PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - PHLY Eagles Podcast | Philadelphia Eagles Week 1 review: Encouraged by Zack Baun, afraid of Jalen Hurts’ decisions

Episode Date: September 9, 2024

Our baby boy is back from his São Paolo sojourn, armed with thoughts on what he saw in person when the Eagles beat the Packers 34-29. Zack Baun had an impressive debut, with 15 tackles and two sacks, as Vic Fangio appears to not have disastrous linebackers. And how about Saquon Barkley! On the other hand, Jalen Hurts’ decision-making left a lot to be desired. How much of a concern is that?Zach Berman and Bo Wulf run through their thoughts after digesting the season-opening win. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello to the P-H-L-Y Eagles podcast presented by Bet-365. Download the Bet-365 app and use code P-H-L-Y-365 when you sign up, whatever the moment. It's never ordinary at Bet-365. Bow-Wolf here on a Monday, 2 o'clock, next to the man who is, I believe, the second most trusted Eagles insider in the Berman household. Zach Berman, how you doing? I'm doing great.

thrilled to be back. Happy that my key still works for here. Thrilled that there's no technological obstacle here, you know, as someone who is a great. People really want that to be a recurring bit for you to just have to call in and then get dropped again. I try to always be in a good mood. You can ask the people in the press box the other night. I was pretty pissed off about. Yeah.

Did they tell you better to be pissed off and pissed off? No one responded to that. No one respond to that. But as someone who appreciates technology, we got to work on. Brazil's telecommunication because that was problematic, but thrilled to be back here right now. You're running up to flagpole? You want to get to the president? I'm not messing around. Yeah, I'm trying to abide by Brazilian laws. Still? Not anymore. I mean, I'm not breaking Brazilian. I have like, I have a lot of questions

about your trip to Brazil and all of this experience, but in, in deference to you. Thank you. For your your hard work, we're going to save that for the C block today. Okay. So we've got a football show A and B, and then we'll get to the good stuff in the C block here. So let's start, Zach. We've had some time now to digest this week one Eagles victory, 3429. I think, you know, we can agree, some sloppiness, some really good film reviews up on all p.chly.com from Fran on both the defense and the offense. But let's sort of take a step back and knowing now what we have seen through one week, three things each that we are extra. encouraged by three things each that are you know some things that we're concerned about maybe

concerned is too strong but things on our radar and then I think it's a good way to sort of frame the conversation so why don't you start giving me the first thing that jumps out to you that you are feeling better about the Eagles maybe than you did a week ago sure well I'll start big picture and then kind of narrow it down big picture it's that the stars showed up and we spoke throughout the summer that this team is built around their stars and you saw a.J. Brown was dominant, you know, against Jaira Alexander, has that big play. Sequan Barkley, you see the difference playing in this offense. And he has this quote after the game that he's not even third on the scouting report.

I don't know if he's if he's that low, but you can see the fact that he's playing with other guys and with this offensive line, what that does for you. And Devante Smith, it wasn't allowed, you know, seven catches, 84 yards or six got just 84 yards, but it was, it was a really significant one. I mean, that final drive, he was the closer, he was money. And I bring all of them up there because that's how this team is built. Like, Jehan Dodson wasn't really a factor in the passing game, and he might have moments where he is. But this offense is built around the stars, and I thought we can discuss Jalen, but those three skill guys look like every week it's going to be a problem.

And when they're all clicking, you know, I put it this way. I was on the All-City show last night, All-City NFL show. We're doing it after every at the end of the Sunday night game every week. The different All-City markets come together. But I said, the Eagles scored 34 points, and there's frustration about the quarterback, and they had a turnover in the red zone. But like, they scored 34 points. There's a lot of markets this morning where they're waking up and they're saying,

how can their team get the 20? So I think that speaks to the firepower of this offense. Yeah. So for offense, you're talking about, we were not getting into the defense. No, no. The stars being stars. Yes. Okay. On offense. Yeah. I mean, I think that that's fair. And I think that that relates to what to me is the number one takeaway. And that is on offense and defense together. This felt like the case for coaching competency that the Eagles made in their hires over the office. Yeah, that was my third one here. So I'm glad you said that. Yep. it was sloppy, right?

I didn't think that it was like the players on the field were too different than they were last year. In many ways, it looked similar in terms of like the players. But this was the case for we have this roster that is Super Bowl quality. We need to make sure by hook or by crook that we have competent people running both sides of the ball. And that's what it was in this game. You know, on defense, you know, they had some mistackles. They had a bunch of other little mistakes. maybe the pass rush didn't really get home and we'll get to that potentially.

But, you know, Vic Fangio is putting good plans together as Fran has laid out. He basically baited Jordan Love into that interception, which was a huge play in the game. It felt like they knew what they were doing on that side of the ball. And on offense, all those little things that, you know, we have talked about, the motion and, you know, changing up the static two-by-two sets and all these other things. Now, the under center did not really work very well in this game, but still even. even giving it a shot. Some of those things, those easy buttons worked out.

And Jalen accepted on some of those decision-making issues. The offense looked like it had sort of a baseline level of competency. And with those stars who you talked about, just having that makes them able to score a disappointing 34 points. Well said, because we spoke about these coordinators throughout the summer. And you saw the differences. Like, for instance, you mentioned the motion. Fran had this in his piece that's up now on his film review. on offense, they were in motion, 65% of the snaps on Friday.

They're most since 2020. So the most during the Siriani era, last year, they were 35.1%. So you see that noticeable difference. You saw the answers against the Blitz. I'll defer to you in terms of the numbers for Devante Smith in the slot. Yeah, I'll get there. So I thought offensively there was a lot of creativity and defense. As you mentioned, I thought Vic Fangio, from a game plan perspective,

I didn't think the problems that they had were scheme-related. I thought they were more player technique-related. Now, the Jaden Reed one, I would like to talk to a friend about tomorrow. The 70-R. The touchdown. There's two Jaden Reed ones, unfortunately. Yeah, that's true. The C.J. Garner Johnson mistackle, like, it looks like that's a him problem,

that he sort of cheated over too much, but I think it was a little bit on the call. I think they got caught in a bad call on that one. Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right. What's your number two? Are we staying with the encourage? Yeah, let's do.

Let's do all good news in the A block, and then we'll do all bad news in the B block. Okay. So this is on brand for me. The longtime viewers and listeners know there are certain numbers that I value more than others. For those new this year, you're coming on because we have Fran Duffy, who's outstanding. We have Vinnie Curry, who's outstanding. I'm a sucker for third down defense and red zone defense. Okay.

Oh, gosh. A one game sample of third down red zone defense. Because I truly believe that these are game-determining stats. And, you know, for instance, Nick Siriani spoke during the summer about turnover market. But they're not predictive necessarily. No, but so here, so he talked about turnover margin. And the Eagles did not win the turnover battle here, but they won the game. And the reason they want it is because they were, they kept the Packers to 1-4 in the Red Zone, which was huge.

And in the Siriani era, I think there's been, I had this up on all pHly.com right now. I think there's been 24 games when opponents have been to the red zone at least four times. And this is only the fifth time that a team only scored one touchdown. It's hard to keep a team to one of four in the red zone. And especially early in the game, right here. Well, I'm curious why. You seem unmoved. You seem unmoved.

I'm curious why you went to at least four trips. but kept the bar at only one touchdown. Because 1 of 4 or 0.4. Sure. But so if a team scores 2 of 5, that's still 3 stop. Like the percentage, you can't, for you to raise the ceiling but keep the same capped ceiling on the bottom end. All right.

We need some sort of. Sure. I'll be better with math comprehension. I can comprehend the math. I was, the percentage was, it was among their best percentages under Siriani. the 25%, but especially early in the game, it's how they were able to stay in the game. Two bad turnovers early in the game, and they're able to keep the Packers out of the end zone. That keeps the Eagles in the game.

And then third down, the Eagles were the Eagles cut the Packers to 3 of 11 in third down. But Matt LaFleur, after the game, the first thing he pointed to, literally the first thing he pointed to was the red zone. And he said they got destroyed in the red zone. And I thought that that was huge. So when I say encourage, I don't know if it's going to last throughout the season. it might not be sticky, it might not be predictive. But from this, I was kind of answering it from this game here. And I do know being in that locker room, talking to different players about it,

this is something that, like, they all emphasized. And I'm going to, so there's a colorful quote from C.J. Garner Johnson. This is not one of the ones I sent Julia because I don't know if we're going to put this one on the screen. But you can check that out on all p.gly.com. you're not going to tell us what the quote is? Oh, I thought we're monitoring our language on the show. Then use a euphemism. Okay.

So I was speaking to him. I'm trying to figure out. I'm trying to figure out creative. And then just. Creative, a euphemism. He said, um, dropping poop.

No, no, this isn't, this isn't that. Dropping, uh, cajonas. Can I say that? And playing ball. You can say nuts. Okay. Dropping nuts and play ball. No matter where that ball spot,

it could be on the effing concrete. Just give you on a chance and that offense a chance to go up. He said that that's their mindset that like no matter or like once you're in the red zone, it's to use the FAB five's expression. Yeah. What your nuts hang?

Yeah. So. Okay. I was trying to keep this professional. Yeah, but that's not a curse word. Okay, fair enough. And also quoting. I'm quoting C.J. Garner Johnson.

Okay. I don't know that dropping nuts is like the key to red zone defense necessarily. But. Trying to add some color. Vic Van Joe has been, he's got his own proprietary analytics, and it's just a picture of Riley Cooper's truck nuts in the back of his car. Well, literally one of them before the Eagles Broncos game in 2021. that was Nick Siriani's emphasis.

That was his speech was about... Yeah. Let your nuts hang. Let your nuts hang. Yes. Okay. So I don't know if Vic Fangell gave a similar sentiment, but that was certainly...

I asked CJ Garner Johnson. If something tells me Vic wouldn't say, let your nuts hang. I asked CJ Gardner Johnson about this, and it was the first thing he went to. Well, what I think is particularly interesting about the third down defense

and the performance is that they didn't really get that great of a pass rush, right? Yes. We'll get to that. Yeah. And we'll get to that. but for them to overcome that, Avanti Maddox aside probably says a lot about what they had going on in the back end.

Well said. Yeah. Okay, number two is an obvious one for me. And I know that this would not have surprised you quite so much. But I mean, Sequan was awesome. And like, I think I said to Fran in the studio before the game started that like it was a little bit of my radar like this, the Sequin thing like does have potential to be a disaster. like because the contract could, I mean, if he's a little bit cooked

or if he gets injured and he could still get injured, obviously. You know, this is going to look pretty ugly and they could have spent this money elsewhere. But boy, did he make him look good in this game? And the most interesting thing to me was just we didn't get to see him run full speed all summer, really against contact. And the juice, you know, the juice was real. So for a guy in his seventh year who has had as much of a workload as he has had, I thought that was really encouraging.

And, you know, Fran has pointed out a bunch of the really nice runs that he had, obviously, the touchdown catch. But I think just the like just the open field juice and the ability to break tackles, which was a bit of a question coming in. I mean, this was another one where it was like the design of the off season come true. Sure. And just as as we discussed, he was barely coming off the field. There was a drive at the end of the first half where it looked like he got. banged up because he came off mid-drive, met with the Eagles training staff, did not go back in, but otherwise, I mean, he played 80% of the snaps.

And that's including those ones where he came off, not because of a rotation, but seemingly because he got banged up. So I think this is what you're going to see. I've been pretty consistent with it. This is not a committee by any stretch. Like this is, they're going to ride Barclay. And I even thought that on the final offensive drive, you know, you know, you know, I even thought that on the final offensive drive, they would just keep giving him.

It was surprising that they wanted to do the touch. It was surprising they were in empty so often on that drive. Yeah, that's true. That's true. So it was probably they saw something in the Packers defense. I guess, yeah. But I do think. I thought they should have handed it off to him also before a touchdown there.

Did you know the, well, I'm sure you did. You're a connoisseur of world football of international football. That four is poker. Yeah, I had never heard that before. Oh, you hadn't? No. Okay. And when I saw you tweet it, I was like, what are you talking about?

Really? Yeah. I never heard that before. I didn't either. Yeah. But the... I think it would be a great move if they just were punking you. Or they were punking Sequin.

Yeah, like the Brazilian journalists were like making something up, yeah. You could have had a poker and he put up four. And so... And Seekwon said, I haven't even met her yet. Seekwon did not say that. No, no, Seekon. He was punked. So a Brazilian journalist brought up the hat-trick line to him.

And then he circled back a few minutes later and dropped the hat trick in there. So he knew how to play to his Brazilian audience. Okay. What's your number three? You hit on my number three, which was the coordinators. And it's like we said, you know, one game does not show they made the right decision by making these changes. But just hearing Nick Siriani discussed it after the game, like he thinks he says, I shouldn't say he thinks because I don't know what he thinks. He says he thinks that their home runs with like both these hires.

And he uses this line that he's used a few times. But he says, Kellyn Moore has been a great coordinator for years. He says, Vic Fangio has been a great coordinator for decades. And like he really likes to reinforce that. He likes a line. He likes a line.

But there is there is a level of, I don't want to say level of competence because when you say that, it suggests that there was. incompetence before. And I don't think Sean DeSize's incompetent. I don't think Brian Johnson's incompetent. But I think there's a level of experience here that is, at least in this game, I think we saw preparedness. Now, they were sloppy for sure, but I think from a schematic perspective, they were prepared. Yeah, I think that's, I think that's right. For me, number three, and we tease this is, and this is along the lines of the Kellanmore thing, but, you know,

the Devante Smith in the slot has been sort of a pet. curiosity of mine because he's been one of the best wide receivers in the league in the slot over the past two years, but has only sort of creeped up to just around 25% a little bit under that. What are you smiling about? I'll tell you a second. Yeah. No. I mean, I can't continue now.

I was thinking about Devante Smith, and I had a Devante Smith story. But go on with your mind. No, I'd rather you go on with. I'll get to that stuff. We're here for another 45 minutes. Okay. So I was asking Devante Smith about the flight home. And, you know, Devante has a thick accent, right? So sometimes.

So I asked him what he, what he'll do on the flight home. And he said, I'm just going to stare at my eyelids, okay? But I thought he said, I'm going to stare at the mileage. Okay. So, you know how like on the screen in front of you on the, it shows. Oh, he was going to raw dog the flight? I thought he was just going to sit there and stare at the mileage. And I was like, so you literally look at the mileage?

He's like, well, I'm usually sleeping. I've never heard stare at my eyelids. That's a good one. Yeah, he said, I'm just going to stare at my eyelids. But I thought he said, I'm going to stare at the mileage. And so it was so I didn't. It's like when I asked him during the Super Bowl what he was doing. It was like I'm just going to sit in the dark.

Yes. So I thought, you know, everyone else is there like, I don't know, reclining, doing whatever they're doing to go to sleep. And Devante's just sitting there watching the miles go down. You've heard about this? This is the raw dogging of flight thing.

I haven't heard this. Oh, yeah. This is like... This is the thing people do? Well, it's a thing that people are like boasting about. Okay. And they have raw dog a flight.

Just no, you know, no content or anything. You just stare straight ahead at the screen. Oh, yeah. You're not even, you're just looking at the... That's a long raw dog. I'll let that be a drop. But, but, yeah, so I, the reason I'm laughing is because we have this conversation.

He doesn't think it's odd that I ask him about mileage. Right. Right. And then I go back and I'm listening to the thing over. And I hear eyelids. And I'm just like, what is he thinking that I'm, when I ask him about the mileage, Does he think I do this? I'm going to go out on a limb and say he didn't give it a second thought.

Yes, I agree. That one's not keeping him up. No, but that's because he's looking at his eyelids. Well, that's true. Yes. So yes, Devante Smith has been like a superhero in the slot for the Eagles. And in this game, for the first time in his career, played over 50% of his snaps in the slot. 54% of his snaps of his seven catches, four of them for 58 yards, came from the slot,

three from 26 for the outside. His previous high in a game was 40%, which he'd only done twice. And so this was a market increase. There's only, I mean, you can only take away that this was a Kellynne Moore deal. Now, I think when Jahan Dotson is more integrated into the offense, that number will come down a little bit. Now, part of the appeal of Dotson is that he can play on the outside as well. I do think the Eagles should be featuring Devante Smith in the slot to a borderline CD Lamb level,

which is a nice little connectivity thing with Kellyn Moore. Well said. But I think it'll come down just a little bit when Dodson is fully part of the office. Do you think they'll get AJ in there more? Do you think it's Devante who's going to be the beneficiary of it? I mean, a little bit more, but I don't think they need to. Like, AJ Brown's efficiency numbers are better on the outside than they are on the inside. And obviously there's some noise to that.

but so Devante was 2.1 yards per out from the slot in this game, which is a little bit under his normal mark, but that's because he was in there so often. So I'm encouraged by just that increase. Okay. Well, some might say that putting Devante Smith in the slot is easy money. You know what else is easy money? Saving money with rocket money.

Because rocket money can find any subscription that you forgot about or have paid for twice and didn't realize rocket money can cancel a subscription for you that was otherwise time consuming or confusing to cancel they have done this for me uh i think i've told the story before we had a we had a previous sponsor at a different podcast and a previous employer uh which was it was a nice thing but i didn't need it anymore and i could not figure out a way to cancel it so i put rocket money on the case and that thing is gone rocket money is a person personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. You can see all of your

subscriptions in one place and know exactly where your money is going. For anything you don't want anymore, Rocket Money can help you cancel with just a few taps and they will deal with customer service for you. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year. when they're using all of the app's features. Stop wasting money on things that you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash p.hly. That's rocketmoney.com slash p.hly.

Rocketmoney.com slash p.h.L.Y. I was in Brazil and I saw some fruit juices and coconut waters and I said, Am I in Brazil or am I at the right-aid refreshery? because the line of beverages at the Rite Aid Refresherry ranges from family favorites to revitalizing better-for-you options. It's exclusively at Rite Aid. The products include water, purified, spring, electrolyte, distilled, and alkaline bottled water, flavored waters. They also have coconut water. It boasts a power-packed array of essential nutrients, fat-free, gluten-free, non-GMO-free, and a great thing, less than 1% sugar.

They have single-serve iced tea, juice, and lemonade, which is sweetened with real sugar and no preservatives. They have juices for a crowd, which I always like because you have pineapple, cranberry, apple, strawberry lemonade, and many other flavors. Organic options are available. There's also cold press juices crafted from 100% fruits and vegetables, organic, non-GMO with no added sugars, preservatives, or artificial flavors packaged in eco-friendly glass bottles, which reduce plastic waste. It's important to stay hydrated, especially during the summer months. Get refreshment delivered. Shop online at righteat.com slash shop. For same-day delivery or buy online.

Pick up in store of refreshery product. I talked about the third down and the red zone. If I can just highlight one player with that, and that's Zach Bonn, because we're getting the things we're discouraged about in this segment. And I just want to make sure that we point out things that I highlight Zach Bonn. For this reason, I was skeptical of the Zach Bonn experiment. I shouldn't even say experiment of like the Zach Bond confidence throughout the off season. I thought you framed it well. He was in New Orleans for four years.

They hadn't looked at this. Well, here's a game. He has 15 tackles, two sacks. And you don't want to be married to these stats for the reason. Nicholas Mordo had that game last year with three sacks. But I thought the way he played, he brought a physicality. He brought a versatility. He was used around the formation. He was with the Saints. His career high was seven tackles. He had two career sacks with the Saints. And so the fact that he had this type of performance, he had one roughing the pastor penalty, which I thought was a little bit debatable. But Nick Siriani, talked about the physicality that he brings. Talked better than the summer. Yes, exactly. It was like the first guy he brought out. And Vic Fangio, when you asked Vic in August about what made him think Zach Bonn had the instincts, he said he saw some things on the Saints film when they put him in there.

But this was a targeted signing, first day of free agency. And I don't want to get ahead of myself. And Fran has a good film review on the linebackers right now on all p.chowai.com. But I liked what I saw from him. And I asked him after the game what he proved. to people. And I sent Julia this quote. We can put this up. This is the Zach Bond quote, where he says, quote, I don't know if I had anything to prove. I think I was proving it to myself. Like, I know I can do this and I know I'm a baller. I know I can go out there and do a lot of different things. And I

proved it to myself. I'm not on Twitter, barely on Instagram. So I don't know what people are saying, but I proved a lot to myself. And he left the game, you know, he had a game ball that he put into his bag that the other players were kind of, I don't want to say getting on him about, but making comments about. And it was the game ball given from NBC or from the, I don't know, Peacock, NBC. But he grew up in Wisconsin. This is like his hometown team. So it was, it was a pretty cool experience for him, in particular, closing the game with that sack. I think it's also, and by the way, we should also say that I think Nicobo Dean played pretty well.

And I think Fran wrote about like maybe Dean was like under the hood and maybe even a little bit more impressive than then Zach Bonn other than the splash plays. But from a I think we can sort of agree that like Zach Bond was Vick's guy. Yes. And Devin White was Howie's guy. Yes. Right? And like I'm going to I'm going to pay a little more money for the guy with the first round pedigree. Sure.

And Vic's like, well, I mean, I know ball. This is the guy that I want. Yeah. And that's probably right. It seems to have worked out that way. I think it's a nice little reminder for our just, you know, the first, the pedigree versus the, who knows ball. Wow. I feel like, I feel like this is a subtle shot at me.

I don't think there's anything subtle about it. Oh, it's a direct shot at me. Okay. Wow. Okay. Because you were all over the Zach Bond signing. You thought that. But I'll tell you know, the only one who knows more ball than me is Vic Fangio.

I mean, I've just been watching for years. He's been watching for decades. There you go. Okay. Okay. But yeah, I think. I think a good sign. I mean, what is your expectation for what happens with Devin White now?

I mean, I think that Nicopi is going to stay the starter for now. Is he going to be active? Good question. He doesn't really have a special team's role. Orrin Perks and Van Sumeran are there for that. Trotter Jr. I mean, perhaps he could be active over Trotter Jr., but I don't know.

I think they might slow play this injury, to be honest with you. It seems right, right? Yeah. It's going to be interesting. Okay. I still like a Nicobo. Oh, yeah, a Devin White, though. I'm just going to put that out there.

So. So you think you know more than Vic? I don't think I know more than Vic, but I think independent thinking is an important thing. What do you like about him? What do I like about him? I think he's fast, okay? Number one, I think he has good instincts on blitzing.

Okay? I think he has ball skills, all right? I think that his coverage is not where it needs to be, and he misses some tackles. But I think that historically, if you look at him as a blitzer, and you look at him as a playmaker, he has a history of solid production there.

It wasn't last year, and it wasn't half of the year before, but there is like a two and a half to three year sample size of solid production. Okay. Reasonable minds can disagree. That's part of the beauty of life. All right. Let's get to your first concern. Concern may be too strong, but yeah.

Pass rush and I'll pinpoint Bryce Huff in particular, okay? First off, they did not play well enough overall. The pass rush, I thought. But then you look at Bryce Hoff. And I just need to say there might be injury related here, right? I don't know if he was dealing with something. For the Eagles sake, you should hope so. Because he only played 45% of the defensive snaps.

He played fewer snaps than Brandon Graham. Sequin Barkley was the headliner, if you will. Bryce Huff was the biggest signing. Bryce Huff, in terms of money, in terms of consequences, Quince, he was the biggest signing. For him, the only play 45% of the snaps is concerning. Rush to quarterback 16 times. They not have a pressure or quarterback hit.

But then you kind of look at, you break down the numbers. He played on eight first downs. Brandon Graham played on 15 first downs. So that shows you they don't really trust him yet on first down. Or I shouldn't say they don't trust him yet. They trust Brandon Graham more on first downs, which is you're paying Braysoff $17 million. And he needs to get to the quarterback. And I didn't see that enough for me.

Vinnie Curry made an interesting supposition. I actually don't remember if it was during the postgame show or if it was when we were just watching the game, that sometimes a thing like that, like the snap disparity might have been because of the cleats. Like it could have been brist up going to the sideline and being like, I can't get traction right now or like trying to fiddle with his cleats and been like you got to go in. So that's possible. So in general, I mean, I thought the pass rush was very underwhelming. but I am trying to be guarded for at least one week. Let's see what happens when they're not playing on that surface. Okay.

It was slippery. Yeah. And I mean, if next week, if he's still playing that few snaps and is that absent as a pass rusher, then yeah, I think we can say that it is not a good, that promising start. The interesting thing about the surface is the Eagles practice, or they had their walk through there the day before. The Packers did not. The Eagles had the choice as the home team and chose to practice at the stadium.

the Packers practiced at the training grounds, which is not the stadium. And so if anything, they should have been aware of the field because they were literally there 24 hours before the game. They should have. I mean, tough job. They didn't look good.

Okay, for me, it's Jalen's decision making. And that's the one that I'm actually worried about. I mean, some of those throws, what are we doing? And I didn't even think that the interception in the end zone was the worst of them. The worst of them was the one that was dropped. The pick six, that could have been a pick six. Like, that's one of the worst throws I've ever seen anybody make.

An awful decision, an awful throw. And then he comes and does the, throws the pick on the next play. I thought that was worse. The pick was worse. But like, to come off of that and do that on the next play, are you lost, my man? Like, that was bad. And the stats bear it out, right? It's looked on live, like when the ball is coming out, the offense looked good.

And the stats bear that out. If you break it up into 2.5 seconds or under, 2.5 to 3.5 seconds. And times when it takes him over 3.5 seconds to get rid of the ball, over the course of his career, that has been sort of a linear digression, the longer the play goes on as a passer. So we're not taking into account scrambles. Last year, when the ball comes out quick, he was third in success rate. When the ball comes out in that medium range, he was eighth in success rate. And then the longer it went on, he was 16th in success rate.

The EPA are similar. It was a little bit lower early because of some interceptions, but then he was first in the league. In EPA per pass on that middle range, and then he was 20th. The longer it went on. In this game, it was the same thing. I mean, it's one game, but in this one game, he had 16 passes where the ball came out quickly. and across the league he was second in success rate and first in EPA on those. That middle range he had 13 passes and across the league he was 13th in success rate,

sixth in EPA and then there were six passes in this game where he took a long time and it was a 20% success rate, 26th in the league, 28th in EPA. Obviously these are small sample sizes it's just one game but some of those things when we know that this is the character. characterization of like Jalen's prove it year and all of this motivation like some of the you know like the fumbles which like the you can you can explain away the relationship with cam Juergens this is the first time then working together like some of that stuff is growing pains some of those throws he cannot be making those throws yeah like if Bo Nicks made those throws in his first career start I would say like what are you thinking but like some of those things from Jalen understand the scope of the game understand what's going on it's it's it's bizarre. Yeah, the interception in the end zone that happened right in front of me. And I say

that because you saw A.J. Brown opened. A.J. Brown made it clear that he was open. And then you saw it close. And it's like we all saw it close and you would think Jalen Hertz would see it close. Now Jaira Alexander comes off of his man to make that play

which is surprising but it's also that's why you don't throw that pass. Yeah, Jain was late on it. And he threw it across his body. And especially in that situation, it's a play. It's an interception you can't throw in that situation. The first interception, I don't know what he saw there. But it is concerning because the turnovers were a problem last year.

It was a big difference between 2022 and 2023. And we spent a lot of time this summer talking about how efficient he was. and that is accurate. Like we did not overstate it. But we kept saying, the qualifier was what happens when you see a different defense and the looks are different.

Or you're in a game and you're trying, you know, you're trying to make plays in the game and you're not necessarily operating within the structure sometimes. And I think that was problematic for Hertz. I feel like we have talked about this before, but it is a little bit disappointing that like Jalen doesn't,

and there are some, counter examples like the Alamedes Achaeus touchdown pass last year. But he doesn't make a ton of plays scrambling, right? And I think part of that is like his arm strength so much is like lower body driven. Like when he's in the pocket and he's able to get his whole body into it, he has a good above average NFL quality arm. But he doesn't have that like that wrist flick necessarily that like Michael Vick has or Patrick well, obviously those are high bars.

But like and so for him to throw that ball across the bottom, body. He just doesn't have the velocity on that pass. And we can also get to the physicality stuff. Like, does he look the same athletically to you? I try to separate it because I know that he has always been a little bit more powerful running downhill than running around guys. But I just don't think that he looks quite the same. Yeah, I mean, I thought the Packers were really clued in on the QB runs. They seemed determined to stop those. to limit him there. And so I really didn't see Jalen in the open field.

Now, he did have that eight-yard run for a first down that I thought was important there. Huge play. And I still look at this. Like, he needs to play better. There's no doubt about it. But there was a lot of good quarterbacks who had bad games yesterday. And I thought Jalen made winning plays down the stretch. I thought, you know, I give Devante credit for those catches in the second half.

I'm sorry, in the fourth quarter. I thought J.L. put the ball in a real good spot on both those passes. And those were money throws that aren't touchdowns, but those are throws that win you the game. Yeah. I mean, we're criticizing. I'm criticizing because it's a high bar.

Sure. And it's also one game, and he didn't play in the preseason. So maybe there's some growing pains to be expected. What do you think played better? The decision-making stuff. I thought Hurts played better in this. Well, I don't know, man. That one that should have been a pick six is like one of the worst throws I've ever seen.

so bad. I don't think either of them played particularly. Now, I mean, Jordan Love had a pass that Nicobi Dean almost had a pick six on 12. Yeah, that's true. That's a fair point. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I don't think that either one of them played particularly well. I think Jalen probably played a little bit better.

Okay. I would agree there. Just quickly on the scramble stuff, I was looking at it like his on true media, just like the success rate, the first downs per scramble, how, like how many yards he's getting per scramble. All of that stuff has gone down every single year from 21 to 22 to 23, and it's only one game, but that that digression seems like it is continuing. That's all.

All right. What's your number two? My number two on here, explosive plays on defense. And it's a concern because the Vic Fangio defense is supposed to limit explosive plays, right? That's like structurally how it's built. Now, I don't think the problem here was scheme. Now, you mentioned the 70-yarder, and there might have been some of that, but this was tackling here.

And I asked C.J. Garner Johnson about this. Julia has the quote from C.J. Garner Johnson about what the problem was on the explosive plays. Eagles allowed 10 explosive plays in this game. Four plays are greater than 30 yards. They allowed touchdowns of 70 and 33 yards. The 70-yarder was the longest in the Siriani era. Here is the quote from Garner Johnson. It's the first game, man.

Can I say? poop poop it's the first game bro in Brazil emotions high a lot changed so we're not worried about explosives he kind of pushed back on my yeah he didn't want to answer what happened on the 70 yarder he said he's not throwing anyone under the bus for that where they're a team yeah there's no yeah I mean that's that's a classic you know no offense but you're already saying it like I'm not going to throw anybody under the bus okay well now everyone's going to figure out who it is that you want to throw I asked Slay about it. Slay said it comes down to tackling.

And he said they're going to have to, they said for a lot of these guys, it was the first time they tackled. And he said they're going to have to tackle this week in practice. Or they're going to have to work on tackling this week in practice. But I did think there was, especially the runs, I thought the tackling was an issue there. And whether it's run fits or simply form tackling, the explosive plays, you cannot allow 10,

you cannot allow 10 explosive plays. that's far too many here. It's by the Siriani definition, right? By the Syriani definition, yeah. Although there were no runs between 10 and 12 yards that would have not qualified. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the tackling as a team, I thought was actually pretty good in terms of them rallying to the ball and playing with energy. I thought that was encouraging.

But yes, some open field tackling. That's why for me, number two, is actually C.J. Garner Johnson, I thought he did not play a very good game. But it's one game. It's in Brazil, you know, emotions high, as he says. A poop man. But if he's playing at that level, then the Eagles are not getting their money's worth. True. And I thought Reeve Blankenship had a good game.

The interception aside, I thought he played well. I thought so, too. All right, what's your number three? You mentioned Jalen Hertz. So Jalen Hertz was high on my list. I just do have one question here overall, which is I talked about this on Anthony's show this morning. the practice, I'm sorry, preseason playing time, debate came up. Nick said as he was walking off the podium, I know you guys are going to ask me about this.

And so as he was walking off, I said, what would your answer be? And he said, four and no. And I said, can I quote you on that? He said, four and no. So his answer is that they've now won four games to start the... Good question, Zach. What? They've now want four games to start the season.

with this strategy of playing in the preseason. There's one last quote here that I sent Julia from Siriani. I'm not going to read the whole thing, but the Eagles were clearly sloppy. But he said there's a part here. And he talked about how these first games have gone. And then the next part of the quote, he basically got into saying that he's not going to let anyone, yeah. He said, we're not going to be prisoners to. Basically what I'm going to say is we're going to enjoy this.

the journey and not let anyone tell us this wasn't good enough. We won the football game. We have things to clean up. We know we put ourselves in the right position the way we prepared and they're going to prepare our butts off again going into next week. So he really pushed back on the idea that they were ill-prepared for this game. Okay. For me, not a big one, but we didn't see the jump in pass rush productivity from Jordan

Davis in particular and he didn't play he played just under 50% of the snaps, right? Now they were in nickel over 80%. Yeah, and I think that will change. I think this, I think, you know, like you saw them open in base, and then they didn't play it very much. I think we'll probably see that more, probably next week as well against Atlanta. So I'm not, and, you know, I can't, on the one hand, say, let's be patient with Bryce off and see how it looks next week and not say that with Jordan Davis, but just in terms of not seeing it from him as a passhatcher in this game, that wasn't there yet. But that's, it's lower on my list.

I also thought Jalen Carter looked tired during the game. Yeah, played 75% of snaps, right? This is going to be a thing we're going to have to follow all year long. Sure. Right. Now, he was good, I thought. Now, I also think one thing that did stand out from Jalen Carter early in the game, like he made a couple of plays downfield, you know, like just in chasing,

like really impressive hustle. And then you would see Jordan Davis kind of like slowly coming along after that. And you trickled there. One of them had that juice early and the other did not. Yeah, I don't share the same type of disdain for the PFF grades that you do. But I was surprised when I saw the Jalen Carter grade because I thought Jalen Carter played well in this game. I have no idea what that even means. What did he get a Yellow Gatorade?

Like his grade was low. Okay. Yeah, there were people who were putting out there like. Oh, man, this pick. And I was like, I think Giancarter was awesome this summer and this game. Yeah, I didn't think he was awesome. I actually had higher expectation. I thought he didn't dominate this game, but he had some really good rushes.

He made Jordan Morgan look like a like a Gibron when he was in there. But, yeah, I mean, let's make that the last time that anybody brings up. So real time with Prince Blue says, Geo and Carter looked tired. WTF, were you all watching? I'll tell you exactly what I was watching. I was at the game and I was watching between the snaps. And you're kind of reading it between the snaps.

And that's not a knock on John Carter. He played the most, he played a lot of snaps. And so you're kind of watching what he's doing between the snaps. And you can tell when a player is tired. Eagles aren't substituting him a lot. Well, I think players will tell you that like week one is when they're the most tired because they're not used to playing in a game shape into the fourth quarter. So, yeah, I mean, you're not saying he played badly.

Yeah. But, yeah, that's reasonable. All right. We have a super chat. A quick super chat from Sean who says after reading about and watching Q on Friday, how many personal fouls are the Eagles going to have with CJGJQ, Jalen Carter on that defense, L.O. I don't know that. I mean, I don't know that Q is going to get too many.

No, I don't think so. But he definitely is confident. The stage is not too big. Yeah, absolutely. And to be fair, Terry Arnold had a couple big penalties last night. So week one, Edge goes to coinion. Sure. And I do think Avanti did not play well, and I think they need to get Cooper de Gene up to speed.

Yeah, what do you think is going to happen here? Well, I think Quignon should be the outside full time. I wouldn't bounce it back. You don't think if Isaiah Rogers is back and Vic likes Isaiah Rogers that they will move Quignon inside. It's a possibility, but I still think that their best lineup is Cooper de Gene playing the slot. Yeah, I don't think they should either. And I think that for Cooper de Gene, the best. best way for him to grow is to play. And unless you think that he can't be out there,

and clearly you think he can be out there because you have him in dime, I will put him in nickel and I will let him learn on the job. The one thing that I would say is I'm surprised, and you know, Lord knows that Vic knows better than I do. I'm surprised we never got to just sort of experiment with with Isaiah Rogers in the nickel at any point this summer because all of those reps that went to Quinnion Mitchell, some of them could have gone to Isaiah Rogers just to test out, and I wouldn't be surprised if that's something that they look into in practice over the next couple weeks. I agree with you there.

Okay. All right, let's talk about our friends at GameTime, because GameTime has a new feature called Game Time Picks that makes getting tickets to your favorite live events even easier. And Game Time already made it easiest than in the entire industry. Game Time Picks filters out the fluff to show you incredible deals on great seats so you don't have to waste time searching through thousands of tickets. Use the app features listed in the customize your spot and the supplemental as inspiration.

I'm reading like the instructions and not the actual copy. It's a little behind the seats. Here's the thing that you need to know about game time. Curated deals make it easier to find the best price on great seats. They've got something called the Super Deal. It sounds super to me. You can see the seats before you buy them, you know, get that seat view. They've also got, as we've talked about, since last September, we're coming up a year now on you finding out about game time, the lowest price guarantee, the event cancellation protection, the job loss protection, all that good stuff.

Take the guesswork out of buying tickets with game time, download the game time app, create an account and use code, pHLY for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem with code P-H-L-I for $20 off. Download Game Time today. What time is it? It's game time. I was on an overnight flight, and I heard someone snoring, and I would not wake him up. We all need our sleep on those planes, but I wanted to tell them us as we were disembarking, hey, have you heard about Dr. Andrew Cohen? Because he's board certified in dental sleep medicine, and his staff will work one-on-one with you to provide first-class care. that will meet your needs to stop the snore and find solutions for sleep apnea that will allow you

to rest well and improve your health. And he might say, well, how can I do this? And I say, well, did you know that there's actually a choke point in your throat that causes snoring? Think of it like a kink in a garden hose. He might say, oh, that's interesting. Where's Dr. Andrew Cohen located? And I said, I'm glad you asked. He's based in Janketown. He's worked for years to educate dentists across the country on his personal approach for helping those with sleep apnea. And his team is committing to stopping the snore. And he might say, all right, so what should I do? And I'll say, I'm glad you asked.

Tell them that PHLI sent you, and you can receive 15% off your initial workup. The process is easy. Two hours, initial exams, split in the two sessions, information gathering, medical history, and imaging. And then you'll review the results and share recommendations. This sounds great, right? Well, if you're experiencing sleep apnea like the person on the plane and are looking for custom solutions stop the snore. Reach out to Dr. Andrew Cohen at sleephealthyPA.com or call 215-337-2501.

Tell him P-H-L-Y sent you. By the way, were you surprised by the nickel pairing? Did anybody in your life even mention that that could have been a possibility? Bo I literally kept mentioning. Bo-Wolf said this. Bo-Wolf said this. I was on now because of the technology. I was not really on our show, although I heard all.

I heard all the ads on our show. I was on when the ads were on, but not, you know, I got all the ad reads, but not any input from me. But I was on John Marks, the show was on Anthony's show, and when the Isaiah Rogers injury came up, I said they could go with what people are saying. That's Keely Ringgo on the outside in Quentin, Mitchell, but one thing to watch, and this is what Bo Wolfe has said, Avante Maddox, pay attention. And you were right. Wow. Ball-nose ball. What a call.

What a call. All right. I think that's enough Eagles talk. Oh, there's never enough Eagles left on the show. There's never enough Eagles song. There's never enough Eagles song. Give us the highlights. Yeah, it was awesome. I'm very grateful for the experience.

I'm grateful the PHLI sent me. I'm grateful that I had this opportunity to go. I thought it was very, no, I don't want to overstate it. I did not gallivant around South Palo. I did not see that much of South Palo, but I saw some of it, and certainly I was on buses for a long time throughout the area. I'll get to that. Bus is always a tough one.

You always expect that buses is going to have two S's at first. It's such a weirdly spelled word, B-U-S-E-S. It's spelled like booses, but. Well, I wasn't thinking that. But I found everything to be like that. Look, I don't want to get into like the safety debate because clearly there's, there's stuff that's happened to certain people. I didn't find...

Did you ever feel unsafe? I didn't feel unsafe. No. And I found everyone to be very nice that I spoke to. I had my phone out of times because I used Google Translate because I acknowledge... Are there people who had bad experiences that I've not seen? No, I'm saying like generally speaking. Like there's...

I understand people say this might be a scare tactic, but I'm not diminishing. You know, I did get messages from people via instant. Instagram and Twitter saying this is very real. But in my experience, I found it no different than any major city. I walked around the, you know, I'm not a huge coffee drinker, but I had a lot of coffee when I was down there and it was good. Were you buzzing? Was I buzzing that?

I mean, you're a lot of coffee. You're not a coffee drinker. Yeah, no. I didn't sleep a lot down there. So, and the coffee was, it was good and it was very, very, I mean. Everything's very affordable, relatively speaking. The conversion rate is favorable. Beneficiary, yeah.

Yeah, so that, I definitely like that. That was the biggest thing for you. I had like a breakfast the day of the game. I walked out like to the area of town where I was in. Like I left the premises of the hotel and I went. And I got like three things. And then I do the conversion rate. And it was like $4.23.

American. This is like a this was a coffee and a grilled cheese sandwich and a pastry. I love grilled cheese for breakfast. And that's actually something that they specialize in in Brazil. It's like a cheese, not the cheese bread, but the bread with the melted cheese. It's actually a popular Cuban thing, but they have this year as well. I'd like to ask people what they recommend. And they recommended this, but it was like four dollars.

Classic Brazilian delicacy, grilled cheese. Well, I'm simplifying it. I mean, but the bread and. They're very proud of their produce there. Everything's fresh, right? But I found it to be very nice. The only downside, the only downside, honestly, and I think anyone would tell you this there.

And I got warned of this, and then this was actually, it came to fruition, is the traffic is like unbearable in the sense that it took us three hours to get to the game. And we're saying in the shuttle, you could get to the Giants game and the commander's game. in less time. Not the Commenders game necessarily. But I mean, like the three hours is legit. And there was someone from the Philadelphia area who was going to the game who I was going to say hello to. And that person planned to get there at five.

And they didn't get there until past seven. Yeah. Because of the traffic. And I mean, getting anywhere, getting back from practice was three hours. I think the Packers, it took them. two hours to get to the stadium like it is it's it is real in terms of how big it is and how much how much traffic there is uh so that that was really the only downside i wish i had more time there i would love to go back i would really love to experience rio i saw an interview on philtoffegals

com i'll give him credit with roger cadale where he said that he can see this growing to uh to rio next similar to how the first germany game was in frankford and now there's one in munich that he can see this being an annual thing and going to Rio. I can't imagine the Eagles are going to be there next, but I would love the chance to go to Rio. I saw all the videos of Eagles fans groups in Rio, and Rio seems. I've heard people say, you were there.

That's the most beautiful. My favorite places of ever been. Yeah, so I would love to experience Rio. But I found the food terrific. Shout out to E.J. Smith and his love, Julia, for recommending a restaurant that actually... You said it was one of the best. meals of your life. One of the best meals of my life. And not just that, but a viewer recommended

the place a month ago, I'm sorry, a few weeks ago in the DMs. And I did not see it until he responded, great recommendation by Mrs. Smith. Yeah, it was awesome. And, uh, well, I really thumbed your nose at this guy. This guy was trying to give you the heads up and all of a sudden you're giving someone else credit for the recommendation. One thought, I mean, I went there because E.J's wife recommended. I was going to dinner with me. I picked the place the first night. E.J. I picked a place the second night. The first night was... How did E.J.'s wife know about it?

I think, like, Yelp reviews, things like that. Okay. All right. What was the rest of the food diary, aside from the mall station or the mall buffet sushi? No, that was at the hotel. I went around the mall and there were different buffets there. But then I went back to the hotel and I had... Oh, you got the hotel buffet sushi?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I roll. But... else. So I had, so the two dinners out were awesome, awesome steak both nights, but with other stuff that was very good. The press box food was good.

Oh, interesting. Yeah, press box food. It was really good pasta in there. There was, there were different, you know, there were different Brazilian sides and whatnot. The cheese bread is the thing there. I love the cheese bread. Yeah, that was good. They had this dessert, which was like, now E.J. put this on Twitter or his wife put it on Twitter for him.

I can't describe it. It's like a small chocolate covered something or other, but it was really good. I'll get the exact description. Aren't you a professional wordsmith? Yes, but I wasn't prepared to tell you about. Chocolate covered what? All right. I'm going to pull this up. Is it testicles? Why does that come to mind?

Because it's the other word you couldn't bring yourself to say on this episode. All right. I'm going to find this just because you had to make it weird. Okay, here you go. I just, it's, how would you say that? Paula Italia, it's condensed milk and a chocolate. It's a chocolate covered condensed milk. Okay.

Paula Italiana. And it was really good. It was really good. Was your other dinner out with the same group that you went to the first dinner out with? Yes. Yeah. All right. Keeps flirting with the X.

Or just having dinner with friends. Okay. Yes. And but this, the steak is really high quality. The sides, really good. I mean,

the shrimp, I told you about the shrimp. They were the size of prawns. You know, their size of lobsters, right? And shrimp the size of prawns is a really good line. The size of lobster. That was awesome.

And just, and then I would go out for breakfasts and, And. Get that grilled cheese and tomato soup? There was no tomato soup. No, a lot of coffee. A lot of coffee. It kept recommending the cappuccino.

So I went with the cappuccino. But one day I went with just the coffee. I was trying to find sugar cane juice. Could not find sugar cane juice. It's so funny to me that the buffet thing was the hotel and not even the mall. Well, no, I went to the mall. I went to the, there were three different mall buffets. and then I didn't want to get the mall buffet

and I came back and I was like all right I'm going to get like a sandwich at the hotel and then the hotel the lunch there was a buffet so I'm like all right well I'm here I'm not going to go back but that was that was And then you got the sushi That was the day I got there

Well they among other things I had the stews too Remember that? Yes what you thought was not very good No I didn't think it was bad I just there I'm not going to relitigate the stew Do you get some moheca Moheca?

Moheca what's the mohaca Like the fish? stew. Oh, yeah. It was good. It was good. I'm just saying I'm not a big stew for lunch guy in the summer or in, but it was good. Now, what was the dynamic like when you got back to your house, Zach, knowing that your wife proved that she could do your job arguably better than you? Well, my wife can do everything better than me. I mean, she's for those unfamiliar. I sent her my tweets. She was tweeting it out. By the way, become a diehard. And you can read everything that Zach writes himself, including the live blog that he did during the game.

But go ahead. She was copying and pasting the tweets, but then she also put her own flair. She put some photos up of her and my two amazing children. How did that make you feel? Obviously, she is less private than you are. Did you bristle at all that, you know, your Twitter feed now includes pictures? I mean, I didn't love that, but I love her. So it was important for her.

You know, she wanted to kind of show that. But then that took on a life of its own. And, you know, Diana Rossini from the athletic interview of her. You got the reporting greats circling over the story. And look, I mean, she and Sports Illustrated had something on her, Sports Illustrated had a piece. And an awful announcing had a piece. My position is this. I am so proud of her.

Like, in general that she's my wife, that I'm her husband. I should say. I'm so proud that I'm her husband, I should say. I'm so proud of her that she's my wife. I'm so proud of her that I'm her husband. And so any attention that she gets is awesome. So I, it's like 15 seconds of fame, but she, she deserves a better. Who's to say?

Yeah. Why can't she be on our show on a regular basis? I would say better her than me, right? But I'm proud of her. And I put her in a tough spot last week in general, like it was. And, you know, when I, I didn't leave at the best time. You know, she's got, you know, the kids are starting school. She's got some professional stuff that she's, you know, in the middle of.

And so, like, it wasn't an ideal time for me to go away. And then in addition to all she was doing, I'm like, hey, can you handle my Twitter account? Can you put up the inactive? Can you put up the practice squad elevations? Can you put up the photos and the videos? And she was amazing about that. Like, she has everything. So, yeah.

So let me ask a question. So the behind the scenes. of, you know, what you want her to tweet and all this stuff. What percentage of tweets that you wanted to send? Did you actually send to Emily? Oh, like 20%. There's a lot more that I wanted to put up there, but I didn't want to burden her on it.

And I didn't want to get into, like, sending as many folks, you know, because typically I would want to put out all our articles, right? Yeah. And we had a day where, I mean, Bo killed it with a special section. everyone reads it I'm looking at the numbers people are reading it people are subscribing to it but typically I would want to send like seven articles for her to put up now this was the first day of it you know before she kind of really got into posting everything yeah and so that's one thing I would I would during the game I

would want to kind of refresh some stuff that's you know something's in the news or something happens in a game I wrote about this during the spring or wrote about this during the summer I didn't want to burden her with that Also, half time, I told her before the game, I'm like, Emily, you don't have to do in-game stuff. I'm starting a live blog for this reason. Watch the game with three. Go to bed at the end of the quarter. I appreciate everything you did.

And she said, no, she'll do this until halftime. And so we kind of did until halftime. But then I, so it kind of stopped abruptly there. And then, yeah, but she was amazing. But to answer your question, probably like 20%, 30%. Now, does that potentially reframe for you in your mind? What's an important tweet to send? No.

No. A matter of fact, yeah, I mean, I didn't want to get into it with you the other day, but I, like, disagreed with you when you said this isn't a part of your job. And I disagree because I think, for instance, number one, the fact that her tweeting got attention illustrates that, like, this is a way people are following it. But more importantly, my job is to go to where the customers are, right? And you attract customers that way. If a tree, it's the old trope or an old line, if a tree falls in the forest and no one's there, right?

If no one's there to tweet about it, did it actually make sense? No, but I need to go to where the audience is. So if there's, what, 85,000 people who are following on Twitter and I'm like saying, oh, I don't need to tweet to you. Like that's a missed opportunity. There's a, it's, it's not a conversion rate. It's, it's not a 100% conversion rate. But if 85,000 people are following and let's say 10,000 people see a tweet and 4,000 people

click on the link, that's an audience of 4,000 people that we're bringing in. So yeah, you, you go where the people are. It's, it's why advertisers are advertising for stuff on PHLY, because people are watching. For your Twitter? No, I'm saying because people are watching. So, yeah. So the point is. I, yeah, no, it doesn't show it's important.

What it showed, by the way, and other people would agree with me on this. When I say other people, other reporters, is how much this is in your muscle memory. Because to give kind of background or to paint the picture, if you log on to Twitter or X, however you want to frame it in Brazil, it doesn't come up. Like, it's just a blank page, right? And but invariably every time you go on, you put in Twitter.com. And so it's like, it's in your muscle memory to do that. And then the inactive's come out and I'm on the bus and or I'm not. I wasn't on the bus.

And like you want to put the inactive's out. Yeah. Well, I think this is part of the discussion is I think there's a difference between, you know, when you're tweeting out quotes after the fact that are, you know, illuminating or when you're tweeting out analysis or things like that. But, like, you know, the anecdote from the Diana conversation with Emily about, like, you being upset that Jeff got the inactives first or something like that or whatever. Like, that stuff doesn't matter at all. Yeah, I would say how you.

I mean, at all. Okay. We can disagree. How. It's not even breaking news. It's just a, it's just like a release. Yeah, but people are coming to you for, you want to be. But they don't care.

They don't remember who's first and they don't care who's first. But you want to, but you want to, it's becoming a soci. with providing them information. So they want to know, all right, this is the source information. So if, yeah, so that I stand by that. People are saying VPN. Now I want to know. Yeah, did you, now that you're out of Brazil,

you don't have to be worried about it. How much did you flirt with the? Well, no, I had a VPN. So I could watch the game on Thursday night in English. You didn't want to just. I didn't tweet from the VPN because I saw the $81,000 fine or $80,000, sorry, not $8,000. $1,800 fine.

And I don't know how they would track that, but I didn't want to take the risk. It's like, you know, I mean. But you had a, you had the perfect cover story. You, I mean, the media is telling everybody, Diana's doing this great job, telling everybody that Emily's tweeted for you.

You could have come under the, under the hood and started tweeting yourself. Now, you could also, you could also tweet from your phone, like Twitter would work from your phone. But again, I'm like, to your point, is this worth it? Like, it's better to just abide by the rules than put that out there.

So, yeah, so that's kind of why I went, I took the approach that I did. I can tell you when I started, I did not intend for it to take on a life of its own there. Had Emily not posted the photo, I don't think people would have realized. But, yeah, I'm happy she's getting the attention. How about the flight home? Anything interesting for flight? Yeah, so this is what I'll say. I've never, I've never been an all-nighter guy.

in that and this was the first time so we got back from the bus at 4 a.m. I finished writing my story at like 4.45 and I was a zombie writing it. And then we were leaving for the airport at 6. So I did. You can't sleep. The flight was at 10. So I kind of waited until 10. I dozed off a bit on the hour car ride to the airport.

But I wasn't jet lag, but I was as tired as. I've ever been in my entire life there because it was saying a lot going all the postgame pods. Yeah, I know. This was I like the the article that I put up was like incoherent. And then I got to the air, fortunately, I don't think anyone was it was I couldn't tweet it out, right? And so I don't think anyone was reading it at 4 a.m. Eastern time. By the time I got to the airport, I edited it through it with, I don't want to say clear her eyes,

but I took like a 30 minute nap in the car ride. and that it was much better there. But yeah, Khalif says ZB, not being an all-nighter guy, is kind of crazy to me. I got to say, I try to get, even before these flights, like two hours just to get, even if it's not an R.E.M. sleep, some type of restorative sleep. And I didn't get any restorative sleep. Did you sleep on the plane? Yeah, I slept not as much as the plane there or not as many hours as the plane there.

It's about three, four hours in the plane. but actually I think that was better for me because I slept like a baby. I got over eight hours on Saturday night. Now, I had to miss some of the Colorado Nebraska game. Oh, man. You're going to be lying on your deathbed regretting that one. I missed that. And then I was on the All-City NFL show last night.

And I took a little nap before that because I didn't think I was going to make it to midnight. But, yeah, but I think fortunately, it's a week here where I can get now. I have to get up early each day to do stuff with the kids, but I'll try. I can go to bed earlier this week, although Monday night game tonight, debate tomorrow night. But the presidential debates tomorrow night.

Here in Philadelphia, matter of fact of it. Yeah. Right over there. No. Yes. Is that the Constitution Center? Yeah. Right over there.

Yeah. I mean, I'm right. I know where I am. It's right here. This way. No, it's this way. It's that way, Zach. Oh, yeah, all right.

You're right. I know I'm right. I know where I am. Relax. Relax. Yeah, it is that way. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, who you're rooting for? Who am I rooting for? I'm running for the country. Yeah. I'm running for the country. Good answer. Yeah. All right.

Well, that'll do it for this episode of the P.H.O.I. Eagles podcast. Zach, we're happy to have you back. It's good to be back. Happy to have your stories. And we're going to be back tomorrow with Fran Duffy, the three of us, a little three-man weave. We're looking forward to that. A little further dive into the film and all that good stuff.

You can read Fran's pieces on all p.hly.com along with Zach's pieces as well. And a nice column from Les Bowen on the Jalen Hertz experience. I want to tell you what, Zach is a man who likes a deal. The value of that diehard subscription. keeps increasing. I'll tell you that. So for all of us here at PHLY, we thank you for watching.

Thank you for listening. We will talk to you tomorrow at 2 o'clock. And as always, we love you.