PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Is it Saquon Barkley or A.J. Brown’s turn to have a BIG GAME for the Eagles vs. KC?

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

We know the Eagles won in Week 1, but Jalen Hurts can’t always do it all, so the onus is on Kevin Patullo to make sure A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith are involved in the passing game while Saquon Barkley aims to get untracked against a Chiefs defense that made stopping him their primary focus in the Super Bowl. We’re putting the finishing touches on our Eagles-Chiefs Super Bowl rematch preview with Deniz Selman, EJ Smith and Bo Wulf. Don’t miss a minute! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On Sunday, we're going to talk about it next with Dana's Selman, E.J. Smith, and Bo Wolf coming at you. PHLY Eagles podcast. From the Xfinity Studio on a beautiful Friday afternoon. This is the P.H.O.Y. Eagles podcast presented by Bet365 and Ashley. And it's a Friday. You know what that means? We've got the professor in the studio. Locked and loaded. Ready to go. Talk about this Chiefs Eagles game. We've got E.J. Smith. We got a lot to talk about. Some injury news. Obviously, you've been crunching the tape here up till 5 a.m. last night watching the Chiefs. How are you? I'm doing good. How are you guys? Not too bad.

Not too bad. E.J., how about you? I'm excited for the show. How long are you going to do this, the homage? I mean, I listened to the guy. Do a podcast for a long time. So there are some things that are natural and some are that aren't natural. I'm curious at what point it's going to stop being an homage and it's just going to become the new the new you. Maybe it is already the me. I will say the one homage I really regret is taking the chiefs and spread your wins and fly, which we will talk about in the show. Interesting.

Decent teas. Decent teas, right? 11 and a half? I'm begging here. 11 and a half. Ooh, a big number. Let's get to it. We got lots to get to.

Lots, lots to get to. E.J. Give me the news first from the Novica complex and then we're going to buckle down here. We're going to start with Eagles offense against Chiefs defense. but give me the news first. Yeah, I think the main headline is that Dallas Goddard was not at practice on Friday. I would not expect to see him play on Sunday. We'll see about next week.

I mean, even the nature of the injury, we don't really know exactly when it happened. But again, I don't think he'll be out there. And I think that is a big loss for the Eagles offense. Will Shipley also still sidelined. I'd be watching to see if he's going to end up on IR this weekend. But yeah, that is pretty much, those are the main headline. It's really going to bother me if they put him on IR. Because of the Gabe Hall thing?

Yeah. Yeah. Why wait? You had a spot. What are they doing? I don't think he's, maybe they think he's going to be only out two games or three games. Maybe.

Could be. The Gay Paul thing is weird. It was weird. He did only play five snaps, even though they were down a guy. Yeah. So it's not even about the snaps. It's not even about him.

It's about developing him. I don't need to start the show here again. It's crazy. But with Goddard out, that's actually going to bring us to the big takeaway presented by Xfinity because I don't know if we're going to separate you guys because you are already on opposite sides of the importance of Dallas Goddard. But I was wondering if the four person set up for the three people is just to get more distance. You might need to come a little bit towards me here. But I know that you are armed as always, Danes, with support for why Dallas Goddard matters in the running game. Yeah, I mean, we can get into some of the predictability from formation and personnel grouping against Dallas in the run game.

But Grant Calcutera in this last game, I mean, I had him down in my notes six different times as being the primary reason that a run play failed. You know, duo run, he gets destroyed by the defensive tackle. Outside zone lead, he whiffs on his climb to the linebacker. Midzone run. He gets muscled through by the defense event. Inside zone read. The defense event easily beats him inside. for a TFL. Outside zone lead. His block is shed easily by the Mike linebacker and the run blows up.

Another duo run, the rookie defensive end easily beats him for a gain of zero. The last eight running back runs by the Eagles were all unsuccessful. That's hard to do to have eight straight plays that are unsuccessful in the NFL. And they were, they were essentially asking Grant Calcutera to block defensive ends throughout the game. And, you know, I know, like, it's been, you know, Fran has been kind of pushing for using Fred Johnson in that role. Putting Grand Calcutarian in that position is not putting your players in, you know, position to succeed. And we've been talking about this now for multiple years.

And I really don't understand, like, why every tight end on the Eagles roster has to be, like, a guy who was like a wide receiver in college who they're developing. Like, why can't you just get a guy who can block? He has his kinks. It's fine. Yeah. And so, do you think we're going to see any change to that this week, E.J.? I would like to see it personally because I've obviously got it in a and Swoper here.

I don't know. I think Nick Seriani was asked about it today and he was citing competitive advantage without saying to say not say very much on the topic. I just I do wonder like he talked about like E.J. Jenkins like taking strides as a blocker behind the scenes. But it's just like he's been working on for two years, he said. Yeah. But it's just again, a college wide receiver.

Like why? Are you developing wide receivers to become blockers in the NFL instead of guys who could block before? Yeah, especially with as much uncertainty as there was with Dallas got it all offseason. It's not like you could have even leaned on his presence as a reason not to lead into that. So yeah, I mean, again, I'm not really sure what to expect with the sixth offensive lineman, but it is definitely on my radar going into the game. The numbers bear it out last year, Danes, with Dallas got it on the field, 5.7 yards per carry, 2.9 yards per carry before contact per rush.

Whereas without him, 5.7 drops to 4.5 and 2.9 drops to 1.7. That takes you from being, as you see here, and a nice graphic from Andrew, very nicely done, takes it from being one of the best running games in football to just an average one. Yeah, and we did all kinds of filtering with this last year with Jalen Hertz on the field, off the field, Sequin running, Seaquin, not running, all those things.

And Dallas got it was clearly an impactful, you know, not just statistically, but you can see it on the field. And yet, E.J., you think that he doesn't matter. I didn't say that,

but I do think... I did see Isaiah Rogers starting this week. So there you go. I do think that, well, this conversation is secondary to what we're talking about

because he is obviously better than most tight ends in the run game. I do think he was probably better at it earlier in his career. Okay. But the, The important thing is like how multiple the Eagles can be.

And we're going to talk about some predictability stuff today. Like how multiple Dallas Goddard's presence makes them on offense, being able to run out of 11 personnel and having him as a presence in the run game, being able to throw out of heavy packages because he is a receiving threat in addition to the wide outs. If you are in 12 or 13 personnel, they really lose that. And they don't especially like even if you think about like Dallas Goddard in like a max

protect situation against this chief's defense, Steve Spagnolo obviously likes to send a lot of pressure. looks like or even as an outlet you know there are a lot of ways that not having him and the the dynamic nature like the variety of things he can offer in offense it really does kind of it's i feel like if you were at a like truth serum kevin petulow there are probably a surprisingly fewer number of players that he would not want to lose before he'd say dallas goddard like you know you'd probably say obviously you'd say jelan hirts a jrown lane johnson cam jriggins jordan jordan milada you don't think I don't think Devante Smith could be ahead of it?

From an offensive, from an offensive coordinator's perspective, like the amount of things that he opens up for you, you could start to make arguments, I think, after that. I'm not saying, like, talent-wise or, like, importance to the offense. I'm talking about specifically, like, your plan, how you want to get, you know, how you want to basically catch teams off guard, you know, avoid predictability. He is really important to that. Yeah, it's weird, like, that they were very predictable in this last game with Dallas Goddard. I'm curious how it's going to change without him. I also don't fully understand, like, if you are very likely to run it from a condensed set

and you're lining two tight ends up on, you know, to one side of the tackle, why is Calcutera the one on the inside? I was blocking the edge rusher. Dallas Goddard is being asked to block like a safety or somebody. And then you've got, you know, like a big defensive end, like just destroying Calcatera within the first, like, you know, second of the snap.

And I've just never really understood that. statistically the sixth offensive lineman thing they had 32 snaps of it last year in total seven of them were in the week 18 game with the backups so 25 times in how many games or whatever just like pure they were like like end of game type situations a lot of times eight the game high was eight against the ravens the year before they only did it six times all year so it's not something that's been in like the you know like in the in the playbook really under Siriani, you know, really since he's been here. So it's not something that they've loved to do.

Doug liked to do it a lot more before. All right. Good stuff on the big takeaway presented by our friends, Xfinity. All right. Taking a step back from Dallas Goddard. Obviously, Professor, you spent a lot of time on the opening game for the Eagles. Yeah. And one thing that you spent a lot of time talking about last season was the percentage of non-targets in the Eagles offense.

Jailen Hertz led the league in those last year. there were a lot again this week except they were mostly positive for the Eagles Yeah I mean you know and this is why just looking at the numbers especially a number like this is not you can't just it's a nice way to describe the game the Eagles dropped back 33 times

39% of them resulted in a non-target that sounds bad right and it's like I can look at Jaylen Hertz's career and I can tell you that that was a career high for him like in all of his starts in his career that was the highest that that's ever saying but when you look at the EPA per non-target which is across the NFL,

typically negative, right? Because non-targets are usually sacks, throwaways, like those are negative EPA plays. The only way you can have a positive play is with a positive scramble. Jalen Hertz is... Well, you could have a

fumble that you then pick up and run with. Okay, fair. That's true. Just saying. That's true. They should put that in the playbook as a different way to benefit from this. Fumble is a non-target. That's true. That's true. That's true.

Thank you. Yeah. So if we've got to be accurate on the show, this is the show of record. Like you said, last year, Jalen Hertz led the league in this, in this metric, 24%. His career average is 20%. This was 39% career high. However, plus 0.25 EPA per non-target, that's crazy. I mean, if you could get that number on any play, that would be really good.

Compare that to the divisional game against the Rams last year, which was also one of his highest this career. That was like negative 1.2 EPA per play because those were all sacks, right? So there's a big difference obviously between a sack and a, and a throwaway and a scramble. There are also a lot of checkdowns in this game. Like if you add the checkdowns to these, like the number of plays where Jalen Hertz like through the ball to his first read was like like three or four in the whole game. And yet you're looking at a very efficient offense. Jalen Hertz was absolutely awesome. I agree with everybody who's been saying that. He had the highest success rate of any quarterback in the NFL in week one

and the highest completion percentage over expectation which he always leads the league in anyway this is just a one game sample. But he was like... Exactly. And this time he wasn't like we've looked at that graph every year where he's always to the upper left like he's trying hard throws but he's completing them. This time he was in the upper right. He was trying easy throws

but he was completing them still above expectation and it was just like to lead the league and success rate and completion percentage over expectation in a situation when like the play calling is not getting your main guys open and you're not really throwing the ball at all to your top two receivers is really impressive and obviously the scrambles are a big part of that and the willingness to check down quickly understanding okay they're in-based coverage both of the linebackers are fanneding out to take away those in-breaking routes from the outside receivers the offensive coordinator isn't calling any plays where the receivers

run crossers for some reason like they're just staying on one side and running little in-breakers and Dallas is all over it. The whole game, okay, let me check it down to the running back. Let me check it down to Dallas Scott. Over the middle of the field, though. Middle of the field, which he's always been like 30 second in the league at throwing there,

and he threw it there a lot on Thursday night. So let me ask you this, Dana, because we heard from Kevin Petula earlier in the week, and he talked about the fact that the mini buy at the very beginning of the season opened up a chance for them to do some self-scouting off of the one game. So if I could give you one thing that they could have addressed, and they will have ready for week two

and really even zooming out like for this season one thing that they could have corrected or added to the plan. What would you want most? I would want them to be less predictable if they're going to run or pass based on both personnel grouping

and formation. You have this awesome offensive line. You have this awesome running back. You have these awesome wide receivers. I mean, I don't think running back's that important but the running back is awesome. And when you talk about like the ability that other offensive coordinators show

and like, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna get them thinking that we're gonna run it and then we're gonna pass it. Spaggs and Expressor this week was asked about, was part of the reason you guys weren't getting any pass rush because you thought that they were gonna run it and then they passed it. Talking about the Chargers, the game in Brazil last week.

And Spaggs was like, you definitely hit on something there and he basically admitted like that's exactly what it was. I watched that film last night or this morning or whatever. Chargers are killing the chiefs with under center play action, pistol play action, shotgun play action, early down play action, just like catching the chiefs off guard. The Eagles could totally do that. And we've talked over the course of the last two, three years now, and it's ridiculous to criticize the team that like might have been the best team of the last 25 years and won the Super Bowl last year. But schematically, it's like, why aren't you taking more

advantage of this? And we look at the game against Dallas, the first play of the season is a pistol toss action pass to Dallas Goddard and it's like oh great like they lined up in pistol

which they almost always run out of and then they did play action out of it and they got a big play. New Eagles offense and then they ran 11 more plays of pistol during the game all 11 were runs

and when you look at the way that those runs go right they start out successful seven of them were zone runs the first four of those were successful the last three weren't four of them were counter runs

the first one was successful the last three weren't and you look on film and it's like this isn't just a coincidence it's like they can tell you're gonna run counter out of this look and you can see the defensive end is like hatching that pull block

like further in the backfield every time you can see the linebacker knows that the tight end is about to like you know lead block right into him and he just evades him and those are turning into TFLs and they were turning into TFLs and they were turning into TFCFF

tells by the fourth quarter and that's why the Eagles finish the game with eight straight unsuccessful runs. Meanwhile, AJ Brown is out there against Kyrielem on an island. Like maybe one of those eight could be a play action pass to him, right? And it's just like when you see other teams have successful play action, it's just kind of annoying to see the Eagles not use it. So I would change that.

And then also I like your description of that where, you know, they do it early. It's like new season, new me. It's like, you know, we've all done this before. It's January.

You get to the gym for about a week. Yeah. You're feeling good. And then the rest of the year, you use that gym membership almost zero times. But also you're like, well, what? I went to the gym in January. Exactly. What's the problem?

Yeah, yeah. Exactly. And it's like the personnel thing too. It's like there's been a lot of criticism of like how much 12 and 13 they're using and how they're running out of it every time. 75% pass from, this is early downs only. Okay. 75% pass from 11.

Only 32% pass from 12 and 13. And then you look, it's like nine passes from 12 and 13. Three of those are the first three plays of the same. second half. So it's like they're coming out, second half. It's like, okay, we have to like set this precedent that we're going to pass it out of 12. And so the first three plays out of 12 or passes, but then like seven or, you know, like eight of the next nine or whatever are all runs. And it's just like, why don't you just kind of sprinkle that stuff in? Right. And Fran always talks about how like he'd like to know who's in charge of the opening script, who's in

charge of the two minute drill, who's in charge of third downs and all that. And it seems like it's always, we've talked about like how it's like the offensive playbook. Like, like the different chapters were written by different people. And then no one ever edited it all together, reordered it. And I wish that they would just kind of reorder it so that it wasn't as predictable. I don't know if I believe this,

but the, like, the bull case is, it's week one. They're just, some of this stuff they're putting on tape and maybe they think they're going to win this game anyway. Like, that's the part that I don't think I believe that if they had answers that they could get to, that they would have gotten to them in this close game. But I think, I think,

they do deserve a little bit of the benefit of the doubt of, okay, now they've seen it. Now that we've put this on tape, what can we do to build off of that? I agree. And we've seen, we've seen them use, we've seen them use mini buys and buy weeks in the past to, to improve. You know, obviously last year is the most famous example of that. The buy week, after the by week, the team was much better. I think that we will see a little bit of that. Obviously, like they can see these numbers as well.

There will probably be a little bit more variety. But one thing to say about the. non-targets as well, and we should have mentioned this earlier. Dallas was the only team in the NFL that didn't play a single snap of man coverage. And it's kind of crazy. Like, like, for those of you who don't know, like in general, teams are 65 to 70 percent zone coverage in the NFL. So man coverage isn't that common anyway. But when you look at an entire game where a team didn't play man coverage at all, I mean, that's like, that's pretty rare. I mean, Iber Fluse has been in heavy zone his whole career, but not to this degree. And we talked about how Jalen Hertz is better

against man. AJ Brown is the best wide receiver in the world, like against man, right? And so other teams are probably going to do this as well. Looking back at the Super Bowl, which didn't go well for Spags, obviously, but it was 26 zone, six man in that one. He did Blitz. Eagles had some trouble with the Blitz in this game as well. Landon Dickerson isn't healthy, right? Like you can really tell. And you could tell in the Super Bowl, too. Like, I think that's actually an under-discussed thing that the run game wasn't good against the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. We talked. about how they brought down Justin Reed at late and that kind of thing. But a lot of times it was just Landon Dickerson was getting beat by the guy in front of him

because he was not healthy in the Super Bowl either. And so I'm curious about how that's going to go this time because again, he's not healthy, right? Yeah, I mean, he was the full participant in practice yesterday and it seems like he's on track to play. He didn't have the knee sleeve on practice today. I noticed, I don't know. I guess that is maybe a slightly positive development or maybe it's just because it's a lighter day. But I think this is going to be the cycle with him, at least. early in the season where he's just...

I wish he would just take a couple weeks. Just not his thing. I know it's not his thing. Yeah. And I know that that's not how he's wired and it's why he's as good as he is. But I'd rather he'd be healthy. Brett Tooth looked fine.

I mean, it was hard to tell like 11 snaps. But yeah. What in... Well, I'm going to ask you this and then you can think about it as we had to break. But against the zone, what are the things that you would like to have seen them do in order to spring,

AJ Brown will get to that after these words from our sponsors. I've told you about this dufous friend of mine who invites me over to watch some ball last weekend and I get there and it's a terrible setup. The Wi-Fi is terrible. It's lagging, it's buffering, he's switching in between apps in order to find the game. He said he was a big fan. I thought he was. And he invites me over. It's like I was fan-fished. It's the ultimate sports destination, Xfinity is. You can find the best games and all that you need for your favorite teams all in one place. And the way that you watch is next level.

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How do we get him the ball? Yeah, I got the ball to AJ Brown out of zone in the Super Bowl, right? I mean, it was a cover three sky call on AJ's touchdown, where he runs a crosser. The tight ends are running off the safeties on that side. You see the back shoulder catch against McDuffie on the sideline. That was a cover three sky call by Spags where essentially you're leaving that corner one-on-one against AJ Brown.

And sometimes it's just a matter of giving him a chance. Like that back shoulder catch was awesome. the Jahan Dotson catch against Watson in the Super Bowl was also against zone. I mean, it looks like, man, because it's a blitz and they're playing cover three, and you end up with that on an island. But sometimes it's just a matter of taking those shots.

But my short answer is, play action. Look at the dagger. It's a cover four call. And you've got Devante Smith one-on-one against Watson in the post. And the reason he's one-on-one is because Justin Reed, who's the safety on that side, is coming down to catch Dallas-Scotterts,

sailor out. And the reason that he's coming down is because all three linebackers, they're in base, are biting on a play action. It was out of pistol, 12 personnel, play action with McKay Bechtin pulling to make it look like a gap scheme run. All three linebackers are springing towards the line of scrimmage. And Justin Reed's coming down, panicked about Dallas Goddert. Meanwhile, DeWante Smith beats Watson and there's no safety there. Perfect example of how play action can distort a zone coverage. Right. And I think like this isn't me like, reinventing football. This is like every other offense in the league seems to do this routinely. And for whatever reason, the Eagles don't do it a lot. But there's that was the

Eagles and the Super Bowl. It feels like they need to save their special plays and and like there's saving it for the Super Bowl. There's diminishing value of returns on the play action when we know that that's not the case. Nick says you got to be playing your best football at the end. So this is one way to do it. What were you going to say? I just listening to Dana is described like the play action on the dagger. Like one of my weird like football like, just like, I don't know the right word to use, but just something that like, I just love it when it happens and it's like very random is like a play action pass where you pull a guard because it is like, it really does like put linebackers in conflict. Like again, my very rudimentary

understanding of like reading keys and, you know, not ball watching. I think people think that like linebackers watch the ball, but they are usually reading the guard. Yeah. Having that play action pass or the guard pulls, it's just, it's like one of my simple pleasures in football. What about the, What about the pull by Landon Dickerson to the right on a toss to the left? Yes. On the fourth play of the game on Thursday? I mean, like everybody's sprinting to Atlanta Dickerson side. That's a game of 16 on a toss play that I have never seen them run before.

I've never seen them pull a guard one way and toss it the other way. Again, fourth play of the game and then you never see anything like that. Yeah, screen grab that because it is so staggering to see like Landon Dickerson pulling away from the action. It got Milata and Juergens into that alley like free because everyone was right. running away from the play. That's like the play design that you see and you're like, oh, they're onto something here. Right. They found something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It just meters out, which is disappointing. And you gave the bull argument earlier. And I'm going to give, I'm going to give the bear argument. Okay. I'm not fully like jumping into this argument. But I do think that there was a lack of like adaptation through the game. And it kind of reminds me of like when we would talk to Shane Steichen about, you know,

what makes a good play caller and how do you get a feel for those types of things. And I listen, it was Kevin Petulow's first time calling a game. So I think there is a reasonable expectation that he will grow in that area. But like, you know, when when you hear Danes talk about like, well, why didn't, why weren't they're crossing routes for AJ Brown? Why weren't there even just simplified manufacturer, manufacturer touches for him? I think that there's like, I would like to see as a season unfolds. I'd like to see Kevin Petullo get to those things more efficiently and effectively throughout the game. I think it's a fair reminder to say this was his first game as a play caller. You would expect that there would be, uh,

you know, some growth as a season goes on. It's not really a bear argument here. It's more just like an observation about like the feel for the game was lacking at Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say, you know what? One of my very basic football things that I like, I meant to say this during training camp because every now and then it hit me and this is very basic, but it's just when the

defensive line is changing their gaps, but they all move in exact concert. Try and get the offensive line and they're all moving like, oh, I love that. See, like, now that's not exactly the right example, but like there are certain things like the tackle trap or like a tackle trap or like the play action pass where you pull a guard where that gets me gets the iPad out. You're writing it out. You're explaining it to your wife. And she's just like, I don't care about this at all. Chiefs love to do that. My wife doesn't care either, by the way.

When I'm watching the film, like, can I show you one play? And she's like, no. The chiefs do a lot of that late shifting the DAA. The line. I mean, Johnson's talked about that before, and they did that a lot in the Super Bowl. One of the reasons... You didn't want to do that. Like, all of the, like, practicing, trying to draw people offside on offense, you'd think

that he'd want some defensive line shifts. There was a little more of it this last game. We'll get to it when we get to the defense. Okay, what else do we need to know about the Chief's defense? They're mostly the same as last year. You know, watching them last night, very few changes. I mean, they lost Justin Reed, right? So they lost their best safety.

They've got Jaden Hicks, who was the third. safety last year coming in. So they didn't really replace Reid with anybody. Hicks plays along with Brian Cook. And then Christian Fulton, who they got in free agency, is a guy that will come in. He came in and played a bunch in the second half. He played exclusively at right corner with Watson and McDuffie. They often tried to match up with receivers. And we saw McDuffie match up with AJ Brown a lot in the Super Bowl. AJ talked in the locker room about how he was, there was a guy he was expecting to go against and he's been watching him a lot.

I'm guessing he's talking about McDuffie because he was the main guy he was against in the Super Bowl. When Fulton came in, Spag said that Fulton isn't familiar with the defense yet. Like he missed a lot of time. And so they're using him

in a way that makes the defense a little more predictable. McDuffie kicks inside then. And Chimari Connor, who's really a safety, who's been playing nickel, will play safety. In terms of the coverages

and the blitzes and all that. I mean, Spaggs just does a little of everything. And that's one of the things that's kind of cool about watching his defenses. In the Super Bowl, they ran 10 different coverages

on the first 10 plays, which is hard to do. But it was a lot of, you know, starting in too high and then shifting into other stuff. They didn't then run the exact same coverage on every play the rest of the game.

They did not. They continued to vary it up and obviously did not go well for them against the pass at all. And they weren't able to stop Jalen scrambles. All of his scrambling first downs in the Super Bowl were against zone. Obviously,

all of his scrambles in this last game were also against zone because every play was zone, but he's shown a really good ability to like just take off when that read isn't there. And I'm wondering if the fact that they got beat by his scrambling so much in the Super Bowl is going to change the way they play. I mean, they did try to spy a few times and it didn't work in the Super Bowl. So I'm curious what they'll do there. But the thing, like the headline about the Chiefs roster, both offense and defense, I didn't think they were that good a team last year. I came on here.

I know they were 15 and 1 before they asked to their starters, but I came on like I was sitting right here, reviewing the Super Bowl the week before, you know, we went down there and I was just like, like this team isn't that good. I mean, like the numbers show they're not that good,

the film shows they're not that good. And I was expecting them to really try to improve the roster more. And it's surprising to look at both the offense and the defense and see how few changes there are. Yeah. I mean, the only new starter they have on defense is Jerry Tillery, which is ridiculous.

Like, and, and they just haven't, they didn't really draft high on defense either. Like, and so it's just kind of surprising that really the only thing they've done is they moved a guy who was a rookie who couldn't play left tackle last year. They moved him into the lineup and then they drafted a left tackle. That's basically all they did. And they, I guess they're just hoping that getting Rishi Rice back would fix the offense, but obviously he's out. So, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I don't want to, I'm not expecting it to be 34 nothing again, but like, I don't see. any reason to think that the chiefs are just going to suddenly be good.

And they didn't look good last week. To the other side of the ball, I want to settle on AJ for a second here, EJ, because hopefully you guys are all die-hard. So you can become a die-hard by going all-PHLY.com. I think we still have that good deal going. You had a little, you can read your notes from today. And you had a little one-on-one special time with AJ Brown about what this week has been like. What did you learn?

Yeah. So I want to paint the picture for the listeners. is like I was in a scrum listening to Seekwon Barkley talk about AJ Brown. And I decided like, because Seyquan was talking about how AJ has handled, how he's responded to the lack of workload, the low usage in the game. Obviously, we've talked a lot about the dynamic of a wide receiver and the way that AJ has struggled with that dynamic, you know, wanting to dominate games, wanting to put his imprint on games, wanting to prove he's the best receiver in the NFL, but also wanting

the team to succeed in realizing that those two pursuits are not always aligned perfectly, where one might be at the odds of the other. So again, Seekwon is talking about how AJ has been handling the lack of involvement really well, kind of setting an example for everybody, including Seekwon. He said, now this forces me if I don't have a good game to, you know, respond the right way. So I decided like, I'm going to go ask AJ about this. Yeah, get out of that scrum. Yeah, like, forget about the scrum. I'm going to go ask AJ, like, how has it been this week? Because it's stands in stark contrast, thinking back to years in the past. You know, there was obviously the time in 2022 where he didn't talk to the media for a few,

I think it was a few days, maybe a week, where he was not willing to address it because he kind of just wanted to go into a silent mode and just kind of hide from it. And then the next year, like, you know, obviously there was the what needs to change or what needs to improve with the offense passing. I think he has steadily learned more and more that he makes waves in the Eagles locker room with the way he responds to these things. and he is trying to figure out the best way to navigate it. So I asked him if he feels like he handles it better.

And he kind of like laughed and shook his head. And then I was like, well, just like the way that you present it, the way you project how you're feeling. And he says, I am handling it better, but I don't like it. There is nothing, he said, but there ain't nothing I can do about it. And especially when we're winning, you don't want to have a sour attitude. So I've changed my mindset. Whatever I get the ball, change the game.

Make an impact like you want to. So I put it on myself, which I think is a, pretty meaningful shift in perspective from where he was a few years ago and I find it interesting again like you can tell that this is like something that like bubbles over yeah for him but he knows that the way that he presents it in front of everyone will have an impact on the team it's very thoughtful the anti-deva wide receiver we've talked about it before like he is like he has all of the same instincts that most top wide receivers have he carries them and handles them differently than any player I've seen before.

Yeah, and he's very, he's very intentional about that and thoughtful about that, yeah. I think it's very hard. I really would, I think, I wouldn't handle it that well. I'll watch those, I'll watch the videos of the scrums in the locker room on, on sped up speed sometime, just to save time. AJ Brown comes on, I always slow it down to one, to normal speed. I want to, I want to focus on, no, no, it's not because of that.

Yeah. It's because, it's because I want to kind of see, like, how much he's thinking about it, how thoughtful he is, and he always gave such good answers. There are always pauses with AJ. Like, yeah. I asked him the question and it's like four or five seconds of him.

Because he wants, he's careful. That is the best way to describe it is he is careful with his words. I also asked him like, because one of the things I find so interesting about this year's Eagles team is it, it is like really that they do kind of have like the Avengers in their skill position guys, right? Like they've got AJ,

they've got Devonte, they've got Sequin. Obviously they had Dallas Goddard. Jalen Hertz. Like, and the star power is what makes them great. You know, the scheme is secondary to the fact.

that they have. For sure. To use a soccer expression, these galacticos, you know, these planet level players with all this gravity. And to me,

like, the only way it works is if AJ isn't furious this week. It's only works if they are... Everybody's not going to get it every week. So I asked AJ about, like, how do you guys make this work?

And I know, like, they talk about this all the time, but I wanted to, like, try and really get into, like, how do you navigate a week like this so that everyone else

can succeed. And he said, we all really care about each other and we want to see each other succeed, but we are like hungry dogs. We are trying to get it first. It's a healthy thing, a healthy dynamic, but we also want to see each other succeed. So to me it really does come down to like some of the stuff that Nick Seriani, some of that like nebulous stuff, it does seem like it has an impact because again, like I think two years ago AJ handles this week differently. Yeah. Now there's also two years ago he doesn't have Dequan, right? And so there's a little bit less reason for him not to get it every time. Yeah.

But yeah, there's no doubt about it. That's growth. And that's part of the difficulty of having one at all, everybody is feeling a little bit more like I need to get mine. And so I mean, it's going to be a storyline all season long. Yeah. I would expect him to have a heavy workload, though. I feel like they're going to overwork. I'm still, I am still holding on to like, I don't think he looked a hundred percent. I was going to ask you that. Do you think he's healthy? Because like there are Some of those plays were... I agree with you guys. I do think, like,

his contributions in the run game are sort of separate to this. I think that there is a chance. Very funny that he said he didn't like Nick praising him for blocking. He said, I don't like participation trophies. Yeah, well, I mean, like, it's just like... He said basically he's not going to be happy. He considers that a participation trophy. JJ McCarthy being NFC offensive player at a week.

Well, he said to me that he expects he can bring more than that, you know, It's not something that he doesn't want to be praised for doing the bare minimum. Right. You don't need, yeah, it's like, it's like, yeah, you don't need to, like, babysit me in front of the team and being like, hey, great job blocking AJ when like we know that like I'm just doing my job there. That's not what I'm here for. Yeah, he's like he obviously knows that he's setting an example, but it's also like if you're as talented as him, like being praised for your effort is like, okay. Like, of course, I was going to do that anyway, you know. Right.

It's more like it's like you're showing this play. okay, great job blocking AJ, we move on. It's not like, hey, everybody, listen up. Like, what a job by AJ. I understand both sides of me. Yeah. You know, I understand why Nick wants to shout out, like, this is one of your best players, and he is, you know, putting the team first.

But, yeah, I think AJ is like, that's what I'm supposed to do. I think we, like, it's worth separating, like, how okay AJ and Devante are with the team being very run heavy. And by the way, they were very run heavy again. 31st in the NFL and neutral pass rate in week one, just like they were last year. But like they love Seguan, right? They love the run game. They're like totally okay with like it being a run offense.

Not not totally, but like they're willing to publicly say they're okay with that. And I don't think those side line videos of Devante. Oh, Devante is always like a run the ball guy. It's like very fun. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, totally. Interestingly, though, Devante had an awesome block on the Sequin touchdown by the way. Doug got the safety.

It was great. But AJ had a nice block on that one too. That's probably what he's getting credit for. Yeah, yeah. But but when AJ was asked about what in the past game can change to get him more open. He paused for five seconds and then he said, that's a trap question. I'm not going to answer it.

And it's because like what's going on in his head there is like, there's a lot of things they can do to like try to get me more open than this. He really was staying on one side of the field, lining up on the outside and oftentimes running some sort of in breaking route where he was staying on that side of the field and it wasn't really part of a concept. And I wish like they would just do more to get him into some, some of those concepts that get him those easy touches. But I also am not sure he's healthy because they did run the crash concept that they run all

the time where he runs an inbreaker and Goddard runs the, you know, from the like the, like the corner route from inside him. And he just wasn't cutting and running as hard on that on film as he normally does. And so it's like, does he know the ball's going the other way or is he or is he not healthy? Yeah. I mean, there's every chance that the hamstring is still lingering there. He does float through games sometimes though, especially when he's not involved. I do think you're right, though, that the recipe for it becoming an issue is not the run-pass balance.

It is when we are passing, we're not making the most of it. Famously, the problem is passing, right? Like, that's what he said after the Carolina game. So, yeah. All right, time to take our second break. On the other side, we flip sides of the ball and talk about Vic Fangio and what he can do against Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs offense. Bet 365 has, listen to this. 90 million users worldwide, and they live stream over 780,000 events each year with early payout

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You get the nod. Very inside information I got here. The Chief's injury report is out for the game. Jalen Royals is out and Xavier Worthy, doubtful, with a shoulder injury. He was a limited participant in practice. Andy Reid said he has a slim chance to play. There are video clips of him in practice today with less padding on his arm than yesterday. I don't want to get down that road again.

But he didn't have the energy. I'm not going to speculate. But yeah, I think we all remember. With the old Anthony Harris. Hands. Hands and hands and growing. Yeah. Incredible.

What did he do to the guy who writes the injury report? So we did to do himself. Oh, man. We all remember Xavier Worthy's Jerry Rice-esque performance in the Super Bowl last year. Huge clutch, fourth down, touchdowns. Yeah. burning Tristan McCollum and Sidney Brown down the field. But without him and, you know, Jalen Royals missed the first game as well,

their top three receivers are Hollywood Brown, Juju Smith-Schuster, and Tyquan Thornton. Tyquan Thornton's fast. They tried to throw deep to him last week. But this is a game where, and we're switching to the side of the ball anyway now, right? Like, I would guess that Fangio has the corners just play sides. Like rather than having,

rather than having Quignan follow a guy around, I honestly thought just watching live it's harder to see on the film but like when you're at the stadium and you're seeing them like line up I think there's like a disorienting element I think so to not knowing before the play

like which side of the field you're going to be on last year Quinnian Mitchell knew he was going to be on the right side the only thing you really had to adjust to is am I on the boundary or the field side right because like that would obviously change depending on where the ball is and that would change which safety is behind him

and that would change like where he is in the coverage depending on the rotations. When you don't know what side you're going to be on, you don't know what side you're going to be on. You don't know if it's boundary or field. You don't know what safety is behind you. You're trying to figure out all these things at the same time. And it's one thing goes for the safeties.

And the same thing goes for the other corner. Like it's one thing to say like, well, Quinnion Mitchell is like second year now. He's going to be an all pro. Like he can handle it. Well, what about Adori Jackson, who you signed, you know, like basically off the street and don't really trust? You're asking him to also not know which side he's going to be on.

and you know he got beat in a variety of different ways which we can get into like maybe just think about it you're lining up you've got 20 seconds so the ball snapped you're thinking about these are my responsibilities and if you're if it's if it keeps flip flap and you're like as the ball is getting snapped like oh wait which what do I have here yeah of course yeah and they don't and they don't really like declare where you know where they're

going to go out of a huddle until like maybe five seconds before the snap right and so you really don't have time to like process okay this is the call this is the side I'm on like this is the safety that's behind me he's rotating he's not rotating uh And so I thought that that was like something that when you don't have an obvious number one receiver is probably something Vic doesn't want to do. And historically hasn't done. Vic Fangio did mention like that Adori Jackson needs to be a master technician. And it's a lot harder to do that if you were playing on both sides of the field.

You know, like the technique flips so often. And if you're only trying to get degrees. See you get degrees. I think we should make that a shirt. I think we should get degrees. He's got a PhD. He's got a picture of Roy Jackson. Yeah, why not?

Okay. First week, not a very good performance. No. The first half, you got numbers to back. Yeah, not stopping the run. 62% rush success by Dallas. That was worse than any game in the 21 games. The Eagles allowed last year.

82% series conversion rate. That's what did you want to call that? The chains rate? Like we need to come up with a new name. I know. It's the percentage of times that a team gets a first down. on a set of downs, right? So 82% only the Tampa Bay game,

which was a disaster last year, was worse last year. 0.98 EPA per drive, only Tampa Bay in Atlanta, which were both losses last year, were worse than that. And yet somehow managed to pitch a shout out in the second half.

It was like night and day before the delay and after the delay, starting with the play just before the delay with the fumble. Dallas's success rate went from 57% before the delay to 22% after the delay. They only ran four successful, plays out of 18 after.

Aided by the drops, for sure. Yeah, for sure, aided by the drops. But when you look at like the thing we were most worried about coming into the game, and I know you guys have talked a lot about this already this week, so I'll try to keep it brief. But like Adori Jackson got beat so many different ways. Like he got beat on a double move by Lamb on a post corner. That was a cover three blitz call where he kind of ends up isolated with Lamb.

And he's got his eyes in the wrong place. He said in the locker room, he said bad eyes on a couple of plays. My eyes weren't in the right place. My technique wasn't there. I think that's like an individual technique thing, right, on that play. Then you look at four plays later, same on the next drive, 18 yard over route, quarters coverage this time. And Adori Jackson is like actively trying to pass CD Lamb off to somebody inside.

But both safeties have their eyes on the post draft from Pickens from the other side. Turpin ran a wheel to occupy Quignan on that. And I'm thinking like route concept, like interesting, like creative route concept to get their best player open. That's exactly the kind of play you watch. And you're like, that was good offensive design. to cover. But we were so spoiled last year watching the Eagles cover those plays, passing off routes like they had telepathy. But then you bring in two new guys in Dori Jackson and MacCuba, and they're exactly the guys involved in that. Like, MacCuba's the guy he's really trying

to pass Lamb off to there, but MacCuba's looking at the route from the other side. So that's like a communication in zone match issue, right? And then three plays later, he gets beat. This time it's man coverage. But again, it's a communication thing. This is the 26-yard over route by Lamb. and on this one, Tolbert motioned wide of lamb just before the snap. Use of motion is another thing we criticize the Eagles for not using enough. Tolbert motions outside and Adori Jackson seems to think that they're going to banjo that. He seems to think that... What is Banjo?

Banjo means that the inside corner, so in this case it's Cooper de Gene who's in the nickel, is going to take lamb and he's going to get Tolbert. Now that Tolbert is the number one receiver to the sideline, he thinks he's now responsible for Tolbert. He takes one step to the outside, and that's all it takes, because he's already playing outside leverage against Lamb. As soon as he takes that one step, Cooper DeGine is frantically telling him, no, you still have Lamb. And he's like stuck to Tollbert. And that's one where last year with Slay and with Winnihan Mitchell, that didn't happen.

Like guys weren't taking those wrong steps at the beginning of the play. And so that one step's enough to give him no chance to cover Lamb because Lamb ends up running an overrout on that one. So going to the inside. And so that's three completely different ways that he got beat. And some of it is like, okay, the man like bad techniques, sees get degrees. Like if that's a standard for himself, like that's going to be a problem. Also, and part of it's just the communication. You're in the league too.

I was going to say like the, you're not a master technician. Yeah. Vic said like he's, he's no one's wanted to keep him in his career, right? The, like the mental error on the third one that you just broke down Dan is and also excellent breakdown for the record. that is the type of thing that you have Adory Jackson out there for like you have the veteran presence out there so that he doesn't have those mental errors if you're gonna you're gonna bake in like okay like he's not gonna be fully immersed in the scheme he's not going to have all of the answers and yeah then put Jacarie and Bennett out there the ceiling is at least higher like you know if he gets beat on like the double move where he's got outside leverage like I can live with that with Adori Jackson like that is something that's what we talk about the floor in the ceiling like that is what you kind of can expect from a Dori Jackson but the mental stuff. Like if he's not, if he's not like perfect, to use friends' expression, if he's not nails with that stuff, then I mean, what are we doing? Yeah, I agree. Getting beat by CD Lamb

is not like a source of shame. I mean, Quinnian Mitchell got beat by him a few times too. And that's something that like C.D. Lamb does to people. But yeah, the mental thing, you say, well, it's week one, maybe he's going to figure it out. But like you're saying, with a veteran, how much is he going to figure it? And then, I mean, the Miles Sanders run is to me even an even bigger deal. It's like one of the most horrendous fills for, like he is the only blocked guy there. Like, like, he has to understand, like, that run wasn't even, like, run very well. Like, they didn't execute it very well. They ended up wasting one of the linemen on that. And they didn't have the numbers that they should have had. Adori Jackson's completely unblocked. And

he, like, tried to tackle Jahad Campbell for some reason and, like, and, like, fell down. I mean, it was horrendous. It did kind of look like a turn down in a way that you don't see Eagles defensive players have anymore. That felt like a personality clash with, like, what we have come to expect from a Vic Fangio. For sure. For sure. And that's one where the whole team sees, it. Yeah. Like that's if that happens again, then I would imagine that that's it. That's kind of how I feel. Yeah, no, for sure. Speaking of young

guys and mental mistakes, I thought Drew McCuba looked really good. Okay. Van Gio said that he had a couple of major busts that hurt us and could have heard us more. And I was like looking for those on film. One of them I think, I know, I know. The other one, I'm very confident about those. What's that? What's up? Oh, no. Oh, no. What do they call them?

Dali Parton's. Oh, no. Oh, that's bad. I was hoping at least it would be a pun or something. I mean, I'm sorry. No, that's okay. I feel like that actually would hit for Vic. That's probably right.

That's probably right. Maybe that's what he calls them. Yeah. So it's so hard to talk about cover three and cover six after that. Welcome to my life. Third to last play. they threw that corner route to Schoonmacher and Zach Bonn and Cooper DeGine looked like heroes on the play.

They were awesome. Like Cooper de Gene, like they both kind of scrambled back from their underneath zones to break that up. And the reason that they needed to do that is because Quinnian was stressed by the fact that Mukuba dropped to the post when he wasn't supposed to. I'm pretty sure that was like a cover six

and he thought it was cover three and he just did the wrong thing. Like that's the kind of thing like you're going to expect from a rookie. That's one play out of, you know, however many. but yeah, hopefully we won't see any Dolly Parton's in the future. Did you see the comment from T. Dutton here? This conversation is top-notch. All-B. would be proud.

Literally as he typed. Yeah, we're talking about Zach Bonn. As he types that, you just completely derail the conversation. Like, he was so happy. We were all ball and you just... I think Zach Bonn would appreciate this conversation. Yeah, maybe. I don't know what he's into.

I thought you guys were going to have Vic Fangio doesn't blitz at all as a swooper. So I didn't have it. I didn't want to repeat. But I thought it was interesting that he panicked and called a blitz on that last play. I mean, that's something. You know, he did that. He did that against Carolina. It was the last time he called cover zero.

It's still the last thing. He's called cover zero. Yes. He still hasn't called it since. And that's the one where Slay got beat and the rookie dropped the ball in the end zone. Yeah. Yeah. I was just trying to remember his name.

League. Five blitzes. in this game and Prescott was three of four, had a PI on the fifth one, the only one was the drop on the last one. So the blitzing didn't go very well. I don't know if, you know, if that's gonna be one where Vic looks at that and says like,

again, that probably wasn't a good idea and not do that late in the game again. Okay. Oh, we're not quite there yet. I can give you a random leftover thought that I had while we were actually talking about the Chief's defense. Okay.

Christian Fulton. Do you know the, like, memory that's seared into my brain with Christian Fulton? Can I guess? Yeah, you could probably guess it. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, no. If you think I can guess it, then it's not what I think.

It's something that happened in a game. You don't remember, like, what Christian Fulton should kind of, like, be infamous for? In an NFL game? Mm-hmm. Against the Eagles. Oh, wait. Now I feel like I should know. It was, now I got a double check.

A triple check. I have it here. Yeah. Christian Fulton is had gave up the rare combination of a, oh, no, I don't have it. This is the AJ against Tennessee. Yeah, he gave up the rare combination of a 40-yard touchdown on a legal contact penalty. And he got injured against AJ Brown on an out and up. Do you remember this?

On the same play. That's right. Out and up. And AJ just runs through him, gets an elite, draws an illegal contact penalty on Christian Fulton, injures him and then catches a touchdown anyway. I associated him with Ben Solek Because Ben Solac thought that he was like Going to be the next Dion Sanders

So that's paraphrasing But shout out to Ben Silak There yeah That's not a great shout out for him But I mean I still like the guy Yeah that's great Yeah that's all All right

What did you think of the way that they used the D line With no Jalen Carter Yeah a lot of lots being made of Josh Uchallon Carter Basically met that Moro Jermot and Jordan Davis played like A lot right Like very few snaps for Gabe Hall. I played like five or something. Byron Young played a little more than that.

Obvious passed down situations. There were 16 of them. Like, Ojima's on the field for all, you know, like 15 or the 16 or something like that. He and Jordan Davis got gassed on the last drive. So Gabe Hall and Byron Young both came in for a snap or two. But other than that, it was, it was them the whole time. I thought the defensive end usage was a little surprising. I don't know how much of it is Jalix Hunt is dealing with something, but they seem to want Josh Uche on the field over Jalickson. Those are the 16 obvious pass, 13 snaps for Nolan Smith, 12 for Uche, and only seven for Jalickson, and none for Patrick Johnson. Zadaria Smith coming in, like, Fangio is not a big fan of these guys who don't like training camp and stuff. He didn't seem to be

super excited about Zadaria Smith's, like the way that he's joining the team right now. I doubt he'll out snap Josh UJ in this game, for example, right? That's probably right. Yeah, I think he'll be fourth. He made a big deal about the fact that he hasn't put pads on since January 14th. And I take him at his word. Like, I think you need some time to get up to speed. Yeah.

No, I think that's right. The other thing about D-line usage, especially when you're going to get to the other thing about D-Line usage, Dana is in overtime. Wow. How long was the meeting when you guys decided? it to rebranded as Bovertime. Oh, there was no meeting. He's rogue.

You've seen the show before? No, I mean, I... I thought that was actually that was funny. BG was talking about like the... What makes you... Great job, by the way. BG show. BG unblocked. Everybody should subscribe. Watch. How about this guy?

Resubscribe. It was awesome. I love BG, so... He's the best. He was talking about like what gets you... What you get sore with in the first week of the season. He's in the hands. Yeah. Oh,

that was interesting. Yeah. Hands. So we'll see how Zary Smith can recover. Quick, quick complete derail here on the BG podcast. He talked about like how you should call people just like, you know,

checking on people when you think about them. I've done that a couple times this week. Like tangible improvement in my life. So thank you. Wow. I agree with that. And he's saying call, right? Like not text.

I have taken it as a text thing, but I have done that too. Where it's like, I'm thinking about this person right now. I'm going to sell a text now. you know, because I might just forget later. I did that with one of my best friends yesterday, and I was so glad I did it. How long did you,

how long did you end up talking? Like 20, 30 minutes. Yeah. That can be really good. Yeah. I think somebody in the Discord said the same thing about how that, like, you know, they took that advice and it worked out very well.

You know, I'm old enough to remember when you didn't have texting and social media and all those things is like a constant way to think you're staying in touch with friends. And we would see each other more. We would talk more on the phone. And I think one thing that happens now, and I'm not the first to say this, is you think you're in touch with somebody because you're, you know, you're following them on Instagram or something. Yeah, you liked their thing or whatever.

And like, you know, maybe they wrote you like a three line, you know, emoji filled response or something. And you think that you're communicating with them. And, you know, people don't like being called anymore. Like they want the text and all that. But it can be really special when you, when you call somebody. Yeah. I thought that was really cool. That's a toxic trade of mine.

I will call you without any warning. I don't mind that. Sometimes I can't have the conversation. It's with the people who I'm like, if I'm really close with you, I'll call you out of the blue. And it is just, I don't know. I think when, well, I guess I'm a chronic like not, don't answer the phone also, which is a bad combo.

But like, I don't know. If we're close enough, I'm going to call you just to check on you. Yeah. Call me anytime, AJ. We talk a lot. Like, I feel like by the time we get out of the studio, do I need to call you to check on you? I know how you're doing.

You think you don't. Yeah, maybe, okay. All right, maybe I'll give you a call. You don't know what's bubbling under this service. You've got the audio messages for me too. And that's like a real. That, that I don't know. I send voice message.

I've never voice message. I don't know. I drive a lot. I don't mind the voice message, but I do, like, I can't like pause it and play it again, right? Like once you start playing it, it didn't. No, you hit keep. I think you can, but it's just, I don't know. That's a big thing in Turkey.

Everybody does the WhatsApp voice message. and I'm just like I can't like I'm not in a position where I can listen to this now because I'm like I'm in a meeting or something yeah but it's not very good at your meetings the the that's true I'm not in that many meetings I'm in like two meetings a year it's true I'm I'm I'm very lucky but uh what's up the WhatsApp transcribing is not very good in Turkish the I message one's pretty good also VG it's not good in Turkish like it's like

Yeah, okay, fair. I have to call you to wish you a good night. Are you familiar with this? I have seen this, yeah. It's good. It's good. I might do that to you. Sure.

Yeah. I was thinking it might make good content for me to do the BG schedule for a week, wake up at five, go on a really long bike ride, not eat from 6 p.m. to noon. Insane. I would drop dead. That's crazy. It's great. It would be good content.

It's great that he's going the healthy route. But it's crazy. Okay. John Campbell, what'd you think? John Campbell lined up on the edge 12 times. A lot of people were wondering about that. And Fangio was asked about why he's the one on the edge and not Zach Bonn like it was last year. And he said Bonn is more capable of handling the middle part of that job.

Whereas Nikobi did it last year with Bonn on the line of scrimmage. It was that classic Fangio, like I'm going to have, you know, five-man fronts and nickel when you're not expecting it. And I'm going to have six-man fronts and base when you're not expecting it, right? By adding that linebacker. And Jahad Campbell was that guy 12 times. Seven times there was a five-man front and nickel. Three times they passed out of that. And all three of those,

Jahad Campbell rushed the passer. So three times we saw him rush to the passer. I wouldn't really call those blitzes because he's on the line of scrimmage, but he is a fifth guy rushing and he's not a delinman. So it counts as a blitz. And then you've got five times he was the sixth guy on the line in base. And I thought he held up well, like when he was in those situations.

But the most encouraging play was that one Tampa two call, right? Or he ends up running with the tight end and that's one where you're like, well, if he's not, you know, the middle linebacker, why is he doing that? That's one where they're in a base coverage. Jalix Hunt drops and the reason Jalickson is dropping is because of the formation on the offense and then that makes, that turns Jihad Campbell into the Mike linebacker because like he was on the side that Jalickson is on. Zach Bonn ends up being on the other side. And so he has to run with that tight end and it's like cover two. call by Fangio. I think he had something like six of them all of last year and this was the only one in this game. But

I mean, the fact that he can run with that guy is awesome, right? And we've heard a lot of people, Sean Sayyad included talking about how like that's actually the strength of Jahad Campbell's game like his ability to cover in space. And it's just awesome to have two linebackers who can cover. I mean, it's crazy because Zach

Bond had the one like a few plays later where he where he did the same thing. That was a cover four but it was still like very similar where he had to carry that, carry that vertical. So So yeah, I thought Jehad Campbell was good. He did have some trouble, I thought, against the run. Like, you know, we talk about, like, the really high success rate on the run by Dallas. And part of that was that Jehad Campbell was getting swallowed up by climbing linebackers a little bit too often.

Like, I wouldn't say it was to the level of, like, Zach Bonn against Atlanta last year where you noticed that that was the reason. But there was a lot of, like, they kind of knew where he was going to be and they were able to take him out of the play quickly. whereas Zach Bond now is like so savvy at avoiding at avoiding those linemen and at least making the running back change course I thought like there were a few times when it was just like a little too clear where Jehad Campbell was and also on outside runs he seems like a half second slower than everyone else to see it you know like Rand mentioned that

and so maybe I was looking for it more because I heard Fran say it before but you really can see it on film where it's like Zach Bond's already flying the right way and Jehad Campbell's like a little bit behind him just give him time man like you can tell he's like like super, super talented and is going to be good at that. Now, do you think that you agree with my theory that like Vic Fangio is going to start running a bunch of like Tampa 2 and oh, now it's going to be popularized across the league, but they don't have athletic linebackers to actually run this system?

I mean, that would be shocking because he's never been a Tampa 2 guy and he still really isn't. He ran Tampa 2 against Washington. The NFC championship game and I noticed it from the stands. And I was like trying to convince people that it was like really interesting because he's like hadn't run it in like two months. And it didn't go very well. But people were still excited about Seguan for some reason.

But it was like seeing it on film. And it was like Jane Daniels like held the ball for so long because he was so shot. He's like wait. Like both of the safeties are like going over the top. Like that's so weird. And so yeah, I mean to have these linebackers and to have that flexibility is awesome. Another thing we saw schematically that I thought was good, especially when Uche was on the field, they ran a lot of stunts. Like a lot of stunts that worked like in some cases didn't work in others.

But it was encouraging to see like the late shifting of the D-line. Every time Jihad Campbell, like I mentioned 12 times he was on the D-line, I think on 10 of them, it was at the last second that they shifted the line. So like Jalick's hunt was standing up and then he tucked in and Jihad Campbell came out. That can really mess with like, you know, the blocking assignments in the run game. Lane Johnson's talked about that. So that was interesting to see. but also the stunting,

Mahomes and the Chief's offensive line got destroyed by Charger stunts last week. And they had major issues with it. And so like Mahomes got hit really hard by the defensive tackle on one of them. Joanne Taylor got a holding call on one of them. So that's something that I'd expect them to continue to do. Congratulations to Kay Taylor,

who just become a member of the Supporters Club. You too can become a supporter on the Supporters Club. Get the custom emojis. you get extra content, all that good stuff. Very exciting stuff. And I will also take this opportunity to remind you that it is a big month for big brothers, big sisters. The push here, it's sound to become a big.

Make a big difference in the community. If you've got some extra time on your hands, no better way to do it. We go to the super chat. Fresh Prince says there is a new weekly guest on the Ringers-Filly special podcast. I think his name is Back Zerman. He has a lot of six.

but he said Bo was a great friend. He had plenty of compliments for E.J. Sounds nice for that person. Handsome podcast hosts on that ring is really special. I think Shield's good looking, yeah. Yeah, good-looking guy. I've been inviting Shield to see Dogtooth with me, by the way. Those of you who are, you know,

sick goes from the beginning. On movie recommendations for him, he doesn't seem to count about it. But he's going to hate that movie. Well, that's kind of part of the point. I understand. Yeah. She'll text me to tell me that if I was doing the pregame podcast with him, I would have never gotten into a position to throw my wife under the bus for her wardrobe recommendations.

He said, see, I would have never let that get there. I would have dug you out of that hole. So, you know, he did have me thinking, like, is Bo team content over everything? No, not in the same way. I'm team what makes me laugh. not what's great not what's best for my content it's content for the numbers it's content for yourself yeah yeah yeah yeah team content for me over yeah

that's what I am um okay last thing here is just the chief's offense what what do we need to expect I mean they they were really bad in the first off and good in the second half against the chargers they were able to recover a little bit they seem to be actively trying to I don't need him tampering with my with my new employee by the way my new partner I mean she'll

we talk he's tampering listen he's uh he's toxic I don't know what's going on between these two shows Cliff I'm telling you we gotta get Cliff over here

we got to get him on the pod the fact that it basically ended up being a one for one trade between you guys is well that's what you think until we announced that Sean Syed's going to be joining oh wow Clippy too

I don't know where I'm going to end up, but And I'm also thrilled to announce that Joining us on the post game show this week will be Naya Capadia. She's no, she iced you out. Yeah, but to say, you couldn't get her. No, no chance. So crush me. Yeah, I'd be, I would be like,

Worst I felt about myself in years. I wouldn't have spoken the name. Now she's going to come after you. There's a question in the chat about EJ's use of abacus. I thought the abacus use was great. I don't know about my Amish auction. That wasn't an Amish auction. We don't know about it. Yeah. I mean, my second

one, listen, Andrew, I don't want to accuse you of... Uh-oh. Talking to Fran before the show or anything like that. I thought my instructions were pretty clear that it was an all-pay auction and you guys just ran it as a normal one. I will say that historically, Fran has tended to famously blow like 25 turkeys on those. And, uh, wait, the one that was a swooper out wasn't. No, no, no.

The one that was, uh, Jalen Hertz has more scrambles. Uh, that was supposed to be all pay. And you guys just ran it normally. So just, I'm just giving you guys a chance to accuse Fran of, uh, I think this, I think this little behind the scene. I think Fran's always cheating. Yeah. Yeah.

He gets some serious with swooper. Like, he is like, he, like, he, like, there's a darkness that comes over as soon as we start. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I hope you paid you well, Andrew. All right, Chiefs offense. Yeah, Chief Chiefs offense. We were talking about earlier, like, without Rishi Rice, without Xavier Worthy,

they don't really have the talent on the outside to be a team that throws it deep. And they just didn't really seem to have the ability to protect in certain situations. In that first half, Mahomes was kind of running for his life and then trying to throw it deep to Tycoen Thor. They looked better in the second half, but they continue to not be. like a very scary looking roster, right? Like Travis Kelsey's not quite what he was before. Like the offensive line, especially Joanne Taylor was terrible in that game.

And I just think like it's not going to be like the Super Bowl, right? They're not going to have 20 straight unsuccessful plays. Like that's just not ever, that might not ever happen again in any NFL game. Like, I mean, that's just just crazy. But I'm not looking at that offense and being like, oh man, like this is a scary looking group, I really thought that they would make more improvements to it. And they just don't, I don't know if it's like just Andy trusting his quarterback and his play calling and thinking that that's going to just like kind of fix everything.

But I'm very curious, given how historically terribly it went for them in the Super Bowl if they're just going to try to completely change what they did. You know, like, and I don't really know what that would be. Yeah. What that would be. But, you know, they started with like a couple of cool RPO's in that game. they abandoned the run really early. I don't know, like one of the things he might do is, and I know BG was talking about this with you,

on BG on Block, like they didn't really try to run it in the Super Bowl, even though the score wasn't out of control immediately. I think they're going to try to run it more in this game. Yeah, like I think they're going to try to establish the run more early and try to do stuff off of play action and RPO's because they don't have the talent to win, like, maybe the way they used to.

So, I don't know. That's my thought. from seeing that first game. And again, it wasn't a disaster on offense for them, like it was on defense. But I don't know. I just have trouble like, like there's this like very big difference between like the image of Mahomes and the chiefs

and what they've really been for the last couple of years. You know, like like they're, they just haven't been that good. And I mean they did win two Super Bowls. No, no, no. I mean the last. I am. Basically the last year.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh. They were awesome in 2022. Like coming into that Super Bowl against. the Eagles, like they had the best offense in the league by a mile. And last year, it wasn't even close to that. They were like a very average offense. What really stands out is like when you look at how each team has used their, I'd say, first three rounds of draft picks

in each of the last few years, especially like since Super Bowl 57, like you look at the Eagles, it's like Jalen Carter, Nolan Smith, Tyler Steen, Quinion Mitchell, Cooper to Gene, Jalix Hunt, Jihad Campbell, Andrew McCuba. And on with the Chiefs, it's like Felix on Udeka, Usoma. Can't get on the field. Can't get on the field. Yeah. Xavier Worthy, who's currently injured,

Kingsley Suo Mataiia, and then Josh Simmons and Omar, Omar, Norman Lott. There's just not like the level of difference makers at the Eagles have added. Not as much volume.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Not to a fair point. It's like they haven't had as many bites at the Apple, especially like the Jalen Carter, Nolan Smith.

I mean, even Quinean and Cooper to Jean, they traded up for Cooper. So the Eagles have had higher picks, but even still, like, looking at the group that they've added since Super Bowl 57,

it kind of does make sense. how we got to this point where it feels like you have that talent. Sure. I think I just think that some of that is, yeah, it's, I mean, the Eagles had an extra top 10 pick. They got to use on Dealin Carter. As you said, they were higher, well, in the Coenai Mitchell year,

they have probably had a higher hit rate, but chiefs are generally drafting at the back end of the round. Sure, yeah. Okay. Anything else? Eagles wearing white on white on white. I don't know if that does anything for you, but seven and two under Siriani wearing white on white, the only two losses.

at Vegas in 21 and the horrendous playoff loss in Tampa Bay in 2023. And the Chiefs have not been 0 and 2 since 2014 if that means anything. That was Andy's second year, the only year that he missed the playoffs.

There you go. There it is. Eagles wearing white at home next week, by the way. This is going to be the first time in 10 years. I'm guessing the whole show next Friday will be about this, but just the shocking revelation that they're going to be wearing white at home for the first time in 10 years. 1 p.m. game on a September,

I guess they think it'll be hot. I don't know. I mean, they've had 10 years of not doing this. Yeah. Just the kind of, yeah, very surprising development. I have no idea why. I don't know. You'll have to dig into that, E.J., yeah, ask around.

Investigation. I mean, listen, people make fun of me for the uniform stuff. Like people care about the uniforms. Oh, of course. So, I mean, that's, that, that is one that if you did ask around and find out it would be, I think it would be of interest. I'll see what I can find out. Don't let him tell you what to do. No, it was just, I just thought, you know.

Be your own man. Oh, okay. It's rich coming from you. Like, I'm not my own man. I'm going to leave this. I'm going to leave it alone. No, no, no. We don't need to litigate.

What are we talking about here? I don't know. No, I'm not doing this. No. Wow. You get to fly away tomorrow. You can evacuate from the shrapnel of whatever it is you need to drop here. No, listen, I'm going to help Danez. If I can help the news. I'll figure it out. It's not like he's like, you need to do this. Don't look at me. I just said people like the uniforms. The people want to know what you have to say. Oh, no, it's all right.

Wow. Coward. Well, jeez. Backing off and slinking away. We don't have to do this on the podcast. I don't have anything for you. No. What do you mean? I just, you know, you are like the king of like the perceived slights.

And now you're like, be your own man. Oh, well, that, yeah, I mean, that's content. Well, it's also content. I'm just saying don't tell him what to do. do with your job. Oh, no, I mean, if I can find out, I'll find out. Yeah, but you might have more important stuff. I'm not saying, like, don't do anything else.

Like, I'm just saying, this is a thing. Also, the Eagles... It was like a mandate from Dana is to figure this out. Just, yeah, see what I can find out. Yeah, come on, Beau. We're just talking about. The Eagles, by the way, have not announced the white thing. Like, that's another reason that, like, you know...

So it might not be correct. No, it's correct because the Rams announced that they're wearing blue. They officially announced their uniform schedule for the whole season. And they announce that they're wearing blue. So you can't have both teams wearing blue Since the Eagles are their uniform Because that's the Jalen They could be

Could be we don't know They haven't we don't know the pants But it's gonna be white uniforms Because they can't wear anything else against blue So there you go With black pants That's my guess So again people in the chat asking

The Eagles have not announced it But the Rams announced they're wearing blue So that gives it away All right They could just go no jerseys That would be interesting Probably illegal Should their pads

but nothing else. I can be fun. I think that's what the I think that's what the Laundrae League was. That was good. That was Mark Griffin's daughter. You want to sell some tickets. All right, well,

I don't know why I remember that Mark Griffin's daughter was in that, but Mark Rippin, of course, part of the Ospreys this year. That's right. Eagles legend. All right, then we'll do it for this episode

of the P.H.L.E.L.E.E.O.E.E. podcast. We are live on Sunday taking you through everything on game day. We're going to have the kickoff show, the halftime show, and the post game show with Jamie Lynch, Vinnie Curry, Les Bowen joining us again. Looking forward to that. We'll have E.J. Smith, who is very much his own man joining us from Kansas City. So for the professor and E.J. I'm Bo. We thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. Thank you to Andrew for making it all happen. Comment below. Tell us if you think E.J. is his own man or not. Don't do that. And we will talk to you on Sunday. As always, we love you.