PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Philadelphia Eagles Postgame: Jalen Hurts, A.J. Brown BEAT UP on Steelers, move to top of NFC

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

Jalen Hurts had one of his best passing performances of the season, tossing touchdowns to A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith against the best defense the Eagles have played this season. Supremacy in the Pennsylvania again belongs to the Philadelphia Eagles after Jalen Hurts’ impressive performance, while Kenny Gainwell provided juice in a game with Saquon Barkley less of a factor. On defense, the Eagles dominated, with Jalen Carter, Josh Sweat and Nolan Smith bringing the heat as they forced three-and-outs on the Steelers’ first five drives of the game. Now 12-2, the Eagles are tied atop the NFC with Detroit for the conference’s No. 1 seed with three games to go. Join Super Bowl champion Vinny Curry, Fran Duffy and Bo Wulf as they react to another huge Eagles win, making it 10 in a row. 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 P.HLY Eagles postgame show presented by Bet365. Download the Bet365 app and use code. PHLY365 when you sign up, whatever the moment. It's never ordinary at Bet365. And what a performance from the Philadelphia Eagles, a 27 to 13 dismantling of the Pittsburgh Steelers. And with so many questions heading into this game about the Eagles passing game, they put on arguably their best passing performance of the season for the first time since December of 2022. Jalen Hertz throws the ball to Devante Smith and A.J. Brown who both go over 100 yards receiving.

It was the biggest difference between passing yards and rushing yards for the Eagles offense in a game this season. They dominated, and on defense they were fantastic. We've got a lot to get to. Nick Siriani, we'll hear from him. We'll hear from some players in the locker room. Zach Berman what he has to say from the link. But most of all, we're going to hear from Super Bowl champion Vinnie Curry and Fran Duffy. And Vinny, this was more of a, say, say, Kwan kind of game.

But from Jalen Hertz and A.J. Brown and Devante Smith, this is what you were looking for. Man, I'm telling you, this is what we all was looking for. We, we, to that, yeah, listen, as an Eagle fan, everybody should be smiling from air to air. We got to see Batman go crazy, the Slim Reaper go crazy. What a game from Jailen Hertz. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing is that all eyes were going to be on this passing game going in. And we said that this week, all leading up to this matchup, what would it look like? Because you knew that they were going to have their opportunities one-on-one on the outside with the amount of single high that the Pittsburgh Steelers played.

And Jalen Hertz came to play. I thought the game plan was really strong from the Eagles out of the gate, started really, really fast. And we'll get into some of the wise behind that. But extremely efficient game here from Jalen Hertz against the Steelers. Jalen Hertz finishes 25 of 32 for 290 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions, a quarterback rating of 125.3. What did you notice from the way that they sort of set things up schematically, Fran, that was different than what they had been doing in weeks past?

Well, look, we talked earlier this week about, I know we showed like the chart and the graphics. I wrote the article about the issues that Jalen Hertz was having in the past game. And more than any quarterback in football, he was holding the ball for more than four seconds. So what did the coaches do in this game? They did an outstanding job in the first two and a half to three quarters of really finding ways to get the ball out of Jalen Hertz's hands fast. And that was something we talked about at halftime, myself and Rich Hoffman, but Tom Brady, they showed a graphic about midway through the third quarter, late through the third quarter,

the average time to throw for Jalen Hertz in the first five drives was so much lower than it was over the course of this season. They did a great job of finding ways. You know what? Maybe let's take out some of the play action throws that we'd seen. and now let's lean more into empty. Just find ways to say, all right, simplify the reeds, get the ball out fast, and Jalen responded in a big way.

I mean, his EPA per dropback on throws that were the average time to throw was under two and a half seconds, 1.19. Wow. By far the best that we've seen from him over the course of this season. And certainly, again, his most efficient day through the air. And let's be very clear about the stakes here because the whole AJ Brown passing game conversation was not about winning games in November and December. the entire conversation is about wanting to be able to prove that we can win the kind of games we're going to need to in the playoffs.

Yep. Against good defenses. We have also talked about all week. The Eagles have a very weak schedule of opposing defenses this season. This was going to be their big test. This is the best defense they've played all season long. And what do they do? They come out and have their best passing performance of the season.

And it comes in conjunction with what looks like a Detroit Lions loss to the Buffalo Bills. That game is just finishing up. And with that, the Eagles are now tied. atop the NFC, they're going to still need one more Lions loss and probably a Vikings loss as well. But if the Eagles win their final three games, there's a very real chance

they're going to be the number one seat in the NFC, Vinny, and they look playoff ready right now. Oh, now they're in sync. I think they ain't sync. I think, you know, this week with all the discussion going on, I think it shows on the AJ Brown touchdown. First thing they do, they go back to doing their house party dance

and, you know, It had the link rock, and you can see that all over the TV. Yep. You know, and that's what you love to see. You love to see, you know, let the world know that. It's a, this ain't really nothing, you know, and they come out there and to have this type of performance, man, it's just unbelievable. And I wasn't here last week, so hopefully I was there good luck, you know what I'm saying? Do you think that's what made the, do you think that's what made the juju off for them at the end of last week?

It's like, if he wasn't here, you were holding them together. Yeah, but, man, but that. performances, it was wild. But like you were saying, he was getting the ball out quick. Yep. But the receivers was open. They was running the hell out of them routes. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing is that we saw a lot more empty from the Eagles in this

game. And what happens when you use a lot of empty, that's when you're spreading the defense out. You've got five eligible receivers spread out. No one in the backfield with Jalen Hertz. And what that can be is a truth serum for the defense. You're forcing the defense to declare their intentions before. for the snap of the ball. And so if they're going to play, man, if they're going to play zone,

typically teams will go into a game with one, maybe two checks in terms of what they're going to do from a coverage standpoint when they line up against an empty set. And so the Eagles very early on said, okay, this is what we're going to do out of empty. How can we get Jalen Hertz the information he needs to get the ball out fast? And how many times do we see the ball come out fast to Devante Smith, to Kenny Gainwell, on some of those empty plays that went for really good yards after catch gains that allowed them to move the sticks, really impressive. Especially on third down.

I feel like we saw a good amount of empty from the Eagles in this game. I thought this was Kenny Gainwell, one of his best performances. I told him. Great. Dude, he was super clutch. That third, yeah, that third down reception

in the red zone where Jalen Hertz gets it out to him quickly and he just gets up field real quick, splits two tackles. I mean, that's the kind of juice you're looking for. I'm telling you, man. Yo, Kenny, great game, buddy. I mean, Sequin's going to be jealous if you're talking about other running backs. No, no, you know, you know, you know, I have to give Kenny's fly. man because he he showed up and showed out and I thought this was one of his best game yeah we'll

get into some of the interesting running back usage in this game we got a lot to talk about yeah on defense also a bit of a sideline spat borderline between jalen carter and clint hurt and nick syriani on the other side so we'll talk about that let us know what you think in the chat is this team super bowl ready is this is this the performance that you were looking to see to make you feel like this season could end up in new orleans but I want to start with you, Vinnie, on the AJ Brown. Jalen Hurts stuff because you weren't here last week. You were texting like, what did I miss?

I'm gone one way, what's going on? Having been in a locker room and knowing what happens when there are personalities involved, what did you make of the way that this week played out? I thought what AJ said, you know, what you think the Eagles need to do is when they say, Pascal, I don't think he met any harm by that. Right.

You know, that's fast forward. Don't take anything else. A lot of, that's fast forward today. I mean, two hundred ten, ninety yards. Is there, is there, two touchdowns? Is there something too, maybe it was good that some, that they aired out some stuff that needed to be aired out? If anything was aired out.

Okay. You know, it was one of those things, I think it was, hey, I'm still riding cats up. You know what I mean? You know, just spread a little love, you know? You know what I mean? The Philadelphia way. That was it. And as you see today, I like the love from the Philadelphia.

Two touchdowns, two 90, both guys go over 100 yards. You know, wish my guy, Sequo was over the hundred, but you know he was a little banged up and Kenny stepped up big. Yeah, Sequin's still in this game when he was used much less, like easily his lowest percentage of snaps this season, especially in the first three quarters. He still finished with 19 carries for 65 yards, which is relatively low for him, obviously.

Kenny Gainwell goes seven for 20 but also has 40 yards receiving and three receptions in the air. What did you make of just the plan to cut? We've sort of joked in the past, Fran, about how the organization's kind of rabbit-eared, right? Like whatever the conversation is that week,

they will often find a way to address it like on the field immediately. And for this game to come out with so many questions about the passing game, for them to lean on the passing game, what did you make of that? Well, to me it was, because of the way Pittsburgh plays

and what their goal was going to be coming in to take Sequin Barkley out of the game, they were going to have to play that way. So really it was kind of like a win-win-win-win for us and a lose-lose-lose for the team in that way, right? But I guess it was a win-lose-lose for the team because this was the best-case scenario where you're forced to pass the ball

and Jalen Hertz looks outstanding and really, really efficient. Again, those numbers when the ball came out really fast in under four seconds, 21 to 25, 239 yards, and two touchdowns from Jalen Hertz. And those were the plays where it's under four seconds. And why is that important?

Why is that benchmark important? Because he was holding it for more than four seconds, more than any quarterback in football leading into it. And those were the plays where you saw everything kind of go awry for Jalen over the course of the season, especially over the last month. So being able to take those throws away, do a little bit less of them. And now you see him execute in the quick passing game that way. That was really big.

And you saw a lot of those little things that we've talked about addressed in this game. Like even there, even though he did hold it a few times, times there were a couple of plays where he held it and still got the ball downfield and it wasn't just checking it down there was the one uh he threw a couple just one-on-one balls to a jrown and contested coverage and he caught one and joy porter junior broke up the other but like he gave him a shot to win those and there were some other plays where he just got the ball out quickly like it did feel like a lot of these specific concerns were addressed by jelan hurts in this game and you were doing it against a really good defense this wasn't the carolina panthers

this wasn't you know some of the defenses that they played so far on the schedule and honestly they wanted some of the defenses that they have left on the slate. It was really important for them to have this kind of performance against this unit specifically going into the postseason. And by the way, Jailen Hurts playing through a broken finger in his non-throwing hand, which we learned today. Also offensive line. Lennon Dickerson leaves this game. Tyler Steen finishes at left guard. Lane Johnson was in and out.

Fred Johnson finished at the end. But really important, I think, to see that the passing game against the best defense that's going to play, the second half of the season, was able to throw the ball this way as you. look ahead towards the playoffs and now the Eagles have a chance to potentially get the number one seed. Yeah. And like I said, this was the best divas we're going to play with the rest of the season. But also, that's flip it real quick. I wanted to see our defense against, you know, this.

Well, let's talk about the defense. You know, this rush offense, you know. And I think our defense was put to the test. And, you know, they had great pass rushes on Pittsburgh. And we dominated this game throughout the whole entire game. And I'm, Vic again, I see you. I see you. You know, like we talk about this, you know, every week, ever since the by week, these guys are been rolling.

Yeah, I mean, that's Steelers team, like they play hard, that defense is good. On offense, when they don't have George Pickens, it's obviously, it's not the most slim pickings. Slim Pickens. There you go. It's not the most difficult test. And still, like, they do not look like they belonged in the same field as the Eagles team. I mean, the Eagles outgained them in this game 401 to 163. The Eagles force them to go three and out on their first five possessions,

including two possessions when the Steelers get the ball in Eagles territory after fumbles. Steelers win the turnover battle two to one and they still get sort of blown out. Mike Tomlin with a very borderline decision to punt the ball on fourth and seven from the Eagles territory, down 14 points with like 10 minutes left, doesn't get the ball back. The Eagles do a great job salting it away. So, yeah, I was not impressed with this Steelers offense, but I was very impressed with the Eagles defense. You figure that most of the fourth quarter that offense spent on the sideline, another quarter, they average 0.2 yards per play in the first quarter of this game, 0.2 yards per play offensively.

Najee Harris held under 2 and a half yards per touch in this football game. Six carries for 14 yards for Nashi Harris. Take that against opposing running back every single day, four for 12 for Jalen Warren. So I think when you look at the way that this Eagles defense has been playing in recent weeks, really for the majority of this season, this matchup, it was, it was. was kind of going down this path. We expected that the Eagles defense would be able to come out and hold the roof down on this passing game. And that's exactly what they did.

They were able to tackle the catch. Yards after catch was not really a problem for the large majority of this game. And obviously, you're preventing the deep shots as well. Really, their big play came on a 31-yarder on the flea flicker, which led to a few plays later to the super well-covered to have on anyway. As good coverage as you could ask for a linebacker against a dynamic slot receiver in that situation. Let's go through the super chats from the people who are in.

We're very excited about this performance. Claude de Boussay says Mike Tomlin, cowardly punt, Hall of Fame, my word. Hard to argue. I mean, that was a total bone job there. Roheet says Eagles equal greatest franchise in NFL history. Vinny, what do you think? I'm with him, you know?

Yeah, hard to argue. Math teacher goat says, does Nick deserve coach of the year consideration? We just talked about that off the air. I think he does. Four straight years now that Nick Siriani's Eagles have overperformed their preseason win total. Yeah, I think he does. And listen, let's be honest here.

Being the head coach here, it's a lot of pressure. And I think he... Well, and this was the first week since that Cleveland week where they've really had to deal with some turmoil over the course of the week. And boy, did they respond. Oh, man. And I think he does. I think what we're seeing right now is how much, you know, they are jellant and they are, you know, passionate by each other. Now, what did you make of the sideline spats?

So it comes after Jalen Carter commits an unnecessary roughness penalty that looked at first like it was going to give the Steelers the ball back after they had gotten off the field on three and out. Eagles end up getting the ball. But it looked like Sireani was maybe coming after Carter on the sideline. Clint Hurt was getting in the middle of it. going back with Nick. Dom was obviously in there. Anytime there's a dust up on the sideline, you know, Dom's going to be there.

And Jalen Carter, not really giving Nick Sirion at the time of day. What'd you make of that, Vinnie? Oh, man. Yeah, I got to do some investigation on that. Would not have flown when you were a second year player. I'd say worse, you know. Okay.

I would say that. I've seen worse. You know, yeah, I had to do some, I want to know what really was that about, you know. That could go two ways. What was Nick saying? Right. What was Jalen response?

Sure. You know, it could have been like, come on, man. He was like, I got your coach. Could be one of those or it could have been, you know? Yeah. I don't want to put a spin on it. Yeah. You know, they'll be talking about this.

You know, that's responsible journalism. Very good job. It feels like typically Jalen in the past when we've seen him make mistakes, you know, on the field. We actually, we saw it tonight. Nicopi Dean went to him after one plus. Actually, it was after that play. And you could, you could lip read. You could see Jalen Carter and saying like, yeah, I know, I know.

like I like he knows he messed up and he's like you know that so who knows like how that and that frustration you imagine has been building for jailing card you noted the play before it looked like he got hell he was hell like crazy he would have been going on which would have been a sack yeah so so that that will certainly be something to follow and I imagine that we will hear from nick serriani on that topic yes when we hear from him in just a little bit fran now I believe it is official the the bills have beaten the Detroit lines so now both teams 12 and 2 the top the NFC

if the Vikings win tomorrow they'll be 12 and 2 as well so let me give you the schedules for these three teams remaining now the Eagles are not going to beat the Lions in tiebreaker so they're going to have to have one more loss from the Lions

Eagles the easiest of the three schedules they've got at Washington next week then they close with Dallas and the Giants at home Detroit goes to Chicago next week division game then they go to San Francisco the week after that, and then they finish home against the Vikings.

Now the Vikings who play the Bears tomorrow night, also go to Seattle next week, then home against Green Bay, and then at Detroit the following week. So, I mean, there's no guarantee that Detroit's going to lose, but they've certainly got a more difficult schedule than the Eagles. No question.

I think, look, it comes down to, what does San Francisco look like? They're coming off, they'll have the long week. You know, what do they look like for this team? Chicago, what are they playing for? They've got a new coach. Obviously, right now, they're going through some transition. The big thing to me is you're rooting for Minnesota,

and obviously we'll hear from Dana's this week in terms of the tiebreakers and all of those. But you're rooting for Minnesota to lose as fast as possible. So that they can root for them in week 18. Exactly right. To me, that's the best possible outcome. Yeah, that makes sense. I don't know, Vinny.

Road to New Orleans could go through Philadelphia. I like the sounds of that. You know, listen, like, Like the way they're jelling right now, I think, you know, the city of Philadelphia deserves that, that road to New Orleans. I like that. All right. Let's take a little break first before we hear from Nick Siriani and then much more to talk about from this game. A demonstrative state championship win for the Philadelphia Eagles.

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What's that? What are you going to get for Vinny? Sequin's a shirt. But look, it's that time of year where you're kind of going through and there's so much to do. One thing, Meg and I don't have to worry about doing, what are we having for dinner on Wednesday night? What are we having for dinner on Thursday? Because tomorrow, our box shows up with our three or four, three meals that we've got, for dinner for the rest of this week.

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HelloFresh, America's number one meal kit. And if you want to get a similar birthday present or holiday present, then Vinny might be getting in the mail. Check out the PHLY Locker. Get all those awesome Eagles themed Sequa Tishua Tish. shirts and get yourself ready for the holidays and for what could be a long postseason run for the Eagles. Fran, let's go through the game a little bit. Yeah. You know, Steelers get the ball first, easy three and out. Eagles go down and get a field goal and it's notable that Jake Elliott did not

miss any kicks in this game. A good job. I haven't even had to make a field goal the second time after the Eagles took some points off the board. But it was the third drive for the Eagles offense that to me was one of those drives were like, oh, why don't they just always do this? Six plays. 70 yards. They stay in the same personnel grouping the entire time. It was 11 personnel with Johnny Wilson as the third wide receiver. And it's like 18 yards, 20 yards, 7 yards, 16 yards. I got it. So they went AJ Brown 16 yards off quick play action over to the left, which was a nice little design, a little bit of a tendency breaker there. Ball out fast. Then you had the 20 yard to AJ on the back shoulder fade. Okay, and quick rhythm throw there for Jalen Hertz. Then Jalen ran for seven

on a design run. Then you had Sequin Barclay for 22 yards. He had the explosive run. And then A.J. Brown, quick play action over the middle of the field for the touchdown. And so bang, bang, bang. I wrote it down as the cleanest drive we've seen from the offense all season long.

It was fantastic. And then it was kind of odd because they didn't stick with that personnel grouping after that for a little bit. Yep. That's okay. You know, not going to mix things up. Micromanage. But yeah, it was an impressive show of,

they really went to work this week. It felt like from a game plan perspective. I mean, anytime you only got to punt the ball one time through the whole game. Yeah. I take that any day. Now, they have, what, 26 first downs to the nine or 10 first downs? Yeah, man. And the disparity of stuff in this game is, is, wow, at 26 to 10.

Eagles were 10 of 17 on third downs. Pittsburgh was three of 10, you know, 5.2 yards per play to four yards per play. Pittsburgh ran for 56 yards in the whole game. even like the penalties were pretty even. So I mean, if you're a Steelers fan, I think you're just, you're thinking George Pickens comes back. That helps the offense a little bit,

but they're going to have to win like grind him out games because their offense can hang with the Eagles. That's kind of the way that this team has been for the, for the multitude of the season. I mean, it's been, you know, they have to win in a rock fight at the end of the day. Very, very rarely have we seen where they're going to go up and they're going to score 30 points.

They did it against Cincinnati. couple weeks ago, but we know what that defense is kind of deteriorated into, but that's kind of the state of that team right now. By the way, this is only the first time all season long that Devante Smith has gone over 100 yards receiving. So he goes 11 for 10 for 10 for 10, A.J. Brown 8 for 110 and a touchdown. And really only the third time ever that Jalen Hertz has completed a game in which he topped both of those guys off at 100. I've got some next gen numbers for both players for AJ Brown Devante Smith. Who do you want for us? Devonte or AJ? Let's do, let's do DeVante. All right, Devante. So a career high, 11 catches for 107 yards and a touchdown over 12 targets against the Steelers.

He was especially productive in the slot where he gained 79 yards on five catches. And I will say a lot of that came out of empty. A lot of those empty catches came with Devante in the slot. Average 5.5 yards of separation. Second most of the game this year. Again, when you're creating plays that allow those guys to get separation, you know, to work those guys open, scheme those guys open. That makes things easy for the quarterback. It allows that ball to come out a little bit faster.

So I thought they did that really well. Smith's 35.3% target rate was the second highest for him in a game this season. And then AJ Brown targeted on over half of his routes run against man coverage, eight of 13 brought in six catches for 89 yards and a touchdown all against man coverage. He's now averaged 4.9 yards per route run against man coverage this season. That is bonkers. The most by any receiver with at least 75 yards route run against man in a season since at least 2018. So yeah, okay.

So it's an insane number. in terms of efficiency from AJ Brown. Also added two extra receptions for 21 yards on three targets against zone. Big time day from the past game. And a big time response. And I keep mentioning it because this defense that they played against is the best defense

they played against in a while. So it really was an impressive response. And it's hard not to think that this team now does feel playoff ready. And you have to say a great response from the team given everything that happened this week. Man, that goes to show you, you know, where everybody focuses, the focus is, you know,

trying to get that number one to eat, you know, and have the, you know, the whole playoff run go through Philadelphia. How much credit you give to the coaching staff for that? Oh, man. You know how much of a headache that probably was last week. Right. Yeah.

You know, BG says what he says on Monday night, and Nick's phone starts ringing. He's got to be like, you've got to be kidding. I know this win right here. I know, you know, B.J., if you're watching, I know you're so we're like. Now, how do you feel about this? I like, I've seen this take.

How do you feel about Brandon Graham entering the conversation for coach of the year now? Yo, listen. Without, without BG, maybe this, you know, maybe he fixed the passing off. Maybe it's a free, eminent, like, comeback player the year award, like just the impact he made post injury. Just outstanding. One, it's certain has to buttresses Walter Pantman of the Year case. No question. I mean, like, this is, I agree.

This is, I mean, the guy, the guy can speak miracles. Tell us, what are you rocking today here? Man, I got my chalk line, WrestleMania, Philadelphia jacket on today. I wanted to show it off for the camera, but I ain't going to lie, y'all. I am burning up. Okay. You got it. But, you know, I just had to wear, you know.

I had it on. Then I'm like, damn, man, we kind of started. Now I put it back on. We start scoring again. Devin start rolling out here. I was like, I'm not taking it back off. Not too bad at all right move All right we are waiting to hear from Nick Siriani

So in the meantime let us know what you are thinking In the chat about this dominant performance We've got a few more super chats We can hit so let's do that From Sean Says what's the weather like in Chicago next week Tiny Hands referring to Jared Gop Doesn't play well outside in bound weather

And their defense is being held together by duct tape I gotcha I'm on it Okay friends on it And it's good that Fran's on it because that plays well into the next super chat from Eugene Lucas, who says, Hot Take, Sequin to the Eagles is akin to Fran to PhLY.

Just an absolute home run of a free agent signing. Hard to argue. Kind words, but strong take. I don't know. That's probably a little too far. Maybe we put Fran and Vinnie together. There you go.

Now that sounds better. All right. Next Sunday, the 22nd in Chicago, low of 20 degrees, partly cloudy, gusts of nine miles per hour. So not those are hardly gusts. Yeah, nothing too too bad.

But it'll be cold. It'll be a cold day. It sounds like I run the ball day for David Montgomery and Jamaica. Is that a one o'clock game? A friend. Ooh, good one. Putting him to work. Look it up.

I can tell you that. I got it right here. One o'clock. Yep. One o'clock game. One o'clock. All right. Eagles, by the way,

next week at Washington. That is also a one o'clock game, although I don't know if that one can still get moved to the late afternoon. Could get moved to the late afternoon, potentially. Yeah, maybe not. I don't think Monday. I think it's week before. Yeah, I guess you're right. Yeah.

Well, I'm not going to complain about a one o'clock game. All right. Ellis wants to know if that makes me the Jalen, the Nick, or the A.J. I mean, as long as I'm not the, I don't want to save myself. Yeah, you're right. I didn't get that kind of money. As long as I'm not, the Devin White.

There we go. All right. Yeah, that's okay. Okay. Other stuff from this game to hit on, Fran. And now the offensive line, to be fair, Steelers have a very good pass rush. T.J. Watt was very active in this game.

When it was a heck of a play to force the fumble on Jalen Hertz in the open field. I thought that was not Jalen's best decision of the day. I felt like he sort of fled the pocket a little bit early. than he needed to. But the offensive line had to deal with, you know, a better pass freshman they faced in a while. Right.

Just, you know, let's just be honest. Like, TJ, he, he was rolling. What makes him so good to you? Man, he's relentless. Yeah. He's relentless.

And, man, he leads the league and, you know, forced fumbles. The way he punched that ball out, I feel like he kind of hit our quarterback in the damn. I'm surprised he and hurt his hand on the face mask.

He kind of hit the face mask and went to the ball. But to talk about our pass rushes for a second. Please. I thought Nolan Smith was all over the field today. I thought his motor was rolling. I thought he made plays down field. And I thought he reacted to the bubble screens and the school pass. Yeah, it was nice.

PBO. Yeah. And then, like I said, when Russ was trying to run out of there, I thought Nolan speed was, his closing speed was, you know, second or not. Yeah, I mean, I continue to be extremely impressed with the jump that he has made from year one to year two, even within year two from the beginning of the season in the summer. I mean, he's a huge part of the defense right now. And he has to play a lot of snaps too. Yeah.

And to me, like you mentioned, he gets home for the sack, but a number of other times, I know Josh Swett had his sack and Nolan Smith was right there pushing the pocket. So I think we're seeing just that him continue to develop as a rusher while also playing really, really hard. I mean, he had a number of plays where, like, Nicopi Dean or Zach Bond got to stop, but those were like stretch run plays that were forced back inside because Nolan Smith is setting a razor-sharp edge on the perimeter. So I thought Nolan showed up really well in this game. What impresses you the most about the jump that he has made, Vinnie? Well, he just said it.

So the way he set the edge tonight on those tosses and stretch plays was phenomenal. And by the way, I mean, we sort of joke about Bryce Huff, but he's going to come back at some. point here down the stretch and if he can be you know what he has been at the like even when he when he had a couple productive snaps this season as just the fourth pass rusher I think that'll be a nice little addition to to the pass rush group yeah just to have a fourth body to be able to rotate in I think would be important for that group I think I think I think had had enough time you know to try to scheme him up and try to you know package him up in different different ways to

you know get him some one-on-one matchups going forward because we're going to need him down the stretch and a minor change to the defense in this game that was confirmed from last week as Isaiah Rogers remained the dime corner today with Avanti Maddox also active so that seems to be a permanent change they have made to the person oh which I think we sort of been calling for and it makes some sense yeah by the way we didn't I didn't I didn't mention it and that's a that's my problem AJ Brown like did come up a little bit limpy at the end of that drive there okay so I mean we're gonna everybody's gonna be a little bit worried about that I think Zach,

Zach tweeted that he was getting checked out for an ankle, I believe. I'll double check that on Zach. But I'm pretty sure that he said it was an ankle that he was getting looked at. Obviously, it was a hip-drop tackle along the sideline. Yeah, I mean,

that would be a very rough one. Yes. Yeah, I mean, that would obviously not be ideal. Yeah, getting his ankle examined. Okay. And Zach's also got the pool report duty for this game,

which I know you got to know, does not make him happy. And it's also like not really. for a big thing. They want to know about the how the Steelers got called for both roughness penalties when there was the fight early on.

Yeah, that was crazy. And then by the wrong call by you on Thursday show. Thank you very much. Anticipating that this was going to be a little bit of a chippy game. It happened very early. There was a little bit of a scuffle

like some pushing and shoving and obviously it escalated to the big fracas in the end zone. There you go. Good call on you. Every now and then I know what I'm talking about. All right. Still waiting to hear from Nick Siriani

who I don't know, maybe he's just wrestling with and Carter and that's what's taken so long. Hey, what did you think of the one touchdown the Steelers scored where CJ Gunner-Johnson in position to potentially break that one up? Oh, that should have been a pick. That would have been sick. Ish.

Killed me on the first thing I thought. I was like that. That might have been like a hype thing. He was right there. People were saying I didn't get to see the replay myself. It was when I was on my way back that like it looked like he was going for the pick. but if he had just tried to knock it down, he could have done that. So, yeah, it was a jump ball on a corner route.

Yeah. And Fryman made an excellent catch, you know, like sustaining it through contact because CJ was right there. If he, again, if he had tried to go for the PBO, he tried to knock it down, or even if he just tried to dislodge it, if he had just tried to get into Fryman and lay a hit on him, they probably would have gone incomplete. But I think he was trying to go up for the interception against a much bigger target in Frymer's. I do think from a Jalen perspective, Hertz, that is.

This was a good example of some of the, a push pull we've had over the week of like, you know, he does turn the ball over in this game, but no one's really worried about the turnover because he threw the ball. So, well, you know, he threw for 290 yards. Like, you don't, it, we're not, we're not going to get on you for every turnover if the offense is this productive. Right. I also want to know, what did you guys think about? I think the most impressive, a couple of impressive things of the night, but one of the most was, you know, on the punt, on the punt fumble. Yep. You're like, for that to not turn into,

yeah, I mean, they go back to back fumbles. Yeah, that was wild, yeah. And then the way our defense responded, yeah. That was, that was some playoff football. And that's when that fight happened, was after the Cooper Degine fumble.

So, yeah, so in case you missed it, Jalen fumbles the ball first quarter. Steelers get the ball in, like, Eagles, like, 45-yard line or so. They haven't moved the ball at all. Defense forces are three and out. They punt it away. DeGine then fumbles.

and the Steelers get the ball at like the 11-yard line, and the defense holds up again, thanks a little bit in part to those penalties that pushed them back out of the shadow of the end zone. But, I mean, what a start from the Eagles defense, five straight three and outs. Yeah, the lineman was, come on, man. You should you or do, push him, like,

fall back over the day. Like, he was out of pocket. That's the third time that's happened to slay against a 300-pounder this year. I don't know what sleigh, like, did to these guys, but that's the third time a 300-pound man has done that to slay this season. That was crazy.

Pick on someone your own size. What were doing here? Exactly. You know what I mean? He's like, yo, come on, man. That was out of pocket.

I'm with it. To be fair, that was also the tight end, Dwayne Washington. He was to, Darnell Washington. He was taken out on Slay what he heard you saying

about him this week. Well, yeah. First of all, so I said that he's listed 268. There's no way that he is and he looks like he's 300 pounds. Tom Brady said on the broadcast, he's a 300 pound tight end.

I'll stand by the film there. All right. I think we do have Nick Sirial. Johnny now. So let's hear what the head coach of the 12 and two, Eagles have to say, 10 wins since he shaved his head. I would actually say, like, look about, look how efficient we've been passing the ball for the last nine weeks, right? Through this little stretch that we've been in. Jalen's court, I just think it kind of gets a little bit blown out of proportion. You know, Jalen's quarterback rating's been over 100. Most of the games, I don't know what he was today, but most of the games he's been over 100. we're averaging 8 plus 8.5 plus in the past game.

Like I just think a little bit's been a little bit blown out of proportion as far as because we, you know, we've been running the ball so well. I mean, you can't, you can't have all the yards rushing. There's only so many yards you're going to get in a game. You can't have all the yards rushing and have a passing game. So or have all the yards in the passing game too. And so I think we've been super efficient. Today we needed our passing game even more.

And so it is just another good. I know you guys may look at yards a lot. Like it was just another good day of passing game because I think we've been super efficient. Like I don't think you understand how hard it is to be, you know, have that yards per attempt number, that quarterback rating and take care of the ball and be explosive, which we've been.

And so, yeah, I mean, today was really good. We threw for more yards, so I know that's going to be, hell, the passing game's back. I don't think the passing game was anywhere. I think that's been a little bit blown out of proportion. because of how efficient we've been. And you guys will check the numbers after I say that, and you'll probably agree.

There's a spirit of conversation between you. Not quite true. I'll never get into the conversations I have with players, but he made a play that is not part of our standard. And so my job is to correct that. Regardless of what it is, we're going to correct the things that we need to do better and praise the things we need to do well. And so in that moment, that's what that was.

I love Jalen Carter. I love what he brings to this football team. Right there, he needs to be smarter in that situation because it could have gave him the ball back. It didn't give him the ball back, but it could have. And so we're going to need to get better from that. And so that's just what you do as a coach. And again, he played a good game.

And I'll watch the game to see, you know, how good of a game he played. But we need him to be better in that scenario and be the consistent player that he's been for the entire year. AJ would say that beyond their meetings are worse, spending a lot more time together this week to be on same page what did you see throughout the weekend how did you see that play out I just saw a great job of our players these players you know again I've mentioned this you know prior to this like they're just so locked in and focused

to getting better and and and that's it right that's all they want to do is get better because they know if we continue to get better we can we can we can we can win the football game and so I just saw an effort to get better through the midst of again what seemed like like chaos on the outside, but, you know, was just something that, uh, that, you know, we used as something to, to kind of galvanize us and get better from. Um, and they did that today. For the people said that there were uncomfortable conversations that were had.

How good is that that they can have those conversations and focus on with the again, you're, everything you do is to get, when you have everybody in the room that just wants to, to improve and do the things they know work, that we're capable of, um, that's special. And so, you know, again, conversations all week and the guys worked really hard this week in practice. The guys worked extremely hard in walkthroughs. The guys worked extremely hard in meetings. And Jalen, again, just did such a just a phenomenal job. And then again, like I said, to have two guys go over 100 against a really good defense. I mean, that can't tell you how much respect I have for that defense. You lose sleep over 90. You lose sleep over 97. You lose sleep over 51.

You lose sleep over 56. I mean, you lose sleep over 39. They've got so many good players. You lose sleep against a Mike Tomlin coach team. And so to come out and have a performance like that, to gain over 400 yards and put 27 points on the board and be efficient like we were. That was a good win.

Nick, when something comes up like the JLN, the AJ thing comes up this week, is there any part of you as a coach that says, I don't know if relishes it is the right word, But it's a challenge, I would imagine, for you to try to deal with that. Is there a part of you that likes that? Yeah, you know, again, every opportunity to get better you use. I'm not for one minute saying that all the turmoil on the outside was a good thing. That's not, you know, we want to make sure that we're locked into what we're doing.

And that's what I felt like when there was chaos from what I feel. Like, again, I have to do media every day. And so I understand that there's chaos on the outside, you know, with Bob getting me ready for that and the questions you kind of asked me, but during chaos, if you can have calmness, you know, during that, that was huge. And so our guys, we got great leaders, we got great coaches. And I thought our guys just came to work every single day. We had fun.

I thought we were loose throughout the entire, you know, kind of after that was all over. We really, like I said, we were really done with that on Wednesday. And I, you know, I know that it kind of, again, you guys have to do your job. and I know that can linger through the week as far as what happens. But our guys were, I just felt extreme locked in and focus through the entire week, through what could have been a time where people could say, oh, you know, what's going on over in Philadelphia? To lose two fumbles and a 29-yard punt and get just six points out of that,

how much does the defense increase your margin of barrier you get to work? Yeah, you know, we thought it was, we talked all week about winning the turnover. battle because we knew when the Steelers lost the turnover battle they had hard time they had hard time winning the game we didn't win the turnover battle that and so you know that part of the game plan didn't come together you know we got a I think we had a couple things you know gonna Kobe had one knocked out they could have tied it you know that but we also had one with AJ that Smitty got on or he stepped out of bounds I don't know and so say say your question part of your question

again oh yeah defense did a phenomenal job of of holding them you know and that and that goes bad They've played good red zone defense. We've played good red zone defense the entire year, you know, dating back to the very beginning of the year when we turned it over early in the game and we held Green Bay to six yards or six points. And they did a good job there.

You know, again, Pittsburgh has thrived in these scenarios when they've done, when they've been able to get turnovers and they did. I mean, what the punch, the way he comes after the football is pretty special. I, man, I can't say a, enough about how good of a football player he is and how he got that ball away from Jalen. He's just got a great, like, I'd hate to be in a boxing match with him. First of all, he'd kill me.

But secondly, like, he just is going to connect on, he's going to connect because he has such a good feel for it. So I can't tell you how much of respect I have and how cool it is for the league to have a matchup, like Lane Johnson versus T.J. Watt. and so again just great job by everybody 723 targets for your top two receivers people look at that number everything to happen last week and say oh you know this is you guys compensating for that

how much was that how much was it they were just stacking the box it's what we needed it's what we needed to do to win this football game and so I promise you if if sequan was if we were getting big gains with sayquan we would you know that would have been it would have been different it would have been probably a different story know, who knows how that game would have played out. But they did a good job on the run game. You know, Sequon still got loose and still, I don't know what was his finals,

75 yards or something like that. 65, 65? So, you know, they did a good job of doing that. But, yeah, Jalen did a great job of when it was, when we couldn't, you know, get the run game going the way we wanted to. And I'd say, you know, again, Pittsburgh held teams to 90 yards rushing. And we had, I know we had more than that. And so we still were able to run the ball against a very good front, very good defense.

But we were able to throw it in those scenarios. Again, we're going to focus on what we need to do, not what everybody else thinks we're going to do. And our focus and our main thing for each and every week is how do we win this football game? And today, you know, we had to pass for 290 yards. And that was just, again, a great job by our guys. As much the wind counts the same, do certain games like this one, the Ravens game, offer measuring stick games for you? I'm sorry, Zach. As much as each win counts the same, do games like this, the Ravens offer measuring stick games for you as you go into the playoffs?

Every game is the biggest game that we play. You know, we'll go into this next game is the biggest game that we need to play. Every team in the NFL is hard to beat. Every win is hard to do to have 10 of them in a row, which the city's never had. I really take a lot of pride in that. You can't win 11 in a row until you win 10 in a row. So I'm so excited about that. That's a great football team.

That's been a great football team for decades. Shoot. It was a good win. Last one? When you look at the record right now, you know the lines are tied for the best record in the conference. You mentioned how you're looking at one game at a time. How do you balance that knowing that you know,

I get that big carrot in front of you? I know this is boring. everybody, but we're focused on the next game. We'll enjoy this one. I got some family in town. We'll all enjoy this one tonight, and we'll be right back to work tomorrow. We can't control anything about the Lions. So our main focus is to control what we can control. I know that's boring. I know that makes for zero press for you guys, and I apologize for that, but our focus is the next game. Our focus is locked in in front of us. Our focus is, you know, now Washington, commanders. I've had so many names. I don't know. Big pop in the chat for a Zach Berman question

at the press conference. We love that. News out of Detroit, as this is going on. Dan Campbell says that he's worried that injuries to Aleem McNeil and Carlton Davis might both be season ending, so their defense continues to just get ravaged.

Yeah, I mean, at all three levels that group has gotten hit really hard. They couldn't afford many more. and that's two of their three best players right now on defense that's tough tough um interesting from nick you know he he said the jalen carter thing just you know he's got he's got to coach him up in that moment so i don't want to poke that bear either yeah so so he probably was telling me oh mom you know come on man you know you know you know i got it you got it you know it's one of those

it's one of those where you had jailin's like i know i shouldn't have done that like He didn't tell me. And he has like a poker demeanor too. So, you know, I don't think it was anything, you know. Yeah. Okay. It's kind of like after a win like that when they answer so many questions, it's like what else you even talk about? They were just so good.

Yeah. I mean, like what's less left for them to answer now? Well, that's really honestly, like after last week's win, it's like A.J. responding just passing because it was like, all right, that's what we got to talk about. and we don't have that to talk about this week. BG is going to talk tomorrow about how Jalen Carter and Nick Siriani, like, you know, they used to be friends. They used to be friends.

We know that they're not friends right now, but hopefully they hash it out. To Nick's point about, and look, I can't speak for every, like, question that comes from the reporters in terms of like how things are phrased and things like that. But in terms of talking about the past game,

this was her next gen stats, best game in terms of success rate for Jalen Hertz this week or this season, best game in terms of EPA for dropback for Jalen Hertz. This season so I added a second best EPA for drop back but I mean we're gonna either here or there but yes to to his point is not true like this Efficiency wise and coupled with it being again again against Pittsburgh and against Pittsburgh yes makes it notable that this was Versus last week against Carolina right their most important passing performance of the season for me from the time They took the field though it looks super locked there yep they were super locked then like um

Like they like they can say that hey this is nice to get no they was trying to make a point and they make a statement And I think this was like one of those playoff fillers. It gave you that feeling of the chippiness, the turnovers, the physicality of how both sides of the ball was playing, both defenses was playing. You know, it gave you that field. I think this was right here. It was just to show, you know, the league that, you know, they're jelling right now. And I sort of think that that was part of A. A.J.'s point.

You know, last week it's like it's kind of a sleepy game against Carolina. you're in the middle of this long winning streak. Every game is not going to feel like a big game, right? And so knowing that they had this game coming up next, like a chance for them to really prove, like we can be the baddest team in the league. And they had a chance to go out and show it today. And it's hard to argue right now.

Do you get, like, do you remember when you get to like the end of the season, you can sort of see the finish line inside? You know that the playoffs are the main goal, but there's a few games left. it's probably, I mean, it must be human nature to sort of like let yourself come down just a little bit. Hell no. You want that number one seed.

All right. We're trying to get that, you know, that buy week, that number one seed. All right, let's check in with Jalen Hertz see what he has to say and maybe stick with it if we need to. I said, oh, look at that look. You're able to. Okay, Jaylon.

Winning multiple ways. Got the Neon Brown. I'm talented and the opportunities are there, but comes to. down to having good discernment of when to do something and when not to. So we want to, I've always said and believe that you want to make sure that all of your tools are sharp when you need them. So when it's time to use them, you can go.

And I don't think there's a doubt in that. I think, frankly, there's an effort there. The approach is a little different this week. you know, the grass, the grass would be green where you water it. We decided to water it and kind of saw the fruits of our labor in that. Obviously, we've been watering the running game a good bit. And it's kind of natural to put an emphasis on one thing, kind of take an emphasis off of another and see what you guys have kind of seen.

And so, you know, we want to just continue to be well-rounded, push to be well-rounded and water all areas of our yard. When you sat down, you said, you know, is this what you guys wanted to see? It was a week, you know, a lot of scrutiny with the passing game. Does that make a performance like this any sweeter or better for you? The scrutiny is never, never ending. It's nothing new. And so that's something that I find a thrilling.

And I appreciate being told I can't and that we can't. And I know that I lead this team. And it takes a lot out of it. It demands a lot out of you. and I just want to show up and be the best teammate quarterback and be the best I can be for the guys on the team. Devante talked about their being uncomfortable. Look at that ice.

This past week. Oh, man, that thing is hidden behind the mic. My mic came. Drugs to work a little bit. I'll have an approach this past week. I won't. 2B1, baby. fire.

I think a Mike Tomlin team, physical, disruptive, tough. The whole conference, the whole division is tough. But, man, I just realized who you were, man. Good to see you traveling up here. That means a lot. That means a lot. But playing against a – Who that's Zach?

I'm against the team. It was always a tough job. You know, it was definitely. a test, a battle. You know, that coming after the ball and playing physical ball and, you know, there's a great opponent we played out there. Look at the size of that thing. Is it broken and did it impact your play at all of that? It is broken and it did impact my play.

How? Is it just what it's tough or tougher to it? Yeah. I mean, it's broken, so it's, yeah. Is that funny? You mentioned complimentary football? to close the game, it's about 10.5 minute drive. What does that say about the offensive?

Well, round in nature. Yeah, we've been able to do that a couple of times this year, and, you know, it was crucial. It was crucial. Just hats off to, you know, how Sequin has kind of been able to do that all year in those moments. Kenny, excuse me, Kenny stepping up and making some of the plays he made tonight. Look at the size of that.

into that at all and just putting it all together you know defense play the hell of a game how they started the game off would love to you know kind of get out and take advantage of how they're playing you know in that moment but um tons to learn from in the end um tons to learn from and um we'll kind of get back to our regular schedule routine you know put a 24-hour rule on what we do and learn from it tomorrow and move forward. Did I know injury happen on a QB sneak against the Panthers? It did not. Okay.

The approach was different this week. How so? We had a phase this year where we said we were going to be a run team and a play action team. So, you know, we start watering that and stop water in other part. Jaylin, I know you don't want to go into what those uncomfortable conversations were, about when you all are able to have those conversations, put in the work in and have results like this. What does it say about your locker room?

I think the collective, I think the thing that I always put emphasis on throughout this week was the team and the team's success. And knowing that winning, you know, I asked the question to everyone, you know, hey, it's going to, you know, we're going to have to go do this together. We started with that.

And then I said, let's not forget to keep the main thing, the main thing. I said, you do know what the main thing is, right? And they were spot on. So we can't forget that. And it takes multiple, it takes everyone to win. And it can look a ton of different ways. And obviously we need all hands on deck in that. And, you know, we have to be all for one and one for all in the sense of going out there

and just trying to play our best ball. and play at high level. Jaylen, you're having to have to be on the game. I know you have a chance to speak with Tom Brady or did he tell you something and what it would be in the media that you pitched you out as the player of the game?

Yeah, you all saw what I said. But, man, he's obviously a great play. It won, you know, tons of respect for him and competing against them even. It was cool. Cool. I didn't know he was coming doing the game, so that was kind of cool.

And I think on the same note, I never, you know, someone asked me a question a couple weeks ago about head-to-head matchups. I think it was versus Lamar. And I think that's something that you look back on later on. I don't think in that moment you try and keep it as, you know, you know because it's not like basketball you know what I mean but try and keep it as team team team

um as it's always about the team you know and you look back at that and you reflect if you take a step back you see a ton of kids out there watching you know Jalen Hertz and Lamar Jackson go at it and that's what they see you know our eyes on them and I think for today um even all week um Russell Wilson man he's he's paved the way for a ton of guys He's paved away for a ton of guys, including myself. My brother loved him. I loved him and still, you know, I loved him and still loved him and watch him do many things where people said he couldn't.

And he's experienced some adversity and he's overcome that. And he's come back stronger from it. And so to be able to go to battle against him today, a guy that I looked up to and had a ton of respect for defied all odds with his size. and, you know, being able to go to championships and winning championship. Tons of respect for him. Definitely cool beating him.

But all nothing but love for him. Time for two more. We're talking about watering the other parts of the offense. What was it that to the water? And why was that important going forward? What did you guys are trying to do? Yeah, just wanted to be multiple. And like I said, make sure all of our tools are sharp

when we need them. You know, you don't know. You may not need every tool in the toolbox, but just to know that it's in good shape, that doesn't hurt. Jay, let me have the injury happen, and what's the kind of outlook for it moving forward? You know, I don't know. I mean, it is what it is. I've known it's been at the state it's at all weekend. I don't really want to put too much more into it.

I can say it, I don't think it got any worse today. you know, if it's if it's shattered it's shattered you know it is what it is I'm going to say

jail in the last okay this is yeah in the last two weeks you had to play Baltimore you had to play Pittsburgh

and out of all right we can pull back from jailing I mean the ice there the size of that that thing is huge

is Britton Covey inside that thing look he he gave dressed dressed to impress yeah man

listen come like that every week now you know Zach Berman has written the great story of how much uh Jalen Hertz like idolizes Michael Jordan and tries to like like put so much

of Michael Jordan's like aura into himself I feel like the backwards Kangall is a little bit of a homage to Jordan there I think I figured that Zach would think that the vest wasn't homage to him

well you like that now a great call on the chat by cousin Grace who says Jillen Hertz says he loves another man why can't Zach do it? We'll have to ask him in a few minutes.

That's a good question. Yeah, and interesting stuff. I guess, you know, the finger, you know, it's his non-throwing hand. Probably you would imagine it affects him more like on those sneaks and just like under center snaps than anything else, right?

I would imagine if it affected him as a passer or it's probably more mental. Yeah. Right? In terms of... Just adjusting to it. Yeah. I mean, it's best passing performance of the season.

I wonder if he was referring. referring to because he broke it last week right so like it affected him last week not as much this week oh yeah that's why that's my that's my to practice it yeah right interesting i mean what a look i can't get over the end of the right finger going give you 290 yeah break that other one that's not taking it's a bit sure save it for the playoffs i'm because you only got five to work very impressive uh go ahead i got a question from the discord uh from no semicolon sass uh do you think that there's anything to the idea that the eagles were holding holding back some of this play calling

to keep some secrets against opposing defenses. I don't think, I would say no. Yeah. Vinnie, have you ever experienced that in pro football where it's like you guys have something you're like, oh, this is gonna be good? We're gonna save this for later. Um, no, I won't say that I have been a part of it, but I have seen some first 15's score

and it's like, damn, next thing you look up, the game over and it's like, well, I didn't have to put some of the things in the back pocket you know I will say I think it's more my guess is like there could be specific place like like like Philly special of course specific play until they saved it but like yeah a whole a whole passing game concept I don't think that they're not they're not saying like all right we're gonna play like crap this we get the Panthers get everyone off our trail right but then we got we got the right but you'll see some different plays don't

at you when you play a team twice in the division. That's for sure. That makes sense. Yeah, you might save some tendency breakers, like some specific little change-up things, but... Be a big conversation the next three weeks. But then, you know, when things start hitting the fan, you go right back to the 15.

Right, right. But to be fair, I mean, the question was, like, could... It felt like the team had all the horses and the talent on offense as a passing offense to be able to... to be a successful passing offense, but they hadn't seen it this season. Could they flip the switch? And in this game, I mean, they flipped the switch.

Well, well, well, say, well, is a, he, he's still an MVP candidate, you know, so some things are a little different than usual. You know, today he barely played the second quarter. Well, it's nice to show that you can prove you can play a different way. Correct. Correct. And so now, when you do enter the playoffs and you're playing real teams,

they're not sure which way you're going to come out. And you've proven that you can win multiple ways. Correct. Now, shout out to VG from the Anthony Gargana show in the morning, which you guys can check out tomorrow. Send me the screenshot. I hadn't seen it on the sideline after the little dust up between Jalen Carter and Nick Siriani.

There's a little shot of them like hugging on the sideline. So they're in there at the hatch. All love. All love in Philadelphia. Good coaching, but better sniffing it out from VG. I mean, he's just crushing it. No, no doubt. about that. Super chat from Santiago

says pumpkin pie or sweet potato pie asking the big important questions after an Eagles win pumpkin pie for me. I'm going to take sweet potato. Really? Nice and warm. I mean I like sweet potato but sweet potato pie I would take the pumpkin.

That's okay. I'd pass on both but I think of the two I'd probably go pumpkin. You'd run the ball instead? Yeah. Okay. Motion. Motion is the answer. All right. As we wait to hear from Zach Berman from the link. Let me run through. Let's do some defensive snap

counts. Okay. For you. Okay. So not a lot of snaps for the Eagles in this game. 41. CJ Gardner Johnson, Zach Bonn. Reed Blankenship, Quinyon Mitchell, playing all 41 snaps. Nolan Smith with 39. A 41. That's a lot.

A lot snaps. Nicopi Dean 38. Jalen Carter, 37. Darius Slay, 36. Milton Williams 31. Josh Sweat 28 Cooper DeGine 27 we saw early in this game Eagles the Steelers did a good job keeping the Eagles in base I mean I say did a good job it's because they were like running on first down for one two yards of pop right but it seemed like they were trying to do that and then as the game went on Eagles were able to stay in nickel Jordan Davis just 18 snaps Jalickson 15 Morrow a Jumma 9 Isaiah Rogers 8 Thomas Booker won nothing crazy yeah nothing crazy there and it's also the defensive snap counts are going to be a little wonky just because of the fact that you mentioned like Nolan Smith played a lot of the snaps.

I mean all but two snaps, right? So all those three and outs early and then the defense really not playing in the fourth quarter basically at all. The snap counts are going to look a little weird from a percentage stamp. True. Just because of the flow of the game. Offensively, 77 snaps.

Mylotta hurts, Jurgens played them all. Lane Johnson missed one. Mackay Beckton missed one. Devante Smith plays 72. Grant Calcutra 71. A.J. Brown, 70 46 for Sequin Barclay, 46 for Tyler Steen, 35 for Jahan Dotson, a very quiet 35 synaps, 31 for Kenny Gainwell, 31 for Lenin Dickerson, 25 for CJ Usama, 22 for Johnny Wilson, 9 for E.J. Jenkins, 5 for Fred Johnson, 1 for Jack Driscoll. Dotson did set a nice pick on the touchdown. Okay, that was nice. Now I was driving over when Devante was called for the illegal.

It was a terrible call. quick and my quick was just roasting it on the broadcast. Terrible call. And I love when quick is just roasted and he's like that is such a bad. Terrible Paul. Nick was pissed. I was given the ref, an airful on the sideline.

It was hilarious though because Brady, you could tell it wanted to get through the conversation because he can't criticize the officials. Oh, that's right. So he was just like, he's like, yeah, like he wanted to move on.

That's so crazy that he can't criticize. I got to think it's probably one of the job. I think it's probably one and done would be my guess. You think so? I would think so. What's the point of trying to keep this up? I think this was... It was so good.

Merrill's explaining the call as... And Quick just comes in. That's a horrible call. This is a terrible call. It was an awful call. Loved it. Yeah. I'm just trying to think of some other little leftovers from it.

Now, by the way, speaking of CJ Usama, I did ask CJ Usama. I told you this, Vinnie, in the locker room this week. So, listen, I'm working with Vinnie Curry. You guys played together in New York. Like, what's your best Vinny story? And he started laughing. and they didn't want to give me anything too good. I don't think he trusted me, you know,

and he did give me the goods, but he did say his favorite thing was like, just in practice, you guys be lying up against each other. And you're just like, you really want to go right now? Like, you know, are we going 100% or not? Yeah, you know, I got a tendency in practicing super hard, you know. It's a good reputation to have. Yeah, it is. It is.

There's so many ways you can go there. Is there somebody that you played against That matched the left consistently matched you that way From a good question I would listen I would say I always been that type of person But if you ever watch during sports practice Oh good one

And he would always finish to the end zone Oh, but it's crazy So I was like damn I want to be like that So you never know what it's time for you to come in Or you know you know Time for you to do something You just want to go through the actual rap, you know, doing practice. So then when you get to the game, it's like, oh, this is a reason, you know what I'm saying?

Now, the flip side is when you were a youngster going really hard in practice. Were there any old heads who were like really mad at you for practicing too hard? Yes. Oh, my God. Who got the angriest that you? The angriest? Dude, it's Friday. You're so pissed at me, bro.

And, like, like, yeah, uh, you're really like, bro, chill. And it's like, I'm just trying to impress, you know, why? Trying to get a real. Yeah, like, man, chill. Like, flesh, talk to your boy. It was crazy. Yeah. That's good.

Like, it's Friday, man. Like, we get to Sunday. And he's trying to win snaps, man. Crazy, crazy, crazy. Sydney Brown got injured. Yeah, with concussion. Yeah. Head, head injured.

on the kickoff of the game. Yeah, like star-crossed season for for Sidney Brown, early, early first two years. Yeah, tough. Now, the, you know, coming back from the ACL, being a little bit of a slow burn, getting back into the lineup, and then this, I would imagine,

I'll probably not be in the game next week against Washington. Imagine. We typically have seen guys if they leave with a concussion, usually are out the next week, so. Yeah, that safety group, friend. And Twins. Somebody said, I bet Jason Peters was not having that. shit there was not no rookie

go against no Jason Peters just for that reason yeah that's funny definitely not one-on-ones I don't know yeah man I'm not gonna say any names but he'll go a quick quick story

I've seen somebody try to go hard against him and got choke slammed and it escalated and then into now are we talking about the same one that went into the locker room I forgot you was there, bro. So you know, it ain't cat.

Listen, I wrote that. And then they said, yeah, yo, you, this is on the record. I try to, I try to defuse it. They said, yo, V, come get your boy. I'm like, damn, baby, come on, man. Now, I do have to say, because this is on the record.

You can, you know, we wrote about it on the athletic about, like, the most interesting man in the world, Jason Peters. It tells you just how crazy Brian Brayman is, as a person to have tried to fight Jason Peters. Like, I can't imagine anybody crazier than that. But if you had to pick somebody out of a lineup, it would be Brian Brayman to say like,

all right, like, who of this group would try Jason Peters? I feel like that would probably be the guy I would pick. Is that fair? Yeah, well. Zach is ready. All right. Someone who we know is not going to get into any kind of fist of cuffs in the workplace. our man,

Zach Berman, is here at the link. Zach, how you doing? I'm doing well. Great to see you guys. Good to see Vinny again. Whoa, whoa, whoa, Zach, Zach, Zach. How you doing? You're doing more energy than that.

Yeah, I'm doing well. I'm excited to share it. You see him down, man. No, I'm excited to share what's going on in the locker room. Excited to break down everything that I heard. The lights are going off here. But I will, I'll light up the show for you guys. All right.

Well, let's tell us what the reaction. was in the locker room, Zach. I would say, arguably, given the events of the week, arguably their most impressive performance of the season because they won in a way that we did not know that they could win. Yeah, there was a lot of I told you so. Jelen Hertz sits down and says, so that's what you all wanted to see, huh?

Yeah, but he looks so good, Zach, he could say whatever he wants. You like the Kangal hat? Yeah, I thought it looked awesome. I mean, the size of that chain. You see, I'm not a big kangol hat guy, but. Zach will never. Hey, to each their own. Zach would never praise the way another man looks.

No, that's, I, Fran, I think you look great tonight, man. Like the jacket. So, you should know, Zach, in the chat, as, as Jalen Hertz is talking about Russell Wilson, cousin, Grace, immediately on it, that Jalen Hertz is talking about how much he loves another man, why can't sack do it? I can share people I respect, just the way he shared the respect he has for Russell Wilson. But that's besides the point. Let me tell you what's going on in the locker room.

Because A.J. Brown, because similar to the I told you so theme, AJ Brown said that the touchdown celebration was like a, you know, was like a payback to all the people who have been talking about them all week, right? Like, like, that was, yeah, that was like a slap in the face to all the people who've been talking about them all week long. So, so this, this was that type of week here, certainly. A lot of conversation among the wide receivers about the lot of conversation that they had. And what I mean by that is they said, AJ said they spent a lot of time together like beyond normal, really working to get on the same page. there was extended meetings, extended conversations.

Devante Smith said the same thing, that there was a lot that they did, the receivers, the quarterbacks, trying to figure this all out. So that was, this was a big, you know, as much as like the drama took place. And, you know, Lane Johnson, as an aside here, Lane Johnson, who missed some time this week because he had a funeral that he had to attend. But he said, like, he doesn't pay attention to the housewives of Philadelphia. You know, he says he's, he's, he's, he's been here long enough that he kind of just like, uh, flips through that. Um, he lets everyone else deal with that. Uh, but so, but he, I mean,

everyone's aware of everything that went on this, this, this week. And the drama aside, there were real like football things that took place this week, extended conversations, a lot, um, uh, behind the scenes work to get to. what you saw tonight. Yeah, I mean, the I told you so and like nothing to see here from Siriani, it sort of falls flat because A.J. Brown himself is the one who said they needed to get better. And they spent a lot of time this week changing things so that they could get better as a passing offense. And so that doesn't really pass muster to me, but it's from a like, we think we can flip the switch when we need to. And they, they showed that they could in this

game. So it was a very impressive performance. Yeah, I'm, I'm with you there. And I got the Nick late. So I couldn't I didn't ask any of the receiver stuff because I figured that had already been asked. I was talking to Lane and I got the Nick midway through. But I was interested in this concept of a measuring stick game because it's something that Lane Johnson very much believes in, right, that beating the Steelers, beating the Ravens, like that says something about your team. And Nick didn't really bite on that. Nick said every game's the same. You can't win 11 without winning 10. And I get that. But when when you do what they did to the Steelers, when you do what they did to the Ravens, like that to me and that's Elaine Johnson and that to other guys I spoke to in the

locker room, that says quite a bit about about what you are. I feel like when you ask that question, he named the whole, the whole defense. So obviously in his mind, I think, I think you were, you were spot on, bro. I appreciate that coming from you in it yeah because like that's that question came from the locker room i talked to nick after i talked to the locker room and that's that seed of the question came from talking to lane johnson who's been doing this for 12 years who's who's who's who's who's like when you know when you play like that against the steers when you play like that against the ravens like they're he very much believes in measuring stick games and so i i i think and you know and and the bow's point this was they

flipped a switch and they didn't just I mean they they they won going away right they won by two scores they turned the ball they didn't win the turnover battle they won by two scores they they uh they held the ball for the last 10 minutes of the game Mike Tomlin punts it doesn't get the ball back like this you know 75% of the chant thought was the right decision the pun it yeah I um I said at the time is he punning it here like is he really think he's going to get two more cracks at this. I was surprised by that. And then they, on the field, they announced the J. Allen Carter penalty as if like Pittsburgh was getting the ball back. So I was like, oh, goodness, this is, this is backbreaking. And then when obviously it was assessed after the

punt that, that changed things. But yeah, I mean, that that drive shows you, passes to AJ, passes to Devonte. Steekwant runs it. And, you know, You know, Jalen said, and I take it, you guys heard Jalen, but that they were a run-to-ball play action team. That was the formula they were going with. And they had to shift that tonight. And this was the first time A.J. Brown and Devante Smith both had double-digit targets since week 13 last year against Dallas.

It's the first time they have double-digit targets in a winning game, in a winning effort, since week one last year against New England. That says something like that. You don't usually see both these guys rolling at the same time. And the fact that they're able to do it speaks volumes about what this team can do. Now, did you hear anything in the locker room about that Jalen Carter penalty in the ensuing dust up? No, and from my understanding, Jailen, you know, Jion Carter was not available to reporters. He got out of there before we could get in there.

So no, I wanted to speak to Jalen. I had my eyes on the D-Line corner, the back of the last. corner. Vinny knows I'm talking about where all the D-Lyman are. But no, he was not there. I was congregating around the wide receivers. I caught up with a few defensive guys, you know, Reed Blankenship, Zach

Vaughn. By the way, we haven't talked about a terrible call on Reed Blankenship on that roughness penalty. Justin Fields slides right into him. Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, I asked him about that, by the way. And he's, he expects to be fine, but he's, he's, he's

and try to push back on the fine because he says like he didn't think he did anything wrong on that play he would never as an intention to like hurt someone or play dirty he thought he went in before the slide he said field slid late on on that play um so i yeah i hear you there i spoke to the officials but about something else not about that um but i thought overall um the defense was huge huge huge in the first half of the game in particular for the Eagles to turn the ball over twice and have a short punt too, like a 38-yard punt, and only three points to show for it, you know, I'm going to go back to our old friend, Chip Kelly. And I remember asking Chip one time, what's your, what's your favorite?

Hey, hey, Vinny's best year came under Chip Kelly. Most productive. We don't need to say best. Most productive. Most productive. Vinnie's first big contract came after a Chip Cal a year. Is that fair to say? Yeah. Passing. Begrudgingly, he says.

Begrudgingly. All right, I got you. I won a Super Bowl. Yeah, sure, true, true. I once asked Chip what his most important stat was. And his answer was response off turnovers. He says, everyone makes a big deal about turnovers. but if you force a turnover and you don't score off it,

or if you turn the ball over and you stop the team. All I'm doing is being a reporter here. I'm conveying something that, like, God, I mean, God for me someone has an original thought, okay? It's an original thought. It's not an original thought. It's Chip Kelly's thought. Yeah, no, I'm saying, Chip, it's original, like,

it's a thoughtful response to a question. Like, it's his perspective, okay? But you saw that tonight in that there was a, yeah, the Eagles turned the ball over twice in their own territory. Pittsburgh gets three points off of it. That's huge. The games, I believe in game flow. I believe in game script. Like it changes quite a bit.

If you're down two scores, Pittsburgh plays you differently. Pittsburgh plays offense differently. So the fact that the defense was able to hold is critical. I understand the wide receivers are this, look, when I write my story, I'm going to write two stories the team the first one's going to be on the wide receivers obviously that's the big topic here the passing game but we we can't take for granted the fact that this defense every week seems to hold opponents in the teams um it is crazy to think about like you if if you're holding teams to 13 points you're going to win games it's that simple uh you spoke to the refs you said zach

what about what you hear yeah yeah spoke to the officials about the the fight um the scuffle between the Steelers and the Eagles. Some of the Pittsburgh reporters want a clarification on that. The official said they did not see a punch from the Eagles. They said New York reviewed it and New York did not see a punch from the Eagles. So I know. Yeah. And I asked why the Steelers were charged with unsportsmanlike penalties there.

And they said because they had unsportsman like or unnecessary roughness or yeah, they said because they had unsportsmanlike behavior there. So it was pretty cut and dry. And then Pittsburgh Media also wanted me to ask why Montravius Adams was flagged on the field goal attempt. And it's because he ran over the Senate. This is one of those don't kill the messenger situations. Yeah, I was just doing it comes with a gig, right? Comes with the gig.

Yeah, I was just doing that. Yeah. Zach, that's what they said. Any word from the locker room or just any inkling in terms of A.J. Brown? Injury-wise? Yeah, injury-wise. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it seemed okay. Okay, good. It sounded like he thought it was a hit-drop tackle, but, but yeah, he, I spoke to him after the game. He sounded fine by that. Lane Johnson thought, like, the really cool part about that final drive was, the fact that you had like Jack Driscoll in there and you had seen it you know that that they had to go really deep on on their bench there they they were missing guys he said that drag took a lot out of man so I'm curious to see what the injury the injuries look like

after this game I saw Sidney Brown walking out of the out of the locker room I know he was diagnosed with the concussion I'm not a doctor but he wasn't like he didn't seem impaired as he was as he was walking away. So I don't know. Did he have dark shades off? To wall. Like, what's that?

Did he have shades of? No, he didn't. No. And he was walking with like, he was walking fast too. Like he wasn't. Yeah. I mean,

he was, he was accelerating. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. He was accelerating. Mackay Beckton. I, I didn't get a chance to talk Mackay. I was running into Nick, but he was walking gingerly to his luck or something.

On the fall, that looked crazy on TV. Yeah. So my guess is Nick has them with a holds them to a walk through on Wednesday is my guess because this this team was really beat up. And you heard Jalen Hertz, Jalen Hertz wasn't shy about the fact that it was broken. He confirmed that. He used the term shableness. He said his, yeah, he said shattered and that it is affecting his play.

I mean, candidly, this was probably the best he's played this season, this or Jacksonville. So I'm not saying that it helped him, but if it affected him out there, then, you know, figure out, you know, channel that going forward. Even sprung, even sprung that nice run up the middle and against the Pittsburgh defense that has been very good against running quarterbacks this season. Michael works in the chat Zach, I'll be happy to know, says that he made homemade chicken vodka wraps for this for this Kenny Pickett Revenge game. He could just come to Gianni's up in Ocean Township, New Jersey

and had a delicious one. Yeah. That's up by you, Vinnie, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, when I saw when I was... That's right. Yeah.

Yeah. I bet there's some good chicken vodka wraps at Neptune, New Jersey as well. Absolutely. So what did you talk to AJ Brown? What was AJ Brown's just sort of demeanor about like the passing performance from this kid that he called for? Yeah, he was like, you got to have uncomfortable conversations. And he was, you know, he does this thing where he's like, I'm not playing the victim. He's like, but everyone was saying this, not just me.

Yeah, he was like everyone was saying. And I don't know why everyone was focusing on me, you know, but he said, there was a lot of, um, a lot of like uncomfortable conversations behind the scenes, which he thought was, was, was important.

Uh, he says, it says a lot to him and Devante both did this in the same game, that they were able to get, you know, him and Devante both used the term on the same page, which I wasn't an accident because last week, but they said they weren't on the same page.

Uh, so I asked both of them what goes into being on the same page and they said like, and that's when they kept talking about those long conversations that they had this week. And AJ is like, I'm not complaining, but like, we have we had long meetings this week, right? So there was, this was the urgency was certainly heightened in that regard. And then he talked about yards after the catch to the importance of, because they really didn't go down field that often. But all their chunk plays really seemed to come with with yards after the catch.

Any other big takeaways from the locker room, Zach? Yeah, well, Lane, by the way, like, the respect the lane has for t j wott and i know you can say this about any about about about anyone but he was asked at one point like how important it was that the passing game got going and he's like i'm just going to be honest with you all i was thinking about was stopping f and t j watt because he's he's like that guy's incredible he's one the best players i've ever played against uh so yeah really hearing the respect that lane has for him lane lane Lane kind of summed up this this past week with brother with brothers fight.

He's like, brothers fight, you know, that he said these are the brothers that he's never had. And but he said, you know, there's there's always, you know, fight it's in, in, in families. But he said they addressed it in Wednesday. He wasn't there. But, you know, he said, BG spoke. He said he understands that like, you know, the three of them all got together and hug. now AJ denied a report that him and jail wanted to address the team. I think Jay Glazer said that, but it certainly sounds like this meeting on Wednesday,

this closed-door meeting was particularly productive. Well, I was going to give Jalen 90 yards and it got them, you know, playing football like this. They need to have a meeting anyway Wednesday. I think that's all said. A great point from Frank Elmwood, who says, we won this one for Vinnie. Glad we picked him and not that. weirdo Russell Wilson.

Of course. There you go. The sliding doors. That's the draft. That's the draft class. Hey, listen, he got a Super Bowl. I got a Super Bowl, you know, it pans out. It all works out.

Everybody got one. That's right. All right, Zach. I feel like we've sort of emptied the notebook. Anything else? Well, I imagine you'll get into it, but just, you know, the implications now with Detroit losing and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, Degel's rolling here. Like, this was, I felt.

going into the stretch after the Rams game, I thought the Eagles were going to split Baltimore, Pittsburgh. All right? I was wrong. I know Washington's a tough game next week. You know, you turn around after a physical game. You go down there. But I think the Eagles are better than Washington. The Eagles can run the table here. Like, you know, the Eagles can finish 15 and 2, which is staggering to think about if every game is competitive. but the fact that Detroit is a tough schedule, right? So the ones, you know, Pittsburgh, I'm sorry, Buffalo really helped Eagles out tonight. And I know that's not something Nick Seriani's thinking about, but I've been saying for the past month that I'm skeptical, that the one seed matters more in the NFC this year than basically than in most years

that I've covered this because I think Detroit, is a is built to play in in their dome or in a dome. I think that they would have a much harder time on the road. I think that's a real tough place to go into. In January, you saw that Rams Lions game last year. Like that place was nuts from all indications. But if you could somehow get the one seed and you get the lions here, it changes things considerably.

So I know that there, that there's a few things that have to happen here, right? the Lions have to lose the game, but the fact that that's on the table really makes things interesting. And I don't know about you, but this Eagles performance changes the way I feel about them going into the playoffs as well. I think I now believe that they have a higher playoff ceiling than I might have thought. It's a good point. And, you know, some like some years break your way. You know, San Francisco is having a down year. By the way, I was thinking about this last, you know, I was thinking about this on

Thursday night when I was watching the game, like not to absolve the Eagles from what happened last year. It was a pathetic collapse. But the Eagles post-super Bowl year was 11 wins and making the playoffs, right? Whereas like, you know, a lot of the teams that have lost in the Super Bowl, like San Francisco this year, you know, they really go into the dumps the following year, right? So, but yeah, the fact that San Francisco is having this down year, really Detroit, now Minnesota, is legit. And I think Korean Bay is tough, but there's no one in the South who really scares you. The Cowboys

are having this down here. So the NFC is, there's less like Warren Bull opponents than ever before. And look, I know Buffalo looks awesome, but I saw Patrick Mahomes go down today. Kansas City, that they might look a little

different. So this is going to be an interesting next month and a half. And you're absolutely right. When you play like this against Pittsburgh, when you play like they did against Baltimore. When you play like they did against the Rams, man, that is like this, this team is is so impressive that, you know, it's, it's, I don't want to say it's like snuck up on us because they were expected to be good, but I don't know if they were expected to be this good. And it's really because the defense is just so like meat and potato solid. Zach, if the Eagles go to the

Super Bowl, I think one of the weeks, one of the days that we are there during Super Bowl week in New Orleans, you should commit to wearing a backwards Kangle hat. Why? The child is asking for it. Yeah, I mean, I feel like I'd be Michael Scott. Someone left an Apple podcast with you. With me a Kangle? I can't wear a Kingle hat.

I'm sorry. Yeah, there's like, what's that song? I saw this on, you know, It was the ESPN commercial with the couples who were, who were like college rivals. I would do anything for love, but I won't do that, right? I would do anything for the show. Meatloaf.

The Kangol has where you draw the lines. Actually, no, it's not, I don't know, you won't draw the line at the Kangol hat. You know, you won't do the Cooper DeGine, you won't wear a Kangol hat, you won't get naked. I just don't know. Oh, it's ridiculous. Yeah, no, it's not the thing.

I won't. It's just I don't know what it like. I don't know why it's necessary. Just because you ask me to do something, doesn't mean I have to go ahead and do it. You know, so yeah, I'm up for for charity. I would do most things for charity. I mean, I'm always thinking about others. You're always thinking about others. I'm always thinking about others. All right. Okay, shout out. I saw a halftime today. I saw Alejandro. He goes by Alex. Big fan of the show. Lives in Germany from Mexico.

Loves all the, yeah, it was nice catching up with him. I said I would give him a shout out on the show. I met a lot of people over the past, you know, two days at a book signing and whatnot, who have great things to say about the show. I appreciate it significantly. Shout out to Samaj. He was my waiter last night. Big flesh.

He was the man. Yeah. He was, yeah. Yeah, we were talking about the show. He had some of the things he appreciates, some of the feedback he had. So, yeah, I love hearing from P.HLY equals fans. Well, wait a minute. So, Samaj, did you ask him for a recommendation on what to order?

Of course he did. Of course. Okay. I was going to say, because if you didn't, then he would know that that's your normal thing. If you didn't ask him, I feel like he was offended. Of course he did. Of course I did. Yeah.

And Samaj was money in his recommendations. Zach, if it's last, last thing, holiday season, people looking for last chance books or gifts, rather. Do you have any recommendations for them? Yeah, a diehard subscription to PHY would be awesome. So you could start there. We also have a lot of great merch on PHLY. but if you're looking for a book, the franchise,

Philadelphia Eagles, a curated history of the birds, and I'm sending about 30-something books out tomorrow at the post office, but I have until Wednesday to get it to you for by Christmas. So if you want a copy, you can message me. Either Zach at all p-H-L-Y.com, on Twitter,

DM me on Instagram, wherever, yeah, however you want to do it. And I'll send you, you'll form and we'll work it out. Reports circulating of some very handsome paperbacks making the rounds in circulation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a good sign for sales, but yeah, these books are, they're getting hard to come by, which is good, which is good.

That a baby. All right. Zach, we look forward to reading what you write on all p.hly.com for the diehards. Thank you very much for putting in the work, and we will talk to you on the show tomorrow at 2 o'clock. appreciate it, guys. Thanks. All right, Zach. Have a good night.

All right. Good stuff from ZB. Everybody's got a good recommendation. Zach is the man. Last minute. The man. Holiday gifts. Nobody better than Zach Berman.

And right now in the NFC, maybe nobody better than the Philadelphia Eagles. After their 27 to 13 domination of the Pittsburgh Steelers answering all the big questions, Jalen Hertz, very impressive, both A.J. Brown, Devon. Bonte Smith going over 100 yards, the defense dominant. And right now, I think we can sort of allow ourselves to think, Vinny, maybe, maybe they are going in New Orleans. I don't know. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

But they look, they look, they look pretty, pretty damn good. I mean, with the way the past game looked in this game, with the answers that they gave Jalen Hertz schematically, with the way that he was able to execute, especially in the, in the quick and rhythm passing game, for those that are watching now, maybe we weren't there in the beginning of the show. He was outstanding. I getting rid of the ball in under four seconds. He still did it at a fairly high rate compared to other

quarterbacks, but especially early on in this game when you saw him start hot. I mean, he started it's like 12 of 13, 14 of 15. He just could not miss early in the game. The ball was just coming out so fast. You could play that way and play within rhythm and get the ball and execute that high level

with that run game and with that defense. They're going to be very tough to beat. Well said. And so we follow it Over the final three weeks Of the regular season We will be here to take you through The Eagles Chase for the number one seed

In the NFC We appreciate the shoutouts for Jamie In the chat, Jamie, I'm having a nice little feed-up Holiday vacation He'll be back to join us and complete The Four Horsemen Next Sunday, so we look forward to that. The Eagles

10 wins in a row 12 and 2 tied with the Lions atop the NFC and a chance to get the number one seed. We thank all of you for watching and listening to the show tonight. Actually, by the way, I think we have to take a quick break for one more commercial break. Did we do that? We didn't do the second commercial break. So let's take a real quick break.

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Listen, that's on me. Just got to own it. I got to do a better job. I'm going to review the tape and figure out how we can avoid that happening again. Hey, just so we can elongate this for a couple minutes to make everybody happy. Jake Elliott, you know.

Didn't miss a kick. Yeah, nice bounce back. And two of them, too. Yeah. Yeah, man. But time flies, we're having fun. When you talk about the birds and the birds play like that, time flies. My man.

Jake Elliott, Rick LaValle, two of the guys that you were teammates with. I was going to say, I'm just glad that Zach didn't make the, because you know that would keep him up all that. Yeah, but he's going to be up about Vinny getting on him for his lack of energy. I mean, he's not going to, come on. He's not going to have at least 90 minutes of sleep. We also have a super chat we missed from Santiago who says Stephen Means or Joe Osman. I think he was maybe trying to try to guess back on the Jason Peters.

But Stephen Means a guy known for going hard in practice. Oh, definitely. Yeah, no, means would definitely go hard. But, you know, about it, I was out. Like, you know, I just, the ones goes with the two. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Means will go. He would try to go go with the guys.

But, no, he never got on JP side. He was always on Lane side, so. Yeah, Lane used to give him a lot of credit. Yeah, yeah. Lane, you should like that type of stuff, though. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, go along on.

He would talk a lot about means. It was like riding a bull, he would say. Yeah. Okay, there you go. Talk to Stephen Means this weekend, by the way. Yeah. On the nationals, yeah. Oh, yeah.

How to go? Oh, you know, we lost. That's all right, though. Yeah, but who got MVP? Oh, yeah. No, no, no, dude. You know, he did a good job, man. But, you know.

It would have been cool You know the team It came out of that thing When the national championship But we lost What are you smiling at We saw Moana too last week And as we're

I thought of Of your son's name Maui What he saw? Oh yeah Oh yeah It looked just like what Yeah it looks I know

Now you can't get out your head He does Walk like him too It sings like him Awesome Moana Megway Hey, man, what?

I'm trying to remember the next time you knew. The village of mountainous all you need. I couldn't remember that. That one bridge line. I'm practicing. They dance to an ancient song. It's actually like, I've heard this song in my car once. We know my Spotify rap.

What other songs do you know the lyrics do? All right. I think we've done enough now that we can say goodbye. As the Eagles, say goodbye to the Pittsburgh Steelers. champs as Mike Tomlin termed it ahead of the game. So good job by the Eagles. That'll do it for this episode of the P.H.O.I.

Eagles post game show. We are back all week at 2 o'clock to talk about the next game as the Eagles prepare to go to Washington, their last road game of the regular season, potentially of the season. So much to talk about as we hit the holidays

and make sure you go get your Zach Berman merch everywhere. Thanks everybody for watching and listening. Thanks to Julia and Chris for making it happen behind the scenes. We will talk to you tomorrow. Thanks to Vinny and Fran. We'll see Jamie next week. And as always, we love you.