PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Is Isaiah Rodgers set to start at CB for the Philadelphia Eagles? | PHLY Eagles Podcast

Episode Date: November 1, 2024

Deniz Selman is in studio for our weekly lesson, this time narrowing his focus to Doug Pederson, Trevor Lawrence and the great Ryan Nielsen as the Jacksonville Jaguars come to town. This is one of those matchups that seems almost too good.Join Selman and Bo Wulf before Zach Berman joins with his live report from NovaCare. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello everybody and welcome to the P.H.O.Y. Eagles show on a Friday afternoon. We are presented by Bet365. Download the Bet365 app and use code P.HLY 365 when you sign up. Whatever the moment, it's never. Not once. Not a single time. Ordinary. At Bet365. Welcome to the show, Bo Wolf, the professor. Dane is in the house. We'll hear from Zach Berman in a little bit. Dan is. How is your trick-or-treating? evening. Oh, it was fun. Everyone was SpongeBob. Okay. Did you dress up in any way? Well, so that's the thing. I felt very lazy doing it this way, but he wanted us to all be SpongeBob characters. Okay. And so Emily was

Sandy the Squirrel. Okay. Is that the squirrel's name? I think that's right. Okay. And I was supposed to be Patrick. And I said, well, how am I going to be Patrick? I'm coming straight from teaching, you know, etc. And he said, all you... I'm hearing excuses right now. Well, no, I already admitted this was lazy and a terrible job. But

Everyone was happy as long as I wore a pink shirt and green shorts. Okay. And my main concern when he said this like two weeks before Halloween was that it would be cold. And that was not an issue. And so yeah, pink shirt, green shorts. And one person said, are you Patrick? And it made my night. Now obviously it was walking next to SpongeBob.

It wasn't just me like walking down the street and a big shirt like are you Patrick. But I was very happy that one person got it and I told her it was a little girl I said I said you're the first and I'm sure the last person to get that right tonight. So congratulations and she was indeed the last person. Now did you feel listening to yesterday's show judged by Zach for participating as an adult? I do not understand Zach on a lot of issues and then this was one of them. Yeah I think I think Halloween's a lot of fun. Now I think it's a little weird if you if you don't have kids and you're hanging out and and and There's a little bit more of that than there used to be in the trick-or-treating areas, I feel like. But there's even room for some of that. I mean, I think Halloween should be a bigger, it should be like off for everybody. Oh, okay. Yeah. You know how Zach has this plan to have like the Super Bowl before President's Day or whatever?

He thinks that would make society better? From Labor Day to President's Day. To President's Day. Well, Zach might, you joke about how he texts Roger. From Labor Day to President's Day. Right. No, I got you. So who would argue with that?

Well, you know, you joke about how he's texting Roger and whatnot. Roger had some sort of thing, maybe in London. They had games in London recently, right? So I think he was talking in London about expanding the international calendar and international games. And one of the things he said was, I think we're eventually going to go to a 20-week season with 18 games. And then it would go. And he literally said from Labor Day to President's case. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. I mean, it's like, it's like IKTR, like it's just become accepted, accepted shorthand. I think Zach is just texting him, FLD, TPD. That's, yeah, that's right, that's right. From Labor Day to President's Day. To President's Day. Well, on that note, I was going to say, maybe we can kill two birds with one stone here, which is an expression I've never fully understood why you would want to be killing birds with stones.

But if you are into that, it's efficiency. You can kill two with one stone. if you made Halloween a holiday so that it was like no school, no work for anybody and you could also have election day on that day. Now, that would kill part of like the Halloween fun I guess

but it would at least make... Yeah, you're perverting Halloween. That's fine, but listen, listen, but I'm trying to... I'm not... Yeah, that wasn't my main goal. I don't actually think they should be the same day, but... I was trying to say, but at least then the U.S. would join the rest of the civilized world in having election day be on a day that's off for everybody. Election Day should be a national holiday. Right. That's kind of what I was saying.

Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. It should be a separate day. I think Halloween should be a school day. It's nice for the kids to go to school in their costumes. Oh, I see. Interesting. All right. Yeah.

Let's just have election day off. Election Day should clearly be off. Almost everywhere else in the world, it's like on a Sunday. So it's kind of crazy that it's not off. Okay. What else is kind of crazy, Dan, is how little play action. We saw from the Eagles over certain parts of this season. Yeah.

They turned that around last weekend. Yeah. The blowout win over the Cincinnati Bengals, let's dive deep into the muck of the sausage of the play action for the Eagles. I was so happy watching the game, like tweeting during the game live about how excited I was at the variety of play action in that game. Now watching back on film, some of those were RPO's, but that's fine. Like I think RPO's and play action go very well together, obviously, on one of them.

you actually have the option to run it and on the other you don't but like it's still the same has the same impact on the defense it's not a marriage it's a flirtation interesting in terms of the okay I'm not let's not let's not get too much into it gotcha right okay yeah I see yeah no that's that's good there's also it's also vague what it is that's kind of part of that point yeah you don't know yeah it's okay all right well uh in this last game by my this is by my charge So, you know, I don't know if it matches the services exactly, but DFF. 10, right, yeah, exactly. 10 of the 12 early down passes on Sunday, I took out the two-minute drill because you're not going to run play

action in two-minute. 10 of the 12. 10 of the 12 early down passes were either play action or RPO. These are the ones that ended up being passes. Okay. And in terms of the variety of the plays, you obviously can have different route combinations and things like that, but the variety of the simulated runs was awesome. There was like, you know, the right guard pulling on a counter protection.

trap action. There was a split zone action. There was a pinpole toss RPO where they actually ran the pinpole toss earlier in the game and then they had the bubble screen behind it on one. They had outside zone action. They had under center inside zone action. They had regular inside zone from gun. They had under center outside zone boot, which is like the, you know, the Shanahan school thing that we've been like calling for a lot. They did like the outside zone kind of half boot on another one to Calcutera. And then we saw that left guard pull counter protection on the deep bomb to DeVante Smith, and I can't believe you didn't say this on any of the shows this week, Bo.

I on this show, last Friday, said they haven't run that Brazil play since the Brazil game. Like, what happened to it? You even joked about how Jalen Hertz must have walked off the field and said they never wanted that play. They ran exactly the same play except the motion was a little bit different. It was like a return motion instead

of an orbit motion. But as Fran broke down on his offense breakdown. Which you can read if you're a diehard, go to all p.hly.com. And you should obviously be. Best deal. And a deal that may not last forever. So get in while the getting's hot. Might have some inside information on how long that deal is going to last. Yeah. So I thought that was so fun to see that, especially because the ball didn't go to the same

place. Like the wheel was covered this time and it went to the underneath route on that, on that Brazil play. So that was really cool. And then, yeah, the outside zone half food on the on the deep touchdown to Devante. So really fun to see those. And of those play action plays, there was only won in completion. It was a throwaway on a screen that was sniffed out. And all the other plays were basically successful. And I wanted to ask you, that's funny, the, the inability of Nick Siriani to ever get a screen game going, that even when they were just dialing up these great play action plays, every other play was working. Still the screen won't work. Yeah. And that was a screen that was going to a running back. It wasn't like one of the Siriani special bubble screens

with like guys who don't want to block blocking. It was, it looked like it, you know, was just a normal running back screen that just the timing was off the spacing was off yeah one of the linebacker seemed to sniff it out so it just didn't go anywhere but yeah absolutely the the screen game with this kind of athletic offensive line I'm just like imagining the kind of screen game this team would have if like Andy Reid had this offensive line you know do you think you could do you think there are you know how they teach dogs to like uh sniff out certain things do you think there's a do think there is a some breed out there that could be taught to sniff out screens well I know you're not into AI no but but but I bet I'm I bet they're using AI to try to train such a yeah okay

what's your question for me well my question for you was I've heard about like baldy tweeted something about how the players were involved they spoke up to the coaches about how changes need to be made just having been in the building a couple of times this week I'm wondering if you've heard that and thought there's not much to that, or if you think that's just stuff that happens every week and Baldi just talked about it this week, or if there's something to the idea that I heard E.J. Smith saying,

like, Jalen Hertz, like, is the reason the offense got fixed because he talked to the coaches. Do you think that's a little overblown? I am skeptical that it was Jalen Hertz leading the charge. Mm-hmm. Because... With Baldy, you think Lane Johnson, but... Well, that's the obvious inference,

but, yeah, I think Baldi's pretty plugged in with other players in the locker room. I don't think it's just a one-to-one. I mean, Baldi is a very reliable narrator when it comes to behind-the-scenes stuff with the Eagles, so I believe what he's saying. But, yeah, I mean, he's, first of all, he said players, right? And he didn't say the quarterback.

I'm a little skeptical, because if it's a Jalen thing, why do they take so long? Like, presumably Jalen is involved in what's going on on offense all season long. I am much more willing to believe that it is, a offensive line or whatever else speak up thing. But I also am a little wary of making it like a one-to-one. That's the reason why the offense looked good all of a sudden.

Right. Yeah. I mean, I always wonder when there's a good game, you know, you're searching for reasons it was good. Sure. Instead of, you know, actually thinking that there was some reason beforehand that it was going to be good. Now, it'd be really weird if it was Jalen because all the narrative before has been

Jalen's the one who doesn't want to do some of these things, use some of these tools that the offense has been using. more and you know it's stuff that Kellan Moore has used more in the past. It would be weird for Jaylen to suddenly be like you know why don't we make it more like your offenses used to look because then it was like

well why we're even until Jaylen if they're going for it on fourth down yeah well he'd like to know though he said in theory yeah okay in general you mentioned this a little bit on the show one of the shows earlier this week I think it was on Monday with Fran

that in general the Eagles have been very good when they have used play action. Yes. And I went back and I just looked at play action usage versus play action success for the Eagles. So when you look at all downs, the Eagles rank 22nd in play action usage. They're using a 21% of the time. Their success rate with it has been 60%, over 60%, which is third best in the league. The average for the league is like 48% or something.

The success without play action has been all the way down to 42%. And the average for that is right around 42%. So their average, this is just dropbacks. Okay. Yes, exactly, just dropbacks. So basically dropbacks with play action, dropbacks without play action. League wide, there's like a 4% bump when you use play action and success rate. So normally play action is more successful than no play action, which is what the analytics community like always talks about.

Like you should use it even if the wrong game isn't working, that kind of thing. But for the Eagles, it's an 18% bump, like up from 42 to 60. And that's over a total of 225 dropback. So it's not noise like when you look at all downs. When you look at... What do you attribute that? So even 20% of it is like over 40 plays. Like we're not talking about like nothing.

What do I attribute the bump to? Yeah. I'm always, I almost wonder if the eagle, if it works better because it's so rare in the eagle with the Eagles. Like it's like so many of the dropbacks are just... Well, especially on early downs. They are like they're running the ball in early downs

more than any team in the league. Yeah. You would think that there would be some correlation there. Yeah, for sure. I mean, the Eagles like, and since you mentioned that, I'll just like quickly talk about that. It's the run.

the ball crowd must be loving life. I mean, the Eagles are now 32nd in the league in overall pass rate, 51%. It's actually almost 50-50, which is just crazy. 31st in the league and first down pass percentage. Only 37% of first downs have been passes. When you control for garbage time and neutral zone situations, still 29th, 46%. And when you do pass rate over expectation, 28th. So any way you look at it, the Eagles are one of,

of the most, if not the most run-heavy team in the whole league. And it's just, you know, having AJ Brown and Devante Smith, it's, it's, I mean, it's interesting that it's, that it's working this way, right? And, and I am curious how long it's going to continue when you're going to run into teams that don't let you run it, you know, that kind of thing. It'll be, it'll be interesting. By the way, when you do the thing, I just, there's also a viability, a long-term viability question about, I mean, about the usage for Seekwon. That's a real, it's a real, it's a real thing, right? Yes.

And that was like a big, that's true. That was a big discussion before the season, like the Seekwan usage, how many carries is you going to have? I haven't been hearing as much about that. Like it seems like, oh, it's working great. So let's keep doing it. Yeah. I don't know how much, you know, how relevant do you think that is within a season.

As opposed to like for Sequin's whole career length, which the girls might not care so much about. Do you want to unpack why of all the diehard Eagles fans, you, maybe hate Sequin the most? I like Seacquan a lot. What are you talking about? I think he's great. I just don't get excited. You just don't like running backs in general.

You've taken it so far that you won't even allow yourself to enjoy the best running back. I love it. I love it when he makes a run that I know that, you know, I know that like Miles Sanders would have only gotten seven yards and it gets 55. Like I do like that. I just think that and Sequan is the best example of this. If your offensive line isn't good and the rest of your team is,

isn't good. You're not going to make the team good. And I think that like there are a lot of other positions where like upgrading at left tackle if your left tackle is really bad or upgrading at wide receiver if your wide receivers aren't good. Obviously quarterback. But pretty much almost any any other position. Maybe other than tight end. I don't know is more important than running back. That's all I, that's all I'm saying. Yeah, but I think you, it seems as if you are letting your opinion of the valuation of the position affect your enjoyment of him as a fan. I'm not sure people are calling me a curmudgeon in the chat. I'm not sure if part of it is the following.

The thing that I hated the most as a kid following the Eagles was when the Sunday Inquirer SportsBage game out, and I wanted to read about the Eagles game that was that day. It's like the biggest day of the week. It's the Eagles game. And like half the sports page would be about Penn State. And I would be like, I would be like Penn State like is not in Philadelphia.

Like why would I care about Penn State? Like, don't they have a newspaper out there wherever Penn State is? And I never liked the whole Penn State Philadelphia connection. I just don't think they're in any way related. And so that was annoying. Oh, that's interesting. That makes sense. And then the other thing that I'm annoyed by, and I am a curmudgeon on this topic, is fantasy football.

Like, I hate fantasy football. I hate the people care about it. Talk about it. Like, check their phones the whole game, like, checking, like, the, you know, who's catched, who caught the Titans touchdown. Like, instead of standing up and being loud on third down on defense. and stuff like that. I hate the way that's gone.

And so I think running backs matter a lot more to people than they matter to actual, like football teams, because of fantasy. So, you know, like, like, like, you know, because like whether the, like people don't like the push because they want Seguan to get the touchdowns. Like Jamie Lynch.

Like, who cares who got the touchdown? Like, like, I just, I just don't, I just don't like. If he doesn't care, if he doesn't care, I don't think it matters. Well, yeah, I think that's, I think that's, I think Jamie's point is not he wants Sequin to get the touchdown. He thinks that there's some relationship. I'm sure Jamie doesn't Sequin in like a bunch of fantasy leagues and he cares.

I don't think that's the reason. I think he's wary of. Doesn't Sequin want the touchdown? But if it truly doesn't matter to him, that's fine. It seems like it doesn't. Do you think that the way that this is playing out so far? We'll see if he stays healthy and plays at this level for another year and a half. Is proof of concept for the Eagles in their very specific situation when they have a good

running back that, or when they have a good offensive line, rather, that a running back can be a difference? Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly. And when the Sequin signing happened, I wasn't, I didn't say, like, this isn't going to make a difference. I said, I said, I'm not sure if it's going to make a difference, because I'm not sure how good he would be. But if he's going to make a difference on a team, like, this is the team, right? Like, a team that already runs the ball well, has a quarterback as a run threat, has an offensive line, which is obviously very good at run blocking. When you put Seekwan on this team if he's not able to um fran is worried he's going to catch astray fran come on what would what would you catch a stray about um yeah no i i i i just think uh yeah

no i mean yes i thought i don't even remember what you asked but i don't i don't hate sequin what do you talk i think that also there is a case to be made that part of the we spent so much time on sequin as well in this offense with these wide receivers and this offensive line like you know He's not going to be the most important part of opposing defensive game plans. Like he's going to be able to turn these plays into bigger plays. I think it's fair to say looking back that it's possible. Part of it was also concern is probably too strong, but a hedge against what if the quarterback doesn't take the kind of leap

that we were hoping he would take, or if this can't just be a straight dropback and point guard the ball to three top receivers kind of offense. that maybe they need a little bit of extra help on offense. Yeah, no, absolutely. And also, like, just how the two go together. I mean, I don't think it's a coincidence that the rushing game in general, not just Sequin, but the rushing game in general by success rate by EPA per play,

was worse when A.J. Brown wasn't playing, right? And the games that A.J. missed. Like, the running attack did not save the offense in those games, right? And you're not going to be able to save the offense typically by running it if you don't have the past threat to go with it. AJ Brand is so good I asked him what happened that play in the end zone

where he's like writhing on the ground out of nowhere but then he's back in the game Oh yeah yeah yeah He said he got they stepped on his hip Oh okay okay Yeah I was wondering about that It still hurts It still hurts huh yeah

Oh sure Tough guy He's awesome I mean it's like so fun We were talking about this a little before the show Like it's so fun to be a fan of a team that has like awesome players like that that transcend like normal discussion about like the opponent's cornerbacks for example it's like who cares who their cornerbacks right like like he could

be like prime deion sanders and you still have a j brown you know like it's like you're like that guy's not going to shut down anybody uh and so uh that's the one part of the offense that has that and then the other one that that it's just historically been the case uh has been left tackle right tackle I mean, just like we've been so spoiled here, having good offensive tackles on the team for so long. Lane Johnson on the right side for so many years. And then on the left side, it's been. Fred Johnson was awesome last week, I mean, for what it's worth. Fred Johnson was in the locker room this week.

He couldn't stop talking about he keeps seeing this guy, Dana's Selman, all over the city. See, it's crazy. I feel bad because I've never actually said hi to him. I just see him and I get really excited and I tell Emily about how I just saw Fred Johnson. But I've never actually said hi. Next time I see him, I'm going to. Yes, you are probably. part of a very small minority that would be much happier to see Fred Johnson in the wild than Sequin Berkeley.

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street at the Lowe Market. Snack attack? Get LL Market delivered same day or buy online, pick up in store. Go to write a.com slash shop to order. I feel like I had like 10 seconds of a good accident there. I feel like, exactly. I feel like normally, normally I understand your jokes. And I'm like, come on, Zach.

How do you not understand that? And this time I'm just completely in the dark. Hello. I mean, it's right there. I'm going to miss that. All right. We've unpacked play action. Yeah.

Oh, by the way, on first down, just looking at first down, the bump in success rate from no play action to play action for the Eagles, 43% up to 68%. There's second in the league, first down play action success, and 30th in the league, league at actually using it. So a little bit of a sample size thing there. They've only used it 19 times, but it's worked on 13 of them.

I mean, I just can't imagine one that is closely related to teams are selling out to stop the wrong first time because they think they like to run it. No, that's right. So good time to use it, right? Like obviously you can't just, you know, you can't use it every time. That's kind of the whole point. Sure. But that's not something that's in danger of happening.

So what about the under center of it all? Yeah. I mean, the under center. I felt after the game that it was. a little bit overblown because so much of it was those last two drives plus the tush pushes. Yeah. It wasn't like a big part of the offense in the game

plan necessarily. Yeah, but I'm looking at my play-by-play notes. The first play of the game has been under center. I feel like on purpose, the last couple of the last couple, this time it was a run. It was a pass on some of the other ones. Yeah, that's a problem like this week. There's been, there hasn't been anything for everyone to really

really complain about. So there's nothing for them to design the first play of the game for as a specific visual. Yeah, I mean, first drive of the game, that first play was under center. The next nine were not. Right. There were three on the next drive out of seven. The Eagles are going to run the first play of the game.

So two. The first play of the game this week for the Eagles is going to be a handoff to Sakel and Barclay from the one yard line for a touchdown. That's there. Oh, interesting. Yeah. It's the only thing they can do. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. The, the Fran got into this a little bit, but there was a lot more under center variety in the in the run game this week. I mean, they did it undercenter outside zone, an under center duo, which is not something the Stoutland University, like, normally has a class in duo. I mean, like, I always, like, this was like a long-running joke between me and Fran.

I would, like, text him a play. This was like last year, two years ago. Like, I would, like, text him a play and be like, Fran, is this duo or inside zone? I can't tell. I'm, like, trying to make, I'm trying to chart this game. And he would always try to tell me, like, it's duo if it's this. And then I still couldn't tell or whatever.

And he was like, listen, it's never duo. Like, if it's the, Eagles, it's not duo. Like, like, and in this game, there was a lot of duo, a lot of under-center duo. They needed Fran to leave. Yeah, maybe that's what, maybe that's what it was. It wasn't a stout thing. It was a Fran thing.

Well, the other Fran thing, he broke down that Wham trap that the Jaguars ran beautifully using screenshots the other day. Wham trap is something the Eagles have run a lot, and it was very beautiful when it was run well. I mean, they did it a lot against Dallas, like trapping their three techniques and stuff in that aggressive kind of four-man front. We haven't seen it a single time this year, so I'm wondering if that's also because Fran left, because I know that's a run that he likes a lot.

And with all the run-game variety that we've discussed this year, that is not one of the things they've done. I don't remember a single trap or a single wham and certainly not a wham trap. So I don't know. I feel like this is at least some little bit of you giving something to Fran and as much as you possibly can.

No, I mean, I love wham trap. I mean, you know. Sequin would look great running it, I think. We've got a couple super chats to bang out here. Aaron, Widman, Whitman or Wideman? I'm going to go Widman. The Widman.

Professor Solomon, thanks for doing what you do, fighting back against the ZBs in the world who can misunderstand metrics. I don't know if that's a reference to my third down. Poor Whitman's going to be keeping Zach up all night with this one. You have nothing to say? Yeah, well, once sucks on, we can talk more about third down.

And then ARM, Andy reads mustache, says, Bo, please say no with an Australian accent. Noe. Not enough syllables. Not enough syllables.

No. It's like a... It's actually, it's gonna be an R. It's like, no. I feel like I showed up sober too late to the party.

It's like 3 a.m. No, not to die. Everyone else, Julia and Bo, just been like getting hammered for hours and I just showed a fish show to go to tonight yeah uh talking about under center real quick the the the the the Ben van sumerin package is entirely under center and that's not just a that's not just a you know garbage time thing and they're actually um I was surprised I didn't make it a swooper

because I thought one of you would that he would catch catch a pass um the The problem with me being the only sober one here is going to continue for the rest of the show. So I'll just get used to it. Sequin Barkley was talking about this about how he only did shotgun in college, so he was more used to it, and that he understands why there isn't as much under center with the Eagles, because that makes the Jalen Hertz dual threat more important. And then Jason Kelsey was talking about the difference between under center play action and shotgun play action. and he thought that in this last game in particular,

and he sounded like he knew this, not just that he noticed it on film, he knew that this had actually happened. He said it seemed like there was more of a focus on holding the play action fakes for longer, even when they were from the shotgun. And that's something we've made fun of the Eagles about, like it's like, oh, it's like,

good job, ranking dead last in play action by having Jalen like sort of hold the ball in a way that doesn't move anybody on the defense at all. It seemed like he was trying a little bit harder to actually sell those fakes. And obviously, in theory, for the quarterback, it's easier to trust that and do that when you're facing a pass rush that is not as good. And so, you know, we talked about how much time he had last week. This Jaguars pass rush also not that great. Maybe you can you can carry that out.

It's going to take a little bit more trust to do it against. Yeah, it's weird because they have talented edge rushers. Yeah. But that, you know, it's kind of showing, I guess, that that's not quite enough, right? like they don't seem to have the combination of coverage and pass rush and the rest of the D-line to actually get there because they're like what like dead last in sack rate or something 29 pressure rate whatever it is so yeah

do you think that's an issue for Jalen normally that he's worried about the that he's worried about the pass rush and that's why he goes through spells of being a little bit skittish in the pocket like most quarterbacks probably yeah I don't I don't know if it's a every every game thing but that happens sometimes I think I think he even voiced that when there are backups playing yeah like he he doesn't he doesn't necessarily basically play the same way. I mean, he said like having backups on the O line,

it's kind of like having backup receivers. And Jalen's saying that speaks volumes because we know what Jalen does when they're backup receivers. He just doesn't throw to them. What is this about Siriani practice drills that you want to get into? Oh, you remember,

we used to always joke about how, like, Kwez Watkins caught a ball, and then he fumbled it in that Washington game in 2022. He fell down and then got up. He fell down and then got up. And he said, you know, we're going to, Siriani said, like, we're going to have to have a drill, you know,

have everybody do that. Right. So that never happens again in a game. And in general, it seems like he always has these drills that respond directly to like a fluky thing that happened in the last game. And so like Jalen fumbled the ball like in a game last year and then they did this whole thing where they

like, and they did it while the media was there. So there were like Twitter videos of it like where they were like hitting the ball and stuff like that. I just think it's funny how it seems like that year like magically. 2022, even a little bit in 2021. Anytime there was an issue and Siriani said, okay, we added a new drill to fix

this problem. It seemed like the problem just got fixed, like magically. Like I mentioned the Quez Watkins one. He talked about drills to eliminate turnovers this year and he was like, I don't want to say too much about it because there's strategic advantage.

But we put our camera guy in a different place at practice so that he could get a better angle of like the way guys are holding the ball. And that's going to be the way we eliminate turnovers. And then the tackling was an issue. And so instead of tackling dummies, they now like just tackle Joe Casper, like the safeties coach, which is just funny that there isn't somebody else to tackle other than

the, but anyway, like Joe Casper, that they should call Cooper DeGine. Ah, there you go. Yeah. That's a Wolfstein reference for those of you who aren't diehards. And you should sign up. So you could read about all the other. nicknames that Bo had for the white members

of the Eagles secondary. The Joe Gaspers thing and the other drill thing, the reason I'm bringing them up is because tackling hasn't really been an issue, right? There was like maybe one, one play, like Zach Bond missed a tackle last week. Like I don't really remember too many others where there was like a notable miss tackle

and also turnovers. There have been no turnovers for three games. So the Eagles are actually now like top 10 in the league at avoiding EPA loss from turnovers. So remember like that, original, the first part of the season when we talked about how the turnovers are killing this team. And we talked about there's usually regression with this kind of thing. So you think that Nick Siriani is only able to fix things once they are a problem as opposed

to being proactive. And so it's just for the Eagles, it would be best if they just get everything out of the way the first couple weeks and then they can fix those things. I don't think the drills have been helping at all. I just think it's so funny that like he talks about how they added a drill. we kind of all roll our eyes and laugh and then just magically the thing gets fixed. I don't actually think it's the reason. All right. Well, speaking of magic, via the magic of telecommunications

and technological advancements, we can be joined right now by Mr. Technology himself. Zach Berman, how we doing? Doing great. Good to see you guys. And actually, this worked out swimmingly because I planned on leaving the locker room. Is that a fish record?

Come in. No. This worked out well. This work out effectively. However you want to frame it. Because I plan on leaving the locker room so I can be there in person. I think the shows are always better when we're together to the three of us. And I look at my Slack messages.

And Julia, our outstanding head of content, says that both said, you're joining virtually today. And I said, okay, that's fine. I'll stay in the locker a little longer. and that meant I got to be there for Lane Johnson. Okay, I wouldn't have been there for Lane Johnson otherwise. I'm sorry. I'm sorry about the miscommunications, Zach. I thought you were doing in every other week thing and you were going to do.

Yeah. Yeah. So last week, that's, so last week we moved to Stream Yard, that was a week when I wasn't going to. So because I was Stream Yard last week, I was going to do in studio this week. You remember? Got it. So that's why. But this actually worked out terrifically because I got to,

I got in on Lane Johnson like a minute or too late, but I got there for important nuggets, including the fact that he and a few other members of the team did have communication, what, you know, did speak during the by week about modifying the offense and about, yeah. And so late, you know, what Baldi said this week,

you know, Lane said he spoke up, and Lane's comfortable speaking up about this. It was another reporter joked with him. that he's like the new Jason Peters. And he says he doesn't have his own stretch line. But otherwise, he does have clout. And he says, you know, he's not afraid to say something when he feels like something need to be said.

And this was a case where that did happen. So what did he say about those meetings? Did he say anybody else that was involved? Yeah, I believe Jordan Milata, Landed Dickerson. And I will have more. This is actually, this also worked out. I planned on posting a big notebook this morning. And now this is going to probably jump to the lead of the notebook because this is more interesting.

I feel like, right? Yeah. Yeah, I think this is very interesting. Yeah, so I still need to kind of go through because I admittedly I got there a few minutes in. I didn't want to have him repeat everything he just said, right? But so I'm going to go through the part I heard and the part from before I got there. But it was interesting. and it does confirm what we spoke about on yesterday's show

and spoke about with Jamie and Rich on Wednesday about players speaking up. And I said, you know, in my 12 years around Lane, he always believes his solution is the run more, right? It's just to be the imposer on the line of scrimmage. And typically that has worked here. Now, I don't think, as we discussed in the past, I don't think you can be entirely run.

Like, you know, you want these two things to complement each other, the run and the past. But when you have a guy like Sequin Barclay and you have an offensive line like they have, I've always said it's not either or, right? But you can't abandon the run. And when things aren't working out or when things are stagnant or stale, what you can always hang your hat on is the running game.

And it sounds like that's something that those guys on the O line push for. So I have a few more questions here. So first of all, your understanding is this happened during the byweek? During the by week, yes, this happened during the by week. Okay. And is your understanding that it was as simple as we need to run the ball more? Or is there like a variation of like the passing game needs to be, you know, less static? No, I think I think more run.

Yeah, I think more based on running out. Jalen Hertz said he had a lot of productive conversations too, right? So Janowans might have been. They had their moments. Yes. Well, no, they had their moments before the buy. But then, yeah, I suppose the moments were great moments during the buy because Janen talked about the productive conversations that they had. And Janwin spoke this week about how things evolved.

And you're seeing the evolution of that during the season. But the running part of this is important. And when you look, it was interesting. And I know, you know, Professor Selman always is watching the in-house documentaries in addition to all the press conferences. And you saw last week, Kevin Moore at the Wednesday meeting, right? He started that, I don't know if it was the start. We're going to be under center.

But yeah, yeah, we said we're going to be under center a lot more this week, right? And so like this is something that they were going to work on. And so after the game, they were kind of downplaying the under center part of it. but it was a big part of what they planned to do last week. And as was well documented, it was their best offensive game this season. Now, I don't want to sometimes, you know, conflate correlation with causation or causation and correlation. But they're, I don't think it's a stretch to think these are related to some degree,

just in terms of the diversity of the offense. Things are always better when it's more diverse. Go ahead. No, talk about an immediate response of the main thing during the by week was let's run the ball more. I mean, in that Cleveland game, I'm just looking now, 15 of the first 20 plays were runs. They ran it against like a loaded bot loaded Jim Schwartz

like run-stopping kind of box. I mean, it wasn't even that successful, but it was very clear. It was very clear that they came out with an intention to run it more. Jack, do you think that it was like, I'm just trying to imagine this actual meeting, like how this approach happened?

Do you think it was like those guys go to Stout, like pass this message along? They march into Siriani's office. office and say, you know, I'm playing left guard like Jason Peters did. You think they accost him in the parking lot? What's, you know? But no, you know, so it's interesting you bring that up too, Bo, because one thing Lane did say today is that he always prefers one-on-one meetings.

He's like some guys like to speak in front of the team and do that. He says his style has always been more have like productive one-on-one conversations. So now, if it was Jordan, my lot of Atlanta, Dickerson, maybe. It's more than like literally one-on-one, but I don't know if it was this huge concept. A series of one-on-ones, yeah. Maybe, I mean, like the leadership council has their meetings or something like that. Yeah. It could be something like that.

But something Lane said was he said how Jason Kelsey was always vocal, right? And he learned from Jason. He said that he always liked that. Now, he doesn't get as angry as Jason. He has his moments, but it's not the anger. But he said like the anger always came from a spot of wanting these things to be perfect or I shouldn't say, say perfect, like to be clean. If there was a bad walker, if there was bad practice, if there was a game plan that wasn't sound,

Jason would make his voice heard. And Lane referenced the same thing, how invested in this, how hard he works at this, how much he cares about this. And so it's this similar, it's in a similar vein. you know, if there's something with our show that that you feel can be better, you speak up about it because you care about the show, right? So it's not to say our show is like the Philadelphia's offense, but it's probably a similar sentiment.

These guys aren't mailing it in it. So especially someone like Lane who's been here for 12 years, has seen this work different ways under different coaches, under different coordinators. If there's something he feels strongly about, so I think what stands out to me more than anything is just that this happened but that he felt this this needed to be said. As from a fans perspective, I can tell you that like I love it whenever there's any evidence

that the players care enough to be proactive like that, right? Because you get this sometimes you get this kind of thought that in professional sports like everyone's just kind of doing their part and going home, right? And so anytime there is a group of players willing to be a leader and say what they think should happen so that the team does better, it makes me, it usually makes me happy. especially when the results come right after. And to add to that point, one phrase that I've heard often this year is player-led team, player-led team.

So how does that manifest itself? Well, I think what Nick really wants is like the players to be in the driver's seat here in terms of the leadership. And I think sometimes there's a lot put on the coaches. I kind of sound like Doug Peterson. Now where Doug's like the players have to catch the ball, the players have to throw the ball, right? But ultimately, this is a player's game.

And so I agree. I like when there's a level of accountability from the players. Very quickly, Zach, I see on Twitter here from the very beginning of Lane's press conference, the one thing that you, not press conference, but scrum. The one thing that you missed, I believe, he said, I just want to say thank you to Bo Wolfe for teaching me how to do that thing when you talk to the guys on the same play.

It's been around. I should have brought that up going. Yeah, I should have brought that up. I brought the Slupe the Service Award up. Oh, okay, nice. I can't wait for that in a Wolfstead. Yeah. No, it was just a separate conversation.

Zach, we have more to get to, but unfortunately we need to take a break for just a second. There's one thing that I say about my friend, Zach Berman. It's, boy, does that guy have a golden pair of nuggets on them? That's right. Golden nugget jewelers. That's what we're talking about. And if you're in the market for any kind of, kind of jewelry. In Philadelphia, Golden Nugget Jewelers is the place to go. Local, high-quality

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Are you fished? Go ahead. You can do it. Yeah. Yeah. I would love to do this one because I can get personal, I can get personal testimony to this. I was, I was, you know, we work later on Wednesdays, locker rooms late on Wednesdays now, and I'm driving home late. And I call up Emily, my wife. And she says, what's this big box you order? Is this hello? What's, and she says, why did you order Hello Fresh? And I could have told her about how Hello Fresh, with Hello Fresh, you get farm fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorsteps, skip trips to the

grocery store and count on Hello Fresh to make home cooking easy fun and affordable. That's why it's America's number one meal kit. I did not tell her that sentence. What I told her is I thought this would be great to make dinner with. And so the other night, the potatoes were terrific that came like fresh potatoes coming from Hello Fresh. And that's what you can expect, okay? Because with Hello Fresh, you make this, they were.

What did they turn into? Were they mashed potatoes, roasted potatoes? Oh, no, no. Yeah, yeah, roasted potatoes. I thought you meant like. Like crispy potatoes? Yes, yeah. They were cut potatoes, crispy potatoes.

And it was part of the meal from Hello Fresh that we ate on. Can you name a kind of potato? Can I name a kind of potato? I know potatoes are from Idaho. I mean, I think you don't mean like sweet potatoes. Can I name these specific type of white potato? I don't know. Or any, could you name any time?

What's an example? A sweet potato, right? Yeah. Is that potato? Okay. Okay. I don't need to put it. Thank you.

Yeah. I'm trying to tell you how they have the tastiest that you can make fall of the tasty season yet with farm fresh produce and easy autumn-inspired recipes delivered right to your door with a low-fresh. A low-fresh delivers all the pre-portioning ingredients don't need to make easy homemade meals, which we did. All the proteins, veggies. including potatoes, sauces, spices, and more arrive in your box along with simple instructions that walk you through each step in the cooking process.

I can even say this morning, I kind of went off script, and I had a little bit of the Pita, right? That was part of a separate meal, but I just had that as part of the, as part of a breakfast this morning. Hold on. Hold on. You had part of a Spanish? No, Pita.

P-I-T-A. P-A-T-A. P-A-T-A. P-A-T-A. The P-A-A-P-A-A-P-A-A-A-P-A. The pita was part of a meal. It was part of like a dinner, but I just had the pita as like a card for breakfast.

And not the kind of pizza that's coming after you for your fishing. No, much different. No, much different pita. So HelloFrest can save you time. You don't have to go to the grocery store. They give you the recipes too, right? Sometimes you can do it impromptu, but they give you the recipes that you can follow.

It helps you eat differently and better. And it makes cooking enjoyable. It would be a stretch to say, I cook with my wife. She tends to do more of the cooking. I tend to do more of the grilling. Nonetheless, it's something we enjoy doing together, and we can do it now with HelloFresh.

Get 10 free meals at HelloFresh.com slash free eagles, and that has three easing it, F-R-E-E-E, then E-A-G-L-E-S, okay? Applied across seven boxes, new subscribers only varies by plan. That's 10 free HelloFresh meals just by going HelloFresh meals, just by going hellofresh.com slash free eagles. It's America's number one meal kit. A couple of super chats and one that seems like it needs your insight in particular, Zach. This is a two-parter from Khalif.

He says, on behalf of a friend of Defab Shea, if a girl calls you her next of kin but then proceeds to play footsie with you after touching the bean in Chicago together and gives you a warm hug with back rub? Is she interested romantically, or is this a friend zone situation? I mean, I need to think that anything footsie related goes beyond friend zone, unless it's unintentional footsie.

If there's intentionality to the footsie, like a warm hug, that can be a friend's own thing. the back row, that's probably more toward romantically remitted. But I think footsie, once you start playing footsie with somebody, that that's beyond friend zone. Yeah, I think so too, but I'm very caught up on the, what is this next of kin situation? Oh, I didn't even pay attention to that, the next of kin situation. Called you her next of kin. What does that mean? Like, how would you decipher this one? Yeah, we're not talking about this is your cousin or something like that.

are we? Oh, well, no, I certainly hope not. No, no, no. I would not. She's saying like, oh, you're like a brother to me is like, is next of kin is very weird. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So then. I'm a little hung up on that, Khalif. Yeah. But I was Zach that I feel like intentional footsie is is a, is a pretty unmistakable signal. Yes. Yeah. That. Julia, what are you saying? Julia agrees. Dennis? That's like the, I'm just. It is just doing sidework. I'm just hung up on the next-to-kin thing.

Still. So I'm not going to say anything until I understand what that means. CDP also says, do we think Jalen Hertz will catch up with Mac Jones after the game, Zach? If you remember, they were teammates. Also, they both had seasoned ruined by Matt Patricia. Good point.

I imagine he will. Yes, I imagine he will. They were in the same quarterback room. Yes, I remember that practice in Philadelphia. That was the big topic to Mac Jones was. Jalen hurts. Yeah, I spoke to Jordan Davis today about Trayvon Walker. He said Trayvon Walker is like family to him, right?

So he's excited to see that. Wait, what did Khalif say? We did it, Chad. A friend. Okay. Shade did not clarify. I'm assuming friend, the closest friend. Maybe it's a woman who you, but a, okay, or a woman, a man, whatever it may be,

loves you like a brother. Yeah, whatever it may be. Loves you like a brother. The other funny thing here is that he split into the two in the first part was after touching the bean. Well, it's in Chicago, right?

So there's the bean in Chicago part wasn't until the second part of the of the superchannel. So just said, I'm pretty sure once you touch the bean, you're beyond a friend. Yeah. That's always a tough situation when you're like, when you're,

no no no no you're like deep friend zoned with somebody right but then if you wanted that to be a romantic thing right so you got to be careful there I suppose but if she's initiating the putsy I think you're in the clear

unless it's a family unless it's yeah unless it's family in which case Julia is losing it no you're not in clear I'm trying to add by the way Kaleef and I imagine Kleeves watching

yeah because Kalee's posting this in the Super check. Khalid, I sent you the two books yesterday. Okay. So you will, they will be in the, you should arrive them early. They should arrive early next week. I, I apologize for the delay, but I appreciate the interest in the patients. Zeeby, what else, what else can you tell us newswise from the Nova Care Complex? Yeah, so Devonte Smith wasn't out there at the start of practice. I get the sense that it was it's nothing to worry about. I get the sense that it was more personal related.

We'll get the injury report later. But I don't anticipate this being something that keeps him from playing. Darius Slay doesn't look like he's going to play. He hasn't practiced all week. Dallas Goddard hasn't practiced all week. So it's going to be the first week of Isaiah Rogers. Did I say this on yesterday's show? I had a nice conversation with Isaiah Rogers the other day about this potential start.

And the way I framed it to him was, look, you know, I know you never wanted someone again. Herb, this is a big opportunity for you. You didn't play all year last year. You've been a reserve this year. You're a free agent. Like, this could do a lot for your career. And he says, the way he's viewing this is he wants to show the Eagles and the higher

ups the type of player he is so they can keep him. So they want him long term. He's not viewing this as auditioning for the league, which essentially it is, but also a chance to audition for Howard Grossman and the Eagles front office, who will presumably make a cornerback decision after this season. because one thing here, if I can editorialize, which I have to be careful of doing the Friday show, that Cooper de Gene, he's really good in the slot.

And I understand that the outside corner is more valuable than the slot corner, right? But there'd be nothing wrong if he's your slot cornerback for the next few years. Like if he's really good at it and he's better at it than some other players, and you're in that package most of the game, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Not to say that Isaiah Rogers is the cornerback of the future, but I'm curious to see how Isaiah Rogers looks this weekend. And so I keep thinking about the Bean.

Okay, back to the Bean, huh? Well, is this like a trip to Chicago? Like, was this, did they meet up together? Or do they live in Chicago? because if they're like meeting up for a trip that would also suggest that this is more than just a more than just a friend you can go on trips with friends you could go on birthday but not anymore you can't but let's say you have this

they try they thought about it you you have this this nice trip with a friend to Chicago and you're at Millennium Park with her. And you guys touch the bean together. It's a nice photo op, right? And maybe she, she, you know, embraces you with the warm hug, even, you know, the slight back row. Okay. And you're like, all right, we're just close friends.

But then you're at El Chaval for a great burger. And you're sitting in a, you're sitting at the table. And she plays footsie with you. That's an indication. That is an indication. that there's something more here. Sumac here is saying they also room together to save money. Oh, come on, yeah.

Shea, make a move. The other side of this conversation is on some other podcast. They're asking, what signal can I send to get my man to make a move? Been flashing bean all day. I've been guilty of this before. I once went out for a dinner one time, and I thought it was just like a dinner with a friend, but she thought it was something more. And I didn't pick up any of the signals until after the fact,

until like after the fact. So I, now there was no footsie at the table. So I would interpret that as, as it put, I didn't pick up some of the other hands. Oh, that's funny. Pre-Ammy pre-filled. Yeah. Okay, that's a good flex.

Yeah. That's not a flex at all. That's a bit of a flex. That's a bit of a flex. Yeah. People are throwing themselves having nonstop so much. I don't even notice it anymore. No, it wasn't that.

It wasn't bad. I'll tell you after the fact right, what happened. Sounds freaky. No, there'd be context that would give it away. So. It was Valentine's Day? Oh, no. No, no, it wasn't about that side.

That probably would have given it away, though. So caught up with Sequin Barclan. I don't know Seaconn well. Oh, dad. Hold it back. It's just ridiculous. What? What?

No, no, no, nothing. He just, he hates Seacquan. That's ridiculous. Oh, he hates Seekon? That's just not even close to true. One thing, though, that has always struck me about Seleon is he really does have like an appreciation for the history of football, for the history for the running back positions in particular.

wanted his thoughts on LaShawn McCoy, who was going into the Franchise Hall of Fame this weekend. And he was awesome, talking about LaShawn and, like, specific things about LaShawn's game. And how LaShawn and Barry Sanders are the two best he's seen in terms of cutting, like stopping on the dime cutting. And he knew down to the yards how many yards LaShawn had in that game against Detroit, the snow game. he talked about just how the crazy of an achievement it is that Lechon was the leading rusher for the Eagles at that point in his career

he was what 26 at the time when he was he was deleting Russia and how how that that number could have been higher and how it's kind of like it's an honor for Sequin to be the starting running back on a day when LaShawn McCoy is going into the franchise hall thing good stuff about all the people saying

that I hate Penn State by the way in the chat I just want to be clear you know I ran into you hate Penn State well I ran into a I ran into someone from high school like a few years after high school and she said that she had just broken up with her

with her boyfriend who also went to our high school and she told me the story and she said you know I asked him do you hate me and he said I don't care enough about you to hate you oh wow I remember thinking like that must be like that's like the meanest thing you can say like that's that's an awful thing to say

I don't care enough about Penn State to hate it All right. Like, I don't think about Penn State. I just don't care about it. I mean, you're cutting a promo on Penn State right now. I don't watch. I don't watch college football. Like, I just don't care about it.

So I don't hate Penn State. I just hate that. I just hate that. As a Penn professor, that must. Yeah, I don't. I don't. Not really. No.

I mean, you know, yeah. Penn State professor, Dana, Dana, Selt. That would be annoying. Yeah. I mean, mainly because it's false, not for any other reason. Okay. So what else from today?

I caught up with Jordan Davis for a little. As I mentioned with the Trayvon Walker thing. Nick Siriani's press conference, not as much there today. But yeah, I think the Eagles are, I don't know the Eagles are overlooking the Jaguars, but I think this is a team that kind of should be confident going into this game. I was going to say, like, when you think about the potential for trap games, like, make sure you become a diehard, by the way, hit the thumbs up button, all that good stuff. As we close in on the hour mark, go ahead.

You can read France four stories. What's up? I said you can read Fran Duffy's four stories this week, and you can read Bo Wolf's Q&A that he backs. That was referenced earlier. Always enjoyed the Wolf's Stent and Les Bowens column, and we'll have more coverage coming up, too. You see what he did there? Did you notice that? I didn't notice it.

Yeah. Yeah. What I did. Oh, he placed a little more value on some of the stories. You could read France four stories. Yeah. Or you could read Bo's.

No, no, no, no, no. No, no. No, no. No, no, no. Once again, misinterpreted. I was being self-deprecating. It's, no,

I was being self-deprecating to myself because I haven't carried the writing load this week like I'm supposed to. So that was not meant to be a shot at Bo at all. I love whenever vote rights. I enjoy those things you do. Don't worry about that. All right. I'm sorry to interrupt you. No, no, that's okay.

I was just saying like the one kind of fear that I'm, I think a lot of Eagles fans probably have from past traumas is like the trap game thing. Or like, you know, it's a bad team coming in and it's a dangerous game. I can't really remember. I'm looking at all the like Eagles games from the last four, eight years, whatever. I can't really see a recent game that I would call a trap. rap game kind of loss. The Jets game last year.

Just last year. I mean, with Miami coming up, maybe. Maybe. Yeah, absolutely. Maybe. Never lost the Jets in the history of the franchise. Well, that doesn't matter. You look past it.

Absolutely. Maybe. Maybe. Davis was awesome last year. I'm thinking like that was like an away game and I don't know. I'm just thinking like that, that like home game against the really bad team. I was going to make a comparison to Arizona last year, but that was like, how about the commanders game in 22?

It was like, Yeah. I don't think they ever looked. It was like between the Texans game and the, Colts game. Like, it wasn't like, you have a very,

you have a very narrow definition of trap game. Yeah, a game that like, when you look at it, it's like a really bad team that you also don't care about like rivalry-wise or whatever just before like the Dallas game or whatever.

You know, like that kind of thing is what I normally think of as a trap game, not just the, of course there were losses to bad teams. Like that's all you seem to be pointing to right now. But yeah, I don't know. Go ahead, Zach.

Yeah, I'm good. Oh, okay. All right. Well, Zach, thank you. much. Do you have anything else you want to say? I miss being there in person, but I actually appreciate the way this worked out because I was able to be there for Lane and now have a new

A bit of Kismet. Now I have a new lead to my notes, which will appear on Saturday morning. So please, please, please, please read those and I'll have more coverage from the game and I'm going to get some stuff earlier next week on all p.hly.com. Become a diehard for $4 a month. why you can still get it. Not going to last forever. Zach, thank you so much. And as you leave before Danes and I continue our conversation,

what we're going to do now is we're going to hear from Thomas Booker for, by the way, the 2024, Bowulf Camp Crush, Thomas Booker. And I just want to let you guys know that I'm here supporting Vice President Kamala Harris because I believe that America should be a place of equity and opportunity. I believe that we should have upward mobility for the middle and lower class. I think that people should look forward to being able to afford things for their families, their kids, and be able to have the freedom over their personal lives,

do what they want to do at the times they want to do. I think a lot of us look at the economy. We look at opportunity. We look at the ability to make her own way. And I think when you look at it, Vice President Harris is trying to cut prices on, you know, daily goods, groceries, grant all the rest of it so that people can live lives and they want to. I think when you look at personal choice, reproductive choice, women can do what they want to with their bodies as they should with this ticket. And I think a plethora of other issues, social, economic, gun violence, all the rest of it, you want to say for more free, inclusive America in general, I don't really see any other which way that you can go about it.

I think a lot of people can be disillusioned, the political process thinking that, you know, my vote doesn't matter. What you have to understand is that when a lot of people think that their vote doesn't matter and they're not going to turn off the vote, that is when your vote matters more. I think a lot of people look at these issues is irrelevant until it becomes a part of your life. So, you know, I think you should always look for a civic engagement. If you want to create a better tomorrow, you have to do something about it. All right, some hardcore Eagles news. Appreciate that from defensive tackle, Boilf, Camp Crush, Thomas Booker.

You're still here, Zach? Yes, I got five and a half minutes left before my stream dies. So, yeah, happy to be able to be. on. Oh, okay. All right. Well, then let's keep talking, Danes. I feel like we've wrapped up the offense,

if you want to pivot to the defense. I know we can talk about the Jags defense, how boring they are. If you want to hit us with some high notes, that's okay, but they stink. They're bad. They're bad and boring. Yeah, they're bad.

They're 32nd DVOA, 30 second EPA per drive, 30th points per drive, 29th series conversion rate, and even the noisy things like turnovers, they're 30th, they're 30 second in EPA per game forced from turnovers, like the Eagles. are now 30th after those two consecutive plays with turnovers.

Talk about the regression coming fast there. And then their 28th Red Zone as well. And even with those two talented edge rushers in Trayvon Walker and Josh Heinz Allen, their bottom five in pressure rates, sack rate, et cetera. Now, I will say the last time the Eagles played a team with the clear and absolute worst defense in football coming into the game, they showed that their own defense could be far more inept and lost to the Arizona Cardinals last week last year at the link in

in week 17, but, you know, Matt Patricia won't, well, maybe he'll be there, but he won't be coaching this time because he was at one of the home games this year. Now, they do play a lot of man. And so in terms of what the Eagles are going to do, I'm expecting to see a lot of those kind of man-beating concepts. Well, I'm almost surely going to see the mesh play and maybe some motions and things like that to get A.J. Brown isolated on somebody. Old friend, Ronald Darby is part of this defense.

You know how many snaps he's taking it right cornerback this year? I do know the answer. I find this interesting. Zero. He's been the starting left cornerback the whole time, and he's never played on the other side. Now, the Eagles do it this way, too. They don't move sides with the corners.

But I think it's interesting that this defense, in addition to being terrible, is very, very boring. Like, they blitz less than anyone else. They stunt among the least of any of the teams. They don't change, like, the safeties always play on the same side. The corners always play on the same side. The defensive ends always play on the same side. So not only are they bad,

They're also predictable. You kind of know what they're going to do. There's not a lot of variety to their zone coverages. So and when they do blitz, it looks terrible. Like they got hit with a with a slant, 18-yard slant last week where the nickel blitz from depth and the safety was trying to cap him from even deeper. And neither one had any chance to get to like the nickel had no chance of getting to the quarterback. And the safety had no chance of getting to the guy he was supposed to cover.

And it reminded me of some of those Matt Patricia Blitz's last year where like Nick Morrow is like blitzing from depth and whatnot. So no wonder the hipster football people loved Ryan Nielsen so much. The guy's just quiet quitting. It's so weird. I mean, I just don't understand it. Like, I mean, Fran was talking about this yesterday, how he's from the Dennis Allen school.

Like Dennis Allen runs some of the most interesting defenses that are like really fun to watch with, you don't know who's going to rush, you don't know, like, what coverage they're going to end up in. This is like the opposite of that. I don't know, yeah, quiet quitting might be what he's doing. Now, this is the worst defense in football, but it's not.

the only bad defense the Eagles are going to play in the rest of this year. They also have a game against the second worst defensive football in Carolina, the fourth worst in Dallas, twice, the fifth worst in the Rams, and the ninth worst in Washington twice. So that is, what is that, three, five, seven of the remaining 10 games are against bottom 10 defenses. That is the, by far, the easiest schedule remaining in the league for an offense in terms of defense's face this year. So incredible opportunity for the offense to kind of take what's been going well recently and run with it. All right. We lost it. We lost Zach. To the Zoom, to the Zoom call limit. Why didn't you just say goodbye then when he had a chance? That's okay. All right. How about the

other side of the ball? Yeah, other side of the ball. The Eagles defense was so good last week on early downs. Like the third down was an issue. Cincinnati converted 10 third downs, but you know, I always tease Zach about how third downs don't matter as much as people think. And just looking at these last few games, the Eagles have been so good on early downs and so good against the run. The Bengals had two successful runs the entire game, including one in garbage time. They had the touchdown run and the, and one in garbage time, where there are only two successful runs on 17 runs. The Giants only had five successful runs the week before. Cleveland only had eight. The Saints only had six.

I mean, the Eagles are just getting really good at consistently stopping the run, which is a little bit different than how the season seemed to start. And they're doing it with the four-man fronts now. I mean, the Eagles actually play a five-man front among the fewest of any team in the league after that Saints game where they were in a whole game just because of the Saints personnel. And as Fran was mentioning on the show earlier this week, I mean, they're willing to match 12 personnel with Nickel now and willing to match with four-man friends

and still be able to stop the run. So that's been awesome. I also think that, I mean, yes, they noisily were able to convert a bunch of series by getting third downs, but they only got first downs before third down on eight of 24 series, which is very good for the defense

to be able to force third down that often. So that was a great game for my narrative of third down doesn't matter in that the Eagles weren't nearly as good on third down, but they didn't need third down. 61% of the time they got first downs before third down. So that was awesome. In terms of the zone man approach,

there was a very heavy man coverage game and a very heavy zone coverage game the two weeks before. This was a beautiful mix of the two, including some plays where I didn't think it was that clear, which it was. I heard Fran break down the interception by C.J. Gardner Johnson saying it was cover one,

and I thought that was interesting. I had a charted as cover three. I checked PFF and Sean Syed both. called the cover three as well. So I'd love to finally getting the, it's not even a shot as much as I think after watching Fran's breakdown,

I might have agreed with him that it might have been cover one. But it was so beautifully disguised because it involved Josh sweat dropping and covering the running back, which isn't something the Eagles normally do, drop a defensive end to cover a running back in man. I talked about that play

where Nikobe Dean is covering Jemar Chase and that kind of thing. That stuff is awesome. And the coverages have been getting so much less predictable pre-snap. And that's from my perspective, like when I'm charting it on film,

in the Gannon-Dessai years, I was pretty much able to tell which safety was going to rotate down, which edge was going to drop, and things like that from pre-snap. And if I can tell, obviously, the quarterback can tell. And so I love how much less predictable the defense has got...

Francis, he freaking knew what he knew what was coming. Well, I actually meant... I feel bad because I meant to, like, text him and be like, are you sure that was, that was man? But it was one of those plays where you just couldn't tell if it was like zone match or man. But that's the whole point is that with good defenses, it shouldn't be easy for someone like me to just like watch it and know what it is. So I love that this defense has been getting more varied. And you have to love like how good the rookies have been.

I mean, no doubt. Both Gwion and Mitchell and Cooper DeGene. Some of those Cooper DeGine plays this week were just so good. I mean, like even when he's getting beat, he's tackling the guy, right away, you know, for just four yards or whatever. I think he got beat in man coverage maybe once the whole game. And then, of course, the, you know, the one where he almost intercepted it was just like an elite play.

I mean, just like to be underneath defender in cover four and he doesn't have anything left to do. He could just stand there and no one would say that he had a bad play. And just looking for work and making that play like that. He said, he said, find work. He was very nonplussed at the idea that it was like a great play. Interesting. Yeah, that's great.

And, you know, Zach was talking about earlier. or like long term, do you want to keep him in the slot? Like, given how good he is there, we don't know how good he can be on the outside. Maybe he would be awesome on the outside, too. So it's hard to tell. But right now, if you told me he's going to be the Eagles nickel for the next five years, like I would be very happy with that.

I mean, he looks awesome. And he's changed the attitude, I think, a little bit as well. I think so, too. Yeah. Yeah, I don't want to dump on Amante Maddox, but the worst games the Eagles have played, or the best games the defense has played have been the ones where Amante Maddox played the least. Nobody's safe.

Sorry. I love the guy. Lante Maddox seems like an awesome guy. But, you know, the Saints game, there was almost no nickel. He's already buried. You don't have to throw more dirt on there. Sorry. All right. Tell us about this. Speaking of already buried, how about Doug Peterson on the Jags offense? Interesting.

I mean, I feel like the offense, sometimes this happens with teams with bad records. Yes, there happens is not that path. Yeah, one side of the ball is just like historically awful. People think the other side is worse than it is. I think the Eagles during the collapse. last year is a really good example. The defense was the main reason for the collapse,

but the offense was also thought of as being terrible. We all know you thought that offense was really good last year. Look, I mean, by any actual objective metrics, the offense was above average. Over the course of the season. No, during the collapse, the offense was above average. It's just that they should have been better given the talent. I understand that,

but it was still, if the defense had been halfway decent, that collapse would not have happened that way. You think it's good that somebody ripped the word blitz out of their dictionary. And the offense was even above average against the blitz. You thought they should have made Brian Johnson head coach. I thought that the offensive coaching was awful last year

and I'm glad they made a change. You said, why are we signing Sequin and Barclay? We have the best offense in football already. The amount of slander today. I mean, it's one thing that you didn't tell me to show up drunk at this party. Should have made it a lot more enjoyable. We still have a little bit of Hennessy left from the

Matt Hennessy episode. Next time I'm going to and Miller Light. I made the wrong choice getting water before the show and stuff. I'm definitely going to have some of that Hennessy after the show. Oh, the offense, yeah. Very middle of the road in terms of both

how good they are and also tendencies. And they're 14th in DVOA, 15th EPA per drive, 16th series conversion rate. And then when you look at tendency type stuff, they're 17th in pass rate, neutral situation, pass rate, 14th in play action, 15th and under center. I mean, they're pretty much league average on everything. The one thing they don't do a lot of is motion.

They're actually below the Eagles, 31st. But in this last game, they actually were doing some motion stuff and getting things out of it. Now, a lot of that was first off with Christian Kirk. So we'll see how they replace him because he's been the slot guy for them. And I'm actually curious how they're going to handle the slots. I'll probably have Parker, Washington play there more. But in any case, a lot of familiar Doug Peterson stuff in the offense.

I say it's the reason there's no motion because there's, there's no skango. Well, yeah, maybe. Though a lot of talk about John D. Philippo was on John Clark's podcast this last, whatever this week. And he was talking about how Nick Foles is like a legendary hates motion guy. And it was kind of interesting to hear that associated with Nick Folls specifically, as opposed to like, you know, just generally that whole Peterson thing. So that was kind of interesting. Evan Ingram is probably going to be a big target for them in this game just because they have the wide receiver injury issues. And the one thing to watch with him is the Bengals had a lot of success throwing it to the

tight end last week. And when you look back at those plays, a lot of times it's like a late safety rotation by the Eagles, which they love to do. They love to rotate Reed Blankenship down. And he was just a step late in recognizing what route Gassiki was running or whatever. So Evan Ingram against Reed Blankenship, especially watching on TV, might look like Engram's beating him sometimes. Sometimes that's by scheme.

I mean, Reed's starting from an angle where he doesn't, he's not that likely to make that play. And it's almost like the defense is giving you that sometimes. So, you know, like I think I think Engram's going to be something that someone who they try to scheme up a little bit. I like this question from Travis who says, do we think Dung will call a Philly Special type play? That would be so great if Doug like they're losing by like 30 points, fourth quarter. He calls a Philly Special play. slams down the helmet and says I'm out

this is it this is I'm going out on top that would be awesome it would be fun remember when Nick called the Philly special yes his first season

his first home the Eagles the first home game yeah 49ers yeah the pandering king yeah it was like the first half first half was a disaster

yeah total disaster yeah that's okay I think people don't a lot of people don't remember that that was that was very weird yeah I think we should see more plays called for bits I think that's right

It would be good for swooper There's a lot of those kinds of swoopers Fran says he was actually shocked That Zach didn't do a Doug Does a trick play for swooper yesterday Yeah see I have ideas for swoopers That I don't do because I think you guys are gonna do them And then and then yeah

And then you don't but That's just part of swooper What you got to think Did you enjoy the reverse Dutch Reverse Dutch auction? Not as much as Yeah Yeah

When you guys are all in person, I have more freedom to do things like that, because it's not fair to Zach if he's on stream. Sure. I do like the Dutch auction. That is from a just building drama standpoint. I think it's, I think it's fun. Yeah, I quietly think that you might not win, but even though you got seven items. Yeah, it's certainly possible. I mean, yeah, it might end up in a tie. We'll see. We'll see. Because Zach has, he's got the, he's got the, Zach has a couple that have a decent chance. Yeah.

Scoring in the first quarter and more than 29 points, I think, are both pretty likely. The third down thing could happen, too. I mean, depending on what kind of game it is. But a lot of yours are kind of like too specific or... Yeah. I mean, well, yeah, most of them were relatively low. Well, I guess I spent four or three, five turkeys on them, but... Yeah.

That's why I had to go for the big one. Yeah, a lot of cheap items in general this time. You guys saved more turkeys than usual. All right. That'll do it for this episode. Fran, that was for you, a little swooper recap of the PHY Eagles podcast. Thank you to everybody for watching and listening all week long here on PHLY. Thank you.

To Jamie and Rich and Vinny for getting it done on Wednesday. Thank you to Zach Berman. Thank you to Fran Duffy. Thank you to Julia behind the scenes. Thank you to the professor Danes. And thank you most of all to you, the sickos in the chat. May you all touch beans. this weekend and we will talk to you on Sunday. Full slate of shows, kickoff show, half an hour

before the game, half time show, post game show, all that good stuff. We'll talk to you then, and as always, we love you.