PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Led by A.J. Brown & Lane Johnson, are the Philadelphia Eagles one of the best teams in the NFL?

Episode Date: November 18, 2024

After a weekend of watching the rest of the league, we’re left wondering if the 8-2 Eagles can hold up against the best teams in the NFL. With A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, Lane Johnson, Jordan Mailata, Saquon Barkley and Jalen Hurts on offense, they should be! And with the way Vic Fangio has deployed Quinyon Mitchell, Cooper DeJean and Jalen Carter, not to mention Zack Baun and Nakobe Dean, the defense seems primed for the best offenses in football.Fran Duffy has let the film marinate all weekend and is armed with tape takes as he joins Zach Berman and Bo Wulf as they get the full ramp-up going before the Eagles’ Sunday night game in Los Angeles. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the PHLY Eagles podcast on a Monday, 2 o'clock, Bow Wolf, Fran Duffy, Zach Berman, and we are presented by the good folks at Bet365. Download the Bet365 app and use code PHLY Eagles to sign up. Whatever the moment, it's never ordinary at Bet365. Gentlemen, we had a nice relaxing non-Eagles Sunday. That meant that we got to watch the rest of the league, I think, a good opportunity for us to check in on how the Eagles stack up with the best of the best. How you guys do? It was a great weekend of football. College games were good. That was a ton to happen in the NFL on Sunday. So it was a lot to take in. It was a great weekend. CB, how you live in? Doing well. Excited for the week ahead.

All right. Well, we got a lot to get to. We're going to get a little deeper into what Franz saw from the film. We want to approach this from the conceit of, you know, is this team good enough in this area to hold up against the lions and the bills and the chiefs of the world? Where they need to get better stuff like that, but we do have to start, Zach, with the big news from the weekend, Stone Cold Newsman, hit us with it. My,

am I presenting the big news of the weekend? I'll defer to you on the show. No, you're the Stone Cold Newsman. Give us the big news of the weekend. My permit, uh, the big news of the weekend is that our outstanding producer, Julia, uh, got engaged.

Yeah. Julia. Julia. Julia. Julia. Julia. Yeah. All right, let's get up.

I'm already crying. Stop. Keep making, back. I'm going to carry the show. Oh, okay. Yeah, I will speak. So I am so excited for Julia.

She deserves all this recognition. Look at that. Oh, whoa. So for the audio listeners here, we have a sign in the background that says, Engage, Julia, Julia, Julia, Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy. There's a lot of joys. There's some underline. There's a floral arrangement here.

This is the best sign that we've had in a lot, ever on the show. And so we're very happy for Julia. Yeah. Oh, thank you. Her wonderful fiancé waited for a bye week or a mini bye. A weekend when Eagles are off. So that's a man that I can appreciate right there. when you coordinate major events around the NFL schedule.

But no, we are thrilled, absolutely thrilled for Julia. Oh, thank you guys. And longtime viewers of our show know that we are nothing without it is producing. And Julia does an outstanding job behind the scenes. So the video. Great job vamping. And I got to say, at this point in the show's history, you should be watching on video too, right? So you get to see, you get to see.

You get to see what Bo and friends concocted up here. I did do some scheduling last night or some reporting last night to figure out the spelling of Dwayne. Oh, yeah. We got, we nailed that down. At first, otherwise I was going to go, you know, Julia, congratulations. Did you choose to marry Cheecher Chong? What does that mean? Yeah. I'll explain it to you when you're over.

All right. Give it off for Julia in the chat. Awesome. A great way to start with weeks on the PHAO line. Eagles podcast thank congratulations to Julia and as you see at the end there and Dwayne good job by Dway making it happen all right fantastic and a a nice super chat already from Chris who says Zach is looking drippy congrats Julia all right okay okay let's get into it let's start on the offense okay friend I think because we

spent a little more time on the defense on Friday and I think the big question with this team when it comes to facing off against the best of the best is can the offense keep pace you know can they they probably cannot afford to have the kind of lulls that we have seen them have in the first half over the past couple weeks. The passing game, the fact that it's the, you know, the worst of the four quadrants is not ideal. However, there are a lot of things that they're doing very well, obviously, especially in the running game. Do you want to start with the good in the running game or do you want to start with the good in the running game? Let's start with the running game.

And honestly, we'll get to the past game a little bit. But yeah, let's start with the run game. All right. You want to take us through Sequan's game winning touchdown, the last touchdown? I think we should start with Sequan. and the game ceiling touchdown, I guess. This was the long play where he cut back. We saw the highlights with Cam Jurgens at the second level.

And Jordan Mila did an outstanding job on that play. Yeah, Suze, which is the trademark move from Lane Johnson. I would love to know, and, you know, I'm not going to assign you work. I would notice how much I hate that. But I would love to know, like, the success rate of Lane raising his hand. Like, is he, how often is he wrong? I would say it's probably, he's probably batting like 500. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah, I would say it's probably not as high as you would think, but it's still pretty good. He spoke about that after the game. He said he's been in the league long enough that he knows when a play's going to hit. Yeah, there are a few, like, Beckton tries that every once in a while. And there was one, I feel like there was enough reps. No, I feel like there was one that was like a 12-yard gain. I was like, yeah, I need some work there.

But Lane is usually a pretty reliable predictor from that standpoint. Okay. So, Julia, this would be Barkley-Long TD-1. So this is the, again, this is a stretch toss play where basically the idea is you're trying to stretch the front side and you're trying to cut the backside off. And this is a great visual of it where you see everybody on the right side of the Eagles offensive line, you are trying to get the flow of the defense over to our left hand side. And you can see they're trying to overrun. The Eagles have run this play two or three times already in the game. They ran it on the previous play as well.

And so if you're Bobby Wagner, you're the defensive tackle defensive on that side, you are chasing your gap and running that. way. But you can see that the backside of the Eagles offensive line, they are also running and trying to create that cutback for Barclay to be able to put his foot in the ground and get downhill. And by this point, you can see the Cs have already parted. Julie, if you get to the next shot, you can see that Barclay starts working his way downhill. And that's where you start to get these blocks to second level. And Cam Juergens delivers a huge block on the safety here. Not only does he block him once, but he actually blocks him a second time on this play as Barclay gets up to the third level. So you get a great block from Barclay, but we would be remiss if we didn't also

mention the job that Jordan Milata does on this play. And Julie, if you want to go to the next shot, I didn't circle him, but you can see that Milata, it's almost like the, you know, a punt return when the jammers don't want to get a block in the back call. You just want to kind of fly by the gunner. It's the same exact idea here where Jordan does not get a penalty. He does a great job of just basically running through. And you can see Barclay is just about running by Jordan Milata at this point you could see Jordan there where he doesn't even have he barely has his hands on the defender but he's just basically setting a pick and doing an outstanding job of doing it and that's really where i think johnson or uh fred johnson he doesn't have that athleticism that jordan has that range in

the run game obviously uh and that's what makes Jordan a few people do yeah exactly that's what makes him special is the guy that is that big that strong that powerful to also move the way that he does he that's what makes him an x factor in the eagles rushing attack back on that first clip sorry uh Zach bobby wagner is like coming so hard there. Yeah. Should he, like,

should he know that this is coming there? I mean, he's so experienced. If he doesn't follow that, would, would Sequin just go that way? He's got, he's responsible for that gap.

So he's got, he's responsible for chasing that outside. It's the C gap outside Lane Johnson. And so if he does not chase it and the ball hits there, then he's getting ripped out, ripped by the coaches there. That, that play should be the,

you know, whoever that backside A gap defender was. Okay. Is this the benefit of being in Philly? Like, was this a play that he would hit with the Giants? So he's already, he's had six 100-yard games already this year. That's as many as he's had the last four years in New York.

And I do think, like, yeah, there's something to that that, you know, he wasn't allowed to have that amount of space with the New York Giants. That said, I mean, we talked about it on Friday. I do think that teams are starting to really kind of load the box. Early on in the season, Sequin Barclay was leading in terms of like yardage and total runs coming up against light boxes. That number is starting to taper off a little bit. I think the teams are starting to adjust to the Eagles new

approach offensively. So early downs, you're starting to see more five-man fronts, more the safety down in the box, more single-high looks. So I think the Eagles will have to adjust off of that. But in the second half of games, I actually saw the stat this morning. This will be my piece tomorrow on the offense. Sequin Barclay, I think the number is 73. He's averaging 73 yards in the second half of games, which if that were to hold, that would be an NFL, at least that would be the highest in the NFL in the last 30 years in terms of what he's doing, just closing out football games for this team. And it always seems like he gets to the fourth quarter. and he is inevitable where he is going to break off that huge game to really break it open.

So credit to him. And look, you need to, there's two elements to that to be that kind of closer. The Eagles really haven't had that for the last few years. Jordan Howard is the last guy I would think of that, you know, you have that size, that physicality, that determination downhill, but then also that breakaway speed. And that's what we saw on that play. I mean, that was his sixth play this season where he hit over 20 miles an hour. And that's by far first in the NFL.

I mean, Seek-won Barkley. I mean, he's everything as advertised. Trying to look up now the percentage versus eight men in the box. As you're looking it up, I was watching the Penn State game, and they were talking about how those two great running backs at Penn State, Singleton, and now worked out with Barclay this offseason, and their big takeaway was how fast he is. And you talk about the physicality and the size,

but you hit it on the head in terms of the 20 mile per hour runs. Like he, when you get him in the open field, he runs like a 195 pound back. And that's the thing is when you get up to that, he's so explosive that when he gets up to the second level, that's where he's able to run through. You can't tackle guys when they're moving that fast and they're that big. That's always been the Derek Henry thing. And you're seeing both guys really take advantage of that.

That's interesting. So he has run 38.1% of his carries this season have come against heavy boxes, these eight guys in the box. Last year in New York, it was actually only 30. And 38 is exactly what it was over the course of his entire Giants career. There were big blips there, 2020 in particular, but it's right on pace. So it's not the case where necessarily the concern over A.J. Brown and Devante Smith is opening things up for him. It's that the blocking is better.

And, you know, when he gets downhill, he can he can just explode. My guess is if you dive deeper into those splits that the first like four weeks will say of the season, it was very, it was the light box rate was much higher. And certainly as the Eagles have started to win games, like those in the second half, of games, fourth quarter of games. So those numbers are going to get tilted that way. It does look. Yeah, week four was high, but other than that, the first three weeks were low. Okay.

So we know Sequin's good. We know this rushing offense is good. They also, uh, we should spend, I guess, one minute to, uh, give a celebration to the thing that was making you go nuts. Yeah. During the game. No, well, on Thursday night. Well, you and Dana is.

I was just saying, Dan is going to go some one day. Go and blue chew at the same time. Yes. When we just pull out trap. Yeah. Well, let's, let's, let's take a look real quickly at those plays. So, uh, Julia, this would be the trap-wam play.

So it's two plays in the fourth quarter. These are two Kenny Gainwell runs. And I mentioned on Friday, Washington did such a good job throughout the night of taking away the Eagles zone run game by being really explosive upfield and just getting into the backfield and disrupting. And so when you're doing that, a great way to negate it and take it away is, Julie, if you go to the next shot, is to use these traps and wham. So you're going to invite that defensive tackle up the field. You can see number 95. He gets up the field unencumbered.

He's not blocked at the snap. And now you've got Lane Johnson. You can kind of see him peeking behind here coming on our left hash. He's going to block him all the way from the other side. And Lane Johnson, there aren't a lot of tackles in the NFL that can execute this block because you're asking a tackle coming from the other side of the field to get over there fast to block him before he can get to the back. You can see the defensive tackle.

He's closer to gain well than Lane Johnson is. So Lane's got to get all the way over there. But he's so explosive. He's so ranging. He's able to get there and create that crease. Julie, you can go to the next shot here. and by lane getting up to the second level, by not blocking that defensive tackle,

the two linemen that were in front of that defensive tackle, they are now able to get up to the second level. And so now you've got a mismatch there with two offensive linemen up on smaller bodies in space, and that creates this alley for Kenny Gamewell to get downhill. And then the very next play, and you go to the next shot, very next play, they do the same thing,

where instead of this time it being a tackle that's coming over to block that defensive tackle, this time it's the tight end Dallas Goddard. He comes in from the near side, and he's going to create that seal. Julie, if you go to the next shot, you can see that you've got Maelada and Jorgans once again. So you've got two athletic offensive linemen,

getting up to the second level, creating that crease, and that creates those explosive plays. So right off the bat, you got a back-to-back sequence there with those trap plays and the WAM plays. It's a trap if it's an offensive line making that block. It's a wham if it's a tight end or a full-back making that block. The Eagles used them back-to-back and set up Sequan's first touchdown. What do you think the waiting game was like for,

stout on this front like why why did it take so long to do it and why was now the right time to pull it well let me ask you let me ask you this that i'm going to answer that question by asking exactly question when lane talks about it in the locker room do he say that they had it in the bag coming in or did he say was it more like we talked about it on the sideline and we were waiting to use it in the second half do you know what was your first heard from mackay okay uh and mackay said we've been waiting to use it so he didn't specify game um so that's a good question i'll find out this week yeah that's why i i would be interested because um we you know know it's been in their bag. I mean, it was a huge run for them throughout like Doug Peterson era.

You know, they used it a lot during the Super Bowl year and even going in the years following that. They've been, they were one of the best teams in the league at doing it. And I can think of so many explosive plays off those runs, but they hadn't used it at all this year. And we've talked about on the show like, man, like I'd love to be able to see that run. And here it comes, they used it at a perfect opportunity. And so what is the perfect opportunity? What is the defense doing that if they're, they're penetrating quickly? Like they're reading the zone. What is the expectation? Well, the big thing is, yeah, it's really good against those upfield defensive linemen.

And also, too, if you are really aggressive at the second level, the linebackers can be really aggressive flowing the other way. There's a screen grab from that second run from the WAM play where you see the linebacker number four, Frankie Louvo, he takes himself completely out of the play because he sees, my guess is that he thought it was just going to be inside zone coming his way and he's flowing downhill. It takes himself completely out of the run lane. So if you're really aggressive at the first level in the second,

level, those plays could be really effective. Teams have tried to do it a lot against the Eagles during the Jim Schwartz era because that was an upfield defensive line. But Fletcher Cox would be so good. And Hargrave was this way as well. Would be so good at recognizing, oh, you know what, they're trying to trap me and getting his eyes over and defeating those blocks. So if you're unsuspecting and you don't know that it's coming, you're not predicting

that's going to be there, it's really tough to defend. Before we move on from Sequin, I just want to bring this up because it is topical. It's kind of getting buzzed nationally here on the Brotherly Shove or the Snoopy, as Professor Selman would like us to call it. But how Seguan's not getting these touchdowns, Mike Garofo had the report that there's no touchdown incentives in his contract. I think there's kind of conversation about what the MVP race would be if he had more touchdowns. I'm going to have a story this week because I spoke to Seguan about this topic. And if you recall Jason Kelsey on his podcast back in March, the first piece of advice he gave him was don't get tackled at the one yard line, right? So and when I brought this up to Saquan, Sequan said it's also the two yard line too.

So how many times this year do you think Sequons had run stopped at the one or two yard line? How many touchdowns that Jalen Hertz have? Yeah, I would say I'll say seven. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Now, in Bo's defense there, one of them was a.

run from the I guess from the one he had a one yard loss so that counts as they've so but yeah so there's there's eight potential touchdowns in there that could have gone the stake on do you think I mean

maybe this is just the way that I would think about it but like rushing touchdowns is not going to move the needle for me on whether he's an MVP candidate but I don't think so either but if it was some gaudy number like if you if you gave you know yeah I mean if he breaks six of those from jail and then it might pop a little bit more.

I mean, if he had 16 rushing touchdowns right now, as opposed to eight rushing touchdowns, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's good.

And also, like, when you watch, when you spend all Sunday watching the rest of the league, like, no, short yardage failures, like, it is pretty prevalent. No question. And it's like that the Eagles can just, can just lean on that is nice. I agree. Okay. All right. We're going to talk about the offensive passing game in just a moment.

after this. Raise your hand if you like saving money. That's where rocket money comes in. Because, you know, in this bifurcated media situation that we're in now, you know, some people might say that, oh, Roger Goodell is doing a great job. It's good that you have to pay for all these different things to watch the, watch the different games. I love having 13 different streaming services I need to subscribe to.

Not everybody on the panel feels the same way, and maybe you don't. The other problem is you don't know necessarily. You don't remember what you've signed up for, what you're on the hook for. Well, that's where Rocket Money comes in, because Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps and fines and cancels your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. You can see all of your subscriptions in one place and know exactly where your money is going. and for any of you don't want any more, Rocket Money will help you cancel them with just a few taps. Rocket Money's dashboard gives you a clear view of your expenses across all of your accounts.

Easily create a personalized budget with custom categories to help keep your spending on track. You can see your monthly spending trends in each category to know exactly where your money is going. You'll get these alerts if there's a surprise kind of purchase that's going through. They'll let you know. That way you can be on top of your spending. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all of the app's features. Stop wasting money on things you don't use.

Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash p.hly. That's rocketmoney.com slash p.hly. Rocketmoney.com slash p.L.Y. So let's now talk about our friends at HelloFresh. You might ask, what is HelloFresh? Well, with Hello Fresh, you get Farm Fresh, pre-portioned ingredients, and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep. Skip trips to the grocery store and count on Hello Fresh to make home cooking easy, fun, and affordable. That's why it is America's number one meal kit.

And I have talked about Hello Fresh to my friends before. And whenever I bring it up, I always get at the same handful of reactions. Oh, isn't it expensive? Oh, who is time to cook all those meals? Do they even taste good? Is it all just healthy stuff? But here's the reality. Hello Fresh is cheaper than takeout.

You spend less time thinking about what you're going to make for dinner. So you get time back that way. And with a rotating menu of 50 recipes to choose from every single week, you're going to find meals that taste good and that your whole family can enjoy with each and every box, whether you're craving hearty comfort food, you're trying to please the picky eaters. My son is one of those. Or if you're looking for a calorie smart meal plan, Hello Fresh has all of those options and more. And again, you spend less time thinking about it.

Before we started Hello Fresh, Meg and I would either be sitting around on a Saturday, before food shopping, perusing Instagram or Pinterest looking for recipes. And then you've got to go and you've got to buy all those specialty ingredients, which then get used once before they inevitably go bad in the pantry or they die on the vine in the fridge. You don't need any of that now. Now Meg scrolls through the options. She picks the recipes. We spend less time debating dinner ideas during the week.

And we spend less time in the store. And there's less food waste. So it's a win, win, win, win situation. Plus, you check out Hello Fresh Market. You've got 100 add-on items like desserts and quick breakfast, snacks, a lot. more this month. I know there's something we're taking advantage of. They've got those Thanksgiving items that can help wow everybody without a minimal effort or with minimal effort on your part. Not that anybody needs to know that part of it, but I just opened up my box for the week

this morning before I came down to the studio. I got to say, pretty excited to make my shrimp risotto later tonight. So we've got that after I pick up Francis. So we make shrimp tonight too. Yeah, there go. I love HelloFresh. You can talk about HelloFresh all day. Get 10 free meals at Hellofresh.com slash free eagles. Applied across seven. boxes, new subscribers only. It does vary by plan. That's 10 free HelloFresh meals just by going to HelloFresh.com slash free eagles. HelloFresh, America's number one meal kit. All right, a couple things to clean up here. First, we got a few super chats to pop off on. Real time says, does the size of Juergens compare to Kelsey Help? I'm assuming he's talking about the downfield blocks.

Probably. Yeah, I mean, not more about the athleticism than the size. I think the motion of the ocean, if you will. The motion of the ocean. I think that when, look, we talked about this in the summer. We were projecting like, all right, what does Cam Juergens look like? I didn't think that they were going to have to change anything schematically in terms of the run game with Cam Juergens. All the same things. I mean, he had a highlight on a sweet play this week.

I'll probably post that where he was, I mean, he looked like Kelsey. It was vintage Kelsey. There was a clip last week against Dallas where you saw him get up to the second level and wash out Eric Kendricks. And I was immediately brought back to Kelsey doing the same thing. in 2016 to Eric Kendrix, the Minnesota Vikings and washing him out of the play on the same exact run concept. He's used in the same exact way. What's your general like check-in on Cam Jerkins right now?

Relative to your expectations, I guess. I would say about honestly, like exactly what I expected. I didn't think it was going to be all sunshine and rainbows. His first year starting at center. If you were to grade Kelsey as like last year as like a B plus A-minus, you know, compared to like, all right, his peak, he was an A-plus, right? He was probably starting to fall off a little bit. it last year so you're all right you downgrade him playing a a minus i would say cam is probably like a

b minus right now like he's he's got a bunch of bad snaps he had one last week early on uh what gives him trouble oh the actual snap yeah like the bad yes exactly so like there was an early snap uh he has struggled at times moving the bigger defensive tackles one-on-one which we saw from kelsey early on in his career uh but yeah i mean it's he's been really good for the most part in the run game there were there were plays i want to say in the dallas game where one-on-one He's moving guys against their will as well. So you're seeing some good flashes there. And pass protection, he's been pretty good.

But just to set it, even though it's a B minus, you would say like league wide, that's like between 10 and 15, something like that? I think that. And honestly, like when I was taking stock and just kind of looking around the rest of the NFC, you might be able to, you could probably convince me that he could make a Pro Bowl this year, just based off of like the other centers in the conference. Okay. Yeah, the other super chamey from CDP, who's,

says John Harbaugh passed on Dinar Wilson for D.C. And has only won three playoff games since Siriani was hired by the Chargers. John Harbaugh on Dumb Donkey Watch, Sack. I mean, I think John Harbaugh is not standing coach. I thought Zach Gore made sense as a hire there. They worked them up through the pipeline. I think part of the issue with the Ravens defense right now is they haven't hit on some of their draft picks, right?

And I was high on Nate Wiggins. Nate Wiggins isn't playing at the level that. Mitchell is right that there's there's one you are what's that said few are yeah um you know david ojobo was a second round pick who's who's who's not producing at a real high level as as as an edge rusher there the raven's way and it's and it's worked is they develop these great players those players leave and they draft well and there's a pipeline there and i i don't feel like that raven's defense has the same talent that it's had in some past years all right i also need to apologize i mean julia we gave we did the whole celebration here we didn't even bring you in

Like the people in the chat, they want to play by play. They want the story. Oh, gosh. It was a total surprise. We were going to a concert and on the way to the car, because his friends were driving, on the way to the car, he stopped. They made sure to tell him, like, just find a good spot on the street with good lighting. Some lighting.

Yeah. And then he just stopped and said something about, like, oh, excited for the rest of our lives. And I was confused. And I was like, yeah, okay, me too. Cool. Yeah. And then you just got down on one knee and I blacked out the rest. That's awesome. You deserve it.

Thank you. Thank you for all the love and support in the banner. That's awesome. I sent it to Dwayne. He says, thank you. Oh, nice. I also have one more question before we keep going. Fran, explain to us the transition you've made during the show.

Yeah, right. I know. The open shirt unbuttoned to now the full buttoned. What went on there? I'm going to be honest. I thought the no button would look okay. And then when I was looking at it, I was like, ah, no, I don't love it. So I'm waiting for the ad break and I'm going.

All right. It was pretty easy. I was, like, hey, like, you know what? I can go, I can either keep this going or I can make a mid-game adjustment. I thought that was a little treat for the people who are like fast forwarding on YouTube. Right. But there was more show left than what had already passed. I thought, you know what, I'll make the adjustment for the better half of the show.

That was a solid attempt at style. I respected. Not as drippy as Thursday, I guess, but Wednesday. We can't see the shoes this stat. No, the shoes are just okay. All right. Eagles passing game. Yeah. 12th, I believe, in EPA per dropback, lower than that in DBOA when it gets published.

The worst of the four, it doesn't mean it's bad. There are things that they are doing well. But one thing they are not doing well right now is getting the ball to Devante Smith. And the big question we had after watching the film was like, were there opportunities, were there things that they schemed up to get to him and they weren't able to? Was Jalen missing him or was it just the case that, you know, the commander's defense was able to clamp him up in this game? How did that look to you?

To me, like for, I would say, honestly, for a confluence of reasons, it's a confluence. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can look at it. All right, there are some where it's on Jalen. You can say there are there somewhere it's on Devante. You can say we're somewhere there's the scheme. You can say somewhere the defense wins.

It just so happened. Like the ball hasn't really found Devante the last couple of weeks. And the production obviously shows for that. So I did pull a few plays that kind of show some of these examples. So early on, opening drive, Julia, if you want to go to Devante switch. So they're basically running a play. Remember, first play of the game, the Eagles run that bubble screen to John Dotson. And so four plays later, they come back and they're like, all right, we're going to run a play off of that where Jail is looking to the bottom of the screen.

That's Jahan Dotson in the flat. And you look, it looks like you're going to be running, you're blocking those guys in the outside. That's A.J. Brown at the bottom of the screen. Devante Smith's in the slot. But if you go to the next frame, Julia, you'll see that those guys are actually releasing out in the routes. AJ Brown is running a post, and Devante Smith is running like a wheel route behind it.

It's a switch concept where the guys kind of switch responsibilities. One goes inside, one goes outside. And so Jalen is hoping that AJ Brown's post route is going to take that corner away from the sideline and towards the middle of the field, and that should open things up for Devante Smith. They actually hit this play for a big play for a touchdown early in the season. I want to say it was week one, week two.

to Devante for a big play. And this time that the corner is all over it did a good job of not biting on the inside route. And so there, the defense won, right? And so that's like, okay, that was a play. They dialed up for Devante. Tip your cap. Julie, if you want to go to Devante Sack one.

So this is a play that was later in the first quarter. And you can notice the bottom of the script, it's a three by one set. It's third down. And you'll notice that there's a bunch received, a bunch set here at the bottom of the screen. That's Devante Smith inside in the bunch. He's the one closest to the formation. The skinny one. The skinny one.

The slim one. Julie, if you go to the next shot, you'll see right before the snap, they actually move Devante in motion. They bump him out to be the number one receiver. And the reason why they do that just before the snap is they're going to basically run a pick play to design all the way to go to Devante Smith. And Julie, if you want to the next shot, as Jalen Hurts drops back, Devante's running a crossing route.

Those two receivers that were lined up inside of him, they're releasing vertically. And that creates a nice, easy, well-defined throw for Jailen. Hurts and Jalen steps up. He's facing a little bit of pressure off his left side, steps up. This ball should have gone to Devante Smith. Instead, Jalen steps right into a sack. Now, this was probably the low point of the day for Jalen Hertz. I would say this was his worst snap. You know, it was a, there was a bad turn down. He should have thrown that to Devante Smith. I want to say it was the next possession. Devante has that drop along the sideline. So there was so you have one play that's on Jalen. You have one with a defense one. You have one that's on

Devante and then, Julia, one more. If you can just go to Devante mesh, you get down in the red zone, and this is a little bit later where the Eagles are in the low red zone, they're in the goal line. And you could see that they're running their mesh concept. And we've seen this work a number of times this year. And you have Devante Smith, who is at the bottom. He is running towards the top of the screen.

AJ Brown is running from the top. He is running towards the bottom of the screen. Those guys run smack into each other. If you go to the next shot, they run immediately into each other. Instead of AJ picking off a defender that's in his way, both guys just run right into each other. Devante would have been wide open. And you can actually see on the next frame.

Obviously, this is after the collision. And Jaylon starts running around. So these guys probably wouldn't have been this open. But Devante Smith is standing at the bottom of the E in the end zone wide open. No one within his vicinity. But that's after Jalen already had to get off because the guys ran into each other. And so, yeah, all different things kind of led to it. And it was kind of the same thing last week against Dallas where you say like,

all right, like, Devante didn't necessarily do anything wrong, but the ball just didn't find him in coverage. Yeah, I mean, I think the off, I think the coordinator and the coach, I'm sorry, the coordinator and the quarterback need to find him. Devante Smith ranks 48th in the NFL in targets. Chris Godwin hasn't played in a month and has more targets than Devante Smith. He's on pace to have, you know, the fewest amount of targets in his career. So I think that this is a matter of getting a premium player of the ball. And, you know, you look at the. advanced numbers, he's having a good year when the ball comes to him, right?

I mean, it's not like his catch percentage is low. It's not like his success rate is low. But the problem has been targets. And so they need the manufacturer touches. And I brought this up last week, similar, not identical, but similar how the first touch of the game was manufactured to get Jahan Dots in the ball. Right. You need to get layups for Devante Smith early and make him feel included in the game plan early. Honestly, the best way for the Eagles to get the ball to Devante Smith would probably be,

the entire Eagles Media Corps writing about Devante Smith not getting the ball enough. Yeah. They would just, they would just do, they would put, make that the game plan. Yeah. I mean, honestly, like, first play of the game is probably going to go to DeMonte Smith this week. I, yeah. I wrote about an all p.g.ly.com last week. Jeff McLean did a podcast on it last week.

This is something like, like the reason this is being discussed, I want to tell the audience here, it's, it's not like reporters looking for something to pick on. It's because behind the scenes, this is something that I think they're, cognizant of. Would you be surprised to know that, Zach, his target percentage is higher this year than it was last year. Target percentage as far as targets per route run. That would surprise me. Interesting. He's at 20.6 this year. He was at 18.8 a year ago, which was a career low. His highest was in 2022. Yeah, that does surprise me. It's interesting. There you go. So you think if we're thinking about how do they stack up against the Lions or you know, the cheaps or the bills or whoever you want to, you want to pick.

Is this the thing that you think they need to most get right, whether that's Devante or not, but just making the passing game a little bit more successful, more efficient? Yeah, because we talked about that last week is if you were to rank, you're going to stack up, rush offense, rush defense, pass offense, past defense, which ones do you feel most confident in moving into the postseason? Pass offense would probably be at the bottom of that list. And the numbers bear that out. Yeah, I would think that that's fair.

And so that would be the area that you just want. that is honestly the most important, right? If you're going to, you're going to the postseason, that's the thing you want to be at the top of that list. And so that is one that I think they do need to get corrected and just find the ways to improve there. That said,

so for them, like let's, well, go ahead. I was to say, that said, like watching the film back, like, I don't think it was a Jalen Hertz problem on Thursday. Like, there were times watching the game on Thursday. Like, as we're watching the broadcast, I'm like, oh, like, all right, like he's running around. Like, what is he missing? All right, we got to wait until the film comes out.

out. Let's see what you. I honestly didn't think that Jalen had that many, like, oh, that was a really bad rep from Jalen on that play. Honestly, like a lot of his scrambles and runarounds in this game, I think were warranted and he created some really good positives off of it. Just because I had this up and it's just popping off the screen. You know what is funny in terms of the fewer targets? Last year, he was targeted on 26 screens, only five this year. And we were complaining about the screen. last year. And so that that helps the numbers a little bit. Like they're not they're not forcing him

to ball in that way. No, but those could also be confidence things too. You know, you, you, you, you, uh, if there's a screen early in a game, the guy gets the ball early, he feels involved. You don't want one of your best players to be on the fourth drive. You're talking about watching the game the other day. Like what exactly? Where do they do it? Yeah. You, so there's, there's a mental part of it, an emotional part of it as well. All right. So, uh, in terms of like when we were evaluating Jalen hurts and we're evaluating this passing offense there are it's hard to figure out how to appropriately weight the things that are not in design of the offense yep right like oh he misses this guy in uh you know in the progression from the pocket or he bills the pocket early that's not great but

you have to then give him credit for the things that he's doing extemporaneously uh that are huge plays and there was there was one in this game to a j brown yeah there are there and honestly there were a handful I mean, that scrambling was a third and seven. Yeah, that was a big time play by Jalen Hertz. In that moment, you needed that play. And he came through. Julie, if you want to pull up A.J. Scramble drill. This was a play that was designed to essentially go to A.J. Brown off of, if I believe it was off play action.

Yeah, this looks like it's off play action here. And at the top of the screen, you see A.J. about to cross the 45-yard line, work the intermediate route into the middle of the field. There's a linebacker right there underneath. Both linebackers that are right there between the hash. they are both about to stick their foot in the ground and get back. And so there are three defenders there in the middle of the field. This would have been a really difficult throw for Jalen Hertz within rhythm.

It would have been there, but it would have been a very difficult throw. So I actually was perfectly fine with him not taking this one. You had Devante Smith running down the seam. He's stretching the defense out. He's trying to keep the safeties away from A. Did he can throw that? What's that? To Devonte.

His eyes immediately go to A.J. here. And by the time he does get to DeVante, that's safety that's not the, you know, that's on the bottom of our, bottom left part of our screen. He had already gotten to Devante by that point. So by that point, you know, look, there's, there's a route for the tight end in the flat to the right that's at the top of the screen. That's kind of, that's not doing anything for you there. So Jalen ends up rolling to his left here.

And Julie, if you want to go to the next frame, AJ stays with them, stays in phase within the scramble drill and does a great job of making himself available. And Jalen makes a great throw running to his left and ends up being a 15-yard gain and a first down. And so I thought there were a couple of examples in this game where, yeah, like the plays weren't there for Jalen. And I'm looking, I'm like, I see why he didn't throw it or I just, I don't know what he's supposed to throw on this one. There were a handful of what we talked about that in the Dallas game where they got to more of that ISO ball where it's just like, all right, like one guy's running a comeback and the other's running a skinny post. And I'm like, all right, like these routes don't like compliment each other.

You're relying on one guy to win. And if they don't win, then there's nowhere really for the quarterback to go. This was an example where like, okay, like this was a concept, like the, the, the, routes compliment each other but if you don't make that throw then there's no answer for jalen and there he made his own answer he got out of the pocket and he was able to make an explosive play what do you think that was supposed to happen on the trick play god i hated that play i mean look you see plays like that work right but just like in that scenario like man i just i and obviously it's result oriented uh just because they resulted in a catastrophic loss but um man that that was

what do you think was supposed to happen there was it was it was no i think it was going to go to goddard uh goddard was running i didn't pulled the play but Godder was running like a like basically like a wheel route. Right. And he didn't look great like running the route. Like he's running through contact. He's had to fight through contact initially off the play fake.

But he would like even even if the protection had held up and there were three guys that could have blocked Louvo off the edge too by the way. Like I'm pretty sure like Dickerson was pulling that way. Yeah like there was there were two or three guys that could have gotten hands on Louvo none of them do. But even if even if Louvue was blocked

like I don't know like I don't know what jail would have end up doing on that play because I don't think he was going to throw it to Goddard, even though like I think that's where it was going to go. Like I don't think Goddard would have been open. So that would have been like a run around and probably throw away situation if I were to guess. Did you hear anything about that after the game? Nick was asked about it. Well, yeah.

He was not happy to be asked about it. Yeah. Like sorry. Yeah. Honestly, the insane play. You got to be asked about it. Yeah. That did not come up in the locker after the game, at least from those that I spoke with.

Okay. What do you think, Zach is the like confidence level? in the passing game internally. Hi. Because they have the horses, right? Like, I think there's a, there's the idea. First off, I think internally they're like, well, we're leaning on the run. It's not that the passing game's not working.

And when I say this, I mean more from the player's perspective, right? That and as, as Fran said, and AJ said this already this year. And Devante said this too. There's going to be a time when teams like start to sell out against the run. When they're like, we're not going to let Sequin beat you. and then you have AJ Brown and Devante Smith in man coverage, and we've seen how that works. So I think internally, the confidence is high.

I think ultimately it comes down to Jalen and Kellynne Moore because I think there needs to be synergy there. I think there needs to be an understanding of whether it's the design of the play or what J. Allen's supposed to see. I have, like, no worries in the world about A.J. Brown and Devante Smith. I think it's all about the O.C. and the quarterback, making this hum as far as the passing. So if they got a little bit of a reset on the mini buy this weekend, friend,

in your perspective, what are the things that you would like to see them do moving forward? You know, I think that honestly, a lot of the plays that we've seen them have success with would be certainly those pure progression throws. And we've talked about this this year, like going back to like that Sequin, that wheel route we saw in week one. And they've run that a couple times since then where then with success, where they didn't just go to the wheel, but it went to the tight end

on the drag route on the crossing route. The mesh plays. That's another example of a pure progression read. Honestly, like another thing, and I didn't pull the screen grabs for this one, but I mentioned it on Friday on the Friday show. There was a completion to AJ Brown for 25 yards off an RPO and first down, first drive the game,

where you see, and we talked about how much defenses are trying to stop the run and really sell out to stop Sequan Barkley on early downs. Defenses are adjusting that way. So now things I think have to swing back for the Eagles where before we were like, oh, like they got lean into the run game. If teams are going to play this way with these like boxes, like the Eagles got to make them pay, well, now it's the inverse where if teams are going to sell out and the linebackers in the front are going to be trying to stop Sequin Barclay on first down and second medium, then the Eagles have to make them pay and keep them honest with RPO's play. Those kind of plays. This was an RPO where the linebackers came screaming at the line of scrimmage. AJ Brown was wide open with a ton of space.

and that's why it was a simple slant route, went for 25 yards. Those kind of plays, I think, have to become part of the formula as well. All right. Well, we will turn our attention to the defense just after this. See my man VG in the chat? Shout out to VG. I know that VG's got like this dominant trivia team. Every Monday night, they're just kicking ass, taking names.

I imagine when they're doing that, might be sucking back a little Miller light. Because what's better than proven that you know more than other people, wild drinking beer. I mean, what's better than that? A lot has changed over the years, and one thing that hasn't is the great taste of Miller Light. Another thing that hasn't changed is that it remains less filling. So what is the best thing about the original light beer? Miller Light sparked this debate in 1975, and we still haven't settled it. But you don't have to choose. You get both with Miller Light. Miller Light keeps it simple, undebatable quality, great taste, only 96 calories. It's

the beer that strips away everything you don't need and holds on to what matters most. A light beer that tastes like beer. Less filling and only 96 calories. The original light beer since 1975. And as far as I'm concerned on the VG front, you can't prove that it doesn't make you smarter. I can't prove it, but it's possible. You don't have to choose what's best. Miller Light has great taste and is less filling.

Tastes like Miller Time to get Miller Lite delivered right to your door. visit millerlight.com slash p hly birds or you can find it pretty much anywhere that sells beer celebrate responsibly miller brewing company milwaukee wisconsin 96 calories per 12 ounces fewer calories and carbs than premium regular beer perhaps you're in hibernation mode now right it's starting to get cold outside and you're looking at your home and you're wondering are there things in here that i can remodel or that i can improve that i can make better your first call should be to see jam construction and the reason I say that it's because they're a family-owned home remodel or specializing in decks, bathrooms, and flooring. Their goal is to help their clients alleviate the challenges and frustrations that come with home remodeling.

And if you're like me and you don't know the first thing about home remodeling, you want to turn to a place like CGM construction. Be sure to mention PHLY to receive 15% off when you call in. That's 856-329-29-233 about your next home project. See their full selection of luxury vinyl plank flooring and learn more about the products and warranties on and on their website. Seedjamconstruction.com slash flooring. All right. Got to pick the meat off the bone on offense. Anything else you want to talk about?

No, I think that's pretty much everything for the offensive side. I'll have my full breakdown. We'll be up on all p.com tomorrow. Just like the full breakdown of the defense is up now on all p.g.ly.com. So let's talk about the defense on Friday. we spent time giving flowers to Quinyon Mitchell and Jalen Carter, so we don't have to do that right now. But a few big plays in this game.

Let's start with the fourth down stop. We know that, and by the way, this was not in the rundown, but I do want to take a second on Jordan Davis because we always do this dance of evaluating him versus the value of the pick. But in this game, I mean that those second and third down stops in particular were a perfect example of when he is on the field, he is making a difference in the run game. almost included that in the screen grabs for that reason there are both plays i thought that jordan

did an outstanding job second down and third down the second down play that's a tfl from jalen carter uh where jordan davis holds the double team there and allows jalen to be one-on-on-one and jaylain beats the guy with the swim move uh but jordan davis is stout at the point of attack forces the cut back into jalen carter swim move so if jordan doesn't hold that double team down that play doesn't happen and on the third down play i mean he gets lower than the than the left guard uh just was able to sink his hips and get under the outstanding play from a guy who's, you know, 6-5-66, a great job from Jordan Davis on that play. And he's the first guy to contact running back.

Which then sets up the stop on fourth down, really a great play by probably like three different guys. Yeah, I think so. It really comes out to me, like I would say that two that stand out would be Jalen Carter and Zach Bonn. I love the blanket ship play, man. Blanketship did a great job on the play, but to me like... It triggers so quickly. He does. But if he, if Bond doesn't do his job, then Blanketship is running and grasping enough.

But if Blanketship doesn't do his job, Daniel's con. go inside and get still get the first down on bond i think but because bon well we'll get to it let's let's take a look at jillia let's take a look at turnover on downs one um right off the bat jalen carter flies up the field um now i mentioned this i think this play carried a lot of weight for the uh i mentioned on friday show the 1.7 uh second second's like average time to pressure my guess is is that this play carried a lot of weight there because he was in the backfield immediately uh And my guess is that next gen counted this as a pass play. I don't know if it was a pass play.

I kind of do wonder if this was going to be a design run for Dan is all the all around. But we do see receivers running down the field, too. It could have been a play action pass. But either way, Carter explodes into the backfield. Washington's got guys pulling left and right. The center, I think was so worried about trying to pull on this play as a lead blocker to try and kick out Zach Bond that the snap, the exchange with Jaden Daniels just wasn't good.

So you get a fumbled snap from Jaden Daniels. But you could see Carter here already in the back. he's got the ability to impact Jaden Danos from the jump, but Daniel is able to escape. So, Julie, if you go to the next one, Daniel's able to roll out to his right. You see Milton Williams is there in pursuit. Zach Bonn is there, and you can see the Zach Bond.

He's got his hat inside. Now, this is what I mean where I think... Absolutely. I mean, right now, this frozen, it looks like he should get the first down. Yes, and it looks like he should be able to get the first down running outside of 63 towards the sideline to the point where he's going to be able to just get because he only needs two yards, right? Two or three yards.

So he should be able to get here. at this point. Now, if we go to the next screen grab, Julia, you can see that Bonn, instead of his hat being outside, his only being outside, now he has got that, or instead of it being inside, he has now gotten it outside. And so now Jaden Daniels is kind of in a tough spot where he's, he doesn't know it or should I try and win the foot race, should I just get downhill? He can't get downhill because here comes Blankenship. So Blanketship is running the alley. He does a great job of being decisive and two both point. If he wasn't as decisive, there's a good chance that Daniels is able to just put his head down and get forward.

But because Reed was so decisive here and getting downhill, he has to bounce this outside because of Bond and how disciplined he was with his hat and hand placement. Now he's trying to carry this even further outside. And he obviously doesn't get there. Bond is able to finish there. Blanketship gets there. Slay is there. Milton Williams is chasing from the backside.

So you get all the jerseys combined and you get the big stop on fourth down. Can I ask about Slay? Yeah. I feel like he's been a little bit more physical this year than I remember. I agree. I think honestly, like, he's because we're so focused on the, we're so focused on the rookies, like, we're excited about the rookies. It's kind of getting undersold that Slay is playing pretty well.

He's playing pretty well for a guy who's, you know, as old as he is. What's, what's like Slay's just general demeanor these days? He's, he's having fun in that locker room. Yeah, he said the other day that he wanted to be in between, he wanted the locker in between Cooper the Gene and Quinnion Mitchell. He said because they're both his little babies. So he wanted to be like the father in between. them but instead they just put quignon next to him and slate and give up his uh locker but look

nick's message publicly and privately like we see eagles entertainment does a great job with behind-the-scenes footage of like uh you know the speeches where his emphasis is toughness gritty grimy toughness gritty grimy right he he very much doesn't want to be like the um the high-powered um he he wants to be the like the tough physical team and slays uh as as you're pointing that out he's taking that to heart all right uh all right well we we disagree a little bit on just like the uh quite how much we're credit we're giving to read blank and chip i mean you did a great job in the play yeah it's a silly very silly disagreement it's not even a disagreement uh however um no disagreements on the the very next defensive play which is the interception that finney curry so astutely called

outstanding call from vitting. And this was an outstanding play from Reed Blanketship. And Julia, if you want to pull up, Reed, I, T, 1, this is a basic three-level stretch concept from the Washington commanders where they're going to run Terry McClarn vertically. You're hoping that that's going to take Quignon Mitchell out of the picture, just to basically run him off the field. Julie, if you go to the next shot, you've got a running back, running the flat route. That's going to hold Cooper DeGine underneath.

And so you can see that this should create a nice window in the intermediate area, we'll say between the 40. the 50 yard line. Julie, if you want to go to the next shot for this over and back route, it's kind of like a sail route from the wide receiver, Noah Brown. This is a play. I mean, the Eagles have been running the routes like this for years. Zacherts caught, you know, 58 passes off this exact concept over the course of his career here in Philadelphia. So when you look at this, this is a thing that every NFL team runs, but they run it because it typically works, especially against zone defense where you're able to stress those guys on the

outside. You're stressing Quinnian Mitchell, you're stressing Cooper DeGine, and you're basically counting on the fact that that safety, read Blanketship, is not going to be able to read it, especially if the receiver runs a really good route. And you could see with the next shot, Julia, that Noah Brown, he is working towards the middle of the field, and read Blanketship, his hips are opened up

to the field, to the wide side. And so if you're Jaden Daniels, you see, all right, Quigion is getting run off the field. Cooper DeGine's being held underneath. The safety's opened up to the opposite side. This should be wide open for me to be able to throw this route. It's going to be that over and back route. The safety's not

in position. I think Reed baited him on this throw. He knew that this is exactly how they were going to attack it in that zone coverage. And Julie, you can go to the last shot. He put his foot in the ground and stepped right in front of this throw. It was a bad throw. It was thrown behind it. Or is he supposed to, you know, is the receiver supposed to run it? Yeah, I think the throw probably wasn't great, but I think it was, it was fine.

I think that Reed's picking that off regardless. I mean, he's following it all the way through the catch point. So if that throw was to, you go closer to the numbers there instead of on the back shoulder. I think Reed still picks this off just because he read it so perfectly. But to me, like when you talk about, oh, this guy's a really good zone defender, this guy's really, he's got a really good feel, really good instincts and zone coverage. Really what that comes down to is, all right, what's the coverage we're playing on this play? All right.

What are the weaknesses of this coverage? Because the other team probably knows that we're probably running this coverage, right? They study us. They know what the tendencies are. So they know we're probably running cover four. Cover four is weak here from this receiver set, from this formation, this down. and distance this is the route concept that they're likely to run and it's all tendencies from that standpoint and he read it perfectly it's awesome awesome i'm sorry i thought you were going to say something

no i'm enjoying this yeah i'm glad you're worried about your usage rate excuse me say the other day you were worried about the usage rate i was i was worried about i was referencing i was saying uh when we had professor salmon and frannon which was a great show the people loved it i i joke going into it I'm going to be like Devante. When the targets come to me, I'm going to try to make the most of them. There you go. All right. How about the Terry McLaren play you want to show because you think it's an indication of something that might be happening just in general against this defense?

Yeah. Look, every week when you turn on the film, the Back 7 is doing such a good job of passing routes off. We talk about it every single week. The communication on the back end has been really, really good. And so on this play, Julia, if we don't go to the last one, it's Mesh, InC1, Mesh and Complete One. Basically, they're running them, the mesh concept is the same play that Devonte and AJ run into each other in the end zone. Washington is running it here on this play. You've got these two underneath crossing routes.

You actually have the running back running out of the back field. The Eagles are in man-to-man coverage. And so if they're just playing straight man, Darius Lay is giving up a catch here to Terry McLaren on a shallow crossing route with McLaren running that underneath crosser going from right to left. And so this should be a pretty bang, bang play here for Jaden Daniels. Now, Julie, if you go to the next shot, right in the middle of the field on the top hash mark, you see Nicole. Deen pointing things out. And the communication has already begun. Nkobi spots this from the jump.

Reed Blanketship actually did as well. And you can see that they're on film. They're pointing at, all right, this is what's coming. This is what's coming. What I think is happening here is that Nikobe Dean, who is playing,

he's the only one that's in like, quote unquote, zone coverage. He's the whole player here in the middle of the field underneath. And basically he's saying, okay, I'm going to pick up Zach Hertz, which means that the player who's got Zach Ertz,

that's read Blankichship, you have to pick up the next sack coming in or you're going to become the whole player. You have to replace me. So as this conversation is going on, Reed Blankiships pointing out, hey, I'm going to pick him up. Quinyon, like you become the whole player here, right? All this conversation is happening. If you are Terry McLaren here, you are, you know you are running into, you're running into a trap, right?

Because there's going to be someone waiting for you on the other side. And so what happens here is that this ends up being an incompletion to Terry McLaren. Julie, if you go to the next shot, it's going to be from the end zone angle. The ball is out. McClaren stops his route. Like he basically like slows down. You can see the ball is just drunk. And I don't even, I don't even, I don't.

think that it was like, oh, like, McLaren didn't want that smoke. He didn't want to get hit over the middle of the field. I just think he thought, yeah, there's, there's no, there's, there's, I'm not going to be a viable option for Jaden Daniels on this play. It's zone coverage. Those guys are passing those routes off. I've seen the Eagles pass these routes off really, really well on film. The ball's not coming to me here. And it ends up being incomplete. So really good job from the defense where you basically force an unforced error from the offense. You think he gets, that's the thing where McLaren gets called out on film for not following through i think his coach is asking like why didn't you why didn't you run that out and he's

my guess again my guess is that he's going to say like yeah but you could see them passing it off i thought it was going to be zone coverage and that the ball wasn't going to come my way interesting okay i did have a big picture question about the defense yeah um and they are are there more no that's okay yeah um because i was out in the wild this weekend right and you get no i mean oh no no i just mean like i wasn't working this you know i was how there you out at you know, kids events, book signings, things like that, where people are asking about the Eagles. And I make the point, you know, they still haven't scratched the surface from the passing game perspective. And there's a reason for optimism there.

But the flip side is like this defense is playing far better than I anticipated. Yep. And I've been wondering. Too good. Yeah. I wonder, is there regression? Like you don't want to be peaking in mid-November. And everything is clicking right now with this defense.

and is there room for regression here or concerned for regression here with that well this defense is playing the only thing where i think the regression will come likely come is the sack rate right now they are oh yeah since week six that's like the cutoff that everyone's looking at because that's when the byway that's when the defense turnaround happened they are number one in the league and i think by a decent margin in sack rate and not pressure rate but in sack rate so there are the number of pressures that are the number of pressures that are converted into sacks, that is something that can be a little bit wonky and that can, that can rise and fall. And so that would be something where I would look at and say like, okay, if that falls off a little bit, uh, is that something that could, you know, create some more positive plays for the offense. But everything else to me, like is pretty sticky in terms of how they played. Yeah, I mean, they are playing at such a high level.

Right. That it is unlikely they're going to continue to play at that high level. But it's not like, yeah, it's not like their, um, their red zone defenses, unsustainable like they're down deep, like these things that are usually, uh, reverting to the Or like we've seen in season the turnovers go from none to, you know, the floodgates opening. So those may flatten out a little bit. But yeah, I mean, as long as they stay healthy, it seems like they should still be a very good defense. How many downfield throws of 20 plus yards have been completed against this defense since week six?

Zero. One. Zero. There's one. It was the Cincinnati, the Germain Burton play with a sleigh. That was the only one. It was just like a great throw, great catch. That's the only play downfield throw has been completed.

the last six weeks but they were doing may the other night cj's like how many times have we got beaten deep and but they're doing that without allowing all of the like usually like the no offense the johnny gannon type defense is like okay we're not going to get beat deep but that's the only thing we care about take whatever you want in front they're they're also stopping that yeah and that's where like the tackling which wasn't as good the other night but like uh it was noticeable that it was so bad and it still ended up being pretty good. You're limiting all of that. I mean, they were up until this past week. I think now they felt a second, but they were first during that stretch of yards after the catch per completion. That changed a little bit the other night, but still, they've been,

they've been lights out in that area. So when you're creating turnovers, it's now been four straight games with a turnover, the sack rate we talked about, you're limiting the deep plays. I mean, it's very easy to say, like, yeah, like this has been one of the best defenses in the league during this time. I know Professor Selman makes, you know, since I make too big a lot. deal about these high leverage downs. But one thing that jumps out to me is how many key third downs and fourth downs where they've made these stops, right? Where you think about Cooper the Gene twice and back-to-back weeks, Cincinnati and then

the following game, you think about Zach Vaughn this past week, right? That games look different if the other team gets two yards instead of one, right? That Cincinnati game, that's different in that situation. So they've been so good on high leverage plays. that's one thing I'm really keying in on as season goes on. You can also make the case that if the offense is putting them in better position, you know, they'll do better, right? Yeah, the office should score under the 30s.

Right. They have an opportunity at some point, maybe to play in some more advantageous game scripts, but we will see. Thanks for watching on TV. All of you watched on TV. I know ZB's grandparents have been watching us on TV. I've got to say.

So, you know, I stopped by my grandparents on Saturday. had a great visit with them and they're not big youtube watchers okay but they're watching tv a lot and they they only they have exfinity right um and uh on exfinity cable uh we have a fast channel there if you have a samsung tv we have a fast channel there actually i'm going to pull up those exact numbers for you right now because uh i was it was something that i pulled up and i was i had not seen us i don't have Xfinity TV. I should say that. But I do have Xfinity cable. I do have X-Findy cable. Okay. Sorry. If you're an X-1 customer, you can watch us on channel 4073. If you have Samsung TV Plus, you can watch us on 2, 3, 48. We're also available nationally on the Roku channel.

So, like, this is awesome. It was, you know, it was when I put it on and, you know, we have live programming throughout the day, but when the live programming is not on, it's, uh, it's, it's on loop and by chance so this was like two o'clock on Saturday and I put it on and it's the post game show it's my hit on the post game show really oh no and so I did make sure that I put it on mute and I'm like I want to show you this guy probably I want to talk to you you don't have to hear me oh yeah but they was it was me at the stadium and they like the backdrop right backdrop was great yeah great backdrop yeah so that worked out I have this weekend to hear about people enjoying that particular hit.

Yeah, I had a good friend of mine, Tim, who he, he, he took a screenshot of me as I was saying it. And he's like, you had this, like, grin on your family. You did. You absolutely did. And I'll be honest with you, I, the grin was because I thought it was like a nice romantic line. Like, the grin was like, I was like, you know, I was, that's what the grin was. Like, I thought like, oh, this is going to score me points at home. Like, I'm like, like, she's because like I was, I was really starting to get smitten with her, like, that kind of thing.

It was, there was definitely, like, and because I was talking about this the other night. And she's like, yeah, you would never say anything like that on TV. Like, you're very like image conscious, right, in that regard. So, yeah, so she, she knew exactly where I was coming from. But that's what the grin was. The grin was like, I'm excited to say this. Yeah, I know. I know that Emily knows where you were coming from, but I mean, it's still.

Yeah. So that's what the grin was. People loved it. That's what the grin was. You have no idea how close I was to walking off the set in that moment. People have actually sent me the screen grabs of my face when you said. And I was just like sheer disbelief, sheer shock. If I may say, if I may say, and look, Emily says she's sick of hearing about it.

But number two, there were questions like, why did your minds quickly go to that as opposed to, like, be thought? because if you think about it, like Vinnie was just getting into sushi, meaning he was liking sushi. I was just getting in, then we as soon as I was liking Emily, right? That kind of thing. It's the same,

it's parallel, uh, yeah, it's completely parallel trains of thought. Yeah, I know, but it was, I mean,

it really was the perfect storm of delivery because like the phrasing of it was perfect. You didn't say like my wife. You said specifically Emily. And you, you, it wasn't like part of another sentence. You just delivered it and let it sit there.

As a fan of comedy, recently, we're watching that back. You should know that delivery was perfect for that. As I said there, you guys got to mature up and get your heads out of the gutter. Okay, we're all mature adults here. That's my line. At least some of us are mature adults here. Yeah, this Jason is literally everyone watching is not the same thing. Well, yeah.

If you're watching at 2 a.m., maybe that's what you're thinking. But, yeah. All right, Zach, what is coming forward this week from the Eagles perspective? Yeah, so we'll speak to Niziriani. in about 10 minutes. And we'll get Nick's thoughts. This is his first time speaking to us since the game. I know we did a little media tour,

national media tour on Friday. That hurts your feelings? Oh, big. Yes. Yes. Yeah, I mean, you're out there. He's not going to time for us, but you're either available or you're not available. It's besides the point.

We'll speak to Nick today. We'll speak to the coordinators tomorrow. Looking forward to that. Then the Eagles are on the practice field. I know they were in the facility today, I believe, or I don't know. I believe they were in the facility today. But a normal week, these guys are well-rested. They had the weekend off.

So that's the benefit. You win the game. They barely practiced last week anyways, right? So they really, I mean, it was an intense game, but they were off their feet for much of the past two weeks. Yeah. So they go into this weekend pretty well rested and they have a long flight out to L.A. But yeah, so it's a normal. What's your prediction on like the dominant storyline of the week?

Oh, I think the dominant storyline of the week is probably like the Eagles are content, are like Super Bowl contenders, right? And it's how are you dealing with the attention and the hype? And I think it's going to be one day that, you know, you can't, you know, You can't go, you can't get the number one C without going nine and two first, right? And like that kind of thing. And so I think that's what I imagine. There's nothing really with like the Rams that really jumps off.

You get to go to your favorite place on earth. So far. Yeah. I am looking forward to going to so far. I'm trying to, I'm really trying to make it work to go to the Intuit Dome. I saw the 60 Minutes special. Did you see that? No.

Well, 60 Minutes had a thing on Steve Ballmer. and like the intimate dome, the, not the intimate, the Intuit, the Intuit Dome and how this is like reinventing the basketball fan experience. So I'm really trying to get there in time to see the Intuit Dome because I've heard such wonderful things. And yeah, always, always look forward to going to an L.A. The stadium looked great last night. You can't help him show. I know.

So far looked great on the Sunday night last night. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's the shots that they had on the broadcast. It is an awesome, awesome stadium. Like you can see the, I don't want to say the future of stadiums, but I feel the same way about Atlanta and I feel the same way about Minnesota. These new stadiums, they're really done well. And it's a great viewing experience.

And you walk around the stadium. It's an awesome fan experience as well. How do they hide the sun in that stadium though? There's no shadow. There's a translucent roof. So there is a roof. It feels like you're outside, but it's a, translucent roof. I mean, they know where the son's going to be a year ahead of time.

Like, it's amazing that they account for it. That too. Last trip of the season. Less flight of the season. Last flight of the season. No wonder. You got to go get some intimate dome. Well, I brought, I brought the flight up to my son. I'm like, this is the last flight of the season. And he said, uh, he was like, what about the playoffs? And I was like, yeah, I was thinking about schedule games. But yeah, last. last flight, less schedule flight.

And that's a major advantage for the team, right? I was talking to someone about this over the weekend as well. A trip to Baltimore, a trip to the New York Giants, a trip to Washington, so they've trips to Baltimore and Washington remaining after this. And that's not that much different for the players than a home game from the, because players are sleeping at a hotel the night before home games, too. It's really what they'll tell you is these flights wear on them. Now, for some big guys like Lane, as I've talked,

the lane in the past how long bus rides not as good for him, you know? He actually has, you think the 2020 season, his ankle flared up on the long bus ride. Oh, interesting. But players like the train trip down, when they take the train trip or,

so yeah, so I actually think that it's a very, yeah, things are, and they play four or five games at home in December 2. So things are stacking up nicely for the Eagles going forward. But a difficult stretch opponent watch. Steers, Rams, Ravens, Panthers, Steelers. It's a four out of five stretch of difficult opponents.

Those Ravens and Steelers games in particular are really going to wear it you. And look, as well as Quinnion Mitchell's played, I was watching some of Red Zone yesterday. I was at a book sign. Shout out to Harris, Harris, a fan of the show. He saw me post on social media that I was doing the book signing. He came to watch. Oh, nice. Or he came to get his book sign.

But I was watching the Red Zone and Puka and Cooper Cupper, like making a play, every other play. Yes, this will be a very difficult assignment for those guys in particular. We're going to get a little bit extra insight on the opponent this week. Jordan Rodriguez going to join us this week. Nice. You love that. Jordan's awesome. Yeah, the best.

So we've got a lot of fun stuff coming this week on the PHL by Eagles podcast. You look like you had something to say. I was going to ask what you guys think about the NSC West. You thought I was going to win that division? San Francisco still. This whole thing San Fran? Interesting. Arizona is a two game lead on the two of them?

Arizona is six and five. other teams are five and five and five yeah i think irsson six and five i was looking at the schedules uh this morning thinking about it finals are six and four the other said they have one game league right uh Arizona's got obviously they're playing the last play schedule they've got a pretty easy slate and the rams it's like the opposite i don't know i kind of feel i feel best about the rams right yeah i think i honestly think this is going to be a tough matcher for the eagles on sunday i don't think the rams are going to be an easy uh easy win here we go did you want to get up real quick we only have four minutes, but a quick temple talk real quick.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Let's do that. That's right. So I'll defer to you. Who should be Temple's next? Hey, coach. I mean, there's two people I would really like. Okay, who do you like?

I mean, joking. I'm not, I would like Fran Duffy or I like Coach Flynn, but like from like other candidates here, uh, both Syracuse coordinators, Elijah Robinson and Jeff, and Jeff Nixon, they should speak to. Um, two guys that have coached the temple before. Exactly. Jeff, X was with the Eagles, right? Yes.

Yes, he was with the Eagles before. He was with Temple. at an 06 then left to go to the Eagles in 07? I mean, I always like finding young up-and-comic coaches like Elijah Robinson and, you know, Jeff Nixon's not a young-up-and-comic coach, but he, you know, he'll be his first time being a head coach.

But I would call up Al Golden too. He's the de-coordinator at Notre Dame. He's someone, he's had success here. I don't think there's going to be a better job that he's a better head-coaching job he's going to get at this stage of his career. I would bring him back. He's, he's the architect.

And then if you want to look around like college football. There's coordinators at big schools with local connections. Like there's a co-offensive, he's got co-defense coordinator at Alabama, Colin Hitchler. But I would really look up at Syracuse. Elijah Robinson would be a great fit for that job.

Yeah, I think the big thing that's facing Temple, that has been facing Temple, honestly, since probably Jeff Collins left, who is that you didn't have that ability to retain talent. I mean, they were losing guys in the portal constantly and didn't have the ability to backfill. So you're not developing your talent,

enough and then you're not accessing the porter well enough on your end like you got to be able if you're losing guys all right well you should be able to also like pull players in whether it's uh people coming down from alabama from lSU like from you know that didn't get enough playing time or like all right you lose a tight end to old miss like all right there's a tight end at fordum that you know that was uh all c a last year like pull him in you know you didn't have that ability to kind of take advantage both ways i like jeff nixon i like uh elijah robinson i like the names you bought up um i don't necessarily have like a short list personally but But I think that they need to find somebody that can develop talent because right now, I mean, that's been the issue, honestly, for the better half the last.

Isn't that big picture issue the same thing for the coaching staff? If you bring in a really good coach, he's going to be here for two, three years. And then you're going to have to backfill that spot too. Well, and that's, that would be the idea behind, like, if you, if you brought Al back, if I wanted to take that job again, I mean, he's in a temple hall of fame already. You know, is he going to leave for another job? Is someone going to come in and plug? him like at that point like that's probably what you're hoping for is that he would be in it for the long haul i mean the thing that worries me if they hire al is like then we really might lose friend

okay i thought you said that about that being unimaginative but no no i think that's fine but then it might be like defensive coordinator or something i don't want to lose friend i don't want to lose friend but i i saw it with uh ruckers where it's like it just made sense bring great like like bring greakian's the same idea yeah bring gal golden back the temple can i ask you the big picture question yeah simple in football team yeah i i'm not i think that uh i think that uh yes i think that uh yes i think there's a another path i can go down there with that for another show maybe all right well zack is getting very anxious because nick seriani press conferences uh getting ready to start any minute so we will uh close this up on the p h o i eagles podcast thank you to everybody

for watching and listening, especially the Sickos, who watch live. Most of all, congratulations to Julia and Dwayne. Yes. Thank you. Big weekend. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome stuff.

We've got a lot more to come this week. 2 o'clock, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and then an all-day affair on Sunday for the game in Los Angeles. Thanks for watching and listening. We'll talk to you tomorrow for Zach, Fran and Julia. I'm Bo. you later and as always we love you love you