PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - PHLY Eagles Podcast | Turning the page to the Saints (sorta)

Episode Date: September 18, 2024

Join hosts Jamie Lynch and Rich Hoffman as they get their final thoughts about Monday Night’s debacle off their chests & look ahead to the New Orleans Saints on Sunday. Super Bowl champion Vinny Curry joins the show at 2:30 to discuss moving on from tough losses and playing in New Orleans. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome in. I guess I should do my best, uh, Bo Wolf here. Uh, hello everybody. Uh, welcome into the pH, Y Eagles podcast. Jamie Lynch, Rich Hoffman here with you. We are presented by Bet 365. Find out why it's never ordinary. At bet three six five, you can enter promo code pHLY 365. And we love our friends over at at Bet 365, even though Rich, uh, this weekend was a blood bath out there. They took a lot of my money. They took a lot of my money on Dallas Goddard props on Monday night. And let's just start. We're going to get to Zach Berman at 10 after the hour here. Vinnie Curry is going to join us at 2.30.

A lot to get into. And we'll talk about Nick's press conference here in one second. But I have to be honest, I was shocked. Now, five years ago when I became a father, I stopped kind of letting Eagles games affect me the next day. It was a conscious effort on my part. It was tough. It was something I had to go like, all right, Jamie, you can't, wear an eagle's loss on your sleeve the next morning when you're hugging your girls and

doing your routine. Yeah, it was like a really, it was a hard thing for me to do. And I, and I pretty much did it. Like even after the Super Bowl, I was just kind of like down and sad. I wasn't really angry. Yeah. I woke up, I woke up Tuesday morning, Rich. It was back. I was, you know, every scenario replayed through my head, uh, the Siriani strategy, uh, you know, decisions. we'll get into the drop pass, the lack of defense, the lack of pass rush. All of it just came like rushing back to me on Tuesday morning. And I had Eagles rage for the first time in like five years.

No, I did too, Jamie. And I, you know, I have, I'm coming at this from a little bit different of a perspective as you because I have covered the Eagles a little bit. Sure. In a professional manner like ZB, not as professionally as ZB, but certainly been in press conferences and gone to games and things like that. And obviously with the Sixers for me, I've had that beaten out of me. I'm still very passionate about basketball, but Sixers win or lose, I'm not feeling bad

the next day or whatever. I'm with you, man. That was, I wouldn't even say the next morning. I would say right after the Eagles lost that game, I was like embarrassing. I was like my 16 year old self. Like I'm just like, I'm screaming like Sequin at the TV. It really was. And then, you know, like Monday night, I guess doing the post game,

I kind of like kept my emotions in check and maybe like blocked it out a little bit. And I didn't really hate the play call when it happened. But Bo was like screaming, you know, right away. Like you got to go for it on fourth down. That's why he's better than us, though, because he can internalize that and right away spit out like that was. I would take Bo Wolfe's game in-game strategy over Nick Sirianni's right now, to be honest with you. he's certainly less emotional I'll tell you that

no it's true that's where Bo is different from us where I was curious about what happened on that play but I was more frustrated with Sequin more frustrated with the defense and then when you were on the show with Bo afterwards and he was talking about it I thought to myself

like man he's absolutely right like this is uh like that was such a bonehead move and here's the thing Jamie and I think this will get into you know when we talk to Zee be in a little bit. It's okay for you and I to get emotional and not know, you know, every angle and be ready for every specific scenario. When you are the head coach of the football team that does nothing else, no play calling, no nothing, all of that has been taken off your plate.

That's not great. The old CEO head coach. And, you know, I got into it with Anthony a little bit on Monday morning, much like our own ZB did. And, you know, his point was the Mike Tomlins and John Harbaugh's of the world are CEO coaches and whatever their OC or DC calls, they don't change it. They don't get in the way of it. They trust in what they've implemented and they let their guys see it out. You know, my point was like, Siriani was like selectively aggressive in that game. Worst of both.

Yeah, like you can't, you can't put a toe in each water. the reason the Eagles won the Super Bowl in 2018, besides, you know, Nick Folles just playing, you know, the best seven quarters of football I've ever seen a quarterback play was because Doug Peterson had his foot on the gas pedal and he never once thought about picking it off. He was aggressive every single time. And it provided like a consistency where you knew what to expect. So, you know, if Doug is there in the first half and he goes and he decides not to kick the field goal and he goes forward on fourth down, you go, all right, well, they're going to get this back because it's going to be aggressive again down the last. line and it's going to pay off for us. And you kind of had that. And I think him taking that late field goal to go up six was almost the unaggressive after being aggressive. Like the third down play was aggressive. It really should have been four down territory.

And you should have run the ball on third down to kill the clock and then be aggressive and go forward on fourth down since the clock stops anyway. So he kind of like inverse. And I think that's where it leaves me, you and some others like scratching our heads of like Is my wife finally good here? Yeah, you just kind of clouded out there for a quick second, but there you are. No, I agree. Yeah, this collective aggressiveness.

Like, just be aggressive. The decision to run. I think this is where Cuzz was making that point on Monday and he was hammering at home. And I think I more and more agreed with that part of it, where if you're going to be aggressive on third down, you got to be willing to go for it on. Yes, that was the mistake. Yes. That was, that was the issue.

And it's just, I don't know. It was frustrating, man. I don't, I don't really think there's a defense for it. And frankly, it's part of the reason why this CEO coach idea, this is where, you know, you could see the blemishes in that. You can see the weaknesses, right? Because he has to be completely buttoned up with this. But, Jamie, here's the thing.

He's not an analyst. He's not an analytics guy. He is a football coach. So when you give him like situational football all on his plate, he might not be able to do it. It seems to me, honestly, because he gave an answer to Bo today about like, okay, we go back. We look at all the fourth downs under fourth and five since like, what was it, 2020, 2020, something like that. First of up, I think there's a flaw in that argument.

But it's clear that he actually works hard at this, right? Yeah. But I just think the methodology is flawed. Whereas in 2017, like you said, the reason that the Eagles won the story. Super Bowl. One of the reasons. I don't want to take anything. It was a big one. All of the players, including Vinny, is going to be on the show in a little bit. They were all great. But that was a huge part of the reason that the Eagles won. And a lot of that was, I think it was Ryan Pagnetty.

If I have that wrong, somebody was just radioing down to Magnetic. Yeah, he was radioing down to Doug. Like, just go. And Doug was like, great. But here's the thing. You can take that. You can take that off the coach's plate when the coach is calling all the plays, right? Doug's like, that's fine. Like, I got a lot to do otherwise. And it just, I don't know. It was, it was really bad. And, you know, I think like, wherever you fall on the kick versus go to bait. And it's clear that somebody like Anthony says, you know, Bill Parcells played this in the 80s another way. We're, to me, honestly, even being pro analytics, like, like, forget that. We won a Super Bowl with a guy who just was like, we're going. Like,

I feel like life experience would just lead an Eagles fan to be just pro going for it all the time. But the one thing I will say, James, is that wherever you fall on that debate, the other point I would make is that Jeffrey Lurie and Howie Roseman, I know where they stand on the aggressiveness continuum. I know where they stand. And it's not with with Cuzz and Bill Parcells and all those people. So like, look, that was a disaster how that went. It really, it really was. Yeah. You know, live during the Manning cast, Peyton Manning and Eli had on Penn Charter's finest and Matt Ryan while that play happened.

And Peyton was in the Anthony camp of that's why you run the ball there. There's too many variables to a play going wrong. And to me, like when you look at it, the clock was the most important thing. You decline it. You kind of played, you know, you declined the third down penalty. You made the Falcons kill. all their timeouts. The clock was the most important thing to me.

And then Matt Ryan, on the other hand, it was very interesting to see two, you know, modern era quarterbacks. It's a little bit different of a game than Peyton's prime per se. But two modern era quarterbacks argue about it. And one thought, no, that was the absolute right play call. Matt Ryan said the play call was there. It was right.

And then Peyton was like, no, that's not what you do. So I thought that was pretty fascinating to see two guys, you know, with Ph.D. levels of football. having the ball in their hands every possession. Even they were split on it, Rich. So it kind of just, you know, my opinion, your opinion, Anthony's opinion, they're all a little bit right. It's kind of that beautiful football strategy of it of what do you do?

And unfortunately, we sit here and dissect it being wrong because they lost. And there is another alternate reality out there where Sequin catches it. Eagles are sitting two and O and everybody's pretty happy. But we're not there. And we're going to check back in with Rich momentarily, a little bit of a Wi-Fi issue, but it's a great time for me to tell you about a company I've used now since we launched here at PHLY. It's game time. And right now, if you use code PHLY for $20 off, game time is awesome.

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Hertz later today. So here throughout the day. All right, well, why don't you give us the ZB notes on today's press conference? Obviously, Nick had a lot to talk about, Zach. We were just talking about you could talk endlessly about the strategic aspect of Monday night's loss and the coach's philosophy. And Rich and I were talking about in 2017, you won the Super Bowl in part because Doug Peterson was always aggressive and never took his foot off the gas. What did Nick Siriani have to say today? Yeah, this was Nick's first time speaking since post game. So a lot of the questions were about the decisions after the game. And those who watched, oh, I should say the decisions at the end of the game. And those who watched the PHLY Eagles show yesterday, you saw Professor

Selman outlined why going from three to six was not the right move at least from a data perspective. And Nick Siriani said that he has more conviction in it today than he did when he made it. He spent the day looking at his decisions. He referenced teams around the league who have gone for the fourth and three or for a similar type of situation when the score is, you know, between, I think, two and five or thereabouts. I need to look at that specifically.

Basically, when you would go into a situation where you don't make it a two-score game. And he felt strongly in the decision that he made. I still disagree with him, but that was kind of the logic behind it. Now, I asked him specifically, what did the chart tell you? and he said his chart said to go for it, meaning like his personal decision was to go for it. He said you can find online 20 different charts that that tell you otherwise, but he kind of has to go with his experience.

He talked about being an offensive coach and needing to go the length of the field for a touchdown, what that does compared to having to go for a field goal. So look, he's the head coach. This is his prerogative. I found that answer to be curious for this reason. As you guys well know, Jeffrey Lurie is analytically declined. I'm sorry, analytically inclined. Incline, not declined, inclined, inclined.

I'm still catching up from sleep from Monday. Tell me about it. So, yeah, analytically inclined. So the fact that they did not go with with what the, data suggested in a critical moment, I found to be surprising. Zach, I also, this was kind of a, it felt like a little bit of a shorter, more of a throwaway question, but I thought it was interesting that he said that there was no analytical suggestion for whether to run or pass on third down. And like, look, on the one

hand, I feel bad for Nick in that like, Sequin, just catch the ball. Like just, just please, please catch the ball. But on the other hand, like, if you are going to be willing to kick, then you should run it, right? Like if you're going to be willing to make them go the whole field, right? I don't know. It just, that bothered me a little bit too. Yeah.

So that part I get, you know, like the, the charts on giving you play call suggestions as much as it is giving, you know, go forward or not. But there is like green light. Yeah, there is big picture thinking. as far as running or passing. And, you know, you know, certainly there's data that would tell you,

you know, the probability of them scoring within 50 seconds compared to a minute and a half or, or what it might be. So, yeah, to your point there, if you're going to kick the field goal, then you're going to make them drive the length of the field, then you certainly want less time on the clock than to do so.

Zach, did he get into, this was something that became more of a, kind of thorn in my side, the more I digest the game. When they got the first down to Dallas Goddard, ESPN, you know, next-gen stats gave them a 42.1% chance to win the game at that point. That interception, I know Devante, you know, Nick said today, he slipped some and there was a couple issues. That was a worse and worse decision, the more and more I thought about it.

You know, you have two timeouts remaining. Was there any talk about just throwing the ball away? being a little bit headier. I know he's trying to play hero ball there, but that was a brutal, brutal decision by Jaylin there. Yeah. No, to answer your question,

Nick did not discuss that specifically today. That's a worthwhile discussion point. It's something that I, you know, I brought up on the show yesterday in that I don't think that got enough attention that they started a good chance when you came. And you saw the interception against Seattle last year,

not the same situation, but similar situation, right? Like there's, there's two things you don't, do if you're jailing Hertz in that spot. You don't take a sack and you don't throw the ball to the other team. Right. At that point, there were still 34 seconds on the clock. They still had one time out. They needed about 15 seconds to, or I'm sorry, they needed about 15 yards to go. So I found that to be a bad, bad error by G.O. and Hertz that kind of got overshadowed by what happened in

the previous minute and a half. Understandably so, too, because there were a lot of other places to blame, but it really did sink in like, man, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, should have done better there. That was that was a needless throw. Okay, Zeeb, I did see that Nick got asked a lot about the defense and other areas. I'll just frame it this way. Was there anything that he said that stuck out to you besides the clock management discussion for about seven minutes there? I thought the clock management was the most interesting part of it. Now, with the defense, he talked about how they can improve their run defense as far as getting off blocks, right? And that's a key component of it.

He expressed confidence in the coaching staff and the defensive coaching staff. And then, yeah, and there was a lot of talk about the Saints, or some talk about the Saints, the way that that Saints' offense is playing right now. But no, I found the most interesting parts of the press conference was, I want to say, I'm relitigating and explaining what happened at the end of that game. Yeah, I guess he wasn't into specifics about the defensive line. I guess that'll come with Fangio tomorrow. I'm really fascinated to see what kind of change.

come there, Zach. The more and more, you know, great work we see from Fran Duffy. By the way, his film article is up on all PHLY. Check that out. And others, I mean, Bryce Huff looks like he's borderline unplayable right now. So I'd really like to hear more from Vic. I'm sure Nick's not going to dive into that, but this defensive line is an issue. Absolutely. And it, the problem is there's a lot of investment here in this offensive line being good. When you look at the draft picks that they've spent, you know, their last three first round picks before Coyne Mitchell or defensive lineman edge rusher, right? Jaylon Carter, Nolan Smith, Jordan Davis.

Then you, you add in third round picks like Milton Williams, J. Alex Hunt. You add in $17 million a year for Bryce Huff. You add in 12 million plus for Josh Sweat. Yeah, they need to be, they need to rush the quarterback better than they do. they need to stop the run better than they do. And I think if the problem here is personnel, that's a concern because like I said, there's a lot invested in this personnel.

Real quick on that, Zach. Do you think there's a scheme versus personnel conflict? Well, certainly there's a scheme adjustment for Bryce Huff, right? I mean, he's in a different scheme than he was with the Jets. And really the only film you had of him was with the Jets. Now, that said, I think when you look at the last drive of the game, for instance, Got to have a situation for the Falcons. The Eagles did not touch Kirk Cousins, like literally did not touch him.

No quarterback hits. Nothing I would describe as pressure. It was, and in that situation, I personally think, and there can be football minds who disagree with me, this is your guy beat their guy, right? I mean, it doesn't need to be, you can talk about how they are on stunts and games, and I get that. But in those situations, is Assam Reddick going to beat the opposing offensive tackle? Is Bryce Huff going to beat the opposing offensive tackle, right? And I bring up Asan Redick because I've seen in the past two years, Hassan Redick beat the opposing the offensive tackle in those situations,

in late game money situations. And I did not see, you know, and if Bryce Huff came through with a sack on Kirk Cousins there, all the talk about how he's playing, how he struggles and early downs, that goes out the window. He's here to be an impact pass rusher. and the biggest concern right now is the fact that he's not an impact-bass rush.

Yeah, it's great stuff, Zach. We'll let you go so you can get to the locker room and continue the great writing on all PHLY, and we are less than a week away from your book release, so very exciting stuff in the ZB world. We're all pushing those books for you, buddy. But we appreciate you hopping on and make sure you read Zach tomorrow morning or later tonight.

I know you never sleep on all-PHLY.com. I appreciate it. Good talking, guys. All right. See, Zach. We should have got his thoughts on the rate cut by the Fed. He really, he loves getting financial advice. That is true. We are going to be joined by Vinnie Curry in about five or six minutes. But Rich, that's the other part when you remove yourself from.

And look, I think Peyton Manning and Matt Ryan disagreeing is like a great microcosm of, you know, there's no set answer. Like running on third down, milking the clock is probably the right answer. But you can dissect that one a million ways. You could talk about this exact end of the game for the next year if you wanted to. But the real problem was what Zach just said. Kirk Cousins on the final drive, I mean, I can't remember an Eagles defensive line that was that poor in that situation. Usually there's at least collapsed pockets or somebody buzzing around an edge and getting a hand up there.

something. I mean, we saw Jalen Carter getting one-on-one the majority of the game. Jordan Davis, they had no fear of. They ran right out throughout the game. Josh Sweat, I don't know what happened to two year ago, Josh Sweat, but it's certainly not the same player. Bryce Hoff, like the defensive line is a major issue, and we'll get into it with Vinny today. Yeah. Look, Jamie, this is kind of the line of demarcation for the conversation, the Eagles conversation. The last two days probably up until, up until Nick's press conference, he had to explain his thinking was about that specific game and the decision making at the end of the game. Run versus pass, uh, kick versus go, all of those things. Okay, I think that we can say

maybe right now at this point. It's over. Like I mean, he's, he's got to be better. And if another situation happens like that again, like that's another data point that probably doesn't speak to, uh, speak to him keeping his job in the long run. But like their bigger issue in the long run is the fact that this defensive line absolutely stinks. And I think you mentioned a good point there, too. Like, is it the players? Is it the scheme adjustment? Is it the scheme just being in conflict with the players that the Eagles drafted? Right? Because the one, this is really the first time that under Howie Roseman, they are playing this quote unquote, because I know, I know Vic doesn't like this, but the two gap, one and a half gap system where it's different, right? And the,

the responsibilities for the defensive line, but are not just like, get after the quarterback, which is basically what it has been. It certainly was that way under Jim Washburn all the way back. That was a stupid defense too. But under Jim Schwartz, like, go get the quarterback,

go pressure with four. That's why I think Vinny is kind of the perfect person to have on the day. Like, I want to know, like, what type of adjustment that is because he lived that. He got drafted in 2012. And I believe, yeah, that was Washburn was still here. but then they went to that Billy Davis type of defense. And it's, you know, in some ways, Jamie, I would say here, maybe I am too,

I'm thinking too much about last year in relation to this year. But last year, they won all of the bad process, doing stupid stuff, really defense struggling. They won all of those games, right? They won all of those games. And the conversation afterwards was, oh, man, like, look at them. They know how to win. Like this is a team with championship medal. Well, we saw in November and December and in January how much that really helped them when things got hard.

So in some ways, I'm a little bit positive in that like, okay, like sometimes failure is the best teacher. And losing this game, I just think like it is shined a light on the fact that this defensive line needs to get way, way better. And these guys from Georgia, too, like remember when the. I remember when the Philly dogs were like, that was like a cool thing. Yeah. I said this in the newsletter today. It's like the op. They're the bizarreo Villanova Nix, basically.

Like they're just, they're giving us nothing. The bigger program and giving you nothing. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of, Nicobi Dean, you know, I still don't really have any strong like pulse or feeling on what he is.

Zach Bonn, I saw in all the all 22 clips was just getting cut at the, below the knees all game long. They were just taking them off of the, feet. That wasn't a problem. Where's the adjustment on that? You know what I mean? Like, it didn't feel like there was an in-game adjustment that was like worthy of the game. Franon Vinny said this on the show as well when they just said, yeah, he's just on the ground too much. That's that's a problem. Like, and I think that goes beyond whatever the scheme is. Like,

like, you just can't like get blocked. Can allow that to happen. A linebacker so much. And I know like Chris Lidstrom was was doing those cut blocks and those are, I guess tricky. Like I remember when I was a grade school football player, when somebody cut you, that is like a crazy feeling. Like a guy is a big offensive lineman is about to block you. And then he's just on the ground. And the next thing you know, you're face down in the ground because you just got cut. I understand that that's tough.

But like for for linebackers, yeah, that is a fundamental problem, the ability to not get off blocks. I really just, you know, I know, I know Bryce, is the main culprit of this because he really just looked like unplayable. He was falling again. He was falling all over the place. Like like running aside week one, but like what is going on? It looks.

It's a really bad start. And I'm hoping that at least he can figure out the the pass rushing juice at some point here. But yeah, like it seems like they're just really struggling to get off blocks. And that's less of a Vic Fangio problem, I think, than a personnel problem. And it's weird, right? Because the Eagles, like, for better or worse, their philosophy under Howie Roseman for forever has been, all right, we are going to load up on the front four. And, you know, we'll try and piece it together. Certainly at linebacker, we're going to be bargain bin shopping there, but also in the secondary a little bit. And this is different, right? They put their resources from the draft and in free agency this year with C.J. Gardner Johnson in the secondary. They were sick of guys running into each other from last year. So this is different. But it's been a, it's been a, it's been a, a really rough first couple of weeks. I think that's... Yeah, it has. And the Bryce-Hoff thing that I want to get into with

Vinny a little bit is this was a guy in Next Gen stats, you know, said last year was one of the quickest get-off guys in the league, and it looks like he's engaging more with offensive linemen and not really pinning back his ears and going. But Vinny Curry will be joining us shortly here on the PHY Eagle Show, which of course is brought

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less filling. Taste like Miller time. To get Miller Lite delivered right to your door, visit Millerlight.com slash p. HLY Birds, or you can find it pretty much anywhere that sells beer. Celebrate responsibly Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories per 12 ounces, fewer calories and carbs than a premium regular beer. Vinnie will be with us shortly. We just lost an internet connection. Now, Vinnie's agent told me that Vinny has quite a backdrop for his home office set up. I think we may see a little visit from a possible trophy in his backdrop. So we'll see what's going on. But Rich, what I was talking about right before there, the reason they signed Bryce Hoff, a big reason why was because in a limited sample size,

you know, less than 50% of the snaps, we know his getoff rate, his quickness off the line. His pop time. Yeah, like that was why they gave him 17 million. They thought that was going to translate to this defense instantaneously. And then if he's getting to the quarterback, you know, nine to ten times a year, you can deal with him not being able to play the run as well. Look, I'm not Fran Duffy or some of these other guys breaking down the All-22, but some of the footage I've seen, he's not really pinning ears back and going. He's almost like standing up in this in-between, engaging too much with linemen.

I don't know if it's just that adjustment period to a new defense. So we'll find out from Vinnie momentarily. but that's like, where's the, where's the quick getoff time? Where's burning by somebody and getting outside on the edge and making the quarterback step up in the pocket? We just haven't seen it. I've been thinking, Jamie, because of the Hassan Reddick drama in New Jersey for the last couple months where, you know, this guy is not even doing, Joe Douglas. What are you doing? It's funny because a lot of Eagles fans were laughing at that.

And I understood that to an extent, right? I was like, howie, howie. Well, see, that's where you were wrong, though. Oh, I totally wrong. See, laughing at Joe Douglas is fair because it's like, what is that? Come on, it's day one stuff. If you trade for a guy who does or who wants a new contract and you're going to say like, yeah, we're not going to offer you a new contract that you want.

Like, what are you doing? But with this Bryce Huff development here, you have to replace it. You have to replace it. And honestly, I like, I wasn't channing Howie at the time. thought like the Eagles are in a better position here, right? Because they have a guy who wants to play football for them who at least can get to the quarterback. But now, I mean, watching him against the run the other night, man, like, it looks like he had like really never played against the run before. He looked like, like he's just kind

of running around like, like he's got like roller skates on or something. It's just like it didn't make any sense to me. And obviously, like you said, not being able to get to the, uh, the is the bigger issue. We would be able to forgive him if, uh, if he did get the Kirk Cousins on that last drive, if he did that. But it was really rough. Like I see tweets that are like, Nolan Smith should get those snaps over him. I believe Fran said that the other day. Like, like Nolan Smith probably should play against the run over, uh, over Bryce up. That's not great. Nolan Smith is like no great shakes at this point. I just, uh, I just criticized him earlier. And it just makes me think like, man, what a miserable sequence of transactions.

in the Northeast with football. Nobody's happy right now with the with the Jets Eagles defensive end swap of 2024. Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's certainly concerning Josh. I used to be a huge Josh Swett fan. Not that I'm not a fan. Like I wish him well. But like I thought this guy, you know, his first year showed you a glimpse.

And then I was like, all right, the second year, he started to come on. And you're like, all right, they got this highly recruited D-end out of high school. I think he was like top five. in the country or something, you know, had the knee injuries finally recouped. And then he kind of had, you know, some breakout years, you know, getting around that 10 sacks for like two straight years. I don't know where that guy has gone. Is that just an adjustment or has he lost a step and is, or the injuries caught up with him?

You know, I saw Jimmy Kemski saying, like, Jalick's hunt at least would give you better effort than Bryce would right now. So I don't know what they do. I think it's a fascinating element of the New Orleans game is what does Vic do? because now he's going to get the full spotlight of Eagles fans and Eagles media attention because it's such a glaring problem. So I think this is a fascinating Vic Fangio game on Sunday. Well, and people afterwards said, like, why didn't you blitz more?

And the counter, I would say to that is he brought the house on that one play. And it ends up with, uh, was that the CJ Gardner Johnson? Yeah, blown Mooney tackle. Yeah. Blowing the Darnell Mooney tackle. And Darnell Mooney is doing a somersault into your, uh, in your, uh, in your zone. Not ideal. Not ideal, right? And so that's the, those, those are the issues, right? Like, that's the, that's the downside of blitzing. But like, there probably is a middle ground, right?

Like, I think he sent both linebackers on that play. Like, are there some run blitzes you could, you could bring? Here's an idea that I had just watching the game, because I think the Eagles are in nickel so much. And, and Avanti Maddox, obviously has been a really tough player for a lot of his career. Like, very good tackler. I'm not really trying to. versatile yeah but cooper de jean i think is like the strength in his game is going downhill right now and i understand that's not the most important part of the of the nickel position but run support is like a sneaky important part of it so maybe you play him more i don't know maybe you send him off the edge a little bit more i don't know what exactly the right answer is but yeah man it's it's a disaster

like those bjean robinson lanes that he had to run i think their running backs were were over six yards of carry. It felt worse than that, man. Like it really did. Yeah, it did. Like at least when Sequin breaks these runs, like he's like making some great juke in the backfield. He's making some awesome cutback. And that's part of the reason I'm loving Saquine. That's not to say that Mackay Beckton and Cam Jergens are not moving guys because they are. Yeah. They are as well. But man, like these Bejan Robinson lanes, like I feel like I could get like three or four yards of carry on those. And I, I would like die after one

snap playing in the NFL. I'm pretty sure I would just like, uh, just turn into dust if I got hit by some of these guys. If I got hit by a linebacker who was not even running at full speed, I actually, yeah, I would evaporate. Yes, exactly. And one of the other guys on the D-line here is Jordan Davis. And Rich, when it comes to evaluating, you know, draft picks and rookies, you know, three years is kind of a fair window.

You don't want to over judge a guy too quickly in year one, year two. You know, you want to see those steps. And that's where Nolan Smith is right now. you want to see him take that next step and show you that by year three, you know, he is kind of, I don't want to say a fully baked pie, but like you have a pretty good idea of what that person is. Jordan Davis is in year three. And I don't have a really good idea of what he is.

What my gut is telling me is Kyle Hamilton would have been a better draft pick for the Philadelphia Eagles. Sure. He's the new Earl Thomas. Yeah, unfortunately, you just have to play that game, right? Well, you just hope that Jordan. Davis can figure it out at some point. And he doesn't have to become as great as Brandon Graham was, but like at least a serviceable player, Jamie, the thing that worries me about Jordan Davis is,

you know, we talked about the changing schemes. To me, whatever Vic Fangio wants to call what he's doing right now is that that feels like that is more Jordan Davis's game, right? Like I know, you know, he showed a little bit of pass rush juice at Georgia, but the idea of like take up space, be hard to run against. This feels like this should be all you, man. And, Through the first couple weeks, even though they are getting completely gashed, he's playing less than half the snaps right now. So it's not great. Yeah. And one of the other things that isn't great.

And Vinny just texted me back. He said he was making the backdrop look right. Look nice. Oh, and we're getting told by our producer that Vinny is now ready. The backdrop is up and nice. Oh, my God. What? That is beautiful.

Are those the Jordans behind? or is that a wine cellar? What's going on here? No, no, yeah. These are all the J's and the Lombardi. What a room. The Lombardi. Lloyd said, this is all, yeah, a little nice little liquor cabinet.

Oh, man, that is a nice room. Very similar to my wine room, Vinnie, me and you. Yeah. So, Vinny, we were just talking about it. Look, Monday, we were kind of in a state of shock. You said, you know, you feel like you're still in that locker room and everybody's pissed. like you felt angry.

Walk us through the process of what it's like on that short week. You get in there Tuesday. You said the coaches might have been sleeping in the office, just breaking through the film. They're pissed off. Everybody's pissed off. Tuesday, you get in there. Is Wednesday kind of turn the page day?

Are you still going over some stuff? Like, walk us through your week in that defensive line room on a short week. Oh, man. Yeah. So, you know, the days to get, listen, just because it's a short week, doesn't mean the day is long. Yeah. It's definitely as long.

Just to take the taxing off your body. So I'm pretty sure they probably went in there, watched the film, you know, went over the mistakes, cut it in half, and then now the second half of your day, I will say post-lunch, will go on to New Orleans,

you know, and it's definitely got to turn the page because, listen, in the beauty of sports, it's always about what have you done for me lately. So they get another opportunity at this thing you know, I'm here this weekend and they got to convince us, man.

They got to just, you know, play the ball that we know and truly hope and aware of their capable of playing. Vinnie, because you played the position, I am very curious how the regular defensive end views run defense, right? Because I think a lot of the D-Ns, they get judged by fans, they get paid a lot of times on, do they get to the quarterback? do they make sacks? But after watching how poor the run defense was over the past couple of days,

like for you and just for the average defensive end, how do you view kind of run defense, your role in it? Is it something that probably gets swept under the rug for us fans? Like, how do you view it? Absolutely. You know, for a lot of my career, you know, I was the dirty work, you know, run stuff. You were.

I've also rushed to pastor. But, you know, you guys just got to understand it. what it is to, you know, set the edge, you know, at Philadelphia, you know, who hanging their hat on defensive line play, that's why it's so easy for it to stick out now. Like, wait, hold on, this don't look right. You know what I mean?

And, listen, man, they guys, the biggest things, the takeaways from Monday was, you know, setting the edge, getting off blocks, and freaking staying on your feet, you know, those are just like the biggest three takeaways, and the rest will take care of itself. Once you stop to run, you know, you're earning their right to, you know, rush the passer.

But then you go to the past rush situations, you're so worried about the run because they had elusive running backs that now you're just in no man's land. Yeah. It feels like a thing that goes so underrated. Like, it feels like something. It's insane, but they also, let me tell you, like, they also used to, and that's what I'm saying, because, you know, the coaching staff,

I'm pretty sure, you know, they told them, you know, you got to know your opponent, man. And, like, the players just got to, you know, put it all together. Vinny, you said guys, you know, got to stay on your feet and all that. And some of the Bryce Huff footage we've seen, week one was a bad field. So we kind of got the pass. Saw him down on the ground a decent bit in week two. The other guy that the Atlanta Falcons seem to attack with Chris Lindstrom a lot was Zach Bonn.

They were cutting them low, getting them off his feet and just keeping them out of the ground. And that probably contributed to their success on the ground. What do you do in that situation, whether you're an N that's getting cut, a linebacker that's getting cut? How do you kind of counter that in game? to take that away from them. Right. So, you know, in that case, Zach was all over the field. Yeah.

We won. In order to slow, you know, the Eagles defense down, you have to slow down that engine. And he was the engine, I would say, you know, in week one. So once you slow him down, they was trying to, I think, frustrated him at times. And once you slow him down is now everybody else is just, I want to, I don't want to say kind of slowing down as well, but at the same time, you, when they understand that that linebacker is getting slowed down, now it really magnifies that it's time for defensive line play to step it up.

You know what I mean? And that's something that they do at practice. I know that for a fact that they work on, you know, disengaging in blocks, getting your hands on somebody, you know, working the cup block, you know, now you just have to all put it together and show it out there on Monday night, which we didn't see. Finney, the people want you back in the chat. They really, they want somebody that is willing to do the dirty work

that people don't notice when things are going well. The other big question I had for you, because, again, like, you lived it, you played the position. When you were switching defenses from, and I know it's more technical than this, but from like a 4-3, one gap where you're just getting up the field, that's the main goal, to a different defense, which I believe you did, right, in 2013 when Billy Davis got here. What type of adjustment is that like for all of the defensive linemen?

For the biggest thing per se was just the point of contact. You know, how fast can you get your hands from the ground to the man? You know, not really, you know, reading, but I would say dictating the block, dictating which way you want them to go. You know, once those guys, you know, get on that. same page with each other, you know, because there's a lot of new key pieces there. Once those guys get on the same page with each other, I truly believe this that they'll be fine, but at the same time, they need to happen fast because it's just the way that game went

on Monday was like, yeah, this don't look right, you know, and, you know, in Philadelphia for years for over a decade that we love seeing defensive linemen jump off off the stream. And that's one thing we used to talk about, you know, in that locker room like, yo, man, I'm going to be the first one to get the tackle for laws. I'm going to be the first one to do this. I was like, you know, I'd be like, you know, I'd be like, yeah, we'll see. Okay, you know. It was just, it was like a friendly competition amongst us because, you know,

that's such an urgency and that energy that on a Monday night at the link, that's, that's such an urgency, it was electrifying. And I was down there, you know, for the first quarter before I came into the studio. or not just to see the energy and electricity going through the stadium. I said, oh, yeah, it's going to be a great difference game. They should feed off of this, you know, but listen. Yeah. So Vinny, now, you know, look, for better or worse, Vic Fangio, I just said to Rich,

is kind of kind of get the spotlight from a lot of Eagles fans this week because the defensive line hasn't played well enough. How do you go about making this better on Sunday, right? We have the play. We're locked in with our guys. Now we've got to get some results. Is there more Vinnie Curry dirty work that needs to be done by some guys? Do some guys just need to step up and win one-on-one?

Do they need more blitzes? Is there something schematically? Like, how does Vic get the most out of these guys now going forward? Listen, I'm pretty sure. You know, Vic been around for a while, you know, and he's very well respected. So at the end of the day, all Vic need out of the defensive line is do your job. Just do your job harder than the next man. That's it.

When you do your job harder than the next man, that's it. harder than next man, the rest was just fall in place. You know, they got a great, great test coming in on Sunday, you know, at the Superdome. And it's like, just do your job. That's it. You ain't got to, nobody got to be Superman. Nobody got. So you don't expect an uptick in blitzes or anything?

Like, he's going to trust his guys to go get it done? I'm pretty sure he got something in the works. But at the same time, you got to show them goes back to the, no, your opponent. I don't know if they're going to blitz off Camor where he gets, he's, he's, sneaky out that backfill. True. You know, but you know, I'm just, I'm just, I got to.

He's a problem. You know, I'm not, yeah, I'm not, you know, but, yeah, listen, if everybody, they do their job and play sound football, and one more thing, if we can make the, um,

mistackles to, you know, a single number or anything like that, I'm, they'll be fine. They'll be fine. You know, um,

it goes back to what I'll tell you when we won, And like the biggest thing was you want to bang around, you want to run around in pieces so you can kind of gauge going into this regular season off, you know, what you did wrong, even though every snap not going to be perfect, but you couldn't. In that building, that's what I'm telling you. Like in that building, every snap better be there perfect, you know. So I already know the fire that's lit, you know, down there at the NovaCare, man, because they'll be fun. Vinnie, you're giving us some hope, which is good.

I appreciate that. Yeah, we need it. The hope is that like, look, this doesn't look great right now, but it's a long season and they can progressively get better. I was wondering, like, during your career,

was there a specific season where you felt like, whether it was the defensive line or the defense, that you got a lot better from September to November, December, like, was there a specific season

where things weren't exactly right at the beginning, but you saw improvement as you went along. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. the 20 what's that 2014 season and the 13th season

you remember we kind of started off slow but then we finished with like damn there 50 sacks and it was crazy you know you know guys you know guys going and think but once again when you stop in a run you in the back you see it in the back field

it's just not ex-chewing or getting him down you know whether it was the herbie was skyrocketing or the quarterback hits was skyrocketing and it's just like, damn, this man getting rid of that ball super fast, you know, but then once we started getting ahead of the sticks, it was, it was just the baby time, you know, so. Vinny, I'm going to ask you to throw on your OC cap here for a second.

One of the things penalty-wise, it keeps biting them is the offensive linemen, getting the illegal man downfield on the RPO, PRO, whatever you want to call it. How do you, how do you clean that up, right? Like, it's kind of a tricky thing because the offensive linemen are taught to engage somebody, but they only have a certain, you know, yardage amount to do it within. And they don't really know what the quarterback's doing behind them at that point. How do you clean up this issue that kind of bit them four times on a couple big plays on Monday night? Yeah, man, they got the best officer line coaching football.

So he'll have that cleaned up. Think about it's Monday night now. And I'm not making excuses for them, but it's Monday night. I'm pretty sure they was excited. Me and you watch them blow a couple people. the ball. Yeah, they did. But so at the same time, I just think they was eager to hit something instead of, you know, going through the proper couple seconds and then going out there, you know, I don't want to say

they was rushing it, but I think if they just slowed down, they would have been fine. And calls would have been fine. All right. That goes to show you how loud that the link was on Monday. Yeah. And look, the Superdome is going to be rocking on Sunday. New Orleans, Derrick Carr looks like one of the, you know, the league MVP through two weeks here. That's going to be a tough place to play. And how many times did you get down to New Orleans in your career? It had to be, you know, five or six times probably, right?

Yeah, we got to be. Yeah, that's got to be one of the tougher places to play, huh? Absolutely, yeah. But at the same time, if you really got a passion for this thing, you can feed off of that. Yeah, good. Well, Vinny, you inspired us with some hope here. We will be together, of course, on Sunday again, watching the game for the postgame show here on PHLY. That is, I will say, I think officially the best backdrop we've had here. Not a BHAO-Y. Not even close. I don't think Zach Berman can ever beat what you just showed us, Vinny.

So that's great stuff, man. Thanks for your time, Vinny, and good luck on dad duty the rest of the week at your son's football practice. And we'll see you on Sunday. I appreciate you guys. Thank you guys for having me. See you guys. Anytime, Vinny. See you, buddy.

There he is. The great Vinny Curry. Awesome stuff, Rich. I love being. I mean, talking to a guy that was in that locker room last year about this stuff and the experiences of going through it, it really is tremendous stuff. And just to tut Ph.L. Wise Horn here with Vinny and what Fran did today on his article with the All-22 film breakdown, you know, the diehards are coming out in droves. And we appreciate everybody. It is going to be a good football season, I think. You know, I think Monday was a low. point. But, you know, Vinny has been through those. He's been in those locker rooms.

And the way he kind of is smirking a little bit about guys being fired up in there, I think that's legit. So it was nice to get a little, a little inspiration there from a guy that stood in those walls. He's great. And I think part of the thing in Philadelphia is that it is such a rabid football market that you see a lot of these former Eagles become analysts and get into the media game. And it's great that Vinny is starting to do that. Because He's a fun guy, man. He's super sharp and he can tell you a lot, especially about line play. But he's also just like a lot of fun too.

He is a lot of fun. What a room that is. We got a party there at some point, huh? Oh, I know. It was unbelievable. You thought there were Jordans. There are wine bottles. Oh, man.

Well, he has over 600 pairs of Jordans. I couldn't tell what was going on at first. Avid Jordan, man. Yeah, he's keeping us on our toast, which is good. Yeah. Real quick, Jamie, I want to say, for my Wi-Fi at the beginning of the show, I want to, I want to say, I'm going to study all of the Wi-Fi, all of the remote hits from 2022 on, and I'm going to see which ones worked and which ones didn't, and we'll figure it out. No, that one was on me. Do we need to get Bodner over there to IT check your place out?

No, no, I'm at, I'm at my parents' place. So I went to the wrong room where the router doesn't extend that far. That's on me. a better job. I just want to face the music. Like, look, if we're going to grill Siriani, I got to own it. And like, look, look, in fairness, I feel like my first Wi-Fi mishap for the sickos in the chat. Like, they've seen it all over the place on this show. Yeah, Zach's been doing this for a decade, you know? It's like a milestone of sorts, you know? Now I'm part of the club. So, real quick, as we're wrapping up, there's one more thing I wanted to

throw at you that was thrown in our Discord channel this week. And I forget by who I didn't write it down and that's a bad job by me. But the last question I asked Vinnie there about the, you know, that RPO, PRO, a legal downfield thing is a difficult thing for alignment, you know, because they're taught to engage. But then they have to, the ball has to come out. It's like a perfectly timed play. And they didn't execute it at all on Monday.

There was twice it bit them on penalties, which were probably their best plays on it of the night. The other four, the other three to four plays resulted in very minimal stuff. Nick Siriani's brother. Look at this quote. This is from an article. It says Washington and Jefferson College coach Mike Siriani said it's difficult to coach linemen to avoid going down field at times because they must run block first in an RPO attack. They're going to get called at times, Siriani said.

We accept that they're going to get called for a penalty at times. Sometimes you may see the linebackers vacating and you might realize it's a pass. You can't totally rely on. on it. Until the Eagles figured this out, there are P-Nose, in my opinion, now. That's what we are calling them. It's like, look, is this running a family that you're just okay with penalties on it? Like, what?

What? Well, I wonder if the refs at Washington and Jefferson don't pick it up quite as easily. Like, I don't think they can, they can send it back to New York. And, you know, they're not getting scrutinized by Troy Aikman after every play. But, yeah, dude, it's hard. Like, I, I feel. of the linemen in those situations. But like as Siriani, to his credit, said after the game, he's like, no, those were all

pretty clear calls. Like they were, they were well, well downfield, well beyond one yard. Oh, yeah. And I, I like, you break down. I was like, yeah, that's a penalty. I don't know. It feels like the first season of Siriani, 20, 21, there was just a lot of this at the beginning of the season.

And, you know, they were doing something's right, but they, they just had the ineligible man downfield. So I don't know what the right answer is. is if Cam Juergens thinks it's a run and there's nobody in front of him, he's going to go get the linebacker. But if Jalen throws the ball, that's an automatic ineligible man down field. I wonder if they thought like it's sort of like the way Legion of Boom viewed pass interference and illegal contact.

Like can't call it on every play. Might call it, you know, two or three times during the game, but there's the 10 times you don't call it and it's going to be super advantageous to us. But man, they're calling it pretty much every time right now. Yeah, and it just kind of begs the question if the plays aren't working when you're not getting called for it is is the juice worth the squeeze you know so uh something to keep an eye on going forward here rich michael conroy would like to know if we'd like to bring in a wifi coordinator to take that off your plate and you can just focus on the joe 100% all right you know maybe you got

fire fire some of your coordinators fall on the sword and keep your job but we'll bring some new guys in to replace it um all right to everybody in the chat i can't get to all of you to claire michael and Andy Reid's mustache and Michael and Polar Jam and SMY guy. VG's in here. Champy to all the sickos. Rich and I are honored to sit in for Zach and Bo every Wednesday and continue on to Vinnie Curry. Absolutely awesome addition to PHLY.

Thanks for his time hopping on. And ZB carrying the Big J Journalism Shield down at the NovaCare. Always love checking in with him. And make sure you're getting your pre-orders in for Zach's book. It comes out next Tuesday. and you diehards. There's a diehard only event going on in our offices with a book signing and a Q&A with Zach Berman.

We're going to get some food and just hang out and have a great time and sell some of Zach's books. So if you're interested in checking that out. Let's get that thing to the top of the bestseller list. Yeah, let's move it up. Come on. So if you want to check that out, go to all PHLY on the events tab. You can sign up and get tickets. They're going quick.

It is limited. So if you want to get them pounce on that quickly. For everybody hanging out with us, you could spend your time anywhere. You spend it with us, and we really appreciate it for Rich Hoffman. And great job by Brenna behind the scenes. I'm Jamie Lynch. We'll be back next Wednesday. I'll be back Eagles game day on Sunday.

But Zach and Bo will be back tomorrow at 2 o'clock. I believe Fran Duffy is in with them on Thursday and DeNez on Friday. So a full week here on P.H.O.I. Eagles. We'll talk to you soon.