PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - PHLY Eagles Podcast | On the road to Vic-tory: Fangio in as new Philadelphia Eagles DC

Episode Date: January 25, 2024

Surprise! The Eagles (finally) have their man at defensive coordinator as did-hard Phillies fan and general curmudgeon Vic Fangio is gone from the Miami Dolphins and set to replace the two-headed disaster of Matt Patricia and Sean Desai.Zach Berman and Bo Wulf decide what they think this means for the defense moving forward, how the personnel will have to change and whether this was all actually Jonathan Gannon’s idea. 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.

Welcome to the PHY Eagles podcast on a Thursday afternoon, right at noon. Bo Wolf, Zach Berman here to talk about Vic Fangio coming to Philadelphia. We'll see if John Clark can catch him on the runway as he prepares to sign on the dotted line, Zach, as the new Eagles defensive coordinator. About a year related, right? We thought this might happen a year ago, maybe 11 months ago. Yeah, I actually have some reporting on this, Zach. It is my understanding that Jonathan Gannon reached out to Nick Siriani a few days ago and suggested he hire Vic Fangio.

You always need to get your Jonathan Gannon shot in, don't you? That's a good line. Come on. At what point did you think about that? I workshoped it this morning. Okay. What was the first thought for it? No, I mean, that was the, it's not the workshop, but just, you know, I tried it out, got a good response, and so it makes the show.

You got to work on your material sometimes. You nailed it right away. Yeah. So, Vic Fangio is someone who's been the apple of the Eagle's Eye for, you know, I mean, obviously they liked his defense. Let's get into it. This is, let's make this a Zach Berman special. Let's get right to the conversation, the Eagles conversation from the beginning. We're going to talk about what this means for the Eagles personnel decisions.

We're going to talk about how excited this makes you about the defense, all this good stuff. I'm glad we're getting right into it. I guess I'm getting excited with it because there's one YouTube commenter. who was so fixated on this one episode when you were asking me about my barber. And it was like two, it was two minutes in like 103 episodes or something that we've done. But he's like, all they're talking about is Zach's barber. Zach, I'm, I am giving you the chance to not, to keep us on the track. And you are the one right now who's getting us off track.

Yes. I will happily talk about your barber for the next 15 minutes. No, no, no. I want to talk about 15 minutes. There's a lot of people reaching out to me about the conversation about the time machine yesterday. No, let's talk about Vig Fangio. We can talk all about that. We can talk about your movie references.

But if you want to talk Fangio, now is the chance. Perfect. Let's talk Vic Fangio. Vic Fangio, who has been a defensive coordinator in the NFL longer than many of his players have been alive. Right? His first – Wow, Dyer. He first became a defensive coordinator in 1995 with the Carolina Panthers.

He broke into professional football, actually, in Philadelphia with the U.S.FL, Philadelphia stars. Jim Mora was the head coach. Paul Domowich was covering them for the Philadelphia Daily News. Got to wonder how often they were running 12 personnel. We should ask Domo that one. Yeah. He's going to have those stats. But with Vic Fangio, there's...

I have no, looking at his resume, I have absolutely no recollection of him being the defensive coordinator for the Colts and Texans in the early 2000s. No recollection of that. My recollection of the Texans time, not the Colts time. The Colts time was with Jim Mora, actually. But I recall him well when he was Stanford's defensive coordinator. Of course you do. And then when he goes to the 49ers and then the Bears and this is all kind of caught on. And then when he became a head coach, it was like finally Vic Fangio gets this chance.

In Philadelphia during the past year, actually past three years, frankly, we've heard quite a bit about the Fangio scheme. Jonathan Gannon's, the aforementioned Jonathan Gannon, his defense was a branch from the Vic Fangio scheme. The Acolytes. Sean Desai was a direct descendant of the scheme, not like twice removed, but directly worked for him, of course. And now, of course, the Eagles get the creator of it, and we will get into what that scheme is. But what I feel strongly about is that you're not hiring Vic Fangio for his scheme. You are hiring him before, I mean, that's part of the scheme, right? But the scheme has to continue to evolve.

You're hiring it because this is a tenured defensive coordinator, experienced, smart defensive mind has shown that time and time again is proven in this league, has proven that he can evolve, that he can adapt. We'll see how that continues with the personnel here. But that you went from a first time defensive coordinator, well, actually, Sean the site wasn't first time, second time defense coordinator,

but someone who had only done that job for one year to now someone who's done it for three, four decades. So it's quite different. We've talked about that bucket. He fits the bucket. He's a former head coach, right? He's not going to be a head coach again, I assume. So perhaps.

Well, I mean, he might be an interim. Okay. But, well, and let's also get to the quick mechanics of this was parted ways with the dolphins yesterday. Adam Schaefter says he's on a flight to Philly this morning to sign a contract with the Eagles. So one needs to imagine that this has been in the works. It was reported that part of the reason why there was that separation from Miami is he wanted to get closer to home. He's from, you know, the Scranton area. Do you think he would be the Eagles defensive coordinator if the Phillies were bad right now?

Yes, because he watches the Phillies even when they're, or he knows the score, even when they're bad. Yeah, but he can watch Jamie and Renee now and, you know, Revelling the post game. June 18th for when Vic Fangio throws out the first pitch at a Phillies game. Hmm. I would say that's a good, because you're, you know what? I would say under that, like before that,

because June 18th, maybe they're getting away, you know, the offices are closed from them until training. camp or until the week before training camp. So he probably does it during like the OTAs, the mini camp portion of the schedule. Okay? That's what I was thinking. I would say May June. This was I felt like I felt like I was channeling you last night.

I was in bed looking at the Philly's schedule trying to predict in my mind the exact time they would do it. And what you settled on? In that stretch in June. Is there a good game in there? Well, there's a little bit later in June, late June. They have both Miami and Airways. Arizona coming. So you could do, it could be a shot across Jonathan Gannon's bow, or it could be the Miami get back.

Well, so Arizona, that's a big series because it's the NLCS rematch. But one of them is actually, one of them is like Cole Hamel's retirement. So, you know, Vic's not going to get that spot. No. I don't even know if Siriani would get that spot. J-Wen maybe. Kelsey, for sure. Sure.

But I don't know if Vicks there. But he could also do it. He could do it earlier. He can, you know, he's going to be a round. if there's a day game, you know, a businessman special on an April Thursday. Oh, sure. And you know what? He's from central Pennsylvania. He doesn't mind if it's one of those 50-degree nights. He can still loosen up the arm and throw it on a cold night. Sure. So, yeah, we'll be there probably.

All right. A couple things about this. Well, lots of things. We've got a long show to get to. It would be a little bit hypocritical for me to like say that it's, This is a bad hire. This is exactly the kind of type of person I said that I was hoping that they would hire. The head coach of the defense, it's hard to get a better answer for that than Vic Fangio. He is going to be able to turn that into a professional unit, which it was not last season. Nick Siriani does not have to meddle there at all. This is a like full service guy that you're bringing in to take over the defense and just run that system.

And as you said, not just the system, but everything that comes along with it. And, you know, like, you saw how ravaged they were by injuries and the playoffs. And still, like, guys coming off the street and they look fine on defense, right? I mean, they were not great. Yes. If I am trying to be the contrarian, the thing that is just a little bit on my mind is, like, this is the guy they wanted last year. Yeah. It's not like they went through the whole process.

No. trying to identify the best person. It's like, okay, this is the guy we wanted. We can fix that. We joke about the time machine. This is their way of dialing this back a few months and being like, this is the guy we wanted anyway. Snap your fingers and all of a sudden, you know, things are better.

That's what went wrong with the team this year was we just didn't have Vic Fangio and now we have him. Real quick, on that topic there, as I saw in the chat, it was higher. It might have been Matt H who said, you know, do they have to interview, I thought they had to interview a minority candidate. I believe Ron Rivera would fit that. But if you think that this was kind of in the works back channel-wise, like clearly if the dolphins, if he parts ways with the dolphins on Wednesday, I'm sorry, on, yeah, on Wednesday, and then he's on the flight to sign his contract on Thursday, the Eagles knew this was going to happen, right? So this has probably been in the works the past few days. And I believe, you know, based on the rules, you need for coordinator jobs, you need to hire one, I'm sorry, you need to interview one minority candidate. Which does make that Rivera interview seem a little bit gross.

If it was a token interview, then certainly gross. But if it's the type of thing where Ron Rivera wants to get back into this and this kind of puts him on the radar or Jeffrey Luror, you know, speak to him, maybe there's a different, maybe there's like a, a. assistant will have an assistant head coach and associate head coach i don't know if you can't bring in another head coach you can't keep bringing in yes maybe a senior defensive consultant type thing right um but yeah that but i i believe that would qualify from the league's perspective um yeah i i think it is reasonable to suspect that this is what both sides wanted even like starting in March. Yes.

Like this eventuality. Yeah. And you do wonder if, if like you said, this is, this was on both their minds throughout the summer, right? And, you know, you kind of connect the dots after the fact. And there was that day in training camp when they were practicing in the stadium. And Nick Siriani said they had to be there because like coaches need to work on their communication. communication and Howie who had to get Sean decide to get the players onto the field then, right? One of the most bizarre scenes.

But perhaps, like, from the organization's perspective, they were like, well, we need, we need some more order here. We need, you know, someone like you said, the head coach of the defense. I don't want to take anything away from Sean to side because I, as we both said, he's been unfairly scapegoat. it here in a certain respect, but he certainly doesn't come with the type of gravitas, for lack of a better term, that Vic Fangio does. So if you're talking about kind of that Jim Schwartz, Ron Rivera, Leslie Fraze, you know, the former head coach, it's not the first

room he's been in front of, you know, it's not the first time that he's had to lead this type of group and, you know, he's done it time and time again. Dealt with success or dealt with adversity. Yes, all of these things, he has lots of reps on. I'll put it this way. To your point, I can't imagine there's going to be communication issues in the back end next year, right? Like Vic Fangio, this is not his first rodeo. The other thing that I want to say is this, to me, is so much more about the floor than the ceiling with Vic Fangio. Like that baseline level of competence, which we talked about.

Like, that's what they needed. I don't think that this defense has the personnel to become a top five defense next year. I think they know that. And I also don't think that Vic Fangio's history would tell us that he is like, it's not quite like mid-career or late career Wade Phillips, where like he could just come in and turn that defense into a top five unit. That is not Vic Fangio's. It's good reference.

Track record. But, like, you look, you know, he coached in the mid-90s. We don't even have the advanced stats on those times. But you just, you go, let's just talk about the post-ststs. Stanford Vic Fangio era going back to when he came to the Niners. So that's 12 years that he was either a defensive coordinator or a head coach going back. In those 12 years, three years, he had a top quartile defense in both success rate and EPA per drive, right?

11 and 12 with the Niners and then 18, that great year with the Chicago Bears. That was the only one time that was like the best defense in the league. Eight of those 12 years, just in the middle, just like 9. 19th in the league or 14th in the league or like 10th in the league or like 20th in the league. That's fine. And only one year where they were bad. And that was his first year in Chicago in which they were 26th in success rate, 24th in EPA per drive. And by the way, that worst year of his still better than what the Eagles got last year. And so to me this is about like we want upside on offense. Yes. We want to chase trying to be one of the three best offenses in the league and let that carry our team. We just. We just. We just. We want to chase trying to be one of the three best offenses in the league and let that carry our team. We, we just. We just. We just. We just just want get us through the game on defense let's just be okay that's good way of pointing it i think the high floor is exactly what you're shooting for here and yeah you're shooting for consistency you're shooting for i don't want to say professionalism because that would indicate there was a lack of professionalism before but just a buttoned up operation right and that's uh that's probably what

you're getting with with someone with with this type of experience now we'll get into it at I imagine later in the show, but personnel has a lot to deal with it. But when you look at philosophically what Nick Siriani believes in in terms of preventing big plays, that's a big function of what Vig Fangio does. If you were among the fans who want more blitzing, that hasn't been a staple of the Fangio scheme. But again, what you're getting is like someone who's been there, done that, And I haven't gone back and watched the 1999 Colts, but I imagine the 1999 Colts defense looks differently.

I watched them a lot that year, Peyton Manning's rookie year or second year. But I imagine that defense looks different now. Yeah, of course, he's evolved. Exactly. So the idea that this is going to look like those Niners defenses when he was there under hardball or even those Bears defenses, that's not the case.

This is a football lifer. This guy's seen it all. I went back and read that John Greenberg story around the athletic last night when he was talking to Fangio about the Phillies, but also like, and this is when he was consulting for the Eagles in 2022. And it's funny, like the thing about,

Greenberg asked him about like, you're not really still like grind in the film, Mario, you're like, this is your year off. He's like, oh, no, like, I'm watching almost just as much. Like, that's your whole job as a defensive mind is to be aware of the trends that are happening in the league and try to think through how to counteract those things. And so, you know, I think the, you know, your boy, Malcolm Gladwell, the 10,000 hours here,

he's got plenty of hours banked. I'd be happy to be associated with Malcolm Gladwell, so thank you. Quick Bow Wolf trivia question here. On the flight to Little St. James was where I was going, but go ahead. A quick bow-wolf piece of trivia question. Okay. You asked a question in a press conference one time, where the answer was, yes, Vic Fangio. Do you recall what that was?

Wow. Bo Wolf Triv question. This is good. No, was I asking directly about that 2022 season, and do you have a... So what this was, was it was a Mike Grohlop press conference. Wow. Okay. No recollection of this.

Doug Peterson had spoken to Matt Nagy about an opponent they were playing that week. And you said to Mike Groh, you know, Doug's talk to Nagy. Is there anyone you've reached out to on the Bears' staff about such and such team? And he said, yeah, Vic, spoke to Vic. And he said, what did he tell you? And he said, you guys better play at your best. Who were they playing? Let me see when this was here.

So this was December 27, 2018. Okay. This is funny because they're going to be playing the bears in the playoffs. No, it's probably going into a week. Right, but they're on this communication and then they end up ending their season. True. Yeah. Doug Peterson said he may or may not have reached out to Matt Nagy in Chicago.

Have you talked to any of your old colleagues or players? Coach Fangio, yeah. Huh. And then you said, what do you say? Oh, wait, what was the data? Oh, no, no, no, I'm sorry. So this is what it was. The Bears were playing the Vikings that week

because the Eagles had to get into the playoffs. Oh, they were helping the Bears beat the Vikings. The Eagles were helping the Bears. That's what it was. So Doug had spoken to Matt Nagy about it. Interesting. And then Groh spoke to Fangio about it. So that was the answer.

So when I did a little. But then they go in and beat the Bears the next week. Exactly. Wow. So Groh said to Fangio, need your best this week. And the Bears ended up. winning. So did you know that or had you just searched through your archive? No, I was searching through

Vic Fangio material in my archives and I found that. I said, oh, I'll bring this up on the show. Okay, that's good. All right, well before we move on, let's talk about game time. Our dear friends at game time, because buying tickets to your favorite event

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If you could have a trading card from any player in the next. 1995 Panthers defense. Vic Fangio's first as a defense coordinator. Who would it be? Sam Mills. Perfect. That's a good answer. Sam Mills was on that defense. And I actually think Vic Fangio coached him with the Philadelphia stars as well.

Ooh. Who else was on that defense? Oh, you had Lamar Lathen. You had Mike Fox, Pat Terrell, Brett Maxi, Tim McKeire, Tyrone Poole, Darien, Connor. So I named the only one that I knew. You probably know Lamar Lathen. I don't. You get eight sacks that year.

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Use code, P.HLY, get $10 off any purchase of $25 or more in store. Also, be sure that give them a follow on Instagram at Wheelhouse Cards. So the Panthers officially seems like hiring Dave Canales. So the... Dan Morgan Connection? Yes. Yeah, they work together in Seattle. Okay.

The buddy system continues in the NFL. No surprise. And somebody has sent me, I need to read this book now. It's called This Marriage, the question that changed everything. by Dave and Lizzie Canales, forward by Tony Dungey. Interesting. Why do you have to read that? It seems fascinating to me.

Okay. Yeah, that does surprise me. Have you come to a point in your marriage where it is time to make a decision? Will you settle for the status quo indefinitely? Do you feel like giving up and getting out? Are you ready to go deeper at any cost? If these questions struck a chord with you, you've picked up the right book. You will find yourself here as Dave and Lizzie Canalis recount their journey with poignant and often painful honesty.

Whether you're fighting to save your relationship, walking in redemption, or anything in between, this marriage is an invitation into the high-risk adventure of an authentic and thriving marriage. I hope you can sell my book like that. So Dave Canales, yeah, I do find that interesting because I thought there were some good candidates out there. I'm not saying Canales isn't. I mean, the Bucks offense seemed to maximize their talent this year. Baker Mayfield looked better this year than he had in the past. Frankly, I think Todd Monkin's an underrated candidate.

I mean, he did real well at Southern Miss. Like, rebuilt that Southern Miss program has bounced around. That offense has evolved. He's a little on the older side, but you don't want to be an agist when it comes to hiring the right person. But, I mean, that's if you're looking for, like, an offensive coach. but there are other high-quality coaches out there. You and I were talking about in the, well, it's called the green room,

even though I wouldn't necessarily wouldn't say that it is exactly like that. It's not a traditional greener. I'm surprised like the, you know, listen, being a good coordinator doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be a good head coach, look at Vic Fangio and how it went in Denver. I'm surprised that like Mike McDonald may be left out of the like the musical chairs game here. Like that seems to me like I haven't got. I didn't mean an interview, but like that track record, that defense, I mean, sign me up. I agree.

And it does seem like to a certain extent, defensive coordinators aren't getting, I mean, this isn't the first year that's happened. The defensive coaches who've been hired are, you know, former, are like former players who are linebackers, not necessarily coordinators. Sure. Although Jared Adjad Mayo, Bill Belichick is very ambiguous with, with titles. Was he the inside linebackers coach slash head coach in waiting? I'm not quite sure, but Antonio Pierce was promoted from. So what's left? Seattle, Tennessee, Atlanta? I mean, sorry, Seattle, Atlanta, Washington, but everybody sort of assumes Washington is Ben Johnson, right?

Sure. So just Seattle and Atlanta? Yeah. And Belichick and Vrabble are both still out there. Seems like they may both get left out. If you think Seattle might be, is it still going to be Dan Quinn? I know he's Dan Quentin Chip Kelly, huh? Dan Quentin Chip Kelly. And Atlanta would have their pick of coaches at that point. Huh. Interesting.

What do you think of the hardball hire? Who's got it better than them, Zach? Nobody. Wow, he really, you were waiting for that. Feels like your whole life was leading up to somebody asking you that question. Great hire. He's won literally everywhere he's been. The University of San Diego.

Stanford. San Francisco. a 49ers, Michigan. He'll win with the Los Angeles Chargers. Culture setter. Teams play tough. Yeah. Good hire. Okay. We'll see. I don't know. He's going to hire Greg Roman to make Justin Herbert run around? I think he should hire David Shaw.

That bring the band back together. Oh, that way they can get Justin Herbert to hand the ball off. But they wouldn't be able to get Vic Fangio, unless Vic Fangio did what he didn't do to the Eagles and kind of pulled out the last minute. There you go. Good L.A. Yeah, it'll faded penetration. All right, Zach.

By the way, you mentioned green room, just a funny self-deprecating thing. Okay. When I was, the first time I did television, was in Washington. There was a show called Washington Post Live. It was similar to that one news live on Comcast SportsNet. And I used to go in like every other week to do a college sports segment. And they had a green room there that was like well-stubbed. with cookies and fruit and all of that.

And it shows you that like, you know, I'm 23 at the time, 24 at the time. And I remember calling home being like, it's cool to be on TV. But they have fresh cookies in the green room. Yeah. Joy is laughing. I was like, I laugh now, how excited I was at the idea of like I would go there. I would make sure that I was hungry before the show. And, you know, I would say to the producer, can I take one of these to go? you know

Of course She'd be like yeah They're for you I mean they're for the guests on the show So there was like four guests It was a whole tray of cookies You're munching cookies Yeah so I'm like wrapping up

Wrapping up the cookie I thank you Joy Joy's cracking up here My cookie story is Reggie Wells A former reserve offensive linemen for the Eagle I don't want to I don't need to The shame Reggie Wells here But it was always very funny

The Novacare complex had very good cookies in the cafeteria. You know, take a couple cookies to go, by all means. Reggie Wells would have a plate with a stack of like eight cookies in his locker. Respect, but, you know, that's my, when I think of Reggie Wells, I think of, boy, that man loved cookies. He might be able to rattle you. On that note, my new favorite player, Reggie Wells.

There you go. All right. Speaking of players, let's talk about what you think Fangio coming here might mean for the defense moving forward this off season. There's the perception that, you know, you need good linebacker. Vic needs good linebackers. I don't know that that is exactly true, but certainly you need your linebackers that the Eagles have at the moment. What do you think this is going to do into the Eagles' like planning process as they enter the off season? Yeah, it's a fair question because, like we mentioned those 49ers defenses, right? When you have Patrick Willis and Navarro Bowman

in the middle, it looks different than hoping that Kobe Dean. and year three is a pro bowl caliber player. I went to look last night at, you know, thinking, okay, who might they be able to sign in for agency this year? So you go to over the cap, you go to linebackers, and you sort by the snap percentage to see who's going to be available. And I think maybe the best picture of an indictment of the Eagles season coming off of Howie Roseman yesterday talking about how, you know,

you might say that we don't care about linebackers, but we love Nikobe Dean. And if you watch the tape, Zach Cunningham really played well, you sort by snaps played. available linebackers right now. The guy who's like ninth or tenth on that list, Nicholas Morrow. Okay?

And so like, yeah. That's the guy you're putting out there. Don't tell me that you're expecting good linebacker play. Now, Isaiah Simmons is a free agent. Just want to put that out there. I thought I could sell that one a little bit more. Can't mean, is he, do they need a backup safety?

Tusha. I will own that one. Yeah, so the linebacker thing is real and a quick thing. You asked a good question. We talked about this on the show yesterday, and Hallie Roseman said that there's this misconception that they don't value linebackers, and I would kind of push back that it's not a misconception. It is true.

I take Hallie at his word. He wants good linebackers, and they've had decent linebacker play, and the good linebacker play both times they went to the Super Bowl. But Howie has said it in the past that, you know, if they're going to say, they value the line of scrimmage. You can't just say it. Your actions have to support it. So every year in draft time, what do they do?

They invest in offensive, defensive linemen. And if you look at their cap resource, where they spent, offensive and defensive linemen, right? Well, the inverse is true or the opposite's true on a linebacker. The last time they drafted an off-ball linebacker in the first two rounds of the draft, first two rounds of your premium picks was Michael Kendrickson 2012. The last time that they spent like any degree of decent money on a linebacker was Nigel Bradham's contract extension and even that had a had an out in it. So they're getting what they're painful.

It's not like they are trying to bring in bad linebackers. They're just not willing to invest in the position. They care about it the least of all the position groups. And I don't even think that that is wrong. No. Necessarily. You have to make tradeoffs when you are building when you're building a roster. I think that that's fine, but there is a middle, there is a vast middle ground between, you know, using the 16th pick on Jack Campbell or whoever, versus waiting until August to bring in Zach Cunningham and Miles Jack and hoping that one of them is going to be passable.

Like, you know, the Kaiser White contract is a reasonable thing to do. They paid $3 million for the guy because he was available to the second week of free agency and they got a solid year of play from him and they went to the Super Bowl. Obviously, that's not one-to-one, but there is a middle ground there. Howie has said there's some positions where you need to trust your scouting and your development. They did a good job developing T.J. Edwards. They did a good job scouting Kaiser White. They did a good job developing Jordan Hicks. They did a good job scouting Nigel Bratum, right?

And in both those cases, they went to the Super Bowl, although Jordan Hicks was injured during the Super Bowl season. I think I would think that Howie feels that at times they have been let down by, player development at that position. Yep. You know, Davian Taylor is an extreme example of that. But they also haven't taken a ton, like, recently, they haven't taken a ton of, like, late round shots there. Sean Bradley is the last guy they drafted.

That was in the seventh round three or four years ago, right? And even their undrafted money, their undrafted money hasn't prioritizing that. Right, exactly. And that is the surprising thing to me. Like, there is no reason that they couldn't have paid a better, I mean, they actually paid Ben Van Zuma and a lot of money. money last year but like he wasn't their top yeah right exactly that they didn't they didn't take a few more shots there yeah so so we'll we'll get to the draft um around draft you know well you're at the

senior bowl next week and we're at the combine and the whole lead up to the draft but you know the eagles have two second round picks is this a year when they break that trend when they go after you know jeremiah trotter juniors a name that in philly you'll hear quite a bit about but i mean there are certainly other linebackers in the third round a guy like junior colson from Michigan or even, you know, there are other guys in round two who will be in that mix. So with two second round, I mean, I would still be pretty surprised if they used a second round pick. I would too, but it's a position where they need starters. And if you're not going to, like, if you're not going to spend money there, you can't go in.

I think it's more likely that they spend a little money. You think so, and free agency. Okay. Just guessing right now, I think that's more likely you pair that guy with Nacobi Dean. Like, I don't think they can plan on Nacobi Dean being. a great player. We haven't seen it. He hasn't stayed on the field. I think they probably want him to be in the mix. Sure. And so I don't think, I don't see them drafting a second round pick at the I would, I would be less surprised if they use a second round pick on a safety to bring that guy in

to Vic Fangio because I think maybe, maybe we underrate the importance of safety. Bless you. Yeah. Bless you. And bless all of you, the acolytes who have joined the Church of Christian Ellis. there are, I don't think it says it's as good of a safety draft, to be honest with you. You'll, I mean, we'll get into the draft, but it's not, it's not a particularly good safety draft. Not to say it's a good linebacker draft, but there are some guys there in that round two that, that you, that, that they might find interesting. You know, I actually think that you can spend money on a safety and draft a linebacker. But we'll see, you know,

if you watch the games this past weekend, by the way, you saw, you. all the effect that linebackers could have in the games, the way the Ravens used their linebackers, right? You know, the way the Niners, a linebackers play. It is, you know, it's not as important as your defensive line, but in this Fangio scheme, the Eagles can't expect, like, this is a roundabout way of me saying, the Eagles can't build Jim Schwartz's defense and expect Vic Fangio to coordinate it. And they're kind of assembling the roster sometimes, like it's Jim Schwartz's defense. And so if you think about how you're going to utilize your defensive lineman, all right? Well, you hope that Jordan Davis can be a good nose tackle in this scheme.

Geelong Carter can play in any scheme. We know that, right? So if there's a thought that in this defense, you don't two-gap, but you're like you one-and-a-half gap, that's kind of the phrase that's come up. Well, J-Land-Carter can do that. But now you'll have Hassan Redik in a stand-up role, job. our sweat will probably be in a stand-up role maybe a little bit more, although they can use them different ways. A Vic Fangio can adapt.

You're probably looking at a heavy zone on the back end. You're looking at, you know, two deep safeties. So there's a lot they need to figure out personnel-wise. And I do think linebacker and safety are a big question because, you know, that is when that defense has been at its best, they've had talent up the middle of the field. And that's not the way the Eagles have built their scheme in the past. Yeah.

Well said. Anything else on what you expect to change under Fangio? Well, certainly position coaches too, right? Yeah. I mean, he's going to bring in his own position coaches. So linebacker's coach, DB's coach, you might see changes there. Yeah, I think it's, he does know, like, some. of the personnel here, but the personnel has changed quite a bit since that Super Bowl team on defense

in particular. So I know the pushback from the Eagles would be he didn't work with the defense when he was in the building. He worked more with the offense, but he knew the Eagles personnel, right? And there was a reason why the Eagles were going to hire him last year and why he was interested in coming here last year. He knew the kind of defense that he was taking. He knew the organization. I do think he's going to have a chance to add personnel to this group. Do you think he comes in with some heft in terms of? Oh, yeah, personal. Yeah.

Yeah, and with Howie. Right. You know, that, and that was always one of the things you heard about with Jim Schwartz is that Jim Schwartz carried a lot of sway personnel-wise. Like if Schwartz wanted a player, they would go after that player. And I think Vic Fangio certainly has, he comes in with that type of credibility. Yeah. Okay.

Another small piece of news that broke right before the show that the Eagles have put in a request to interview Kellyn Moore for the offensive coordinator position. He was included in that very long list of candidates, which you can read on all-P-H-L-Y.com. He's now the third person we've heard about after Gerard Johnson and Clip Kingsbury. What do you make of Kellyn Moore? Yeah, so really liked what he did with the Cowboys, but he leaves. It was kind of like mocked like Mike McCarthy's taking over here, and the Cowboys' offense was better than it was when he was there. Almost, right? I mean, certainly DAC season, C.D. Lamb season. And then he did not maximize

Justin Herbert when there was a thought that he was going to go there and be a, you know, be what the Chargers needed. But that said, he's very well regarded in the NFL. The Eagles interviewed him for the job that went to Nick Siriani in 2021. So that goes to show you he's someone who's been on the Eagles radar. I think what the Eagles are doing is what you said, is they're casting a wide net. Well, let's see. It's been three people so far. Sure.

All, like, expected people. Yeah. Yeah, true. But I don't think they've zeroed. Like, clearly on defense, they've zeroed in on Vic Fangio. You can kind of tell by the timeline of things. I don't think the Eagles have their guy. I think I will be a little bit disappointed if, like, we know who the Eagles' offensive

coordinator is by Sunday. I don't know if I'd be that disappointed in that because candidates are going to start coming off the board, right? And you got to act fast if there's someone that you really like. Yeah, I guess that, I mean, maybe so. I would like to see them really talking to as many people as possible. I also don't know if Kellyn Moore is the type of guy who you're like, I don't want to talk to eight more people so I can lock up Kellyn Moore here, right? Also, it came out today, Brian Johnson's interviewing with the Browns, which is also no word because that's not a play calling offensive coordinator job, right? So we wouldn't get to see him kind of put his offense in place if you're of the school of thought. that Brian Johnson was kind of hindered here and let's see what he does elsewhere. That's Kevin Stefansky's system and Stephansky's the play.

And there are only so many jobs. And this is, you know, Kellan Moore is a good example, a good reminder of this. We talked about it with Byron Leftwich. Like, and the perception that like, oh, like, would you really want to come to the Eagles if there were so much drama in the building? Like, these jobs do not come around very often. And oftentimes, like, the momentum flips. Like, Kellyn Moore, everybody thought he was going to be a future head coach within

like two years and now he's scraping by to try to get another offensive coordinator job. Byron Lefich had a like a theoretically an offer from the Jaguars and then was fired the next year. And so like these things change very quickly. The cycle, you can understand why you get the job when you can. But Kellynne Moore's track record, I mean, it is pretty good, you know, that first year in Dallas, they were one of the best offenses in the league, number one in success rate. They were never below 12th and pretty much like a top 10 offense. all four years when he was the coordinator in Dallas.

And then last year with the Chargers, I mean, they weren't great, but they weren't bad. They were middle of the pack. And even with the injury to Justin Herbert, I would be interested in talking to him. And I think that he would be an interesting guy. The one thing that I want to sort of push back on that came out of yesterday's press conference was the notion that the Eagles are definitely making Nick Siriani not running the offense and not running the defense. And there's going to be a head coach of the defense

and a head coach of the offense. I don't know that that is necessarily the case on offense yet. Interesting. I think they're maybe selling it that way and hoping to get. But is Kellyn Moore going to come in and be the head coach of the offense? Is Gerard Johnson going to come in and be the head coach of the offense? It's a little bit like, you remember when Doug used to talk about, well, I don't want to stop calling plays.

That's my favorite part of the job. Like Nick has been humbled and taken down a peg, I think, by the messaging from Jeffrey Lurie, and I think he's open to bringing in somebody who can take over the offense. But if Gerard Johnson comes in here, this guy who was his offensive quality control coach, to me, I think that is like,

oh, let's add some flavor from Kevin O'Connell and some flavor from Bobby Sloick, and that brings us some, you know, McVeigh and Shanahan infused into what has been our offense. That's great. but is he like handing over the keys to Gerard Johnson a first-time offensive coordinator? And even if it's, uh, Kellen Moore,

somebody who has called plays for five, six years, I think he's calling plays. I don't think Nick is like hands off on the offense. I feel like he's always going to be involved in the offense. That's his favorite thing. You're right. And he's,

he has discussed that. I mean, I see what you mean in terms of how you're packaging this job. If you're packaging this job, like come in and work under me and like, you know, learn from my, you know, you're not going to get the best candidate. So you do want to create the impression that a candidate's coming in and bringing his system and it's calling the plays and it's calling the shots. Now the person they hire matters. If it's from the back, if it's if it's Gerard Johnson, if it's Jim Bob Cooter, you know, then you know. this is Siriani's offense still, and they kind of packaged a certain way because that's how it had to be packaged.

Not to say Gerard Johnson would not have a voice, but it's different than someone who's coming in and doesn't have that background with Nick. It would strike me as odd if you fired Brian Johnson, and then it's exactly what we're talking about. It's just a different face running, you know, doing the same thing. And I got to think there was some type of understanding or some type of edict to make a change here. Oh, I agree with that. I just think that it depends on who they hire. But I don't think that Nick is going to be willing to be fully hands off there. And ultimately, there's no way.

Yeah, he's the head coach, right? Like, if you were, and he's a head coach who all head coaches have survival instincts, right? In that business, more than anything else, not more than anything else. else but in professional football there's a lot of survival instincts that that go in the play so if you're kind of coaching for your job then and you know the sign of like offensive struggles or things aren't going great you can kind of put your your your voice in a little more or kind of you know tip to tip the scale a little bit more ultimately next eriani's the head coach and as long as he's in the building, it's not like he's going to forget everything he thinks about offense, right? And it's not

like he's going to stop, stop caring about certain concepts and certain philosophies. And the other thing, too, is the offensive coordinator reports to Nick. It doesn't report to Howie. It doesn't report to Howie. The offensive coordinator reports to Nick. As far as we know. As far as we know, yeah. Do you, I would be a little bit worried if it is a former head coach, if you're bringing, like if it is a Kingsbury, aside from, you know, the lack of scheme that he has, which solves no of no problems that the Eagles had this season, just in terms of a personality dynamic of having like three

head coach types in the same building that feels like a recipe for disaster to me. How so? I build on that thought. Just like who's in charge? Everybody's going to want to think that they are in charge. The head coach is in charge, right? I mean, now Kingsbury may not be that type of personality, but, you know, if it's Vic Fangio

and I don't know who else, but like, I don't know. That just, I don't think, I don't think that everybody's going to handle that well. Okay. Yeah, I mean, it depends on the person. Like if you were, let's say you hire Eric B. Enemy, who's not a former head coach, but is known to have kind of a strong personality. Vic Fangio is known to have a strong personality. If you have BNemi on one side and Vic Fangio on the other, there's a lot of like strong personalities there.

That's true. For a head coach who probably doesn't have the same type. of gravitas as he did it a year ago coming off the Super Bowl, right? Yeah. I don't know. It's interesting. I'm very intrigued to see who they end up hiring. What do you think from an offensive perspective they want for Jalen?

That's a good question. I want to know how they view the regression of his role as a a runner in the offense. I was thinking that. If that was a result of his body not being ready to do it, or if that was something that they just decided they wanted to lean away from, because I think that obviously affects what they're going to do. You know, we can say that they want to get him to throw over the middle of the field a little bit more.

That might be a heavy lift, given that he has shown an aversion to that. over the first, you know, three years of his career as a starter. I think they need to give him better blitz answers. That's like an obvious thing, but that feels more structural than just a Jalen thing. The like the turnovers that need to get better, that is also feels like just sort of a coaching thing. Do you think they're going to, do you think Alex Taney's going to stay as the quarterback's coach, or do you think that is a spot that could be? I think that's a spot that could be turned over.

Certainly when Nick said yesterday, an offensive coordinator who can work directly with the quarterback, right? And that guy might want his own quarterback's coach. I do think the coordinator's going to have say in certain position spots. And typically quarterback's coach is a spot where an offensive coordinator probably cares more about than maybe like your tight ends coach. But, you know, if I was, I mean, to the point you said about Jalen's running, if they interviewed me to be the offensive coordinator and I'm sitting in the meeting, I would walk up to the whiteboard and I'll take out the pen and I would write, let Jalen be Jalen. Right?

Which is a throw back to all the West Wing fans, of course, to Leo McGarry saying let Bartlett be Bartlett as his plan. Okay, way to sell that one. Well, I'm sorry. I showed key interest in your movie yesterday about the Collins Brother movie. I'm asking you about it. You thought you had forgotten about an offensive boarded air candidate, not because you were interested. The West Wing, one of the great shows of the last 20, 30 years. extremely debatable

I will have that debate with you any day but let Bartlett be Bartlett so I would let Jalen be Jalen and what I mean by that is like I would not harness his ability I would maximize his ability I would lean into it I'm not saying be Greg Roman and like run with him all the time but I'm saying

I understand you made this investment you made this investment because he's a special because he has a special talent utilize his special talent so I would find ways to get him on the move I would find I would lean into his legs and his running game even more. Okay. You disagree?

No, I'm just thinking about the West Wing and how I think it sort of perverts the thought of politics as like a sport and not something that has real life ramifications for people. It's sort of like the... Did you watch it? I watch some of it. Of course, it's real life. I can give you every single episode the real life ramifications that it has. And the different, you know, how it humanizes all these different, all these different people. So, yeah, I mean, I'll defend the West Wing every single day.

Even Conan Corliss here says, love the West Wing. I don't know. I know you. Well, even if Conan says it. I know you like to pick on me. I'm not picking on you. I'm just, I'm opening to have. have a conversation about whether that's good for the greater good.

I don't know. The West Wing? Yeah. Yeah. Look, I think they should show the West Wing in civics course. Okay. Now you're taking it too far. Okay.

Look, I believe strongly in the West Wing. So I will not back down from that. And, yeah, if you want to tease me for that one, I will wear it. I'm not teasing. I think you're, I'm not teasing. I'm just trying to have a conversation. Yeah. Yeah.

You think it shows politics as a sport? I think it actually humanizes politics. It shows that these aren't just, you know, these are people with real-life decisions and that have real-life ramifications. Yeah, I mean, my greater thing is about the way that politics are covered in general as sport and as horse race,

which is very gross to me. And like, oh, these are, you know, this is like a profile of, some, like, political ghoul who is causing irreparable damage to, like, millions of people, but, like, oh, like, he's got a dog that he likes. Give me a break. I mean, isn't sports covered, like... Yeah, and sports are not politics. That's the problem. Sports are, like, they have real-life impact.

I would like the downstream effects covered, the decision-making things covered. Like, it's ridiculous. Yeah, so first of all, this is a different conversation than the West Wing, which is... This is our Vic Fangio episode. It's a different conversation than West Wing, which is a dramatized television show. It's not, you know, CNN reporting on the primaries, okay? I mean, we can distinguish that. But, yeah, I mean, we can have a whole deeper conversation about ratings and, like,

like consumer habits and what customers are interested in. Yeah, the customer is not always right. I mean literally if you're trying to pay your bills and you're trying to... No, you are a journalist, Zach. Yeah. When you were a journalist, you are beholden to the truth, not the ratings. Okay, okay. So where I would say is that if you are screaming something in a forest and no one's listening, right?

Like it's not mutual exclusive. You don't have to cover it as a sport, but you ultimately have to, you have to captivate an audience, right? That's the only way an audience is going to watch you. I don't think that that has to be true. And like the both sidesism, preposterous, we don't have to have a whole, like, journalism ethics thing going on here. I was saying is let you on Hertz Run the Ball. I was saying let you on Hertz Run the Ball. I believe if they were hiring me as a offensive coordinator,

I would unlock you on Hertz's legs. That's what I was saying. Okay. That's good. That's good because I was reading Harry Potter with Casey last night, and they had the leg lock curse. Ah, okay. So they got to turn that one around.

That's a piece of fiction, Harry Potter. Yeah. Okay. That's good. All right. Anything else you want to talk about? Anything you want. Yeah.

I'm here. What's on your mind? I'm going to talk about the time machine again? I mean, clearly I would, like I would obviously choose something in the family. Well, you know, we never really got into like what are the rules of the time machine? Yeah. You know, like, is this like, are you just going into your own body for a day and experiencing that? Are you going there as your current self and you have to like avoid, you know, some butterfly effect stuff?

We didn't really get into the mechanics. So, you know, it's okay. No, I mean, obviously if I could, like, I didn't want to bear my soul about my family on, on the show. We're all family here. But I also, I asked Demi, when I got home, I was like, was Google's IPO like a crazy answer? And she's like, no, it's like a completely fine answer.

And you made it seem like there was like a preposterous supposition there to want to invest in Google's IPO. That would seem to be a very intelligent thing to do. I don't know. You don't always need more. Okay. I mean... Julia, what would you do?

What would you do if you had a time machine? Yes. It's not even... The Google IPO thing was funny. To me, the funniest thing was that when what would you do with that money, you said, well, I don't try to get more money. Do you just want me to spend it all? Right? No, but your whole thing was not like to use it for any good or...

for anything for yourself, you just wanted to get compound interest. Well, no, that's, that's, that's, that's going to come. What do you think the compound interest is for, right? Well, that's what I'm asking is what is it for? Yeah. Super chat from Vince, who says, Zach cannot be more right about the West Wing. Thank you. Yeah, you act like this is like a, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not super anti-West Wing.

It's not for me, but. Your first impulse was, was to say like West Wing's everything. It was not my first impulse. That was my second impulse after you said it was the best show of the past 30 years or whatever. I said it was one. great shows of the last 30 years. I believe that. And I mean, yeah.

Of course. You got to tell the truth. I like good writing. Yeah. Okay. So outside of family things, what would you do with that DeLorean that, how it was my head? Well, it depends. What are the rules?

The rules are, okay, let's. Do I, like, go into my body from that point of time? or do I like go experience something as me? You're Michael J. Fox and back to the future. Okay, so that's different. That's not like inhabiting your own body. No, yeah. That's just going somewhere.

Yeah, you're not punching Biff here. But is that the reference? But see, if that's the thing, you can't be the one to make the bet. You've got, you would have to pull aside somebody in your family and tell them to make the bet or to put the money in Google. Well, that's how he did with the Sports Almanac. and... That's what Biff did, right? No, that's what Michael J. Fox did.

He got the Sports Almanac, didn't he? But isn't Biff the one who ends up making all the bets and makes the money? Yeah, well, I'm thinking of the first one where Biff was, like, hitting on his mom and he beat up Biff. Yeah, and then Michael J. Fox gets a little horny for his mom. Very weird. Actually, she's horny for him. Yeah. I mean, that's true. That's what happens in the movie.

Okay. That's an interesting interpretation of it, but okay. She's like trying to make out with him. That's not an interpretation. That's what happens. This is the John Mullaney's gift, by the way. You and John Mullaney think very similarly. It's not a think.

That's what happens. I know, but John Mullaney has a whole bit on this. Okay. Yeah, so, alright, so you go into that DeLorean. Am I pronouncing it correctly? No. DeLorean? Yeah, Delorian.

Delorian, okay. If you go into the DeLorean, and you can do anything, what would you do with it? I don't know, I should have given this more thought. He was the only thing about how he could have called me with it. I was too busy looking at Nicholas Morrow on over the cap. What would I do? So I don't get to, I don't get to spend time with family.

Then that's the, I don't get to inhabit my body as a younger person and get to run around all day. Something you could change about your life. Well, that's different. That's a different question. What would you change about your life? Like you're going back and you're changing something. You know what I would want to do is I would want to go back and sort of feel what it was like again when the Eagles were 10 and 1 after that Bill's win. You must not know Jaylen like I know Jalen.

A better Bill's post game show? I don't know. I'm happy with my life. There's not any huge changes that I regret. You see, I think this is a crazier thing. You have a time machine and you're not using it. Well, I'm going to use it, but I have. There's not a thing that comes to mind, you know, if I can't just go kill Hitler, like.

Yeah, I mean, I'm just saying you have this time machine. You're like, no, I'm good. I'm happy. Things are great. No, I didn't say that, but I don't, nothing, there's not an obvious one to me. Yeah, so that's what I'm saying. You're not even taking an unobvious one. I answered your question within 30 seconds.

I said I would do Google's IPO. Yeah, I mean, the things that come to mind are spending time with people. Okay. That's all. Okay. I don't know. Trying to think. Yeah, I don't know.

Okay. There's different things. Like, would you give yourself a different piece of advice or something like that? But, like, actually changing something. What if I changed something and then I didn't have... Sure, that's the butterfly effect. The same life that I have now. I don't want that.

Okay. So you would keep things exactly as they are. Okay. What if it changed who my children were? I don't want that. You're really taking that a step. Okay, I see that. Well, yeah.

That's what I would be worried about. Any little thing that changes, I don't want to not have Casey and Jane. Well, okay. All right. So then I'll take the keys then to the DeLorean. Okay, and you're going to throw, and you're going to throw Reid and Sloan off?

No, I don't think. I mean, my hope is that if I'm investing in Google's IPO, I'm still meeting Emily and I'm still having Reed and Sloan. So, yeah, it's the best of all worlds. But that's the risk you take. I would say that that is almost definitely not going to happen. Think about how you met Emily. Think about the specific thing,

like the specific sperm, that had to go in to create your son, like it would be a different person. Wow. And who's to say you definitely would not have met Emily? If you were a billionaire working wherever, you're just going to come across Emily? I would have still been covering the goals for the inquiry.

No, you wouldn't. Absolutely, I would have. Yeah. No, you would not. If you were a multi-billionaire by that point? Yeah, I mean, I, this is, I'm pursuing a passion here. My passion wouldn't have been different. you're out of your mind

there's no way your life would have turned out the same way I mean I still would have hoped that I I mean I would have met Emily we You can hope that but it wouldn't happen Okay Yeah I I view it kind of a little bit differently Okay Honestly if I had a time machine I would go forward in time

I wouldn't want to know. Oh, look at that. Okay. Now that I think about it. Okay. And you know what? I probably would have given a different answer yesterday if I had that time machine to avoid this conversation. That's what I would have done.

I would have said, let's go back 13 seconds. And I would say, I don't know. Can we move on to Jim and Hearst's running ability? That's probably what I would have done. All right. Well, this has been an enlightening conversation for our. all of us. Thank you to everybody for listening and watching our in-depth breakdown of Vic Van Joe's scheme.

We will be back tomorrow. We've got Danes coming in. We'll get his thoughts on the time machine, what he would do as we talk about everything. He would have fired Ganon. Yeah, that's probably right. That's good. That's a good line. Thanks, everybody.

Thanks for joining us, spending some time with us. We will talk to you tomorrow at noon for Julia. and Zach, I'm Bowie. Thank you for listening. We'll talk to you tomorrow. And as always, we love you.