PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Jalen Hurts ready to duel Patrick Mahomes again as Philadelphia Eagles prep for Super Bowl LIX

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

Jalen Hurts, A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, Dallas Goedert, Saquon Barkley and the suddenly high-flying Eagles offense are putting the finishing touches on their week of practice ahead of the trip to N’Awlins for Super Bowl LIX. Can they outscore Patrick Mahomes and exorcise the demons of two years ago?Zach Berman, Bo Wulf and the professor Deniz Selman discuss the big game! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

And welcome to the P.HLY Eagles podcast on a Friday afternoon. Bo Wolf. Dana is Selman. Zach Berman here, presented by Bet365. Download the Bet365 app and use code. P.HLY 365 when you sign up, whatever the moment. It's never ordinary at Bet365. And away we go.

Professor, nice to see you. How you doing it? Good to see you. Doing well. Hold on. Let me do this. We're supposed to have high energy to keep the people hooked on YouTube for the first 90 seconds. So how the heck you do it, my goodness?

I'm doing awesome. Can't wait. Zach, what's up? I'm doing great. Excited to be here. Final show before New Orleans. Always good to be with the professor. Get smarter when I'm with him. Got smarter on the drive-in this morning,

listening to you and chill. So excited for the show. Professor, this has been a good season for you in so much as you have beaten the allegations that you were the reason that the team collapsed down the stretch last season. That's right. That's right. I mean, I had a lot of trouble convincing people just like on the street,

like during the off season. People throwing tomato. What a fleck that is, yeah. It was like, you know, the team was 10 and 1 when I started coming on the show, and then we know what happened after. So I understand. I did have a little birdie inform me that you were a bit of a mini celebrity at the game the other day, at the NFC championship game.

Is that right? What, uh, what people were recognizing you saying they were fans. Oh, yeah, yeah, that happened. I mean, you know, a lot of, a lot of viewers of the show. Yeah. My favorite one? Very drunk guy at halftime. As opposed to the other.

Well, before the game, people are less so. So at half time... I don't know that Zach left the press box. I have a... I have run into Zach in the concourse. So he was running to see Mount Joy. And I was like, yeah, I know. Bo would get very upset as you if you missed Mountjoy.

But I was half time. I was coming back from the bathroom up to my seat. The Lou, as it were. The Lou. And it's not as fun as at the vet when we were like peeing in the sink and all that. Those were the days. But it's too easy now, you know. Like life's gotten too comfortable.

Yeah. Yeah. But on the way back, to the seat, I always tweet the success rates and all that, so I'm, so I'm doing that. Okay. And this guy sees me and he's like, hey man, like, I love you, man. Like, he's like, I just love, I just love you on the show and I love your in stats. And I'm just like, that's great, man. Like, I just tweeted some out and he's like, I saw that. I couldn't believe it. So, yeah, stuff like that's a lot of fun for me. Shout out to that guy. Yeah, absolutely.

for watching. Yeah, if you remember that moment, yeah, thank you. I mean, that sounds like a guy who's been around to drink before. Oh, yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah. All right. Let's get into it, Professor, because, you know, next week, we're going to be off at Radio

Row and Nolins. We're hoping to get you there for Friday show. You're coming down. You did successfully make that bet that Eagles were going to be in the Super Bowl. How much chest puffing do you feel about that? Anybody can book their New Orleans trip after you beat Washington in the NFC championship game, right? But I booked everything after beating Washington in week 11, right? Is that what you booked?

Yeah, I was like, come on. Like, this is going to be, this is going to be another one of those years where we're going to be there. So, yeah. You think that's impressive. Jack booked his hotel in July. Well, okay. It would be fun to get to go no matter what. But, yeah.

Yeah, I can't wait. We'll be staying uptown at an Airbnb. be yeah me and Feldman so hopefully this time we'll we'll get it done now we are watching games together in person oh and two against Mahomes now that's not as bad as Fangio's record against my homes but yeah so the like the best offensive performance in NFL history my homes against gannon at the link in in 21 you can see go see defense feldman and I were we're at that and then and then of course the Super Bowl last time so so we got to get Revenge. But Zach has been in attendance when the Eagles beat Mahomes?

I was. I mean, barely. I was dying that night. That's right. But what was the story? This was in Kansas City? Yeah, Kansas City last year. I had pneumonia and I did not know it. I mean, it was the worst I've felt. But I do remember vividly being there. I remember after the game, Fletcher Cox was wearing a PHLY hoodie. And he said, he said, Zach, check it out. And I remember Nick Siriani coming off the field and screaming toward Elliott Shore Parks. Like, best coach and quarterback. And I think the Chiefs won that one.

I think the Chiefs had the last laugh on that one last year. It's also like the only like very normal and obviously correct take that he's ever had. So it's very funny. I'll defend Algett. No, I mean, I'm an ESB fan for what he does. He's very good. Okay. So let's get into it.

You think, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but till of the tape here, maybe in your mind the three Pete Mahomes and Andy Reid-Ore is carrying a lot of weight in the line for this game. Oh, for sure. I mean, I think we would all agree that if you just looked at the way these two teams have played this season, and even if you looked at the rosters, right, if you looked at performance on the fields, like what you'd think the performance would be given what the rosters are, any of those things, I think the Eagles would be pretty clear favorites in the game.

I mean, when you look at things like DVOA and point differential and all these things that are more predictive of outcomes than just pure record, the Chiefs have been beating bad teams at the buzzer like all season, you know what I mean? Like blocking a field goal, just barely beating Carolina, you know, whatever. Like just throughout the season,

it seems like that's how they've been. And I think a lot of what goes into the way people are betting on the game is just they've seen Mahomes and Andy win so many times and they've seen them just come up with cool plays and you know, in big moments.

And I just think, you know, I understand that. Like that I get that. But I also think that this is more similar to the Eagles playing in the Super Bowl in 2017 than it is in 2022. In that in 2017, I thought it was also pretty clear the Eagles had the better team

when you looked at like the offensive wine the defensive wine a lot of places where the game would be decided but it was Brady and Belichick and how can you bet against them and they've won so many Super Bowls and you know like a lot of the I feel a lot of the same things

Yeah just watching their film looking at their numbers like looking at all these things like this is not the 2022 chiefs like it is that 2020 chiefs team and we'll get into the different sides One of the biggest differences is for well I mean the big difference is that that offense was like

the best offense we've seen in the NFL in the last five years. Like of any team the last five years, if you look at EPA per drive, like that 2022 chief's team is number one out of... Because it's Sky Moore, yeah. Because it's a joke. Yeah, the Corn Dog motion play. 160, that's 160 offenses that they were the best out of those 160, like in the last five years. This offense is, I mean, if you look at it by DVOA, they're eighth.

If you look at it by APA per drive, they're like 13th or something. Middle of the road, the whole season. When you look at on a game by game basis, you're like, well, are they taking games off? And then they have good games. Like, no. I mean, if you rank the Chiefs' offenses games this year with the 2022 Chiefs, just by APA per drive, just rank all those games. Playoffs on regular season, only one of the Chiefs games this year breaks the top 10. So the second best Chiefs game this year was worse than the ninth best game that they played,

like the average game that they played that year. their only good game really on offense all year was against the Panthers. And that was like the worst defense in the league and they almost lost the game anyway because their defense was bad. In any case, like the point is that when you compare the two teams,

game by game basis, if you look at like the 11 best games these two teams have played, the Eagles have played nine of the 11. Like that's like combining both sides of the ball into like just net EPA per drive. You know what I mean? Like so I'm just not scared by anything they've done this year.

And of course you're all probably listening saying like they take the regular season off and they turn it on for the playoffs. Well, they haven't really yet. You know what I mean? Like the very mediocre performance against the Texans on both sides of the ball by most metrics. The Texans kind of killed themselves in some ways and random special teams plays, things like that.

And then you look at this last game. They weren't good on defense. I mean, they were, you know, Buffalo was driving up and down the field. Like they didn't have that good a game. They had some key stops at some key moments, maybe a little bit of help from the, from the, from the, from the refs as well. And then on offense, we'll get into it. but I thought they picked on just an absolutely brain dead defensive approach from Buffalo.

Like I did not understand what Buffalo was doing. Like they were playing press man the whole time. It was very obvious that they were in man. They weren't disguising anything. And Andy just brought out all the man beaters and it worked. So nothing they've done this year is convincing me that they've turned it on for the playoffs. So if they've done that in the past, maybe. But what kind of sample sizes are we talking about?

And how many close wins have they had in these playoffs where the myth would have been debunked by any random bounce in one of like a bunch of different games, like 13 seconds left against the bills, and they come back and went, you know what I mean? Like there's so many games where it was basically a coin flip and they won a series of coin flips. And I've been trained to think that coin flips are independent. A classic man of science, man of faith.

How do you feel about the mystique here? I'm not a big mystique or destiny guy. That's to me, then I don't buy into those words. but I am of the yoke of what professor selman was saying and i was discussing it this morning with anthony is is i view comparisons to 2018 like this time meeting in 2017 season 2018 super bowl to that's all 2017 we've had this argument before that's that's all this time yeah February this is the 2024 season okay so um the this week going into that super bowl the bye week I'm like, you know what?

The Eagles are the better team, but it's Tom Brady, you know, it's Tom Brady in the Super Bowl. It's Brady and Belichick. And I was saying that. And I remember Thursday, I was doing the show, Philly Sports Talk, in the Mall of America. And I'm there with Barkan and Dan Rolovsky. And it's up to, it's coming off to my prediction.

And I say, you know what? For the past 10 days, I've been saying Brady and Belichick. And then I look at this game and everything I think about football, the Eagles are better on both lines of scrimmage. The Eagles have. the better overall roster. Like, I know the Eagles are underdogs, but I think they're the better football team.

And so I got to pick the Eagles here. I don't want to pander, but I think they're the better team. And that's kind of the way I feel here. I think the Eagles are the better team. But I think Kansas City has Patrick Mahomes. There's a reason why he's always in the winter circle. It's like facing Michael Jordan.

And Michael Jordan, it was hard to knock off in the finals. And so Mahomes has lost once, and because that offensive line wasn't good enough. And this offensive line might be. I think the line's scrimmage, the Eagles are better. No doubt. But there's no, to me, it's not the mystique. It's just, it's, Patrick Mahomes is that good.

And that position is that important. And Patrick Mahomes would worry the heck out of me if I were the Eagles. I mean, sure, of course. All right, let's get, let's start with the Eagles offense because now I think you can say, you want to talk about small sample sizes where everybody's riding high on the offensive performance and the passing performance

of the NF2 championship game it's a bit of recency bias right? Sure, yeah. Zoom out, of course. They've been riding the offense that you hate so much all season long. This was beautiful.

It was so great. This was not the offense that I've been saying can be better. This was that version of the offense. And I do think that like, obviously Patrick Mahomes you worry about.

But I, I don't expect that the Chiefs are going to put up 45 points on this defense. They're too good. But I also don't expect that this defense can just shut down Patrick Mahomes and the offense. I think this game does, to me, ride on the performance of the Eagles offense against the Chief's defense. So what was the most important thing that you saw them do in the NFC championship game that heartened you? I mean, I just really liked that against a team that was very clearly trying to sell out against the run, putting six guys on the line of scrimmage a lot.

Like Frankie Louvre was basically living on the line of scrimmage the whole game. They were playing in a way where they were clearly just trying to stop the run. That even though the first play was a great, like, crack toss play to get around that kind of line, and then some terrible tackling at the end of it, Seekwon made an awesome move at one point. But like, despite that, I mean, Seekwon's obviously awesome when it's him against the safety at the end. We know that. When that happened, my first thought was like, That was awesome.

I'm worried now we're going to see like 12 failed drugs. You know what I mean? Like that after this, it's going to be like run, run, run into a six-man box and it's going to get like two yards. But you look at the notes here. I'm just looking at this like eight of the next 11 called plays were passes. And I was so proud of that. I was like, yes.

Like this is exactly what you need to do against this. And it was taking advantage of the way that they were playing the run. So you see play action, right? We saw play action in this game in multiple ways. There was, there were, there was, there were two times when they ran the same play. It was, it was a counteraction rollout from shotgun. And I was like, that's perfect. Like, we call for under center play action, but like, if you're not going to have that many

under center runs, like, that doesn't work as well. If you're running this kind of counter read, like type play, why not have play action off of that? And they did that. The marriage of the pass in the run. Exactly. The thing that Kellyn says every Tuesday and like basically is never done. And here we, and here finally we saw it.

Like, there were two. to AJ on the same play, and they both worked. There was an ISO lead action play, which they hadn't done all season. I think that's the one that AJ Brown said he missed the call, by the way, because it looked like a shot play for him.

I'm not sure if that's what you got out of yesterday. The fake bubble or that? It was an ISO lead where Grant Calcutera goes in, and then he and Saquan both ran like kind of fake routes, and the only real route on the play was AJ, but AJ stopped. It looked like a stutter go, He was going to stop.

He might have been talking about the Super Bowl. Okay. From Kansas City. He said there was a three and out on the possession. Yeah. I watched all six plays from the Super Bowl of the two, from the two, three and outs. Yeah. And it wasn't one of those.

It just couldn't have been based on like the way that what he was doing on the play. So yeah, I spent a lot of time on that. After that AJ Presser, I was like, all right, I have a lot of work to do. I cover this. Yeah. Yeah. I broke, like I looked at every single one. Either he's wrong that it was a three and out.

It might have been before one of the field goals or something. But I looked at one of those too. I don't know. I couldn't find it. I couldn't find a play where it looked like everyone else was doing something and AJ was supposed to do something else. So because it was like predetermined RPO the other way and stuff on a lot of those. You know, so it couldn't have been that he did something wrong, but I don't know. In any case, going back to this last game, there was an example where Washington disguised cover two, one of the things that we've talked all year about how Jalen Hertz like hasn't hit the turkey hole against that. And two times in this game against disguised cover two, he hit the he hit the turkey hole.

there was a 15-yarder to AJ, which was like perfect. I just thought it was just enough of a mix of run, RPO, play action, and other kinds of passes to keep Washington off-balance the whole game. I thought it was awesome. And even when they repeated plays, I thought it worked well in this one. We talked about how they run the same play over and over. There were a bunch of things like that counteraction play. There were a couple of other plays in this game.

Even the Goddard End around. Oh, the Goddard End around was awesome. The little jet flip to Devanti Smith. Like they hadn't done that all year. They did that last year a few times. but they hadn't done it this year. And then just bringing back the slide RPO to Dallas Goddard, where he goes behind the line of scrimmage

and then the curl flat RPO, which was like the entire offense in 2021, just like bringing that back and being like, Jalen's good at this. Like he knows how to read this play out. He knows how to make decisions on it. They ran that three times. Two of them went to Goddard.

And then the third one was a handoff that went for a successful run because they were actually playing the pass on that one. Doesn't that remind you of, of 2017, where it was like the switch that was flipped was, you know what we did? We just, we went back and watched all the stuff that Nick was good at, and we put that in the offense. Yeah, they had an excuse.

It was a change of quarterback. I know. This stuff just forgot. Well, this was called a straight jacket. That's what it was. They had the straight jacket offense and the straight jacket off offense. What did you think about that? Not what Jalen said, but maybe I should ask it a different way.

Do you think the straight jacket will stay off for this game? Good question. Yes. Now, I think the purpose of the straight jacket won't stay off. I think they'll say, don't give them any possessions. Don't turn the, like, this is going to be a possession football game. Don't turn the ball over.

I think that's going to be an emphasis. But I think there will be, look, if you have A.J. Brown, man to man, on fourth and five, go deep, right? So I think you'll see that element of it. So I think it'll be kind of a combination. And what I made of it, I thought Bo put it, as well as anyone I've heard during the past week on Shield Show when he was saying that, or I should say Philo special because it's not just Shield Show.

But when it's like the joke that you, that has truth to it, it's like you use humor to kind of get your point across about this. And so I think, yeah, I don't think that was just a tongue-in-cheek comment. I think that was said with intention. Because it came out of nowhere. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean, it was just completely he wanted to say it. Exactly.

It's like, I'm going to praise Nick Siriani by saying he took the straight jacket off. Like, Nick's done a great, you know, whenever he's asked to say something nice about Nick Seriani, he has to like say something that's going to be interpreted. It's going to be interpreted in this cycle over. Yeah. It was very funny. It was completely against the grain of the rest of the presser. Like it was. Yeah, everything was so positive.

And, yeah, it was. Now, as we are talking, there are continued reports that the Saints plan to, they have a meeting. set with Kellan Moore for after the Super Bowl, essentially, everybody's like, all signs are pointing to he's going to be the next head coach. It seems like a fate accompli. I know that that bothers you a little bit.

First of all, what's with Kellynne Moore only talking to the Saints when he's allowed to? I mean, you know, what a nerd, you know. I've been trying really hard since I made the analogy to ignore how correct it would turn out if this is the analogy I made between the 2022 Eagles defense and the 2024 Eagles offense

and how you know both of the coordinators have been criticized I think fairly and now we're talking about both of a schedule of particularly weak opponents on their opposite side of the ball right yeah the raw numbers look good but like when you look at who they've played and then you worry about what it's going to happen when they play a good team now there are a couple of important differences which I'll get to but it is really hard to to ignore that. Even the very good performance in the NFC championship game is somewhat similar. Now, Gannon was benefited from the quarterback injuries and all that, but still, I mean, it's kind of similar thing. I think the biggest difference between the two is that, first

of all, this offense is talented enough that, not that that defense wasn't, but like, it's talented enough that like, I don't think Moore has to be like a scheme master or anything, right, like, in this game. I think the threshold he has to reach for like, oh, Kellyn Moore had a great game is a bit lower than the one we thought that Gannon had to have against that historically good 2022 Chiefs offense, right? There's a difference there. Now, in hindsight, the way Jalen Hertz played in that game, it turned out Gannon didn't have to be that great. He just had to be not historically horrendous and he failed. So, you know, it's just worth remembering that. But that's making me feel a little bit better about the analogy.

I mean, but yes, of course, it's crazy that he might stay there and become the head coach in the city where the Super Bowl is. I just want to give a quick plug here real quick. If you didn't get to hear Mike Garifold today on Anthony's show, you should check that out because he had really good insight on the Kellan Moore situation, on Kevin Patuo in particular, on why Kevin Patuo is a candidate to watch

and some of the behind-the-scenes stuff. And then one thing that probably doesn't get enough attention, which is there's a lot of questions like, is the coordinator distracted, that kind of thing. But what people don't think about is the position coaches because Mike was saying he has coaches calling him up

being like should I take this job if he if he goes there should I follow him should I you know what's kind of the best path and position coaches more than anything

they're like all of us right when there's a job they're connecting dots like and they want to know their future and if there's a new offensive coordinator how does that affect me and if Kelmore is putting his staff together does it am I better positioned

going to New Orleans with a new staff or progressing through here. Like that's very real stuff. And it's probably not thought of as much as is the coordinator distracted. Yeah, but the point of that is that's a tangible distraction for the coordinator because he has to put that theoretical staff together.

That's a good point. It's not even the brain space of, oh, what if I become a head coach? Like, what would I do? He has to actually spend some time doing that. Exactly. And that's one thing Mike was saying, like Gannon was putting a staff together.

Yeah. And that's a good, that's an interesting point. Yeah. I don't know what the solution to this problem is, right? You can't just like say no one do anything until after the Super Bowl. So actually, Mike's solution was the opposite. Like be transparent. So be like, be like this guy's the coach, you know?

Yeah. And like, you know, don't make it like such a secret. Yeah. And that will do his introductory press conference in two weeks. Yes. But like, yeah. This guy's the coach. And then by the way, like the GM there can start putting stuff together.

You know, like or there can be, you know, like, or there can be, you know, or there can be a staff like in place, you know, that kind of thing. And the guy can just focus on coaching team. That happens to college football all the time. You know, actually when the Eagles lost to the Patriots back in the 2004 Super Bowl, Charlie Weiss had already been hired by Notre Dame and finished coaching with the Patriots. All right. Much more to get to, but time to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors.

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If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800 gambler. So, Dana, as I think one of the reasons to be concerned for the Eagles on this side of the matchup is that Spags is a bit of a boogeyman, right? And the things that he might do to confuse the Eagles at the line of scrimmage as a refresh. pressure, how did Spags approach that against the Eagles in the Super Bowl and in the game last year? Yeah, when you look at when you just count like man's own and you count how many times he blitzed, I mean, nothing really sticks out. I mean, it was 28% man in the Super Bowl, 27% in the game last year. Those are around what, you know, they normally play.

In terms of blitzing, it was either if you count like exchange pressures as well, it was around 38% in the Super Bowl. it was 57% in the game last year. Now, what's another word for an exchange pressure? Oh, maybe like, maybe it's like a abbreviated term for simulated? Like, could you do one of those? I have heard that before. Yeah, if you want to sound smart, you should both part of talk about sim pressure.

Sim pressure. I hear that's going to be. That's going to be the talking point. It's a simulated. It's a simulated blitz. So really they're rushing four, but it's not the four guys you think are rushing. Is that what it is? Is that not what it is?

No, that is what I'm just saying. I was doing practice for the party. Oh, yeah. You say, and you know what? Jowen has struggled with us in the past. If you think about the Kansas City game last year, they really hit them with sim pressure. Yeah, the Eagles did have a lot of trouble picking up.

They had six sim pressures in that game. 11, they had seven exchanges in total. One was actually a blitz and a sim pressure at the same time. What do you call that? When they blitz two guys and drop one, what do you call that that that's the next level party uh question what do you call that i don't know i don't know i call it a i call it a blitz exchange but i don't know i don't know what it's actually called um now dallas goddard didn't play that game so i think we can just throw that one out

you know the eagles spent like a like a comical amount of that game in ten personnel with like hollio jones and the tight-end roll so it was it was not a good offensive performance worse things in the world than having hollio on the game no wonder hollio jones got pneumonia a week later Oh, man. I see what you did there. It's good. Yeah, so it's not that, though, with Spags. It wasn't contagious.

I just want to say that. For me, the thing that sticks out to when you chart like a game by Spags, two things stick out. One, the variety of the coverages, right? So you can say, okay, well, they played cover one. But when you watch Spack, when you watch like a normal defensive coordinator play cover one, it's like the same kind of cover one every time. You can tell it's going to be, it's like what the bills did last week against the Chiefs. It's like there's a single high safety,

and then there's like a linebacker in the hole, and then the other five guys are man to man. Spag isn't like that. Like he'll play one snap like that the whole game. He'll use a guy as a spy. He'll use, he'll do robber. He'll drop eight and have an extra guy. You know, they'll play two man and play man that way.

I mean, they just have so many different ways of getting to the same coverages. And the same is true when they play cover three. Like sometimes they'll rotate into cover three. Sometimes it'll just be, you know, you can tell who the post safety is. They'll play cover three that way. They'll blitz and cover three.

They'll do the exchange. They spin into like some exotic version of cover six that I've never seen before, you know, it's like they did in this last game against the bill. So they just have so many different looks. And famously, he brings out some of the most exotic stuff at the most important moment. And I keep coming back to this play from last year's Super Bowl when they played against the 49ers. Biggest play of the year, it's third and five. The 49ers have the ball. It's regulation.

If they convert a first down, they're going to be able to bleed the clock down and kick the field goal to win the game. third and five, Shanahan calls like the most vanilla play ever, just two slants with no motion, they have kiddle in to protect. And Spaggs comes out with, first of all, the guys on the field are insane. They have two defensive linemen on the field. Chris Jones, George Garloffters, are the only defensive linemen on the field. He's got two safeties, three corners, sorry, two linebackers, three corners, four safeties. And he sends a six-man pressure where he brings McDuffie from one side,

he brings one of the safeties from the other side, he brings both linebackers up the middle. 49ers are totally confused they're blocking four guys with they're blocking three guys with four guys on one side and then they're blocking three guys with two guys on the other. McDuffie comes in clean, Purdy has to throw it away and the game ends up going to overtime

for that reason. I thought that was such a moment of like when it matters most what do you bring to the table? And Shanahan has all these fancy cool things that he does and he but he's scared to bring it at that moment he calls like the most vanilla play ever

and Spaggs comes out with like a completely insane personnel grouping, play call, like everything. And we saw the same thing against the bills last week on the fourth down where he sends the corner, McDuffie again. So I just think like you're going to get that and it still haunts me that Kelsey called the wrong protection on that third and three before the famous fourth and three putt. Like that sequence. Like I'm I'm not okay. Well, we know that. I'm not a stable person. But that second and five, all curls, Zach Pascall, two-yard completion that wasn't designed to get a first down.

I didn't understand that. And then the third and three, they mess up the protection call because Spaggs sent McDuffie from one side and gave from the other. Kelsey was on the radio yesterday and he said, I overthought it. And the reason he overthought it is because they've been sending blitzes from so many different places before that, that it was very obvious that Willie Gay was going to blitz. But Kelsey somehow was like preoccupied by what if Nick Bolton comes up the middle on this or whatever. and so Goddard was standing right in front of Willie Gay. But he made the protection so that Goddard actually blocked the other way.

So he and Kenny Gaynewell were both blocking to one side. I didn't watch this like 20 times last night. Don't worry. This is why you're the best. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm surprised that that came up. What was this when he was talking about it? They were talking about Spags with Kelsey on WIP,

and he was talking about how like that sequence that he and Nick, actually I was going to ask you guys what you thought about this. He said that when he and Nick talked about, that they both had regrets about that sequence and he said that he that nick told him in private that he kind of wishes he had gone for it on the fourth and three so you know i don't know i don't think he said that publicly no bo i both has did you ask him on or i'm not allowed to say okay okay okay okay yeah um but i got you okay okay okay but i yeah okay okay but well two things let's let's go to nick first because I think that that's a major question in this game.

If this is a tight game, is Nick going to turn the dial of aggressiveness? And most of the season, I would have said, no, I don't think that's what he wants to do. But we saw it last week, the fourth and five, that was a big departure for him. I wonder if the Jake Elliott stuff plays into it enough to matter, but I don't know if it's fourth and three at the 40,

their own 40 if Nick is going to feel emboldened to go for that. I think maybe later in the game, maybe he would. But I think it's a huge factor in this game. Yeah, so I think later in the game, he would be more emboldened. This isn't informed saying this. This is just my speculation.

If the Eagles have a lead with like seven minutes to go, okay, I think you're going to see them, like, do everything they can to have one of those drives where, If that includes gone for fourth downs, I think it will be four down football. I think they'll do everything they can to finish the game with the ball or make it a two-possession game. I don't think, I think one of their things with this game is don't give Patrick Mahomes a chance to win the game. Like, whatever you, you know, if you miss it on fourth down, so be it.

But don't give Patrick Mahomes a chance to go downfield and win the game or have the ball last. Like I don't, you know, and it reminds, it's going to be like Jim Schwartz, where Jim Schwartz is like, one way or the other you're getting the ball back one or the other you're getting the ball back i i think that my guess is that might come from howie like who geoffrey like whatever you do

because if you remember what was the one you know Jeffrey he he said this publicly at the owners meetings after the Super Bowl he wishes jail and had a chance to have them you know and like i think whatever it is it's going to be like and that honestly i mean we don't want to just relitigate Jonathan Gannon but that was to me the biggest

the biggest mark against Gannon was the way he played that last drive. Like, giving up a touchdown is not the worst thing. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, relitigating that Super Bowl was a painful process, but, like, I didn't think that we'd have to do this, but like now that we have the rematch so soon, it's really hard not to think about two things about Jim Schwartz, right?

One, he told Doug he was going to get him the ball back no matter what, whereas again, and let the chief split out the clock. The other is the one time Schwartz had to call a game on a field where his pass rush couldn't get there was at Wembley against the Jaguars, I don't know if you guys remember. That was a terrible field as well, and the defensive line couldn't rush. And so what did he do?

He blitzed more than he ever had as the Eagles defense coordinator. He said, look, my pass rush isn't getting there, so we're going to change the game plan. And obviously, Gannon didn't do that either. I apologize. It did not even cross my mind that Bo Jackson is wearing a Kansas City Royals. But you're talking about Spags. Like when I've watched Spags historically,

and then when I watched some of their stuff this week to refamiliarize myself, the thing that comes in this is obvious statement but the thing that comes to mind is like if you're of our age or around our age and you grew up watching eagles football this is this is what it looked like every third down jim johnson would just throw exotic pressures and the eagles haven't really had that type of approach since 2013 uh you know really is where where you knew third down they were dialing it up and i i kind of like that like i i i like making making them feel uncomfortable comfortable, you know? That's a, it's of Spags. It is, you see the Jim Johnson influence with the way he calls the game.

Well, that's the second thing here. And, and as we hear you talk about, you know, the biggest moments of the game and all of those things that Spags is going to send to confuse the offense, to me, if I'm thinking of it from the, from the Eagles coaching standpoint, the biggest, the best way to solve that problem is to not drop back. right, is to just run the ball down their throat. And so I know that that's not necessarily what you want to see, but I think they may view this as a game where maybe we can just run the ball down their throat so much that we're not going to get behind the sticks in those third and long situations and give Spags the chance to make us wrong.

Maybe. Now, empirically, the way teams get behind the sticks is by running it too much, right? And so, like, I mean, I know you're not a fan of running it on second and ten. So this is a very interesting question. will Spagg sell out against the run the way the Rams and commanders did because when you look at the Rams game of course like Sequin had the big run at the end

but the Eagles were three for 15 I think in success rate running the ball in the second half and that's because the Rams were throwing an extra safety into the box like blitzing an extra guy like I mean they were just doing everything they could and it was played in a blizzard so it was a little bit you know with a caveat but it was like a very high variance run game

for the Eagles right it was like like if you can get past that first level, it's going to be a home run. But there's also going to be a lot of unsuccessful runs. Now, does Spaggs want to play that game? Or is he going to play a game where he's inviting those three-yard runs, four-yard runs, let's just stop them normally, and then they'll have a holding penalty at some point. Yeah. It'll get to third and five at some point, and I can bring out my exotic blitz, you know? So I'm very curious. I think Spags is thinking really what's your guess? What's your guess? I think he's, long and hard about this. I think he's gonna I don't think he's gonna do what the Rams and commanders did. I don't think he's gonna do that kind of thing where it's like

I'm gonna I'm gonna like you know maximize the chance of of getting like a TFL on a Sequeon run because that's exactly how teams have allowed the long run. Like when you look at those long runs they're mostly on blitzes or six man lines or stock boxes and that's that's the that is the approach of a defense that doesn't trust itself to hold up the whole drive right? I think I think that's whereas with spags I think I think I think he does. And so I think you're probably right that he would be more willing to force the Eagles to play the matriculate the ball downfield game. Yeah, I think that's right. Nate Tice was saying he was on a Chris Long's podcast in an interview with Bo Allen and he was saying that

the Chiefs have been a little bit better against the run than the numbers make it look this year because most of the runs that they've allowed have been against two back runs where they played like you know they played the Ravens and the bills and they use fullbacks and the Eagles don't do a whole lot of that. I don't think it's going to be a big Kari Blassin game game. He's played no more than I think two snaps in any game.

So it's always funny. It's whatever he's in the, I feel like the meme or whatever, the once upon a time in Hollywood. I'm like, there's Blossom games in the game. There you go. He's in the game. I saw CJ Usoma at Wanamakers last week. Right after our show.

Yeah, right after the show, I was walking through Wanamakers, which is tragically closing. And he didn't tell you that he was about to get his practice window activated? Yeah, you know, he looked right at me, but he didn't feel the need to talk to me, probably because he has no idea who I am. But yeah, he was, you know, blowout sale. I mean, I understand. He's there.

C.J. Uzama among the candidates for that really drunk guy at halftime. I actually have a different. I think the Eagles are going to be unafraid of getting into third down here. Like, you know, I actually think their worry here will be getting in third and longs. I think they're going to want to live in, you know, a third and three, third and four in this game. Yeah, that's what I was saying. Oh, okay.

I thought you might they wouldn't want to have these, these long drives. No, I think they don't want to have third and longs. Oh, yeah. Yes. Okay. Yeah, I think you're going to see more early down running than I think you're going to see fewer shots on early downs than maybe the numbers might bear out because I think they're going to do everything they can to mitigate putting Jelen in a spot where the blitz is coming

at him on third and 10 and he has to put the ball up for grabs. It's been a weird year. for the Chiefs. They're actually 10th this season at getting to third down, my favorite stat, and 23rd at getting to fourth down. Yeah. So they've actually been bad on third downs. Yeah, they're 26th in the league and third downs. Right. So it's been kind of unusual that way. You know, and I didn't do the full breakdown of like distance to go on third down, but that's not like other years with Spags where they've been, they've been better on the late downs. What is, what are your expectations for how Kellynne Moore will give Jalen Hertz answers when

they do have to protect on third and long. Yeah, look, I've criticized Kellynne Moore, probably more than anybody, but the one thing that I'll admit that he's brought into this offense is more quick answers against the blitz, right? And going back to those blitz numbers I was sharing earlier, there were five zero blitzes in the Super Bowl and four in the game last year. So we're going to expect like multiple zero blitzes, big blitzes from Spags in this game. And we've seen this year that Jalen's had quicker answers for those than we've seen

certainly than we saw last year where it seems like... Still hasn't seen a ton of those big blitzes. Hasn't seen that many, that's true, but sometimes those exchanges can do the same thing as a big blitz because the guy's coming unblocked anyway, like even if it's not more guys

than you have to block. It's very rare in the NFL, just so people know that there are literally more people rushing than blockers. Like, that's very rare. Usually when it's an unblocked guy, it's because they mess with the protection call and, you know, there's two guys blocking one

and then there's, you know, there's nobody to block another guy. So it's not just about the numbers. It's the way that it's designed and where it's coming from. I think Kellen Moore has installed more answers. And not to keep on quoting Nate Tice, but in that same interview, I thought he mentioned something very interesting. He said, oh, yeah, that's the Scott Linehan influence. And, you know, that's who Kellan Moore came up under.

They were together in Detroit and Dallas. And Scott Lenehan was Nate Tice's dad's OC in Minnesota. So he's like, oh, yeah, I know that stuff. I grew up with that stuff. So some of the quick answers to the blitz is something that Kellyn Moore apparently picked up from him. So that I actually am very, you know, confident that it won't be the kind of thing where Jalen's just running around like crazy, that there will be some sort of answers built in. It won't be like last year where it's like four avert's against zero blitz and none of the receivers have turned around. And you're like, what's he supposed to do?

He was actually, Scott Lenehan was Doug Nussmeyer's offensive coordinator at Idaho. if you go even far back and that was the connection with Duss Meyer and Kellyn Moore replaced him in Dallas is the O.C., right? Yes, exactly. That's right. There you go.

Do you think there's going to be a big crowd around Siaki Ika at Media Day? He's on the Chiefs practice squad. I believe he's the only player who's been on both of these teams this season, right? Yeah, I don't think. What do you think? Podium for Ica?

No, but he takes up space, right? So, but. Wow. Nothing. I really like to. We all take up space. He takes up a lot of space. He was a space eating,

nose tackle up at Baller. Okay. I like them coming out. We're going to take up some space in just a minute. And then we got a lot more to talk about. We haven't even touched on Patrick Mahomes and what Vic Fangio is going to do. That's coming up next.

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And Julia, if you want to pull up the chart on the quarterbacks that I sent you before, you want to contextualize here, Professor, that Mahomes himself is also playing at a different level than he was two years ago. Yeah, I mean, when you look at the quarterback performances and also just the offensive performances in general, 2022 Mahomes was off the charts. I mean, you know, just the best quarterback performance we've seen in the last couple years.

You've got EPA per dropback on the bottom, success rate on the top. Top right is as good as it gets. And Mahomes in 2022 is as good as it gets. 2024, he's looking a little bit like 2024 Jalen Hertz. Yeah, they're literally overlapping. I mean, Jalen's looks like his head is kind of behind Mahomes' torso on the graph there. They're touching. essentially the same EPA per dropback.

Jalins is actually a little bit higher than Mahomes this year and about the same success rate as well. This is Jalen's best year. It might surprise some people by EPA per dropback. Part of that is maybe the low volume and of course the low turnovers. But the 2022 Mahomes just completely off the charts. Now, Mahomes was not that great last year either

and they won the Super Bowl anyway. You know what I mean? Like you turned it on and the playoffs wouldn't matter. And so this is just as a, just to kind of put the season that they've been having in context, which we can talk about the reasons they haven't been as good. Real quick, just going back to this last Eagles game with Fangio, I thought it was a really good game by the defense given how good that Washington offense was.

I think maybe it's getting a little bit underplayed how good the defense was because the offense was just so good that it didn't really matter. But if you had said before the game, like, you know, you're going to hold them to 23 points on, you know, the number of drives that they had. I think we would have all taken that. And we were talking about Spags coming up with timely calls at Keyman. moments to surprise the opponent. I've been very happy with Fangio, who's not necessarily known for that, to come up with

really key calls, like key moments in both of these last two games, like against the Rams, I think we talked about it last week, where he had the drop eight with three defensive linemen and Stafford was completely confused and threw it away. And then in this last game, third and ten, I saw this from the stands and I tweeted it. And I was like, I'm probably wrong, but I think this is what I saw. He comes out with cover two, which might sound like, who cares, cover two. Angio never calls cover two. Like, he just doesn't play cover two.

It was a sixth snap of cover two all year, according to PFF, and I watched them, and I disagree with three of them. I think it was actually the third actual cover two snap of the season. You're the best, man. That is awesome. I disagree with. I mean, one of them just was very clearly.

Bose never heard something that has made them more excited than I disagree with PFF. Oh, yeah, there you go. And it was good cover two, too. The three guys in the middle were matching the routes, and then the outside guys. In any case, it was just clearly surprised Jaden Daniels, and he just like chucked the ball out of bounds, like on a third and 10. So I've been very happy with that, and it's harder to surprise Mahomes.

It's harder to confuse him, but I am very happy that we saw some of that stuff from, from Fangio in this game. Okay, Zach, what do you make of Fangio 0 and 8 all lifetime against Patrick Mahomes? Well, Patrick Mahomes is a really good player. That's where you start. But I think there's something to that in the sense that, look, we discussed. You can't on one hand say he's great against this McVeigh offense, right? And he's great against this LeFerrothan.

And then on the other-Haw- Is his McVe? And then on the other hand, like disregard this is, look, Mahomes does this to a lot of teams. And when granted, too, when Fangio was in the NFC, oh, I'm sorry, in the AFC West, those Broncos teams were not as good as the Chiefs, right? So that factors into it too. It's not just, you know, those are bad Broncos offenses. It was hard to beat the chiefs then. There's a reason why the chiefs have won the division in the past decade.

Most of those losses came when Fanjia was the coach of the Broncos. But I don't dismiss that because Patchmore Holmes and Andy Reid, it's how we started the show. It's that combination should scare the heck out of Eagles fans. Yeah, two of them came last year when he was in Miami, including in the playoffs. The snow or the cold. The cold game when he had like linebackers and edge rushers who he had just met like the day before the game playing for him. I mean, I don't know if you remember, they were so depleted on defense that they were signing street free agents and having them play a lot of snaps. And those guys all hated him.

Because he was in the press box that day. They had just gotten there and they hated them already. They're like, this is like it's illegal to be outside right now. It's like a state of emergency mix up there drinking hot chocolate. I thought I was really hoping I'd get something out of that game. So I started watching some of the third downs. And I was like, what? Is this really Fangio calling this game?

and then I looked at the numbers, he blitzed on 54% of the snaps, played man on 60%. He sent 18 cover zero blitzes in that game. And I think what it was is... He just wanted to become the Eagles coordinator. He had just met these guys, and he was like, I'm not going to be able to teach them my coverages.

Like, I'm just going to say, like, go get that guy, you know? And it actually... You talk about being distracted. I wonder if the Eagles already had communication with him by that point, right? Oh, there you go. It certainly seemed like it, right? Didn't he basically say right after the game, like, that he's, like, leaving? Yeah.

It actually worked at the beginning. Mahomes started one for six for three yards against those cover zero blitzes, and then he eventually hit some. But in any case, this is not going to be like that. I don't think we're going to see a single cover zero blitz from Fangio in this game. He's only called one in the last two months. And I don't think it'll be all that different. And part of the reason that maybe that plays into the Eagles hand

and why Fangio won't do that is because this Chief's offense not very explosive. No, not at all. if you look at Mahomes do we have that chart with the expected completion percentage this is the last one I sent to Julia if we look at like expected completion

percentage which is next gen stats his way of measuring how likely it is for a throw to be a completion shout out to Doug analytics yeah Doug does a great job with these graphs what an aptonym well he's got a great website where you can kind of make the graphs yourself yeah I think we've talked about

that before he was born to do this Doug you'll see him a Holmes there on the bottom right of the graph which basically means that he has very easy throws to complete and he's not necessarily completing more than you'd expect him to and then Jalen is on the exact opposite part of the graph he's at the very top left and he's been he's lived there his whole career it basically means he throws very difficult throws and he completes an unusual number of them now part of that of course is the is the very big difference in wide receiver talent between these two teams. We've talked about that before, but when you look at the difference between the 2022 chiefs

and the 2024 chiefs, the run game is about the same in terms of efficiency. The past games, the difference, right? In 2022, they were first by a mile in EPA per dropback. Like, they weren't just first. The second best team was nowhere close to them. This year, they're 10th in EPA per dropback. And if you look at the reasons, they don't really have talent at wide receiver. Rishi Rice looked like he was on his way to becoming a star.

he got injured in week four. He's been out since then. Early in the season, they were turning it over. Mahomes, very much like Jordan Love, who on this show, I thought he and Mahomes

were basically the same guy. I mean, listening to you guys, but he threw, Mahomes threw interceptions in each of the first seven games, and then he hasn't thrown any in any of the last eight, right? So it's very similar to Love

where he was throwing interceptions early. They've been bad in the Red Zone this year, which is very un-Andy, right? I mean, Andy's been very good. They've been good stuff. Sol Korea, maybe. We'll see.

I know they ran that play. The direct snap to Pacheco last week was apparently from like 1960 or whatever. Andy loves that stuff. But they're 22nd in the Red Zone this year. They were second in 2022. And then you were saying they're not explosive. They were first by a mile in big plays per game in 2022.

They had five a game. This year they have fewer than three a game. They're 27th. And when you look at them throwing the ball deep, not only are they, do they not throw the ball deep? I mean, they are 29th in deep passes per game, fewer than three. They're also not completing them. They're 29th in completing them at 26%.

They were 43% in 2022. And then this is shocking. I had to like make sure I did the filter right on this. Mahomes finished the regular season with 17 straight incompletions on deep passes. The last 17 times he threw the ball 20 plus air yards in the regular season. They were all incomplete. his only completion in the playoffs on a pass like that was the absolute should have been interception

on the wild ball he threw up to Xavier Worthy that they had to review that went through the safety's hands that's the only completion he has on a deep pass since we've 13 so he's won for his well that was it he was due and he got that one so he was he's won for his last 21 they've also had a lot of issues at left tackle I mean Juanier Morris had to play 10 games but now they have Joe two things

he was terrible and then And sliding Joe Tuny, Joe Tuny, I believe, is already in the Hall of Fame. You know, they made an exception for him, and they put him in already because he said it. I have so many thoughts on that. I think sliding him out to left tackle and having Mike Colliando play left guard,

that might be good for the Eagles. I mean, like, you're, like, you're matching Mike Colliando up against Milton Williams in this game. I mean, are you going to use, are you confident enough in Trey Smith? Maybe they are, that they do with him what Atlanta did with Lindstrom and say you block 98 and then we'll you know we'll take care of the other guys. I'm very curious if they do that. I think that's fascinating. I think they probably do do that.

I'm very, yeah, we'll see. And they have a very good center in Creed Humphrey, right? A lot of people say he's the best center in the league. And so, you know, he'll shore up some issues there as well. But that's been an issue for them. And so this is not the 2022 chiefs offense is the big point to make out of the loss. And that is, to be fair, the one Super Bowl that they lost was because of the, I mean, it's a team, team. I get it. But the offensive line was the weakness. And they were clear about that. They replaced all five guys the next season.

So the Eagles' best hope of winning this game is dominating the lines to scrimmage. So hold on one for one sec. I just got to say thank you to everybody watching on Fast and remind them that there's more to go on this conversation. You can check it out on all-P-H-L-Y.com. Before you get going, Professor Zach, if you could watch Mike Caliando do any impression, what would it be? Well, Frank Caliando is the one who does the impressions, not Mike Calli-Met.

So, honestly, I would most like Mike Calli-Mondon impression because I would like to speak to Mike Cali-Mondo about him and his life and his football. And, yeah, I'm... You're desperate to talk to him? I'm not desperate, but if I had the opportunity... Don't think it'd be more funny to... No, if I had the opportunity to be a Mike Kowlingo's company,

I wouldn't be like, Mike Duma Holmes. I would want to talk to Mike about Mike. I think Mike Duma Homes is actually pretty good. No, I, yeah, I, if I can't find a redeeming conversation piece with the starting left guard, then shame on me. I'll be honest. I normally think that the Super Bowl opening night, media day, whatever, is kind of silly and not for me.

But when, when Bo's on the ground there, I mean, it's a totally different, totally different game. So I can't wait for the Kaliando, my Kaliando impressions. Well, so the opening night, actually, just to give kind of people a peek behind the curtain, it's actually extraordinarily valuable for the beat reporters of the team that they're covering because, like, that's when you can talk to Jeffrey Lurie. That's when you can talk, like everyone in the organization is available. So it kind of has the reputation of being, you know, the eccentric Access Hollywood Reporter.

But that's mostly the podium. Exactly. That's what the fans are seeing, right? And I get that. But like for us, I don't want to say it's the most valuable night, but look, I'm looking forward to speaking to Jeffrey Lurie. That's the opportunity to speak to Jeffrey Lurie is on media night or opening night, however you want to frame it. Right. And it's only one of like two times you get to talk to him all year, right? Like, well, you can talk to Jeffrey Lurier anytime you want. That's right. You and him are going on a road trip. He's on the speed dial. He's not the speed dial. No, no. I mean, that's unfair to my wife and my mother and my, but, but, no, I can't talk to Jeff or Lori whenever I want. But I'm looking forward to speaking of on Monday, for sure. Okay. You were going to talk about something.

I was going to ask you, I was going to ask you what you thought Fangio's approach would be, given that the chiefs do like to dink and dunk. I mean, they have 30% of their attempts are behind the line scrimmage, which, He's like by far the most of any team in the league. And Fangio is known as someone who is willing to give those up sometimes. We've talked about the flats and giving up the flats. I'm curious if you think he'll treat this differently or if he's going to be just, it's just going to be just tackle those guys.

I think he's trusted the guys to tackle those guys ever since Dijin went into the lineup. I don't know that he's going to change that. Do you? No, I don't. Yeah. And we'll talk about Dijin and how valuable he can be in a lot of ways. In a second, I had a few questions on that as well. But yeah, I agree.

I don't think he's suddenly going to be like, we have to take away the screen game. So we're going to sell out against this or whatever. They're very good against the screen game anyway. Early on, when they really turn things around. And after the buy, and it was like, all it took was just putting Cooper Dijun into the lineup.

And all of a sudden, the defense got good. And I think, like, that was overstated because it was also about the rest of the guys understanding the defense and understanding the scheme. But I do that. think that you can make the case that like quinion Mitchell's been a better player and it should be the defensive rookie of the year potentially but i think the defense would be would be worse if you

swapped out somebody if you swapped in evante maddox for cooper de jean than if you swapped in isaiah rogers for quinine Mitchell because i think i think what de jean allows them to do is so important i agree and actually i had a conversation with someone two days ago when we were talking about look what the entire offseason to talk about the off season but we were talking kind of the Eagles future plans at corner. And I was like, you know, Slay walks and put the gene there. And the person was like,

I wouldn't move the gene at all. He's so valuable in that spot. Is that how you guys view it? I certainly do. I think just in base, you can play out there. But yeah, I mean, I think regularly he should see, he should stay there.

Washington played so many snaps of 12 personnel this last game. They played 21 personnel. They played a snap of 13 personnel. Dejean didn't leave the field for any of them. So you don't have to play base, right? And that's the thing with Fangio. And I know Zach, him about this a few weeks ago, like the advantages of being able to do some of the things

you like to do. A professor Shalman question. With that, well, thank you. I mean, yeah, I appreciate you asking him. And he said, yeah, I mean, he didn't give that much detail, but he did say like, yeah, it's good when you can do things without subbing. Well, that's one of the biggest differences between those first four weeks and later. When it was Avanti Maddox, he had to take him off the field.

They were playing a lot more base, right? And now you can just leave DeGine out there. He can play as a linebacker if you need him to. He can cover the table. tight end if you need him to you know what i mean like if they're in a big personnel grouping you can have de jean cover the tight end and we have to talk about that in this game chiefs play a lot of 12 personnel on early downs they have Travis kelsey how are you going to cover him are you going to stay a nickel and the answer is almost obviously yes you know i mean you're

going to stay in nickel you're going to leave the gene out there and i think i totally agree that um maddox for de jean is a more of a downgrade than isaiah rogers for quignon that's nothing jami i i don't i don't want jay me to get upset at me i think You can say that Quinnianich is probably a better player right now, but Cooper Jr.: is a more important player for this defense. You could also say quiet comparison is a thief of joy. We don't have to. Sure, we don't have to compare.

But quiet hero of the season, Isaiah Rogers. I mean, like, it seems like he's had to come in so many times. Like, Slay seems to get hurt for a driver to every game. And he comes in, and they do throw at him. And he's survived it for the most part, you know? And I don't think a lot of teams have a third outside corner who they can rely on like that. Look at what happened to Buffalo last week. as that poor, poor number five,

Cairo I'llim came into the game. I mean, you know, it was, game was over. Like on that side of the ball at that point. Yeah, I thought Vic was interesting two weeks ago talking about Isaiah Rogers' season. Like, if you recall during training camp, we were talking about him as a potential starter.

And Vic was saying how well he was playing during camp, and then he got hurt. And Vic said he wasn't the same guy for a few weeks, which was good honesty. And then he said he's back to playing the way he was during the summer. It's interesting. I mean, useful on some.

special teams too. Especially now that he learned the rule that you can't push the, you can't push the gunner into the returner. It's just funny that like the finger was such in the way that he was playing. You wouldn't think of that as like really affected his playing style as opposed to just he couldn't catch the ball. The time on task, right? Yeah. Okay.

For sure. What else from the, the AFC championship game stood out to you as like, well, Vic wouldn't have to do it that way or Vic certainly wouldn't choose to do it that way? Yeah. I mean, I don't want to talk too much about. the details of that specific game. It just happens to be the last one they played, and so it's the one that I watched. But I think the parallels with the way that Fangio will play against certain things

might be worth talking about. So one thing they did in that game, they played, they used a lot more RPO than I've seen them use recently. It was a heavy RPO game. They did like some of the Dolphins stuff, like Seam Wheel Flat type RPOs, and Mahomes is so good at recognizing the coverage and throwing it to the right guy.

So against cover three, he hits Juju's, Smith-Schuster for the seam. And I'm watching that play and I'm like, he just ran right between the underneath defenders into a wide open space. And if this is the Eagles, that's going to be one of the underneath defenders matching him and running with him. Like they're not just going to play that kind of zone, you know, like drop zone where that seam is going to be there. So that's not going to work. Against cover one, they hit the wheel to Kelsey. And the reason he's open is because Damar Hamlin has to cover him and he's coming from depth. And here, I think it's worth noting that Zach Kurtz had a big game against Reed Blankenship in the NFC championship.

And some of those were zone where Reed was coming down into his area. Some of them were just man coverage where he was lined up against him from the snap. This season for the most part, when it's been man coverage, it's been CJGJ on the tight end and Reed in the post. And when it's zone coverage, it's usually Reed rotating down either into the flat or into that middle of field area. I'm really curious when it's Kelsey, whether Vic is going to be okay. with just lining Reed Blankenship up against him and covering him, or is he going to

kind of just let the where Kelsey's lined up dictate it because usually reads to the boundary, CJGJ is to the field, and then they rotate down based on that. And if it is 12, you think it'll just be DeGine? If it's 12, I think the big question is,

are they lining up the two wide receivers to the same side? Yeah. Because Vic Fangio does not ever move his outside corners to the same side of the field. He's done it zero times this season. And so if you have two wide receivers on the same side,

that will occupy DeGine. Like DeGine will have to be on that side. Unless you treat one of the receivers as, you know, not as dangerous as Kelsey and say, you know, CJ, GJ, go get the receiver. Cooper DeGene, you're in charge of 87. I don't know if that makes sense. I think the gene's size and physicality and speed combined.

The best matchup, yeah. Make him perfect to cover Kelsey. But I don't know if, like, Fangio would change. Like, he hasn't really done anything like that all season. where he treats a tight end like a receiver and a receiver like a tight end. I don't know. What do you guys think? Yeah, I mean, Kelsey had a huge game against the Fangio defense in 2020.

Eight catches, 136 yards, one touchdown. But other than that, he wasn't lighting up that defense every week. Although in 19, he had 11 catches, 142 yards. So something to pay attention to for sure. I mean, Kelsey's, you know, there's a reason why he went high in that draft yesterday. like he is a wide receiver there and I think that's the matchup you know bow and I were exchanging notes already this week about some of the things we would talk about and I and one of the questions I had was did Blankenship's performance worry you going into the Kelsey game yeah and I think to your point I don't think that Vic Fangio is going to let going to let that be the matchup that decides this game yeah I agree and you know watching from the stands I was thinking like oh that was tough for Reed because he was coming down and rotating down and Earth says like the you know He's like one of the best leverage usage, you know, tight ends in the league. But watching on the film, a couple of them were just flat out.

It's clearly a manned coverage and reads just on him the whole way. And he still got out leveraged and beat, you know. And if there's one guy who runs those kinds of leverage routes, even better than Zach Earts, it's Travis Kelsey is probably the best in history at it. I thought it was also really funny. Zach Bond yesterday talking about Kelsey out of structure when he was asked about like, and he said like they do scramble drills differently. and the follow-up was like, what do they do?

And he said, like, well, other teams, the receivers, like, kind of work across the field on the scramble drills. Kelsey just stands there. And he's just open. And it's like, you had a touchdown against the Texans where he literally, like, walked into the end zone, turned around and just stood there.

And it's because he doesn't run to get covered like a lot of players do. You know what I mean? He can ignore the play call and be like, there's no one right here. And the quarterback can trust that the quarterback will make that throw. Yeah, it's like they have telepathy. It's really crazy.

Now, the thing that the bills did that I thought destroyed them in that game was they played obvious, obvious man coverage, pre-snap, like totally clear, single high. And I think the chiefs ran run plays that could beat that with the QB Plus 1 game. And they ran a bunch of mesh, rub, like all those kinds of things. That's not going to happen to the Eagles. Like, that hasn't happened to the Eagles all season. First of all, they don't play as much man. Second, when they do play man, they disguise it.

They don't just have like three guys like pressed up against like a three man bunch. And I just don't think that a lot of the things that worked in that game are going to are going to work against the Eagles. Eagles have been very good against stacks and bunches this year. There was the there was a play where worthy like dove into the end zone on a flat where they had like two rub routes. And his guy was nowhere near him. Like there was another, there was a mesh play where the same thing happened. I just don't think that stuff's going to work. Chiefs love to go four by one, which works really well against zone.

coverages. If you can stomach it, you can check my Twitter for a clip from the last Super Bowl where all four guys are wide open against who is the defense coordinator again, Jonathan Gannon, where there's six guys covering grass and then there's four guys wide open. It was one of the most embarrassing defensive plays you'll ever see. That stuff's not going to happen in this game. Fangio has been very good against those kinds of off-balance type stuff. So I'm relatively confident that we're not going to see that kind of Vanjio being outschemed by Andy.

Yes. Even if he hasn't had success in his career so far. And I don't know if you guys saw like that diamond backfield stuff they were doing. Yes. Like they're going to have something new like that in this game. I'm sure it won't be the same thing. But that was really cool. It was like there's two guys pulling for the quarterback and two guys pulling for the running back.

And they ran they ran one of each. And the first thing I thought about that was like, don't run that at Nolan Smith. You know what I mean? If you don't want your guard to get knocked out of the game. Yeah. Like don't run that at Nolan Smith because he knocked out the Green Bay Guard on a counterplay. And then in this last game, he took on a block from Nick Allegretti so hard that

that Allegretti fell back and Nolan Smith made the tackle. And I've never seen that. Like I've never seen that guy make the tackle on that run. Like it's one thing to like blow it up and someone else comes in and makes the tackle. Nolan Smith has been a monster. I thought you're going to give it like a, you know, he hit him so hard. How hard did he hit him? Yeah, he hit him so hard that his grandparents felt it or something like that.

Oh, we got to work on that. Yeah, to work on that for next time. Is that you're a fan of comedy? Yeah, I am. Let's get to the Super Chats. Alex Nuss says, do you think the Chiefs' Super Bowl experience over the Eagles will be more or less of a factor than it was two years ago? A good question.

I think that, look, I mean, the Chiefs have been in this game in, what, five of the last six years? So it's similar to when the Eagles played against the Patriots. I think that matters to an extent. I think that can be overstated. I think if if, look, it might be less of a big deal because these Eagles were here two years ago. But then again, in 2022, the Eagles had players, some leaders who were there in 2017. I think that that matters more for like the league, you know, probably for the coaches in terms of preparation, knowing what to hit on, knowing how to prepare that week.

I think when you get on the field, even with all the hoopla, and I have a story up now with A.J. Brown, kind of talking about how they're paid actors, it's still football. You know, it still comes down to, you know, running, blocking, throwing, catching, right? And so, yeah, I think it matters to an extent. I think more of what matters is that, like, you know, Patrick Mahomes, he won't be rattled if they're down. You saw that.

I went back and I read my game story or the story about the game from the last Super Bowl and I kind of led it with The Eagles. Not the one that Les was jealous of. No, Les is so good in his own right. I can go on about 2017,

but no. The last one, when you and I worked together and I wrote a piece basically how the Eagles were up at halftime, you know, and in the half time, all the players were like,

it's zero, guys, it's zero, and in the chief's locker room, even though it was like a two-score lead, a halftime, or a two-score deficit for them, they're like, we're fine,

we're completely fine. And I remember, you know, like a football analyst retweeted my thing, basically like, yeah, the chiefs,

this is how the chiefs play. Like, this doesn't matter to them. And I think, what? Who's the football analyst? Well, it was a reef.

Yeah. Basically, he made a point, basically saying that, like, Like, it's funny how like this was made to be a big deal that they were trailing when like the Kansas City media didn't even ask about this because like they're just like this is how the chiefs play. Yeah. And yeah, it's similar.

I mean, not apples for apples, but the Patriots come back 28 to 3. You know, I keep thinking about that Scott Pioi clip where the Falcons, scouts or executives are in there cheering. And Piole turns around is like, what are you guys doing? Tom Brady is effing Freddy Cougar. He's going to rip your heart out. He's doing what to Freddie Kruger? Tom Brady is Freddie Kruger. That's one way to make sure he doesn't come after you, I guess.

Tom Brady is Freddie Kruger. He's going to rip your heart out. It's just a matter if we can survive long enough. And that's kind of how Mahomes is. He's going to keep coming at you. That would explain a lot about Tom Brady, actually. I subscribed to his newsletter today, did you? Freddie Kruger?

No, Tom, it's free to subscribe. Nothing's free, Zach. There's always an opportunity cost, a time cost. Why would I subscribe to Tom Brady's? I know why you would. Why would you? Why would you? Why?

Why? Because more information is better than less information, right? No. Yeah, I mean, if you have, if you would email from Tom Brady in your inbox, you wouldn't read it? No. Yeah, I wouldn't either. You're outnumbered on this one. All right, well, you know what?

I'm fine being outnumbered on this one. Like, access information is a wonderful thing. We look just so profoundly disagree about this. Rob says, some Nuggies. Since week 11, the chiefs are 20th in EPA against the run and 24th in rush success rate. Additionally, the chiefs are 24th in yards per attempt allowed against the slot. What do you think?

The one thing I would, One thing I would do, and this is something that I've been doing in a lot of my numbers, is you probably have to take out Week 18. Week 18 was like the worst performance by any NFL team this season on both sides of the ball when they played all their backups. Like when Andy plays his backups, like they lose 40-0. Like we know that from 2004 and, you know, those games here. They know how to lose like when they play their bad.

Like they do not put any effort into, I don't think they game plan at all. I don't know if they have practice that week. But do you, but on the slot, you do. Do you see that as a weakness? I mean, can we, can we, can we put the, uh, the knob on Devante in the slot up again? Yeah, I think one of the differences in the way that they play is back in 2020, Trent McDuffie was their main slot. Yeah.

And now he's on the outside and, um, they have Chamari Connor playing in the slot. I like the Jamarri kind of, you know, maybe a little bit of a downgrade. He's kind of like a safety safety hybrid. Yeah. So, uh, they will play a lot of different personnel groupings. Like they'll play dime a lot. They'll play big time. Well, they'll bring in Jaden Hicks, the rookie.

And they'll play with Hicks being low in the, like as an underneath receiver. So he could end up kind of on the slot receiver as well. So, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think Devante Smith, like, independent of who's on defense, is very valuable in the slot and probably been underused that way this season. But, yeah, those are good nuggets. We didn't talk that much about the comparison between the Chiefs defense this year last time. the aggregate numbers, they're almost the same.

They were kind of middle of the road then and they're middle of the road now. So it's almost like you have to ignore the regular season and be like what Spag's going to come up with? The other chart, Julia, if you want to flash it up. This is the with the Eagles and Chiefs logos. Where last year's defense was really the great chiefs defense. Yes, last year when the offense was struggling,

the defense really carried them to that title. That's including in the regular season. If you look at the chiefs, so the, like how high the logos are is how good the defense is, so the Eagles defense is the best this year of any of the four years. But if you look at the Chief's defense, they're kind of middle of the road this year,

just like they were in 22. And in total, when you look at this chart, it's kind of, you know, maybe an optimistic way to see it, is this is the best Eagles team on the chart. And you could argue it's the worst chief's team, right? It's the Chief's team that neither the offense nor the defense has had that good a year. Frank DeBarber.

Says, first live show I've caught this week. Good to see you, Frank. He says, humor me. If Jurgens and Dickerson could not go for the Super Bowl, could Kelsey unretire and sign with the Eagles for the Super Bowl? Is this even possible under NFL rules? The answer is yes. And fans might remember Jeff Thomason coming off the construction site.

Oh, yeah, totally. Wow. This Chad Lewis got injured. Yes, Chad Lewis got injured. Jeff Thomason came off the construction site to be a reserved tight end for the Eagles back in 2004. So it is possible. They have his rights. He is retired on their team.

Yeah. Now, Jason Kelsey is, he's lost a good deal of weight. Good for him. And he was already undersized. Yeah. I'll say this, a little Jason Kelsey nugget, okay? No, no, no, no. Beau likes us to keep kind of our location private here.

But we are near where Jason Kelsey hosts a podcast. Okay. So so much for that. been waiting for a boat to hook me up with tickets the whole season hasn't we're near facilities i'm driving to work today and i see people lining outside for this podcast taping right hours away and i'm thinking like man i want to get to a point where we do a live show and people are waiting outside six hours before the taping to get in and see us like talk about podcast goals that to me is is podcast or i'm not even saying

saying podcast goals, show goals. Okay. Like, that is show goals right there. So all you have to do, Zach, has become the most popular person in the city. How are you going to go about doing that? Well, um... You're going to win a Super Bowl?

I don't play football. You're going to take your clothes off? Definitely not that. No. Honestly, I'm just going to keep working hard, keep growing this viewership. You know, I, there's a... I think it was real sports. And I was watching Real Sports one time.

And I watched all the real sports episodes. But they were interviewing a woman who swam across the English channel and they asked her how she did it and she said one stroke at a time right and so how are we going to do it we're going to do a one viewer at a time we're going to keep earning everyone's uh appreciation for the show and loyalty and then we'll get to a point where we can be at a live place and people are going to be waiting six hours before to watch our show i don't know i think if that's your goal you're going to have to play the high variance game so yeah the i think bow is closer to the right strategy there you got you got completely completely change it up

and do stuff that you've never done before and hope that it goes well, it could turn to disaster and you could just be canceled, but you know. Yeah, no, well, I'll think about different things I could do. Thank you, Brian Baker says the best podcast in Philly. I appreciate it.

And yet you don't think Brian Baker is enough. Peter says, you don't think that these good sickos are enough. I think you're enough. I'm happy with you guys. Hey, you know what? There was a live audience at Running Terminal. Yeah, that was awesome. Yeah, that was great. Now, we need to multiply that by like a thousand you know but everyone watching at home right now you if you could

fill an auditorium we'd be in great shape what what i don't know i keep rolling here you have more super chats yes brian our lovely brian says do you think that hasan reddick misses being an eagle right now yeah i do i do i think uh look sometimes you make decisions in in your career, you want more money, but then you realize like the grass isn't always greener. Yeah. So I think Asan Redick is probably regretting this right now. I was going to ask you, Zach, Jordan Milata was pretty explicit in saying that this year's team was closer

knit than the one from two years ago. Do you think, I don't want you to like badmouth any players from that team or anything, but like what do you think the main reason is for that? That this year's team has been, they've all been saying this. Yeah. but I hadn't heard somebody say closer than two years ago. It is also very interesting in the context of,

like you think of the conversations we've had that didn't amount to anything, all the concerns entering the season about, well, they don't have Jason Kelsey and Fletcher Cox anymore. How is the locker room going to do? Well, so I think right there is my answer to it, is that I think there was more of a split the last year,

the last team between the old guys and the new, like it was the holdovers that predated Nick and the players who came with Nick. There was more of that in the locker room. There's much less of that now. You know, and I've heard Lane say like, you know, he's the old guy. Like, you know, he's the old guy. He sits back

and he definitely sees it. And I think there has been like Jason Kelsey, Fletcher Cox, those guys are career, you know, those guys are Eagles Hall famers. But I do think some of the players who've come in since then have really kind of taking control of that locker room a little bit more.

Interesting. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You're saying there was such a division, like such a gap in ages. I wouldn't even say division. I would, yeah, but yeah, I just think there was, yeah, there was just more, there was more of that gap. And I think that that's really closed in the past two years. And maybe it's empowered the younger players because they've had to step up, right? Yeah.

And I think it's been Nick's, I know this, I know this, is it has been Nick's biggest focus. Like the biggest focus in the offseason was the culture. I think when he looked at last year, he saw a culture issue. that needed to be rectified. And I think the biggest thing he focused on this offseason was rectifying the culture. How do you think Jalen has played into all of this? Great question.

I think Jalen has accepted this, I think, but I think Jalen's done some things behind the scenes to be more open with his teammates. Not to say that was an issue before, but yeah, I mean, I think that Jalen's been, look, we talked about when Malcolm left, it became, you know, Carson's team. That's what they wanted it to be. That's what they wanted it to be.

Yeah, like, I think Jalen, there's less on both sides of the ball. There's fewer of those old guys now. And, you know, Jalen can have more of the sway, if you will. Interesting, yeah. Mayelotter was saying, like, we go to each other's houses for dinner more and that kind of thing. I don't think Jalen's invite the team to his house, a guy, but maybe the threshold was so low for that. Yeah, unless Brandon Graham and Big Dom come over.

That's right. Grace with the Super Chat says, I feel good about Kellan. I feel great about the players in Vic. Are we worried about Siriani at all, or has he been trending more positively? I think this is a U question for game management, David. Well, you know, you were talking earlier about how you were surprised that he went forward on fourth and five. I was, too, though, remember against Green Bay, in the fourth quarter, there was a fourth and

four. It was kind of similar situation where it was like is he just trying to draw them off sides and then he ended up snapping the ball

hit that slant to AJ that was a big play in that game so those two things from these playoffs and the fact that he's so like unscientific

in his way that he approaches things makes me think he's going to think about that last Super Bowl he's going to equate that to this Super Bowl and he's going to say

I'm not going to make the same mistake again, right? And because the mistake he made last time was not being aggressive enough, I think that in this case, his pseudoscience is going to push him in the right direction, and he will go forward on maybe not from his own 30, whatever, like that depends on the way the game's going. Yeah. But I think he'll be more likely to make the appropriate right decision this time because it bit him last time, if that makes sense. I stand by what I said earlier. I think whether he came to that conclusion or not, I think that's going to come

from above him here. I think when they meet to talk about the game, like the thing they're going to reinforce is you're our guy. Like go down swinging here. You know, you know, don't go down being, yeah,

like it, yeah, I shouldn't say go down swinging. Like make sure you swing that bad. Make sure that you're, you're aggressive. I think it would really rankle Jeffrey Lorry if they lost the game being conservative.

Yeah. And so I, and same thing with Hallie Roseman, right? I think the emphasis. is going to be aggressive. Yeah, they're probably thinking like the time we won, we threw the ball to the quarterback on fourth down.

Exactly. Exactly. More super chats. We appreciate that. We've got another one from Rob, who says, does the Superdome fast track favor the birds? Well, the best play of Dallas Goddard's career is running down a less of a lot of life.

I was thinking about that this morning. Does it favor the Eagles? Underrated play. I don't know if it favors Eagles or not. I know, like, Sequin does not like playing. on turf. Oh really? Yeah, Seiklund really does not like playing on turf.

He likes playing on natural grass. Just the- You played on the-to-the-body or... Played on one of the worst fields in the whole league. It's the whole career. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, look, you don't have to worry about slipping. In New Orleans, it's gonna play true, so that might be an advantage.

This will be the second time, not that anyone asked, that I've been in that building when I go to this game. The first time, it was during college, we went to Mardi Gras in New Orleans. As you do. And most of the group, as we do, yeah. Most of the group had left already. HD over here.

Just me and my buddy's Satlin and Ben, shout out. The three of us, before our flight, we had like a few hours. And we were like, let's go to the Superdome. They have tours. Okay, this is like a thing you do, right, in college. So we did a tour and they took us to one of the luxury boxes. And it was the first time during the tour that you could see the field. And I got really excited.

And I was like, so I ran towards the field to just to just to, see it. This is like, from a luxury box? Like away from the group. Yeah, yeah, because the group was, like, they were showing us like where you get the champagne or whatever. And so, but the field was like on the other side of the box. So it was like a big room where they have parties or whatever. It was field level? No, it was like upper deck, upper deck luxury box kind of thing. I'm confused. So you're running like down the, we hadn't seen the inside of the, of the, like, we had only seen like the locker room or whatever at that point. We had this is not a Looney Tunes thing where you're running in midair. No. We were, I was running. I was running.

on like a carpet in a thing. But the reason I'm telling the story is because I was sprinting towards the field to see the field. But there was a glass wall that I didn't see. And I just went face first into the glass wall

and literally fell backwards and like yelled out. And the guy organizing the tour was like, oh my God, are you okay? Like the whole group came over to me and all that. So anyway, I hope for a better experience this time. I won't I won't.

I mean, I feel like you had it coming for just sprinting off. It was weird. I mean, I don't know why I got so excited, but I was like, oh, I got to see the fields. But, okay. Anyway. One more super chat, I think we have. From Real Time with Prince Blue,

who says, I would wait online for the professor to do my quantitative research. How fun to you? Well, thank you. I heard someone say, does your class get automatic bees this time of year? Prince Blue says so it was like Lonnie too. It kind of in the end it was, yes.

It really was, yeah. Are you what more lenient greater this time of year? Because you've game film to break down? This rare overlap of like, it has to the Eagles basically have to get to the Super Bowl for it to be this much of an overlap. It's a little bit. It's a little bit something. But classes on Monday were canceled from the original syllabus because I was confident that this would happen.

So that's the one leniency they got is they get the day off on Monday. And I'm not sure they all know the reason why. is the reason why Claire also with the super chat wants to speak into existence then is his worst nightmare she says she can't wait for Sequin Barclay to be Super Bowl MVP I mean if that means that means we win the game that's fine I imagine that Sequin runs for 250 yards in a losing effort and he's still the MVP that would really be here that would that would like perfectly fit my my biggest fears do you know the last I'm sure a lot of fans would have a

parade for that because that seems to be what they care about Do you know the last running back who was Super Bowl MVP? Is it your boy? Is it Terrell Davis? It's Terrell Davis, 1998. Wow. The second one? Yeah, 1998.

The last running back. No, the first one. The first one, the first one. Okay. That's interesting. Yeah. It's been a long time. So the first one that L.A. won.

He wasn't even. It was on the first one. It was 1998 Super Bowl. So 97 season. Oh, that's the first one. Okay. You say the season. You say the season.

But it's the year. Who cares what year the Super Bowl was. There's a convention. That's when the Super Bowl is a convention. Yeah, but there's a convention to remembering the season. The 2018 Eagles didn't win the Super Bowl. Yeah, but you know what my one Super Bowl take is? I am so anti-Roman numerals.

Oh, you don't like the Licks. You don't like Licks? Licks is good. I don't like the Licks is good. In New Orleans? In New Orleans, too. Yeah, no, Licks is good. And you can also do Super Bowl X.

So, like, what are your Super Bowl X? No, I mean, just give. For me, it's like when they're reviewing a catch. Yick. Do you think they're going to stop at some point when it gets to be like LXXXVIIII Like is that like too many

They can at this point, right? Just give me the number. That's why I like Super Bowl 50. It's easy. Give me the number. I like the Roman numbers. Super Bowl 50 was the last Super Bowl in San Francisco. I also like that they're getting a little more,

a little more creative. Let's say next year is in San Francisco. So maybe. they'll go back next year to the number. I hope not. No. That was a 50. This is your big take?

That's the year that they had the 50-yard line be like a different color. Yeah. So that's why they did that. Just give me the number. Come on. An impassioned plea. Yeah. Is there anyone in the chat who prefers the Roman numerals?

Julia, what's your view? Thank you. I have to think about it. Yeah. This one's. easy it's just licks yeah yeah yeah all right should be a fun week thank god you it knows me who said it i would never hear the end of that comment ever can't wait can't wait to see guys down there if it was you who said what i'm not saying it i'm look six years with you i'm

not what did i say i was just going to say by the way i'm going to go down there on friday and i hope you guys are still on speaking terms by that after all the time you're going to spend together but if you guys are free for dinner or something it would be awesome uh on friday night paul McCartney. Yeah, well, like Paul McCartney this time. Yeah, there you go. And for those of you who are wondering, yes, Feldman will be at the Super Bowl.

He's going to get there Saturday night. And maybe we can have a way for people to meet him. No, I think it's better if he's not a real, if he's an abstraction. I think that's better. Gotcha. Yes. So next week we are going to be boots on the ground.

All kinds of stuff headed your way. We've got our normal 2 o'clock shows every single day. from Radio Row, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, 2 o'clock. And then we're going to have some bonus shows. We're going to have a show after Media Night, late night on Monday night. That'll be a loopy one. And then we're also going to have shows probably about 6 p.m. Eastern Time, also from Radio Row.

You know, we gather so much content. We're going to have some good interviews that we're looking forward to, maybe some old show favorites as well. And, of course, we're going to have like just, uh, uh, separate videos that go up. We're going to have social content. All kinds of stuff. It should be a baffo week for the Eagles fan. I can't wait. I'm so excited. I'm excited for the content from from PHI. We've got a good crew going down there. As I've said before, it's a different experience covering the team you cover in the Super Bowl compared to covering the Super Bowl generally. I will say to the audience, to the viewers, the listeners, the readers,

if there's anything you want from down there, if there's a story, you want me to pursue. If there's an interview you want us to get, leave it in the comments. I read every comment. And I will do, you know, we get a lot of access down there. You know, my, with this job compared to past show, on past jobs, the show is a major part of it relative to like just the writing, but we'll make sure that we have every form of media covered. and adjusted under the horn Brian says anyone done a wellness check on James Bradford? Yeah he's been in the building this week

He'll be down in New Orleans next week I look forward to catching. I've spoken to James a few times this year Yeah looking forward to catching up with him down there All right that'll do it for this episode of the PHLY Eagles podcast Thank you to the professor Thank you to Julia for Zach and myself

We will talk to you on Monday Super Bowl week Super Bowl Licks And as always we love you.