PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Philadelphia Eagles film review: Is Kenny Pickett or the defense to blame for Commanders loss?

Episode Date: December 23, 2024

One day after the Eagles’ bizarre loss to the Commanders that included a Jalen Hurts concussion, five turnovers forced by Reed Blankenship, Darius Slay, Zack Baun and the Eagles defense, a disqualification for C.J. Gardner-Johnson, another long touchdown run by Saquon Barkley, a game-altering drop by DeVonta Smith and some truly bad special teams kickoff coverage by the Eagles, we’re here to unpack it all.Fran Duffy has reviewed the film and explains to Zach Berman and Bo Wulf what he saw. Did the coaching staff do enough to set Kenny Pickett up for success? What happened to the defense on the big plays they allowed? Join the conversation as he move forward in the Eagles’ Super Bowl quest. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

By Eagles pot, Zach Berman, and just under the gun. We've got the Duffman himself, Fran Duffy. We're going to talk about the game yesterday, a heartbreaking loss for the Eagles. What matters, what doesn't really matter, what can sort of just be chalked up to a weird game, all that good stuff, and you know that it's presented by the good folks at Bet365, download the Bet365 app

and use code P-H-L-Y-365 when you sign up, whatever the moment. And it's never ordinary at Bet365. Zach, how you doing? How are your travels yesterday? I know they were not as you anticipated. Doing great. Thrilled to be here.

Happy being in studio with both of you guys. Yeah, a long day. You're feeling it today. It was a, I think, a 17-hour work day yesterday. But it doesn't feel like work when you're covering eagles doing this show. If you're going to throw out there 17 hours, you're looking for some kind of credit. I'm not looking for credit. Oh, you said, you know, it was a long day.

Yes. But, no. So you count the commute as the work day? Because I feel like the commute's doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Do you think people, when they're commuting to work, count the commute? All right, we don't need to go down this rabbit hole here. Sure. So I wasn't, those six hours in the car, take those out.

Okay. Okay. So we're down to 11. Okay. Now watching the game, does that count as a work day? Now we're down to eight. Yeah. Okay.

Now before the game, when you're watching warmups, Does that count as well? I mean, for you, that was like 15 minutes yesterday. True, true. And then when you're, I don't know, when you're ruminating about what to write, does that count? So the actual time on task of doing a show, doing a pregame show, post game show, the online clip,

and then transcribing and writing. I probably only work three hours. Is that better? Easy day at the office. At least you're being honest. Yes. Fran, how you doing? Great.

You got a tough day, I've heard. Yeah, it was a hell of a day. But we're here. It's a good show. A lot to go. You want to talk about it? You know, I think I want to just take a minute, just gather myself. But, yeah, went through the film.

I had a trip to the auto mechanic this morning. It was good. Yeah. Went out this morning, both flat, both back tires flat. Not good. Had they been leaking air already? They were leaking air a little bit. So it was like, oh, like, fill them up.

Yeah. Yeah. No, no dice. It was, yeah. You have to get two new tires? Two new tires in the back. Merry Christmas. Yeah.

Better to the back in the front. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they probably put the new tires in the front. The front day. Well, no, the front ones I replaced a few months ago. Front ones were good. Merry Christmas, you filthy animal.

Yes. It's been, uh, yeah. So it's been a day. That's your motto, right? Better in the back on the front. As soon as you said it, I was like, there's no. No way that is not going to be able.

I just want to give a quick update to everyone watching here. The Eagles Cowboys game has been moved to 1 o'clock on Sunday. So if you've been planning for that 4 o'clock game, you wanted a Sunday morning free, that is not the case. The Eagles games at 1 o'clock. And it is a Kelly Green game. So the Eagles could potentially clinch the NFC East wearing the Kelly Green jerseys. All right.

Well, before we get into the review from yesterday, let's talk about what is actually now at stake for the Eagles. Shout out to De Niz, as always, for breaking this down. If the Eagles are going to get the number one seed, it is not impossible. They obviously have to win their final two games, and then they need the exact course of events for these other three games. They need Green Bay to beat Minnesota next week at Minnesota. They need San Francisco to beat Detroit at home in San Francisco. And then they would need Minnesota in Week 18 at Detroit.

a game that would be for the division, they need Minnesota to win that game. So because the Eagles lost to the commanders yesterday, and that was not a common game that sort of flipped the tiebreaker, so it's not impossible, but it's certainly unlikely. And then on the other side, any win in the final two games for the Eagles locks them into the two-seed, so does any commander's loss, or rather locks them into the NFC East Championship,

and then assuming those other things don't happen, they would be the two-seed. seed and then it is possible that if the eagles lose both of their final two games and Washington wins the final two that the Eagles would drop all the way down to the six or seven unlikely unlikely I think it's reasonable to start planning for the two seed now Dallas looked better last night so you you never know I have a hard time seeing the Eagles losing to the Giants in week 18 well that mean that Giants team is going to be tanking exactly so I think the two seed is really where to look for the Eagles and I think the question is going to become

if the Eagles do beat Dallas this this weekend, which, as I said, is not a given, given the way Dallas looked at Tampa Bay last night. Now, I had that game on in the corner of my eye when I was writing. So does that not count as work then? Because you're also watching the game when you're writing. I mean, listen, ask the people in the chat, if they are working, if they're working, but they're watching a football game, would their boss be happy about that? I don't know.

Yeah. So then really probably worked for 30 minutes last thing. Yeah. But, yeah, Dallas is going to be tougher than their record suggests. That said, I think the big question is, if the Eagles do beat the Cowboys on Sunday, how do they approach week 18? My guess is that they would back off players. But the drama that's going to be unfolding that week is if Sequin has a big game this this week,

and he's like 160 yards out. What do you do? This, to me, that's very easy. You sit him. You sit them. It's like, it's almost childish to think about that it would be worth chasing that record in those, in those situations.

I think it's a little, I think childish is, is a stretch there. It's a chance for history. And it's not like him running on a, on week 18 does not mean he won't, now there's the risk of injury. You,

you want rest, but that's, that's within the course of a season, right? So I don't. I don't object to that too much. I still think they would back off. Yeah, I mean, what is the point of the season for Sequin Barclay?

Is it to get the record or is it for this team to try to get to the Super Bowl? But the two things aren't mutually exclusive, is my point. Well, yeah, but you have to prioritize one of the other. And if you're prioritizing one, it would mean sitting, don't you think? I can see, like, you know, let's say he runs for 100 yards next week, and he needs like 35 yards to just to reach 2,000. Sure. I could see them playing in the first half because it's like.

Devante in 2020. Especially if Jalen Hertz misses this next game with the concussion, I would expect that the Eagles would want Jailen Hertz to play a quarter in week 18 or something like that. To me, I think judging by the way that they've approached these in the past, you mentioned like the Devante from a couple years ago. I feel like if everybody's sitting, like if the idea is, all right, it's a situation where we would sit everybody, then, yeah, obviously like Sequan will be out.

If it's something where it's like we were to give him extra arrest compared to everybody else, I think Seekwon would stay in to try and go for it. That would be my guess. We also saw what happened yesterday when they had to run Seigma Barkley, you know, without Jalen Hertz or with the offensive line, not playing quite as well. So that's the other thing. But also, you can't sit everybody, right? And that's just the roster limitations. You got to prioritize it.

But, yeah, I don't think there's any doubt that if the Eagles are locked into the two seed entering week 18, given the fact that they haven't had a buy since week five, they're going to sit everybody they can. I don't think the Eagles would mind if Sequin gets like 65 yards next week in a winning effort. And so that number for Week 18 is pretty unrealistic. Yeah, right. Yep. You don't want it to be like he's 120 yards away and you sat him. I don't know. I think that's fine.

It's a it's a storytelling of the guy cares more about the team than he does about his own personal records. also we're talking he's got an extra game so like it's not like he's really breaking the same record um i don't know it's like who maybe i'm being too pessimistic but who cares well i think the offensive lineman care i think they care but it'll be nice to get to 2000 2000 i think 2000's a fun little it's a good compromise right yeah but yeah like chasing the dickerson record if it's going to mean he needs 150 yards in week 18 when he's been playing every single game and you got the playoffs to come? Who are we kidding?

It would be insane. I wouldn't go that far, but I don't think that's good. I think they would sit them. Okay. Now, let's, before, again, we're going to get to all the film review and all that stuff. But from a moving forward perspective, do you have any expectation for what this week is going to be like for Jalen Hertz and the Eagles quarterback position?

Yeah, I think it's going to be a challenge for the Eagles here because I imagine Jalen's going to be pushing the play. The problem is, is that. is if you're cleared as a quarterback, like, let's say this concussion's mild, and I don't know, that's be the fact, the case, but let's say he's cleared Friday, which is usually the earliest someone's cleared.

You haven't had a full practice with him, like doing his full, a lot of the snaps. You're putting a game plan together today and tomorrow. That's what the coaches do, Monday, Tuesday. I imagine they'll have one game plan for Kenny Pickett, one game plan for J-1 Hertz. Do we have insight on the rib, X-rays that's another good question.

Yeah, he's getting further testing today. Okay. Because I, I mean, listen, we can sort of joke about the Tanner McKee thing. Like, I do think that he's better than Kenny Pickett. Obviously, the Eagles don't think that right now. But I do think that I would rather have Tanner McKee play than Kenny Pickett playing with broken ribs. Sure. Right.

Now, this is the thing, too, is the Eagles don't have a fourth quarterback on the roster. Right. So you could have a situation where. McKee's your starter and Pickett's your backup because Pickett has the ribs injury but you're not going to sign someone off the street and have them as your as your number two quarterback

unless like Keddy and Pickett can't play so. But I think I would choose McKee over an injured picket don't you think? I think you're speaking from your perspective of someone who thought McKee outplayed picket this season. I don't think

I don't know that that's I just don't think that's the way it works. I don't think you... I don't think they're going to switch. I don't think they're going to watch this tape and say, okay, now Tanner McKee is our number three quarterback. They've made that decision that Kenny Pickett is their number two. Yes.

But if you're factoring in, one guy would be playing through like really, really a bad rib injury, then yeah, I think you would flip it. Am I crazy, Fran? No, and I think that the other part of it too is like, we know like this is what the pecking order is, right? Kenny Pickett's been the number two all season long.

I don't know that every, everybody in that building necessarily, oh, everybody said, oh, yeah, Pickett is number two and McKee is number three. We've said from the jump that, yeah, if something happened to Jalen Hertz where he was going to miss multiple games, it would probably be McKee that would be that guy. We've said that. Do you think they think that? I think there are some people in the building. No, I agree, but do you think the person who's making that decision thinks that? I think it would be Pickett, but it would, in that, that situation, as we talked about, it would have been a short leash for Pickett. If Kenny Pickett were healthy, I think he would

be and Jalen Hertz were declared out. Right. We get to start this week. Correct. But I think if you have to think about, first of all, you're putting a game plan together, and if you're not even sure that this guy can make it through a game because he's got rip injuries, I think you would move forward with the guy who was close and healthy. So let's play this hypothetical real quick, okay?

What if the Eagles and Lions were competing for the number one seed, okay? Eagles were playing all out week 18. Jalen Hertz suffered a concussion in week 18. who would start the playoff game? Can he pick it or Tanner McKee? Can he pick it? So that's the guy you want to play. Not if he has broken ribs.

No, I understand, but if he can't play, so my point is if he's healthy enough to play, then he'll be your quarterback. There's a difference between he's healthy and he's injured. And I would, even if you would rather have him than McKee, you wouldn't rather have an injured him than McKee. And if you're thinking that like one hit's going to knock him out of the game,

wouldn't you just want to put the game plan together for Tanner McKee? Well, that's a valid point there. And I think that that's certainly worth pursuing. I don't know the nature of Pickett's injury. I know he, the underwent x-rays after the game, further testing today. It's going to be a fascinating subplot for the Eagles. If there's doubt now where I agree with, with both of you, is if there's any doubt right now about Kenny Pickett, then what I would do is I would put this game plan together for Tanner McKee. And I would say, Kenny, like you're our number two, but we don't know. We can't go into the week with two questionable quarterbacks.

So we have to go into the week with the, I'm not saying that based on like my, I, if, if Kenny Pickett is healthy enough to be the starting quarterback today, then you put a game plan together for Kenny Pickett. I'm not saying Kenny Pickett has, has injured ribs. So therefore, I'm putting McKee in there. I'm saying if there's question that McKee, that Pickett won't be able to go Sunday, then you go into this week with McKee as your guy. I think you're both saying the same thing.

Okay. I think you're both saying. I thought you were saying you would rather have McKee than like a 50% or 70% Kenny Pickett. Like he, I think he is saying that. But I think he's saying both things. Yes. You don't say. But I mean, as you told us in the locker room, you know, AJ Brown is saying they're just, they're guessing out there.

He hasn't worked with Kenny Pickett. And so if Kenning can't practice on Wednesday. Yeah. And Terry McKee has to be the practice quarterback. then yeah, I would want him to be the quarterback. And the other interesting thing here, too, is that the Eagles schedule from my inner... Yeah.

Yeah, I think the Eagle schedule is flip-flop this week and that my guess is that Tuesday will be like a normal Wednesday. Typically the players are off on Tuesday. I'm expecting the Eagles to be in on Tuesday, have a walk-through Tuesday, and then Wednesday would be a... would be a day with their families for Christmas.

Interesting. They're scheduled day off. Now, perhaps they changed that. I know. It's possible that this Jalen Hurts injury has ruined Christmas for the Eagles families. Yeah,

because they've kind of been shifting to these walkthroughs on Wednesday. So they can go with a walk. So they're in today for corrections. Tomorrow, my guess is they were going to do a walkthrough. Then Wednesday was Christmas Day. Then Thursday to put their back for this intense practice. Based on that,

you need to know, Tuesday what your approach is. And if you have a different quarterback, you might not even want to do a walkthrough. You might want to make Tuesday an actual practice. Yeah, but they're not going to want their, they're not going to want the guys running around on on Tuesday. Right, but you're going to want. Sure. You're going to want some work with the course.

Extra work with whoever the quarterback's going to be. It's a tough. It's a very, yeah, this is tough. It's tough week. And the challenge here. Well, I'll tell you what, though, well, you know, all the talk about like, what does Nick Siriani do? this is a very interesting week. Great point.

From a head coach perspective. Yep. Great point. And this is like you, you, it's like the conversation with Governor Shapiro last week where you're trying to land a plane, right? Like you're, you're the head coach. You get paid not just for the comp. You get paid more for the chaos than the comp times, right? How do you navigate the chaos?

There's going to be some interesting decisions. Now, of course, Howie Roseman's involved in this decision. Jeffrey Lurie, you know, his input is interesting. The variable here that can't be understated is that a concussion takes all the decision-making out of the team's hands in that if J.11 Hertz was playing through a shoulder injury or an ankle injury, I think he would say, I'm Jalen Hertz, I want to play, you know, let me play. and you can find ways around that. A concussion, the player can't get on the field

until he gets the independent clearance and that's completely out of the team's hands. So that's why I'm saying, even if Jalen gets cleared on Friday or Saturday, you went through a week of practice without knowing whether he'd be cleared or not. Pretty fascinating. This is.

This is, yeah, I think you framed it well. This is a big next year. Ariani week. Yeah. And to talk about that, we'll get to how they did offensively yesterday and the plan they put together, having been surprised midstream by Pickettbee and the quarterback. And so we will get to all of that just after this commercial break. Well, there are presenting sponsors for a reason.

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Got signed up today. Visit trumark.com slash greenlight for more information. All right, Fred. Wait, so just let me tell you about the freezer. So people aren't concerned, okay? There's a walking free. What? Is he alive?

He's alive. Okay. There's a walk-in freezer that the Saints have to prepare Spencer Rattler for Monday's game, what they, what quarterbacks coach Andrew Janaco did. was took Rattler and the other Saints quarterbacks and had them in the walk-in freezer to run through their plays to prepare for the plays in cold weather.

Great coaching. Surprised you haven't seen the storyline. Yeah, I missed that one. Yeah. If you Google Spencer Rattler right now, the first thing that comes up is freezer. That's your meat locker Google Alert? No.

I just read about the NFL. It's my job. It's part of those 17 hours. Okay. as you're driving. Okay. Fran, you want to talk about the offense first?

I feel like I have more on the offense. So yeah, we can do offense first. Let's talk about the offense. This is a weird game. Yes. You know, I was on the all-city NFL show.

Flex. Flex. Huge flex, the biggest. And they were like, you know, what is the level of consternation from Eagles fans about this loss?

Like, you know, Bobrax, like he saw, like all these angry Eagles fans, like the season's over. And I don't, I don't feel like that's the sense. I'm not feeling that at all.

I get at all. I mean, this is like, you lost your quarterback in the first quarter, but it's not a season-ending injury. He's going to be back at some point. This was, it's just such a weird game. And we'll get to whether the stuff on defense is something to actually be concerned about. But offensively, assuming that Kenny Pickett's not the guy who's going to be the quarterback in the playoffs, is what from this game is actually concerning to you?

Good question. There wasn't a ton. There wasn't a time that's like big picture concerning. I mean, that was actually one of the questions on the Discord that I did put in one of the screen grabs. But I think when you look at this, ultimately it was okay, you lose your quarterback. Defensively, a group that's been an A plus throughout the majority of this season was not an A plus in this game. The run game has been an A plus all season. It was not an A plus in this game.

The offensive line was not an A plus in this game. Devante Smith drops that ball late. Sequan Barkley drops that ball late. Quinion Mitchell, who's been nails, gives up that long play touchdown. Like you had all of these different things, and the Eagles still nearly one. the game. Like, I think it's just one of those where you just kind of say, all right, like, you didn't bring your best game and you lose. So yeah, there was nothing like big picture. I was like, oh, like, this is a huge concern. I feel differently about this Eagles team going into

the postseason than I did 36 hours ago. All right. Well, let's talk about Pickett and not just the way that Pickett himself played, but the way that they, they structured the offense once Pickett went into the game. Just by the numbers in terms of how he did perform by success rate, this was the worst of the 15 quarterback games this season for an eagle. Yep. By EPA for dropback, it was 12th of 15. By air yards per pass attempt, it was right in the middle.

It was seventh. By net yards per attempt, it was 13th. So it was not a good performance. However, they didn't, what do they do to support him? They honestly ran a lot of the same plays that we've come to see from them in the past. I don't think they, like, changed up what they were doing from a dropback standpoint, going into this. There was one play in particular that I would say,

oh, this was a really bad turn down from Kenny Pickett and he didn't cut it loose. He should have cut it loose. We could actually pull that play to start. Andrew, if you could pull Pickett Turndown. This was a play that we've seen the Eagles run numerous times over the course of the season. And this comes with the question.

Of course, I didn't download these clips. So help me out with the who is the day? Discord user from the from the diehats. Oh, I actually can't see that. Oh, so you're right. Philly Dan and Jacks. Beautiful. All right.

That's Andrew Frazier, our producer today. Thank you. Beautiful job. Thank you, Andrew. So, you can read, Andrew. No, we want to wear the new voice on the show. We should tell the listeners who that new voice is. Well, so basically this is a play where the Eagles, again, they've run this a number of times.

We've actually covered it on the show a number of times where it's called rap, where at the bottom of the screen, you're going to see A.J. Brown is at the very bottom. This is the first shot right before the play. Andrew, if you go to the next one, you could see that Washington is in a blitz look, two linebackers, sugar in the A-gap's there, but they fall out of this. They sprinkle a little sugar on the A-gap. They fall out of this, and they get into cover two. And when they get into cover two, what you've got now is that he's going to have to kind of read this out, Kenny. And what I like is that the Eagles anticipated that this was going to be covered too.

when they had a route concept called to beat it. The bottom of the screen, you see Grant Calcutera, he's running the little hitch route. AJ Brown is right on the four, on the 40-yard line, getting ready to break inside. You can see the middle linebacker that's running in the middle of the field. You see that's Frankie Louvre.

The number four is facing us. It's turned away from AJ Brown. So this is that cover two beater we've talked about numerous times here this year. The Eagles run this against cover two teams often, and it's been one of their go-to route concepts. Andrew, if you pull up the next shot, you could see that AJ Brown turns inside. That's going to be the throw for Kenny Pickett.

But by this point, he has already started to break the pocket. This was, I would say, his worst turn down of the afternoon. And it was a bad one, but it wasn't like a, I mean, it was a bad turn down. But this was really the only one where I was like, oh, he really left meat on the bone here on this play. It was third and eight. He shouldn't have left the pocket. He ends up rolling to his right and throwing this away. Now, this also goes hand in hand with one of the players I thought was just out.

outstanding from an individual effort in this game. Andrew, if you're going to the next shot, again, you've got the sprinkle of sugar on the A-gaps here. You've got both linebackers standing over Cam Jorgans. Now, we've talked about how you block this lookup numerous times in the past. And 99 times out of 100, what you see teams do is it's going to be up to the center and the running back to block those two linebacker standing up over Jurgens, right? So Jurgens would block the guy to the right typically,

and the running back would block the one to the left. the rest of the offensive line would handle the rest of the four defensive linemen down on the line of scrimmage. And so now what you see here from Cam Juergens is that as the ball snapped, and Andrew, if you would go to the next shot, Juergens snaps this ball and his guy, number four, Louvoo, he drops out because he's going to be that middle of the field defender in Tampa 2. Gainwell steps up to take on Bobby Wagner. But it's not like Cam Jurgens looks at this and he's like, oh, like, all right, I guess I'll block the defensive tackle. His eyes immediately go to the most dangerous blitzer that is going to be on picket.

And that is actually the safety Jeremy Chinn all the way over on the right side. Jeremy Chin is blitzing off the right side, a positionless player that some people on the desk really, really enjoy. But Jeremy Chin is coming as a blitzer off the right side. Juergens does an unbelievable job. Andrew, if you go to the last shot. Outstanding range. This is an uncommon block from an offensive lineman and certainly from a center to have that kind of range to make that block so cleanly because that pocket is still clean. You can see Pickett is reading this.

That's the throw. He should have been able to step right into this and deliver this to AJ Brown on the in-cut. It would have gone for a first down on third and long. But he ends up rolling the pocket here and throwing this away. So I would say that was probably the most egregious turn down from Pickett on the night.

Obviously, he had the interception, which we'll get into. He had some underthrows, but that was the one where I was like, he would want that one back. Okay. We'll take us through the other picket plays, so the interception, I guess. Yeah, we go to the interception.

And we talked about this on the watch along. We did, yes. And I think you nailed it right, right as it happened. Yeah. That Louvre sort of baits him into it. Yeah. And this goes into the idea of the offense being a little bit predictable, as we talked about on the watch long as well yesterday. Andrew, if you pull up just Louvoo, I-N-T, basically what you get here.

And this is a shout-out to Michael B in the Discord, become a die-hard. So you can suggest some of these plays. But Michael B asked about this play. Just overall, you know, talking about like any big. concerns moving forward. Guys, this has been like a few weeks in a row now where I feel like we're looking at defensive players like tipping players, seeing what's coming in the past game, reading plays and jumping routes.

We are getting to that point in the season where there's plenty of tape out there for every offense. And so defenses are going to have a little bit of a beat on it. But there's just another one where it's kind of showed up. So basically what you're going to get here from the Eagles is that Grant Calcutara is lined up to the offense is right. He's going to run to the flat. And then you're going to get a hitch route here from AJ Brown.

right down the hash mark. And Andrew, if you go to the next shot, you can see Frankie Louvre. He is going to look like he's running with Calcutera towards the bottom of the screen. So Calcutera releases and he's releasing to the flat, the linebackers running with them. That should open up the pass lane right down the hash mark for the quarterback, for picket to be able to deliver this throw. But when he goes to let this ball go, Frankie Louvoo puts his left foot in the ground. Andrew, go to the next shot. Thank you.

puts his left foot in the ground and falls right back into the pass lane, steps right in front of it for an interception. baited Kenny Picket into this throw. He knew that the route concept was coming. It wasn't the only time that we saw this in the course of the game where there was another play of the Cleland Farrell sack. Okay. Right before the play, you could see, and there was like communication going on between Jordan Mila and the tight ends to his side.

He had both Uzama and Grant Calcutara lined up next to him, Jordan. And you can see that they're kind of talking things through. Cleveland Ferrell is just sitting there and immediately turns around. He's like, this is a play action and goes and points up field like, I'm going up field and just blows by Calcutara in the snap and gets a sack fumble like teams are picking up on on some things and it's it's a little concerning there's another play I wanted to show as well um let me make sure yeah uh Andrew can you pull up banjo beater we spent a how we spent like 10 minutes last week talking about the banjo beat yeah so uh they scored on this play in the say in the low red

zone twice each of the last two weeks so they're like all right let's let's go for it again okay so we're sitting here on this play and it's the same concept we saw Devante Smith is number three receiver he's running the corner out you've got the two receivers on the outside they're running the little pick play and Kenny Pickett drops back

and he wants to be able to deliver this downfield by the way shout out to REP asking for some of these he asked about just like the overall play calling what was Washington doing to kind of dial into some of these plays and I thought that applied to this play but when you look at Pickett he drops back and

Andrew, if you go to the next play, you can see the corner route is completely taken away. The pick play, like AJ is starting to break open, but by this point, Kenny's already getting throttled here by the pass rush. And so now... Is this the one when he blows the protection?

1,000%. So, Andrew, if you go to the next shot here, we get into... This is the same sugar in the agap look here from Washington. Now, here's the difference. And I picked this freeze frame specifically because... And we don't know.

I'd be interested to know if... when Jalen Hertz goes out, does Cam Juergens take over protection calls? Or if Pickett continue with a protection call. Should be very forthcoming about that. Yeah, I'm sure. But Sequin Barclay is in the backfield,

and you could see him looking at Kenny, like, are you sure this is what we're doing? Because you have both linebackers up, and again, 99% of the time, when you have this kind of look, it's going to be up to the center and the running back to block those two players. Now, if you don't do that,

if the running back is not going to block that those linebackers over the, middle, then that means you are going to see a full slide protection. That's really interesting. All five defensive linemen going in one direction, and you're going to cut the defensive end, one of the defensive ends loose. So basically, they're going to slide everybody to our right and the defensive end to our left, number six there, Dante Fowler, he is going to be unblocked.

That's Kenny Pickett's guy. So basically, Blake, and I'm just assuming here, but it's like, hey, are you sure this is what you want? Because if it is, then you got to make sure you're going to throw. hot here because the ball, you know, Fowler's going to get here fast. Like a second grade teacher. Like, are you sure? Are you sure? This is where this is what go. Yeah. So, uh, look, and this is, this is an answer. This is things people do. But if you are going to do it, then the ball has to come out fast because, you know, again, you're leaving

Dante Fowler who leads their team in sacks as he leads their team in pressures. You're leaving him unblocked. That ball's got to come out fast. Pickett steps back. Uh, that, the, rub route takes a little bit longer to, uh, to progress and he likes. Uh, Andrew, if you go to the next shot here. You can see Fowler gets off the ball. They leave him unblocked. All the other five are taken care of. But he holds on to the ball. Andrew goes to the last shot. He holds on to the ball, and Fowler ends up getting home for the sack. So the protection rules were messy in terms of the protection call. And the play on the backside was predictable, right? So you run that that same call in the red zone that's now three weeks in a row. And Washington was all over. That safety jumped that

corner out that Devante was running. And you would say that the pick play was there, but since it took a tick late to to develop, then, you know, Kenny's got to hold on to the ball, it doesn't get the ball

out fast enough for Fowler to get home from the stack. I mean, that, running that particular play because we have talked about it in the red zone,

a third straight week, is a little bit, like, what are we doing here to me? But I do want to be fair that, like, when you get surprised in the middle of a game

with your backup quarterback coming in, it does make sense that you sort of have to go to your staple place. Yeah, yes, I said no, I know we don't know, we don't know if that was in the game plan for this week or not.

Is it possible that it was? It's possible that it wasn't to your point. It might be like, hey, like this is what we've been running. Like, let's run to it. That's a good question. But it is, that is one little thing when you ask like big picture, like, is there anything? This is the one thing. I'm like, man, it's, we're now just seeing this. Yeah. Become a theme now. And we're like, if this had been, if that, if that was Jill and they were running in the third straight week, then I, then we'd be like, what is going on. Like, that's not good enough. Yeah. but I kind of lean towards wanting to give him a break a little bit.

Now listen, this is what they get paid for. Sure. You know, these are the difficult problems they have to solve. But I can understand the urge if you have your backup thrown in. Like, what are the plays that we know that he has run in practice? Right. You know, this is okay. I don't know.

But I do think it's worth reemphasizing this because there's a misconception I think among some of the public. is that the backup quarterbacks don't get reps in practice during the week, right? They play scout team. And you saw this with Nick Foles a few years ago. You saw this with Gardner-Minchu. Training camp practices, which like we cover,

we're there the whole time. That's a lot different where you're cycling year ones, you're cycling year-twos. Once you get to the season, it's the starters during practice, then the rotational guys. The backup quarterback, it's not like, we're just going to rotate you in and get you the work.

So when Kenny Pickett, when, like, AJ Brown says, I haven't played with Kenny Pickett. That's that because going back to training camp was the last time he would be catching balls from Pickett. And even then he wouldn't, he wouldn't have. Like they don't rotate. They don't rotate the quarterbacks with the starters. Only in just like team drills, you know.

Oh, I'm sorry, individual drills rather. I do want to close the loop on the discussion too about like being predictable. They did throw in one little change up. Okay. So it was a third down, the third down where AJ was tackled short of the sticks by Lattimore. They ran a fake mesh play. Andrew, if you go to just fake mesh, where, you know,

and they ran mesh in this game, once or twice on third down, I think once with hurts in the game, and once it out hurts in the game. But they also ran a fake one where basically you could see here that A.J. Brown is coming in motion towards the bottom of the screen. You can see him kind of in the backfield there.

Marchion Lattimore follows him across the formation. Andrew, you go to the next shot. AJ Brown, after coming in motion, is going to start running towards the right. And you could see, like, if they had, ironically enough, This probably goes for a first down. Latimore is not going to catch him here.

It's third and fourth, I think a third and five. You guys say it's third and five. AJ probably gets the first down on this play. Washington blitzes. So it's man coverage with no middle of the field linebacker there. So he's running Scott free into the open field. But they run the little change up here where AJ is going to actually put his foot in the ground and break back towards the sideline.

And Andrew, if you go to the next shot, you can see like AJ, he's breaking back towards the side. Lattimore just reads this really, really well. ends up making the tackle. If you go to last shot, Andrew, you can see he makes the tackle short of the stick. So a great corner makes a great play. The play call, like I get that it was good intentions. Yeah, the execution just wasn't there ultimately.

Yeah, I mean, listen, this is the, what is a concern is if this commander's team does have a beat on what they want to do on offense and these teams are playing again in three weeks. Like, you really get to the drawing board and figure out a way to surprise them. Right. It's kind of good coaching staff. and a veteran team an older team they went out and signed a bunch of vets

that has shown up so your your overall takeaway from the Kenny Pickett experience overall takeaway from Kenny Pickett they didn't lose the game directly because of Kenny Pickett obviously you'd rather have

yeah that's the thing about like this game it's like everybody has they all there's a big reason that they lost was everybody everybody shares this loss and like I think there's this whole big thing

of like I've heard it on a couple podcast even just like from yesterday like national stuff where it was like oh like you really saw the difference between jalen hertz and kennie picket yeah yeah yes so you saw a difference between jalen hertz who was a starting quarterback a top 15 quarterback in football uh versus like a middle of the road backup quarterback you know if you want to say even even that might even be generous um to say like okay like yeah there is a difference there most teams that's what it would look like when you're back old quarterback and of course yes if devante catches the ball they win the game and no question you know kennie when it mattered they made the throw that mattered

So, but, but the one thing I would add to that, and I wrote about this on all phtly.com, is what jumped out to me in the locker room, because I agree with you, like there, there's obviously a difference between QB1 and QB2, and that if you go back to December 2017, you can read some things about like Nick Foles. Yeah. And, but what, what, I think what was clear, and I heard this in, in the locker room was how much of the offense is tailored to J-1-Herts, that this is a hurt that hurts. makes the offense function based on the threat he brings to the running game. Like Saquan Bartley said, a lot of their running game is around G.O. and I heard you guys talk about this on the show about like the argument for having Kelsey make the calls in the past is that when the quarterbacks. Potentially. Yeah. I mean, you don't want to put your game, your entire strategy around

the possibility that you might lose your quarterback. Yes. But so much of what they do, so much of how this offense is designed. And it goes back to the conversations we were having back in September when it was, is this Nixiriani's offense? This is Kellen Moore's offense. And we kept saying, well, it's Jalen Hertz's offense. And I think you see that more. And actually one thing Kenny Pickett said after the game is this is the first time that

Kellen Moore called a game with him in there. And so if he's out there, like, they can figure things out. So the offense really is built to maximize Jalen Hertz. Well, it's an interesting talking point because the super chat that we have brings up an interesting point that we have talked about in the past, and that is from Drew, why doesn't Howie sign or draft quarterbacks that have the same play style as Jalen so the game plan doesn't need to change so much? And so if the offense is built around Jalen Hurts's skill set, wouldn't you want his backups

to be of a similar skill set? The Eagles have, I mean, they tried that sort of with Marcus Marriott. You literally asked Siriani this at the owner's meetings two years ago. I remember you asking the question. Well, I don't. And what did he say? You got a great memory. Well, you ask good questions.

Forget him, I guess. So, I would love best questions in the city, but best host to say. Worst memory in the city. Yeah, best host in the city. Yeah, best host in the city. He said that. Wait, so who do you think does ask the best questions in the city? It was insinuated, I think.

No, no, no, no. Who asks the best questions in the city? I don't know. I would have to go through all the Phillies press conferences and Flyers press conferences and Sixers' press conferences. to know the answer to that question. Okay. Yes.

So what did Nick say when I asked him that question? Nick says he thinks that's overrated, that you just want the best quarterback, and then if you have to go to that guy, you can figure it out. He said there are like staple plays that are consistent, no matter who the quarterback is. He understands why that question comes up about the mobility when they signed Marioada.

But he's like, you just look for the best quarterback. I agree with that. I think it, like, if, if you have guys graded equally, maybe the tie goes to the guy who has more of a similar skill set, but I do think you would rather have the better player. And honestly, like this Kenny Pickett performance, it is a reflection of the, you know, the trade that the Eagles made. And if he is just a middle of the road backup quarterback, as you described him, friend, that's not good enough for what they traded for him. Like they traded for him to be a starting caliber backup

quarterback and that is not the way that they trusted him in this game that's not the way that he played now listen it's one game nick foals right he was thrown in did not have a good performance like if if we saw him play into the playoffs it might be different but i mean they they went out and were aggressive in getting him with the idea being that that in a situation exactly like this when the stakes are high he could be a high performer for them and he wasn't yeah i don't i don't want to be harsh, but right. Yeah, I think that, again, I don't think he was good. I don't think he was like, but I also don't think he was like terrible in the game either.

Yeah, he didn't kill him. I think he was, I think he was like middle of the road. He was average. Fran brings up, or he brought up a good point in the back and forth with Jamie yesterday about Pickett's performance. If you haven't checked out the post game show, I recommend everyone do that. That like the past, the two past interferences, those are hidden yardage there. So that's 61 yards right there you can add to it.

The Sequin drop, the Smith drop. Now, this works both ways. Like Devonte and AJ made tough catches on passes that weren't well thrown. That could have been incompletions, right? So you can only be judged based on what happened on the field. No, about the past interferences? The PIs. I think we may have both said.

Fran said that. Fran said that about the past interferences. I remember because Jamie was really down on the performance. I said it too. What's it? Okay. Not the best listener in the city. How about that?

So, but yeah, the numbers could look different. And certainly the narrative of Kenny Pickett's game is different. If Devante makes that catch, the conversation is Kenny Pickett came in and helped preserve a win in a tough, against a tough team. They were down 28, 27. They drive down for the field goal. But you're your only judge based on the play. that happen. Okay. We also need to talk about what happened to the running game and some of the people who may have been responsible for that, which we will do just after this. At Ace Hardware

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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. Fran, I think one of the more popular comments I've seen about the game yesterday from fans is, boy, were the tight ends bad in the running game. Agree.

They were bad. CJ Yuzama was really bad. Calcutara was bad as well. You know, he's gotten a little bit better over the season, Calcutara. This is like an expectations thing. Like, yes. I'm not expecting Grand Calcutara

to be good in the running game. Yep. But if CJ Yuzama is on this team, a thousand percent, like what is he doing? he's not good in the running game. A thousand percent. That, to me, like, and there are offensive line issues as well,

but the tight ends were very bad, you know, in this game. Let's go to, hmm, which one we want to go to first? Let's go, let's go to paralyzed by choice. Like you're at Reading Terminal. Oh, do you want, do you want Kaptura or do you want Uzama first? Let's do you Zama first. So let's go, Andrew, can you go to Yuzama Turndown? Shout out to Rich Kotite's ghost.

saying was it ever available for Kenny Pickett to keep the ball and pick up some easy yards to run away run those run plays where Washington sent 11 at sayquins what i found was that they actually they did run a couple of RPOs in the game and i thought that Kenny made fine reads and was still respecting the rpo threat okay so i don't think that that was necessarily something where it's like oh man like they really sold out in that way now they did bring a lot of bodies into the box and that you know forces like one-on-ones but to me like this was an the Eagles got out executed too often in this game. And so you can see here, you're lined up in the pistol. You've got two tight ends over to the right side. Uzamo is the one that's nearest tour of the formation with his hand in the dirt. And what we'll get here on the snap of the ball, this is going to be basic inside zone. Andrew, if you go to the next shot, and you can see, you've got the double team from your backside tackling guard right in the middle of the screen.

That's Jordan Mila and Landon Dickerson. There's your double team. Grant Calcuttaire is going to work up to the safety. Kenny Pickett's going to read the defensive end number 99 there. that's right in front of Calcutera. C.J. Yuzama has to block the linebacker, number four, Frankie Louvre. And he's going,

he's going right towards the block to block Louvo, go to the next shot. He's taking a couple steps. He's going, he's on a B-line for the linebacker, Frankie Louvo. I'm sitting here in my chair this morning, wondering what is going on going through his head

as he instead, he like reaches Louvo in the next shot. Andrew, he reaches the next shot. And he just makes a hard left turn. And he starts to go block number 11, Jeremy Chin, the same guy that Craig Calcutterra is blocking. So instead of, you know, you get the hat on a hat,

Zoma should be blocking number four. Andrew, go to the next shot. And I mean, he's, Sequin Barclay's completely surrounded. And it's like, all right, well, that was a complete unforced mental error there from C.J. Usama. Let's go to the next one. Andrew, if you go to Uzama blocks Milata. So this is another one where, again, shout out to Irish Dave 2015,

asking just questions about like the RPO and the run game. That was a zone replay where I thought, okay, like you were able to hold. that backside defensive end, but you didn't block the linebacker. There were other examples over the course of the, over the course of the game, where here's another one where it's going to be a sweet play. And you can see you still have eight guys up near the line of scrimmage here. So you've got four down linemen. You've got two linebackers.

You've got down safety here. You've got the nickel corner. So it's a loaded box for sure. But the Eagles have numbers here to be able to run this. And it's going to be a sweet play to the right. Kenny Pickett is going to read that backside defensive end. Cleland Farrow, if you go to the next shot here, Andrew, you can see he's starting to read that defensive end but he's not he's not going to be a factor

number one the the the corner on the backside he's not going to be a factor this is going to be a sweet play where if you look to our left you can see that you've got macky beckton he's going to go block fouler he's pulling already he's going to go block faller the defensive end cam jrgins is pulling out in front as well c juzama is lined up just inside that defensive end fowler he's got to go and block frankie louvo on the play side he's got to get up to the second level and go make that block If we go to the next shot, Andrew, you can see that, Uzoma, like, decide he's going to get up there and he, like, I don't think I'm going to make it.

So he decides, all right, I'm going to go try and block Bobby Wagner instead. The problem is, is that Jordan Milata is already blocking Wagner. And he is, like, washing him down and basically just saying, like, I'm going to, I'm going to block him and just carry him where his momentum wants to go. Because on this run, if Seekwon Barkley wants to try and cut back, if Jordan Milata is washing that player down, well, there should be plenty of space for him to cut back. we're going to go to the next shot, Andrew, and you can see, because Uzama decides that he wants to block Wagner,

look at it's right where like the sky cam lines are to the left of the hash mark, where it basically looks like Yuzama and Jordan Milata are hugging Bobby Wagner at the same time from opposite ends. Yeah, right. Jordan Milata is blocking Wagner all the way to our left. Uzama wants to block Wagner and blocks him into Mila. What is he doing?

It creates this collision, and Andrew go to the next shot. now Bobby Wagner is he basically squeezes out of that and now he makes the tackle so often you saw these plays where it's like all right so that's Usama there were a few plays where okay like he doesn't make the block

you go to some other plays here Andrew this is a this is a grand coptero one so yeah so Andrew let's go to Grant Mrs. Louvue one and this is actually this is a lot of what happened in the last game and this is honestly what I expected to see more often than not in this game when I went back through. The last commanders game. The last commanders game.

Washington gave the Eagles offense fits with all the run stunts and the slanting up front. And I thought, okay, that's probably what happened again here in this game. And you could see here that Washington, we've talked about the Vic Fangio and the adjustment that they make where they take Zach Bond. They put them on the line of scrimmage and that changes the blocking assignments for the for the offensive line. That's essentially what Washington did in that game and what they've done at times here in this one. You can see it's more of a 5-1 front where you've got Frankie Louvoo down off the edge on the right side. He's lined up across from Calcutera. But late in the pre-snap phase, just before the ball is snapped,

Louvo comes in really, really hard on top of Calcutera. So now he's, Andrew, if you go to the next shot, you can see really quickly the picture changes. And he's so fast off the ball, Louvue, that when that ball snapped, Andrew, go to the next shot, he knifes inside and he gets home for a TFL. And so that one went for like minus three on first and ten. So again, it's the first and first and ten turns to second and 13. That's not what we're expecting from this group more often than not. During the watch along yesterday, Vinnie was saying, oh, man, like, why aren't they running counter more?

They've had so much success with counter. That was the long touchdown that Seekwon had early in the game, the 68-yarder came on counter. The successful run they had in the second half came on counter. But not all the counter runs for good. The successful run they had in the second half. Sigmund Berkeley averaged one yard per carry in the second half. second, third, and fourth quarters combined yesterday. There was the one point, it was like, oh, he ran for 11 yards since that 60 yarder.

And then it was, they ran counter and he got 11 yards on that one. And it was like, that's, all right, that's their best run of the last three quarters. But, I mean, they did run it at times. And they just, again, they got out executed. Andrew, if you go to Grant, Mrs. Wagner. Bobby Wagner was a force in this game. Like, nobody could block him in this one. Frankie Louvre was really active as well.

But again, you can see the Eagles lined up, this time in 13 personnel. and you've got Grant Caccaratara to our right, E.J. Jenkins and Uzama to our left. And you can see, the Washington responds with a bunch of guys up with the line of scrimmage. But again, they've got the numbers to be able to make this block. Andrew, if you're in the next shot, we've talked about, all right, the big blocks here for the counter. You're going to get the first person that's going to be the kickout. Here comes Mackay Beckton. He's going to try and block Jeremy Chin.

You're going to get Uzama coming around. He's going to block number 58 Jordan McGee. But in order for those blocks to happen, you need this. double team at the point of attack to work. And that's Jordan Milata and Grant Calcutera. You have to block that defensive lineman that's across from Milata up to the backside linebacker. So Grant Calcutera, he's got to block Bobby Wagner number 54. He was at like the top of the W on the left, our left hash mark. He's got to get over to Wagner. If you go to the next shot, Andrew, you can see that Calcutera, he misses Bobby Wagner. So he just go, he ducks, he misses,

and he gets Olaid, and Wagner's able to get in for a tackle. And so too often in this game, the tight ends just did not get the job done in terms of they're run by this is where they missed Dallas gotter most you know we talk about like route distribution and like all you know that not enough passes going around to other players and yeah like you they would love to have Grant or Dallas got it in the past game but not having a really good blocking tight end it's it's hurting this run about stole yeah like that way I mean and even then like stole stole has been fine right he's not he's not he's it's not like he's you know one of the best blocking tight ends in front of football, but he was their best outside of Dallas. So yeah, that's an issue for that at times. I guess my question then is if it was this, if it was this bad in the run game, should they have come off at sooner? Now, the numbers would actually indicate like this was not, I think it was there in terms of designed run percentage.

It was 13th of their 15 games this season, 47.9%. On first down, it was 11th of 15 games. Now part of that is because this was a close game. They've been in a lot of games that weren't close. So it's not like they were just leaning on the run. But when we were watching the game on the watchalong, it did feel like first down run, second down run, third long. Like, is that the best way to play this game?

I don't know. Yeah, I feel like they, I mean, the numbers are the numbers. I think the big thing, too, that we've seen in, I mean, how much did that 22 play drive throw off the run numbers last week, right? In terms of like setting it off in the other way. And we haven't seen as extreme, like those, you know, A 22-play drive is very, very rare. But because they weren't having success, like,

I think that kind of affected the- Yeah, that makes sense. The run-game volume and percentages. So do you think they should have come off at sooner? I think because of Pickett, like, I think you kind of, you still needed to be able to run the ball. Like, it would be one thing if, like, are you had Hertz in there and the run game was this ineffective.

Because that's, honestly, that's kind of what happened in the first game, where, you know, back in week 11 against Washington, the run game wasn't hitting for the first three quarters, and it wasn't until the fourth quarter when, And I would say that's, if the Eagles do play in Washington in the playoffs, we're going to talk about the fact that this defense shut down Sequin Barkley in the run game for six out of eight quarters in two games. So Saquan yesterday, like we were saying, seven carries for 109 yards to touchdowns in the first quarter,

22 carries for 41 yards during the rest of the game. Sequin said this after the game. They were loading the box. We get it each week. The dynamic of Jalen definitely helps. In our situation, a lot of things we do in the run game are designed with Jalen. it's hard to run the same stuff with Hab. It's hard to run the same stuff without him.

We had to adjust. Yeah, I think that, you know, obviously you take the, like they weren't running QB counter with Kenny Pickett. But, you know, just based off what I saw in film, like I didn't see like, oh man, like they're not respecting the RPO. Now, could Pickett have maybe like pulled a couple to maybe make them more on us, maybe? But there were plenty of times where I'm watching.

I'm like, all like, I'm watching those backside players to see, like, are they not respecting it all? And they're slowing up their way that they were playing. And I think that that mostly got the job done. Now, again, you are missing the design QB-Run element. They didn't do a tush push yesterday. I wonder if that's something where it's like, oh, like we don't feel comfortable doing Pickett.

Maybe Pickett doesn't like doing it, like whatever the answer is there. But they had opportunities to do it and chose not to. Yeah, to me, this was more poor execution. By the way, it wasn't just the tight end. Like Mackay Beckton had his worst game yesterday. Okay. Beckton did not play well.

I know that Greg Olson pointed out a couple. instances on the broadcast. Mostly in run blocking? Yeah, mainly run blocking. But there was that one first and 10 play where Duran Payne had a minus 4 TFL where everyone else is going right, and Bechtin goes left. I didn't put that one in here.

But there were a couple other ones where he derailed drives because of the way that he was able to not properly able to execute in the run game. All right. Well, for those of you watching on TV, thank you for joining us. And if you want to hear the discussion about how the defense played, make

sure you go to all p hly.com to check it out last thing on offense let's go ahead i just wanted to ask a game management question to both you guys here uh i know this this this this isn't one of the screenshots but the final drive that the eagles had on on on on offense what do you think of the way they they did it so uh because you're competing against the clock you want washington to burn their timeouts so first and ten they had steen eligible yeah so they're six guys jordan my lot is he screwed up that play there. He said there was, he said he messed up the cadence with Kenny Pickett. Okay.

And he said that's what caused. So there's a three-yard loss there. So now you have second and 13. So Jordan took the blame on that one? When he was, he took the plane talking to me. Now, I don't know if it was Roy Peck. If it was Pickett's fault and he was covering for Pickett. Yeah.

So they ran the counterplay, which, you know, that's, again, it's been a bread and butter play. And I do like the idea of going six offensive linemen instead if your tight ends can't block. We talked about that a few weeks ago. They would need to lean into this. It was during the first Goddard injury that we talked about it. I think it's something they should try and lean into more. But basically they're running counter and Landon Dickerson's pulling. And no one blocks the defensive tackle in front of Landon Dickerson.

So I'm like, all right, like, was that on Jordan? Or was that on Cam? Should Cam have blocked down? So I actually wrote that on my note. So Jordan took responsibility. He said at that play, because I asked about the four minute offense. And he said he's going to be real pissed off about that. because of that place.

So then you have second and 13. Washington has two timeouts left. They complete a pass AJ Brown for eight yards. Washington uses their second time out. And that's the one where they live is a shoe straight tackle. So now there's 207 left. Okay. Third and five, seven seconds until the two-minute warning here.

You can run the ball, force Washington to use their final timeout or bring it to the two-minute warning. You can do a quick screen pass there. Now, the past that Devante worked in theory, but you don't know if, are you okay with that play call there? Would you rather something that forces Washington to use their timeout? No, I hate playing to prioritize draining their timeouts instead of going to win the game. I thought it was, I liked that play call. We actually said in the watch long, like, do you go win the game here? We all said to win the game.

The next question is, are you okay with kicking the field goal to go up five instead of two? and if this were the Jalen Hertz offense, I would want to go for it. Like I just like when teams, the balls, you have the ball, go win the game. In this situation and the Ben Baldwin, fourth that decision maker recommends field goal. I'm okay with kicking the field goal.

Do you hand it to Sakele on on third and five hoping to get three yards to set up a fourth and two? And then you have the optionality there because assuming Washington uses their final time out before the two minute warning, or they would actually probably let it go to the two minutes. they would let it go to the two-minute warning there so you're not you're not you're not draining the time out anyway yeah i think with the way the offense was playing it because it was like uh again if it was

jalen hurts i would have felt a little bit differently but the way the offense was going like i was fine with going for it uh to go like going for the first down to to try and win the game um and i would have been if it was fourth and two i still think i would have just kicked interesting yeah and and there is a big difference there between two points and and you know five points right right right it's not like three to six exactly you you could still live lose. By the way, so that play was actually like more heartbreaking watching on film of a drop like that. That's just a crushing drop because so often in this game, they did like a motion where they brought Devante from one side to the other behind a receiver and they ran like a

quick out route and they're they start dialing in on it where they're they're starting to jump the out route and they kept hitting it like Devante kept getting open. They did it once with AJ and it worked. This time they bought Dotson in motion next to Devante. DeVante looked like he was gonna he's like rope-edoping the corner or he's like yep i'm gonna go outside and the corner starts to go outside and he breaks inside he's wide open there it's against a blitz there's nobody there in the middle of the field i don't know if he scores but man like what a what a crushing drop like it was because they they it's not like they were setting it up all day but it was perfectly dialed up for that to be a big play that would that would have won the game his

quote on that i made all the tough catches today and then and then the easy one i had i dropped ain't nobody else's fault but mine ain't nothing i can do about it now i just dropped the ball ain't no teaching on it just catch the ball it's simple yep it's brutal and it is like we talk about like so many people have a hand in this loss and i mean that is but that's the play like yeah yeah they had to win uh last thing on offense what on the film the sayquan uh wildcat pass play yeah how did that look uh it was a one-man route devante's running like he's like as if he's going to block the safety and then breaks his way towards the corner if sayquan If he was going to throw it, because the corner was just like sitting out there,

he would have had to just like let it go early and just float it to the back pile on and just like let DeVante go get it. Once he didn't do that, he basically just had to, I'm sure he's coach, don't throw it if it's not wide open. That's what he said after the game too. There we go. Yeah. He said ball security there is the most important thing. Yeah, I still, just the design of it is not perfect to me because to me, once it's not there. Once it's a wildcat play, it's putting up the alert that this could.

be a pass from Sequin and then especially if he's not just going straight away he's rolling out to the right like there's no there's not enough uh optionality there like it gives it away too much whereas if if pick it were handing it off to him and then he was going to throw it then it would have catch the defense by surprise or even if it was like a late change to like kind of what Washington did on that play where our jaden Daniels and Robinson are in the shotgun and very like very close to the snap like are they quickly shift and then do it right you know that doesn't get and they and again as we said on the post games you're There hasn't been a snap of Sequin and Wildcat all year. So you know, like, the defense is thinking, well, what's this?

Something's up. So, yeah, okay. All right, the defense, when we made it through an hour and five. An hour of the show and having talked about the defense putting up one of their worst performances of the season, aside from the turnovers. Now, you get five turnovers. No matter what else you do on your other drives, that should be enough to win the game. Obviously, it wasn't in this situation. They gave up four plays of 25 plus yards.

Yep. On defense, that's the most since week one in that Packers game. They didn't give up a lot of medium. They didn't give up any plays. That's what was weird. Between 15 and 25 yards. Yeah. But those four plays were obviously huge in this game.

And obviously not what we've seen from this defense all year long. At all. At least since before the by. Let's look. I pulled one. Andrew, can you pull McLaren touchdown? And this one was kind of cut and dry. Shout out to Chris Sims burner on the Discord for asking just about a lot.

By the way, like there was people in the Discord like worried about Quinnia. Oh, is this the rookie wall for Quinnion Mitchell? Like, he gave up one big catch. To a really good player. To a really good player. I'm not like, you know, I would say pump the brakes on that. He gave up one other play in the end that was called back for penalty, right? I think so, right?

I mean, it's one other play. It's fine. Right. Yeah. And then there was the catch in the final drive where he's against McLaren. It's Blitz. It's one-on-one coverage. And he gave up like a hitch for 10 yards.

Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. On this play, he just, to me, and I'd be interested here, like, I'm sure Vic Fangio will probably be asked about it on. I think I can speak Wednesday or Tuesday I think he'll speak tomorrow tomorrow so I'll be tuning into that to just hear what he says about it but to me it just looked like

Quignan played with bad leverage he's lined up against McClarn at the top of the screen it's one on one the Eagles blitz here on this play and they actually blitzed a lot yeah I was going to say yeah the blitz numbers were very very high and then that obviously that doesn't even count like the blitz exchanges where like the blitz the linebacker

and the defensive end drops out do you think that was a result of the Jailen Hurts? century trying to do more or do you think that was just the way that they were playing my guess is it's probably the way that they rolled out um because they were doing it early too i think the first i think actually the first play the game they blitzed yeah yeah yeah zach bond blitz the first play um so you know that that that was the game plan going in now it's one-on-one coverage and you can see that at the top of the screen if you go to the next shot here Andrew um oh

it's one-on-one and mcclaren't work vertically down the field Quinyon's playing with inside leverage here where he should be playing more outside just trying to stay over the top and basically there's only one way he's going to get beaten here on this planet it's going to be vertical up the field he's got too much space and Jaden Daniels lets this run

or lets this one rip. Washington did a really good job out of empty in this game. They played a lot of empty here. The Eagles blitz against empty and kind of forced the issue and Jalickson, you can see that he's bearing down on Daniels and he gets a hit on Daniels as he's throwing it, but Daniels just delivers this out to the pylon and lets his guy go get it. Okay.

Yeah, that was just kind of a tough one. How good? How good is Jen and Daniels? How good was he in this game? He was good. Yeah, he was good. I mean, he had a couple misses. The interception to CJ Gardner Johnson, I'm sure he would have liked to have back.

But, I mean, he had some money scrambles. Obviously, we can get into. But, I mean, that throw to McLaren was outstanding. The game winning touchdown, the Crowder was really strong. So, yeah, he played well. Were you like Pim stepping all the way home from the Crowder? Big game? No, I don't know why that kept coming up on the show.

I don't know why that was the first question to me in the postgame hit. Not James and Crowder is a good solid player, made a good solid catch. I don't think James and Crowder was the story of yesterday's game. Good player, though. Okay. What about the fourth and 11? Yeah. So basically, Andrew, if you pull up Jaden Scramble,

basically on that play, it's fourth and long. Eagles are up two scores at this point, early fourth quarter. This is like a chance to win the game potentially. But yeah. The Eagles, and we talked about this in the last game in week 11 that they didn't do anything special against Daniels.

Like we're going to do QB spy. We're going to do all that. Like they more relied on their defensive front to play contain and they were playing zone coverage behind it. So you have eyes on Daniels. And that was the case here on this play. I mean, it's fourth and 11. And they were playing zone coverage behind it.

You can see that it's a wide front. from the defense. So you have two three techniques and two wide nine techniques here from the defense. And Nolan Smith does a great job of winning off the edge. Andrew, if you go to the next shot, you can see Nolan off of our left side. He beats Brandon Coleman clean and he's getting ready to go to Jaden Daniels's blind side. Daniels feels that pressure coming. And so he starts to take off. You go to the next shot, Andrew. As Nolan Smith is closing in, you can see that there's the pathway for Daniels to step up. So the Eagles don't have contained there. Both defensive tackles get washed down just a little bit and that kind of creates that exit path for jaden danis to escape the pocket

when he steps up now remember it's it's fourth and 11 and so you know you've got the time for these zone defenders in the back end you've got seven guys in coverage to be able to converge and so you go to the next shot the guys they have the best crack at him early are going to be Zach Bond coming from our left and Tristan mccallum who's coming from our right he's right up the hash mark there with the long arm sleeves uh cooper dejean is getting blocked here by the tight end and so the the two guys that missed the tackle at first are Bonn and McCollum. I would put this more on McCollum. He was a little bit overaggressive coming from that side. He took a bad angle downhill. So Daniels cuts off of McCollum and he gets up to the third level. I think they had a shot to get

him at the sticks here. And that's on Nacobo B. Dean. You go to the next shot here. You see that it's one-on-one for Nacobo Deen and Daniel's able to make him miss as well. And so he's able to get the first down. But essentially what you had was that the defensive line, they're going, you know, pin their ears back and go. You had a pass rush win there from Nolan Smith, but he steps up. There wasn't anybody to account for Jaden Daniels, and he was able to make some guys missed at the second and third level.

We were curious in the postgame how much things changed on defense without C.J. Gardner Johnson, and with Tristan McCollum in there, did you notice a big difference overall? Aside from his play. Yeah, I mean, McCollum, I mean, he got, they went after him on the not the game winning touchdown, but the touchdown after

that, or the touchdown before that, rather. down in the red zone where they ran the corner route that was to was that to oz yeah so to uh to oz there um the low one yeah the low one yeah exactly so uh you know that one you can see mccallum kind of got lost in the weeds a little bit on that one he wasn't terrible but uh you know because that's the thing too is that i mean honestly like cj gardner johnson wasn't great in coverage again in this game either uh i would say the first touchdown uh to uh that was to crowder as well wasn't it the the very first touchdown the game on the slant route that one was I would put that on C.J. Cooper's passing that slant route off to C.J. Gardner Johnson in the post and Gardner

Johnson was too worried about like the screen, the stuff going on in the flat and he let his guy get behind him. So I would say that C.J. like didn't have his best game and then McCollum came in and just kind of kept that rolling. So I mean, listen, you're allowed to have bad games. You're allowed to have down games. What from this defensive performance is an alert for you and and a concern moving forward and what I guess is just you chalk it up to a weird game. But also keeping in mind, this is the team that might have to play again in three weeks. Yeah. Nothing that I honestly feel like, oh, man, like this is going to give them problems moving forward.

Because they, because they've been so good for so, so long here, I don't see anything where I'm like, oh, like that, that's something I definitely would hear mark. Person. So that feels bullish. Go ahead. Yeah, I've seen this idea out there that, uh, This left them exposed to running quarterbacks. We've seen them play Lamar Jackson.

Right. I think, you know, you play against good players sometimes, and good players deserve credit. Jay and Daniels had a real good game yesterday. I saw an Albert Pierce story today that that touchdown was something that they put in for a specific end-of-game situations. Interesting. And it actually, it normally goes to Earths,

but they went to Crowder and practice during a red zone period this week. Gaten Daniel said, quote, it set up perfectly. We did the same play in practice, same route, right behind the linebacker and two high coverage.

That was my first reed pre-snap from what I've seen. I'm going to go right here and trust in him to make a play. Yeah, I didn't think anybody like did poorly on that coverage play. I think that was just a good route concept

to attack it. I also like, I mean, listen, they had a chance to win the game. You want to make that stop. We haven't even talked about special teams yet because they don't have a very long way to go. But I do sort of get the like,

human letdown of like you had that same situation and you made the play to win the game when when Slay bats it up and read Blanketship gets the interception like that should have been I thought that was a good point you made on the postgame show that's that's the play the defense made defense got you the ball back right there yeah so Devante makes that catch that you have to go and do it again like that's tough that's why you can't go 55 seconds the offense can't give the ball back in 55 seconds I got to get I want to go to Nixiriani before we close the special teams we should talk about it Yeah.

What? He's starting now. I said, go ahead. Okay. Yeah. Merry Christmas to all. Happy holidays to all. Okay.

You want to see a guy flustered? There he is. I was flustered at the beginning. It's only right. Yeah. I mean, the special teams is tough. What are we doing on kickoff coverage? I mean,

they said after the game that it was weather, but it didn't seem to impact Washington's kickers. No. So, I don't know. But, I mean, look, the coverage is bad. The kicks were short. I mean, the kicks were certainly short. Now, were they short by design or were they short by weather?

But either way, I mean, the average starting field position off kickoffs was that, I believe, the worst of the season. And then when you look at just that final drive, like rather than I'm starting on the 30, you're starting at the 43, you spotted them a first down. And I know that that's the goal for a lot of return units. It's not necessarily a score a touchdown. It's, all right, get our offense a free first down. You know, get 10 yards, get 10 plus yards that they wouldn't have gotten otherwise. And that's a win. And you were able to give that to them more often than not.

on up Nick as well All right Anything else that you want to get off your chest here These two teams play again in three weeks How do you feel about the matchup? I feel like how I felt going into yesterday Which I feel like they should win And win comfortably

You know I think that ultimately it was just a it was a bad game From a you know Everybody didn't have their A game And so it just resulted in a not great performance Okay Well See how they respond

Yeah, good test. And as we talked about, an nice, interesting test for the head coach this week. Go ahead. Yeah, no, I was because the only other thing I had that I wish I would have rolled it for Zach, but the force fumble that Jalen Carter had, awesome heads-up play. It would have played great for his article last week.

That's true. He did nail that. Talk to him about it later. Okay. Now, programming-wise, no show tomorrow. No show Wednesday. We are back on Thursday in studio, I believe, the three of us again. and then we'll have De Niz in studio as well on Friday

before taking you through the kickoff show, watch along, and post-game show on Sunday, 1 o'clock game against Dallas Cowboys. So, Eagles chasing hope for the one seed, but an interesting week to see what happens at the quarterback position, and then potentially locked in for the two-seat after that. Everybody please do enjoy your holidays.

We'll talk to you on Thursday. Thanks to Andrew for making it happy. and today thanks to Zach and Fran and especially to the sickos in the chat. We will talk to you on Thursday and as always, we love you.