PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - PHLY Eagles Podcast | What did the Philadelphia Eagles accomplish during offseason program?

Episode Date: June 8, 2024

School’s out for the summer for the Philadelphia Eagles, who completed their offseason program this week. Zach Berman and Rich Hofmann discuss what the Eagles accomplished this spring, plus delve into other topics in our weekly edition of “Tic-Zach-Bo” — without Bo this time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Everybody and welcome to a Friday edition of the P.H.L.Y. Eagles show. I'm Zach Berman here with Rich Hoffman. As we close the week, and as you saw in the headline there, schools out for the summer. The Eagles finished their off-season program on Thursday. They are off now for the next six weeks or so before training camp begins. So that will give us ample opportunity to discuss what happened during the past. past two months this this past week as as well we'll get to that in today's show we have tick Zach bow but of course our air our weekly friday tick Zach bow does not include bow it includes rich so rich thanks for joining us i think it's rich Zach bow i like that actually so if we went rich Zach bow would people still get the tick the tick the tick to the thing or is the grandfather than at this point. Probably not, but that's all right. The sickos understand.

They know what's going on. Okay. So Rich, I always say this whenever Rich is on. Make sure you're subscribing to the PHLY newsletter each day, the daily newsletter. It really gives you everything you need to know about Philly sports. And then you can watch four shows plus Anthony's shows, so five shows plus the union show some days. It's six shows and read all our content on all phtly.com. but Rich's newsletter in your mailbox, email box every day shows you what's going on in an entertaining fun way.

So I appreciate you taking a few minutes away from the newsletter to join the show. Yeah, man. Let's play the game. Absolutely. So those who watch us every Friday know the rules. We have three categories and three prompts for each category. The categories, as always, Eagles, NFL, and miscellaneous. The prompts are, would you rather, convince me, and predict.

So the one kind of change of pace here is I always give these prompts to Bo and today to Rich. For the Eagles category, it'll kind of be both of us joining in, especially because, you know, I've been on the practice field this week. So you jump in. Eagles NFL or miscellaneous, you pick and you pick the category. Okay, Zach, let's start with Eagles. pecker you rather. Eagles would pecker you rather. Now, I got to say, I go, would you rather? All right. The woodpecker you rather, that's a, that's a bold thing. I'm not as a bird punny as he is. But would you rather, Vic Fangio's defense after this spring or Kellyn Moore's offense after this

spring. So I'll, I'll jump here. Then I'm, and I think I know what you're going to say. I think I think you're going to say the one that the best player did not say is 95% new yesterday. But you can go ahead and give me the answer because you, as you've said, you've been on the field, you've watched them every day. And you've also heard from all the coaches and basically all the players this week, it seems like, right? Exactly. So if I went with what I've seen, the spirit of this question is based on what we've seen today. Based on what we've seen to date, the defense is ahead of the offense. Vic Fangio's defense looks more, I don't know, you'd say, acclimated to the scheme or,

more ready, if you will, than the offense. Now, that said, it is June 7th. The Eagles don't play until September 6th. They have the entire training camp, the entire preseason. The very spirit of the offseason program is to introduce, is to practice, is to kind of get these. So they are at the introductory stages. But I think the transition, whether it's because of the nature of the spring workouts,

whether it's because it's the nature of the playbook, like you mentioned, Jalen Hertz saying 95% of it. of the offense is different, whether it's because there's not really game planning right now on either side of the ball. So it's just kind of athleticism versus athleticism. The Vic Fangio defense looks ahead of the Kellynmore offense. But the thing is this, when you look at the talent on the two sides, I much prefer the offense on Kellynne Moore side than the offense on Vic Fangio side.

So if you ask me, what do I think it would be better this season? I would say the offense. If you said what's better right now, I would say the defense. I mean, and Zach, isn't it not that surprising that the defense is ahead of the offense?

In general, I mean, you've covered, you know, over, you know, 12 or 13 of these things for the Eagles, right,

at this point, at this point in the calendar, isn't it often that the defense is a little bit ahead? Like, doesn't the offense require a little bit more timing, those things?

But it's probably not the case all the time, but I feel like you've seen that happen, before in general. That's the first part. That's fair. That said, I understand it's a new scheme. You have a quarterback who's playing with the same receivers. He's played with the past two years, three years in Devonthe's case, same tight end, right? There, I get some of the route concepts are different, certainly, like Jaylon said, 95% of the offense is different. But you should see the offense,

You shouldn't see the ball in the opposing defenses hand as much on the ground as much. You should see it released earlier. Bo and I have talked about this. But I do think this time of year it is accurate that I tend to find the defense a little bit ahead of the offense. So it's interesting you brought that up too. Like I wonder sometimes because like look, this is a ravenous football market, right? We care about practice here. And that's great.

That's part of the reason we have jobs, right? do we make a little too much of the Jalen Hertz offseason workouts, I would say, and that like, wouldn't this be the time to try stuff? I, you know, as a comedy guy yourself,

you know that, you know, to get to a tour or a Netflix special or whatever, you got to be willing to bomb in those small clubs. And you got to be willing to try jokes out at this point. I know it's not a one for one thing. You want to be practicing good habits. you want to be developing chemistry with receivers,

but like it doesn't matter right now. You know, like if you throw an interception, it doesn't go on your stats at this point. And I just wonder if there is like a little room for experimentation at this point of the offseason without like pressing the panic button. Yeah, do we pay, I think you frame the question a little too, or do we make a little too big a deal about this?

We make way too big a deal about this, way more than within we need to. I use the analogy in yesterday's show, So it would be like someone reading the rough draft of a story or even just like the transcription, right? Like, you know, you haven't even put it together. And then sample size, too, is so limited, right? Like, you know, and I, I'm not casting aspersions on anyone keeping stats. You know, Elliot's my guy.

Like, I respect that and there's a market for that. But if let's just, let's just take, you know, in practice the other day, 20 passes, right? 20 passes is such a limited sample size relative to the amount of passes that are thrown throughout the offseason program relative to the amount of passes that are thrown with the offseason and training camp combined. So part of it, frankly, is because we, the media, are only allowed at five of these sessions. So every session is under a microscope. In training camp, we're at, what, 15, 18 practices.

Every practice is under a microscope. And it's probably, it's, yeah, you, you do work on things. The analogy I would give is imagine if, like, Bryce Harper struck out in spring training. And it's like, man, his swings in trouble, right? Sample size matters so much here. We don't care about spring training. Whitmerfield was tearing the cover off the ball in spring training. That didn't translate.

And look, I agree with you, though, that the offense has the talent where they probably should be a little bit farther. ahead than the framing I gave you where, you know, the defense doesn't have to do as much. That said, they're changing stuff up. I think that's one of my big takeaways here in that, you know, it was kind of a mystery. It was kind of unclear when Nick Siriani would say things like, okay, we're going to add on to what Kellan is going to add on to what we already do. You know, I'm, you know, that's not exactly what he said. But that was the gist of, of his comments at this point. To me, it kind of seems like we're going to figure out the new stuff first. just from reading and just from like listening to Jalen.

We're going to figure out the new stuff first and then we're going to add the stuff in from next year. Like it does seem like there is a legitimate learning curve, especially for the quarterback here. And it seems like he admitted that yesterday. Yeah, Jalen is very clear about that. And he's also very clear that this is the Kellynne Moore offense. Right. I think that's what, you know, we'll get the kind of big picture takeaways of the offseason program in a different prompt here. but one of the takeaways I would say now is that for as much discussion as there's been about the melding of concepts,

this is Kellynmore's offense. This is Kellynne Moore and Doug Nussmeyer bringing in a different offensive approach, different offensive scheme, and the players who are returning in particular, these high-profile pro-ball guys that I mentioned, Jalen Hertz, and A.J. Brown, Devante Smith, Dallas Goddard, high-profile guys on the offensive line, although the offensive line, there's only so many ways to block, right? But they are adjusting learning to this new scheme. Yeah. Next prompt.

That's where we are. Okay, next prompt. I like the woodpecker you rather. So let's do that one for the NFL. For the NFL. Okay. You went to St. Joe's prep. Kevin Stepansky went to St. Joe's prep.

So Kevin St.phansky, St. Joe's prep. Penn, Eagles intern. These are, he's in the news now. He signed a contract extension to stay in Cleveland. He's had success as an NFL head coach. What I am curious, your perspective, would you rather Kevin Stefansky as your head coach or Nick Siriani as your head coach?

So that when you mentioned this, the first thing that came to mind is the perspective I want to know is Jalen Hertz's perspective. I want to give Jalen Hertz true serum and make him answer this question. Because, you know, one of the things with Siriani and Hertz is we talk about a lot here is they are very different personalities and in how they go about, you know, in the heat of battle and kind of handle adversity in those things. Nick is very intense and he wears his emotions on his sleeves, all those things. It seems like Kevin Stefansky is a little bit more of a cool customer in the Jalen Hertz mold. So I would be kind of curious to hear him say that.

So from my perspective, this one is hard. And I think it goes to show the difference between NFL coaches and what is required of them, like on each team, right? Rosters are different. You might need different things from a coach on this team versus that team. I think Kevin Sifansky is an above average coach, like he's solidly in the top, you know, 12, 13, whatever. And, you know, watching the quarterback position for the Browns over the past couple of years, years like it's been an unmitigated disaster like he he is not working with the same exact tools that the eagles have been now in fairness last year they had a great year jimmy schwartz did a great job on

defense that was not all to fansky i'm not trying to give him all the credit but man watching him scheme up like amari cooper and david and joku with joe flaco throwing the ball it was pretty impressive i i thought he had a really nice season and look he's he's basically had two great seasons and two seasons at this point. But he's made the playoffs with both Baker Mayfield and with basically Joe Flacco in this crazy quarterback situation. And, you know,

I think this can change from year to year because obviously Nick's record speaks for itself. He had a great couple of years. Those first two years, I thought his first year in particular, the change to run the ball at the end of the season. I thought that was a coach getting the most out of his team in that specific season. but unfortunately the end of last season has consequences, Zach. And I mean, you know, not like it had any consequences for Nick's job.

Maybe it had consequences in terms of like how much he's able to do for this current team. But one consequence is that I would rather have Kevin Stavansky ahead of him, at least right now. Yeah, Kevin Stifansky is a two-time NFL coach of the year winner. Think about that. In four years as a head coach, he's won coach of the year twice, okay? I think this comes down to the question is how much is it as player? is how much of it is coaching. If you look at Stefansky, who's 37 and 30 in his career and hasn't had the same offensive talent, at least as Siriani, he calls play, so he kind of checks that. The flip side is Nick Siriani in three years as head coach, okay, has made the playoffs all three years, he's made the Super Bowl, has had two double-digit-win seasons.

Stafansky now has had two double-digit-win seasons as well. He's also had two losing seasons in there. Nick Siriani won two playoff games. Kevin Stefansky's one and two in the playoffs. So Siriani is two and three. Stapansky's one and two. But Siriani undoubtedly has had more talent on his team, especially these past two years. So yeah, it's a terrific question. I think temperament-wise, considerably different, right?

Kevin Stafansky is much more, yeah, he's, he's more reserved on the sideline in his public comments. I like Nick. Nick's had, Nick's had been more success. I was going to say Stifansky's one of the most underrated coaches in the league. We just want to coach the year twice, right? So certainly not underrated. I would have to go with Nick because Nick's been to the Super Bowl. Nick's been to the playoffs all three years.

But if you factor in play calling and play design, I think Stefansky's really good in that department. I think they're close. And it's a matter of do you prefer the play caller or do you prefer the culture setter or the CEO type coach? And I think both of those kind of type of coaches can have long-ranging success, right? If the play caller continues to adapt, you know, Sean Payton over the years and continues to be ahead of the curve,

that can be invaluable. But, you know, if the play caller grows stale, then, you know, he's out of a job at some point. So, look, look, I think it's a good question. I think they're probably, I looked at a couple coach rankings. They were kind of in like the 8 to 13 range, both of them too. So I don't really hate the answer either way. I think you can go with Nick and make a perfectly reasonable argument there. Let's not one more out here, before we take a quick break.

All right. Let's do a quicker one. Let's do a miscellaneous one. Actually, those are a little bit longer. Okay. Let's do prediction NFL. Prediction NFL. I don't know if you saw Ben Johnson's comments last week. Ben Johnson, of course, the Lions offensive coordinator, who was a hot coaching candidate last year and turned it down. There was talks that he wanted a lot of money. that you don't typically see for a coordinator becoming a coach. And he basically said that when he takes his job,

he wants the best pathway to a second contract. Of the eight guys hired, right, most are going to be out of their jobs within three years. And so he wants more of kind of conditions that he feels are necessary for sustainable success, which is certainly his prerogative. So here's your prediction. Is Ben Johnson a head coach in 2025 and where?

I think he is a head coach. And I'm going to say the Dallas Cowboys. Interesting. Okay. So you think in that case, Jerry Jones would go with the hot coordinator route instead of Bill Belichick or kind of the established head coaching name. Well, the other one I was thinking about was the team we were talking about right now. Sure. Yeah.

I mean, I certainly think that that speculation will be out there. if the Eagles undergo a coaching change. Ben Johnson certainly makes, he fits a lot of what the Eagles look for. I thought Washington would have been a good job for him. You get the number two pick. You can develop a quarterback. You have the, you have tap space. You kind of have the runway of starting over.

Carolina's been interested in him twice. He's from that area. He's turned it down. So certainly it's, it seems he's willing to be selective, it would surprise me. I don't think people turn down the Dallas Cowboys job, right? It's kind of like the Lakers job. We're seeing now with Dan Hurley.

That's a difficult job to turn down. So I would imagine that if the Dallas Cowboys come offering, there's probably a pathway of success, although you have to believe in their quarterback situation. You have to believe in Dak Prescott. Jerry's been loyal to coaches, too, for the second contract thing, too. Exactly. Although Mike McCarthy is a lane duck coach this year, which would be interesting to see.

I do think Ben Johnson's a head coach, but I thought Ben Johnson would have been a head coach this offseason. So I respect anyone who kind of beats their own drum and has the courage of conviction. That's that's a great attribute. But there's also an argument. There's risk. Striking when the iron's hot for sure. Totally. There's risk.

And I like I understand what he said because he went through, you know, all the coaches, he was like, you know, the numbers will tell you that more than half of them will be out of a job in three years. And I want to get that second contract. And I, I respect that. The only risk he's taking, though, is like he's going to continue to be evaluated as a coordinator. And you mentioned striking while the iron's hot. What if Jared Goff regresses this year? What if, like, we saw this with the Eagles. The Eagles were essentially the lions last year. The team that came out of nowhere, had a great roster, you know, kind of cutting edge play calling. at that point, we've seen it in the NFL.

Sometimes those teams regress the next year for whatever reason. It could just be injuries. And, you know, I also, when Ben Johnson made those comments, Zach, I think Nick Siriani and Doug Peterson are good examples of the other side of that coin. Because, like, those guys would not have gotten any other job except the Eagles at that point. I think that's right, right? Yeah, yeah. And again, the other one interviewed for a job, that's correct.

And if you look at kind of the articles, you know, there's always a storyline heading into the offseason. It's a good content idea is which of the open jobs is the most appealing best job. I think the Eagles were, they definitely were last when Doug was the, when Doug was the higher. And I think they were also at least close to last when Nick was the higher as well. And look, like the Eagles might be an outlier, like how he has proven he is very good at cleaning up first chips mess and now his mess the second time. He does that very quickly. And I'm sure that's something you can't bank on for other franchises. But like Nick did not walk in a great job.

It was like a developmental job. And then in the second year, you know, he's got the best roster in the NFL. So it does go to show that like there is some risk in being choosy, you know, like, I think you've probably said this before. Perfect is the enemy of good, right? And that's kind of the sentiment I think of with Ben Johnson. Like the Washington job, yeah, I don't know if, you know, how Josh Harris will be. as an owner, but, you know, working with the second overall pick and having the runway and I think

at least like fairly low expectations to start, I would have strongly considered taking that job if I were him. Well, sometimes if you are taking a job and you don't know if you're going to be there long term, you rent, but if you buy, you're going to want a good mortgage. And the place to go for all mortgage needs is mortgage CS. Rates are slightly higher, but home prices are still rising. Mortgage CS can help you get into a home before they go higher and also refinance to save money when rates drop. Who doesn't love that? The same house with a lower payment. Values are expected to keep going up.

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All right. So we're rolling through here. What's the next category of prompt on your list? I have a quick question for you because you. You mentioned this already, and I've been thinking about this a lot over the last 24 hours. Danny Hurley, if you are him, what's the move? I take the Lakers job, if I'm being honest with you. Yeah?

Yeah. Now, look, I believe in don't mess with happy. Like, you know, that's something I've always heard from. Mark Few, for instance, there is validity there. I also believe in, like, challenging yourself. And, like, here, you're like, yeah, like, keep off. another college basketball coach that's funny and and well i think of someone who just like stayed in the same place and martin i i think look dan hurley he can he can three pete and that's something

that that like hasn't been done i i i get that lakers job is special and you you get a chance to presumably coach lebron i imagine lebron's coming back you get a chance to coach anthony davis the Lakers always can get talent, right? There is institutional commitment there. I imagine, you know, when you look at the resources that they're willing to devote to get you from Yukon. I also think that, like, I love college basketball. I love college football.

If I had my choice between the two when I was a coach, I would rather coach professional sports right now. Yeah. You hear that a lot. Yeah. Yeah. I think the college game is is changing quite a bit. You're really at the whim of teenagers.

And I am all four, like, people getting their market value and getting their worth. And that's happening now in college sports. And it hasn't happened in the past. That said, when you combine that with basically like yearly free agency, you know, you can transfer, right? There's, there's not necessarily contract terms. And that's how a lot of jobs are. But it's, I think the NBA and the Lakers in particular, it's a special opportunity.

It just comes down to me like, what more are you going to accomplish at Yukon? I always think to what Jim Harbaugh said when Jim Harbaugh left Michigan, which was you can't win the Super Bowl and college football, right? And you can't win the NBA finals coaching college basketball. He's already been up there at the end of, you know, the last, on the first Monday in April twice. He's experienced that. He's not won an NBA title.

So I would, I would shoot for that, but he's obviously got it. It's best for him. It's a tough one. I think coaching LeBron is like, that sounds great. He's,

he's also 40 and it's also like not the easiest guy in the world to coach. Like he's very stuck in his ways. But I agree. I agree. And also he's, probably going to double a salary with the Lakers too. That's, and, and live in Los Angeles as well.

So I get it. Yeah, you do see that. I guess you see that in football as well, where the coaches generally say like, look, forget the actual game and, you know,

how the sport is played at this level. Just the recruiting and all of the nonsense you have to deal with, the boosters and stuff, they tend to want to go pro, it seems like. Yeah, no,

the flip side is if you need a point guard, You can't just go get the best point guard. You can't just go to a mid-major school's program and say, hey, come here. We'll pet you more. Or go to high school and say, come here, right? There's a draft of free agency. And I think in the NFL in particular, that's the challenge for college coaches is you can't just bring the five-star in, right? Everyone's getting five stars every year.

And there's a system that rewards the worst teams. He and one last thing, Danny Hurley is, he is like absolutely nuts. on the sidelines. The offense they ran this year, which I think a lot of it was, it's actually Bill Murray's son. Luke Murray is kind of the guy who was credited with it. Man, they ran some beautiful stuff.

So I would be very interested to see what that would look like in the NBA. Okay. Next prompt. Sorry. Okay, let's go back to the Eagles. Let's do Eagles. Convince me. Convinced me.

So this is the headline for the show today. It's the big picture takeaway. of the offseason program. So I will jump in first. We obviously mentioned the transition on both schemes. I think there are three things I would tell you, though. The first is, and we address this already, is the offensive change. I think this is more Call and Moore's offense than a melding of the offensive schemes. I think there's concepts that they're carrying over, but I think that's very much the case, is that they are bringing in a new offense here, Nick Siriani is transitioning more to the CEO style coach.

He's not in every offensive meeting. The second big picture takeaway here is they are significantly better in my perspective in the secondary. If you thought that was the problem last year, they are loaded at cornerback. I think between the draft picks and Isaiah Rogers and Keeley Ringo developing, they have four guys there that you feel that were not a major part of their depth chart last year. who I think are going to be in that mix this year to go along with Slay. I don't anticipate Bradbury being there. Someone like Eli Ricks, who was kind of pushing to be in the mix last year, he's like the sixth cornerback now.

You know, he's almost on the outside looking in. And that's not even getting into like Avante Maddox and some of the other guys there. And then I think the safeties are upgraded with C.J. Gardner Johnson. So I think that is a major, major, major takeaway here. And then the third thing here, I would say, is that I think they're still figuring out what's going to happen with the offensive line. I, well, I should say right guard. And my takeaway right now is that Tyler Steen is the guy. Tyler Steen has, there hasn't been a Steen-Hennessee turn, if you were, or rotation, something that was almost made pretty clear by.

by Jeff Stoughtland is that he doesn't want to rotate on a day-and-day-out basis. But I do think Mackay Beckton could potentially be looming. We haven't seen it yet. But the fact that he played first team left guard this summer lends me to believe that if there's, if there are questions about Steen or Steen struggling in terms of the physicality that they want to see from him, Jeff Stoutland's caveat was that you're only going to kind of put someone else in there if you think, am I making a mistake if I don't at least get a look? And there could be a time like July 15th or July 18th or July 23rd,

or I'm sorry, August 15th or August 18th or August 23rd, what you're saying, let's just see, let's just see what Mackay Beckton looks like between Lane Johnson and Ken Juergens. That's a big boy, Lumen. That's a big shadow over Tyler's team, who's also very big as well. Yeah, I agree with you.

I think, and to me, the kind of process-oriented stuff with Kellyn Moore's offense, like, that to me did not come to the forefront as much like, you know, of course, listening to the Jalen quotes, there are some things that are on my radar heading into training camp, but until we actually see them play on a more consistent basis, hopefully too against, you know, we can we can hold off on the judgments until they actually play against other teams, too, as well. Like there are things that are on my radar, but I can't. say one way or another, whether they'll actually be storylines heading in, you know, to the season. And at the start of the season, to me, your second point is what excites me the most. Because I think it started with the Eagles offseason. Like they poured, I think, a lot of resources into the secondary, right? Now, obviously, they went and signed Bryce Huff, which was a nice financial commitment as well. But one of your other big signings, Chauncey Gardner Johnson, you get a real, safety in there, even when you have two young safeties that, like, I think showed some promise,

even though Sidney Brown is not going to be healthy probably at the start of the year. And then you spend not one, but two of your first two picks at cornerback. And, you know, adding in Keely Ringo year two, adding in that some people seem to be excited about Isaiah Rogers. It seems like there's a chance that the Eagles go from a secondary that can be good when everybody's healthy and when the pass rush is getting there to maybe this is the strength of the defense at some point. And that would be cool and that would be a little bit different than what we have seen in past years. Well said.

Well said. Let's roll through to the next prompt here. All right. Let's start with the miscellaneous category. Let's do miscellaneous, would you rather? Miscellaneous, would you rather? So I mentioned it during the ad read, but this is a cool weekend for Phillies fans, whether they went to London or whether they're watching tomorrow and Sunday. The Phillies are playing overseas.

The Phillies are playing in London this weekend. We saw on Anthony's show this morning. They were talking about it. The Eagles also opened the season in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Would you rather go to London for a Phillies game or go to Sao Paulo? for an Eagles game. Interesting. So I can't say I've ever been to South Palo.

Have you been to both of those places? I have not been to South Palo. I've been to London foreign Eagles game, actually, when Eagles played the Jags in 2018. What was that like? Was there just a ton of Eagles fans walking around the city? Yeah, a decent amount. Now, so I should actually kind of,

I should bring this up here because, you know, I've been asked quite a bit, like, like, why would the NFL have a game in, in Brazil, if it's either hard to get to from Philly and Green Bay or, you know, maybe there's some safety concerns. And I say it's not for people in fellow, it's not for people in United States traveling there, right? Like, I know there's a lot of Phillies fans there right now in London.

There's Eagles fans going to Brazil. What the, the purpose of these international games is the spread football internationally, right? It is for people who live in these countries that go to the games to catch the bug and therefore become fans of the sport. That is really the impetus of it more than it is for people in Philly spending their hard-earned money to take a nice trip abroad. So I'm with you too. I have never been to Sal Palo.

And I do think the Eagles fan base travels like it's rare in sports. Like obviously we saw the other end of it with the Knicks fans coming down here. but I will always remember the I believe when I worked at the other place the first year it was the Super Bowl year was 2017 when the Eagles played in Los Angeles in that little soccer stadium and it was I mean what was it like 6040 Eagles fans? Oh more than that yeah yeah more than that and I always kind of temper like how many fans are there because obviously the the road fan base when they're traveling to kind of a nicer climate and they are taking over a stadium,

it's going to seem like more of them are there because they're more excited, right? They're going to be louder, all of those things. Same thing with the Knicks going to the Sixers games. But I just was like blown away by that. It was crazy. Like it was just a home game in a small little soccer stadium in Los Angeles. It was really cool. So I'd rather go to London, shorter flight, cool city.

Would you say it's a good food city? Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's actually a great food city, but I would say that you can find good, I found like three really good meals when I was in London. Yeah, I mean, it's like, I don't know, it's kind of like New York, right? It's just like New York, but a little more spread out. You know, it's obviously very expensive, but hey, it's vacation, right? We can live a little bit for one trip. So I think I would rather do that just because it's a shorter flight. and I tend to, when I'm traveling, I tend to take the places that I know that I like.

But, you know, if I was going to go to South Palo going with a bunch of my friends or family or other Eagles fans, seems like a good time to do it. So my answer here is actually I would take the Eagles game in South Palo for this reason. There's more of an incentive or there's more of an incentive to visit South Powell for a game. Like if you're planning a vacation with your girlfriend or you're planning a vacation with your family or you're, your, London will be higher on that list typically than Sal Palo. I don't think that's that's not a leap to say. People are, there's a nonstop flight from Philly to London, right? There's not typically a nonstop flight from Philly to South Paulo.

I think to South Paulo. Is there a direct? What's that? Probably not. Yeah. Yeah. I think there is. So I, so I think if you want to.

to see South Palo, you're more apt to go there for an Eagles game than just if you were planning a really nice vacation abroad. So I think there are fewer, I think there are more people who are just going to go to London to see London that go to London because the Phillies are there, which is why I would venture to say Eagles in South Palau. Would you have rather the game be, just in terms of this exercise, would you rather the game have been in Rio or South Powell? Probably Rio. When I think of Brazil, I think more of like, you know, the beaches.

That's what I was getting at. Yeah. The Holy Redeemer, right? Like, yeah, that's more. I think of some of the touristy places in Rio than in South Palo. But I'm grateful for them. Frankly, like I'm not as well-traveled internationally as I am domestically. Because obviously I covered Eagles, most of my travels for work.

So I kind of wanted the Eagles to play in Germany. I mean, I had never been to Germany. I thought that would be a cool place to go. But I would certainly, I'm looking forward to the game in South Palo. I would have liked to go to the World Cup in Brazil in what was it, 2014. That would have been, that would have been a cool experience. Yeah, I'm with you. I've been to all the domestic places.

I've been to Portland and Indianapolis, but not Germany and Spain. So that's, I'm right there with you. Before we get to the next one here, I just want to tell everyone about Rite Aid. You hear me talking about Rite Aid all the time on this show. And the reason I do it is because there's often times when all of us need to go to the pharmacy. And with a My Pharmacy account at Rite Aid, you can refill your prescription, schedule a vaccine, get personalized care recommendations, sign up for prescription notifications. All you need to do to get started is a prescription at Rite Aid. get started at righteat.com slash my pharmacy.

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Okay. Well done. Okay, good. Okay. Last one. I got worried. I came back from the ad reading. I was like, my soul here?

I got 18 more minutes left. I got a run point with no one here. No, your diehard read. Just knock my socks off and I just had to get off the call. Okay. Okay, last one. Let's do, or let's do last Eagles one. Let's do Eagles prediction. Yeah, so what's the narrative about Jalen Hertz at the end of training camp? Because Jalen Hertz has been a topic of conversation. He's been, I think he hasn't blown, you know, he hasn't blown your socks off here watching him, which is, which is fine.

You know, he's suggesting to a no offense. He gave a cryptic answer yesterday about, you know, Nick Siriani. He didn't necessarily, he wasn't like effusive about Siriani, which might have just kind of been. Jaylen's own way of answering a question. But when we have this conversation, you and I on September 1st, what's the narrative about Jalen Hertz? Yeah, I think it's kind of what we've already been talking about, but in the form of a question is like,

I think people are going to be wondering how this whole Kellynne Moore offense and specifically how he handles this Kellynne Moore offense, how that whole thing is going to go, how the motion and the option routes, that Devante and AJ have been talking about. And like, look, Zach, this is a big year for her. It's like I was mostly willing to give him a pass for last year because I just did not think the coaching or the scheme was giving him any answers.

Now, as you and plenty of others have pointed out, like how much of that is coaching, how much of that is Jalen's preference, I don't know. But since he was so great and since he improved so much in his first few years, willing to give him a pass on this. but Kellyn Moore, while not, you know, not Andy Reid at this point, clearly is a pretty competent offensive coordinator. So, you know, I think if things go wrong here, I think eyes are going to turn to Jalen Hertz and be like,

well, what exactly are you getting from this guy? So I think the narrative is even if it's not negative, there's just going to be a lot of, I think there's going to be a lot of intrigue and just how this whole thing goes if they are changing the offense up so much. Yeah, good point. I think that to what you said, I think the narrative at the end of the summer,

at the end of training camp, is going to be like, we still don't know. I don't think Jalen Hertz is going to be lights out this summer. I think there are going to be times when it looks like there are growing pains. And I think one of the big questions is going to be like, how's this Jalen Hertz calling more match? This quarterback or this offense is supposed to be quarterback friendly, right? But every quarterback's different.

And what's conducive for one quarterback's different? different than the other quarterback. And what I want to see, too, is, like, what is Kellyn Moore doing to maximize Jayland Hertz? Not what is Kellyn Moore doing to maximize Kellynne Hurts? Because I think those are two different questions. And you need to build the offense that best fits the personnel that you have. And it can't be, you know, if there are concepts in this offense that DAC runs better

than Hertz or that Justin Herbert, that fit Justin Herbert. better than it than hurts. Those aren't concepts you want to highlight. You want to highlight the concepts that Jalen does well. And so I'm curious to see, but I think Jalen is an extraordinarily talented quarterback who works hard. And I think he, I think maybe more important than that or as important of that, I think he has elite players around it. And I think the conditions are in place for Jalen to succeed. Where I am mostly interested in seeing is avoiding turnovers. And and making quick decisions. And if he can do those two things well,

I think they can be an electric offense. Look, the skill position talent right now is like outrageous. And we'll see what happens with the offensive line. As you said, there are a couple spots that are bigger question marks than we have been used to over the years, especially because you don't have Jason Kelsey to make up for any issues that might be on either side of the years.

him. But like, look, if the offensive line is not a disaster, last year's offensive, like, what did they finish? Like eighth in offense? What's the next year or anything? Top 10. And I think that's right around where they finished in DVOA. That's not good enough. Got to be better than that this year. Got to be. I'm not saying you need to be the top offense in the league, but you have to be one of the top offenses in the league. Like, there's just, there's too much talent and as much as the, as the Vic Fangio coaching, we hope that that changes the defense and that he is an upgrade over the pencil. Like the talent, this team is built to score a lot of points.

And that is primarily how they have to win games. So it's a big year for him. But I think you're right. Like we're just not going to know heading into the season. And that's what the first month, that's what the Brazil game. That's what all those things are going to be about. Yeah, I would venture to say that if they're not a top 10 offense, neither Nick nor Kellynton will be here next year.

All right. We have 12 minutes, four questions. So three minutes each. Let's get moving here. You picked your prompt. All right. Let's go NFL convince me. NFL convinced me.

Does tampering matter? And I asked that, of course, because Adam Schefter at the news earlier this week, that the NFL's rulings on two potential tampering situations, Philly with Saquant, Atlanta with Kirk Cousins is coming down the pike. You've, you've, we might even get a Friday news dump for all we know. you've covered Sixers during times when tampering has certainly come up and the Sixers have been penalized for it. I have perspective on this, but I'm curious your thinking is like is is is tampering something

that's made too big a deal of in sports or do you think it's a legitimate issue? Well, I think it definitely gets made too big of a deal. Like it fans want to say that they were cheated or other. other teams are cheating, right? Like that's, that's clearly, I think. So having the, the tampering idea, like, like people latch on to those storylines. In the NFL, just tampering matter, I guess to me, the question is, like, what is the

penalty? Like, what is the penalty that the Eagles are going to get for this? Is it like a fifth round pick, the sixth round pick? Yeah, well, I think the Eagles are pretty confident right now that, that they're, that they're in the clear. We'll see. but if something's up, if something's small, yeah, a late round picker, fine. But something's big.

Like if Atlanta was working this Kirk Cousins deal out before they were allowed, it could be a high draft pick. You've seen mid-round picks get docked. You've seen, you know, the Dolphins lost the first round pick for tampering with Tom Brady, right? So this is, you know, the NFL will come down hard on you if it's like a legit. if it's a legitimate tampering issue. Well, and I also think the NFL is different in that, like, as exciting as the Sequin signing is,

free agency and specifically one player's free agency does not matter as much in the NFL as it can matter in the NBA. You know, I think Paul George was the first one when the Lakers were trying to trying to get him, they were tampering. Like, it was funny when the Sixers got docked for tampering. It was for PJ Tucker and Daniel House Jr. Those are like the two worst players that you would ever tamper for. Like that would make the tampering worth it.

Yeah. Yeah. That was the funny thing about that. And they lost what? A couple of second round picks, which again, like would have been useful to be able to throw in trades and stuff. Also is not like making or breaking whether the Sixers are a championship level team.

So I tend to lean towards in this situation, specifically the Eagle situation, no. Yeah. I think tampering is overstated because I think, tampering happens in every sport. I think tampering happens in every business, right? And I think that it's, you know, I actually don't think, I don't think tampering makes a difference in someone's decision typically. I think if a player is determined to leave or determined to seek opportunities elsewhere, he or she is going to seek those opportunities when like the

schedule formula allows them or if they're quote unquote being tampered with like you know you you kept hearing that the the heat might have you know tampered with putting the big three together right you don't think that like the big three were planning planning this or there's all those talks of when they were in the olympics talking about this and i i think that's that's kind of what it is is is that i think tampering can be overstated like you said it's it's something for teams and fan bases to complain about, but I think it's inconsequential relative to the coverage that it gets. It's also an agent's job to, at the start of the free agent period, know generally what offers are going to be available to their clients, right? And I don't know how that conversation starts

and they get that knowledge without at least a little bit of tampering. I'm sure they do it and kind of back channels and, you know, maybe whisper down the lane type of things. But yeah, I think your point that it happens a lot in pretty much every sport is the right one. So I don't really know exactly like what is the line where you start to enforce it and not, but leave that up to the league. Yeah. And we will be monitoring it today to see if there's any rulings or no rulings at all on those two cases. All right, eight minutes, two prompts here, both in Miscellaneous.

Your pick? Miscellaneous, convince me. Minsalinius convinced me, okay, watching the NBA game last night and two players on the Celtics that the Sixers could have had. All right? And we've talked about both these picks over the years. Which was a bigger draft miss for the Eagles considering the player and the context? Porzingis in 2015 when they took Okafort one pick earlier,

or Tatum in 2017 when they swapped with the Celtics and took Fultz two picks earlier. Hmm. Well, I think the only fair answer is Porzengis. And Tatum is a better player than Porzingis. But the way that it has been described to me is that they really didn't have a shot at Jason Tatum. Like Boston and I think, and it pains me to say this,

one of the best things that Danny Aange has done. And one of the best things really any GM has done, he saw that there was something wrong with Mark L. Fultz. There was something off there. And it has not been explained by him, but they were not taking him with the first overall pick. And he decided that Jason Tatum was his guy. So he must have had intel,

because if you remember, the Sixers were picking third that year, the Lakers were going to pick either Fultz or Lonzo Ball. So he reasoned that, hey, Sixers, like, if you want the first overall pick and if you want the ability to take Fultz or ball, whichever one, you can do that. And we will trade back to you. You got to give us some stuff.

It was a pretty nice first round pick that they took as well. And we'll just take Tatum at third. But I don't think the Sixers could have traded up to one and then drafted Tatum. Like there was an element of the Celtics asked the Sixers, like, who are you drafting? We're not going to. Yeah. You know, you have the first overall. pick. So like we do care on on who you select, but like it's obviously not going to affect your plans

moving forward once we give you the pick. And you know, some people might say that's silly, like make the trade and just draft Tatum anyway. But at the time, Fultz was considered the, the number one guy. Like he was, he was the best guy in college that year and he just forgot how to shoot for whatever reason. And Danny Aange was all over that. So the answer is Porzingis. And I think the Sixers, there's still a lot of disagreement over who made that pick, whether Sam Hinkie actually wanted Porzingis or or if he was a little bit pressured. And if, you know, all of the losing, all of the off the court storylines, all of kind of the embarrassment that comes with, you know, losing 60 plus games a year,

had caught up to him and that they said, we got to take the quote unquote safe pick. We got to take the national champion center from Duke Jaliel Okifor. because honestly, like, looking back at Hinkie's tenure, like I feel like in the earlier years, they might have taken Porzengis, who's considered kind of this wild, crazy swing. And it's funny that Okafore is the safe option when in reality he was the least safe option

and it'd be a history. Like when you were a bad defensive center that doesn't have any range, like, you know, I remember Brett Brown saying he'll roll out of bed and give you 20 and 10, like, it doesn't really matter when you give up 35 on the other end and like aren't really like creating advantages for your teammates on offense. So so that is the answer of those two.

As much as it hurts that the Sixers didn't get Tatum and that would have changed their fortunes for sure. I don't really think they had any chance to get him. Like if they actually wanted Tatum, I think the Celtics would have just taken Tatum with the first overall pick that year. Yeah, I hear what you're saying exactly. And I agree with you. Like I understand the safe part of it, you know, local for, from the national champions, Duke was the top high school player, was in the national consciousness for like five or six years before that, right? It's almost like six

or, it's almost like the Eagles taking Devante, right? Like you're, this is a guy who everyone knows. But if my issue, and I felt this way at the time, and I still feel this way now, is if you're committed to rebuilding the way the Sixers were then and just going for upside, right? everything is about the home run swing. Embed at three is the home run swing. Like trading, trading Drew and taking Noel. It's the home run.

Everything's the home run swing. Then the 7-3, pursuing us, you know, with range, who if he hits fits with Embed, that to me is the swing you take, given like, everything that the Sixers did there. Before we get to the last prompt, We do have a super chat from Brian Pumper, which is lots of Eagles players at the Celtics game.

If only Philly had a team they could publicly support, kind of embarrassing. Sure. You know why they're there, though, Zach. Well, Jeffrey Lorry is a Boston guy. Devante Smith is actually a Celtics fan. Devante Smith grew up a Celtics fan. But, yeah, Jeffrey Lorry has taken these guys to Boston in the past. Now, that said, if the Sixers were playing across the street last night, the Eagles would have been there.

Sure. So, yeah, I think the, I would imagine that the, those Eagles who went to Boston and flew up there for that game and who wouldn't want a chance to see the NC game one of the NBA finals, right? But if they had the opportunity to just drive across the street and see an NBA finals game, I would imagine they would have preferred that. Jeffrey Lurie has been taking Eagles to Celtics conference finals and NBA finals games for like 15 years at the last. this point. So it's not the first time. And I think he is kind of the clear person who is driving that, who is getting them the tickets. If I had to guess, he's the guy who's getting them the tickets or the suite or whatever and taking them to the game, which is cool. So this leads us to our last one actually. When we talk about how far the sixers could go here, this is to predict in miscellaneous.

I'm fascinated your thoughts. You write the newsletter every day. You see or you're following all these Philly teams rank these four outcomes from most likely to occur to least likely occur for this season. So we're talking the Phillies now, the Eagles in 2024, the Sixers and Flyers in 2025 season. Phillies win the World Series. Eagles make the Super Bowl. Sixers make the Eastern Conference finals or Flyers make round two of the postseason. So there's a sliding scale here, probably in terms of the quality of the teams as well. Hmm. This is bad. I think the Sixers making the Eastern Conference Finals is the most likely of those four.

Interesting. Okay. I just think like they're, to me, they're probably the third best team of the bunch, but you've raised the bar on the other ones. Like the Phillies have to win the World Series. Like obviously they're, they look like they're going to win 110 games or whatever. They can play, I think they can play 500 balls. and still the rest of the way and still have 94 wins,

which they're not going to play 500 ball. They're going to be a lot better than that, obviously. But you have to win the World Series act. Like, stupid stuff happens in the baseball playoffs. It's the opposite. It's like the Phillies are in the Braves position now. Now, hopefully they handle it better than the Braves and they can continue to stay hot through October.

But like the baseball playoffs are so unbelievably stupid. So I think I have to rank the Sixers number. one because like all right yeah Boston's difficult but the sixers are going to be a better team next year and yeah I think they're going to be number one and then you mentioned the Eagles making the Super Bowl also very difficult. If it was Eagles making the NFC championship game, maybe I would have had them first. If it was Phillies just making the World Series but I think you have have raised the bar for those teams so much that I look at the NBA, the Eastern Conference is just not very good. And I would rank the Sixers first.

I think I'd probably rank the Eagles second in that group because, you know, like what, what have you and Bo said is success for this team? Like second round making it? Oh, no. I think, I think conference championship or farther. Yeah. Okay. And I think they're one, two, three best teams in the N of C.

Okay. So that's, you know, if that is actually the case and they are, you know, one of the three. So you think the lions and the Niners, so the other two? Yep. Yeah, I would say so right now. So, you know, okay, that's like a 30% shot. You know, we got to factor in some of the other teams too a little bit, you know, high 20, something like that. I'd probably put that second.

Philly's third, I'd say, because they're great. And like, it's just, it's just really hard to win a World Series. Like, it's kind of what Darrell Mori always talks about team building in terms of championship odds. And he's like, if you have more than a 5% shot, you got to go. go for it. And he's basically like, you know, if you, if you have like a 10% shot, that's way better odds than the average person would think just because it's so hard and it's so competitive and you need skill, you need talent and you need luck on your side on the way to a title. And I think the Phillies are going to be in a good position, man. Like there's they're trending to be the best

Philly's regular season team of our lifetime, probably. But the playoffs suck, man. The playoffs are just, you better, you better have, have your shit together in the divisional round. And then I'd say the flyers last, although it's like lowering the bar for them is making that kind of interesting as well. I don't know. It seems like they're going to have trouble making the playoffs next year.

Yeah, I actually, I hear what you're saying, because I went kind of like the inverse here. the flyers making round two of the postseason. You're just one of eight teams who does that at that point. I feel more comfortable even though they're the worst of these four teams being eight of 30, right, than being one of 30. So Phil is winning the World Series is probably the hardest, but they certainly can do it. Sixers make these two conference finals. I'll have a better answer for you in a month when I see who that third guy is.

but I would agree. I would agree. But yeah, that's a good question. I'm curious, maybe you can use that in your newsletter at some point this summer. But we are, that's, we're at 103 here. It's been a quick, fun addition of, I will call it, Rich Zach Bo. Maybe we can adopt that now because I imagine we'll be doing some more shows this summer together. And, yeah, I appreciate you coming on with us.

And we could just make it. So the two of the three people who are there, you know, this is Rich Zach Toe today. There you go. Yeah. Yeah, today's Rich Zach Toe. When I'm not there, it's Rich Tak Bo. I like that. I like that.

So thank you for joining today's edition of Rich Zach Toe. So Bo and I will be back Monday for a full week in studio of the PHLY Eagles show. You can find all our coverage on all pHLY.com. You can read Rich's newsletter every day in your inbox. And we appreciate Breeze help putting everything together here. So until then, that's Rich. I'm Zach. Thanks for joining us.

Bo would say we love you. I would say we'll do better next time. Thanks for watching.