PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Scouting report: How will Vic Fangio plan for the Philadelphia Eagles to shut down Jordan Love?

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

Time to dive fully into the Eagles-Packers matchup, with all eyes today on the Packers offense vs. the Eagles defense. On one side, Vic Fangio deploying chess pieces like Jalen Carter, Nolan Smith, Josh Sweat, Zack Baun, Quinyon Mitchell, Cooper DeJean and C.J. Gardner-Johnson. On the other, Jordan Love, Josh Jacobs, Jayden Reed, Tucker Kraft and Romeo Doubs. One of the league’s best rushing offenses against one of the league’s best run defenses. A talented, big-play quarterback against one of the league’s stingiest secondaries.Fran Duffy is in studio to break it all down with Zach Berman and Bo Wulf. Get your pencils ready! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

to the PHLY Eagles podcast on a beautiful Tuesday afternoon. Bowulf, Fran Duffy, Zach Berman here with a lot to talk about. And it's all presented by Bet365. Download the Bet365 app and use code PHLY365. When you sign up, whatever the moment, it's never ordinary at Bet365. And it's such a big matchup. We're splitting our game preview up into two episodes this week.

Today, we focus on the highly ranked Packers offense number four in DVOA. against the number one Eagles defense. We're going to get into all kinds of bits and parts and things to think about, about that matchup, how we think it's going to play out. But we've also got some news to talk about. How's everybody doing, Fran? You look good.

What's going on? Thank you. I'm doing all right. Yeah, it's been a fun 36 hours. We got like all shades of blue here. Yeah. Everyone knew the assignment. No, but it's been a fun studying Green Bay for the last 36 hours.

It's after sitting on it now for a couple days, I'm really glad that this is who the first opponent is. Just selfishly. Why? Selfishly for me, this was a fun way to spend a couple days. If they were playing Washington and be like, oh, like, I just watched this team, being able to watch Green Bay intently, you know, over these last couple days, especially that offense, as we'll get into, it's been a lot of fun. What makes it fun? Is it the scheme? Is it the personnel?

Is it what specifically appeals to the football junkie in you? The scheme is, I would say, like, a top three, top five, if you want to be generous, top five scheme in football. And then, I mean, Jordan Love is awesome. The talent is really good. It's a really fun group to study. And did it make you feel any differently about the matchup itself from the Eagles perspective? I would say no. It hasn't like wavered how I feel about the game.

I feel like the Eagles win the game. I do think that Green Bay can come into Philadelphia and win this one. I think that there is definitely a path for the Packers to win it. But I do think that the Eagles ultimately do take this one away. Yeah, I was surprised by. Some of the YouTube comments that thought I was showing Green Bay a little too much, like respect and deference yesterday. Don't worry about those comments, but go ahead. I appreciate everyone who shops at our pizza shop or eats at our pizza shop, rather.

Because I'm real impressed with this Green Bay team, and I haven't studied them to the degree that Fran has, but I have watched them. I have looked at the numbers. And I think this is a formidable opponent, and I think I would warn Eagles fans for being over-conference. Yeah, I mean, I understand some of the weariness based on, you know, they don't have any big wins. They've only beaten two teams in the playoffs. Sure. The best teams that they've played, they've lost to. I also don't feel like they don't seem to me lining it up like the, you know, the fourth best team in football necessarily.

But can they come in here and win a game? Absolutely. And there's lots of reasons to think that. And maybe it starts with the quarterback, which we will get to. But before we get to the matchup itself, Zach, some news. We're talking to the coordinators today at the Novcare Complex. What's the what's the haps and the craps? The haps and the craps.

I've never heard that one. Another of us. The haps on the craps. Haps on. I haven't heard that one either. Well, so just we spoke yesterday about the coaches and executives who are in line for promotions elsewhere. Callan Moore was your pick. And Kellyn Moore received another interview request, the Jacksonville Jaguar.

So actually interviewed him or were interested in. in talking him back in 2022. He's on Jacksonville's list. Jacksonville released that today. Interesting list. Eight, exactly. Let's, I'm going to make this a bracket. Let's go.

If you were, if you're Shad Khan, who are you going to hire? Kellen Moore or Todd Munkin is the first round matchup. I would hire Todd Munkin. I think Todd Munkin's underrated. Why? First off,

if you look at Southern Miss's recent history, Todd Munkin, what, Todd Munkin? It's very, no, just like, there's only one person I know who's going to earnestly start a sentence. If you look at Southern Miss's recent history.

Not the fact that Lamar Jackson's probably going to win a second straight FIPP. No, so I'm getting there. I'm getting there. Todd Monkin, if you go back to when he was a head coach at Southern Miss, was successful there. Like built that program into an eight-win team, then left to go to the NFL as a coordinator. The teams that he's, that he's coordinated have had like some success. And then obviously he was at Georgia.

You saw what Georgia did when he was there. And as the listeners know, I was not, enthused by Georgia's quarterback at the time. And I thought he maximized Georgia's quarterback. And then obviously what he's done the past two years with Lamar Jackson, and now I give Lamar Jackson the credit for that. But if you just look at it from a schematic perspective, he's innovative. And I think the head coaching experience, albeit at the college level, is a checkmark for him.

I think he's an under, he's someone I would look at. Okay. How about you? I would be most interested in talking to Munkin. Okay. Joe Brady or Liam Cohen. I think I'd be most interested. Neither of them like move the, it doesn't like necessarily.

I'm not like super excited about either, but I would say Liam Cohen. I would say he's done the better job. Yeah, I've been impressed with Liam Cohen this year, but I, I've always kind of respected what what Joe Brady's done. I think Joe Brady took that one flight with me that one time. Well, not necessarily because of that. There you go. Also, like I did some Joe Brady work back in 2021 when the Eagles hired Siriani. He was, I think the first coach that Eagles interviewed that year.

And I think he's intriguing. And what he's done in Buffalo, obviously Josh Allen deserves the credit. But he upgraded that team when they fired Ken Dorsey. Okay. Ben Johnson or Aaron Glenn. Good one. I think Ben Johnson, just because of the offensive. I mean, if I'm Ben Johnson, I am not interviewing for this job.

But go ahead. I agree. Yeah, I would, I mean, I think Aaron Glenn's an intriguing candidate, but between those two, Ben Johnson would intrigue me more. Patrick Graham or Robert Sala? Sala. Sala. Okay. Munkin or Cohen? Oh, we went Cohen there?

Then I would go Todd Munkin. Munkin. Let's just say Aaron Glenn because I don't think Ben Johnson's going to be there. So Aaron Glenn or Robert Sala. Aaron Glenn. Aaron Glenn. Aaron Glenn or Todd Munkin. Todd Munkin for me.

probably Todd Monkin All right Larry have it Jaguars are hiring Todd Monk I'm fascinated by the ordering of this I'm sorry

to wailay the show on the Jaguars tweet I was surprised I came out of Todd Monken Joe Brady Liam

Liam Cohen Ben Johnson Aaron Glenn Patrick Graham Robert Sell I mean it's offense first but it's not

alpha I was going to say yeah what is the order there yeah it's weirdly ordered so anyways

it bothers me anyways the Jags interview or are requesting interviews with Kellan Moore so

Kellan Moore now has has known requests from Jacksonville and from New Orleans. Spoke about it today in a very Kellmore way, said that he's only focused on the game at hand. He says you get these interviews when your team's successful, and so you focus on that.

Vic Fangio has asked if he's interested in being a head coach again. He says he's happy where he is. As far as news items from the coordinators, nothing we need to specifically get into stuff will interject is it's more matchup specific stuff that will interject over the next four shows that we do because there was some interesting insight, especially from Vic, which I'll interspersed in the conversation today. And then as far as the kickoffs, Michael Clay said they haven't decided yet. These kickers have different styles.

So that's kind of what jumped out, not really a newsy day there. I know there's intrigue about J.1 Hertz. The Eagles are on the practice field tomorrow. We'll see. I'm expecting Jalen Hertz to be on the practice field tomorrow. We'll have a, we can give more of a definitive answer where he is progressing in the protocol because I don't anticipate Nick Siriani

giving us much at the press conference tomorrow, but I would not be alarmed if I were Eagles fans right now, number. And then... Is it fair to say that the expectation right now, if everything goes according to plan, would be that he practices tomorrow, he usually speaks on Wednesday,

he doesn't speak tomorrow because he's not out of their protocol. get. And he recover, if he recovers from Wednesday's practice, he's officially out of the protocol Thursday and then maybe speaks Thursday? Is that your, I would probably guess Friday he speaks. You think he speaks Friday. Yeah, I think this will be. They'll draw that. Yeah, I think they'll string this along a little bit more. My guess is Friday. But yeah, I am expecting him. It would surprise me if John Hertz is not the starting quarterback on Sunday. I'll put it that way. Yeah. Does he have to speak? Technically, if he's not cleared out of the protocol until Saturday morning, he does not need to

speak is you don't need to speak until or you're not allowed to speak actually. That's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's part of the concussion protocol. You can't speak to the news media until you're out of the out of the protocol. So technically if they don't if he's not cleared by an independent neurologist until Friday afternoon or or Saturday then he would then he then he would not. Um my guess is that he's cleared by them. Okay. And you were going to say something else about Jalen when I, before I cut you off. I'm sorry. Oh no. I was just going to say we have, um, a show. Um, We have an extra show tomorrow night. So the three of us or whoever's on that show tomorrow night

will be able to discuss that. And then I'll put a video up from practice as well. So make sure you're tuned into PHLI, all pHLY.com for all your latest information. Last piece of business from the Novacare Complex today is for the people who tuned into the post game show. We got the thrilling conclusion to Plackgate. How did it go? I would prefer to call it the media pretext.

appreciation award than Placgate. I think it's, I think it's, it was presented today the Jordan Milana, who was a worthy recipient. I think Jordan's, as I express,

as we expressed to him, I appreciate it. I don't know if you knew that your remarks were going to be filmed and displayed all over Twitter. No, no, you did do a very good job.

One thing I got to say, I've always been impressed as a public speaker in events like that, like at your book events or things like that, you do a very good job. Coming from you,

I really truly appreciate that. That's true. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that quite. That means a lot to me. Thank you. So.

This is making me feel uncomfortable. I'm not used to this. I appreciate it. I'm not used to it either, honestly. Honestly, Jordan's been accessible. He's been honest. Like, this is not, from my perspective, everyone has different voting criteria.

And I respect like everyone's different. This is not like the nicest, you know, Now, Jordan's very nice, but, like, you know, there's, I don't choose it like, it's not like a media pandering award. To me, I view it as, as, uh, you're, you're honest, you're professional, you're accessible. Um, you're, you're thoughtful in your answers. And, and Jordan has, uh, been that. Um, and he's, I, you know, he, uh, he really understands maybe this might be being in the same locker room as Jason Kelsey. for all those years.

But I think he understands the role of players with the media in Philadelphia and I don't think anything necessarily give Jason Kelsey the credit for. No, no, but I'm saying. But yes. It's not that I know, but I think. I know what you're saying. Yeah, Jordan is aware in Philadelphia in particular of like public messaging. And when he came here, like he came, you know, he didn't know the whole NFL media infrastructure

when he came here. Right. So everything he has, now he's a nice guy as it is, and he's gregarious and he's outgoing. But there's a lot of observation too with this. And then I'll say this too. Well, should I say who the other recipients? I think you're allowed to say.

Or you're the president here. No, but should we tell them, should I wait to tell them? It might have already gotten to them. Okay. Yeah. So first off, I think it speaks to the amount of like professionalism in the locker room that there were a number of players who, received votes.

This was a three vote system. Yes, but there were, I mean, over a dozen players who received votes, which, which shows you how many guys there are who are thoughtful and professional and honest and accessible. Now, these were anonymous ballots. So you don't know necessarily who it was that put E.J. Jenkins 1, Thomas Booker 2 and Lou Nichols 3. Well, that was not.

No, I don't. I don't know who voted for which players unless they told. told me or there were a few who did not use the Google forms. They just emailed me directly. So those I knew. They can't be bothered. Also, I believe it was Lou Nichols 1, BJ Jenkins, Tim, Thomas Booker 3. No, no, no, no, no.

It was changed retroactively. Oh, got it. All right, right. All right. Okay. So A.J. Brown was number two, and Sequin Barkley was number three. And both of them would have been worthy recipients as well. And I actually think it's, you know, there's a school of thought outside the, uh, the, the,

the locker. outside the media that like AJ has a contentious relationship with and that's not the case at all actually AJ is like I find AJ to be the most approachable superstar I've ever covered yeah well said from just like like if you have just a side question just to ask him at his locker like he's willing to talk about exactly yeah so yeah so I mean I I I know that there's like controversies sometimes manufactured sometimes like have Half, half truthful, but AJ has been, especially this year, but since he's been here, like, he's been great with the media. So, yeah, AJ was number two and Sequin was number three.

Now, all of that is well and good, but I think that the sickos are a little bit more interested in and how you rectified the entire product situation. So I presented a certificate, a framed certificate, purchased a diploma frame frame that. that was, had to, you know, I was not available to store yesterday, had to get that overnighted. So you came for the trophy. Great for, trophy I was able to return. Okay. The trophy wasn't personalized. The plaque?

Plac sunk cost. Well, you gave it to him. You ended up giving him. He actually appreciated that. He said the plaque would go in his locker. Yeah. And then the certificate, the France certificate, I found, I spent far too much time on this. looking up different certificate templates.

You know, then I tried to find one that I thought made, you know, was, was modern and professional. And I picked that and then I wrote the little write up that goes with it. And then there's a section on the bottom. And I'm curious Bo's opinion here. There's a section on the bottom because this, this was a template certificate. And it was for the signature of the person who gives it. And I deleted that because I'm like, this shouldn't.

be my signature on it. This should be like our signatures on it. And so I, when I came in today and I showed everybody and I asked for them to sign it, but I don't, I hope not speaking out a turn. Bo is a little skeptical about my decision to ask people to sign it. Yeah. It's not the, it's not the Declaration of Independence. Like, I don't know. It felt a little weird to me. To be, to be perfectly frank, the entire exercise of like, thanking a player for being nice to us is a little bit weird to me. Okay. That's why Philadelphia hasn't given it.

Yeah, I'm kind of glad that we hadn't done it in a while, but I think you did a nice job fixing the plaque thing. I don't know, the signatures are just, I feel like it makes it look less official. Interesting. I don't know. I think the signature shows that it's like it's from the undersigned, right? It's not me giving you the award or it's from the undersigned.

is from the, this is, these are the people who have voted. I've always thought if you, you know, you sign your name to something, right? So you put your name to something.

Did anybody put like a smiley face or anything next to their signature? I didn't have, it was, I hope you have a great summer. Yeah. Vic Fangio came in right away. So I had to kind of wrap that thing up. But yeah,

it was, it was touch and go. I signed up for the 4 a.m., the 8 a.m. delivery slot for the, for the frame. Because I, I got word that I thought the local office supply store would have the full the

diploma frames yeah they did not not until Wednesday I received it's also like I don't what what makes it a diploma frame other than just the dimensions well it's like it's no it's just a frame for an eight and a half by 11 piece of paper right it's that like is that just a markup time yeah and so so then I received a community communication from someone with Eagles that Jordan was going to be in the building today and that, you know, we could present it today. And so then I'm like, I need to make sure that I have this, this frame on time. So, uh, when, when that, that box was outside my door this morning at 540 this, and I ran downstairs and I, and I got it. Now you finally know what Christmas is like. And then I had a hard time. The, the glass. Oh, it's got the, it's got the thing you got to peel off. I had the peels on, had peels on both sides, and like my nails couldn't get underneath there. And so I had to ask Emily to like peel, peel me. She's like, she didn't expect to be quite so involved in this process.

No, no, no, no, she did not. She didn't, yeah. Now, I'm also interested, Zach, so the plaque you have here, or the certificate says, presented to a player on the Philadelphia Eagles from the Philadelphia chapter of the pro football writers of America in recognition of accessibility, honesty, and personality, and personality. professionalism with the media. Curious, you, I'm... Oxford comma?

You went with the Oxford comma, even though you don't write with the Oxford comma. No, I prefer the Oxford comma. I've always preferred the Oxford comma. And I've actually... So places where I've worked, I've worked a number of different outlets. The athletic, they do not go...

Yeah. That is not their style. Exactly. So that's the most recent. AP style is not Oxford comma. AP style is not Oxford comma. I worked at one place that had the Oxford comma. I prefer the Oxford comma. ZB style.

Because, yeah, so when I do personal writing, I always use the Oxford comma because it differentiates what's in the series. I don't like, you know, and so the non-Oxford comma, let's say you have to read, you know, honesty, accessibility, and professionalism. So. Yeah, I think, I think most grammarians

would prefer the Oxford comma. Yes. So I went Oxford comma because, I don't know, there's, there's no formal. Good for you. certificate for you for stepping out outside the lines did you consider period or no period honestly didn't think about that should I've gone period or keep them up I think you think yeah because it's subject the subject I think it's okay it's not

subject for object in there yeah sure it is but presenting to the yeah that's implied yeah okay I think if it had been multiple sentences I would sure but yeah it's okay all right I think everybody should be ready for the matchup on Sunday So we've gotten all we need to know about Jordan Love and that Matt LaFleur scheme. So we'll talk to you tomorrow. We've got two episodes tomorrow now. Taking a break. And then we're going to talk, ball, baby, after this word from our sponsor.

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Look, I think that he will always say that he wants to prevent, you know, stop the explosives. That's always going to be first and foremost. But I do think when you look at the way that this Eagles defense has found success for most this year going up against teams that want to be balanced, you have to stop the run first. And then that gets you to third and long. That's where, you know, it's not like they turn up the heat from a blitzing standpoint, but you let that defensive line really cut loose and get home, all those extra bodies and coverage.

To me, that's been such a winning formula for the Eagles. And I think that when you're going into this game, Green Bay is going to want to run the football. I don't anticipate that that formula is going to change for them. Jordan Love is a little bit banged up. I think they're a little bit worried about what that defense is right now. We'll get into that later this week. I think that this is a game where they might want to shorten the game a little bit,

try and limit possessions. So to me, I think that's stopping the run. I actually put it on my notes that'll go up on all p.hoi.com later this week. First key to the game, I think it's going to be stopped the run. You know, Green Bay is going to want to lean on it early. No team has more runs and more yards in the first quarter of games this year than the Green Bay Packers. They come out and wanting to run the football. I think that's going to continue here in this game.

That's what they're going to want to do. All right. Let's talk tendencies first for those numbers. Okay. So by down, just by rushing rate, designed rushing rate. By down, okay? On first down, the Eagles are number one in the league. At 65 percent, Packers are number two at 62 and a half percent.

On second down, the Packers are number one in the league, 48 percent. Eagles are number three at 47%. On third down, this is where they differ a little bit. Eagles go up to number one again. Packers are down at like number 18. They run 19% of the time. I think a little bit of that is the Eagles fourth down. No, you go for fourth down, touch, push.

But the Packers want to run on early downs. And those are both near 50%. In terms of their success rate, now they're number three in run DBOA. Yes. But there's a little bit of a disparity between like the success rate and the EPA.

Yeah. I think this is the case for their offense as a whole. And for their defense too. Right. Which is like turnover heavy. So rush success rate, their 10th in the league. Yep. Overall, it's the other sixth and yards per rush.

Now, this is interesting to me as well. 19th in the league in the percentage of times they see an eight-man box. And so for an offense that is as run heavy as it is, why is it do you think that they don't see stacked boxes that often? You know, because the Eagles are towards the top of the league. They are at the top of the league in terms of, you know, the stack boxes. And also defensively, the Eagles, they play light box to the run all day long. So that's, I would imagine that's going to continue in this game.

Part of these numbers, I was thinking about this because when you look at at how often, no team has been blitzed more than the Green Bay Packers. And you're like, man, like, why are our teams blitzing Jordan Love? You got to remember, too, like some of this can be a factor of what division you're in. And when you go up against the Detroit lines, the Minnesota Vikings, that's four games against two very blitz-happy teams that can kind of throw those numbers off. So without looking at how often some of those teams like to load the box, I think that those kind of things can tilt in their favor,

especially because you have two very unique defenses in Minnesota and Denver. If I could interject here, and thank you to Professor Selman, who texted us about this today, he pointed out that the Eagles blitzed more in that Green Bay game than they have throughout the year. and I'll let, I'll let, I'll let Denis give the numbers when he gets here, in particular, some of the defensive formations that they used. I asked Vic today about that, and basically was that dictated by the opponent you were playing, or was that because you were still trying to figure out your defense at the time? And he said it was a little bit of both. So I am curious if it's something about that Packers' offense that they like the Blitz.

Right. Or if at that time in the season, you know, Fanjo thought he needed the blitz more with his, his past, rush. Yeah, I thought about it because Dana's and I were texting about it yesterday. They have a separate choice. I feel like Coach Flynn right now. I feel like Coach Flynn's texting you guys and I'm not on it. Yeah. Because he had presented that as a question. And I thought, you know, a few weeks ago when he blitzed a bunch, which game, which game was this? When the Eagles blitzed more than normal than what we had seen and he was asked about it. He said, oh, the rush wasn't getting home. In that game, the Eagles.

I think it was the end of the commanders game. Right. Okay. So yeah. So he's, they were blitzing more often in that game. He was asked about the following week. He said the front floor wasn't getting home. In that game, not only was the front not getting home, but also remember, that was the slick surface down in Brazil and South Paulo and nobody's getting good footing. Maybe he saw something there. He said, you know what? Maybe we want to blitz a little bit more often. And so I wonder if that may have played into the equation as well.

Yeah. Now, I do know behind the scenes that that, and we've said this on the show, that turf, they thought it was a major. effect on the game for both sides. So that would really add up. You could see like, and I actually, I watched a handful of players from the game, but I didn't go back and rewatch that game just because it was so long ago,

I don't think that there's a ton to take away, but I remember from watching it back in September that, I mean, Jordan Love, like every single drop back, his back foot would hit the top of his drop and slide. Like he just could not get good footing the entire game. It definitely affected him throughout. So back to the running offense of the Packers.

Successful. not necessarily super explosive. Five runs of the season of 30 yards and more compared to 11 for the Eagles. Now that's, you know, there aren't a lot of 30 yard runs in the NFL. A lot of 10 plus yards. They're six than 10 plus run.

Now they're also have to factor in that they run the ball a lot. So percentage wise, it would be a little bit lower. But just like to the nuts and bolts of it, what makes this running game so good? So a handful of things. First off, it is a smash mouth run game downhill.

You look at the way that this team is built in their backfield with Josh Jacobs, Emmanuel Wilson, and even Chris Brooks, all three of these guys are grinders downhill between the tackles. They run more between the tackles than any team in football. It's a lot of gap scheme at you runs. And so that's the first part of it, is that they're going to come right at you downhill. Second part, they do an outstanding job with, you know, from their pre-snap formations, but then also with the use of motion to come.

create favorable angles. The use of motion is for eye candy in the backfield. They've got this, and I honestly, I might do a little bit of reading on this before we get into, you know, into this later in the week as well. But I remember Jordan Love got hurt at the end of the Eagles game. We've won.

They had to go into Malik Wills for a couple weeks. And they, they really flipped the offense in terms of what they were doing. And, you know, it was a lot of, you know, college-type of run concepts and more option and got multiple people in the backfield.

And then honestly, I think it worked so well. said we're going to keep doing a lot of this stuff and so um you know they you see a lot where it's jordan love in the in the shotgun two running back one back to his left one back to his right sometimes it's both backs so they're one of the leaders in league right now in pony personnel so two backs on the field at once but sometimes it's a running back and jaden reed back there uh and so what you've got is multiple ball carriers because they they like to hand the ball off to read it's not just it's not you have to you have to respect that um but the the misdirection element sometimes they put

read in motion behind Jordan Love and he's going to get it. Sometimes it's, you know, he's just going back to the right. They'll fake it and then hand it off going back to the other, the opposite direction. Other times the motion will stop in the backfield and then they're running a downhill run. So they dress everything up to say, and that's the thing about it. I talk about a balanced offense. This is one of the most balanced offenses in football. And it's not just like run pass.

It's all right, they line up in this formation. You could be a run. it could be an outside run it could be an inside run it could be an RPO it could be a screen it could be a play action throw it could be a straight drop back it could be a vertical concept they do all of these things from the same looks so it's very like Kyle Shanahan 49ers-esque from that standpoint all the things that we would kind of glaze them about and how you know they excel there I think the same the same applies to this group and how they can attack defense and so defensively if it's not predictable that means you got to just you have to know your keys you have to just play everything straight up Yes, right. Have to. And so that's, it's me, you know, one of my notes in this game for second level defenders, third level defenders, you know, C.J. Gardner Johnson, read Blankenship, Cooper DeGine, both linebackers.

You have got to try, read your keys out. Don't get distracted by shiny objects moving in the backfield. You know, we saw in that week one game, they got burned for a couple big plays where, you know, there was one where C.J. Gardner Johnson had his eyes on the motion man and they, and they gashed them going the other way. you make sure you have to keep your eyes on your luggage. That's one of the coaching terms there defensively that they'll use. You want to make sure that you're reading everything out

and staying home to where you're supposed to be in any given defensive call. You talked about them playing two backs. When I watched that Bears game, what jumped out to me was how much they were using Emmanuel Wilson, who I actually liked. He's better than AJ Dylan. I think that he gives them more than Dylan has in years past.

Yeah, so is he someone who, as Eagles fans are preparing for this game? they should know him as a weapon on this offense. Yeah, he actually, he had a few nice runs against the Eagles in that game if memory serves. I remember like second quarter, third quarter. Remember Josh Jacobs did nothing in the first half? Yeah, he finished with four for 46 in that game against the Eagles, including an 18-yard run.

Yeah, yeah, and it was so like Josh Jacobs didn't do anything in the first half if my memory serves. And then Emmanuel Wilson had a couple nice runs there. And then on the second half, that's when Jacob started to get rolling. But Wilson is a, he's a big ball carrier. I'm going to get the size real quick. Yeah, he's 510, 2,000. He is a really dense ball carrier

Has gotten in the end zone Three straight games Some huge blocks as a lead blocker He's essentially a fullback for them At times as well So they'll give him the football They'll throw it to him in the flats You can be a downhill ball runner

For them, their gap schemes So no, he's a guy That you definitely want to be penciled And understand he's tough to break down I mean he's seventh in the league right now And force missed tackles per attempt Josh Jacobs is in that top 20 as well So I think when you look at both guys

They're very tough to tackle So this eagle's defense second in run defense TV away. Yep. What makes them so good at stopping the run. So really, I mean, look, they do it from light boxes, which is what makes it unique, right? It's not like, oh, they load the box and they sell out. This isn't like Jim Schwartz, and they're always going to play with Malcolm Jenkins in the box, and you're always going to have that extra guy.

They do it with a six-man box. And the big thing is that, number one, your guys have to win up front one-on-one. You have to win your one-on-one. So Jalen Carter, Milton Williams, all this guy. You've got to be disruptive and win your one-on-one. one. Your linebackers have to be able to defeat blocks. So essentially again, when you're one-on-one, and then the other thing is that your safeties and your nickel corner, like all those guys that are at the third level playing in space, they're not a part of the box count, but they have to

add in fast. So you have to be very decisive with coming downhill and playing and being a factor there. So I think that all of that has kind of added up to the point that now that you can rely on this team to be able to stop the run from those like boxes. Now we've talked about the adjustments they've made, you know, where it's all right. If they come out in that four down, two linebacker look and if it's not working early, very quickly, Zach Ball will come down to the line of scrimmage and now they'll try and throw the numbers off and it becomes a 5-1 front. Do you think we'll see that in this game?

I think if Green Bay has success early, I think that that'll be something that they try and check to. Now we've also seen them in recent weeks say, okay, we're going to put Cooper Degine down in the line of scrimmage and now it'll be like a 5-2 front. And we talked about how the positionless nature of Cooper Degene can kind of play into that scenario. I like what I hear. They've got blocking tight end, the tight end. the tight ends are going to be factors as blockers. I think Tucker Kraft is awesome and really,

really good at the point of attack. And so he's going to be a weapon for them in that aspect as well. To your point of, you know, balanced just personnel-wise. They're like they're 13th and 11 personnel, 13th and 12 personnel. Like they're not super tilted in one way or the other.

Even if you break it down by down in distance, it's like that. So yeah, I think it is an interesting matchup. And obviously they're well designed. Do you feel good about this? from an Eagles run defense standpoint. I mean, we have seen games right where it's the Eagles

running against the Saints number one run defense, right? And the Eagles are able to win that matchup and all of a sudden the number one run defense doesn't look so good. I kind of feel confident about this Eagles run defense like, you know, having seen them against Derek Henry in that Ravens game. Like I don't think that they're going to lose this game

on Josh Jacobs running all over them. I don't think it's, the concern shouldn't be of Jacobs running all over them. The concern is Carolina. The concern is 2020. The commander's game. Yes, exactly. 2020 commanders, Brian Robinson, where it's four to five yards and pop.

And now Jordan Love is facing third and three, third and four. And it's just they RPO them the death and it's quick play actions and getting the ball out fast. And they're able to just move the ball down the field. That would be the concern. And that's the thing is that they don't need to get gashed in order for that to happen. It just might be that, hey, Green Bay is just doing just enough to be able to get four to five yards of pop. the Eagles can't let that happen. Because Green Bay, again,

they're going to want to come out and assert themselves on the ground early. To me, the run defense has to come out, out of the blocks, ready to roll. When Vic was speaking about their rush offense today, one thing that he pointed out was the offensive line has played every snap this year. What jumps out about that Packers offensive line?

Yeah, I think on the whole, it's probably a better run blocking unit than pass protection unit, although their pressure numbers aren't bad. I think when you look, look at Elton Jenkins, the left guard. I think he's their best player overall. He was paid accordingly.

Yeah, he's a good player. I think when you look around there, the rest of it, I would say that Josh Myers at center, better run blocker than pass protector. Actually, really the Eagles can get after him and pass protection a decent amount. Sean Ryan, the right guard,

they did not want him to be the starter. I mean, they would have liked if the first round picture of Morgan would have been, but Morgan got hurt and his own injured reserve, but even before that, Ryan was the starter. He's another guy. I like. Remember they did the rotation in week one. Yes. And he's a he's a better run blocker.

Again, better run blocking the past protector. He's not a great athlete. Zach Tom at the right tackle. Go Deeks, right? Go Deeks. Yep. Former fourth round pick out of Wake Forest. Tom, Zach. Great. He's got great feet. He's got the ability to protect the corner.

But he's not. Rex Ryan favorite. Right. Yeah. He's got great feet. But I think when you're looking at ZT, you know, he's got the ability to protect the corner. But you could test his anchor. I think that Nolan Smith threw in a. as Z-T. Yeah.

I like Z-B. I like that. Yeah. When you look at Sack Tom, he's got the ability to, he could get the corner for speed, but I think Nolan Smith can try and test that anchor as well. So in pass protection, I like the Eagles defensive line over them. I think that from a run game standpoint, they do enough working together as a unit. It's a good zone blocking group when they do run inside zone and outside zone.

And I think they've got enough pop in the run game to be able to get those guys downhill. I made the case on Anthony's show this morning that for all of the talk about, you know, whether it rests Sequin or not last week, that maybe the biggest benefit the Eagles got from being able to rest guys is that defensive line, giving them the day off. Yep. And, you know, Jalen Carter, who has played so many snaps and even Nolan Smith and Josh Sweat, like they have been wearing down a little bit. They've been a little bit less effective over the last month of the season. And so if they can get just a little bit of a boost to their legs, I think that would go a long way. Yeah, Jordan Davis did not get that week off. I was actually surprised at how much,

how deep into the fourth quarter Jordan Davis was playing. But, but no, he doesn't play that many snaps to begin. I know. Yeah, Nick said it was the best he's played. Yeah, he showed up on film. He made a handful of plays, which is what you want to see, you want to be able to see him make those plays in that situation.

But I would expect that we will see a decent amount of Jordan Davis in this game, too, just based off how Green Bay plays. Okay. All right. Good breakdown of the run game. On the other side of this break, we're going to talk about the passing. game, how much it changes without Christian Watson, not Watkins.

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Christian Watson, cooling off. Geez. Out for the season. Hey, God, that's for his ACL. Hey on. So he's cooling off. Ace Hardware. Go to Ace Hardware Home Services.

com to get started. on your next project. All right. That's all I got on Christian Watson. We could have done it on Jordan Love. We could have done it on, you know, do it in. Super Jets to get to.

Quickly. From Caliph, who says, the Sickos' fantasy football winner, HZ's Fighting to Panga's. Cousin' Grace got the gold. Shout out to Cousin Grace. Congratulations. I appreciate Cousin Grace, by the way,

for being such a loyal fan of our show. But also, she came to a book signing. It was great to see her. A different one other than the sitcoms one. Yeah, she came to one and wheelhouse cards in Wayne. It was great. Yeah, I appreciated that. One of the great sickos.

Silver, the second place went to team name or name team, which is some Philly guy. And then the third place winner went to Colin of Duty scorezone. Not a specific birds with friends or PHLY team name. So we're going to have to give him a bit of a bit of a ding. But that's okay. All right. Real time with Prince Blue says,

why does Fangio do well against those offenses? Those offenses presumably being the McVeigh tree. Yes. Like this Lefleur offense. The main thing is that when his teams have had success against those teams, it's been being able to stop the run. You make them one dimensional. You get to third and long.

but being able to stop the run, you know, with those fronts, getting those extra guys in the line of scrimmage, throwing the timing off, throwing the blocking assignments off, that has been the big thing. And that's why, honestly, that's why I put at the top in terms of keys to victory for the Eagles in this one, I do think that it's going to come down to, are they able to make this offense one-dimensional?

That's not to say that the Green Bay still can't win if the Eagles do stop the run, but I do think that it will go a long way towards that happening. Have you ever heard of the illusion of complexity? That's always the phrase that's used when they're, face a McVeigh offense, right? But it is, as Professor Selman pointed out, in the text today, that the Eagles have only seen one other team that's in the top five in motion rate this year, and that is the Rams,

so from that tree. So this is this style of offense, even though it's in vogue around the league, it's not one that the Eagles have seen quite often this year. It's 75% of their players have motion. Like it's not like oh it's 55%, 75%. It's damn near every play, his motion to it. Well, and I do think that Vic Vanjo specifically is a very interesting person this week. How many, and I was thinking about this, like, okay, does he turn it up in the playoffs?

How many playoff games do you think Vic Fanjo has coached in the past decade? Oh man, we're going like a Tanner McKee staff here. So this is the thing, those 49ers teams, that was, so we're talking starting in 2000. They were best like right before 14. So you miss that period. Yes. You get the bears. He only coached one Bears playoff game the double doin the double doint game Broncos didn't make it when he was there Dolphins in the last year he was so in the last 10 years Vic Van Joe has coached two playoff games Wow both losses. Yeah I don't know I mean I don't I don't think that means anything necessarily but it's not like he's been in the in the playoff grind yeah anytime

lately necessarily by the way when he was asked like why he likes to coach in the in the booth and and his answer is like you get to see the you get to see the whole field his answer should have been did you see kansas city last year like i would it's so you know the playoff game you coach in kansas city when it was when it was it was like literally um unsafe to be outside yeah right and he and he got to be in the booth so yeah the bearers eagles playoff game he got to be in the booth so maybe that's that maybe that's what it is maybe yeah i didn't know that though it That's interesting to that. I mean, it's a little bit selective because 12 years ago,

they had a long run with the Niners and 13 years ago. They had a long run to Niners. But yeah, I mean, just in terms of the forged in the fire hasn't happened recently. Yeah, that's why it's kind of poetic justice, for lack of a better term, that the Super Bowl is in New Orleans this year. If he gets in New Orleans, because if the Eagles get there, he started his coaching career in New Orleans. The Super Bowl that he lost was in New Orleans.

and I think there's like something significant for him about being able actually it was in Jeff McLean had a story a good piece on Fanjo before the season and Fangio like made a reference to how he knows what the Super Bowl is this year and he loved that movie with Tupac and Janet Jackson what's the movie poetic justice oh did not see that one probably the electricity stays on the entirety of the Super Bowl yeah I actually saw someone in coffee shop today who was a photographer at that Super Bowl. Hmm. Yeah.

We were chasing. He asked me if I'm going to the Super Bowl this year. Is this someone you already knew? I knew him. I didn't, I, I, I had met him. He's the, he's, we're not like close per se. But. A colleague?

No, no, no, no. He's just a, he, he knows that one. He knows my wife. And I was. I was at the gym this morning, and then I went to the coffee shop and just responded to some emails. Is this the one where like you'd be a member to get the, what was that whole story about like you got the mug? Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. Oh, no, no, no.

Didn't take enough advantage of that. So I didn't do that. Yeah, where you buy the one time thing. Then you got unlimited refills for that. Yeah, no, it didn't do that. This was one near the gym where I went to, but he, he walked. in he said uh you know he was nice guy i i knew you know the team that he wrote for i asked what how that team was going to do this weekend or yeah this this weekend and uh the haven't said the

ravens and then um and then he was telling me that um he was actually at that raven super bowl shooting uh yeah he he was shooting the halftime show nice yeah okay let's talk about this packers passing game yeah the numbers are a little odd to me so the third and past dbLA but not in EPA per dropback and 15th in dropback success rate. So I don't know necessarily how that is made up. But go ahead. I was going to say the DVOA numbers with this team are interested. And again, I think it goes to that division.

Yeah. I think that division is doing a lot of carrying with the DVOA numbers. We're parsing the difference between like they should be fourth versus eight. Or something like that, right. But first of all, how critical do you think the Christian wants, absence is to this passing game. It's big from this respect. This is an offense when you look at their past catchers.

It is very siloed in terms of like defined roles. So, you know, Christian Watson is their vertical stretch player. Jaden Reed is the move player and motions and, you know, gadget stuff and stuff underneath. You know, when you look at Romeo Dubs, he's the outside the numbers, you know, jump ball guy. Don Tavian Wix is the possession guy underneath and is a good route runner.

Everybody has their nice roles and that's that. When you lose Watson, now you need somebody else to be that vertical stretch player and they don't really have a burner like that on the roster. You would, Reed could be that. And he can make plays down the field, but you also want to be, you don't want to take too much away from his plate

from what he does for them elsewhere either. And also, you know, like I think that that's not, necessarily like his best overall trait. And so, um, now what I would say is, I think that this would impact them in other games more. Cause I don't think that Christian Watson,

like the Eagles aren't given, don't give up explosive plays. Well, they, they hadn't until the last two games, but I still, I did against Green Bay too. And they played them in.

Yeah. But those were more like mistackles, explosive. And like some, but, and like coverage bus and stuff like that. I just, this group has,

that would be uncharacteristically. They clean that up. That's fair. I think that if this were a team where, giving if they were you know if this were the raven secondary i would say oh boy like that that's that's good that's a that's a big loss for them going into this game but i think with the way that the eagles have played for the majority of the year uh it's it's big but i don't think it's as big you know he's been their leading uh leading receiver against man-to-man coverage um you know he's and but the eagles

aren't a big man-to-man team the teams have had a lot of success playing man-to-man against them in recent weeks you know i know minnesota a couple weeks ago basically just like majored in man like the entire game. I do think that this Eagle secondary, I look across the board. I say these are these would matchups that they should win. And honestly, like this should be a big like press coverage, sticky coverage, challenge them through the route at the catch point. Because this group has really struggled to secure the football. They are their second in drop rate or third or fourth, depending on which service you look at. But they're one of the worst in terms of drops so far this year. I think if you're able to get physical with this group, compete with them through the catch point,

I think you're going to win more often than not. I always, um, I always, um, I, out of the respect I had for Fran Duffy when I think, what's that? Never heard of him. When I think something and then I see it in Fran's write up, I'm like, oh, okay. I actually, I might have like a small inkling of something here, like, because I trust Fran implicitly here. So what I like that with me? What's that?

No, you too. Only when he reads it in your rough draft. He's peeping. I don't know what he's writing this week. I just saw, I just saw it did not open it. And I would not open it. Have not, will not. So when I saw the injury, I was thinking Bo Melton would be the guy who would pick it.

Bo Melton, a local guy from, or Egg Harbor. Yeah. Is he the player to look for in terms of stretching the offense? Probably. You know, he's 511, 189. He's certainly not as explosive as Christian Watson. But I think when you look at the skill set, I think that he also can do some of the stuff that Jane Reed does do as well.

So I think that if you would read outside, Melton inside. Yeah. So maybe like our Melton picks up 40% of it. and Reed takes up the other 60 and then when Reed is doing that then Melton can pick up some of the things that that Reed was doing as well so I do think that the Watson injury is big I don't think it's as big in this matchup so what do you make of the the blitz no blitz man zone splits and I'll get into them here but I'm curious what you make of them so blitz the Packers are 15th in success rate and 26th in the EPA per dropback when

they're blitzed when they are not blitzed you that goes all the way up to third in EPA per dropback, although it is still 13th in success rate. So big plays, not necessarily down by down dominance. And then the split on man versus zone against man, they're 26th in success rate and 27th in EPA per dropback, you know, bottom, bottom quartile in the league. And then against zone, again, 12th in success rate, but third in EPA per dropback. So that's the same thing as the no blitz. They're making big plays.

And obviously, that comes in a matchup where the Eagles defense, what they major in, is not blitzing, 31st in the league in blitz rate. And they play man a little bit more than I think we may be expected coming into the season, 19th in man percentage at about 25% of the time. What do you make of those splits aside from the playing in the NFC North against the Brian Flores types? If you riff for a little bit, I'll pull up some numbers there. But I will say to actually, yeah, keep riffing. A lot of it is the chunk plays like I'm talking about. So they have the third most passing plays in the NFL of 20 yards or more.

Yep. So, you know, those big passing plays are coming most of the time, it feels like, according to these numbers, on, you know, when they're sitting back against static zones that are not blitzing them. And those are, I mean, to be fair, those are specifically the kinds of plays that the Eagles do not give up. Correct. All right. So here's what I did.

So I went through, and I've got next gen up, and I'm looking at, all their games this year from Jordan Love. So that does remove some of the Malik Willis games. And I don't know how Willis performed against the Blitz and those. I will say that when Willis has been the starter, they're 2 and 0, but it's like heavy, heavy run game. Like we're talking like 18 pass attempts over the first. I think Dennis has it for Jordan Love specifically.

So Jordan Love fourth in EPA per dropback against No Blitz, 26th in EPA per dropback against the Blitz. Yeah. So they had some really bad performances from an EPA per dropback game. I'm looking at the teams that he went up against where it was really bad. LA Rams, Arizona Cardinals. Now, the third one of this list

is the Chicago Bears just this past week in week 18. Now, keep in mind, that was, he was two for four in that game so it was a very small sample in that game. Then both Lions games, then that Eagles game. All right, so that Eagles game,

so we'll take a look just at those five performers, the bottom five performances, okay? So Eagles game. Thanks for watching, by the way, on television. And check out all p.hly.com to catch the rest of this episode. All right. So, uh, Eagles game, week one, uh, maybe you throw that up to, uh, you know, week

one and just the, uh, also the playing surface. I mentioned how he just didn't look comfortable the entire game. Yeah, all the, everything, everything in there. Um, when I look at the Detroit Lions, the Arizona Cardinals and the LA Rams, I look at three teams that really like to play with, uh, sub package, light bodies in the field, everybody up on the line of scrimmage, and mess with you from a who's coming

and who's not coming standpoint. And when I look at the Eagles, that's not the way that they play. That's not the way that they go about pressuring the quarterback. And so what I would say, in terms of how the blitz versus non-blitz numbers and how it pertains to this matchup, I don't think it's applicable.

I don't think that because I don't think that Vic Fangio is going to change his stripes and say, like, all right, this is what we're going to do here. You know, from a blitzing standpoint, When I look at the games where he has struggled against the blitz, that's the identity of those pressure schemes. So fair to say then that Jaden Reed is the guy to worry about or the secondary in this game. He is 19th in the league in yards per route run, but he doesn't get targeted a ton, which means that he's third in the league among all wide receivers in yards per target, one spot ahead of AJ Brown. So there's some selectivity bias there because if he's open, you're going to throw it to him.

But he's there with no Christian Watson. guy who can really hurt you. So Jordan Love targeting Jaden Reed this year. Best passerating of any QB wide receiver duo, not just like a big season, but of like in like recent memory. Really? Yeah. I mean, they've just been in lockstep and have been not hitting for big plays.

But it's not a crazy high target rate. Correct. Yeah. And so actually what's interesting. So look, I wasn't going to watch all 18 or 17 games of the Green Bay Packers in the last couple days. So what I did was basically everything I watched, all the cutups I watched were from week 10 on. All the numbers I pulled were from the entire season, all the cutups I watched from

week 10 on. And one thing I did was watch every single target for all of these past catchers. And when I'm going through and I'm like, all right, like, who's the who's like the leading target getter? I thought it was really interesting that the fact that Romeo Dobbs, Jaden Reed, Donavian Wicks, Tucker Kraft, all four of those guys had between 49 and 32 targets. It's the complete opposite of the Eagles where everything is, A.J. Brown, Devante Smith, all four had between 29 and 32 targets, and Christian Watson was right behind them with 26. So everybody has like this key key piece of the pie, and they go to everybody equally and just goes back to that balance. If I can ask real quick, as you said, you've watched

all the cut-ups since week 10, if you can put the viewers, the listeners, inside Vicks office this week, what's the coaches process? How far back do they go? I understand they have quality to control coaches and position coaches. But let's say Vic in particular. Like what's the coordinator's process during a playoff game like this when there's, when there's such a reservoir of film for this team? Yeah. Well, the QC coaches had done a lot of the work leading in in terms of making sure all the

cutups were ready. And when I say cutups, that is like a very granular look at one particular situation. And it can get extremely granular in terms of what coaches. is want to be able to look at. So if you want to be, and now with next gen and with PFF, those are at the public's fingertips as well. Um, did not used to always be that way, obviously, but, uh, if you want to be able to see, hey, you know what, like, oh, I, I want to watch all the third and four. Yeah. Hey, I want to watch all the third downs out of 21 personnel, uh, when Tucker crafts on the field. Like, all right, you can go and you can pull that and if you

can get like granular that way, or if you just want to say like, I want to see everything, uh, all of the red zone uh all of the red zone gap scheme runs like you know that's the you can get into all of these different situations and so every coach is different in terms of how granular focus they want to get but you're going through all of it and situationally and so you're looking at some of these numbers and you would say you know like for instance i go through all the numbers uh today i'm doing their their defense today uh you know getting ready for Thursday show and uh they're bad against empty their success rate against empty was really really bad so one thing i'm going to what I've got into, I'm going to be doing tonight is, all right, like, I'm going to go through

empty. That's awesome. What are the different formations in empty that give them problems? How often are, is this position targeted at empty? Is there one guy that gets targeted most in empty? Those are the kind of, so basically it's like, you try and find some trends and then you go down the, you kind of find, follow the breadcrumbs that way and see where that takes you. And you can see how much of that you can apply.

I can tell the audience, no one else covered in the Eagles is watching every single snap against empty tonight. Well, yeah, probably not. We'll see. That's why it's awesome. The Friends are going to take that as a challenge. I mean, no, I think it's evident in the work. You know, Franz not one of these people who just put stuff out there.

Like you, sure. You know, the work is evident. So that's awesome. Thank you. I think my general takeaway is that this specific matchup, the more we dive into it, makes me feel better about it from the Eagles until we get to one thing. So you've got, you know, the Packers are one of the better running teams in the NFL.

I feel pretty good about the Eagles being able to hand. handle that running game. Yep. The ways in which the Packers offense as a passing offense is successful, you know, big plays against zones that are not blitzing. I'm not really worried about that from an Eagle standpoint. The,

we can throw three or four very competent wide receivers at opposing defenses that are not going to have the bodies. Yep. In the secondary to man up with or even just zone up with any of those guys because there's just not enough talent on most team secondaries. You feel pretty good about the, depth of the ego secondary. They should be able to handle all of these guys.

It feels like an advantageous matchup for the specific matchup until you get to, how good is Jordan Love? Because Jordan Love is really good. Jordan Love is really good. We talked about like the man zone splits and things like that. They like carve up zone coverage. And some of that can be a little bit noisy.

Again, you're going into like the matchups and things like that. But I think when you look at why would they be good against zone as opposed to man, I think when you look at it from a route concept standpoint, a lot of the things they run, it's like the complete opposite of iso ball. It's everything complements one another. Things are dressed from a certain standpoint. Where are you, hey, we're going to run dagger.

We talk about all the time, right? So where you have the inside route running a clear out route and you have the deep dig behind it, but you dress it up in so many different ways. And it's not just, oh, we're going to line up in this formation. And we're going to run it the same way four times in a given game. We're going to run it one way. and then we're going to run again from a slightly different way. And then it might, we're going to run it again from the first time,

but we're going to switch these two receivers roles and their locations in the formation just to throw you off a little bit. And then we're going to run a change up off of it. They do a great job with all of that in-game week to week. But then also, like, that's the thing is that the Eagles do play a high percentage zone. At the end of the day, like, that's where the matchups don't necessarily matter, right? because if you're playing zone and you play it really, really well, then that's fine.

Like that can be, you can kind of level the playing field from a talent standpoint. Likewise, offensively, if you run a concept really, really well, that can stretch out those zones and you can get beat. So if you're CJ Gardner Johnson and you're not, you don't have your eyes dotted and your T's crossed on every single play,

you're out of position. You give up a big play touchdown, right? So those are the kinds of things where the fact that they are so good at stressing those zones, that would give me a little cost for concern, especially given the fact, again, Jordan Love is awesome, man.

Like he, the numbers are not as gaudy this year. It's, you know, coming into the year, we talked about how good he is. And, you know, he finished so strong in the second half of last year. This is a guy that can make every single throw. He will have some misses, especially when he's on the run.

I went through, there was the one next-gen stat I saw was more so than basically any quarterback. his QB rating that's the thing that kind of set me up his favorite's that his QB rating

the difference between when he was pressured versus not pressured was so much bigger you know or so much the difference was so wide and go through

and it's like drop drop drop drop and it's like oh it's not like a bunch of bad misses and he's like looking he's looking erratic when he's under pressure

it's like he's making these crazy throws and the receiver you know whatever like it's a bunch of younger that's the other thing all these receivers are like year three and under it's a very

very young offensive skill core. Jordan Love is really good. Like, he's a very, very good player. Stop me if you've heard this. Second best quarterback in the game, probably after McKee.

Right. Oh, yeah, we can have that debate. But I think when you look at, I lost my train of thought there. You're saying he's a great quote. He's a really good quarterback.

When you look at the, oh, that's right, the narrative. You found that nice work. Yes, thank you. first eight games this year that he started, he threw interceptions.

And so everything in Green Bay was he's, he's, he's not taking, he's pressing. He's not, he's not taking care of the football. He's got to take care of the football. And now you fast forward to like, I know they were saying it last week. They were saying it because the, you know, the outfit, they lost to Minnesota a couple weeks ago. And he's on the street now where the last seven games, he hasn't thrown a pick. But now in Green Bay, everyone's like, he's got to cut it loose more. He's not pushing it down the field.

they've taken his stinger away. So it sounds very similar to some of the things we've heard here with Jalen Hertz. But this is a guy that can make every single throw. He does not get sacked. Like he is one of the toughest quarterbacks in football. It was the same last year. He does not take those negative plays. The big thing is when you do pressure him,

he will go in the past. He will go big game hunting and we'll make those ill-advised throws late in the middle of the field and throw those interceptions. But again, in the last couple of months, he has not made those. Now the big thing will be the injury is the elbow. Like is the is the elbow going to bother him? You know,

how it doesn't sound like they're very worried about it. No, right? It doesn't sound like he doesn't sound like LaFleur is like super worried about it. You know, I think that he spoke afterwards. Love did after the game and said like he lost feeling, feeling his hand.

Yeah. So it's if that's all good and his full systems go, it's going to be a big test. He's, and I know that there's, he hasn't, he hasn't beaten anybody good and all that. He's a,

he's a really good. Like with confidence, like he's a top seven quarterback in football. I was curious to see because I like your color designations if he was going to get a blue or green. Yeah. And he got a blue from you, which is like the highest compliment you can give someone on the scouting report. We're in blue. And he is the only blue player on their offense. Yeah.

I think that when you look at the rest of the guys around it, there's a handful of greens. Yes. But you look at the other guys, by the way, are impact starters. blues are stars. Yeah. I think when you look at the rest, and Jacobs honestly probably would be a blue if you were to put,

because positional value is incorporated there because this also correlates with my draft stuff. But what about Alfred Blue? Under Jaden Blue. Talk through the Texas game later this week. Yeah, Alfred Blue, the ball carrier. No, but I, what? I get your head out of the gun.

I have. By the way, okay. Shield texted that one time recently. Recently, yeah. And I had no idea what you were referring to. Oh, really? Yeah, I had no idea. And I was trying, I was like, is there a joke that I'm missing here?

And then I thought there might be like a different expression in there that you were referring to. And I didn't put it together until I saw that joke on Twitter as well. And I actually, yeah, I actually read it out loud. I'm like, oh, okay. So I had no. I was completely ignorant. I was, no, but I was completely ignorant when. Yeah, but it's not that you should have gotten a joke.

It's that you should have remembered the conversation about it. I don't remember the conversation. Yeah, sorry. It's okay. Yeah. I mean, it has to be like 2015. Oh, I mean, we've talked about that for a while. It's been a running.

That's been a running guy. It's a running guy. Yeah. It's a good one. Sick goes in the chat. We'll put it in that one. It's fat. Jordan loves really good.

Jordan loves really good. Look, this team is 0 and 5 first teams with 13 plus wins this year. They're 11 and 1 versus everybody else. You know, the one stat I thought that was interesting too. You know, Matt LaFleur, he's got four seasons now with 12 plus wins. Has not been to a Super Bowl yet. And Marty Schottnheimer is the only coach in NFL history to have more seasons like that with 12 wins without going to a Super Bowl.

I know that people are getting Nancy up there in Green Bay about it about why they haven't had that postseason success and they're going to have a tough road ahead if they're going to be able to do it this year and get it done. But this is a good team. And I do think it's a team that's capable of coming in and getting a win at Lincoln Financial Field Sunday. It's crazy to think he's been there for six years now.

You still think of him as like, oh, they hired Matt Lafleur. Six years is a long time. A lot of wins. A lot of wins. I think he's one of the best coaches in football. I think so. I do think that he is overrated from a, handsomeness standpoint.

There's a lot of people who talk about like, oh, Matt Lillard's very attractive. Like he's like trying too hard. He's too well manicured. Too well manicured.

Yeah. He looks too much like someone who cares about the way that he looks. There's a tinge of like jealousy there. No, not at all. He's no Arthur Smith. Julia,

what do we think of Matt LaFloor? Yeah. He's no D'Amico. Yeah, well, all right. I mean, not how many people are.

But is he like top quartile? Is he top eight? He's top eight. Well, I mean, are we kind of the fired guys? Yeah, I think you got the, I think you have to based off this conversation. I think he's propped without going through it, which I'm happy to do. I would guess that he is top fourthile. But yeah, you know, I mean, yeah, he's not top.

He's not top. He's not top. He's not top courtile. I'm just going to. I don't think he's in contingent for number one. Okay. Anyway, he's 67 and 33. as a head coach.

But three and four in the postseason, yeah, game management-wise. What are your thoughts on him as a game manager? I think he's better than most of the people in his tree. Okay. Yeah. I think he's, you know, McVeigh and Shanahan, who tend to turtle when it matters.

He seems to be more willing to go in those situations. Yeah, I mean, he's learned his most famous moment as a head coach was turtowing when it matters, but. Better looks or better game management? but I mean in relation to rest of the NFL. Trying to see if I think he's a very good game planner. Yards after catch is really big in this offense. And that goes back to, I think the Eagles, to me like this should be a Quinnion,

Mitchell, Cooper DeGine, Darry Slay. It doesn't need to be press every single snap, but more press than what they typically do. And then through the route has to be extremely physical, competitive. I think you can. not get in green base heads, but I think you can take them out of the game in that way. If you can out physical this group. That would be one thing that I'd be keeping an eye on.

We talked about the safeties, what they can do. I talked about, I think that the Eagles, off our defensive line, can win some of these matchups. I think Elkton Jenkins, again, the best of the group up front in that O line,

but everybody else, I think is getable from a pass pro standpoint. Yeah, I think we've hit on pretty much everything. I'll have a little bit more. obviously in my notes on all phthoi.com later this week by the way credit to that to that packers front office when when you look at at this roster um like you see the amount of teams that are just always bad and then there's a reason why the packers yeah you know what the reason that they're consistently good is why they have the best owners in football you think because they're a publicly traded company because they don't have an owner okay okay um honestly there is something to that from a they have a process and they just stick to that process and it's a like i mean they've been they've been doing the same thing from a scouting to standpoint

from a team building standpoint for decades yeah they they they they they they they they they have this reputation of of not pursuing free agents this year they signings zavier mckenny and josh jacobs and they're two of the most impact signings there are so they they uh yeah it's just a well-run organization and it shows you that you don't have to be you know that If you just draft well, you don't have to draft at the top every year. You know, they very seldom draft near the top. You don't need to be in a big market to attract, you know, players. You draft well, you sign your own.

You get good coaches. They've done a good job. I have a lot of respect for the Packers. You know what they do for Elton Jenkins? What's that? Elton Jenkins. What about them? Blocking man.

I think there's something there. You got to get around. Downfield all alone. He's got a few days to the workshop of it. Holding up, Jalen Carter on his own. I don't know. Probably not the same side of the ball. No, he's not.

Yeah. We're going up against Milton Williams. They have a mandatory retirement age, the Packers organization. Do you know that? I did not know that. Yeah. Mandatory retirement at 70. That's why Mark Murphy, their team president, is leaving.

Turn 70. mandatory retirement age from the organization. Wow. Yeah. Hmm. Ages about that. I mean, I love to work. I love to work, but I, I can understand.

I mean, I respect if it's a policy. I, and speaking of policy, there's new president's ed policy, but, um, but, but I respect. Most respectable man under the sun. Right. Um, no, it, it makes sense to me, right? And yeah, I can certainly understand it. What was the pecanus migrate we had there in the chat, Julia? Lefleur, McVeigh, and Cliff Kingsbury.

Oh, my God. I mean, Zach's got an opinion on this, though. We know that Zach is... No, I don't like this conversation. I don't like this conversation. I don't like this conversation. I think it's inappropriate. I think it objectifies these coaches.

I think I go... Yeah. I think I migrate Cliff. I think I probably nest McVeigh. Even though he's a little bit too thirsty. You know, we're going with the shirt off photos, and then I'll pack with work. Contrasting takes on the blocking man,

Travis says, Bo, that was epic, but the next person says, not your best work, Bo. I lean on the ladder, I think. You've definitely done better. Well, all right. anything else on this matchup no I think so we'll do the we'll do the defense on Thursday very quickly if I can find it on den is this thing here situationally I wanted to talk about where's red zone here pop pop pop pop pop yeah I actually glad you bring this up go ahead

if you have it go ahead well no it because so I was going through their numbers whatever whatever day in time this was but recently with going through their their red zone numbers. They are 10th overall in red zone, but they are 27th in terms of how much man coverage they face. They are 28th in red zone run success rate, which I was surprised by. I figured all this is a team and once they're on their football, they'd be a little bit more successful when they do go to run it. And I was like, all right, well, what's what's happening here? How are they, uh, 10th in red zone? But, uh, they're, they're struggling to kind of, uh, to, to be able to, uh, you know, put points on the board. How are they putting these points on

the board if they're not running it well? He's for the Jordan Love is the has the best adjusted completion rate, which again, accounts for throwaways and drops in football, 7,9% adjusted completion rate. So when they get into the tight area of the field, he has been more precise than any other quarterback in football. Okay, 10th in a red zone percentage. Correct. Yes. And Eagles defense, of course. Eagles defense is, I have that.

Eagles defense is. For fifth, I have. Oh, I know why. because for my numbers this week, I threw out week 18. I didn't do week 18. So that would be why. Yeah. Zach, any final thoughts from you?

I enjoyed the football conversation for sure. I'm smarter because of it. And looking forward to the offense conversation on Thursday. But no, no. I think we're going to have Danes join us on Thursday. Make it a four-man weave. Love the four-man weave. Terrific.

Long show on Thursday. Tomorrow we got, Jamie and Rich at two, and then we're going to do an extra show, a little primetime show. So for those of you sickos who potentially like can't join live during the two o'clock shows, you get a chance to, you know, get in the mess with the chat live at primetime, 8 o'clock on Wednesday. Me, Zach, Les Bowen. By the way, check less is calm out right now on all p.g.com.

Went up at 6 a.m. this morning. Why did, like, why was that so pointed? It wasn't important. I was saying it went up this morning. I think it's just talking about it on yesterday's show. It went up this morning. Got it. Okay.

Was that pointed? I don't know. You said more pointed things. Yeah, it went up this morning. Okay. I should have mentioned it earlier in the show. Always like when less writes. Less is awesome, as Claire 2.0 says.

What happened to Claire 1.0? Why is this Claire 2.0? her Claire's name at one point was that she thought Fran was being wronged for justice for Fran yeah are we going over swooper results today or no I was going to say that for Thursday but you can you know peek back a little bit if you want I just want to point out one thing so um because this actually involves you and sunset Shaz one of our our favorite listeners uh viewers speak for readers big sunset big sunset Shaz fan I like his kids more uh so technically the Eagles didn't finish number one in scoring defense.

Okay? And based on the criteria we were using, we outlined the amount of points they needed. They came very close. But they used the Sean McDermott method as Sean McDermott once emailed properly. Yes. Sean McDermott's email both.

If you take out the non, the points scored by opposing defense and special teams. Yes. Then the Eagles did finish first. Thanks to Daniel Popper, our friend, who actually looked that up. but the yeah so the eagles technically number two in scoring defense but when only factoring the points that the defense allowed would be number one in scoring defense good to know yeah so shalman if if there is

if vangio was watching swooper and he wants the email you know i won't put bo's email out but zach at all p hly dot com you can always email me there and yeah if vick wants to email me but i gave the correction on the show just to make sure thank you I mean, once you give your email out, it's pretty easy to figure out what my email is. Not necessarily. Not necessarily. Because actually, one of the problems we had at our former employer was people were trying to email you. But if they didn't know your first name, then they couldn't, they couldn't email you.

Yeah, you're not as easy to figure out from a, because it could be a number of different options there. Wasn't it, wasn't there your government name? Oh, I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying. Yeah, so. Yes, that's true. Yes. That's why there were a lot of people who would email me being like,

I wasn't able to get a hold of all because of that. Yeah, so it could very well be your government name. That sounds so shady when you say it like that. I saw one of these social media clips from the Jets. You know how they have like this. My email address is Block and Man at all p.com. Yeah. The Jets did one of those things where they, their social media stats,

staff pulled the players as they came off the field and they called them by their government name and like it freaked the players out. Rams did one of those as well. Yeah. I mean you want to talk about plagiarism. Like everyone's doing the same stuff on us. That's all that is. Yeah. That's it. Like let's have some creativity. Come on. All right. That'll do it for the PHLY Eagles podcast on this handsome blue Tuesday. Not too late to if you've made it this far, that means you're a real Sicko. Check out that all-city store. You get some Sequin Barclay merchandise. There's a Cooper Dijin shirt. It's a Jeremiah Trotter Jr. shirt. If you really want to get freaky and all kinds of good stuff. Otherwise, we will talk to you tomorrow for Julia, Fran and Zach. We thank you for watching.

Thank you for listening. Make sure that you hit like and subscribe and all that good stuff. Evangelize about the show. Lots more to come this week. As always, we love you.