PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Sean Mannion, Josh Grizzard WILL FIX what ails Jalen Hurts & Eagles offense

Episode Date: January 30, 2026

Mr. Beast is what they’ll call the voltron Grizzly Man of Sean Mannion & Josh Grizzard as they turn Jalen Hurts and the Eagles offense into a unit envied by the likes of Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Cocomelon & Pinkfong. Deniz Selman is also a top SEO search term, so join him, EJ Smith and Bo Wulf as they welcome Matt Schneidman for info on Mannion and what’s next for the Eagles’ coaching staff. Vic, are you with us? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the P.H.L.Y. Eagles podcast, live from the Xfinity Studio and presented by Bet365 and Ashley. It is a brisk Friday afternoon. And we are here to talk about the Eagles news. Lots of it. Bo Wolf. E.J. Smith, the professor. Dana is Selman is here. How is everybody doing? Professor, how was your snow day experience this week? Oh, it was like possibly the most farcical week of school ever. As you know, there was no school Monday through Wednesday. And then today and yesterday were half days. Same for us, yes. So just the kids like slipping and sliding and falling all over themselves, like trying to get into our still very icy, you know, a lot that goes into the school. Just to have like, you know, an hour and a half.

Did you do virtual Tuesday, Wednesday? Yeah. How did that sound like it was going? Oh, my goodness. It was like 45 minutes of like, you know, chat rooms where they called each other names and then that was pretty much at one point my daughter

went in my daughter who did not have school went in to where my son was doing his virtual classroom and just walked in behind the camera and goes I got abs and looked up her shirt right her belly very funny for whatever reason they're very into the idea of abs okay it's a big thing in my house right now must be mine that's what is the origin of this fascination

yeah is they're like I had these eyes no I think I think it's actually it's just like a friend of my sons brought it up and then it's become a thing. We didn't have class with Penn for Monday and Tuesday, which is shocking. Penn never closes for weather and for them to close for two days. And we kept getting email saying like, you are not allowed to have class on Zoom. And I was like, no, please. Like it's like, who is begging to do that? Yeah, so it was like, yeah, it was relaxed.

How are you, my friend? I'm doing well, but you know the chats, it's a little hard to see. So, you know, just... Whoa! Do I look professorial? Oh, my goodness gracious. You look so smart. Do I actually?

Wait, is this the result? Is this the result of your... Is this a new E.J. Smith? Lindsay, that ain't happened? No, I've had these glasses for a while. They're not the strongest prescription. Wow. I figured I'd break them out for the show,

try and have some fun with it. You look great. I was going to say, I need the chat to weigh in if, like, I'm a glasses man. I want them to be honest. I want them to be real. Yeah, I think you look great. I need real feedback on the glasses.

I don't know if I could do contacts. Can we get a close-up here? I feel like the chat will give you... Oh, yeah, he looks good. The chat will give you better fashion advice than me. But professorial advice, I will tell you, you absolutely should be wearing those in class. Yeah, 100% nice. Like, you will be a professional.

You will be respected more by the students, even though they've seen you without classes. And they know they won't even know why they respect you more. They just will. I also now I buy, I also buy this as a nice setup for taking these off to turn to a superhero. Like I, I think, I think this is a good guy's like when, when the Eagles hire an offensive coordinator,

it's, we got to get to work. Okay. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. All right. We did an emergency podcast earlier today at the news that Josh Grisard will be joining

Sean Mannion's staff as the passing game coordinator, but let's continue. to discuss that here. Let's do it under the prism of the big takeaway presented by our friends at Xfinity. E.J., over the past couple hours, have you heard any more about this? What more can you tell us about the Grizzly man pairing? Yeah, no, I mean, I think a lot of the things that stand out are what we talked about a few hours ago, that this is going to be a significantly different staff that should bring a lot of new ideas to an offense that I think we all can agree needs new ideas. So, you know, I've seen, I've said it a few times on the show, and I'll reiterate

it now that, you know, Josh Grzard, it is pronounced Grzard, apparently, you know, now that he is officially, you know, or going to be officially hired here, he is someone who's, like, very well respected in coaching circles, you know? What are you chuckling about? It has nothing, I'm just, I hear Grisard, I'm thinking Riz, and I just have that stupid tweet of, like, Livy Dunn, Rizzes up baby gronk or whatever I'm just like gris is baby gronk like there's no reason for me to have waylated but you asked what I was laughing about fair um where the broken brain goes but yeah I would say that like you know I don't want to overstate it but I do think that Josh grisard is somebody who is respected in coaching circles for some of the detail stuff that they've that he has implemented

you said that early on that you were hearing that yeah no when when the when the offensive coordinator search took a turn away from the top candidates and into more I wouldn't say you know maybe the second and third wave of candidates. I had heard from some people that, like, okay, Grisard is somebody who will make a defensive coach work. You know, there's motion elements to it, some of the passing concepts, some of the play action game. These are things that, yeah, I think he's well respected in those circles because of that.

And I saw our, I guess, I don't know if I can call him our friend because he's an anonymous social media account, but honest NFL, you know, had some nice things to say, what? Not a friend? Yeah, I guess he, I don't know if he's our friend. He's going to say, like, do you know who he is? I don't, well, I have an idea of who we might be, but I don't know who he is. But he was, you know, singing the praises of Josh Grisard as well.

What do you think? Well, it's interesting, the contrast between Mannion and Grisard, right? Mannion was playing until two years ago. Grisard, like, is 35 years old. Safety at Yale. Went to Yale. Like, yeah, and he's been, like, he got into coaching as a student assistant, and that explains why people in the coaching circles know him.

I mean, you know, he's been in the NFL for nine years. I'm sure you guys covered. a bunch of the stuff in the emergency episode, which I did not get a chance to listen to. He was under Mike McDaniel at, yeah, I know, I know, I know. At Miami, as a holdover from the previous staff with Brian Flores, and one of the people that were OC above him was Jan Galey, right? And so that's like a Siriani connection.

I was thinking, like, what does this mean for the rest of the staff, right? Like, it's like, like, is it possible they bring in any of the other guys that they interviewed recently, like a Dera Johnson, like into one of the roles. He's out of contract with Houston. What does it mean for Parks Frazier, Scott Leffler, Jason Michael, Aaron Moorhead, right? And the other question is,

because I thought like one of the things we'd be talking about today for sure, this was before the Grisard hire, was are they going to bring in like a senior offensive assistant? Does the Grisard hire mean that this is no longer necessary? And then I was thinking like,

Parks Frazier came in last year as a 33-year-old past game coordinator who had just worked with Mike McDaniel and now Gersard comes in as a 35-year-old past game coordinator who recently worked with Mike McDaniel. Like, we never really heard much about Parks Frazier. Like, it wasn't clear, like, what he did or, like, whether he was responsible

for the fact that the offense was not good. You know what I mean? Like, and it's kind of, like, a similar role as his role, which makes me think that he's probably not going to be here for long, but also it makes me wonder if, like, they'll still think that it's, senior offensive assistant is needed, someone who's actually maybe older than Nixiriani or at least around the same age, because that seemed to be something

that people thought was missing last year, right? So if all Josh Grasard is doing is like upgrading from Parks Frazier, you're still not filling that role of, I understand like he's called plays in the NFL, like that's a difference, but, or no, Parks Frazier did too, right? Is there, is there like... You did in that, in that, like, Jeff Saturday portion. The very brief, the very brief part. Okay, fine, but I mean, at the end of the day, like the profiles are similar enough that it makes me wonder if like, okay, Grizzar, Grisard is like the newer, better,

Parks, Frazier, we still need a senior offensive type. I'm asking, like, I don't know. What do you guys? No, I mean, so had you, no, you had the good point on the emergency pod that Dana has just blew off on his way into the studio. My goodness, I did not even know there wasn't an emergency time. Yeah, you know I'm teasing you.

Go ahead. No, I think there is room for a senior offensive assistant here. I don't know why it's escaping me who you said earlier today. Gary Kubiak. Yes, Gary Kubi. I mean, that's, that's, there's no, No, you had another one that somebody that interviewed. You said that you could see that.

Oh, oh, Nege. I don't think, I think it's very possible. Oh, sure. I think it could be on this staff. And it's something that we... Possibly without a job. Right. And it's something that we criticized about last year's staff

that they didn't have enough levers to pull if things don't, didn't go well with Kevin Patullow. You know, whether it's... There, yeah, now it's like... Now I'm getting like Matt Patricia... I think having, like, established play callers in the building is important. I think it's important in servicing the overall mission. in making Sean Mannion better prepared.

I don't think it's important for, oh, well, if it doesn't go well, you can just go to the bench. Yeah, I don't want to approach that way. I think it is important to have the bench. I mean, obviously, you don't want to go to the bench, but I think you need to have a contingency plan. And I think that should be part of it. When is that ever works?

Like, like, you know, demoting or firing a coordinator mid-season. I'm not saying that it is, I'm not saying that you hire these people because you think Sean Mannion's going to fail, but I think if had the Eagles had a senior offensive consultant with play calling experience last season, they may have been better off in that situation. I think you should have those levers to pull. Don't you think Matt Patricia was just like waiting in the background

for Sean Decide to fail? Was he trying to make it work? Isn't like the face of like the senior offense or senior coaching assistant? I don't even think Matt Patricia like stabbed anyone in the back. I think he was just like, you know, Sean Desai was standing here and then they didn't even introduce him and they just handed him the knife when he was hired. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So it'd be better not to have someone to hand the knife too. Yeah, so you guys just want to hire people who don't have play calling experience in these roles. No, I think I don't want someone to help inform the process. Yeah, and I think it can be both. You can have someone who helps Sean Mannion with sequencing and play calling, but you also can have a bench. I think that it doesn't have to be mutually exclusive. It's literally not.

You hire somebody with play calling experience. You guys just don't, I guess really what you're saying is you don't see the benefit of it the way that I do. I think there is a benefit in having that. I think the benefit is, it's like, oh, you're only going to die a little bit later. Like, if you get to that point anyway, you're already. Yeah, okay, so it shouldn't be overstated.

I think that's fair, yeah. But I do think that there's a good chance we will see some continued additions to the staff. And to your other point, I don't know what it's going to mean for the people who are here. I mean, I would imagine that Parks Frazier is probably on the outs because he was a past coordinator. Right, right.

But I don't know about the other position coaches. Yeah, the quarterback's coach one is the one that I'll be really intrigued to watch. I just, I think you want someone with experience in a McVe-Shannahan-Lafloor influence system in that spot. So that's the one I'd be interested in. Frank Smith, who they talk to is, it hasn't yet been added to Mike McDaniel's staff. That could be a possible run-game quarterbacking type situation. Yeah, well, you'll see what happens with Jeff Stoutland in that role. There's a bit of a, it's much different, but there's a bit of a,

a Vick's initial staff thing here, where it could end up being you have, aside from Sean Manion, a bunch of guys who have been in slightly higher positions being downgraded just a little bit, and you're filling out the whole staff, but I don't know, we'll see how it plays out. Yeah, the question is, like,

did they think the Kellynne Moore experiment, like, worked? Right. Or are they trying to do better than that? You know what I mean? And even that was just Kellynne Moore and Doug Nussmeyer. That's what I mean. Yeah. Like, like, did it work to not have the staff overhauled, right?

Like, basically keeping Nick's guys, or guys who were here before. Yeah. Bringing in the offensive coordinator, letting him call the plays, and then, like, making him work with the structure in place. Or are they thinking this time we need a bigger change? Yeah. Like, because maybe in part because the roster is changing. Yeah. Like, maybe we're not as good as we thought.

Like, maybe we need to actually make structural changes. was the offense really the reason we won the Super Bowl in 2024? Like all these questions that like they need to kind of ask themselves. All right. Time to take our first break here. That'll close the book on the big takeaway presented by Xfinity. After these words from our sponsors, we'll be joined by Matt Schneidman,

who covers the Packers for the Athletic. I'm going to tell us a little bit about Sean Mannion. Well, it used to never be ordinary at Bet365 until I messed up his ad rate for the very first time ever. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to do it again. Because Bet365 has 90 million users, worldwide in the live stream over 780,000 events each year with early payout offers across the NBA and NHL.

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your price and unlock the possibilities with Xfinity. Learn more at Xfinity.com Xfinity. Imagine that. Legal. Select plans only. Restrictions apply. We are back on a P.H.O.I. Eagles podcast. Bowulf, E.J. Smith, the professor. And we head now to the Xfinity mobile call-in line and bring in a beloved former colleague, Matt Schneidman, who covers the Green Bay Packers for the athletic. Matt, how you doing? Oh, we lost you. Can you get, can you guys? Yeah, we got you.

Are you got you. Is it, Matt? I am live from the lobby of Lambo Field. I can't see. Big flex. Up to Sean Mannion's office right now or maybe his former office. But I appreciate those kind words, Bo. I always say, and I know I've told you this before, my highest ranking story, if you will,

the story that got read the most in my now seven years at the athletic was an idea stolen from you when I believe you did the Josh McCown name everybody. That's right. He threw a touchdown pass two. And then I did it with Aaron Rogers in my first year on the beat in 2019. And he took it and ran with it. So I appreciate you for allowing me to still have a job here. Well, now we're even.

This is good. The bill has come due, so I appreciate that. What are you doing in the stadium right now? yeah well as you know this time of year for us NFL only beat writers is kind of boring and instead of just sitting in my house the lambo field atrium is open 365 days a year wow not 24-7 but it's just a nice public area where i just come to get some work done instead of sitting in my house wow and you you like hope to happen upon news that's kind of fun i like that yeah well i hope not to happen upon news today yes uh so so so Sean Manning is a mystery box to us, right? And two years as a coach, and even this year as, you know, the first year as quarterback's coach in terms of like designing the offense, what are we to expect?

Because you've got Matt LaFleurre, you've got an offensive coordinator, you've got a passing game coordinator all above him. So what do you know about like what level of influence Sean Mannion had? Yeah, I think you can just look at the growth and development of not just Jordan Love, but also Malik Willis this year. It was on some of those short weeks where Sean Mannion was really tasked with getting Malik Willis up to speed. And he's part of the reason. I know LaFleur gets a lot of the credit.

But Malik Willis is probably going to sign a contract that's like two years, $40 million in free agency this off season. And you could tell from the second Matt LaFleur interviewed Sean Mannion during the 2023, I believe NFC championship game between the 49ers and Lions that he thought highly of him. I brought up my story I wrote from a while back just to prep for this. And Sean Mannion was in Chicago interviewing for a role on the Chicago Bears staff. And Matt LaFlor said, after you're done there, you should come up here to join my staff. Just because Sean Mannion was so well prepared, he stopped playing after the 2023 season. And even while he was still in the league, that summer before the 2023 season during his time off over that summer break, He was studying game plans, learning how to draw up plays on, you know, technological parts of his repertoire.

And he's been around, as you guys know, a lot of guys like LaFleur, Sean McVeigh, Zach Taylor, Kubiak, Kevin O'Connell. He's really learned from a lot of the brightest offensive minds in this league. And, you know, some of his former teammates even. I know the guy you guys know, Chris Long was saying that, you know, he was a great teammate. And you could tell he was a coach. Other people have said that. So I think you could see this coming in Green Bay in terms of Sean Mannion getting a job. And obviously he's stepping into a very pressure-packed environment there in Philadelphia.

Yeah, I was going to ask you, Matt, about the work that Sean Mannion did with Malik Willis. So, you know, being around Sean Mannion and being around some of those guys, Malik in particular, are there any, is there anything specific like that, you know, that you would attribute to Sean Mannion's coaching salini, like fundamentals or anything about. about quarterback play that you think he harps on more than more than most? Yeah, and I know it's cliche, but it's the footwork. And Sean Mannion told us this past year, or it might have been year before, no, it was this past year, that when he was Jared Goff's backup in 2017 with the L.A. Rams, Matt LaFleur was the offensive coordinator there.

And something that Sean learned from Matt was just the importance of footwork. And when we talked to Malik Willis this year about his growth from that failed, lack of a better term, Titans high draft pick to a guy who's probably going to be a starter in the NFL next year, the prevailing answer was Malik Willis got his footwork down. And Matt LaFleur said, just staying on balance and on rhythm helped him be so much more accurate. And I think a lot of that credit probably goes to Sean Mannion for taking what he learned from from Matt LaFleur back in 2017 and then using it now to make Malik Willis a starting caliber quarterback in this league. but I pulled up a, I searched Sean Mannion and my Google just to see, or my Gmail,

just to see what Matt LaFleur, the last thing he said about him was. And he was asked on January 2nd about the job Sean Mannion had done. And LaFleur said, unbelievable, great job. He's been awesome. He's got a bright future in this profession, definitely attacks it the same way I knew he would when he was a player. Extreme ownership of everything puts in the extra time, just goes above and beyond the call of duty, which is exactly what you want for your assistant coaches. Don't you just love a beatwriter, like email transcript search? That is close to

my heart, Matt. That is like so resourceful. And when I lost my transcripts, when I switched jobs, it crushed me. Do you think Matt Lafleur regrets saying that so publicly? Like, do you, how caught off guard are they by losing him this early? I don't think they're that caught off guard. I think you could tell by the way Matt LaFleur talked about him that he knew he was going to be a fast riser in the business. And quite frankly, people in Green Bay, I have seen online say, well, why didn't the Packers fire Adam Stenevich, their current offensive coordinator to promote Mannion? Well, you know, technically Matt LaFleur could block Sean Mannion from interviewing with the Eagles if he promoted him. But Matt LaFleur has shown in the past, he wouldn't do that. I can't remember any specific instances, but you don't call plays in Green Bay if you're the offensive coordinator because LaFleur does. So Sean Mannion was leaving regardless. He wasn't getting the head coaching job here. So. Although some people might have wanted him to, I think they could see this coming. And this was not going to be a long stay for Mannion in Green Bay.

How about just his sort of presence in front of the room in front of in front of the team? What should Eagles players expect from Manion on that front? Yeah, they make the assistant coaches. So not the coordinators, but like the position group assistance available to us once every other week. So we talk to Manion once a month. Let me just take the loss here and suck that in because that is tough to hear. I haven't heard from some of these assistant coaches in months, Matt. Oh, man.

Yeah, we get the, well, we obviously, as is the case anywhere, we get LaFleur five days a week and then the coordinators once a week and then the offensive assistants once a month, defensive assistance once a month. So we talked to Mannion once a month this season and he seems to have a really good head on his shoulders. He's one of those guys, and you guys mentioned Kellan Moore. There have been other guys in this league who are those journeymen backup quarterbacks and never really made a name for themselves as a starter,

but they know the game so well because it was their job every week to prepare the starter. And Sean Mannion said that he jokes with his wife. When the season came around, he would spend more time with a starting quarterback on whatever team he was on, whether it was Jerry Gough or Kirk Cousins, who he's really close with, than he would his own wife. And you could tell when Sean Mannion's at the podium that he knows what he's talking about. He has command of a room,

and I think he's going to go over well there in Philadelphia without knowing too much of the dynamics of that locker room. But I think it'll go over well. This is an impossible question to answer, and it's also a very difficult one for us to figure out from the outside. But to what degree should we ascribe the Matt LaFleur offense to Sean Mannion, like as we're trying to think about what he's going to import Do you have any sense of how much he believes in that philosophy

versus the other places that he's been, although there is obviously similarity between a bunch of the crossover? Yeah, obviously the similarity is, I think, I forget what year exactly he came into the league, but his first exposure. I believe, yeah. Yeah, because then when did McVeigh get the L.A. job? I think his third year is when McVeigh gets there, yeah.

Okay, yeah. So he has a lot of background in kind of that similar offensive scheme. He just hasn't been with Kyle Shanahan yet, but a lot of time with LaFleur and McVeigh, but he has some other influences too, and I'd imagine he's going to bring some of his own ideas as well. So I'd be lying if I said I know exactly how much of that Matt LaFleur offense he's going to be bringing to Philly.

I know that's not exactly what the Eagles have run, but I'd be interested to see if he puts his own spin on it. I was surprised. I got a hunch that Sean Mannion was going to go be Jeff Halfley's offensive coordinator in Miami. So I know he obviously ended up high. firing Bobby Sloick. But yeah, I'm interested to see kind of the spin Sean Manian puts on it in Philly. Yes, I think Eagle, maybe even the professor himself will tell you that Eagles fans are expecting Packers fans to not so much enjoy the Jonathan Gannon experience. Yeah.

I mean, I can guarantee you will not enjoy the Jonathan Gannon experience. And let me just give you some advice right now. Please do not fall for the trap that some of the beat writers here fell for. when Jonathan Gannon convinced them all that he was smart do not fall for that I make a living in the profession of like seeing through that and I can tell you that I was trying

to tell them all then that that is not the case so whether he invites you to his house for a nice dinner or whatever like go eat the food enjoy it but all of that schmoozing like let me just tell you Jonathan Gannon

I mean just let me tell you right now like he is not what he is going to try and make you think he is. He's good on the podium, Matt. You'll be happy with him on the podium. Quite a big introduction. I love that elevator, that escalator shot.

That's great. Yeah, this is such a flex, man. I love this. Do you think, Matt, is there any sense that the Packers view this stealing Sean Manion as retribution for the tush-push-push discourse put forth by Mark Murphy? It's retribution for the tush-push-push discourse, of course. I think, and I think we're all expecting. it to get banned this off season.

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, but. I think the Eagles would love to have the excuse of not having to run it anymore, yeah. They didn't run it as well this year. But yeah, there's, I think the retribution for that was coming in here and beating the Packers 10 to 7 in one of the most painful football games

I've never had to watch her all this season. All right. I have a serious question for Matt, if it's okay. By the way, Matt, I'm Dennis. Nice to meet you virtually. in Sean Mannion's first year when he was an entry-level offensive assistant Tom Clements was the quarterback's coach

above him and I heard him talk a lot about the influence that Clements brought and for those who don't know Clemens I mean he retired at age like 71 or whatever it was decades of experience in the West Coast system you know coached Brett Farrv etc I'm curious if you think that that will have an influence on the way that he's an offensive coordinator or if it's more just like a you know learning how to run a QB room

type stuff like in terms of of schematic stuff. Yeah, I was, you saw my eyes wandering because I have my story up here from last off season and I'm pulling up the quote Sean Mannion gave us about working under Tom Clemens. This is great beat writer work here. Let me see if I can find it. But as you said, Tom Clements, obviously coach Brett Farr, Aaron Rogers and Jordan Love and Sean Mannion learned under him.

And Aaron Rogers used to always say Tom Clements, let's see if I can remember them oh boy, this is going to be tough. The three cardinal rules of playing quarterback is no blind throws, no late throws over the middle, and no predetermined decisions. So those were definitely passed down from Tom. I think I got those. That's great.

Yeah, I love that. I think Jalen will be fully on board with the first two, but I don't know about the third one. The third one might be a new thing for him. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I think he learned a lot from Tom Clements, just how to go about the,

the job of being a quarterback's coach. And as I mentioned, the footwork was a huge part of that. I lost the quote. Okay, here it is. I love that. Jesus. Late throws over the middle. That's a very smart.

Yeah, late throws over the middle, no predetermined reads, and no throws across your body, I think it was. Okay, I have no idea where this went. Oh, okay. So I wrote, Mannion called Clements a great mentor for him and the picture of stability, always even keeled while juggling all the teaching points of the quarterback position. Clements would always emphasize fundamentals, and Mannion was constantly taking notes while

thinking about when his turn in Clemens' role would come. So that doesn't exactly tell you a whole bunch. It was your standard off-season story. But I think just seeing how Clements coached guys like Farr, Rogers, and Love, and then taking that into his own role and having great success in helping Jordan Love become, I would say, a top five quarterback in the league this season, and then helping Malik Willis become a starter. That, Jaylen's obviously already accomplished more than a lot of guys in his career or a lot of guys ever will, but I think Eagles fans can take some solace in

kind of what Sean Mannion has done, even though he's only been here two years. Last thing before you go, Matt, the chat is very curious. What is the logo on your hat? Oh, this is actually good, because it gives me a chance to plug the podcast I do with John Coon, Packers' legend. It's called The Tundra. And this is Russell Nicolay, who is the head of Nicolet Law, which is an injury law firm here in Wisconsin, and they are our presenting sponsor. And I just kind of wear the hat.

But they gave it to us because they sponsor our podcast. I was going to ask Matt for some feature ideas here. But I know that his colleague, Zach Berman, is now in the chat. So I'm going to hold off. I can't do that to Zach. Don't give him an advantage there. Zach has a Jonathan Gannon, you know, radar. Like, like as soon as I said,

Gannon. Zach's phone started buzzing. Is he actually in the chat? He is. He's upset about Danes' Gannon's brand here. It's a long-running debate between Zach and me, so. Well, I'm looking forward to

chatting with Jonathan Gannon. I'll tell him you said that to see what he's. Like, Dennis said you are a fraud and a fake. Please. Please, please. I would honestly be surprised if he hasn't, if that hasn't already trickled down to him at some point.

Matt, thank you so much. Everybody, check Matt out on The Athletic. And if you are Packers and Klein, check out that podcast. Thank you, Matt. Thanks, guys. That will do it for that segment. We'll be back with a little bit more on the other side, much more. On the other side, unpacking this Josh Grizzard edition.

Professor has some thoughts on Jeff Stoutland. And we will discuss our friend Dan McQuay in a little bit. So stay with us. Let's talk about Monarch. You will feel organized and confident in your finances with Monarch. an all-in-one personal finance tool that brings your entire financial life together in one clean interface on your laptop or phone. Whether you're switching jobs like me with past retirement accounts to monitor or just trying

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Wawa, got to have it. Gotta have a Wawa. Back on the P.H.O.I. Eagles podcast. Professor, you have done some digging. And you have some positive news for the folks who would hope to see a few less hitches. Yeah, should we save that for last or should we? Tell me, how would you like to do that? Yeah, let's save the hitches for the end.

Oh, what a tease. Okay. You know, you guys, you guys talked a lot about, I did, I did see yesterday's emergency pot. you guys have talked about Sean Mannion, a decent amount. One of the things that we know about the Green Bay, like Matliflor system, and, you know, this is something like Fran's been telling us about for years as well. Like, they have a system which is considered a very good modern system, lots of window dressing, great motion, not predictable. It has that like kind of Shanahan influence, a lot of three-by-one formations,

a lot of route combinations, like without as much ISO ball. One of our main criticisms of the Eagles. offense has been so many ISO routes, right? Like hitches, but like not really in conjunction with other plays, like things like that. And Lefleur is known for stressing zone coverage, which is something that Jalen Hertz is at issues with, right? Like a lot of concepts to beat zone, sail routes, dagger, Topper, a lot of post routes, like more post routes than most teams in the league. They've been very good at generating yards after completion, something that the Eagles have been not very good at this year. They were fourth in yards after.

catch in 2024. They were a little bit lower last year. Actually good wide receiver screens, like something that we know that Nick Seriani likes. Like, they've done a good job with those. And so those are all of the kind of positive things about the system. And then if we look at some of the just kind of metrics, Lindsay, we have some graphs in terms of just tendencies. And with the Josh Guzzard news this morning, I was able to add Tampa Bay to some of these numbers as well so we can kind of like compare across what the eagles have done in the past. You're going to eat those glasses. I can see.

Yeah, this one's probably a little bit hard to digest like over the screen. I did post these so you can you can see these on my on my social media accounts as well. But what jumps out? We have some, we have some graphs. We can talk about those like so if you just look at the way that they've kind of structured the offense, like what it looks like, 11 personnel, you know, shotgun, those kinds of things. You know, in 11 personnel, they ended up hiring two people who are kind of used to the opposite ends of the spectrum. Like, Eagles were middle of the road.

Tampa Bay was one of the highest 11 personnel teams in the league last year, like 70% a second, whereas Green Bay was near the bottom, right? Like they ran a lot of 12 personnel. So like that's fun. That's one of those things that are different. In terms of the amount of shotgun, Eagles ran a lot more shotgun than most teams, as we know. Both Green Bay and Tampa Bay were kind of middle of the road in terms of how often they were. in shotgun, when you look at what they did with that, though, like if you look at like not just are you under center,

but what do you do when you're under center? Let's focus on Green Bay, since that's probably going to matter more. Green Bay was third in pass rate went under center in the league, 38%. Okay. And they were dead last in pass rate out of shotgun. And what that means is, and this is something they've been year after year with LaFleur,

they're the least easy to predict, It's like what they're going to do based on what they're doing, right? Because most teams will pass out of shotgun and run out of under center. And they are extreme, like, last in those typical tendencies. And worth contextualizing that even those would still have been. Like, if you're the third most run heavy out of shotgun. It's 38% pass out of under center and 69% pass out of shotgun. So yes, it's still.

You're pushing both towards 50-50. Yes, much as you can. That, like, 69 to 38, that delta. of around 30% is the lowest in the league among all teams. And I think Lafleur's been like dead, like the lowest in the league in the difference between those for each of the three or four last years. That sounds great.

In terms of play action rate, Green Bay was middle of the road. They've never been, like, Lefleur's never been nearly as high under center play action as like McVeigh or Ben Johnson, like with Detroit. Like they've been like really, really high in that in terms of plays per game. But still, you're talking about six under center play action plays a game, which ranked 13th. Grizzard and Tampa Bay had like five a game. The Eagles had less than three, right? The Eagles were 29th in that category.

Play action in general, I think we have graphs on some of these as well, Lindsay. Like Green Bay was 12th in play action rate, whereas the Eagles were 24th. Now, Tampa Bay was 29th. So that's interesting. Like they were not a high play action team. And so you're hiring a past game coordinator who was not calling a lot of play action. So is that reason to think that things are going to be different? Again, we don't know, right?

Like, we don't know. Like, Grisard probably had a lot more control over the offense in Tampa Bay than Mannion did in Green Bay. But, like, we don't know what Mannion's going to be thinking in terms of that. One thing aesthetically, as I think about that Packers offense, that does seem intriguing is talking to somebody else in the league, like what would you want more of from Jalen Hertz, aside from the running, which is a separate conversation,

is just more of just moving the pocket. And I do feel like the Packers' offense did that a lot. Yes, for sure. That's something they absolutely did. And it was very rarely like pure dropback. Even in like pure drop back situations where you know it's going to be a throw, they would move the pocket a decent amount.

I feel like the Eagles have done that with Jalen Hertz like once in his career. It was a Denver game in 2021 against Fangio actually where they move the pocket a bunch. He looked like Tom Brady in the first half, like throwing the ball. And given the weaknesses, we know that he does have. It does feel like a thing that needs to be added to the offense. I absolutely agree.

Now, one thing the Eagles did bring back to the offense this year was deep balls. If you look at like a percentage of passes that travel 20 air yards, the Eagles were fifth, Green Bay was third. And Green Bay was also very good at completing those passes. They had one of the highest explosive pass rates in the NFL. Tampa Bay was more middle of the road in that. When it comes to the thing we all wanted to see, if we can look at that hitches graph, Lindsay. The Eagles famously were first in the rate of hitches at 24%. The Packers were 27th in hitch rate at 13%.

And so we can be very happy that the hitches will likely be out of the offense. But one thing that's interesting, if we go back to that graph, if you look at outroutes, and I did dig into this, and we can talk about the outrouts, but the Green Bay Packers are just as much of an outlier in how many outroutes they're in as the Eagles were with hitches. 23% of their routes were out routes, which is first in the league by a mile. The Eagles were 30th running outrots.

I looked into this. It is almost entirely their tight ends. Like it's tight end outrouts. So that's the way they use Tucker Kraft. It's the way they use the guys who came in for Tucker Kraft after he got hurt. So basically just like using their tight ends to get open in the flat against flat defenders

with the outrout. So that's going to be like interesting to see if that's something we see. Who knows who the tight ends are going to be on the Eagles? That's a whole other question. Yeah, I was wondering if it was like maybe a reflection of like arm talent because Jordan Levin, but Malik Willis as well, like both have a lot of arm strength. But honestly, it sounds like it might be more just structural for the offense.

Yeah, no, that's right. Another thing we need to talk about, which we've talked about for years, motion, right? The Eagles used to be like bottom two, bottom three in the league in motion. Kellyn Moore changed that, brought them up to kind of league average. We talked about this last week. they were 24th last year. Green Bay was 12th, excuse me, 11th in motion at the snap, and Tampa Bay was 8th.

So they're both like higher, not like super high, not among the highest in the league, but pretty high. One way in which Green Bay and Tampa Bay were very different, and it was interesting to hear Matt talk about the Tom Clements influence here, the Eagles famously don't throw to the middle, third of the field very much, right?

They rank 32nd in that. Green Bay was actually 26th. Like they did not throw to the middle a lot. A lot of condensed formations exploding out, of that, the outroutes, that kind of thing. Whereas Tampa Bay excelled in that. They threw it in the middle of the field. They're like sixth or seventh in the league.

So that's going to be a contrast. And I'm very curious how the Grisard passing game, right, which is what he's going to be responsible for, is going to work with the Sean Mannion, like, you know, offense and what kinds of concepts are going to be at the top of the playbook. I'm very curious about this, especially because we know that when different people are responsible for different parts of the playbook,

it can cause issues. And Jason Kelsey was talking about that this week, how, like, he could tell as a player sometimes that the playbook was, like, pasted together last second, like, during the week. Where, like, it's like, and he said it makes it so hard for an offensive coordinator when you're calling plays off of different pages

that were written by different people and the formations and the motions don't match each other. And so that's going to be a big part of the task, I think, like bringing in two coaches from different places. There needs to be an... editor in charge. Yes.

It's just like, I think we've talked about this before. There was a story that we did at the Athletic where we each wrote like a section, the three of us, and it was terrible. It was awful. Oh, is that not the, that's not the story. No, it's this, but because it didn't, it wasn't, it wasn't speaking to each other. It was all different writing styles. It was, it was not cohesive.

And so then we had an editor come in and put it all together. And all of a sudden the same components made sense. Yes. And that's what they, like, it can be, your job is to work on the red zone, your job is to work on third down, your job is to work on the running game, but there needs to be somebody at the top whose job is to make this all speaking the same language. And who is that?

I think it has to be Mannion, right? That has to be what the job is. And that has to be part of what the Eagles answered in the interview process with Mannion to have confidence that he can do that. This is where I'm just like being a little bit. I'm just worried to some degree, like will Nick Siriani think that that's his job? You know what I mean? Like it's like like I like you guys, you guys did great.

Like now let's make it all kind of go together. I, you tell me, but I think that Nick wants to be able to offload the offense. Yes. I think that he, yeah, I think that's the correct reading. But I also think you're right. There could come a time where he thinks I can do this. I was going to say like I think in an ideal scenario it is Sean Mannion who is the editor for this. I think if they hit adversity, does Sean,

Manion have enough weight and enough, you know, does his voice hold enough weight for it to not, for it not to be Nick Siriani or Jalen Hertz that starts to have overweighted influence on the direction of the offense? I think that is a fair question, you know, just because there is a lot of projection with Sean Mannion. Right. No, yeah, we'll, we'll see. Maybe we'll see. Will we know, right? Like if it's going well, hopefully, hopefully it's going well and it never matters, right? Well, that's the thing is that like this is the, what is probably going to matter the most for the Eagles this season is like what happens over the next month and a half that like we will have no insight into. Right. But just like as they are getting to work, this brand new staff, like putting the bones together of what the playbook is going to look like. Yeah. How does that, how does that do? Like we're not going to know. Right. And for any fans like refreshing, you know, their social media looking for the Sean Mannion opening press conference, let me tell you the bad news. The Kellyn Moore's opening press conference

was on May 9th. It was after the draft. So, like, this is something that, like, I don't know. I don't know if they think that having the offensive coordinator speak before the draft is like a strategic disadvantage or something. But it was like very clearly intentionally after the draft that they let Kellyn Moore talk to people. Kellyn Moore obviously was hired in January.

So that's four months of him just kind of sitting around before he could talk to anyone. One other stylistic thing that we might see change is screens. The Eagles have been bottom three in the league in the amount that they run screens and also they've been very bad at screens. Tampa Bay was among the highest teams in the league at running back screens, and then Green Bay was very high and wide receiver screens. And so like that's going to be like two different kinds of screens that they kind of excelled in.

Tampa Bay was sixth in screen rate overall. They were sixth in screen success rate as well. Whereas Green Bay was in 2024, in particular, they were like very high in screen rate. They went down a little bit more to league average this year and again they excelled in wide receiver screen. So some of that might be personnel related, right?

Like, you know, who's on the team, that kind of thing. But I mean, the Eagles were 30th in screen rate and like 32nd in screen success rate over the course of the last two years. So that could be a difference. Let me get Seguine involved in the passing game. That'd be nice. Novel concept.

It would be nice. it feels like we're playing most of the Professor hits Well it's I mean We got Gannon in so this is Well the Gannon Gannon was great

But this is the kind of thing that like You know I remember when Kellen Moore got hired We kind of did the same thing right We talked about tendencies Right What are going to be the differences And not a ton There weren't there weren't that many differences

I mean like some of the things Went from being extreme to average Right And some of the things that didn't change at all Nothing really turned into Okay this is Kellen Moore offense Which I think speaks to they only brought in two new people, right, at that point. So let's see what happens this time.

Let's see if it looks more like a complete overhaul. We'll sort of see that. Yeah, but say as it sits right now, I think that is a legitimate concern. I don't think we have an answer on whether or not it's going to look the way Jaylenartz wants it to look. But given the other things we talked about a week ago, professor, if, you know, if you say Mike McDaniel was never coming here, you feel like this is about as good of a, without knowing, yeah, resolution as we could have had? I do, and it includes the Grisard hire, too. Like, I think, like, hiring both of them, I think is good. Having more voices, I think is good.

Having, like, enough time, and hopefully, like, everyone understands their role. I think that kind of thing is good, and just hearing people talk about Sean Mannion. You know, I listened to Nick Foles talk about Mannion. He was teammates with him when Mannion was a rookie. He had compared him to Kellyn Moore. Like, he thinks he's a lot like Kellyn Moore, where you could kind of tell he was going to be, because he said he, like, he was roommates with Kellyn Moore or something. foals at some point so he like knows him to and he said like you could kind of tell they were

going to be coaches right like like when when they were when they were playing and just listening to Sean Mannion's opening presser which is what I was asking him out about like you know the way he emphasized footwork fundamentals like honest assessments like you know making sure you're not harping on the same things with the quarterback but also not avoiding mentioning things like he's saying all the right things like it reminds me a lot of Kellyn Moore that way too like watching Kellan Moore present an offense to the team like on a YouTube video and stuff

had me encouraged that things were going to go nicely and it really does remind me of that now that doesn't mean you know anything right now like the first game will tell us so much more than anything we're speculating about right now but yeah I'm glad it's not

I'm glad it's not Jim Bob Cooter where you're you're thinking well you know they just brought in Nick Sky or where it's like naggy where they're like oh they just kind of brought in the guy that Andy pushed on them again or, you know. I think it's fair to say, like, the early returns are showing us why the Eagles are so bullish on him. And then, yeah, we will have more questions in training camp and as the season starts. Yeah.

Manion might also have a unique, like, appreciation for Howie's roster shenanigans. He went back and forth between Minnesota and Seattle six times. Yeah, what was up with that? He was Minnesota, Seattle, Minnesota, Seattle. I think he kept on, like, trying to go to Seattle, and then they cut him in training camp. And then he went back to the Vikings. And then he went back to Seattle. They cut him in training camp again.

But then he went back to Seattle. His last game in the NFL, they beat the Eagles, it was the game where Gino Smith was injured and Drew Locke started. They elevated Mannion from the practice squad. And he was the dressed backup in that game when the Eagles lost in Seattle in 23. So there it is. All right. Let's take our last break here on the PHA by Eagles podcast.

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Back on the P.HL. My Eagles podcast. I want to talk a little bit about Dan McQuaid. In a little bit, Fran is going to break down some of his thoughts on Sean May. And we'll get to that in overtime. And also, Jeff Stoutland, some thoughts from Professor. But let's do this now. Dan and I were friends in a way that I think it has become apparent over the past couple days. He was friends with a lot of people,

which is to say that we were internet acquaintances. I have like a possibly apocryphal memory of one of our first interactions being about a typo on a Philadelphia street sign. I think 11th certite was what it was. So internet acquaintances turned internet friends, turned real life friends, which mostly meant the pleasant surprise

of a text every couple months or so about some fun worm, hole that he had gone down or something dumb going on with the Eagles or a callback to an inside joke. He loved going to Vegas, which is funny. And for some reason, when the Eagles played there in 2021, I went out there to cover the game, and he wanted to show me the neon museum, which feels like a very weird, Dan thing. But when we got there, they were closed.

We ended up spending the night with our mutual friend Justin, watching. some bizarre cover band, and the lasting threat of that trip happened at the game the next day when the Raiders introduced their cheerleaders as footballs, fabulous females. So that became a long-lasting reference, and still, very funny. It's a testament to his work and the person he was, that there have been so many loving tributes to him over the past couple days. it was nice of the Sixers and Flyers to do their part. Nicer of the Sixers to have a guy named Johnny Canoli,

who was in town for Knucklemania 6, serve as the bell ringer in a perfectly McQaedaian Philadelphia thing. My friend Tom McAllister made that observation, and you should read his beautiful post about Dan as well. I thought Philly Mag did a great job of covering the breadth and depth of Dan's tangible impact on the city and the greater culture. His colleagues at Defector, who know his work self-best, are doing a great job of honoring him as well.

And I think the notion that has spread that Dan got Philly and celebrated it better than anyone is right for a lot of people. For us, he did coin the idea, E.J., that the perfect Eagles victory is one in which they win, but everybody is still completely exasperated. and that has been a long-running theme over the past couple of years. Like a lot of you, I have done sort of the digital age thing and gone back through old text messages and post of his that have made me laugh.

There's a very funny moment that he posted a video of from the 2020 draft when the Eagles draft Jalen Hertz and Adam Schaefter goes on and explains that part of the reason the Eagles drafted a backup quarterback

is that a lot of teams in the NFL are worried about what's going to happen when their quarterback gets COVID. So that's what we have to thank for Jalen Hertz. I cackled when I read this one. This is maybe my favorite. Dan says, Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale.

One year and two days ago, Mike Florio wrote the greatest nonsensical lead of all time. This is the Mike Floreo lead. For men of a certain age, the name Clayton Thorson may spark memories of Thurston. and Howell, but the two men could be no different, especially since the latter is fictional and the former is real. Which I love. The first time we had Dan on Birds with Friends in the lead-up to the Eagles going to the 2022 Super Bowl,

he was very excited to tell me that not one, but two of his ex-girlfriend, had texted him during the show to tell him that they were watching, which you want to talk about a huge flex. That is fantastic. He was very nice about sending encouraging messages about the show over the years,

which meant a lot from someone of his discerning taste. The last note on that front was courtesy, I believe, of one of those exes who wanted to warn us about the fact that we had some in-app ads for ICE. So thank you. We needed that, and I think those are gone out.

The last time I saw Dan in person was here in the studio when he came for an episode we did last spring with him and Kelsey McKinney, which was a lot of fun. And we will link to in the show notes for today's episode if you want to watch. That was a weird day because my daughter had broken her arm that morning. So I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to make the show. I rushed here to the studio from CHOP, which meant that we were not able to hang out afterwards as much as I was hoping. but we did have a very nice conversation just about fatherhood after the show. And that extended to a few other conversations we had over the years.

And the thing that really just stopped me in my tracks the other night when I was going through some of Dan's Instagram posts was for the occasion of his son's second birthday. He wrote, I mean, this is in December, when he knew what was happening with him. And he said, despite everything, the best two years of my life. Happy birthday to the best kid in the world. Dan's defector colleague, Barry Pichesky, wrote something the other day

that I think is precisely correct from the Dan, as I experienced him, which is, I think the key that unlocks Dan was his desire to share the things he loved with other people. and I can't possibly think of a better operating philosophy for a dad. So I don't know exactly how to land the plane here other than to just say that I am very sad and I think we are all thinking a lot about the people closest to Dan, especially his family.

So there you go. You want to say something, Professor? Yeah, that was beautiful, first of all. I did not have the pleasure of getting to know Dan as well as Bo, but I did meet him over the phone and texting. And I could tell just by texting him, whether, you know, I would text him when I saw C.J. Usoma at Wanamakers, which was one of Dan's favorite.

You wrote about you. Favorite places. I'm going to get to that, yeah. And location of the film Manikin, which was one of his favorite movies. and talking to him on the phone a couple of times as well, you could just tell he was ridiculously nice, extremely thoughtful and kind, obviously very funny,

but in an extremely good-natured way. Like, I mean, you gave some examples there, like he could make fun of something in great detail without insulting anyone involved with that thing, which is not easy, and which is not even something that most people even attempt, right? And maybe most importantly, he was just so sincere in a way that's so hard to be and so rare.

He did write an article about me for a defector last January in which he detailed my game-going habits, and I was so honored by that. Do you need a second? Because if you need one second, Professor, we can send it to overtime. Okay. Which I still don't understand overtime. if I have a funeral and someone there feels the need to find something that I achieved in my life to talk about, I hope they mentioned that the great Dan McQuaid once found me interesting enough

to write a story about. So, you know, that was, that's something that I'll always be very proud of. I didn't know Dan. I'm sorry. I had to cut you off. No. No. Over time, over the perfect I think Dan would have loved that. Yes. I didn't know Dan personally. I was an admirer of his work from afar. I did work with his father, Drew. And yeah, incredibly kind. I was new to the business when I met Drew, and I just, like, gravitated toward him because he has that type of effect on people, just, like, incredibly kind, incredibly funny, sort of, like, enjoyed the uns seriousness of everything in a very serious space. So, yeah, I just wanted to say, both of you guys very well said, and I'm really, you know, my heart goes out to his family. Yeah.

Yeah, it's also like, you know, to what degree do you make this content, you know, but I think it's part of processing it on our end. And it's, you know, there are people who this is much more impactful on. So I wish we could throw it right now, but we'll just keep moving. What we got? Yeah, and the people in the chat are saying some very nice things. So that's nice. Thank you.

Where should we go? Jeff Stoutland. Oh, you know what? Let's do Friends video. Then I'll give us a nice little pallet cleanser here. So Fran is traveling home from the Senior Bowl, but he did check in with his thoughts on the Sean Mannion hire. Let's find out what the Duffman has to say. So, Sean Mannion, obviously the new offensive coordinator for the Eagles.

I wish I could be on the show with you guys today. But I'm happy that I'll be able to get you a video before I leave my hotel. Excited to be back with you when you get back from the Super Bowl. but let's talk some turkey here. I would say I'm excited. I'm intrigued by this hire. You add Sean Mannion. Obviously, it's not a lot of coaching experience.

E.J. and Bo, you guys did a great job of breaking it down with the emergency pod last night. I think the big thing with this hire that I'm most interested to see, and E.J., the way you labeled it, being the million-dollar question, is Jalen Hertz and his fit in the offense and just bringing everything together. I think that when you talk about like the marriage of the run game with the past game and play action, that is the essence, one of the thing, one of the like the skeleton keys to the whole like Shanahan McVe style of offense, right? Is the, you know, making everything look the same, but you run all the different concepts out of it and, you know, you make it or is it going to be a run? Is it going to be a pass? Sometimes it's out of 13 personnel, 12 personnel, whatever your best personnel groupings are. You want to get those guys out in the field, but you want to be extremely versatile. out of those alignments. And one of the big questions now is, all right, well, who are those,

who's the personnel going to be? Is A.J. Brown going to be on the team? Is Lane Johnson going to be on the team? Is Dallas Goddard going to be on the team? Those are big questions that need to be answered. My guess is that if you are Sean Mannion, you'd want, especially Dallas Goddard, like you want the 2024 version of Dallas Goddard on your team. Obviously, he caught a lot of touchdowns last year. The run blocker that we saw for the majority of last season, like that can't be what you're getting. So if you think that that was injury related or whatever else, if you think that you're going to be able to get a better version as a blocker from Dallas Goddard, I would think that they're going to try and see, can you make that work to bring him

back into the fold? I think that when you look at the rest of the team and we could talk through the rest of these tight ends, I think that that will be fascinating to see. But it's it is not, when you look at the traditional Mike Shanahan and then eventually Kyle Shanahan style of offense, a lot of people, you know, it's like outside zone, outside zone. And that's what it was in Denver, certainly in Washington with like Alfred Morris and RG3 rookie year. And they started working in all the zone read stuff. That is certainly, you know, in play. But they're not, it's not, they're not attached to the outside zone anymore. They've really expanded. And so what we're seeing in, it really just depends on what your personnel is. And that's, that's the beauty of it

is what that run game is going to look like. And so when I look at, you know, Jeff Stoughton, the way that they've put run schemes together, they have been very voluminous. Obviously, they have majored in inside zone. And that has been like their staple. But, We've seen them run, certainly this year, they ran a little bit more duo. They'll do the outside perimeter sweep stuff. If you get a healthy Cam Juergens, that will be very important. I think the big thing that is going to be really interesting and how do you want to try and build this out? How do you determine what is going to be best for the players, the personnel on this team?

To me, when we know the issues that Jalen Hertz has had from being able to attack the middle of the field, I think you almost build it like play action pass backwards. I was thinking about this driving back from the practice field, the final practice from the senior ball, is, all right, how would you try and script this? I think you almost say, all right, what are the plays, what are the throws that Jalen feels comfortable with being able to make in the middle of the field?

All right, how do we, what are the concepts that we can call to, you know, get those routes? And then what are the run concepts that we can run off of that? So, you know, we've talked about how, all right, if it is going to be outside, you know, let's say, hey, he loves the deep dig, or if he loves the, you know, being able to marry up some of that stuff, all right, well, if that's going to work really well off of duo play action, then we're going to be a duo team.

If that's going to work really well off outside zone action, all right, we're going to be an outside zone team. And you almost kind of work it that way. Because, again, you want that, the play action is such a big part of this offense. And I know, like, you know, all right, San Francisco, they dialed it back a little bit in the last couple of years with Brock Purdy. But again, when you go to, and, you know, McFay didn't always do it. with Matthew Stafford, it's kind of hit and miss in terms of, you know, they kind of

picked their spots. But I would say in general, when you look at all the coaches that have had success, the play action game is such a big part of it. I'm fascinated to see how this all comes together. It's going to be, it's not all that dissimilar to the reasons why I was excited by Mike McDaniel. And that's now we get to see it's where we're rolling dice here as he's not going to be Mike McDaniel right out of the box.

But I'm very fascinated to see this. Obviously, we've got plenty of time to talk through. I'm excited to see all of these players kind of thrown into this mix. It's going to be fun. We'll talk through it a lot more. Enjoy your trip out to the Super Bowl. I'll see you guys when you get back from San Francisco. And until then, I'll keep doing, guys, on the draft guide

and getting all my senior bowl notes ready to roll. I'll have a big board later this week. Talk to you guys soon. Wonderful to hear from our friend the Duffman, our friend of the Duffman. By the way, check out on all-P-H-L-Y.com. Fran's all senior bowl team with your full coverage of what he saw

from doing all those guys. What were you going to say? I said, I miss Fran. I know. He was so sad. He's like, I'll see you guys when you get back. It's like another week. We're going to be on the scene next week

at the Super Bowl on Radio Row. We'll have five days of action for you. Need to tell you now that our show schedule will be a little bit different. Instead of 2 o'clock as our normal showtime, 4 o'clock will be our normal showtime.

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Wednesday, it's going to be 4.30. So there you go. I'm very sad right now. I had my flight. I had my Airbnb. I had everything already. We will post a graphic about the show schedule. But for those of you who don't want to go in there, this is how you know.

Some super chats to get to before we talk a little bit of Jeff Stoutland. T-Grand. Oh, and some news. What does the panel and Fran think Is play calling a You have it or you don't type of skill Any history of big improvements? That's a good question.

You know, it's like, it's, it is also, I would find it hard to believe it It's something that you're great at right away But maybe you see signs right away Because remember this was like, this was a stiking thing And it was like they, you know, they say he's a great play caller But you know, it didn't really manifest until the second season.

I think it's definitely something you improve at as you get experienced. But I do think there's an element of you either have an appreciation and an understanding of the arts of it or not. Like, I think if you're terrible at it right away, it's probably a sign that you just don't have a good feel for it. But people probably improve, you know, in the margins of that. That 20-21 offense, underrated.

I mean, it was a very good offense for what the roster was. I thought Stuyken did an awesome job of adapting to having A.J. Brown. You know what I mean? It's like, we have A.J. Brown now. We don't have to run the same offense we were in with Jalen Rager, right? Like, I thought that was really good. It is also very difficult to know how, you know, how to wait play calling versus like the preparation of the game plan, right?

And like, putting together the right menu to choose from, if that makes sense. Yeah, the thing we were talking about earlier, if there are different people working on third down and red zone and things like that, how do you bring it together? In the moment, I would have never expected it. But I like him, like, romantic about the years I covered chain stiking now. Like a way that surprises me in hindsight. But, like, he was so passionate about play calling.

He did the art of it. And, you know, we would, you know, when you'd have conversations, it's funny because, like, our listeners will, like, know what he was like at the podium. He's very buttoned up, kind of careful on the podium. But, like, I mean, I guess it's fine for me to say, like, he cursed a lot, like, in his, like, normal, like, conversations. Well, all coaches are very performative about the coaching. Yeah, but he's cursing. He was, I mean, it was, like, every other word, he would drop an F-bomb or whatever.

And, yeah, no, I enjoyed covering Shane. I didn't know, I didn't think I would be as romantic about it as I am. With expressors, I like that he never, he like almost never wore Eagles gear. Like, he always wore like a golf hat or like just like his own like hoodie from home or whatever. He was a double ring guy. It looked like he just like walked in from the street and like, yeah, that was cool. Double ring guy, you know that kind of, that bothered me. Well, yeah, because you, yeah, you hate rings, yeah.

Yeah. Frigged you out. Rob Milner with the Super Chant says, is there a position group that will be a bellwether of the Mannion influence for Howie this offseason? That's a good question. I think Fran hit on some of that. You know, like the specific types of tight ends you'd want in the system. I mean, I guess like if they got like a yards after catch receiver,

like a receiver that's like... Certainly if they sign Malik Willis, that would be. Yeah. But yeah, I think that like Fran said, there's enough flexibility that it's not always going to be exactly one type of player. Very high in 12 personnel at Green Bay. They had Tucker Craft obviously,

but they also had blocking tight ends who were like a big part of the blocking on early downs like when they ran it. They ran the ball a lot. Like they were fourth highest run rate in the NFL and I don't know if that's like something people realize about like Lafleur and the Green Bay thing but like he's gonna want,

I think he's gonna want like a tight end who can block. Like I don't think he's gonna be okay with like Grant Calcutera or whoever. Oh no, no, no. I meant like a guy who's main role. Main role is to block you. Now we're talking. Real Prince Blue.

The McVeigh tree is the West Coast offense. Just say that. Okay. Brandon Bell, how much of the OC hire do you think is about helping Jalen Hertz take another step in his development? Feels like it's as much about him as it is about scheme. I think it's okay to read it that way. I think if you are trying to figure out how can you add some certain skill sets to Jalen Hertz, his game in order to propel the offense.

I could see this being part of that plan. Yeah, I talked about this with Anthony this morning. Like, is Sean Manning the quarterback whisper, or is he like the offensive innovator? And I said, I think he has to be both to get this, get this right. I don't know if you guys listen to McLean's pod where he talked to Mike Silver, and I thought it was interesting where Silver was like,

based on everything I heard, Kellyn Moore basically, like, was like, I don't really need to talk to. It was almost like, I'm going to come in, I'm not going to get involved in the whole. like, you know, being a mentor to Jalen thing, as much as I'm going to call the plays and I'm going to tell him to do this and, you know, I'm not quoting him very well right now,

but I'm curious if that will be different with Sean Mannion, like whether that'll be something where he takes it on as a role to speak with Jalen, like be a mentor to him. I mean, it's similar backgrounds of Callan Moore, but I'm wondering if it'll be a different approach to the personal relationship. Well, this speaks to something I wrote about

on all-P-H-O-I.com, which is, I don't want to say correlation, the correlation maybe isn't causation, but the external hires that the Eagles are brought in for this job have done significantly better than the internal promotions. You know, so if you think of Kellynne Moore, Shane Steichen, Frank Reich, Andy Reid, I mean, you could throw Chip Kelly in there as well. Well, you were going in order. You were going in reverse chronological order.

I didn't want to go with Chip Kelly. No, no, no, no. But if you went one more back, it's Pat Schermer. So it's actually four, the last four offensive coordinators who were externally hired, all went on to become head coaches, including Patrick. So is part of that, and I'm genuinely asking, I'm not saying that, I don't think we have, I think it probably would be overstating it, but maybe there is an element of a coach that doesn't have that, like, entrenched relationship with Jalen, who is maybe a little bit more like,

no, this is how I do things. Maybe that is beneficial for Jalen. Right, yeah. No, we talked so much about, like, we'll, What's his name with Carson? D. Filippo? Yeah, D. Filippo. Like, how he wasn't like a friend or whatever.

Yeah, like it was like hard coaching. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Last thing you want to hit on, Professor, is... We get the news. Remember the news? I keep forgetting the news. I do often feel like the news is the least important thing, but this time it's interesting.

Not in a U way in a, you know. Who cares? What is that even supposed to mean? I don't know what it means. People aren't here to find the news. They can get the news somewhere else. I wholeheartedly. disagree. This was a conversation in the chat. That's what prompted me to it. Because

you know, I'm an active and engaged listener on the show, but, you know, I saw it in the chat and I said, all right, we should probably, we should talk about this. I was enjoying the mannequin versus mannequin two debate going on in the chat. More love for the glasses, E.J. I appreciate that. Oh, yeah, fantastic. I do need to get stronger glasses, but I, like, I can't read the names if I do this, and now I can see who's chatting. You need, like, progressives? Like, do you need? No, these are from years ago. All right, so the news, now that we're, you know, I'm going to be the straight newsman here. According to Tom Pelliserro, the salary cap is expected to jump about $20 million from $279.2 million to between $301.2 million and $305.7 million for next season. So very quickly, what this means for the Eagles is that everything is going according to plan for them.

You know, they often leverage future years in the contracts that they sign players to with an expectation that the cap is going to rise. If a rise is more than expected, they have more flexibility. If it doesn't rise as they expected, then that gives them a lot less flexibility. So it's not necessarily like they're going to come up with $20 million that they didn't expect to have. I think it really is just reinforcing the way that they build their teams. And it's an advantage that they've already kind of carved out here. And this is about in line with what they would have.

Yeah, maybe a little bit higher. I mean, we were just talking about this, me and it is. Like, I would say, I don't know. It's lower, it's lower in both absolute dollars and percentage than last year. Yeah, I mean, I would say like, okay, I mean, I would say that, like, it's not, it's not the most significant jump we've seen over the last few years. Yeah, two years ago was the big one. It jumped like 15%, and I don't think they were expecting that.

They were not. That's when, you know, how he said he was doing whatever like. Last year, I think it went back to normal. I don't know. I'm guessing, I'm guessing most. In most buildings, I'm guessing this is what they expect. But the Eagles do a better job of leveraging or taking advantage of these expected jumps and other teams, I would say.

Is that still true? I know that that's the thing. I think so, yeah. I think they're more aggressive with the void years and stretching out contracts than most teams, yeah. Okay. How was our news conversation? That was good stuff. I agree.

We should. Let's vaude. Let's clip that. A lot of clips. A lot of clips this week. Let's make that a short. Okay, Stoutland. We got a meeting to get to, but let's discuss this.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, it's not that. I want to do it. We have a graph, I believe, Lindsay, about the Eagles run game and how much under center running they did. This was like a debate that E.J. and I had throughout the season. He wanted more under center. I was like, but they're not good at it.

So this is like a game-by-game graph that shows, how much under center the run game was versus, and also like how good it was. And the thing that I like noticed about this, and this is also referring to that same Jeff McLean pod where he talked about how Jeff Stoutland was possibly stripped of his run game coordinator role during the season. And of course, my first thing I was wondering

was like, I wonder when that happened, right? And I don't know if you guys remember, but like after the first six games, right, there was a mini-buye after the loss of the Giants. and during that mini buy they went like insanely heavy under center on runs for the next three games

six offensive linemen like much more under center you can kind of see like the three games furthest to the right on this graph are weeks seven eight and they had the buy seven eight and ten like those three games in a row and then Lane gets hurt

lane gets hurt they stop doing the six offensive linemen and then they kind of like bring back the under center stuff, they go opposite extreme again for a few games. And then all those middle games are like the last five games. So they kind of like ended up at a happy medium. But they were kind of like looking for an identity the whole time. If I had to guess as to when Stoutland to get back seat in the run game, that's when I would guess it happened. Not only based on how much under center they started doing, but also they were talking so much that week about the exciting

changes to come. Like I don't know if you remember this. Like Jalen hinted at it. Like, Petulow hinted at it. Like, oh, we got some stuff in store for you now. like and then even after that even after that Vikings game they were like yeah I bet you guys like those changes and it was like it was okay I mean there were like there were like three under center play action passes or something uh they came out of that much anymore so this just like makes me wonder like was that worth like taking that away from stoutland like who took over like was it butulo who took over you know like I'm just curious about what you think this means for Stoutland going forward, especially because McLean said as part of the same thing, he would be surprised to see Stoutland back as the run game coordinator. Like, that part was interesting to me. Yeah. That that would be something that they publicly did, right?

Like, if they strip them of that title, that would be a public demotion to this guy who's like widely respected. It's not just the behind the scenes operational change if you like strip them of the title. Like, would they really do that? It's a good question, and it's great reporting from Jeff. I want to say that first. I think that the only thing is, as you bring in Sean Mannion and now Grisard as well, it is, I think the question becomes can Jeff Stoutland's principles in the run game mesh into a McVe-Shannahan play-action-heavy system?

And I think that's a question that they will have a better answer to than I will. But I think that is going to be probably the determining factor on what happens moving forward. I think it is like, again, I want to make it clear. Like, I think that Jeff Stoutland has earned a lot of equity. And they had a historic run game in 2024 with him as a run game coordinator. So the way that last year went is actually probably a suggestion that they should lean further into what Jeff Stoutland wants to do. But I just am defaulting back to I'm not sure if it fits with the vision that these guys have, you know, with the McVeigh-Shannahan-influenced offensive scheme. Yeah.

And a big question for me with the run game, too, is like, is Jalen going to start running again? Right? Because the thing that didn't really make sense those first six weeks was they were still doing heavy shotgun runs the way they had been. But if you guys remember, in three of the first five games, Jayland didn't have a single quarterback design run. Yeah. He had had like two games like that his whole career before that or something. And so it's like if you're not going to do the QB stuff, why are you doing shotgun? And it's kind of like that's what they must have thought, right?

And that's why they started doing the under center. but then they weren't good at that and then they went back and they were just kind of a max. Yeah, I'd be surprised if Jeff Stalton is against under center run game. I mean, that would surprise me but I think some of the play action stuff.

I mean, the Eagles really harped on that play action stuff toward the end of the season. That was obviously their priority. Eagles have been like league bottom in under center rate the entire time Stelan's been here. Okay, so that's the reason

to think he's against it. But I haven't heard him talk about it. I think it could be a reflection of the quarterback just as much. But it's been different quarterbacks. Yeah, okay. It's been literally the whole time Stoutland's been here.

So you think he's a shotgun run preference run game coordinator? It's hard to think otherwise when... I think if you were to do like a composite of like every, all the years Stoutland's been here, I would guess the Eagles are dead last in under center run rate. But I can look that up. Starting with Chip, that's a totally different thing. Yeah. Then you get to Doug and he wasn't the run game coordinator.

You're saying there's no way to know Stoutland's preference. Yeah, like the Foles years, it's hard to say like, okay, that's quarterback dependent. But like with Wence and Jalen Hertz, like I would say that both of both of those quarterbacks, I would say yes, it makes sense to put them in a shotgun run offense because they have the threat of keeping it. It was RPO's keeping it. Sure. Yeah, the RPO's also a big part of this.

I don't know. I just, I would be surprised if Staltern's like, no, we have to be a shotgun run run team. Yeah, no, I hear what you're saying. And there was a lot of under center stuff, more under center. Still not a lot relative to the league, but more in 2024. after Seguan got here than there had been before. Yeah.

All right. Good stuff, everybody. It's a fun show. Fun show. Meaty. And once again, we'll be back tomorrow. No, we won't. We will not be back tomorrow.

Oh, I got one last thing to say. It's not Timothy. It's Timote. Shalame. Timote. Timote. Timote. It's not.

Timote. The accent's on the E. Whatever accent you're doing is not French. I'm not French. I didn't ever said I was going to perfect it. But at least I make the effort to pronounce the guy's name right. I'm like, you guys, you call him Timothy. Big of you to admit you did not perfect that.

Listen, I have a growth mindset. All right, we won't be back tomorrow. We will be back next week from San Francisco. Radio Row. Hopefully we'll run into some people who have maybe some insight into John Mannion. John Mannion.

Jonathan Gannion. Josh Grizzard. What else is going on in the Eagles building? All kinds of stuff. Did Bo Packett? Maybe some old friends will join us. Oh, by the way, I will say,

I appreciate all of those of you who have come out of the woodwork to support me and say that you too are a family with one toothbrush base and rotating heads. That's like me saying thanks to all the people who call it a chocolate cake too. That's not true.

I would agree that it's got to be about the same. There are many of us. It's just being efficient. All right, that'll do it, everybody. Thank you, Lindsay. Thank you, Professor. We love you. Thank you, E.J.

Thanks everybody for being in the chat. Thank you, Fran. Talk to you next week. And as always, we love you. silly like the mayor.