PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - PHLY Eagles Podcast | Is Saquon Barkley set up for a career year within the Philadelphia Eagles offense?

Episode Date: July 18, 2024

We turn our attention to running back as our preview series ahead of training camp continues, with all eyes on Saquon Barkley after the Hard Knocks exposé of how the Giants let him flee for a division rival. How much better off are the Eagles with Barkley and Will Shipley than they were with D’Andre Swift a season ago? And how much better off is Barkley playing in the most talented offense of his life?Plus, Aaron Schatz joins Zach Berman and Bo Wulf to discuss the DVOA projection for the Eagles this season and the state of the NFC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the PHLY Eagles podcast on a Thursday high noon vacation Bo Wolf here along with Zach Berman. We got a lot to talk about Zach. We're going to talk to Aaron Shats about 1215 to talk about the DVOA projections for the Eagles, which are a little bit tepid, maybe more bearish than you might expect for some Eagles fans. We want to talk about the running back position heading into training camp, which starts next Wednesday. We have crunched the tape on the hard knocks behind the scenes of the New York Giants front office. Lots to talk about there. But most importantly, everybody is on the hook still.

We need to hear the end of the leap of faith story. First off, it's nice to see you. What's up, Brojajo? Nice to see you in person. I apologize to everyone for the power yesterday. It was out throughout most of the day. It's always tough. Had the fridge hold up. we didn't open it so it was okay and we got it back last night around like 630 nice but you know the my kids and my wife they was it's like I can control the power it's like I can't do anything they're like is there you know because because typically if there's like a a tech problem in the house or something like that I can fix it I couldn't fix the power right so but happy it's back sorry that leave everyone suspenseful there I don't know if the ending of the story is that

great but um so we're at a pool where you jump from like a cliff into the pool okay uh it was it was pretty cool and and sloan was you know she's five years old she was nervous like it's it's a pretty significant jump right and i was real proud of her because she she did it and she said um she listened you know to jason kelsey and i said what do you mean and she said i took a leap of faith i I closed my eyes and held my breath and trusted my cape. And that's what she said to me. That's awesome. Yeah.

So it was nice. Now, Jason Kelsey didn't sing the song or write the song, but when we played in the car, we say this is Jason Kelsey's song. So, yeah, so she said, she said, I took a leap of faith. I listen to Jason Kelsey. So it was a nice. You got to tell Kelsey that story. Yeah. I actually shared with him last year that, you know, I used the song.

as a as a lesson with my children and yeah he he he appreciated that he appreciated that he he says it to his kids as a as like a lullaby type thing like he puts them to sleep with it I do it in the car and then we explain what leaps of faith are and and I you know I kind of talk about the cape figuratively right but in the case of jumping from the cliff into the pool it's almost like a literal thing there you go yeah Nice story. Yeah.

All right. That'll do it for yesterday's episode. Yesterday's episode of the PHL Eagles podcast. Now we can get to the rest of today's, Zach. And why don't we start with hard knocks? Sure. I have, you know, I binge the three episodes that have happened so far. And I've got, I mean, I got a mountain of notes.

Just unbelievable. First of all, it's great that we get to see this stuff. Yeah, Rich Hoffman said it's his favorite type of hard knocks. For sure, at least in a very long time. And I don't know we were talking before the show started about how much of these conversations are a little bit staged for the cameras. Like, is it really the case that five minutes before the negotiating period opens, Brian Dable comes into Joe Shane's office and Shane's like, all right, so what do you think our top priority really should be position-wise? Like that would be kind of wild if that were the case, right? But I mean, my number one takeaway, I don't know about yours is like the thing that I really want to watch that I would pay money for would be to watch how it's,

Roseman watching this because he must be thinking like what a JV organization the way that they run things it must be it must be nuts and Joe Shane's first year he was he was getting praised like for his process for the way he was he was he was kind of handling things I I found like their strategy their their they're they're thinking incredibly fly by the seat of their pants yeah now look I thought the Brian Burns trade was was really if you told me you would trade a second round pick plus you know to get Brian Burns and to be fair they did even say in their evaluations like it's going to cost a first plus so they they did end up getting a better deal than they were expecting and like a you know a really good player you know so

that that part of it but i i i thought there were a few things from the process that i i found odd in particular like they say the start of free agency like our all right our top priority backup quarterback is is is tyrant taylor well the advantage you have for a free agent on your own team is that you have the whole month and a half before to try to sign him. So it seems to be like going into that day. Now, players want to see what their market is sometimes. And so, but if he's a priority, you do everything you can to keep him off the market. But as far as the Saquan thing, because I know that's the juiciest part of it.

And this has gotten a lot of attention. Like John Mara, I don't profess to know John Mara really well, but I've, I know him a bit. I've spent time, you know, I've spoken. I used to cover the Giants. I spent two years covering the Giants. He is, like, he is passionate. And I've seen some people saying, like, it's real flawed argument. This guy's our most popular player, which we shouldn't let him leave.

But I would also argue, like, in John Manner's defense, he was their most popular player because he was one of their few really good players. Yeah, he was one of like three good players on the team. Exactly. And all three, and two of the three of them are gone. Exactly. So that to me is like, yeah, John Mara, I thought his logic was sound. Like the fans, yeah, the fans are going to be upset about this because this is like a really good player.

But I always believe you should have a hold firm price and a walkaway price. Which they didn't have, though. It's like it's like they said, like Illuminaur, they're like, what's our walkaway price? Six. All right, let's give them seven. It's free agency. It's free agency. All right, I'll do what you got to do.

So much for the walkaway price. I think they just, like, Shane just didn't want, say, on back. That was my big takeaway there. That's definitely the answer. She's like the whole time. It's not the price. He didn't want. So yeah, I'm glad you said it that succinctly because because there are things that happen in life often where you try to rationalize it to the people around you. You think of all different types of like reasons and excuse. But it's like every conversation he had goes back to Joe Shane didn't want Seacon Barclan. Right. Right. And Barclay's agent said the same thing on the phone. He's like when you go to bed at night like is it true? Like do you really just not want to back?

Yeah, like I think that's the answer. And I think some of it does connect to that scene in the first episode when Shane's like hand-wringing over how much drama there was last year is like, I can't go through that again. Like, give me a break. Look, I think that there's a few things. He does believe in like, you don't, you shouldn't pay your running back X. You know, he, I don't think he thought Barclay was that good of a player because during the previous episodes, you know, and Rich and I spoke about this, he kept saying like, is there really that much of a difference? between Secombe, between Seekwon and Barclay and this guy. And the conversation he had with Frank Gore, where he's like, you know, running backs go down at this point.

Yeah. I don't think that that's unreasonable. No, but yeah. So it doesn't seem that he wanted him back. I don't think a player owes the team anything once he hits free agency, right? Like that the idea that, well, do you give me your word that you're going to come back to me with any offer? I know, but he was so, he was so embarrassing in that since like, do you get me your word? It's like it was like easy to imagine him like trying to talk to girls in high school.

Like okay. Like you're going to date around but like you promise me you're going to come back. I think that's a little bit of a stretch. I wouldn't conflate those two things there. Especially it was also funny that when he goes over to Elliot Wolf, he was like, hey like, just keep keep me in mind. Like if you need a prom date, like I will be here. No, I look, I think that's I think that's fine. And I think like I just thought the when a player hits free agency, they are no long.

your of course not I don't want to use term property but but yeah they're there are no longer under your control so they don't need to go back to you with an offer and and I like I thought Sequan's response on the phone when him in this was the previous episode not not the one

that that was this week but you and Rich talked about the phone call yeah yeah where he's like he's like you know my number right it's like yeah like you know what it's going to take don't need to come back to you forever like you know what it's going to take you go back to him if you don't get what you, what do you want.

But if this is the number and they were opening with the number, they get that number plus. Yeah. And I found it interesting how like how giddy Joe Shane seemed when he's like the bears are really driving up the market. The Eagles are out. John Maher, because I can 100% see John Maher saying this. Like I'm not going to be able to sleep at night if it goes to the Eagles.

That's a very real way of thinking. Yeah. Well, it's in Shane. defense and the Giants defense, which if we talk about this for a while, I will not have many defenses of the Giants, but it is good if the owner is not making the personnel decisions, right? And he doesn't make the personnel decisions, yeah. Oh, I mean, he's trying to influence a little bit, but he's not, he's not a heavy hand, and that's good, that's better process.

It was up to John Merritt, they, uh, Sequin would stay. But that's my, I mean, that's my takeaway here, and we can get to the big picture preview of the running back position later in the show. If Seyclo and Barclay has a, has a monster here, Joe Shane's out of a job next time. season. Well, yeah. Like, like that. That's what I think. Because Mara obviously wanted Sequin back. He's he's like, okay, it's a little bit, a little bit akin to Jeffrey giving Chip just

enough rope to hang himself, right? Like, if this is the decision you make and our offense stinks next year and Sequin has a monster year and we're, you know, six and 11 again, see you later. I kind of think. In our our guest today, Aaron Schatz, he was on an interview. with Kevin Clark, and he was asked, like, who's the worst team in football? And the answer was, like, I think it's definitely clear with the Giants, right? Interesting. Based on their numbers, yeah.

So this is, this does seem to be a critical year for them. I also didn't think that their offensive line strategy, like, if your whole goal is to upgrade the offensive line, they seem to be, like, really, like, half-hearted about it in some cases, too. It was interesting that, yeah, they, because they, They had hunt at a higher value than Runyon. Why not get Hunt and Illuminau. Instead of. Yeah.

Yeah. And their whole thing about John Runyon, Jr., this guy doesn't miss any games, which I found to be like a poor right now. It might be a very good sign. Yeah. Now, I do think, though, like I said, I give them a lot of credit for getting Brian Burns and not sacrificing what I thought it would take to get Brian Burns. I need to be consistent.

I say going into the Eagles offseason, like Brian Burns would be the guy I would target and the Giants were able to land him. All right. We'll talk a little bit more about this later in the show after we talked to Aaron Chats. I want to talk about the person in the Giants front office who I think was the most impressive. I wonder if you would have the same answer as I do. I want to talk about some of their slogans, which I found very funny. But before we do that, we're going to talk about our friends at Miller Light because I think if you're really wanting to take your enjoyment of that hard knocks to the next level, get your friends around, turn it on, and suck them back.

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of DVOA, the maker of DVOA. The the maker of DVOA and the FTN football almanac has been released. And you might be surprised to learn that this Eagles team that has revamped the secondary, completely changed the coordinators, is only projected, according to the FTN football almanac, for 8.8 wins, which is a little bit maybe under what Vegas would have and what I think Eagles fans expectations are. And so we are excited to talk to Aaron Chats about that. I think he's going to join

us any second. Aaron, how you doing? Hey, I'm good. Yeah, it's always interesting to try to sell my book to the fans of a team that it is pessimistic about. There is a lot of good stuff in there, even if it is pessimistic about the Eagles. You're in the right place, though, because nobody loves to hate themselves more than Eagles fans. So explain to us why. You guys might be a little bit lower on the Eagles heading into the season, then consensus? I mean, it starts with just how good they were last year when you incorporate the first half and the second half of the year. They were not as good as their record in the first half of the year.

And then they completely collapsed in the second half of the year. So they finished the year 14th in DVOA. That's essentially an average team, slightly above average. Then you look at the changes that they made. And first of all, you have to expect. that all other things being equal, bringing in new coordinators, you know, often means new systems. It takes a little bit of time. Teams that bring in new coordinators tend to take a little bit of a step back. You don't see that because usually teams that bring in new coordinators are bad. And the power of

regression towards the mean is a stronger power than you struggle a little bit when you have new coordinators, but the Eagles were not bad last year, so they've got that element. I think that I think they're going to miss Kelsey more than people think they will. I agree with that. I mean, we absolutely account for that, but what we can't account for is what if Kelsey is the secret to the brotherly shove and he's gone and now all of a sudden that play in such important situations is no longer as successful as it was before. We don't know, honestly, whether he is or not, but there's a good chance that he is because he was obviously really important part of that. Sequin Barclay just doesn't move the needle very much because running backs, look, it's just an analytics thing.

Running backs just don't move the needle very much. There are a few exceptions. Maybe Barclay is one of those exceptions when it comes to receiving value. And I do think he'll have great numbers this year because he'll have great blocking, but DeAndre Swift had really good numbers because he had really good blocking. That's not really an improvement. They're depending a lot on the rookie corners. That's good, you know, rookie corners tend to help defenses, but I don't know how good those guys are going to be.

They have an easy schedule, but it all works out to basically an average team with an easy schedule, you know, that should be like nine wins or so. I wanted to follow up on Sequin because that's a good point there. And you've been consistent about that. You know, I've read the Almanac every year, right? I mean, what would it take for a running back addition to make a meaningful upgrade as far as the data? Because as you mentioned, the Eagles had success last year with Yantre Swift. They had success the year before with Miles Sanders, right? So this is a position that's been able, I don't want to say get replacement level players,

but has been able to get high level production from different players. So what would it take for Sequan Barkley to make a meaningful impact from a data percentage? perspective. I don't think it would be because if we're building a model out of every team from the last 10 years, you're just not going to find enough places we're adding a running back value. First of all, if you look at our numbers, they're not actually adding running back value, right? Because DeAndre Swift had better numbers than Sequin Barclay did last year. Now, we all agree. We all believe Barclay's a better player than Swift. But I, you know, numbers wise, he wasn't last year because of the offensive lines.

Right. But you're just not going to find, I mean, the best example of a guy who really moves the needle is McCaffrey. So I guess if McCaffrey was to go to a new team, we might add a little bit in for him based on what happened when he went to San Francisco, but at that point he'll be older. And so you have to ask whether it'll mean something. There's just, there isn't a history of running backs really making a difference when they go to new teams more than just a couple of guys.

If I can ask a quick follow-up there because in obviously your time covering the league and writing about the league and analyzing the league, I think you would agree. Eagles have been one of the more data-inclined organizations, right? So does it surprise you that they made the investment that they did in Saquan-Barkley? Yes, it does surprise me. It didn't seem like an Eagles-like thing to do because they have gotten success from other running backs. My guess is that their analytics showed the value of him as a receiver. That this is probably related to what he brings as a receiver, not that as a running back he's that much better than what they've had the last couple of years.

Because I think that is where you see more of a difference between running backs is their receiving ability. Obviously, that's a big part of what makes McCaffrey so special. I think you could also make the case that they might think there is value in the second level, breaking tackle ability. you know, D'Andre Swift, if the offensive line is as good as it was last year, any running back can get those, you know, five yards, but it's the explosion at the second level that make you misability that I think they may be talking themselves into. In terms of just like year-to-year variance, Aaron, what are like the things that you usually look at that are like 100, like not 100%, but almost definitely bound for regression? and it's funny because you look at the Eagles and it seems like a lot of those things are, oh, the defense is definitely going to bounce back in some way like they can't be as bad on third down

and in the red zone and injury prone as they were last year. But on offense, it may not be that. It may not be the case. They might be a little bit more average on both sides. They have the same thing going on on third down opposite on both sides of the ball. The offense was so good on third downs last year. It's very unlikely that that continues. And like I said, the Kelsey retirement makes that.

even more likely to regress. The defense was particularly terrible on third downs last year, and that's not likely to continue. So that's likely to get better. There's a thing called the Plexiglass principle, which is not just regression to the mean, but the teams and units that decline dramatically will tend to bounce back the next year, and their defense declined dramatically. So there's a reason to believe that it will bounce back somewhat. And the other is turnover margin.

And they were at minus 10 last year. That tends to regress towards the mean, particularly on defense, they're likely to have a better turnover margin this year. And if I can ask about the coordinators in particular, how can you account for the change in coordinators? Is it simply looking at the roster they have in place? Do you consider the historical context of the coordinators they added? Is there any way to account for what the difference from Shonda's, Matt, Patricia, to Vic Fangio would bring the Eagles? Yeah, it's hard because guys don't have a history.

There are very few coordinators that have moved to enough new teams that there's a sample size where you could say this guy matters. And even with Vic Fangio, and we wrote about this a lot last year with Miami, and it turned out to be the case, he doesn't have a history of dramatically turning around defenses the first year he gets there. It takes some time. So there's other regression trends that suggest that the Eagles will have a better defense. But I mean, there's no variable I can put in for Matt, Patricia, didn't know what he was doing. So if you want to believe that that is a reason why we are underselling the Eagles, I am not going to argue with you. But accounting for coaching is very

tough because you just don't have the sample size to build it into the model, really. One of the little sort of diamonds in the rough nuggets that I loved from the Eagles chapter, and obviously everybody should read this and buy this, the FDN football almanac, is the Eagles special teams last year. We have sort of talked about this, how the Eagles were 32nd in the league, the youngest special teams group in the league. You know, they do not invest veterans on that side of the ball, and yet they finished number one in special teams DVOA, which I don't know if you would know off the top of your head if that has ever happened before,

but I would imagine that that is unlikely. But in terms of the, you know, the snap weighted age stuff, do you find that on either side of the ball, whether it's offense or defense or special teams, that there is a greater correlation between age and level of performance? No, man, don't you wish that there was? I would, I do, yes. I wish that old defenses especially were not that good. It would make explaining which teams get better and worse a lot easier if it really did have a correlate. But no, there are old teams that play well and old teams that play badly because sometimes you're old because you have a lot of great veterans and sometimes you're old because your guys are over the hill and it's all over the plane.

I will say you were talking about regression. Here's another positive regression note for Philadelphia and that special teams. They faced the best field goal kicking in the league last year with opposing kickers missing no extra. points and only two field goals, which were both over 40 yards. Very unlikely that that happens again this year. And yet, they also had the most drops against them by opposing offenses. So it also balances out. There's lots, there's all these different things that regress in different directions. Yeah, there's no question about it. We're fortunate enough, obviously, to have your audience today. And so it's important. So I did want to speak big picture about DVOA because for the

long time listeners and viewers of our show, this is, this is, you know, you know, the data we're exclusively using as opposed to offense rankings, defense rankings, before those watching the show who want to know why DVOA is, is the best way to evaluate a team over the course of the season, right? What's, I guess your elevator pitch to the viewers, to the listeners, about the importance, the value of DVOA? Well, it looks at the success on every play compared to the down and distance, which is much more important than looking at total yardage,

and then compares it to a league average baseline that's adjusted for situation an opponent, and is particularly tweaked in order to be predictive, right? We've tweaked it a little bit in the last couple of years to try to be as predictive as possible of the future. We're trying to filter out the effects of context and luck and schedule to try to get as close as possible to the sort of platonic ideal of how good a team is.

Like if we had the magic power to stick a number on a team like a Madden rating, like we're trying to get as close to that as possible, even though we know that that's actually impossible. I do want to ask you about the wider NFC if the eagles are a little bit lower. Maybe who would DVOA be higher on?

But I want to ask you a personal question first, Aaron. And that is, you know, DVOA is your baby. And I wonder what it has been like for you watching it move recently and it's like sending your child off to college what has the last year we don't have to talk about the old place but just how how much work has that been to move it all over and what has that been like it's weird it's different um i i still have some issues with the old owners of the old site and i'm trying to get all of my archives back because there's 20 years of writing by a lot of people who went on to bigger and better things that I'd like to have online just so people can

read them. Do the right thing. At the same time, I've got a really good relationship with FtN Fantasy, which is my new home. I basically get to do my thing and write what I want when I want and can still write for ESPN as well. And we've had a lot of subscribers, and DVOA still is very successful and used around the league. So it's been pretty positive. Good to hear.

All right, then I will double back on the NFC question. So if we are a little bit lower on the Eagles, maybe around the conference, who are we higher on? I mean, I'm probably higher on Dallas than Eagles fans, but I don't think I'm that much higher on Dallas than Vegas. New Orleans, I'm higher on because people think that just because New Orleans is boring, that they are bad. And they are actually very average. but with a very easy schedule. That makes sense. And then generally, it's just the AFC is better than the AFC.

Staying in the division, I heard you elsewhere talking about the giants from like almost a lack of hope perspective, right? With Daniel Jones relative to maybe Caleb Williams in Chicago or Jaden Daniels in Washington. How do you view Washington and the Giants in particular? in the NFC East? I don't expect them to be good. The difference with Washington is there's the possibility that they're really bad and the possibility that they are good because we don't know what Jaden Daniels is going to be.

Whereas I feel like with the Giants, we know what Daniel Jones is. Their defense will probably be a little bit better with Brian Burns. There's still plenty of questions about their secondary. The overall package is just not good. All right. Well, Aaron Schatz, thank you so much for your time. The FTN Football Almanac. You can get it at FtNFantasy.com. It's available now. I think we can speak from experience. It is absolutely worth the purchase. And it will be again next year as it was all the years before. Thank you, Aaron. Hey, thank you for having me on. Sorry if I'm having some sort of broadcast problems here. There seems to be a little delay. But I appreciate you guys having me on. That's all right. Zach had it yesterday. We're all good here. Thank you, Aaron.

All right. All right. That was interesting. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm glad A, we had the chance to have them on because we. By the way, when I took them off, boy, where the lights even more blinding than usual. We used DBOA, I mean, especially during the season every day on the show, right? So it's good to get a face and a name for our audience.

I remember reaching out to Aaron Chats when I went when we were booking like Eagles Live episodes all those years ago, like 2000. and 10. So, yeah, it's a long-time relationship of these interviews. 15 years. Yeah, I remember very well. We used to have Bill Barnwell on when he worked alongside Aaron Schatz. Nice. It must have been 12, 13 years ago now. Well, longer than that, I think I was covering the Giants at the time, so 15 years ago. All goes back to the Giants, I suppose. And I see my brother this time of year. We were down the shore, and he had a huge book, and he's preparing for this. I was like, what are you reading? He's like, the Almanac, right? I don't want to say it the former place where he was, right?

But he was, he's like, this is where I get all my stuff. So yeah, this is, this has been, I read it cover to cover. I sometimes read it digitally, but cover to cover basically. Every summer to prepare me for the season gives me a good sense of what's going on around the league. Yeah, there's also some interesting stuff if you want to look at it about, you know, the things that Kellett Moore did with the Chargers last year versus what, you know, the Eagles did last year. last year, how all that's going to marry with Siriani. You know, we'll figure that out as time goes on. Are you surprised by what their data says about the Eagles?

I'm not super surprised. I think a lot of it tracks with what we've talked about. I mean, if you downgrade the coordinator bump, then that's probably where you would have the Eagles. Like, you know, the defense is going to be better. It can't be much worse. But I do agree that the, like, the Kelsey departure is probably, undervalued.

I think that they're from a football perspective. From a football perspective, I think that they are probably due for a little bit more injury on offense. And like we we sort of hand wave away how bad they were at the end of last season. Like, well, that was the collapse. Like, you know, they've addressed those problems and, you know, they got these new coordinators. But like, yeah, on the whole, they were like the worst team in football over the past

month of the season. So on the whole, they were a very mediocre team last year. Yeah. And I stand by what I've been saying. throughout this offseason about Kelsey. I think back we had Chris Long on one time, and I said, I hope you don't take this the wrong way,

but I always found you to be like an underrated player, like an overrated person. And you agree, you know, and I don't literally mean like an overrated person. But every time it seems the Jason Kelsey conversation comes up, it's like, how do you replace his leadership? And I'm like, well, how do you replace his football ability? Like, how do you replace a Hall of Fame player who,

made all the calls at the line of scrimmage, like blocked at a high level at the point of attack and downfield, and was remarkably durable, right? Because for as much promise as Cam Juergens has, we simply don't know. So I think there's too much attention being paid to the leadership component of it and not enough attention being paid to the football component of it. I agree with that. Okay, when you watched Hard Knocks, Zach, was there anybody that you thought was like the most impressive person in the front office? Well, yeah, I had some exposure to Brandon Brown before he came to, you know, before he went when he was with the Eagles.

And I thought Brandon Brown came off well in the show. Yeah, I agree with you. And to me, it's like, and I'll try to speak your language here. It's a little bit like Jim in the office where like he's the normal one and he's sort of like you say that wearing sunglasses. thinking about like side-eyeing the camera like do you guys see what's going on here and he's like asking the rational questions like when they had that free agency preview meeting and like uh the guy who's doing the projections has josh jacobs getting paid more than sequin barcly he's like so

are we sure about that like that's just because he's younger like you know i get that but like i think the league's probably going to pay sayquan more um and there are a couple other examples of like he he sort of steps in he's like well you know you did you did say we want to get two offensive lineman like yeah it's like he's he has to be the the voice of reason but do it without offending anybody that and yes i agree in terms of his approach but even like the information he he he brought like i i said this on the show with rich and i i don't mean to be ripping on joe shane um over and over again here but i i keep thinking when the josh jacob's name came up and he's like he led to league in rushing didn't he and i'm like that's the most like basic question

Whereas so juxtapose that or compare that to when when Christian, when the conversation came up about Christian Wilkins at the combine. And Brandon Brown is like, yeah, you know, I knew him in the Boston area. Like, you know, he's real close with Brian. Like, like, like comes with actual information about him that you, that would take like beyond one Google search. It's also, it's also like when Brian Davel is showing to Joe Shane why he wants to hire Shane Bowen. He's got on his phone. Like look at these stats. They're like 15th in points allowed last year.

And like sixth in run defense. Like you bring us some of that. Yeah. Very basic stuff. Yeah. So that. But again, we don't know how much. I don't know if maybe Shane was endearing himself to you with his complaints about his whoop score though.

Well, I'm an aura guy. So I don't, I don't know as much about whoop. I mean, I know the concept of it. But no, I go the ring instead of the band. But I've, yeah, I enjoy watching it. I do like the in-season ones, but the problem with the in-season ones is it's hard to, there's so much that goes on. I think the off-season is a great concept for it. Like I was just saying a minute ago, I wonder how much is staged, how much is left out.

But I do find that obviously the phone conversations are on stage. Like, those are real. And I got to think some of the stuff that's had, like when the clock starts, this is, happening in real time, right? You can't, you can't stage your first hour of free agency. You know what was interesting to me was how many other people were doing the negotiations and not shame? Oh, that doesn't surprise me. That doesn't surprise you? No, not at all. Because it wasn't, but it wasn't just one like chief negotiator. It was like there were like four different people on the phone with different agents. So yeah. So like, you know, for instance,

in Philly, Jake Rosenberg often did a lot with the agents, but I do know the big deals, Halley would be personally involved in. This is actually. if you kind of want to spend this forward from eagles perspective this is going to be a big thing with Bryce Johnson this year is kind of being the front-facing one with the agents but yeah I think there's just there's a lot of different balls in the air you have you have you have different people who are who are the point person for things

I'm so like I thought you would come into free agency which is more of like an understanding your expectation of what's going to occur that's what like when I imagine how I watching this that's where I imagine and how he being like, what a fool. Like this guy, he doesn't even know what game he's playing.

Yeah. Because there's no way that Howie Roseman's starting the clock at noon on free agency and doesn't already know where a lot of these values are going to be. Exactly. And look, as we saw with, so I'm working on pronunciations, it's one of my goal, but it's one of my goals. And you said it well. Illuminaur. I think that's right.

Okay. With Illumino, like things happen in real time. have to react to it like howie how he's had things in the past c j garner johnson a year ago right where the eagles have a valuation on him and the player wants more and you just got a you kind of go with it now in that case the eagles i think we're right on on on the valuation i think what james bradbury the great example of it is alan robinson right yeah exactly wanted alan robinson they were trying to sign allan robinson he was their number one planet wide receiver and they had their walkaway number and it got just just a little bit too much the rams offered a little bit more and they walked

way and then eventually they end up with AJ Brown. I'm like, that's obviously a better result, but it's a little bit luck, but it's also, you know, the design of this is our value and we cannot go further than this. And it works the other way too. Like James Bradbury, they thought James Bradbury was going to get more money on the open market than he did. And so then the market kind of came to them, right? And they probably wish that did not happen.

But yeah, I look, I think that overall, I, I, when I watch some of the meetings in there, it just strikes me. It's impossible to believe that this is how these multi-billion dollar things are run. Well, so there's a friend of ours. I don't want to say who it is, but we're on a text chain with a few people. And like, Hebrew. It's Jeffrey Larry. No, he reminds me sometimes that, like, the people who run teams are not, like, as brilliant as sometimes they're made out to be.

And I think that there's kind of this notion sometimes. and I'm guilty of profligating this sometimes that like we said it, not me. We're at an information deficit. They know more than we do. But sometimes you're in a role and it's like, you expect to see a little bit more. There's a lot of that in this season, it seems like. Yes. I also wondered, where's like Mike Kafka in a, he's the offensive coordinator.

Yeah, it's like he didn't want to be involved. Yeah. I don't find Shane Bowen to be like the most like compelling of the. Not compelling, but actually it did seem like he sort of knew what was going on a little bit more than some of the other guys I felt like. He's like, yeah, like I'm good with Brown Burns, man. Yeah. Yeah. I've seen enough. Yeah. And then I thought too, and, you know, I know him a bit, but I thought Kevin Abrams came off decently in it too.

Oh, okay. Do you disagree? He seemed fine. I didn't have a strong opinion. Yeah. Like, I just thought he was just like very like matter of fact. He didn't, he didn't sugarcoat what the numbers would or cost. He had a good sense of the marketplace when he came into that. I thought Tim McDonald came across fairly well.

Okay. Hannah Burnett, the female scout, I thought that was interesting. You know who else I thought came across very well? Was the PR advisor before the... Yes, exactly. He's like, don't say that. Joe Shane thought he was like so slick. Right, right.

And it goes to show you like that. But even some of the stuff that they could say, it wouldn't be that harmful to say that at a press conference too. You know, I think they kind of overstated that. And yet of all the things, Zach, My favorite pieces of information from these episodes have been some of the slogans that the Giants have around the building, particularly two. One of them is an acronym for the word trail. I saw this, yes.

Like, that's the message you want to send to your team. We are such a bad team. We are going to be used to trailing in every single game. So let's put our mnemonic for that. And then the other one that Joe Shane continues to repeat to himself, smart, tough, dependable. Yes. STD.

I didn't put that part together. Yeah. I mean, football coaches love acronyms as it is, right? That is true. But, yeah, the SDD thing, I did not put that together. Well, it's interesting because I was so inspired by that, Zach, that I decided to do some reporting and, you know, talk to a few birdies around the Giants facility, and I was able to uncover a few more acronyms.

that the giants have been using over the past couple years. We can start with the first one, Julia, if you don't mind. And this is another one that Brian Daibow likes to show to his team. This is the things that he cares about. Quality, usefulness, intensity, teamwork. Those are the things that we want Big Blue to be about, okay? Quality, usefulness, intensity, and teamwork. Okay.

Another one that I was able to unearth, and thanks again to the sources for helping to put these together. Winning equals strength, unity, consistency, and killer instinct. Winning equals strength, unity, consistency, and killer instinct. What's that, Wessex? Yeah, Wessex, yeah. That was a joke. By the way, people are watching this in the Giants building right now. They're like, this guy's making fun of us.

He's wearing sunglasses. It's vacation, bow, man. He's Jack Nicholson. Yeah, absolutely. All right, I think we have a few more that we have on earth from the Giants. Now, this is one that Joe Shane reminds himself of when the team is not. I was responsible for this, by the way. I did not know this.

We did not discuss this in our prep work. When the team is not projected to be very good and you know that like the odds are stacked against you, this is his reminder to himself. You got to be risk comfortable, right? So big odds need extra risk. Big odds need extra risk. That's one that Joe Shane has up on his whiteboard in the general manager's office.

Big odds need extra risk. We also have a few more. This is another one that he reminds himself of. It's KYP, right? It's not about the plays. It's about the players. In other words, players are the heart of every team in contention. Players are the heart of every team in contention.

Yeah. What do you want me to say, but? I don't want you to say anything. This is good. I'm just flexing my muscles as a reporter. You know, it's good to get information. Okay. Now, by the way, just so when the Giants,

people are watching this and the cowboys and the commanders people are watching this. Bo does the same thing about the Eagles. Like you make fun of the lack of grammatical correctness in their... Yeah, it's not grammatical correct. Consistency. Consistency, yeah, lack of consistency. Yeah, we love the acronyms that coaches are able to come up with and GMs are able to come up with. I think we have a couple more, actually, Zach.

Oh, we're still going here. We do. We have... This is another one that, you know, the Eagles, the Giants always care about character. So what they remind themselves of is, for us, consistent character beats outside individuals. For us, consistent character beats outside individuals. Okay. You know, sometimes it's about the, you know, the heart inside and not the talent out on the outside.

Okay. You know? I think we might have two more, I believe. You know, I really flexed my muscles as a reporter on these. The other one, this is the Giants proprietary quarterback rubric when they are evaluating quarterbacks. Do you want to tear out of agency? Territory was their top target.

As a backup. As a backup, not as a starter. When the giants are reminding themselves, what is it that we care about at the quarterback position, the most important in all of sports, what do we need? We want somebody who's wise, somebody who's heady, You know, they've got to be able to read the field. You want somebody who is not just, you know, doing what everybody else does. You want them to have a little bit of independence.

So you want wise, heady, independent. You certainly want somebody tall. And then you want somebody who's got a little bit of energy, energetic. So wise, heady, independent, tall, energetic. Those are the things that the Giants care about at the quarterback position. And then the last one that the Giants had. This is really more of a giant's thing. This is the thing, you know, we know that they're classy.

The things that, what makes a member of Big Blue, class, unique, and mature. Classiness, uniqueness, maturity. The audience is lovingness. This is all credit to Bo. Actually, my acronym for today's show would be nothing other than, Let's see how this goes. I'm malevolent expressions, okay?

Not me, nothing other than valetalent expressions. Okay. Yeah. But, yes, the audience loves it. There's a lot of minions in the chat right now. Okay. Cousin Grace just laughed so hard, she woke the dog. Did you know, by the way, that there's a channel of our longtime listeners

I love the Discord channel for P-H-L-Y. I go on it every day. I read it. And I appreciate you can subscribe to that by being a diehard member. But our former show, our longtime listeners there, they also, there's a community. There's a channel there that I was invited to. And I spent a lot of time reading it this weekend.

Has it been? It's interesting. It's great. I'm so grateful for our entire audience. I love it. What did you learn? We can save that for another day. We have 11 minutes.

and we got to get to ads and the running back. Oh, okay. And the running backs, too. But I just, I'm so grateful and appreciative for our audience. I put it that way. Okay. Well, let's talk about running back. And we've obviously, we've talked a lot about, about Sequin.

But how do you feel about, I guess, in general, the state of the running back position compared to last year. And if you want to flash up the depth chart, we can. Julia, we've got Seekoine Barkley at the top. Now, I know you know, we don't need to fight. If you want, we can put Kenny Gainwell and Will Shipley at the same level. Then you've also got Tyrion Davis Price, the former third round pick of the Niners. A big back, Lou Nichols, former seventh round pick of the Green Bay Packers, and Kendall Milton, the undrafted rookie out of Georgia.

That is the Eagles running back room. Yeah, I actually think Lou Nichols has a chance of being a camp crush for you. I didn't think I would start with the Lou Nichols part of it. Yeah, obviously, the big question here is Seguan. Outside of our Gainwell-Wil debate, the big question. from Sequin, right? Sequin, when they signed him, I said, I like paying A player is a money. I feel he's an A player at the position. That said, I feel like the Eagles got like A minus B plus production from that position during the past few years. Sequin's clearly the best running back

they've had since LaShawn McCoy. But we don't know that. Well, I don't know. True. They're paying him to be that. Yeah. But I think from a talent perspective, I think he's, he, he, I think he's, he's, he's different. Unless he's declining, we'll see. I just think he's, he's a special player. But I think that the Eagles have, I don't think the Eagles problem has been their running back play. So for Sequin, Sequin needs to be a significant, significant upgrade for them to justify,

like, how that money spent, because we've seen over the past two years that they can get good production from players on rookie contracts, right? So to have the delta between what, Swift was playing Hunter last year and Sanders the year before, and now Sequin Barclay, you need really high level production. Sequin A, needs to stay healthy. B, like Aaron said, and I think that's a good point. Really needs to be a difference maker in the passing game.

Part of that's incumbent upon Jalen Hertz. I think you will be, I think Eagles fans will be disappointed if they expect the real impact to come from him as a receiver. Interesting. Okay. I think it's going to be a major. point of emphasis from there. Just like it was last year with DeAndre Swift.

Yeah, but I, look, I'm not disputing you. And that's why our training camp reports will be a little bit, like you take it with a grain of salt. They threw the ball quite a bit to the backs in camp last year. They didn't do it in games. I don't think you signed Sequin to the deal you did if you're not going to get him 50 catches this year. I'll take the under.

Yeah. Well, and they do have, I mean, they're throwing about AJ. They're throwing the ball to Devante. I just don't think all the touches are going to come on the ground. Yeah, I think at least from targets, he needs to be like the third or fourth most targeted player on this team this season. Oh, man. I mean, it would be, I think it would be bad if he was ahead of Dallas Goddard in targets. You think I mean, just from like a volume perspective, really?

You think so? Yes. Interesting. because. But I also just, you know, maybe it's because of the offense, but we have three years of watching Jalen Hertz play. Like, he doesn't love throwing the ball to the running back.

And a lot of the times that's for a good reason because, you know, that volume would often come on other offenses on checkdowns. And Jailen Hertz can use his legs on those plays, right? Like, I think the reason to overpay Sequin is sort of what I said to Aaron earlier is that they view D'Andre Swift as having left meat on the bone, last year. He had a pretty easy job in their eyes because the offensive line did a very good job and you know, look at like the yards before contact, the yards after contact. It was not great. I think what Sequin Berkeley is here to do in their eyes is to bring more explosiveness and

maybe also like fourth quarter stuff being able to ground out games at the end. That's fair too. And you know, the explosiveness like you mentioned, the yards at that the second level. That's important. The pass protection too, I think is a thing which DeAndre has struggled with last year. I just pulled off San Francisco from last year. Christian McCaffrey was targeted 83 times. George Kittle was targeted 90 times. So around the same. Now, Christian McCaffrey, he's an outstanding running back,

led to the league in rushing last year, right? But you look at where he's been a difference maker, 2022. He had 85 catches. 2019. He had 116 catches. 2018. He had 170 catches. 2017.

He had 80 catches. If you talk about Saquan having. a Christian McCaffrey like effect, it's not going to be from him rushing for 1,300 yards or 1400 yards. Because from my perspective, like Miles Sanders and the Andre Swift weren't that far from that, right? Where you really need to see the difference is him catching the ball. And if he's not catching the ball, then I think it is a disappointment from how, because I think. Yeah, I mean, Sequin Berkeley is not the route runner or receiver that Christian McCaffrey is. A lot of the, this is not the Kyle Shanhan offense.

No. And this is a different quarterback who doesn't throw the ball over the middle of the field. Like a lot of those Christian McCaffrey catches are he's in the slot or he's flexed out wide and he's running over the middle of the field. They're these little, you know, arrow routes or whatever and they're thrown into tight windows. Like in the football and in the FTN Almanac, you know, it's like the Eagles have thrown the ball over the middle of the field way dead last, last season, but they were fourth in DVOA when they did. In other words, Jalen Hertz was only throwing the ball over the middle of the field if the guy was, wide the F open, right? Like, I think you're going to be disappointed if you expect Sequin Barkley to have a

Christian McCaffrey-like impact as a receiver. Yeah, Sequin has played five seasons of double-digit games in those years. 91 catches as a rookie, 52 catches in 2019, 41 catches 2021, 57 catches 2022, 42, 41 catches 2023. So three seasons passing 50 are, I'm sorry, three seasons passing 50 catches, two seasons, nine catches under it. I think 50 catches should be, I mean, it might be a bit optimistic, but I think that that could be or should be a realistic target for him to get to. Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to argue about 50 catches.

But he's not going to be, I don't think, I would be very surprised if he brings a huge impact as a receiver. From a training camp perspective, right, is this the type of thing where with Saquan you say, let's just get the week one. I've seen this guy play for six years. Like he's, or are there explosive characteristics that you're looking for in those training camp practices? By the way, I did not say this at the top of the show.

We got the training camp schedule yesterday. They start practice like we mentioned, a week from tomorrow. I'm sorry, a week from yesterday. They'll have practices Wednesday, Thursday next week. They won't have practice Friday, then back during the weekend. But so we'll be doing shows. after all these weekday practices. Yes, we're going to remain Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.

So when they have practices on the weekend, we'll not have a live show. But if something important happens, we'll have some kind of content for you to keep you abreast. And we'll have coverage on all p.hly.com. So from a camp perspective, what are you hoping to see from him? I don't need to see much from him. They're not tackling to the ground. I'd like to see him stay healthy. That's pretty much it.

I mean, I'm interested to see how much they're trying to throw him the ball in camp. But having seen what they did with DeAndre Swift last year, I'm going to wait until the regular season to see if it's predictive. We definitely don't need to relitigate the Will Shepley pick or anything like that. My question to you is this. If Sequin were to go down, which is certainly not far-fetched, I mean, he's missed time in his career, right? What do you think the Eagles do at running back?

You think it's a committee approach. You think they turn to one guy. What's what's your perspective on how they would handle it in the event's Sakewons down? I mean, I would feel pretty confident that they're going to play both guys. Yeah, I don't think they're going to just all of a sudden hand either. Kenny Gainwell or Will Shipley, the reins. Do you?

No, yeah, I don't. I mean, I'm, I've liked Gainwell in the past. I thought Gainwell didn't take a big enough jump last year. I thought going into the year, I remember, last August writing a story on the Eagles backfield. And I kept saying, I think Swift's the most talented one, but I think they're going to give Gainwell chances to win this job, right? And you saw week one last year, Gainwell was the top guy and there's a reason why they turned to Swift thereafter, right? Now, Swift, the market showed you, right? There's, he's valued in the league, especially

relative to the year before, based on the year that he had with Eagles. He has natural explosiveness, running ability, right? But I did not see that enough from Gainwell. So I, I, I did, do want to see if gainwell has some juice in camp. I want to see how Will Shipley is as a runner. I think Will Shipley is going to be fine as a receiver. But like we heard a year ago, I'm sorry, like we saw a year ago, you can't necessarily see them throwing a ball over the backs and saying this is what they're going to do. But I want to see how does Will Shipley look, especially in these preseason games. And then beyond them, I think Davis Price, I'm Tereon Davis Price, you talk about draft pedigree. I see on your laptop you have

I don't know which draft that is but it's this year's draft okay yeah Davis Price was a third round pick by San Francisco okay similar to Trace Herman yeah they can keep him uh the Eagles bronze the Eagles sign him the Eagles gave him real money for like a futures contract player so I want to see if Davis Price has some juice

but I also think that's not a player you're going to see him and his running style is not he's between the tackles guy, like a pounder. You're not going to see a ton of juice from him. Preseason games. Yeah, and I'm curious about Lou Nichols and even Kendall Milton, who I thought had a couple little sparks in the spring as a receiver. He's a Georgia guy, so.

He sure is. Yes. And listen, the Shipley thing, not to get into the, you know, drawing of boundaries on where he was drafted, but you're, I mean, you are right that. they liked him a lot. He was a red star player for them, right? They took him.

And it's interesting if you think about the wide receiver discussion we have. It's probably not fair that I would feel better about the roster if they had drafted Ania Smith in the fourth round and Will Shippe in the fifth round. It's kind of silly. Like, you know, Ania Smith, there were only two receivers drafted between when they took Shipley and when they took Ania Smith.

But if it was a fourth round receiver and a fifth round running back, I would probably feel a little bit better. but that's I mean that's kind of silly but I don't know that the opportunity cost of taking Shipley at the back end of the fourth round is going to have proven to be the right decision but I'm willing to be wrong yeah I like Shipley more than you now in the mock draft I had him in the fifth round and the Eagles took him in the fourth round so you and I are actually on the same wavelength there I thought Shipley went a little bit sooner than I anticipated. But I thought of those, now, of those day three backs,

Braylin Allen was the one that I liked the most. I said that going into the day. You remember where you were the first time you saw them? Yes, good job. Or in Denver. No, in Denver. In Denver. In Denver.

Although Phoenix is a good place for tacos as well. But yeah, I was right at that taco place or that burrito place right by the Rocky Stadium. I remember it well. I see him on TV. and I'm like, oh man, that's a big dude. It reminded me the first time I watched Brandon Jacobs in training camp. It's like your wedding day, the day your kids were born the first time you saw Brandon Jacobs in training camp. Sorry.

Brandon Jacobs was such a specimen, right? Like when you saw Brandon Jacobs, you're like, how is this guy running back? And he was awesome to watch. Nice guy too. Nice guy. Yeah. Quick question. Yes.

Is it Brandon Jacobs or Jacob Brandons? It is Brandon Jacobs. All right. Well, that's good to know. And I'm happy to have that back. All right. We are going to be back tomorrow at noon. What positions are we talking about tomorrow, Zach?

We've kind of juggle these around. Yeah. That's okay. Well, we're going to talk about the rank week stuff, which is going on at all p.hly.com this week. I think we got O-Line tomorrow. Okay. Oh, you know what I've got it right here?

We've got, uh, looks like, Oh no, we have a we have a we have a tic-zac bow Okay So do we need to do that or should we just What do you think? What does the audience want? Do you want the position by position preview? Do you want I mean I'm trying to embrace like a democratic process here right?

You keep Sort of instigating Touching your toe on those murky waters It makes me wonder how much you want to take the plunge Yeah so uh, Bo and I will chat about it we will you know yeah there are some questions I have for Tick-Zack-Boe but I can interspers it we're we're Tick-Zack-Bow I think was what it was more of a get-you-th summer type thing we're in camp mode actually tomorrow is three weeks away from the

pre-season opener think about that and we're good there's football a real meaningful or a real football a real Eagles football game how many weeks away from the regular season we're 50 days Friday. So then where it's 50 days from today. So seven weeks from tomorrow. Yep. Okay.

49 days from tomorrow. Yeah. How about that? I am I am so excited. Yeah. In Brazil. I was on a, I was on a show this morning and I said, year 13, year 15 covering the NFL and I still get so excited for that first day.

I'm jealous. You're going to be in Brazil. All I want is to go back to Brazil. I mean, I only got to see Rio. I want to see the whole. What a massive country. I want to see the whole thing. Okay.

Maybe, I don't know, we'll talk about it. You want to switch? You want to host the show and I'll fly to South Pallah? I want to be at the game, but, yeah. All right. Well, that'll do it for this episode of the P.HLY Eagles podcast. Thanks to everybody for watching and listening. Thank you to Aaron Shats for taking the time to talk to us about the DVOA projection for the Eagles this season.

Once again, back tomorrow at noon here in studio. We hope that all of you follow the lead of those classy New York Giants, and remain classy, unique, and mature. And we will talk to you tomorrow. That'll do it, as always. We love you. Like the mayor.