PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Is Nick Sirianni ready to help the Philadelphia Eagles turn things around in New Orleans?

Episode Date: September 20, 2024

Is the season already at a crossroads in Week 3? That might sound dramatic, but after the stumble down the stretch on Monday Night Football and the unconvincing answers since, Nick Sirianni is already squarely in focus. To make matters worse, he could be without C.J. Gardner-Johnson, in addition to A.J. Brown, as the Birds prepare for a trip to New Orleans to play a spicy Saints team.Join Zach Berman and Bo Wulf, along with the professor Deniz Selman, for a look at the team’s state of affairs and the difficult-to-prepare-for tendencies the Eagles are likely to see from the 2-0 Saints. 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 PHY Eagles podcast on a football Friday. Bowulf, Zach Berman and the professor himself, Danis Selman. In the middle, we've got lots to talk about news on the injury front for the Eagles as they prepare for what feels like a very big game all of a sudden in week three. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about Danes, what he's charted about the offense and the defense, maybe some swooper leftovers, all good stuff. but how's everybody doing? Zach, how are you? I'm doing well.

Had a wonderful evening last night. Thank you. Are we going to address what's on your head? Are we going to acknowledge this? I don't know what you're talking about. If I'm operating throughout the shit, is like, is this bit going on for the next hour? I do want to tell the audience.

I see Bo in person today, and I mentioned the Boe. It's like, I just want to clarify yesterday what I was saying. And Boe's like, oh, don't worry about it. And then right before the show, you pull on the wig. What are you talking about? Yeah, great. I got a haircut.

This is my new... That's your new look. Okay. I'll tell you, Barber, we got work on the fade. Okay. I had a wonderful evening last night. Thank you. The Zach Berman book event.

Got to talk to a bunch of Bermans. Had a wonderful time. What a turnout. Thank you. We're all very proud of you. I appreciate. Thank you. What an accomplishment.

We're going to talk a little bit more about next week. I will say a bit of scuttle butt in the audience from some people I talk to. some people not thrilled about their lack of mention in the book. I just want you to know that that's out there. Who could that be? That's all I'm saying. Some people are not thrilled about the lack of mention. Yeah, like they didn't get enough word time in the book that they thought that they deserved.

I have no idea who that could be. Okay, well, you got a lot of constituents in the event. I'm trying. There's 87,000 words. I covered 25 years of the eagle. I mean, look, I'll tell you this. If Asante Samuel was there, if Trent Cole was there, they would have a valid complaint. In my, in the epilogue, I wrote about how I wish there were, I wrote about more players during this time.

And I think Asante Samuel and Trent Cole and then John Runyon and Trey Thomas are four players who I should have highlighted more than I did than I did in the book. Well, it's a wonderful event. Thanks to Emily for putting it on. I got to see all the kids out there too. It was fantastic. I got to meet your grandfather. He's a great man. I appreciate that.

Worthy of the dedication. Fantastic. Dennis, how you doing? Oh, I'm doing well. Doing well. Zach, you have a thing tonight too, right? Yes, Barnes & Noble tonight. I appreciate that.

Good pitch. On 17th and Chestnut. This is an early release event. I'll be with Ray Dindinger, who literally wrote the encyclopedia on the Eagles. Well, we're having a conversation. We'll take questions from the audience, and then I will sign books.

And the book is on sale officially on Tuesday. And what time is the thing tonight? Six o'clock. Thank you. And where can people buy the book? Anywhere books are sold. Starting on Tuesday. But if you pre-order, I think if you went to Amazon.

We want those pre-orders. That's what we want. Yeah. If you pre-order it on Amazon, then it'll come to you on Tuesday. But I think, you know, similar to how we like when you watch our show on YouTube, because in your algorithm, it'll come up. I think Amazon, if there's like a pre-order, it affects, it helps the, helps the... You want those pre-orders.

Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. I see the... Three more days to get those pre-orders in. I see The Diddy walking around the neighborhood a lot, and it always makes me happy. He's the man. Always, always makes me...

How does he feel in today's current climate of being called the Diddy? I'm not sure. I don't call him that myself, but the few times I've talked to him has been super nice, but I usually don't even talk to him. I just kind of smile as I see him. Good man. Holding a newspaper walking down the block.

You don't attack him like you did, Isaac Sayamalo at Park. No, no. It's a good reference. Hey, both starting guards were there. Hey, both starting guards. Incredible opportunity there. All right.

There is news from the complex, Zach. You were there for practice today. Who was not there for practice today? CJ Gardner Johnson was not present at practice. Now, he missed yesterday's practice. He had a foot injury. Nick, I guess, Nick Siriani about it today. Nick said it was a tweak.

It occurred yesterday. I imagine during walk through yesterday because he was not on the practice field when we were out there at practice. So it did not occur at practice. Yeah, foot injury, not out there today. This is an interesting one to watch. We'll get the report, the final injury report, status report a little later today. I'm curious to see what he's designated as because this is, yeah, I mean, he's obviously

starting safety, important part of the team. Also, a little interesting nugget. He's missed each game they've played against the, each game he's played against the Saints, the two places that he's gone to, you know, Philly in 2022 and then Detroit last year. And so, like, this would have been his third time playing against his former team. And I know he was, you know, jacked up to play against his former team. So we'll see what his status is. And it feels, if he's not practicing today, he didn't practice yesterday.

It feels unlikely he's going to play, right? One would think, but it depends. You're not going to be, like, shot if you get this wrong. I know, I don't want to say, I don't want to say he's going to play. You've been covering this league for a long time. It seems unlikely at this point. Typically, if you're not out there on Friday, then you don't play. But again, this is not like an injury that occurred in the game.

It is actually, I've remarked to you guys in the green room or the office, however we want to call it, that Eagles have had these, they've had three injuries now occurred during practice. They've been like relatively healthy in games. It's never like someone goes down and sees the ending injury in game. But in practice, AJ Brown last week, Johnny Wilson last week. and now C.J. Garner Johnson today. So we're talking about practice, right? Not a game.

What a reference. Not a game. What a Philly guy. It's a Ted Lasser reference. Nice. Okay, so. I got Julia to laugh. That's my goal.

Let's unpack this a little bit. Okay. If C.J. Garner Johnson doesn't play. Their options are Tristan McCollum, Avante Maddox, and then probably Cooper DeGine at safety, or at nickel, rather. Now this is a game day is where

if the Saints do, what they've been doing the first two weeks, you don't need to be a nickel quite as much, right? So maybe that changes the dynamic. But I guess it would be your guess. And also tell us about what was different about the safeties last week. Yeah. So quick about the Saints. Saints have been 9% 11 personnel on first down, which is by far the lowest.

It's like they're playing in a different. They just don't play 11 personnel, right. 22% overall, which is dead last by a mile. The safeties last week, and I was talking about this, We were talking about this with Fran after the, after training camp, unlike Desai and Gannon, Fangio has not been doing left safety, right safety. Right. So that, you know, left safety, right safety.

The advantage is you don't have to worry about where you're lining up. You're always on the same side. You work with the same corner, et cetera. Fangio didn't do that throughout camp, and he didn't do that in either of the first two games. But the interesting thing is he switched the roles of Chauncey Gardner Johnson and Reed Blankenship from week one to week two. So throughout training camp, from what I understand, and in week one, it was CJGJ at the boundary and read to the field. Now, why that matters is the boundary safety is more likely to end up rotating down to the box, right? Because they do this safety rotation where you rotate away from the nickel and you end up covering either a slot receiver or you're in the box and fitting the run.

The field safety is more likely to end up in the post. So throughout camp and also in Brazil, it was read in the post and C.JGJ going down to the box. Last week against Atlanta, on all but two or three snaps, it was the exact opposite. It was the exceptions were ones where there was like a blitz exchange and you could kind of, it was actually kind of a tell. Hopefully they don't keep doing the same thing because it was clear pre-snap. There was going to be an exchange blitz. Anyway, and if I could see that, obviously, the Saints can see,

that and all that. So, but the reason that I, that I found this interesting is because something happened in Brazil that made Fangio switched that. I don't know if it was that he didn't like the way C.J. DJ DJ was fitting the run when he was rotating down to the box or whatever, but the post safety ends up kind of getting less usage in a sense, right? And so you're giving Reed a bigger responsibility. And he was the one who ended up having to cover Ray Ray MacLeod on that fourth and four where he got beat. And conventional thinking would say that C.J. Gardner Johnson, who's been one of the best nickel corners in the league for a big part of his career would be better in that role. Not that he's been that good in coverage this year, but that adds a little twist to if he's out,

you know, who gets which role do they just do left and right? Like, you know, what happens if it's if it's Avanti Maddox playing? I would imagine Reed would stay the one who's down in the box and Maddox would be in the post. Right. That you would want. So that that boundary safety role is more similar to the nickel corner role. So if you think of Maddox's role not changing too much. Right. So if you think of Maddox's role not changing too much. Eagles do play cover three a lot. They play cover three Sky a lot, which is the rotation I'm discussing now. So if you don't want Maddox's role to change too much, you might want to switch read back to the post. And just, I mean, like the two snaps we've seen from Trista McCollum in the

regular season. Oh my goodness. It's, uh, it's hard to think that that's going to work out against this, this Saints offense that is so good at misdirection. Yeah. Just just one snap from him that wasn't like the prevent at the end and he ran into, yeah, almost killed Zach Bond. So for the health of the linebackers and Deja, yeah. Yeah. Now, I would imagine it would be, I would be shocked if McCollum is out there the whole game. It's interesting if you think about our conversations before the season, you know, positions where they can really not afford to lose somebody.

We talk about wide receiver. Now they go out and they get Dodson, but that like strikes right away. We talk about safety, how they didn't address safety death. We'll see what happens on Sunday, but that strikes pretty real. We talked about it because both CJ Gardner Johnson and Reed Blankenship have long histories of injury. Exactly. And, you know, Sydney Brown is, in theory, the guy who's there, but you've got to wait for him to come off PUP. And then they carry Bradbury and McCollum.

And I don't know that that's going to look good either way. And they've lost Dylan McMahon, and that's why the season's going to go down the tubes. Which, what part of yesterday's episode, Zach, was toughest for you to live with? Was it the putting the company in jeopardy with your blue language? Yeah, I shouldn't have said that. Or was it the loss of turkeys? Oh, yeah, why'd you spend all your turkeys, Zach? Normally you're so frugal.

I thought, okay, I didn't listen to the part where you can borrow from next week. And then I thought I had more turkeys than Po. At the time, I was getting a text from someone within the NFL who I was corresponding with. And I was, I figured I had the most turkeys. So when I heard this second person gets it, I'm like, so if you watch it back, I literally say, oh, I love this. This is easy, Julia. And so I sent Julia. I knew I had 11 turkeys. I sent Julia my turkeys right away. And so I thought, like, I was sitting back, sitting pretty. And when I heard 40, first I was like, what? And then when you said you can borrow from next week. Quick, quick game theory. It's an equal pay auction, which is a very rare kind of auction, which means everyone's paying the same amount. because everyone's paying the same amount and you're all competing with each other,

the goal should be to win the item. I mean, like you just want to win the item. The cost almost doesn't matter. And so, yeah, so Beau got that right. And it sounds like,

would you have, I mean, you didn't have 40 to bid. I thought I had the most turkeys. Right, so I said 11 turkeys because I thought that was the most turkeys. It would have been funnier if you did have the most turkeys. Yes.

Because then you still would have lost. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's, no, the part that, if I own that,

I wear that. The part of yesterday's episode that bothered me was I definitely was not trying to insult you in any way, shape, or form. I was trying to compliment Fran, like literally complimenting Fran. And then that turned into a company may have to fold after that S-bomb you dropped. No, come on. No, I, I, but I should have been more judicious with my language. That's a sure. It's a gift that's going to keep on giving because now we all have that video.

That's fine. We did get a memo last month about like, language on the show and I have not been an offender of like there are other people other very talented content creators this company who are greater offenders than me of that so it struck me as odd that I was the one who you know I'm going to be up all night every every Thursday making sure to induce such language again yeah I got to make sure you know what I got to do next time I got to turn so the problem is I'm not in studio so I'm there so I get the text come up on my computer.

I need to ignore, I need to like, yeah, put the status as ignore and no text come up to earn a super. So I can listen to every role because that. In other words, you need to do the job. You know, Bo made sure I sat between them today. All right, let's talk about the rest of this side of the matchup, Danes. Yeah, a matchup that certainly looks dire from an English perspective. It's only been two weeks, but through two weeks, this is the best offensive football against one of the worst defenses in football.

Yeah, I think Aaron Schatz tweeted that the Saints are the fourth best offense in history or something, like through two weeks. Yeah. They've been unbelievably efficient. And by this whole entire conversation, this whole episode, presented by Bet365, our dear friends. They scored touchdowns on their first six drives last week. against Dallas watching the film they look i mean they just looked ridiculous uh they're first in dv oa first in a first in epa per play first in uh series conversion rate the first in success rate like they're just they're just first and everything obviously small sample size uh it's it's two games one of them

was against carolina um but yeah i mean they they've looked really good uh meanwhile the eagles defense is 31st uh by dv oa through two weeks uh 30th in epa per drive 29th and points per drive 26th in series conversion rate allowed, bottom seven in those categories, which I would say are the four categories I look at the most, 25th against the past, 32nd against the run. Again, two game sample, but the defense is, as it was last year, the main problem with this team. And bringing in Vic Fangio wasn't ever going to fix the problem right away, but I was hoping for a little bit better than 31st at this point. You were. Yeah.

Is your concern personnel? Well, that's the thing. It's so hard to tell. I understand historically these Fangio defenses have been hard to learn for the players, right? Like you don't immediately get it. You don't immediately start being good. Miami got better, you know, throughout the year last year, you know, things like that. And this has happened at other stops he's been at as well.

But the thing is the coverage, which is the part that you would think would be harder to learn with the safety rotations and the matching routes and zone coverage and all the things that Fangio does. The coverage has looked really good. Why is it the defensive line that takes time? That's the thing. Like I made fun of Zach Robinson, the Atlanta offensive coordinator for the play calling against Pittsburgh. I thought they had a really stale passing game and really boring offense. It wasn't really like that in the last game.

They ran some interesting route combinations. They use stacks and bunches and late motion to change who the number one receiver is, all kinds of things to kind of stress the Eagles coverage rules. And I thought the Eagles did great. I mean, like they did a great job passing off route. great job matching to zones, matching in the zone match system. I just thought the issue was the stopping the run and the pass rush.

And those two things you would think are the least related to who the defensive coordinator is and what the scheme is. And Atlanta's run game was not interesting at all. Bo Allen, the great Bo Allen, had a great breakdown of this on YouTube where he broke down the 12 times in the game. that the Falcons ran outside zone to the open side, meaning the side where the tight end is not. And they did that 12 times for 86 yards.

That's 7.2 yards per carry. They ran it to the strong side three times for 33 yards. That's 11 yards per carry. That's 15 times they ran outside zone in the game. I mean, this is not particularly, you know, it's not like they're pulling guys or running interesting run schemes. They weren't. And, you know, Brian Baldinger had a thing on the radio where he talked about,

He didn't like the way the defensive line was aligning, so that is a little bit of a scheme thing. He thought they were making it way too easy for the guards to climb to the linebackers. We saw Zach Bond getting cut by the right guard over and over again, which is not something you see a lot. Well, quick note there, because I know you listen to Vic Fangio this week. I don't know if the audience listened to the press conference. Vic Fangio said Zach Bonn hadn't been exposed to that in the past, and that they'll be better prepared for. that this this this this week he'll know it and they'll have a a better plan nick seriani was asked uh today kind of about that and he said you know if he comes up if he plays in the preseason that kind of

thing but there's only so much you can do to prepare for but but they have discussed those those kind of blocks yeah it's good that they've discussed it yes there were there was maybe one they could do anything about one snap like late in the game where zach bond finally was able to evade that block and make a play i mean it didn't get better that to be fair it is like that It's rare. Most offensive lines are not doing that. Well, yeah, but also you shouldn't have a guard should not be getting that clean or release to the linebacker there. Look, the Saints are going to run outside zone a lot as well. They do.

You know, the Clint Kubiak system is very much from the Shanahan McVeigh School where they're going to run a lot of outside zone and then play action off of it. And Fangio knows that. And he was asked about it at the presser and he kind of confirmed that. So what's the answer, right? Well, one major difference, of course, between Atlanta and the, and. and the Saints is that Atlanta ran 11 personnel on literally every snap of the game. The two snaps they didn't, according to the services, were both kneel downs at the end of the game. So they ran 11 personnel on every single play.

And the Eagles matched that with nickel, which typically means a four-man front. So the question is, what is the answer? And one of the things, and we talked about this so much last year, and I'm kind of getting tired of this, it's like, if you can't stop it with the four-man front, you have to do the five-man front. I don't know. I mean, is that really the answer to just go to the five-man front? that's suddenly going to, suddenly going to fix the problem. Fingio did use base twice against the Saints, even though it was nickel, both on first downs.

Atlanta threw both times, and one of them was the 41-yard touchdown, where Fingio just decided, hey, I haven't used base, and I haven't blitz. Like, let me do both on the same play. I ran a zero blitz out of base personnel, and, you know, they couldn't cover the post with C.J.J. The other way to make it an out front is to have Zach Bonn on the edge and then have one of the defensive ends tuck inside. did that a lot against the Packers, didn't do it that much in this game. He only did it twice the entire game.

One of them was an outside zone run for four yards, and they passed on the other one. So it's not like Fangio thought in-game that the four-man rush, four-man fronts were the issue, right? So what does he think is the issue? Bryce Huff, we've seen all these clips of Bryce Huff just looking terrible against the run. One thing about Bryce Huff, he played on 20 of the first 33 early-down snaps in the game,

didn't play on any of the last 10. So there was like a quiet benching of Bryce Huff during the game. So if you look at the things like what did Fangio do during the game to change things, he didn't really change the alignments or the scheme or the personnel, but he did stop playing Bryce Huff on early downs. I mean, again, 20 or 33 to start

and then none of the last 10, and that 10 spans multiple drives. So it's not like it was just one drive and that wasn't an adjustment from the previous week when Bryce Huff didn't play early downs really at all. Well, he played eight. He ended up playing around the same percentage of early downs total in both games?

I mean, he was the lowest, um, lowest early down snap count of any of the edge rushers, um, in, in both games. I have a, uh, I have an idea. Okay. If you're, if you're, if you're, if you're the Eagles trying to figure out how to fix, you know, the, the, the run defense on the edge, you have seen, uh, Thomas Booker look good in eight snaps.

Yeah. Why don't we move Milton Williams to the edge on early downs? Interesting. And then there's enough, there's enough defensive tackle depth to get through without having Milton play on early downs inside maybe that is a way to solve things that's an interesting thing I mean you know Fangio was asked in his presser about whether there would be changes and he said there won't be any wholesale changes that sounds like a almost a wholesale change uh milton williams is not playing nearly as much as I thought he would I mean he's not the one he's not the main second D tackle

on pass rush down yeah it's still it's still ojermot and then they're also doing a dime package where they only have one uh tackle on the field and that's been Jalen Carter and that's the next guy I want to get to by the way we can talk all about I mean you guys talked so much about Bryce off already I mean him getting blocked by Kyle Pitts one-on-one I mean just embarrassing I mean Kyle Pitts who frankly I mean you know no matter what you say about how great a whatever you think he is that football player without a position blocking is not something that even Zach would say that Kyle Pitts majors in and for him to be I don't know why you want Kyle Pitts

I'm sure he was a thousand-yard receiver as a rookie yeah a huge impact on the game on Monday. They have one catch or whatever. So, look, I think, like, Fangio said, Huff is still learning how to play the total game and working hard at it. It doesn't look like he's working hard during the game. Now, sometimes...

I think he didn't want to talk about press stuff anymore. Yeah, well, yeah, I'm trying to convince myself not to, but, look, I mean, he's said so many weird things this week. Like, you know, the things he's saying about, like, how he thinks it's the guy's next to working with the guys next to him and all that. I frankly wonder if what he means by that is, Hey, when I'm not the third best edge rusher on the team, I'm not able to get cleanup sacks and cleanup pressures like he was last year.

That, you know, there's a reason the Jets let him go, despite being the age day is. And it shouldn't be that surprising that the third best ed rusher on the Jets, like, you know, shouldn't be put in a role where he's supposed to be your best pass rusher. So anyway, enough about him. Sorry. No, look, I said that going back to the spring. My frame of reference is the Eagles.

And the last time the Eagles let it go to edge rusher leave, was Derek Burgess, right? And you're looking at like 20 plus years ago. Anytime you, like, if the, the Jets let Bryce Huff go, I mean, they could have paid to keep him. They had enough, the Eagles went past the number that the Jets had for him. Right. Okay.

I think the defense, the floor is maybe lower than we even thought possible. Look, somebody on the show said that the defensive roster is worse this year. You know, got a lot of hate tweets for it. But, I mean, come on, man. Like you can't just lose Fletcher Cox and Hassan Reddick and expect your defensive line

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household products, cosmetics, and more. Just ask your pharmacy team for details. Restrictions apply. All right. We have a lot to get to. We want to get to the offense. We want to get to the Nick Siriani, big picture conversation. But quickly, let's talk a little bit about Jalen Carter.

Excellent job, by the way, by Bo. show how you can perform well even if your teammates are messing up. I mean, that's segue, despite my rude interruption, just delivered beautifully. I mean, you know, Bryce off can learn from that. Jalen Carter stocked down this week. I mean, you know, he's, he doesn't start the game because he was late to a meeting. Whatever, we knew there were going to be things like that with Jalen Carter. Zach, what is the quickly?

What was the word from the locker room? Yeah, Jalen Carter, so I'm for full disclosure. I'm here today. I'm not in the locker room. Joe and Carter confirmed In case you couldn't tell this isn't the lockerer in case you thought there was another reason

that Zach needed to feel a little bit uneasy today He was late for a team meeting He said the alarm did not go off So it was the first time that he's been late to something That's according to my former colleague Jeff McLean And asked about his play so far the season Jeline Carter called it quote trash He said he needs to play better

Okay. Yeah, it was really surprising on the film, and I know a lot of people have done breakdowns of this, but they're sliding production away from him the whole game, which isn't not what we expected to happen. I mean, they had their right guard, Lindstrom, who's a good right guard, but he's not like the best right card in football or anything, and he was stoning him the whole game. And then Milton Williams gets a rare chance, also one-on-one against him. Beats him beautifully one-on-one, gets a sack, the only sack of the night.

So not a great game for him. He wasn't good against the run either. He was getting pushed off the spot a little bit. too easily. And yeah, so if that that Fangio, I'm assuming it's Fangio making that decision, if that benching him for the first drive was supposed to light a fire, it didn't seem to do so. I imagine that came from Siriani. Really? Benching? Yeah. For sure.

Interesting. You think that's a Fangio decision? I do. Wow. I don't think Fangio would let Siriani bench. Yeah, you think that, yeah. Yeah, I think it has to come from Nick. Interesting. Well, I think Nick is probably the one who has to deliver the message. But do you think that if Nick told it, like if Fangio wanted Gailin Carter to play anyway, and Nick was like, no, he's got a bench, you think I don't think they would have it. I think Nick would say, you know, these are the rules. You're late to a meeting.

You get benched. Carter still did play 46 of the 61 snaps in the game. So he played almost every snap after that initial benching for what it's worth. Look, I've pushed back probably more than most on the idea of like, what does Nick do here? okay like i talk about um what he does behind the scenes and the game management and managing the locker room and things like that if he's not handing out discipline no but i agree that he would be the one who's handing it out who's like delivering the message but i don't think it's his decision if he's not deciding discipline man it's like that would be one of the things that falls under the purview of the

CEO head coach yeah one would think that's true that would surprise me if it that would really surprised me if it didn't come from him. Quick, quick thing about the Jalen Carter. Jalen Carter is the one guy who's out there for both early downs and late downs on this defensive line. In terms of whether it's the pass rush or stopping the run, that's the issue. Let me just remind everybody that last year, we made a big deal about how bad the pass rush was on third down.

And that poor pass rush resulted in the Eagles having one of the worst third down conversion rates allowed in league history. It was historically bad. This year, it's been the opposite. Last year, on this show, I talked a lot about the Eagles are like third best in the league at getting to third down. Yeah. And then historically bad on third down. This year, it's been the opposite.

The Eagles are third and third down conversion rate allowed. Atlanta was one for eight on third downs before that final drive. Three of those stops were on third and four, by the way. So it's not like they were all third and long either. It's been the opposite problem this year. The Eagles are worst in the league, 32nd in the league at getting to third down. They're only getting to third down on 42% of the drives. 58% conversion rate before third down, Atlanta got 19 of their 22 first down conversions

on early downs. So that's 70% of the time they're getting 19 times over 70% of their total series that they got first down before third down. And so the Eagles have not been giving their pass rush that many chances. I know a lot's been made of the last drive. So last drive, there were six obvious boss situations and they converted four of them. But that's a pretty small sample. I mean, you're not giving yourself the opportunity throughout the game to get into those

Pazoresh situation so and and you know Huff's not out there on a lot of those early down so well that does track with you know I heard from from someone this this week who was saying everyone's talking about how bad the defense is but the first game the offense put them in all these uncomfortable positions they held they held Green Bay in the red zone last game they kept Atlanta to 15 points and I I think that tracks with with what you're saying is that they've been good third down in red zone and that it like if you look elsewhere they've been really bad.

Yes, their, their, their lofty ranking of 31st in the league is buoyed by unsustainable success in little situations. Yeah, and talking, and talking about the number of points in this last game. I mean, there were, there were only eight drives. So, I mean, Zach, we've been through this before. Like, you can't just look at the total points and say, oh, they only allow 22 points. That's on, that's on eight drives. Yeah.

If you can, if you allow points at that rate all season, you would be ranked 30 second in points per drive allowed. So, uh, that's not, actually good. And, you know, there are some games where there are 12 drives and some games where there are eight drives and there's a big difference in giving up 22. I'm not defending them. I'm conveying what's been conveyed. Well, we know the defense stinks so far. We have a chance to look better this week. But let's dive a little bit into the Siriani of this because, you know, we're talking about who's demanding out the punishment. Obviously, we're all,

we're trying to move on, but we're all still stuck in thinking about that fourth down decision to kick the field. He talked about it on Wednesday. He talked about it on Wednesday. He talked He didn't really talk about it today, but I think we're all still thinking about it. Danes, I'm sure that you have more thoughts and especially the way that he described his process for going through these, you know, historical examples that actually don't track with what the situation was. Yeah, I mean, I, you know, it was a beautiful day on Wednesday. I got myself a nice burrito from Mexicali out in West Philly. Shout out to them. Like a Mexico.

I sat down and I was like, what should I do during lunch? And I was like, oh, I'll watch the Siriani presser. And so I turn on the Siriani presser. Man, it's hard. You guys talked about it on the show at length. I talked about it on Tuesday as well about why going for the next four months. You do. You do want to.

But, you know, yeah, we have to talk about making the full hour be, yeah. Look, two huge flaws in the process that Nick Siriani, you know, kind of like basically revealed. And he did not have to reveal this process. and he should not have revealed his process. I mean, you know, I was like, sometimes, like, you can credit him for his honesty, but this is the kind of honesty that can get you fired, right? Like, I mean, this is the kind of thing where it's like, honestly, just don't, if this is how you did it, don't tell me, this is how you did it.

You know what I mean? And there are two huge flaws in this process. You know, for those of you who didn't listen or whatever, he said that he asked the analytics team to pull up all of the situations late in the game where teams were up by one, two, three, four, or five and then ask what they chose to do in those fourth down situations and then what happened as a result of what they did two huge flaws in this process okay one of them which is actually the more minor flaw is that being up three is very different it's so different

two four or five it's completely different group close together it's ridiculous he even said in the press conference he said being up six anyone's going to kick the field goal that's why i ruled out six great job nick like you ruled out six what about one one more two, four, and five, like the other four numbers that you grouped in with three that also have nothing to do with three. I mean, one and two, you don't have a field goal lead. A field goal can beat you. So it's different.

Four and five gives you a touchdown lead. So it's different. Three is the one number where you already, it's the only one where it is not smaller than three and also not bigger than three. It's the only number like that. It's three. And so the thing with three is, when you pick a field goal, you're still not up by a touchdown. And therefore it's completely different.

Like what on earth? How can you group those together? Yes. Next, he goes through and he's like, the 2010 Texans against the Raiders. Like, they went forward and they lost. Who the fuck cares about that? Like, seriously.

Like, that is so ridiculous. He's leaning into this anecdotal evidence from random games. Like, who cares of other teams went forward or they didn't go forward? And who cares what happened, like, as a result? And then even that the end point of it is, well, most of them didn't go for it. Oh my God. As if that's what the goal is.

The goal is to chase the group thing. Yes, that is the thing. Like instead, and he's asking the analytics department the wrong question, as I've made clear. Here's the thing, right? Instead of finding all the instances when coaches had to make that decision, look at all the instances where teams were up by three with the other team at the 10-yard line versus up by six with the other team at the 30-yard line. Those are the two things you have to look at.

It shouldn't matter how he got there. You're going to throw an interception to the 10-yard line when you're up by three. you should be looking at that case. Does that mean you should throw an interception? No, it doesn't matter how you got to that situation. It just matters what the situation is. And so going through the situation by focusing on other teams' coaches' decisions, and we all remember how did he defend the punt in the Super Bowl?

He said 32 out of 32 NFL head coaches would have punted there. I don't disagree, but all 32 would have been wrong. And the thing is, like, you know, we all have young kids. We all know that there's a big difference between what others are doing and what's right. You cannot defend your behavior by saying this is what others are doing. And famously, Jeffrey Lurie has given his head coaches the green light to do what's right, even if you're going to be criticized by the media, by the fans, by WIP,

by all the people who don't understand math. And that's the thing. With the way Siriani approaches this idea, using the analytics department to learn how other coaches made decisions, you know who gets decisions wrong all the time? NFL coaches on fourth down. It's kind of a famous thing that they get it wrong. And you have to get it right so that you have an advantage. And that's kind of supposed to be the point of this organization

and Jeffrey Lurie and his analytics and all that. And we won a Super Bowl in the city like going for it on fourth down. And then the thumbing of the nose that, well, like if you look at the charts, like you can see that it probably recommended to go for it. But my charts are not to go for it. His studies and his convictions. But that's, I want to know, Zach, did you think that given that that press conference was on Wednesday.

They played on Monday night. He probably hadn't yet met with Jeffrey this week, right? Did you feel like that press conference was, in some way, a message to the top? I can't imagine that press conference was received well at the top. For the reasons that Professor Selman just outlined. And the point that both you guys made about the other coaches like this, all these coaches lean on this idea, well, I have to rely on my experience in these situations.

That's literally what the numbers are for, is to give you a sense of clarity because your experience could cover your thinking, right? And I don't know this for a fact. Like Nick's example that when he's calling an offense down six, he thinks there's more pressure. Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

That's why. As an offensive coach, I know I feel stressing those situations. That's why you look at objective analysis. How much stress you feel has nothing to do. Yeah, exactly. This has happened like thousands of times in league history, and we know exactly how many times the team scored. Like, your emotions as an offensive coach don't matter.

So something I'm speculating here, because I have not talked to Nick about this. But I imagine the fact that they missed it earlier in the game was in his head there in this sense. Because I don't think he wanted to be calling two fourth downs in the red zone, missing both of them. And they called one in the second quarter and they went for it. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, yeah, but, you know, giving up points. It's that area right. Yeah, plus 40 where he always always does. Yeah, giving up points in both those situations. And it would be like if I've, I've never coached professional football. I've only coached a seven-year-old flag football, right? So I can't put myself a Nick Sirianni's position.

I admit that. I played a lot of blackjack in my life, right? If I hit on 16 against, if I hit on 16 and I busted against the 10, right? Then the next time I'm like, well, I don't want to do this twice. and back-to-back hands, right? I wouldn't think that. I'm like, you know, you're going based on the odds. And so that's where...

Yeah, so that's the part of it that I don't get, but to... I don't mean to kind of speak for a while here, but you referenced the book. One point that Jeffrey Lurie made in my conversations with him is he talked about in these past 25 years how the proliferation of talk radio has really affected things because it's created like a populist view of of football. And what he really wants is an organization that can be insulated from that populace view and that can make decisions soundly and efficiently. And so to answer your initial question in a roundabout way, I can't imagine Jeffrey Lurie took the answer to the chart very well. And I think what you just touched on is like personally, I feel for Nick Siriani.

Like this, it is a difficult position to be. And he is, he's getting it from both ends, right? On the one hand, oh, you should have taken the points, like, from the concussion uncle's side, it's like he's too aggressive. And then from the smarter people, he's getting, oh, you weren't, you weren't aggressive enough. And it's hard. It seems like a no one situation. But the truth is, there is only one constituent who matters, and it's Jeffrey Lurie. And I think that he did not do right by Jeffrey Lurie with that decision. I mean, I, I don't disagree, based on what I know of the organization. So that's what surprised me.

I thought, frankly, his defense was going to be that, look, I believe in my defense, right? Yeah, like, even aside from just the math of it, like the ancillary things of this game, like you've got one unit that's good, one unit that's bad. Why don't you just trust the good one? No, but I thought. So I believe in my defense makes no sense. I mean, in both cases, the defense is going to go on the field and have to do something. thing like I thought that's what you go forward and get it then they don't that you know by kicking the

field goal there it's a confident it's a sign of confidence in my defense you know I thought he was going to go with that angle and you can punch holes in that by saying you get three yards you win the game like show confidence in your court in your franchise quarterback show confidence in your offense show confidence your play caller whatever it may be right but um yeah I I was surprised that his answer was uh well you can put this in 20 times you know or 20 different websites even more convicted. Yeah, but I have even more conviction based on my experience and based on the data that he has the end. Like, I got to imagine because like Professor Selman's incredibly smart. We know that. The Eagles have incredibly smart people in that building too who are putting these numbers together.

That's the thing that drives me crazy. Like, like, you know, and I, you know, thank you to the people in the chat who are like, the Eagles should hire me. The Eagles already have a lot of people there who can, who understand the stuff as well as I do. There are plenty of people there who are telling Nick, like you have to go for it in the situation. There can't not be. Like every single calculation in the situation says go for it. So it's a matter of him listening to them over his emotions and studies of like the 2010, the one time the 2010 Texans tried it and his convictions. Like those convictions and studies are fine when you're deciding what video from what movie to show the team or what flower analogy to use or all that. I've defended Siriani on all those things. I think he got way too much blame for a lot of that kind of stuff. That stuff is

fine. Like if you have the emotional intelligence to relate to the players and you know how to talk to them and all that kind of stuff, that's great. This is just a pure math problem and you're getting it wrong and you're trying to defend it with emotions and things like that. And it's just, I mean, I cannot imagine that it flies with Lurie. It's not just Lurie.

It's not Lurie telling Zach this behind the scenes. Like he said this on the record that he will give his coach the opportunity to be right in these situations and that he will not blame him if it doesn't work out. And it's just shocking to me that Siriani could not only make this decision in the game, but then two full days after the game,

go on, you know, save those things an oppressor. But the point you made about how a one point lead, a two point lead, a four point lead, a five point lead is different than a three point lead. Like, Al Cowlby, John Lou, James Gilman, like, you know, they all know this too, right? And so when they're putting this together, like, you know, Zach Drapkin, like, they can, they can figure that out as well. So that's the part of it that surprises me. All right. Well, before we get going with more on the P-HLY podcast presented by Best. 365. We take a minute to talk to you about our friends at game time. Game time picks filters out

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The defense has been bad. Yeah. the offense has been pretty good. Yeah, those four categories that I mentioned for the defense, DVOA, EPA per drive, points per drive, and series conversion rate. The defense was bottom seven in all of them. The offense is top seven in all of them. Seventh by DVOA, sixth by EPA per drive, fifth by points per drive, third in series conversion rate. So the offense...

Now, do they give parades for top seven? Well, no, but... Okay. It's a little bit like the Nick Fools celebrated for having the highest PFF grade. team that won the Super Bowl was first in offensive DVOA or anything like that? I think top five for the offense and average for the banner up here for top seven.

Okay. Here's the thing. This offense was not that bad last year. Sure. We thought Kellyn Moore was going to come in, make it more interesting all that. Now, look, there's no AJ Brown in this game. He's a late scratch. Is that the reason that

the offense, the past game wasn't that interesting? I don't know, but the actual performance of the offense in terms of putting points on the board, per drive rates, all that has been good over these two games. Now, are these the two best defenses in the league that they played? Probably not, but it hasn't, like, the offense has not been the main issue. And there's, like, you know, there's a lot of talks about Jalen Hertz after the first game, you know, like, is he slow? He can't run, all that kind of stuff. He looked pretty good running in this last game, didn't he? Like, I mean, you know, and the, I do still think

there's a distinction between when he's going downhill versus when he's going laterally. But, no, I agree. And I actually think, like, schematically also, there was, you know, was a good change this time. We saw the quarterback bash counter read play, one of my favorite plays in football. We saw a quarterback draw. We saw quarterback counter, things we didn't see in the first game. So those are all designed runs where he can get downhill, as opposed to that zone read where he has to go around the edge. I thought the offensive run game in this game was really good. Like in terms of the schematics, I mean, like in terms of the performance, it was it was mostly fine.

But we saw a counter with one of the guards and Grand Calcutera pulling. We saw a wrinkle of that where the Calcutera went in motion. So he was actually the first guy instead of the second guy. I thought that was a cool wrinkle. We saw a trap. We saw inside zone. We saw same side inside zone, which all the D-Ly linemen were going the wrong way because it looked like it was going to be inside zone one way.

That play worked as well. There's just a lot of interesting wrinkles in the run game. In the past game, I thought it was kind of the opposite. I mean, like a lot of those RPO bubbles will get to an eligible man downfield in a second, slant flat, curl flat. You know, compared to Atlanta's interesting route combinations and things they were doing, I thought it was very vanilla. One of the things is a lot of offense that looks interesting are man beaters,

like where you run like a pick or you run MASH to beat man and things like that. And Atlanta didn't play any snaps of man in week one. And so, like, you're not going to have that preparation for me. And they didn't play a whole lot of man in this game either. So that could be one of the reasons. The Saints play a lot of man on defense, especially on third down. and so we might see more interesting looking plays on offense to beat that also. You hope that the late AJ Brown's stress.

I think that's the bull case, right? Suddenly you're going to be AJ now, and that means we're not going to be able to run like a lot of these plays. The bull cases, like they didn't have enough time to react to it, which that's not great either. No, I mean, you'd think you would have. This week at least it would look different because you can go in the time these coaches spent in the offseason that one of the weeks of preparation would involve what if AJ Brown goes down in warm-ups like what do we do you know what I mean like do we have a package where we feature Dallas Goddard more in that situation or something like that and that's to me that we

didn't see that thing in that game plan was was the absence of Goddard but yeah no and and look I mean Johan Dotson is coming in his wide receiver two he's running from the outside basically just clear out routes so much of the game just over and over and over again I chart every single you know I have my I'm like you know like this thing here where I'm charting every single play I'm actually like tracing out all the routes So this isn't just anecdotal. I look back and I actually look and count and all that. Jehan Dodson is usually not supposed to get the ball.

He's just taking away one of the corners or something like that on a lot of these plays. I mean, his one target was on a bubble screen. I don't know if it's just that he hasn't learned the offense yet or whatever, but you'd like to involve him more, even if he's just a third wide receiver. I look at it that similar to when Lane Johnson is out, right? and you go to Jack Truscoe or you go to who there's there's such a there's such a difference a j. Brown's that good right and so I agree with with both of you and I think there's a lot of validity to it that it happened late in the week you should make a better adjustment but you

would imagine they'll be better prepared this week there's just such a personnel difference or such a talent disparity between AJ Brown and the next person I think this validates how important AJ Brown is to the team and we talked about how he he might be like their best player, the most indispensable player, we're seeing that. We haven't seen, other than the playoff game last year, what this offense looks like without AJ Brown. Devante Smith is outstanding. Devante Smith was a really good player as a rookie, too.

The offense wasn't good because I think Devante Smith, when he has the other guy, is a better player. Devante Smith has to catch that ball in the end zone on third down. I mean, you know, like one of the things that you talk about Sequin dropping the ball, not enough about Devante dropping the ball. I mean, that's a four point difference there, very different. game if he catches that ball i understand j bates dislodge it or whatever but i mean he has to catch that ball like yeah in a game where a j brown's not playing like you know that's that's a that's a that's a

you know that was a like my heart kind of sank when he when he dropped that it was like that's exactly the kind of play where you look back later and you're like oh man that was i think it's it's one of those where uh devonte smith can both be underrated nationally but also not quite at the level of a j brown like not an offense changing yeah specimen right um in this game Jane is given given all of that. I mean, do you think the conversation Fran and I were having yesterday about like, let's just lean on the run game, let's kind of go full 2021 second half. You don't like that. I never like that.

No, I mean, lean on the run game. Like if your quarterback is Bryce Young or something, sure. But I mean, if you have a good quarterback, as if that's the great insult to Bryce Young this week. That's one too far for Bryce Young. A podcast. A total. His hometown. his team abandoned him after a season.

Not even Dave Canellis. Yeah, but a podcast of Philadelphia said if Bryce Young's your quarterback, yeah, that to me is the ultimate insult. Yeah, I've never understood the, you know, keep them off the field argument. I mean, like, you can shorten the game a little bit. You can have it be like eight possessions. Eight possessions instead of ten or something. I don't, that also means you only get eight possessions.

I mean, like, you know, and I don't think. the Saints who were what like the 26th best Super Bowl odds team coming into the year whatever is a team that you're going to be doing that against just because they they had two good games now in terms of Jalen Hertz who's not Bryce Young by any means I thought he's very good in the game the the passing offense in the drop back game was not particularly giving him easy throws I mean he's still fourth heart he's still fourth um lowest in expected completion percentage right so that chart that we always talk about. In my charting, I saw on his first 15 pure dropbacks, there was a sack and four scrambles. So he's only throwing the ball on 10 of the first 15

pure dropbacks of the game. You don't love that rate. I mean, you'd want him to have an answer where he would throw the ball in the offensive line in general was very good. So it's not like he didn't have time to throw. Having said all of that, he's still fifth in the league in EPA per dropback over the course of these first two games he's fourth against the blitz which was a problem you know we talked about last year so I think I think he's been good I think he mostly made good decisions obviously the interception at the end was not one of them in terms of the motion rate I know there's a lot made of motion rate coming into the year last year the Eagles famously were dead last at 32 percent this year they're 23rd so not

exactly, you know, like the highest in the league in motion or anything, but 57%, considerably higher than 32. Though I didn't think that the motion was as obviously useful in this game as it was in week one. Yeah, I, so to kind of take this and look at the Saints game here, one thing that I, I'm curious both your opinions on is are we, and I use the we in terms of like the media, the fan base. French. Don't get me started on the Eagles' Twitter use of we.

Are we giving the Saints too much credit in the sense that, and this is my point. It's been a really impressive start. The numbers and the tape show that. But I think game flow really matters and really dictates the way things go. They were up, what, by 27 points at halftime against the Panthers. They were up 35, 13 at halftime against the Cowboys. Their average lead per defensive snap is 21. point four.

Yeah. The average snap that the defense has taken, they've led by over 21 points. So like I, I just imagine, like, how does it look if, say the Eagles win the opening coin toss, they take the ball first, they score and it affects game flow. You know, I just think game flow matters. And I'm curious to see what this team looks like for the, you know, what 27th in the league and Super Bowl odds, what this team looks like if they're playing a close game, if they're playing from behind, if Derek Carr is in a different situation.

Yeah, I mean, they're third in defensive DVO. fourth against the past first against the rush you know fifth in EPA per drive all that but like like Zach's saying a lot of that is playing in very friendly situation so yeah and to the point Bo and Fran made yesterday too the Eagles run the offense has played real well against Dennis Allen's defenses in the past so something to think about yeah I think you know let's not treat them like a juggernaut I don't think anybody's worried that like the you know the Saints are even like last year's nineers or something like that it's i would say skepticism about this game for me is more

eagles related than i mean the saints this would literally be the best team of all time it's it's a two game it's a two game sample size right but i think about but you're right the flow of this game matters and yeah like if the eagles get up i think they i think they got they got a good chance like i i did not do self-scouting on our miami shows from last week this our miami shows last year um going into this week i have not watched it but my point is that That would have been an insane thing for you to do this week. The Eagles were coming off. A short week when you've got all this book stuff.

The Eagles were coming off a bad law and writing for all pHLY.com. I want to get that clear. And shows every day. Insulting people's appearance. Last week, last year the Eagles were coming off a bad loss of the Jets. It was the first loss of the season. Bad loss of the Jets. The dolphins were scorching going into that game.

And a lot of the conversation was, was, how are they going to stop? How are they going to stop the dolphins, right? and the Eagles stop the dolphins. And so I'm not trying to talk Eagles fans into like the Eagles for underdogs for a reason they're playing without A.J. Brown. That's a major, major loss. I just, I'm not as bullish on the Saints as maybe the early numbers would suggest. I think that's fair. Let's go to the super chats.

Jalen All Day, sick O'Dio. Maday says, is Goddard playing in the ex-receiver role? Isn't he closest body type to AJ in a better matchup than other smaller wide receivers? He's not an ex-receiver. Yeah, that's not his game. That's not, he does not at speed, but no, the body type, the closest body type would be Johnny Wilson. Exactly. He was also dealing with the hamstring injury.

And are hardly any, if any, three by one where Goddard is the ISO. I mean, like, you know, when it's three by one, it's almost always he's like number three to the three side or number two to the three side. And when it's two by two, he's almost always been the inside guy. So it hasn't really been used in interesting ways in terms of, in terms of alignment. this so far this year but this was the question with a jehan dotson acquisition in addition to it's the whole theory behind it right no but but like that yeah he is an upgrade a third receiver in theory uh and he does give you a starting caliber player in theory but the body type wise he's different than a j brown right all right uh before we get going you know

make sure that you like and subscribe we got to close out crystal bald eagle prediction what he got said i'm going with the saints here uh for i just gave that whole that thing i i do think the saints Is it two and a half right now or three on Bet365? Is it three? I thought it was three. But if A.J. Brown were playing, I would pick the Eagles to win this game. I think the AJ Brown absence is significant. The Eagles are on a short week.

They're on the road. They have all these variables that tell me, like, even though I like the Eagles going into the season against us, I was down on the Saints going into the season. I think the Saints are playing over their heads right now. But without AJ Brown on a short week, on the road, I got to go with the Saints, but I think it's going to be a close game. I don't have a number for you. I will have that on all pHLY tomorrow.

Let's just say, what's the overrunner? Just use your brain instead of leaning on Vegas. Oh, the overrunner is 40. I think the overrunner is 49 and a half. Okay. So I will go with- With 25, 24. Okay.

Yes. I don't know how to get in 25. Play in the middle. Yeah, 26. Probably Nick forgets to go for two at one point. Well, no, because the Saints are getting 25 in that situation. So let's go 26, 24 Saints. Okay.

Yeah. You want to make a prediction? No, but I will say, I'm always going to predict a win. You're like an announcer? You're going to per curfrey on a game day. Just some big picture. Just want to step back. And, you know, Jalen Hertz, in games where Jalen Hertz started, the Eagles were 26 and

three over a 29 game span. I mentioned that a lot. And it's worth noting that since then, the Eagles are two and seven. and, you know, I'm not going to talk about how that relates to my appearance on the show, but it might relate to my appearance on the show. And the other thing about coming off of losses in his career, Nick Siriani, coming off of losses, is including playoffs and excluding the COVID game against Dallas, eight and eight after losses 29 and 12 in all other games.

And that's definitely skewed by the end of last season. Yes, it's mostly the end of last season. but there were some losing streaks in 2021 as well. So it's not like it's been like a historical record of being able to bounce back and keep the wheels from falling off though. The most important number might be the jersey analytics. In this game, the Eagles will not be wearing

Midnight Green on white, which is under Siriani. They've been 13 and 15 with that combination. They'll be wearing white. And in all other Jersey combinations, Nick Siriani is 24 and 6. 80% win rate when not wearing the midnight green under Siriani. So everyone can rest easy. There you have it.

That'll do it. Now what your prediction? Well, you've got to tune into the kickoff show. Fair enough. To watch that. PHLY Eagles podcast presented by Bet365. We've got you covered with everything you need on game day on Sunday. The Kickoff show at 1230 with Fran Duffy, Jamie Lynch and myself.

We'll have a halftime show as well. And then the post game show with Vinnie Curry joining us along with Zach Berman from Norlands. So that'll do it for this episode of the PHL by Eagles podcast. Thanks to everybody for watching and listening. We will talk to you on Sunday. Enjoy the weekend. And as always, we love you. You're all silly like the mayor.