened to Aaron Rogers on a lot of press press conferences. I never heard of make that sense. You can't spell Jetstream without Jets team. Yeah, I'm missing the joke here.

Okay. That's okay. Thanks for the super chat, Brian. That'll do it for the episode of the BHLY Eagles podcast. Thanks everybody for sticking around till the end. That's when the good stuff happens. We will talk to you tomorrow at 2 o'clock. And as always, we love you.

Thank you.