PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - PHLY Philadelphia Eagles: Will it be a playoff snow bowl for Lane Johnson and co. on Sunday?

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

Two days away from the divisional round, it looks like Lane Johnson, Jordan Mailata, Dallas Goedert, Saquon Barkley, DeVonta Smith, A.J. Brown and Jalen. Hurts may have to figure out a way to move the ball on offense in the snow. But think back to that memorable snow game against the Lions in 2013 and who was the quarterback on the opposite sideline? Matthew Stafford, of course. Maybe that’s good news for Jalen Carter, Zack Baun, Quinyon Mitchell, Milton Williams and Vic Fangio’s Eagles defense. Join Deniz Selman and Bo Wulf for their final preview of the week, with Zach Berman chiming in from the Eagles’ facility. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How many blocks must a man lay down before you give him a spot? Yes, and how many seas must a no line fail before the GM is canned. Yes, and how many crimes must the chairman commit before the WWE's forever banned. answer, my friend, is blowing a playoff win. The answer is blowing a big win. To the P.H.L.Y. Eagles podcast on a Friday. Presented by Bet365, download the Bet365 app. And use code P.H.L.Y.365 when you sign up, whatever the moment.

It's never ordinary at Bet365. Bo Wolf, the professor, Dana is Selman. We're going to be joined by Zach Berman in mere seconds. from the Novacare complex, but Professor, you got the hat on, how you feeling? I'm doing great. Yeah, I'm excited to be back and two days away. Two days away. From another playoff game.

And yeah, this is awesome. This is what it's all about. 49 hours away precisely from Eagles kickoff. We'd have to have to shield exactly how many hours it is. But yeah, no, it's very exciting and might be snowing, which is a dilemma. It's a dilemma for me. It means the AM signal for Merrill comes in better. Okay.

You know, the AM signal is live, exactly live with the game, and the clouds help that signal. But all my- Why is that? Do you know the science behind that? There's something about like the AM signal reflects off the clouds. And so it comes down better. It messes up FM signals, but it helps AM signals.

I don't remember the exact science, but I... Okay. Yeah, but I can attest... So that's the good news. That's the good news. The bad news, it's much harder for me to keep my papers dry. You know, I'm taking my notes. So...

Do you have like all weather... two things that anyone should be thinking about about the snow. Are there other things, are there like weatherproof things that you can write on? I've never tried that. Okay. I do. Now's not the time to try something new. I sit under the awning and so like the snow falling on me is not an issue.

But there's just like so much wetness like in the stadium. Like all the surfaces are wet, you know, things like that. So I just have to be a little more careful where you put things. Got it. All right. Well, speaking of wetness, let's get to Zach Berman. Zach. You're live at the Novicar Complex.

How you doing? a pleasure as always to be joined by our friend Dylan McMahon. It's nice to see you guys as always. I would say, I'll tell the audience, Beau's creative genius, one of the wrinkles to it, is he does it is we find out at the same time as the world. It's not one of these things where it's like, hey, I'm working on X, Y, or Z.

What do you think of this before I put it out there? No. There's 10 minutes before the show. I'm just saying every, everything that that both does um we find out the same time as you so uh it's it's it's um it's always our reactions off i was trying to have the actual song playing in my in my air pods but it stopped playing and the whole the whole thing got got messed up yeah you and i are our musical tastes are apparently different i mean i'm not a big music guy but i do really like bob dillon and i'm really

into Bob Dylan's music and lyrics. And so I, yeah, well, I actually, I can't wait to see the movie. I've been listening to the soundtrack. So I don't, I know you're incorporating Dylan McMahon. I do think we're the only show Philadelphia or Los Angeles. That's probably spending time on Dylan McMahon this week. I think that's probably fair to say. I doubt that's true.

And what percent of the audience, like even, like, can tell that that's about Dylan McMahon? like is another question. It's Bob Dylan with veiled references to Vince McMahon. It's Dylan McMahon. And they're also talking about the deposed center. I understood that. It's pretty obvious. I don't know if it's obvious.

There's no subtext. It's part of your creative genius. So. All right. So how does that do you believe that this Eagles defensive line is preparing for the rematch with Dylan McMahon? this revenge game. Has there been a conference call with Dylan McMahon,

like Philadelphia reporters? Like, you know how they used to do this? Yeah. And is this a bigger revenge game for Dylan McMahon or Sean Desai? Good question. I didn't say it's a bigger revenge game for Sean Decide than Dylan McMahon. Although, you know, I was chatting with Trevor Kegan recently. And I did want to ask Trevor, like,

you're the rookie who made it, right? Is this when you see Dylan McMahon? I talked to Trevor Kagan about Dylan McMahon. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. That's okay. I don't think I missed it. It hasn't been.

I didn't write anything about it. I just talked to him about it. Oh, okay. I got worried. Was there an article that I missed there? Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking that when I was speaking to the Trapper, but in any event,

how is the Eagles defensive line preparing for this? I think the Eagles defensive line overall is, is ready for this Rams front. I think that that's a spot where I think the Eagles actually believe they have an edge. This is not one of the better offensive lines in the end of the league. We documented that yesterday. I think Jeline Carter and Milton Williams, they both had really good games. Jordan Davis actually had, I think we discussed this yesterday,

we've done so many shows this week, so it might be blending together. But Jordan Davis had a really strong game against the Rams as well, I thought. So is my, am I correct in saying that? I mean, I remember being more of a Milton Williams game, but. Yeah. Yeah, no one said, I believe two sacks. I think he had a few like early down. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So, so, uh, yeah, no, I actually think that's a spot where the Eagles feel confident. I think for the Eagles defense, whether Dill McMan is out there, Dill McMahon's not out there. I think the big question is going to be the Eagles linebackers. And, uh, Bo, I thought your analysis was spot on yesterday when I was listening back that the Jeremiah Trotter.

The Jeremiah Trotter Jr. thing very well might be overstated from the media. Like, I know people were saying Vic was, was a puse of his praise. It wasn't volunteered. It was brought up. And it was, yeah. So I think it's a storyline that the media is ripping onto. And I certainly, like, I don't think Jeremiah Trotter Jr. is going to be relegated to the sideline here. But I think Warren Berks is ahead of Jeremiah Trotter Jr. clearly.

Yeah. I don't think there's any doubt about that. I mean, he played the whole game after Nacobie Dean when injured. They didn't rotate that. He played most of that game in week 17. Yeah, I think it's going to be similar to that. And then if Orenberg's is struggling, then maybe they're quicker to pull a trigger, something like that. Yeah.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. So I just got back from practice. And I'll tell you, Dallas Goddard is practicing today. So that illness is a 24-hour illness, fortunately. Well, you might still be feeling the effects of the illness, but it's not keeping him out of practice. Every player who's eligible to practice is practicing for the Eagles. That's the positive sign.

I could say that it was of the sessions this week. It was the nicest out there. It was too bad today. It was like a warmer, I don't want to call it like a spring day, but it certainly wasn't like the past two days. You didn't have the wind blistering in your face. Unfortunately, for Eagles fans, for Professor Selman at the game on Sunday, for my son and my father-in-law at the game on Sunday,

I think the conditions are going to be a lot different the next time the Eagles are on the link. Well, we'll see. I mean, obviously, weather reports notoriously finicky. However, how do you think that, how do you think that? I do have a weather app. I have a weather app. And so I'm giving some expert analysis.

this year. My weather app is telling me that. Yeah, yeah, just telling me that to the snow. Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah. Um, yeah, go on. No, but, yeah, I mean, it's, it's possible that there's, there's no, nothing that happens on Sunday. We all remember the snow game in 2013 against the lions when it wasn't supposed to snow. And then all of a sudden, it, it snowed, uh, so much right during game time. However, it is funny that right now, the, the, the projections are for it to snow exactly from three to six in Philadelphia on Sunday. It's like, how do you think that this would have, it's like, it's like exactly when I leave home. And so the game's over. And so how would that affect this game, Zach? And how are the Eagles preparing for it to potentially affect the game? Yes, great question. And so I think the fact that it's in the forecast certainly helps the Eagles or

and helps the Rams too. Do you think about that game that Lions game, the Eagles Lions game in 2013, they weren't expecting that. And if I can butter you up again, I just think the coolest thing. that was done on that was you did an oral history for for fell off eagles.com where you got some like really good insight for the players. I remember when I was writing my book, I actually was rereading that oral history.

But because yeah, yeah, because the players were like they had to change their shoes at halftime here. I think going into and I bring that up as a way of saying going into the game and Nick Siriani spoke this today, spoke about this today, they're prepared for all of this, right? I don't think the snow is going to have an effect on preparation. I think it could have an effect on performance in this sense. And the conventional wisdom with this is that snow or weather can be a neutralizer.

It can, we talked about this on the show this week. And so it could even up the game. It could provide more variance to the game, whether there's turnover because of mishandling the ball, whether a player slips and therefore a player's open downfield, right? There's more room for variance when you add in the weather than when it's optimum conditions or whether it's in a dome like in Los Angeles. I mean, I mean, that's pretty clear. But I think if I can say to selfishly, I think aesthetically it's going to be awesome,

like take away the performance aspect of it. Football in the snow in the early afternoon, or the late afternoon rather, tends to be like indelible images and fun to watch. And so I'm looking forward to that. I think the counter to that that I would say, if you're trying to be optimistic from the Eagles, is that maybe it does even things up from a variance standpoint and it probably shortens the game to some extent.

But I think it also makes it more about the Jimmy's and the Joe's than the X's and the O's. I think that there is less schematic advantage to be had in a game like that if it is really like nasty to play in. And I think to Nick Siriani's credit, you know, you think back to that 2013 game, part of what, you know, worked for the Eagles was Chip Kelly listening to his players about what was working, right? You know, Kerry Williams telling him that like it's really hard to play defense. You know, the guys like talking about the things that were working on offense. And so, you know, maybe that is a thing that Nick is willing to lean into and not be, you know, too prideful about what the game plan is.

it's going to be about the team that is best able to adjust to what they're seeing and feeling on the field. You're absolutely right. And I would also add to that, like Nick Seriani's from Jamestown, New York. Vic Fangio is from Dunmore, Pennsylvania. Kellan Moore is from Eastern Washington. Is it Prosser, I believe he's from? Point being, like, this isn't the first time these guys have coached or played in snow before. So I, yeah, I think it's fun to talk about.

I don't think it's going to throw them off. But to your point, the players are the ones on the field. And the players are the ones who, whether if it's a slippery turf and you brought up Carrie Williams, right? I remember one thing, and this is probably in that oral history, is that there's thinking often that, like, you shouldn't pass the ball in the snow. But I remember Kerry saying it's actually advantageous to because the player who has affected the most is the defensive back,

who relies on backpedal, who relies on planting and cutting, things of that nature. And it's harder to do that. You know, it's harder to be reactionary when you're playing on a slippery turf or in the snow. So it could be advantageous from a passing game perspective.

Then again, as we also discussed, Jalen Hertz, the first time he ever saw snow was the Eagles Packers game in 2021 or 2020. Speaking of passing in the snow, it's improbable, really, that 11 years later,

we're talking about another possible snowball and the opposing quarterback is the same guy. I mean, it's very rare for a quarterback to stay in the league that long. Matthew Stafford was the quarterback for the Lions that day. He went 10 for 251 yards, was not sacked, no touchdowns, no interceptions. Nick Foles was 11 for 22. So there was a lot more running than throwing that game. Eagles ran the ball 46 times and threw it 22. but um shady 29 for 2 17 yeah 29 for 2 17 yeah that 57 yarder that the epic yeah

Chris Polk with a 39 yard uh touchdown as well go ahead Zach yeah I thought that was gonna be natural you were gonna tell us about Slay talking about the game I didn't talk to Slay yesterday um I need to list it back that I was actually I had an event last night and then when I got home I was working on a story that went up today on all-P-H-L-Y.com. So I didn't go through my transcribing of the people I didn't speak to yesterday. I typically do that late at night. So, yeah, I'm behind actually on the Slay thing.

Yeah, this is related. So, Zach, can you, can you name the six people who were players in that game who are going to be involved in this game? Oh, they're six. Okay. Yeah, Kellynne Moore was on that line team, I believe, right? Inactive third quarter. Yeah.

That's good. Yeah. Yeah. Lions. Yeah, Darius, yeah, Derrish Lay was on the Lions that year. And what would you say about Slay's, like, participation in that game? Like, you know, yesterday he was talking about, you know, like, yeah, like, you know, they got us pretty good in the second half and stuff like that.

Do you know? Slay, was Slay benched for that game? He was an inactive rookie. Yeah, did not play. He did not sound like someone who didn't play in the game when he was talking about it, but he wasn't. He wasn't. He must have been miserable.

Kevin Stafford, Slay. I'll just add in this. Sleigh must have been miserable. He does not like the cold. If you saw the unscripted that the Eagle did from last week, he's asking Cooper to Jean what there is to do in Iowa in the winter. And I'm thinking, Slay's, for the past 13 years, Slay has spent winters in Detroit and Philadelphia,

as if Iowa is Siberia, It's no different than he's like, I wouldn't be able to live there. Like, just like, you lived in Detroit. You lived in Philly. I mean, I don't think Iowa is radically different other than there's probably not as much entertainment in Iowa. Nonetheless, by the way, you hear the sirens. I think that's the Eagles coming back from practice with their police escort. Yeah, I got that escort.

Wait, so who are the other players from that game? Oh, yeah. So which ones have you guys gotten? You guys got Kellyn Stafford. Lange. Slay, Lane. Brandon Graham. Okay, Brandon Graham.

He's not playing it. Yeah, and then the last one is, maybe it's a stretch, but Connor Barwin was in the game and he's now on the... Yeah, okay. That's the stretch. Okay.

Well, as I said, but it was a bit of a strange. All right, Zach, you mentioned your story on all-P-H-L-Y.com, and I want to ask you about it, but I want to ask you about it through the prism of our game ball. Because the game ball

is proudly brought to you by our friends at Xfinity Mobile join the millions who have switched to one of the fastest growing mobile services. The Xfinity Gameball and Zach, I want you to give a game ball to somebody from your piece

which is a bit of a survey of the locker room about some of the behind-the-scenes staffers at the Eagles complex, the people who don't get a lot of shine and the help that they have done for this Eagles team. The Xfinity Gameball goes to

It goes to new. New from the cafeteria, Renault from the cafeteria. And by the way, before I get in this, just need to get credit to Bowen Shield. This is something that they had done before me,

our former employer. And so this is, this is kind of a spiritual ancestor to that story here. Or to those stories, right? It's a direct ancestor. Yeah, direct answer. I picked up the baton.

from you guys. Yeah, so, yeah, New is, so he's the breakfast chef at the facility. And players say that he remembers their orders, like specifically, like Jake Elliott and Milton Williams and Grant Calcutera and Johan Dodson, they all brought up New. And as they walk in and you remembers exactly what they want every single morning. And Dodson said he does this for every player and like multiple players did. And a matter of fact, Moro Ojima was walking by when I was speaking to Milton. And Moral was like, yeah, him too.

Morrow, by the way, for this, moral circled back three times with different people to add. Several appearances. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, moral circle back three times. And even, this is how helpful he was. He looked up in the database to get news name, the spelling of news name for me. because I can't look that up in the Eagles directory.

There's so many other people, and there's more, there's other interviews that I had for this. I used 25. I might circle back with more on, on this. I had about 32 players for this, but I'm thinking I can do two parts and can try to get more. I just want to get this up before this game in case the season's over. But it might not be in.

It's a good follow up next week or leading into the Super Bowl. I think the equipment guys, they deserve attention here. Peter Gold, he's someone that I see in the locker room every day. Those guys work there where Renzoff, and there's a lot of odd jobs that they do. I thought, you know, this is something that, this is a story that's obviously been done before by Bow Shield. We've written before about other behind-the-scenes people. But the light bulb went off in my head when she went on her Hertz said that in the Cincinnati game when he lost his cleats and Pete Gold had to had, you know, to get him that second cleat, put it on. And J. Allen's like, you guys don't realize

how much these guys do. And so that was kind of the genesis for bringing it back up. And then, you know, C.J. Gardner Johnson, he got holiday gifts for everyone in the cafeteria and everyone on the training staff. And so I went around to try to speak to as many players as I could. and I'll continue to get more from this. Some players spoke more generally. A lot of players spoke specifically. You hear different trainers work with different position groups, different people. You know, there's some stuff that I couldn't include there from like some personal

family stuff that some behind the scenes people helped with that I think really kind of speaks to, look, we talk about the players to coach you some of the executives, but there's a lot of people who work, I don't want to say thankless jobs, but. thankless hours and do everything they can for the product of fancy on Sunday. And I think those people really deserve some shine. Well said, check out that story. If you are a diehard or become a diehard to read it on all p.chly.com. Congratulations to New for the Xfinity game ball.

Love that. There you go. I like that. Was he there when you were there? Was he there when you were there making breakfast? I don't think so. Okay. Yeah, because I take pride in,

and knowing the name of everyone that I see on a daily basis. Like, you know, I can tell you everyone, every equipment person and trainer that I see, but I'm not in the cafeteria, so I don't know the cafeteria workers. Yes, but those were always the light of the Novacare complex, the people doing all that work. So thank you for getting the shine on those people, Zach. A super chat from Aaron, who says,

did you run into Oren at the Trotspot? I did not run into Orrin at the Trotspot. I don't think the Trotspot exists anymore. I ran into Orrin at a different car wash in South Philly. Got it. And then we also have a super chat from Evil Zach Berman with no words, which would be the evil, Zach Berman. You would turn evil if you had no words at your disposal.

Yeah, this is probably, this is probably Emily Berman describing me when I saw Tim McManus' story this week. now I'm joking Tim did a great job on that piece I don't know what made you evil What were you doing around the house? No no no no no no Just me like frustrated

Frustrated Zach Berman right? Yeah But yeah So when someone has a good story Yeah Okay anything else to share with us From the week of the locker room Or anything else that you want to get off your chest

I know Kellan Moore interviewing today And then to tomorrow as well Nick Siriani doesn't think that it's going to affect Kellamore's preparation. You know, I said this on the Anthony's show. The Hay is in the barn, so to speak, come Friday. That's always kind of been the way it is.

So they have a walkthrough. They have meetings. Nick said today that Kalamore's going to be at all those meetings. But just one little nugget before I had the locker room is you saw Cliff Kingsbury. He's declining interviews until after the playoffs. Now, he's been a head coach before. There might not be the same urgency as Kalamor.

This is like a tower made opportunity. But Nick Siriani, when Cleveland was interested in Nick Siriani back, I believe it was 2019 or 2020, Nick Siriani specifically said that he is, or he said then, or I heard that he said then, that he was not going to interview until after the postseason. Right. And he didn't get that job. Now, by the way, I mean, I don't want to deify Nick here because if Browns over, I'm sorry, the Colts lost in the divisional round.

So it actually didn't really affect the timeline too much. But it was one thing. I remember when Nick got hired, yeah, when Nick got hired, I had heard that, like, he had interest before, but he was not going to interview for the Brown's job until everything was wrapped up with the Colts. And, yeah, I think that's an interesting nugget,

given that the Eagles offensive coordinator's doing three interviews that he did that before the game. It's definitely interesting. Yeah. To think back on, I guess you could talk yourself into, like, if it's your first interview, you might need a little bit more headspace. Like Kellynmore has already done some of these interviews. You know, maybe it's less of a distraction for him, but I don't know.

And I and they're intentionally late in the week, right? So it's after all the practices, it's after all the game planning is done. It's probably the day he's supposed to just kind of relax anyway. What is the question that he came back from wanted to ask? Wait, just to defend Kellanmore real quick. Like, if Kellmore didn't do these interviews now and Eagles made the Super Bowl,

he wouldn't be able to talk to teams until the Super Bowl week. So he literally, he might categorically eliminate himself from some of these jobs. This first round of virtual interviews is done for teams in this round and then they can't talk again

until the Super Bowl week. I believe, worth that by week. So it kind of gives him time. Yeah. The actual super chat message from Evil, Zach Bramman, was supposed to be, I love walking around the house with my shoes on.

Which is what I thought Zach was going to say when he said, it's what I'm going to. Yeah, no, I appreciate it. And we did say, by the way, after that show, she's like, you know, that is right. You do walk around with your shoes on. But now I'm not anymore. Now I've got the slippers from our loyal audience from the sickos. And I'm so grateful for that. Yeah, what have you done with those people?

Much more so than the delivery mechanism. I should say, I'm grateful for the people who purchased it. What am I doing with the pink ones? The pink ones are there. I offer them up to Emily. Reed wore them. Reed said they were drippy. Now, there's a man.

Thank you. Reed. Oh, Reed loves. That is a man comfortable in his machismo. Love that. Yeah, Reed's favorite thing to wear during the summary. I got him like a knockoff, you know, the San Diego Pottery City Connect jersey. and it has, you know, it's like pink and green and you know the one I'm talking about?

No, that's okay. Okay. If you know, he loves City Connect jerseys and there's like a knock, you can get Knockoff City Connect jerseys for $15. And he wears this Padres knockoff one and he loves like this, he calls it trippy. So, yeah, he wears the Knockoff City. The Apple has fallen just far enough away from the tree for us to be happy for Reed. The people in the chat are giving it a read.

He's more handsome than I have. Read, read, read. Yeah, read the man. He's the man. All right, I need to have the locker room. I'll be listening to the rest of the show my way home from NovaCare, eager to hear all your insight and analysis. Excited for the post game show or, sorry, free game show,

post game show. Excited to listen to the halftime show. And can't wait for our coverage next week, one way or another. So we'll see. Orrin, Orrin, Berks. Orrin Burke, there you go. Maybe that's the reason why it's another. We'll see.

All right. Talk to guys. All right. Let's take a quick break to hear from our sponsors before we spin this bad boy towards the rest of the episode. Let's talk about our friends. Just 18 miles away. That's right.

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But, you know, grind in the film. Yeah, grinding in the film, you know, getting ready for... Classes have started this week, so you've got double duty again. A little annoying and distracting. Yeah, I wish they'd push the semester back to after the Do you ever have students in the class who are sickos? Sometimes, yeah, I get that sometimes. They're like, yeah, this is weird, but I listen to you on the thing. Heard you had a celebrity siting at the pregame warmups last week.

Yeah, Jane's music teacher's fiancé. Yes. Shout out. I wish I remembered your name, but shout out, yeah. I don't want to be wrong. I don't want to be wrong. It's super nice. Yeah.

And Miss Anna is a superstar in our house. His actual seats are in the section where I like sneak down to watch warm-ups. Yeah. Oh. So he's better than you. Well, I mean, he's probably richer than me. Yeah. I don't know that we can say that definitively.

Maybe not. Certainly cooler than you. I mean, that might not be a high bar. Yeah. An accomplished musician in his own right. There you go. Yeah, no, I'm doing well. I've been wrestling with like how to feel about I feel like I'm the like the team's winning guy

you know like I defend Nick Siriani a lot you know people are like what does he do whatever you think is the most important stat I just think it's fun yeah well that that's I don't know about quarterback wins but but I do think like for a head coach like wins should matter you know and so this conservative approach on offense you know one of the things that Nick said today in his press conference about people asked him about uh about was it the question was about jalen i think right and and he kind of turned it into like well jalen wins and yeah oh yeah and then he said what the most important stat is and he said right right that's right and then he said he said uh you know people might care about about passing yards and stuff and he said but we care about the thing that matters and i thought

he was going to say wins and he said turnover differential and he's always and it really like It's always been tremendous and explosive plays. Those are the two things he always talks about. And all of a sudden, explosive plays are not so important to him anymore. Yes. And so one of the things we can start this with, I guess, is just looking back at the explosive plays this season,

especially in the passing game. Okay. When you look at plays that were 20 yards or more in the passing game by game this year, in the Tanner McKee game, there were five. in that Steelers game there were six but when you look at like

the Ravens game there were none the Panthers game there was one you know commander's game there was one there were two against the Packers

but you know one was on the on the bubble screen to Dallas Godard where it was like all and for the season it started out pretty good there were like four or five

a game for the first half of the season and kind of after the buy when they started getting more conservative that stopped the downfield throw stopped as you pointed out the only one against the Packers was the fade

sneak and when you look at 50 plus yard receptions on the season like truly explosive play is something that we've seen this offense have in past years the last one was the Dallas Goddard's best play of his career in week three okay yeah that's the last time the Eagles had a that's interesting plus yard pass play I mean and they've had what like three 50 plus yard runs uh yeah there have been oh no more than that there were we've been two three five six 50 plus yard well yeah Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, like the two against the Rams,

Worse, Iquan was 70 plus, and had the one against the commanders as well. I just... I have been skeptical of the notion that it's like a reflection of the coaching staff just telling Jalen to protect the ball more. And like that, this is a conscious decision for them to do that because to me that seems kind of asinine. I mean, protect the ball, yes,

but it doesn't have to be protect the ball at the expense of ever trying to throw the ball down field. But the more I hear them talk about it and the more you hear other people talk about it on or just, you know, talking to people in the building, I kind of think that is what's happening, that they have identified that their defense is so good, their running game is so good,

we don't need to try to have a good passing game. And that's crazy to me. I agree. I think the things that both Nick and Jay And to some degree, Kellan Moore doesn't say that much, but even a few things he said have made me think that this is like very conscious on their part where it's not just telling Jaylen like throw it away, you know, which he throws the ball away a lot. But like it's not just that or take a sack or, you know, whatever, like don't throw an interception. It's also in the play calling and the approach where they're not calling plays that they think of as higher turnover potential. Right. I mean, just look no further than the three third and longs last week in a game that was like a one score game where they ran the ball and then punted.

I mean, you know, Rich Cotite used to punt on third down. Like it like he actually punt, for you kids out there, I'm not kidding. Like you can look this up. Rich Cotite punted the ball on third down sometimes because you wanted to catch them without a punt returner, which is like very funny. I mean, that's a lower turnover play than running the ball. Why not just punt the ball on third down? that's the goal, you know? It's also like, like, I'm sorry, but, but like, go routes along the sideline are not

high turnover probability plays. No. Those are safe plays. Yeah. I mean, like, when's the last time would be like in that Seattle game, there was an interception on a deep ball. Yeah, that was the one that they're freelance. Yeah, yeah.

But that's like the last one I remember. I mean, like, that's not the kind of play exactly like you're saying, especially when you have AJ Brown, like, fighting for the ball. I mean, it's just not something you're likely to see. And it's frustrating because, like, you. yes, the team's winning and yes, your goal should be to maximize your chance of winning and if you think that a turnover

is like the only way the other team can win, then sure like, you know, make sure you don't turn it over. But for that to be the approach in like the first half of a one score game where you're not even trying to get 12 yards when you have this much talent on offense is kind of a loser approach

and it's also not necessarily going to end up being correct in that game. Like what would happen if the Packers came back? and won the score by one score, won the game by one score. Wouldn't you look back at that third and 12 and be like, man, I wish we had gone for that. Like, maybe we could have scored on that drive.

And so that's a little frustrating. It's funny, there was that eight-minute drive in the first half of the fourth quarter in this last game. Resulted in a field goal. It went from 1610 to 1910. And it's one of those things where it's like, obviously that was good, right?

Like that taking half the time off the clock and making it a two-score game was like the perfect thing to have. happened there. But part of me was like, this team, when the defense is shutting down the other team, should not be trying to run clock, like, up six in the fourth quarter. Like, that that game should have been like 36 to 10. You know what I mean? Like, like, I'm not saying they did the wrong thing by taking that approach on that drive. But the reason it's coming down to that drive is because this is the 13th most efficient offense in the league when it should be one of the

most efficient offenses of all time. It's related to the conversation that, you know, Zach and I had before about, you know, those, those midfield punts where it's like, well, you got to trust the defense and back them up. No, like trust the defense by trying to score an offense and knowing that if you don't, that the defense is going to have your back. Right. Yeah, the fourth and five punt from the plus 45.

And then also at the end of the half, I mean, like end of halves have been, have been an issue all year. But you have fourth and four at the 39. after the Zach Bon interception. Just run a play and get four yards, man. Yeah. Like, it's like, you know, you're trying to draw them offside. You get called for a false start.

Now it's fourth and nine. Honestly, still go for it, right? Yeah, because the downside is they get one play. The downside is they have to go further. Yeah, they have to go further than you do. Like, you're closer to scoring at that moment than they are. And yet you're choosing to keep the status quo. Let's make sure it stays 10-0.

And that's kind of that thing. And then from an aesthetic, game enjoyment like process thing the Eagles started the game three for six in pass success rate so the first six times they called a pass play

it was a successful play three for six and then they had 11 consecutive unsuccessful pass plays and just think about how that feels like watching the game in the stands like that's why people were booing I mean 11 consecutive unconstitutional that's not 11 straight in completions but it's unsuccessful play

meaning if you complete like a three-yard pass on first down that's considered unsuccessful. So that's what we were looking at. They finished the game 35% success rate. That's the lowest rate of the season. There were nine successful pass plays on the game. That was the fewest of any Jalen Hertz career game. So just like the number of plays where you're like, good job past game. That includes, that includes scrambles by the way.

Okay. Single digits for a whole game like you watch it, you sit there for three hours and that happens nine times. I mean, that's not like it's, it's, just not pleasing. I know I know Claire loves running the ball but like the run game wasn't you know like exactly explosive in this game either. So I'm just worried. It's so hard. It's hard because it's like yeah this team isn't good. It's so Debbie Downer about a team that is arguably the favorites to go to the Super Bowl. Yeah it's because I want to win the game in Detroit next week. Right. It's like how are you going to win that game? Yeah. Like when the other team isn't going to be

shut down. You know, you don't necessarily have to win these games the way you're going to have to win that game. Like I get that. Maybe. Maybe. it goes to the thing that Jalen said, like every game is a little different. You know, my job's a little bit different in every game. But it is also like, and now maybe it's because they get the turnover

on the kickoff and score a touchdown. But it's kind of funny to go into a game being like, oh, this is not one of those games where I'm going to have to throw the ball. Like we've got such an advantage in this game. It's just next week. It's just,

I'm just worried it's going to be hard to just turn on. It's the same concern, AJ Brown had after the Carolina game where it was like, you just won the game. You haven't lost a game in a year. Like, why are you complaining? but he's complaining because he knew that wouldn't be enough

for the games that really matter down the stretch. He was interestingly seemed at peace with this last one. Yeah. So maybe they've just brainwashed them all into thinking like this is the way to go. I don't know. Yeah. Or maybe, I don't know, he just thought that that was the right approach.

For this game, what about on the Rams pressure and Jailen taking sacks? Yeah, so the Rams are above average in pressure rate but had been below average in. sack rate and we talked at length yesterday by the way if you didn't see the show yesterday definitely tune in franz excellent swooper revenge a full breakdown of both sides of the ball the debut of dylan McMahon i mean that's really the the big hook that as well yeah uh the thing we discussed was that the the strength of the rams is the is the defensive line they obviously got to sam darnold

and avoiding sacks has never been a strength of of jalen hurts either and so like if if something's going to go wrong in this game. Like, that could be one of them, though, of course. Shout out to Kevin, who says he's tuning in live from the Chicago. Nice. What's your favorite bear? I do like a polar bear. I mean, I like a yogi bear.

I like a Berenstein bear. All-encompassing teddy bear is good. I like a panda bear. I like panda, yeah. It's good. Now, our pandas, actually bears though? I thought they're like not really bears but they're called you know what I mean

well I know that a red panda is definitely not a bear and has no relation to a panda there you go brown bear black bear hard for me to really have a preference I guess black bear okay grisly kind of scary grizzly yeah yeah like teddy bears okay are though did we get all the we have a lot of kind of a koala bear now that's a definitely not a bear. Quala bear. Like, not even close. A panda is a true bear, Julia tells us. Okay, I wasn't, yeah,

I think I, I think the problem is I was thinking of quala. Yeah, yeah. All right. Have we gotten all the bears? Are those the real bears? The chat can help me with this, but qualas are more closely are closely related to some like animal you wouldn't think of at all.

They're marsupials for sure, but there's a specific thing they're related to that you wouldn't think. Okay. And it's not pairs, but I don't remember what it How about Brandon Bear? What about You're a big Bear Stearns guy I know. Am I?

Yeah, okay. Okay. All right. I mean, you're the one who brought it up. Yeah, no, I did. Sloth. I don't know about a sun bear. Yeah.

Bear necessities. You can't trust the internet anymore. Someone just made up Sun Bear this morning. Paddington Bear. Paddington, yeah, I like Paddington. Yeah. All right. Jailen taking sacks.

Quarteroy was one of my favorite books as a kid. Okay, I like a quarter of a bear. Yeah. Yeah, no, that was it about Jailen taking sacks. I mean, like, that's like a strength of the Rams is to rush the passer. And we talked about the disguise and all that kind of stuff that they do. And one of the reasons that Jalen takes sacks is because it's such an emphasis not to turn the ball over. Yeah.

So it's like secure the ball, go down as opposed to... Just throw it away, though. Yeah, I know. but yeah exactly yeah okay uh that's gonna do it for this segment we're gonna take another break and then we're gonna talk a little bit more about the eagle's defense against the rams offense and some historical nuggets that the professor wants to sprinkle on us uh rocket money i've talked about this before uh this little sneaky thing that uh satellite radio does you know and you get the you get the cheap deal when you sign up for a uh you know a car a lease or whatever

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slash p h l why and then finally tell you about our friends at game time now um i'm a bad responder on like texts and dms so i got to respond to this uh defob daniel gallin shout out to dg who sent me a a a twitter dm to let me know that thanks to game time he was in attendance for the egos playoff game their win last week. First, Eagles game he's been to since the Nate Sudfeld game at the end of the 2020 season. So shout out to Daniel Gowan

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It's game time. All right. Let's flip sides of the ball, professor. One thing that we have talked about a little bit this season is you got a defense, you've got to have a weakness somewhere. Right. And for Vic Fangio, oftentimes, sometimes that chosen weakness for him, has been the flats. And they haven't been killed on it,

thanks in part to their high quality of tackling. Yes. But in that matchup back in week 12, that was something that the Rams were successful. Yeah, it's really been throughout the season. I mean, if you remember that first drive against Washington,

they hit Echler in the flats a couple of times, and it was a few mistackles that led to those breaking out. And one of the things that I can relate that to is, Fangio loves to play cover four and cover six and these different coverages where it, cover four in particular, that means you have four deep defenders. The safety stay high the whole time. None of them are rotating down. And then that leaves only three defenders underneath, right? And so what that means is you have Cooper de Gene, if you're in nickel, which they almost always are, is in one of the

flats. And then one of the linebackers is going to be in the other flat. And that's going to either be Zach Bonn or in this game. It'll either be Berks or Trotter as the other one. And that's just a lot of space to cover. I mean, and you can see, you could see at times this season where the quarterback is looking and he kind of sees off coverage by the corners. And he senses, okay, this is going to be one of those coverages where the flats are going to be there and they even check into plays like that. And in this last game against Green Bay, and I'll relate it to that first Rams game in a second, this last game against Green Bay, the Eagles played more cover four than in any game all year. It was over 50% on dropbacks. And cover four is kind of the most vanilla thing that you can do from

the Fangio structure, right? Because it always looks like cover four pre-snap. Right. Like the four, you know, like sometimes they're up like pressing on the line, but other than that, like all the zone coverages look like cover four. And then one of the safeties might rotate down and then it becomes cover three. It could become cover six. They never play a cover two, by the way. And so, so it's just going to be, it's going to be one of those three. And in this game, it was like a super vanilla approach. we talked about how in that game in Brazil, like when the Packers weren't empty, Fangio like blitzed and he exchanged and all that stuff,

Packers weren't empty 11 times in this game last week, not a single blitz, not a single exchange, just sitting back, like usually just in cover force. So it was a very vanilla approach. Now against the Rams, we saw Stafford attack the flats a bunch as well. And this was a couple of different ways. when there was off coverage,

they would hit slant flats, they would hit the famous like Nakua slide route or he like starts on one side and then he slides to the other side and the slide route is basically a flat route where you're running behind the line of scrimmage.

So he's kind of hiding behind the offensive line and then he just pops out into the flat and that's almost... And we call it a slide route because the whole time he's running he goes wee! That's right. Yeah, that's exactly what he's doing. And that's almost always

coupled with some sort of vertical route from that side. So that lifts the coverage. It leaves the flat open. And that was something that the Rams were able to do in that game. Two times they caught the Eagles sleeping out of a TV timeout. So you know, when you're at home and you're like going to the fridge or whatever, you come back, you miss the first play. Well, the Eagles defense did that two times in this game against the Rams where they just lined up and quickly ran a play.

None of the defensive line was like set or anything. And both times it was a quick flat. route on a curl flat. So just the, just the thing to look at where the main reason I'm bringing it up, it hasn't been like a main issue, obviously, like this defense has been great. Yeah. Is that with Nikobe Dean out, right, you have a slightly higher chance of either miscommunication or a mistackle or someone who's not able to quite get out there and uncover that, like, where that could be a point of emphasis because it has been against the Eagles all year. And then you also don't have your regular guys out there to make those tackles.

It's a different play caller, which I do think it's probably a little overstated. The importance of that. The green dot. Who's got the dot? You know, because he's already out there anyway. But yeah, it's not, it's, they don't have the same bulk load of reps to draw on. Yeah. And I think there are teams, there are a lot of teams that make the opposite mistake, right?

Somebody like jumps the flat and then the vertical route behind them is open. You see that all the time in the NFL where like a team is trying to layer the route. to try to get the person to come down. And then they hit behind them, right? Exactly. And that's happened very rarely to the Eagles. I mean, I remember Quinnian Mitchell made that mistake late in the game

against the Falcons, like, and they hit behind him, you know, like, but it's, but the fact that I can, like, remember individual instances shows that it really hasn't been that often. And so I'd rather making this mistake than the other, but just something to look for. I mean, I would expect, like, a bunch of passes to the flat.

Bad conditions could make that even more likely. And then, you know, hope that the defender slips or whatever and that kind of thing. So, yeah. Now, how about the linebackers? Do you think they're going to play it straight up and just have mostly Birx every now and then Trotter and they're just going to sort of sit in their nickel? Or do you think that we might see some different personnel packages?

Interesting. Yeah, I mean, it helps to look back at how the linebackers had been used so far when everyone was healthy. Bond typically lines up to the side with the tight end. It's not the kind of thing where there's like a middle linebacker and a weak side linebacker like some teams have. it really has been like 90% of the time and it's not always because sometimes they have like a pressure package involving Bonn or something and then it might not fit

what the offense lined up as but typically if it's like two by two or one by three with the tight end as like the ISO on one side in those kinds of situations Bonn ends up on the outside and the other linebacker ends up on the inside and they were comfortable playing that way when it's three by one with the tight end to the three side Bond usually ends up in the middle. And his interception against the Packers was a good example of that.

The tight end was the number three receiver to one side. He was kind of eyeing him. The pass was to the backside. It was the Slays guy. And Bond jumped that. But he was able to make that play because he was in the middle. Fangio made it sound like the roles weren't going to change with the backups in there. So I'm guessing he's going to use Bond the same way,

which means that there are going to be plays where Orrin Berks is all by himself in the middle of the field, right? or Jeremiah Trider maybe he's going to be all by himself in the middle of the field and he seems to just be willing to trust that now early in the season I tell me if I'm right here we saw we saw a couple snaps of 515 right and we have not really seen it since there haven't been any snaps of like five defensive linemen and a single linebacker on the field all season oh not even a single one I thought maybe they were one or two bond bond um I know this because I like like very like in a very OCD manner like chart the uh the exact personnel packages and there's not been a single one of what we would call penny. Okay. It's looked like penny on the field because of bond goes on on the line. But yeah, we haven't seen that. We have seen, we have seen 416 dime, handful of snaps. Okay.

And actually there were 10 snaps of dime against the Rams in week 12. I asked Zach if he could ask Fangio on Tuesday about this. And Zach has been very nice about this, by the way, and he did. And Fangio just said, it's been an interesting storyline for me to follow out on that text thread of just how far. you're willing to push it and how far he is willing to let you push it. I mean, he has his own job to do. He has his own questions. He gets them in first and then near the end he's gotten mine in, which is, I'm very grateful

for that. But Fangio said he didn't remember why, which was such an endearing answer. Like, you could tell he's just being honest. Like, he just didn't remember. I couldn't find a pattern of why or anything. I don't know. Intellectually, it makes sense to do it to maybe have a couple snaps of that this week, but maybe.

It was a two parts. Especially if it's a bad weather game and you need to have the body at the line of scrimmage. Right. I had a, it was a, so yeah, in that, in that game, Zach Bonn lined up against the Rams. He lined up on the line of scrimmage nine times.

Okay. Eight of the times it was on a pass play and seven of those eight, he actually rushed the passer. So it was like a kind of aggressive usage of Bonn as a pass rusher in that game. So he's not gonna, I serious, I doubt he would use one of the other linebackers in that role.

Like it's going to be born in that role And that does leave the one other guy And then of course the famous Fangio approach to McVeigh Like the 6-1 you know like line or whatever Didn't do a whole lot of 6-1 in that game This year But he did do a bunch of the of the 5-1 And so that's gonna that's gonna isolate a linebacker

There's no way McVe's not gonna try to test that linebacker And there are gonna be some plays where we're like Oh yeah you know like Trader wasn't able to cover a guy or whatever And just gonna have to live with that And everyone else is gonna have to swarm and tackle and all those things. Titans are hiring Chiefs Assistant General Manager Mike Borganzi as their general manager.

Yeah. With the coach in place. Yes. Borgo. Getting it done. All right. Well, good luck. Good luck to him.

All right. Anything else on this side of the matchup before we get to some of your nuggie nuggies? Not much really. I mean, one thing that, just because some people might remember you guys had Jordan Rodriguez on before the week 12 game and she talked about how much pistol. the Rams were using this year.

They were third in the league at Pistol going into that game, 21%. They've used Pistol like three snaps since then or something. They've just completely eliminated it from the offense. Jordan had them pegged. Yeah, everybody knows. We can't do it anymore. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

They were running outside zone at a pistol. They were doing a bunch of play action off of it. They completely stopped. I don't know why. But Fran was pointing out that the run game has gotten a lot more efficient since they stopped to the Pistol stuff. I don't know if it's like correlated to that. but their run game was not doing very well

going into that game. They've been a lot better since. Okay. If you're watching on Fast, we appreciate it. Thanks for hanging. We've got a little bit more. And if you want to check it out, go to all-P-H-L-Y.com. What else you got? You want to talk some playoff history?

Please. All right, so Eagles are 6-0 all-time in divisional round home games. Okay. Now, all six of those were with the buy, right? So you have that caveat now. Like, this is the first time you're coming off a playoff game. Interesting.

So it's a little different. The only other time the Eagles have ever been the two seed was the first time. They played a divisional home game. That was the 1980 home game against the Vikings. Okay. 3116 win. And in the other divisional round, which is what the game, which we're hoping happens this week,

the number one seed, Atlanta Falcons, lost to Dallas, which meant that. the NFC championship game was here. Yes. The famous Wilbert Montgomery game. And that was the first one. No divisional home games for 22

years after that. The next one was 2002. Okay. What's the play you think of in that game? Is that the crumpler? No, that's not. No, no, no. That was championship game two years later.

But very similar. Same player. Brian Dawkins. Is it the flying? No, it was Brian Dawkins just absolutely destroying Michael Vic, like near the goal line on a scramble. So that was 2002, 2003, Green Bay, fourth and 26. And then you've got 2004 against the Mike Tice Vikings team.

That was the Freddie Mitchell. I thank my hands for being so great. Okay. He recovered a fumble in the end zone. Did the Randy Moss have done the mooning celebration the week before? And Freddie Mitchell. That is a disgusting act. And Freddie Mitchell did the...

Oh, disgusting act. Yeah, yeah. Was that Joe Bach? It was Joe Bach. Yeah. Freddie Mitchell did the... Before he was cool. Yeah, exactly.

Freddie Mitchell did the pulling the pants on celebration. And then he did the belt that he always did to put the fans on. That was great. It was the best Freddie Mitchell celebration by a mile. 2017, Atlanta. Sure. The Keanu Neal. Neon-O-Neal.

Yeah. Yeah, there you go. And then 2022 against the Giants, just the absolute route. So those are the six. Now, three times the Eagles have played, the Rams, and the playoffs. They are one and two. The only win came back in 1949 NFL championship game. 14-0-0.

The head coach was? I missed the beginning. I'm sorry. I missed my active listening. No, no, no, you're good. 1949. Oh, was it your boy? Oh, of course.

We've gone like a month on the show without mentioning. Greasy Neal. Creasy Neal. Yeah, exactly. Greasy Neal's the only Eagles head coach to ever beat the Rams in the playoffs. And of course. Greasy Neal. Keanu Neal's grandfather.

Oh, there you go. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Great grandfather, I think. Yeah. Okay. The other, the next one was the 1989 NFC wildcard game. Now, this one I remember, I was 11 years old.

It was the first home playoff game in eight years. And it wasn't sold out. Oh. And it was like on the local news that it was. wasn't sold out and that you could buy tickets. And I asked my dad, can we go to the game? And he said, it's going to be raining. This is like childhood trauma here.

It's going to be raining? Who cares? And you have been waiting almost 40 years to be able to publicly call him out for this. I've been waiting all week for him to ask me to take him to this game. So I can tell him, sorry. It's going to be snowing. Can't go. Wow, this is some real therapy that we're working out on the show. No, exactly.

This is like the kind of childhood stuff. So, yeah, that was a terrible game. It was a 21-7 loss. Eagles should have had a buy, but they blew like an easy, regular season game late in the year and had to play that wildcard game. Just terrible. Do you think the outcome would have been reversed if you had been there? Oh, for sure.

For sure. It would have won every Super Bowl since. I mean, like that, that was the moment. And then the other one, I don't think of the St. Louis Rams as the same team for some reason, but that was the NFC championship game, 2001. Kurt Warner. Heartbreaker. had the ball

chance to win it at the end and yeah Anais Williams had the interception at the end of that one. Okay. All right, so there's a little history. What are we thinking? Uniform wise.

Uniforms might actually be important in this game because of the snow. Now Jason Kelsey was on the radio talking about how one of the things in that snow bowl was that they couldn't see the Lions players like they were wearing all white or white on silver or something.

And it was actually hard to see the players. The fog bowl, I remember that was an issue. The Eagles were wearing white, and Randall has talked about how he couldn't see anybody. He was just like throwing the ball to a spot, but he couldn't see the actual player. And so both teams have announced their uniform combination. If you're wondering what the aesthetics of the game will look like

in addition to possibly being on a white blanket field, Eagles, of course, wearing midnight green on white. Rams have chosen to wear blue pants and blue pants and blue socks under the white jerseys. So that should make them visible. Like you probably be able to see their players. They could have gone all white for example. And they've chosen not to.

I don't know if that's something that they're going to regret. I don't know if it's good to not be seen. Your own, like, I don't know. Is it good to not be seen or bad to not be seen? On defense. On defense, you don't want to be seen. Yeah. On offense, you do.

Yeah. Well, there we are. Okay. You know, it'll look like a bunch of torso-less people running out there on the ramps for the people on the field. Yeah, I don't like the, I don't like it when the pants and the socks are the same color. And then, like, the uniforms are different color. I think it makes for, like, just, which is why I don't like it when the Eagles wear white socks with white pants. Let's say you are just in a, in, like, blanketed white cover of a snowstorm.

And you see something coming towards you. Would you be more scared by legs and no torso? Or a torso and no legs? Oh, that's a good one. I feel like I'd be more scared by the torso. By the floating torso. Yeah. Because I wouldn't, the legs I feel like would be more predictable, like, where they're going.

Whereas the torso, it would look like it's just flying. And that's, like, that's scarier. Also closer to like Eye level just the whole aesthetic would be scarier to me Yeah There's a there's a there's a there's a doctor Seuss Story about the the pants with no one Nobody inside them

So really okay That's what the legs would we have a lot of Dr. Seuss that we read to everyone I think that one is in Yurtle the Turtle Okay it's one of the short stories comes after Right right okay Yeah You're all the turtle I mean as trenchant today as it was then.

Super chat. That reminds me from Santiago who says, bring back the good old days of introducing Zach to us with every personal question you can think of, nothing like his first year

at BWF. Those were the days. Yeah, I mean, how many more personal questions can we ask the guy? We know where he went on his honeymoon by now. Mm-hmm.

That was the last four digits of his social. We know when his daughter was born right after double doyink. and how he remembers, yeah. Okay. Any other questions in the chat before we leave here?

It's been a good, good act. I mean, the Sneaches. The Sneaches is probably my favorite. Oh, that is fantastic. Yes. And then you get to do it. You get to do a good voice for Sylvester. It's such a great.

McMonkey, McBean. Sneaches is such a fantastic. More na'I. Sylvester, McMonkey, McBein. I've heard of your troubles. I've heard you don't happy. But I can fix that on. To fix it up, choppy.

I'd be willing for another hour of that. That was great. Anytime. All right. All right. You feel good about this game. I feel pretty good. I made a mistake on the...

A little too good, maybe. I made a mistake on Super yesterday. Uh-oh. Never before has that happened. On the option for two scores or not. I was surprised. Because I was thinking about the line, but I didn't think in the moment, and I thought about it immediately after that,

obviously the line would change, under the condition that the Eagles were winning the game. Like you're taking away the 40% possibility of them losing the game. Because you don't get credit. You don't get credit unless the Eagles win. Exactly. It's, it's, um, right. So you're banking on a, that was a bad choice.

You're banking on a kind of precise thing of a, of a one score Eagles win. Yeah, that was the wrong move. No. Hopefully it doesn't come back to bite me. Hopefully it'll be just a laffer. A laugh. Is what I'm hoping. Eagles will be at arrest disadvantage the following.

week in the NFC championship game. Now, the rest advantage, people have talked about that this week is a thing that's like, you know, people have talked a lot about the, obviously a much more important thing than football, the fires in L.A. affecting the Rams and also the rest disadvantage. The fires are a unique thing and it's impossible to tell like how that's going to affect how they play. But the rest advantage, remember, just three years ago, the Rams were in exactly the same situation, 2021.

They played the Monday night football wild card game. at home against the Cardinals. They won the game. They then went to the number two seed, Tampa Bay. Tampa, that's the next week that Tampa Bay had just destroyed the Eagles the week before. And they won that game. And then they won the next game.

And then they won the next game. And they won the Super Bowl starting the playoffs in exactly this way, number four seed at home playing on short rests in the divisional round. So, and McVeigh talked about that this week. He said, like, you know, we've done this. Like, we know exactly how to schedule the week and all that. So it's not a new thing for him. And I was in,

Tampa is an even longer trip than Philadelphia. Yeah, and they were underdogs in that game and then all that. So, I mean, for what, for what that's worth. Okay.

You're trying to talk yourself into some thought of a potential loss. Well, I can take you behind the scenes. I mean, I'm going to spend tomorrow on NFL pro just filtering all of the Rams best plays from the season. Okay. And just watching those.

Like, so that's how I get ready. to bring it down? Yeah, that's how I get ready. If I feel a little overconfident, the week, the day before, I just sit down and I'm like, you know, 20 plus yard plays, sacks by the defense, interceptions by the defense. Do you do the reverse if there are times when you feel?

Sometimes. Sometimes if I feel a little worried. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Before the Super Bowl, I watched like all of my homes as interceptions, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah. And then there was like there were four of them.

And that's the problem. Well, yeah. On one hand, it's good because it doesn't take too long. Yeah, yeah. I was able to do it like, yeah. But, uh, it's, uh, Yeah, it's just a self-therapy for me. It's a way that I get into the right mindset.

Okay. Julia, how are you feeling about the game? I'm feeling great. But also maybe too great, yeah. Julia, before the game was planning next week's shows, and she was like, if we lose somehow, I don't know how that could happen. And I was like, well, they could score more points like it happens, but.

I'll be pacing for sure. Bo, I have a comment from Adam P., who I met at the Flyers takeover. a very lovely guy and his wife Vanessa. He said he messaged you. I believe on Twitter, I'll ask him, but he won something like March Madness, and he was supposed to get a prize.

Okay. And you never responded to him. Well, I certainly don't remember the message, but I'm happy to give him a prize. I believe him. Email me. Bo at all-P-H-L-Y.com. There you go.

You never sent me my shirt from the very first time I emailed I got you a shirt last week two weeks ago. I paid it off. That's true. Yeah, I can't be held to respond to every

Twitter message. I don't see them all because the whole the whole thing is FACTA. Get on Blue Sky and send me a message there. We actually do need more of the sports football,

NFL community to get on Blue Sky. That actually reminds me maybe this is how well we should have done the show. I had a lovely email sent from R, who I don't think wants his name. Oh, Ryan, I can say his name, Ryan. And he was hit by that inspiration bug with specific Zach Berman lyrics.

Zach Berman, um, uh, tinge lyrics to Greg Olson's portion of the seventh floor crew rap. So I don't know. It's a shot. Let's see how it goes. What's your name, Z, Birm, what you do, get red. Get red. How you do it, ride all night, and I never go to bed. Chilling on the seventh floor, God, I'll let these sick goes.

No, Big Zach is in the house, and I'm fined to have a great show. At NovaCare, at the link. My two aren't in the pink. Wear my shoes in my home, even in the intimate dome standing up when I pee. Both should be more like me. Come on, fellas, let's get weird. Whisper, Blu-chew ads in your ear. Took Emily to Sushi Raw, but I never got into Gabe Hall.

Wait a minute, Gabe Hall. Gabe Hall. Go birds, says Ryan. That's fantastic. There's some genius in there. So thank you to Ryan. Hopefully, Zach makes it to the end of this show. He's like, what?

Now, unfortunately, I do have to tell everybody. Zach bailed on the road trip to Detroit. So if you're looking for bad news, bad juju, you know, that could be what is to blame. So New Orleans. New Orleans instead. That's what we're going to do. All right.

That'll do it for this episode of the P.H.O.I. Eagles podcast. Hit the thumbs up. Hit the comments. We need more comments on yesterday's episode so that Jilline Hertz has a higher bar to clear if you guys don't mind. And of course, we will be back with full coverage on Sunday. Kickoff show.

Half-time show. Post-game show. Fran Duffy, Jamie Lynch, Super Bowl. champion, Vinnie Curry. Zach Berman from the link. All the good stuff ahead of the huge game on Sunday. Enjoy the weekend, everybody. Thank you to the professor for pulling double duty again. Thanks to Julia. Thanks to Zach. And we will talk to you on Sunday. Thanks to everybody for watching, and listening. Subscribe. And as always, we love you.