PHLY Philadelphia Eagles Podcast - Will the Philadelphia Eagles have Jalen Hurts and A.J. Brown on the field when it matters most?

Episode Date: January 10, 2025

As the Eagles prep for Sunday’s wildcard showdown with the Green Bay Packers, we’re left wondering if A.J. Brown’s knee will allow him to be on the field against a Packers defense that has been able to force turnovers at a high clip. As Jalen Hurts battles through the concussion protocol, DeVonta Smith, Saquon Barkley, Dallas Goedert and Jordan Mailata have a lot on their plate offensively. On defense, Vic Fangio will need Jalen Carter, Zack Baun, Darius Slay, Quinyon Mitchell and C.J. Gardner-Johnson to show up against Jordan Love.Join the PHLY Eagles show for the final preview episode of the week, as Deniz Selman joins Bo Wulf before Zach Berman checks in with the lates Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The PHLY Eagles podcast presented by Bet365. Download the Bet365 app and use code, PHLY365 when you sign up, whatever the moment. It's never ordinary at Bet365. We're in studio, Beulfe, the professor. Dana Sleman here rocking the latest, greatest merch, a throwback to the wonderful strip, swooper, gambit. How you doing?

Doing well. How are you? We have here, Sequin Barkley, leaping over. the only person in Philadelphia who continues to doubt him, and that would be the professor himself. Very cool to be wearing a shirt with your own visage on it. It is cool. I had a shirt with myself on it when I was like 14.

That's the last time. Okay. What was that? It was just a picture of me wearing an eagle shirt that like a friend of my dad said made for me. And my hair was really long. And it was like in front of my face. You couldn't really tell it was me. Did you then take a picture of yourself wearing the shirt so that you can...

There are pictures when you're wearing the shirt, but there are no shirts of the picture of the shirt. We've got to keep that thing going down the line. Yeah, absolutely. All right. There is a lot to get to, and there is news from the Novacare Complex, where Nick Siriani announced today during his press conference that Jalen Hertz has been cleared. He is out of the concussion protocol. He will be ready to start on Sunday, but not such good news from the practice field.

And for that, we're going to go top of the show. straight to the Novacare complex, our Eagles insider, Zach Berman. Zach, how you doing? Doing well, though Fridays always leave me with a conflicted feeling because you can't be two places at once. I'm envious to you guys. I want to be in studio.

I want to be in studio with you, but I don't want to miss anything here. So Fridays have been a conundrum all year. We'll see how long the Eagles last, but there's going to be a cadence of five days in studio together. until then I have to talk to you virtually here. I think this week you can be, you got to see Danez and do a show with him yesterday.

So it's not like you're fully missing it on Danez. I think you're making the right decision today, especially because at some point, we imagine you're going to get to talk to Jalen Hertz. So maybe we'll even talk to you at the end of this show. We'll see how it goes. I hope so. It really depends on Janlon's timeline.

If I wrote, you know, I hope to write more books one day. One of them might be called waiting for Janeline because I have done a lot of waiting for jailing. I will wait for jail on today. But one person that I was waiting to see who I did not see on the practice field was Devante Smith. And that was the news you were alluding to. Devante Smith is not, or they're practicing right now across the street.

So that way, from where I am. By the way, I don't want to do the Bow Wolf thing where I cut you off in the middle of your sentence, but I do have to say this. As I left the facility today and went to take the, take the broad street line here to the studio. You know, the buses are going. They've taken the Eagles players. And they have a police escort.

Do we need a police escort from the Novacare complex to Lincoln Financial Field on a Friday when there's no traffic? They can't sit at one stoplight. That is really funny. Yeah. So I brought the summer Wednesday show. I don't know what people realize is how close the Novacare is to the stadium.

It's literally one stoplight. It is a 45. second bike ride. It's ridiculous. I mentioned this the other day to Jimmy and Rich on Wednesday show and yeah, I am with you there. I am frankly, you don't even

think they need buses. Like, can't they just get into their cars and drive over there? Well, that's at the bus, at least it's energy efficient. You know, you're traveling more people at once. Fair. Okay. Yeah. But then yeah, the police ask for... Plus, they're in there, aren't they close to their pads? They're not going to be driving

in their pads. That's fair point. Okay. I don't know if it's like I was giving the example of if you're playing in St. Joe's Prep, you know, you get in the car and you drive over to wherever you're going or maybe the bus. I don't know. Subway. That said, yeah, the police escort, they were over at practice.

And before practice, learned that Devante Smith wouldn't be out there. Devante has back tightness. And from my understanding, he's still expected to play. Eagles are being cautious with this, especially in cold weather. They don't want to kind of have it tighten up even more. I think that's the reason why they're being proactive, putting this message out, basically, is to kind of offer that context. AJ Brown was back at practice.

AJ Brown's clearly dealing with the knee injury. You'll see AJ play on Sunday. But to the larger point, yeah, their top two receivers have injury questions. We'll be on the injury report when it comes out. follow up here on Jalen Hertz from the super chat. I actually missed the name, but Loc City is curious, Zach. Was Jalen Hertz at practice? Did he have a finger brace?

How's his little fingee? Yeah, good question. He has not had a brace when I've seen him this week. So I saw him on Wednesday and saw him today. Has not had the brace. So yeah, the time off has given that left ring finger time to heal. Good question for Lock City. And you mentioned at the top.

And that is the big news. Jalen officially cleared. And this really is the schedule that we expected at the start of the week. And that would practice limited on Wednesday, would be full on Thursday, would be clear Friday morning. That's exactly what happens. So Jalen, good to play Sunday. And so just to make it clear, your expectation is that the Eagles expect to have both A.J. Brown and Devante Smith ready to go on Sunday.

Yeah, my strong expectation is that they expect to have AJ Brown and Devante Smith on the field Sunday. I can't tell you that it's fair to expect that AJ Brown Devonte Smith. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Yeah, I can't tell you that they're going to be at full capacity or they're not going to be affected by the injury. I can't tell you that. What I can tell you is that the expectation in this building is that AJ and Devonthe are playing on Sunday. Got it. On the topic of Nick Siriani's act, there's a story out now.

on all-P-H-L-Y.com about what is it exactly that Nick Siriani does? I would imagine that the people in the chat, hopefully, are die-hards. Make sure that you do sign up and you can read that story. Zach, what's your, give us your 30-second elevator pitch on that bad boy. Yeah, that was really the question after the season. When they stripped the, when he seated the duties of the offense is what does he do? you know, what's his role going to be? And the obvious answer is coached the team,

but during the past, you know, six, eight weeks, I've really tried to explore what exactly is different with Sariani's role this year, talking to people, whether it's on the record, behind the scenes, trying to figure this out. And the big thing that came up in my reporting, more than anything else, was the focus on culture. And so that seems like a nebulous term.

but I do think when internally when they viewed the way last year went, they didn't think the culture was good at the end. Obviously, the offense wasn't good at the end either, nor the defense. But I don't think they thought the culture was good at the end. So there was a lot that they tried to do during the offseason, the focus on culture. And then there's a lot that they tried to do in season. And I can say from all corners of the locker room, because I spoke, even though guys aren't quoted in this story, like there was,

maybe like five or six players quoted in the story, but I've spoke to a lot of guys around the locker room, and they have noted like a difference in the culture in the culture in the building. And then there are little things too like Siriani used to have meetings on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday for the team. He instituted daily meetings now. So they have meetings Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. That's another change that he's that he's made.

It's to reinforce certain messages. We've discussed this. already. I know I'm going over 30 seconds here, but they're in most Mondays after games. They didn't use to, last year they would have off until Wednesday after a lot of their wins. That's, that's a change. There's different things from communication perspective. How Nick allocates his time is a lot different. I touched on it in the story, but just to kind of give a sense, like this day last year. So take the Friday, so Saturday last year before the Monday night game. Nick would have been spending a lot of time with the offense.

Nick would have been spending time with the offensive game plan. Nick would have been spending time, you know, he would have started his week going through a lot of different things about the opponent's defense. And he would have been focused on putting an offensive game plan together. Whereas today, my sense is Nick has focused more on some bigger picture things than a lot of situational things going into the week as well. Yeah, I guess as you reported out this story, Zach,

there is a question about how removed from the offense Nick Siriani actually is, as you reported out this story, how did that come about to you? Yeah, so I'll keep kind of more details than what might be in that story too in that I do think Nick is quite involved, but I don't think he's as involved early. I don't think he, well, he's not putting the game plan together,

and I think he's catching it more, maybe on the back end of the game plan. And I think he's able, I think his involvement is like, you know, these are things that are important this week, right? And so able to come in with big picture things. We want to do X, Y, and Z, right?

So he's not putting the menu together. He's not putting the game plan together. He obviously knows the game plan. But there are certain priorities that Nick might have in a given week based on what the feedback he's getting from the players, based on what he's evaluating on film, based on maybe trends he's seeing around the week, that he's coming to them with,

all right, like, these are some things we should really focus on this week. So I think his involvement is more macro instead of micro. And Zach, if, if just to just as, just, look at you. Very good. Just as an example, would you say that the reason that there's,

less under center play action in this offense than there's ever been in any Kellynne more offense. Would you say that Nick is more of reason for that or that Jalen is more of reason for that? Well, I would say Jalen's more of a reason for that because the last two years, uh, they've been the bottom of the league and under center play action with, uh, you know, I don't think, I don't think that's Nick and that is true, true, but I think I think Jalen, I think Jalen after the Super Bowl year after the contract was maybe

a little more heavy-handed in terms of like certain concepts that he might like. I also think and maybe this is Nick, I think that they feel from a run and is this this might be stout one too for all I know. I think from a running game perspective they feel it's particularly beneficial

to have Jalen out of shotgun and the element that provides to the run game. So I think when you look at the numbers you hit him on the head This week with Tanner McKee, I think one of the big differences is Tanner's not really providing that element, that plus one in the running game. Whereas even with Kenny Pickett, because they didn't do a lot of undercenter play action with Pickett. My understanding is that we, they, yeah, they wanted Pickett to be part of the running game. They didn't want to start the running game from scratch there.

And they feel that the quarterback in the gun provides more of a help in the running game. Yeah, I mean, there there were zero snaps of under center playoff. for a month before Tanner McKee got in there. Yeah. All right. Anything else, Zach, that you want to get off your chest? Yeah.

So there are a few other things I think from that story that would factor into kind of what's going on this week. So I, sure, I hope you read the story, obviously. But I do know that, Nick and other coaches have talked about this. Michael Clay's talked about this.

Like the concept of joy has come up often. And that goes to the culture. And that's not by accident. Like there is something. And, you know, Dave Zengaro actually asked a good question about this earlier this year. It's something that I had heard about these. Have you noticed he always sounds surprised when Zangero asks a good question? Nick?

No, Zach. Oh, no, no. He's always like Zangero. Actually, there's a good question today. I feel like this is the second time. No, no. I didn't want to bring it up as if it's my original point here, which when Dave asked it, I was like, oh, so it's actually keeping this in my back pocket for the story was these celebration meetings that they had or these celebration montages that they have. Nick really believes in that and like they're they're celebrating, celebrating basically. I really think there was a sense that it was it was not a good culture at the end of last year. So if you're juxtaposing a difference between the Eagles going into this game and difference going into last year's game, obviously, A.J. Brown's banged up going into both of them. Defense is much better this year.

But I think that this is just a team with a better head on its shoulders, a happier locker than going into this game. I think if we're thinking about, you know, it's hard if so much of the stuff that Nick does is unseeable, right? or unquantifiable to give it the appropriate amount of credit. And I do think he deserves credit for... It's like the joy stuff sounds hokey, right? Okay, yeah. It sounds a little silly.

However, like last year, for the vibes to be so bad was kind of... Why? You just went to the Super Bowl, like, what's the big deal? It would have been... It's impressive for him to make this... from his perspective, like a joy-focused year

when he was so under fire. Like if anything, this would have been the year for him to be tight and really tense about everything and like being a hard ass because his ass is on the line. And now, obviously, as you write about it in the story,

it's hard to disentangle does winning create joy, does joy create winning? It's probably a little bit more of the former. But I do think that he deserves credit for stepping outside of himself. And frankly, it's probably reasonable to say that that may not have been the case early in the season, you know, in that in that Brown's game, it didn't seem like that was the case. And so maybe it took, took something like that for him to step back and, and come outside

of himself and focus more on the team. Yeah. Well, so to the point, you know, my story before the season, Nick specifically said that he found joy this offseason. And I chose that for the reason you said is, because you would think he would have all this pressure on him going into the year. So that was a focus. And I do think that early in the year, I think a lot of the reaction after the Tampa game and the Atlanta game even, I think that I think there was really an internal fight then to keep the locker room from becoming like it was last year.

When Nick said this team has 2002 vibe, that was not by accident. I think he chose his words carefully when he said that. That's a little bit self-promoting. Of course he's going to say that. No, but he said it during a time when like things have been splintering. And I think that he had determined at that point that that was a stronger locker room. And like Jordan Milata specifically said to me that what Nick did during the bi-week,

like propelled them this season. that he said that showed everything you need to know about that this this locker room is opening in two minutes which is a good thing because it means i might be able to get you on the back end here um i will be messaging you guys in slack ones or or or text once jalan speaks and a j speaks and i'll come hustling down here go ahead thanks for taking the time zach see you got it interesting uh dana is that that by week conversation and changing of the structure of the offense is also what uh made you hate this team I love this team. I think I'm the only person on the show who loves the steam. I'm a fan of the team. And I'm very excited about these playoffs. I think somebody in the, what's that? What do you think of the hype video?

Terrible. It's just awful, lazy. It's only a minute long. Shady. It's just like why. I mean, on a wild card weekend, we're going on the guy who never made it past the wild card around. And not like any, and he wasn't that good, really.

It was also, yeah, you know, production value-wise. There's so many. It's just, it's just clips. in a one shot. Like, where's the city? I've said this on the show before. The 2017 hype videos, I think before all three rounds made me cry. Like literally cry. It was like crying like on like Friday night before the guy. I was like, I got it for me. I was like the games in two days. I got to calm down. You know? And these videos. Did you cry when the Super Bowl? When won the Super Bowl? Yeah. For like a month.

Are you getting every morning? I cried. And then every night I cried. It was just a month of crying. And then I also cried when we lost the Super Bowl. I was talking to Feldman about that. Like I was sitting in the stands just crying for like a good

half hour. The security people had to ask. Now, the security people have to ask me to... It's not that important. The security people have to ask me to leave pretty much every game because I always want to... I'm always watching like the players like hug each other and getting my cords and

papers together and everything. But at the Super Bowl, weaponizing your tears. Yeah, Super Bowl, I was just sitting there crying. Yeah, that sucked.

Okay. How are you feeling about it? Yeah, so how much I love this team should not be in doubt. People in the chat yesterday were saying I made it sound like the Eagles are 5 and 12.

I mean, it's not like interesting to talk about how the defense is good or whatever. Like we're talking about things the Packers do well because those are the things you have to worry about

before a playoff game. Like that doesn't mean... Yeah, it doesn't mean that, Like, I think that this is going to be a loss or anything like that. I certainly don't think that. I have an interesting one for you. Maybe it's not that interesting.

Let's presume the Eagles win this game. Okay. Eagles are going to win. Would you rather play a Bucks team that let's, and let's also assume the Bucks are not as good as the four or five. So you get the team that's not quite as good. Or would you rather have the extra day of rest and play the winner of Minnesota, L.A.? Yeah.

So if the, if it's the, the bucks, just looking forward, it would be Saturday, which would mean an extra day of rest before the championship game. So like going forward, like going all the way through, you'd have a rest advantage in the championship game over the, over the, you know, the opponent. Whereas if it's if it's on Sunday, it'll be against another team, it'll be against a team to play Monday night. So it'll be an extra, it'll be an extra day of rest in the second in the division around. But then you'll have a. And they have to travel. Plus if it's the round. They're like not even, their practice facility is like on, you know, like in terrible situation now.

So, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think the opponent matters more than the rest probably. So you'll be, you would be rooting for the bucks in theory Sunday night if you're coming off in Eagles win. Do you think the bucks are worse than the Rams and the Vikings? I'm not so sure. I don't think it's definitive. Yeah, I don't. And also for this Eagles team, there's a bit of a, a bit of a ghost.

A little bit of a ghost, a little bit of a, you know, the whole Todd Bulls thing. is scary. I think that they're missing a lot of guys. I was making my depth charts for the other games last night and I realized like man they're missing like half their secondary is out like but with bulls there's just this like weird

factor. So yeah I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I would have been much more worried about the bucks this week than I would be next week if that makes sense. If you got the first playoff went under your belt and I actually think any of those three teams I'll feel better if they have come through this game

with a win. I'll feel better about next week's game than I do about this week's game. The thing that I maybe am maximizing for a little bit more is I don't think Washington would have like any chance to go into Detroit and win. And so if we want the NFC championship game here, I think that's a good point. It might be better for Tampa to win. And then one of the Rams or Vikings beating the lions seems more likely. I know the Vikings like got smashed in that game. Yeah, but like it wouldn't be that bad. They had lots of opportunities. like in the Red Zone and stuff. It's not like they didn't have chances.

But I just don't see Washington. I think that's like being able to go into Detroit and win. Like maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Jaden Daniels magic or whatever. But yeah. Okay. All right. Quick break.

And then we're going to get into some of the real weeds of this matchup and some league-wide trends that are on Dana's mind. All right. We start with game time. And what sponsor of arms is more important this weekend than game time? because you still got a chance to go to the game on Sunday and maybe you're going to get a little surprise of some tickets for sale

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Ice Shakers. Fantastic. Now, through that, read, missed a call for my car. Just getting the oil change. Should I answer it? Should I not? I can't do it during the ad read. Maybe during the show, but not during the ad read.

I can't do that to ice shakers. What happened to your car? It just needs an oil change. Oh, okay, okay. Time for a new. Time for an oil change, no big deal. It's also time for me to make my pick against my brother in our annual tennis majors draft.

Okay. We draft at the beginning of the year, and then you get the combined wins over all the majors. Yeah, I'm familiar, but the audience members may not. It's up to me, number six overall. I took Carlito, number one. I know that Sinner is better right now, but I got to go with my heart.

I like the color coding there. I need to send you my tennis Grand Slam spreadsheet, which is color-coded similarly. Really? Yeah. This goes shout out to my brother. He's a kind of excel. Yeah, mine goes back to the beginning of the open era. Really?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you might like it. Maybe we should make this a three man. I'm not like following the new players very much. You said you've got your own spreadsheet. Yeah, I like the history. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I go Alcaraz. He goes Sinner Sabalenko. He gets the double there. I went Coco. Tough call between Coco and Igga, Shvitech. He goes Ega. So he gets three of the top five obvious. Now there's a bit of a drop-off to me.

Do I go with a medvedev? I take one of the women. I'm going to make the pick. I'm going to go, Kinwin-Zang. That's going to be my pick. All right. Well, good luck. It's over to my brother now.

How about that? Yeah. I feel like we're exiting, like a very important part, like, like, era in tennis, especially in the men's. Yes, you have to know that Novak and Zverav are not eligible. Not a lot to, not a lot to pick. And if you beat, if your player beats either one of the, you get an extra point.

Who would pick Zverev anyway? Exactly. I got you. Okay. All right. Where would you like to start here? Professor, you want to talk deep balls? You want to talk running?

You want to talk... I don't know. You may be surprised that I wanted to start with the quarterbacks in a different manner. Real quick stat about Jalen Hertz and A.J. Brown both playing in this game. Okay. The Eagles are 11 and 0 this year. Presumably. Hopefully.

When Jailen Hurts. Hartson, AJ Brown, both start and finish the game. The Eagles are 11 and 0 this year, and 38 and 6, including the playoffs overall, which is crazy. I mean, the four loss this game during the collapse, and then the loss to Washington and the loss in the Super Bowl. That's it. So this team has been just unbelievably successful with those two both playing the whole game.

Now we need them to start and finish the game, obviously, for that to be relevant for this game. I want to ask you about Jordan Love. I know you and Fran love the guy you know a lot of people are she'll loves him as well he's no Marcus Freeman

I mean that's an attractive man it just seems like she'll admitted he was high variance the other day at least but like I feel like like the way you guys I was watching that game last night with my family who now that's a ball team over there

sorry I had to no no that's fine that's all good family that's all good I'm mildly who do you think was rooting harder for a Notre Dame last night Fran or Howie Roseman? Wait

explain the Howie Roseman element of this? Well he's still mad at James Franklin Oh right For the tampering thing That's right I got you Yeah yeah

And you know how much I cared about that game So I think I mean I feel like How he's like I watched the last I actually did watch I watched the last 10 minutes It was a terrible

official. Yeah, it was bad. Yeah. Tough. Okay. Jordan Love. I'm mildly perplexed at why he's considered to be so good. I watched the playoffs last year. I'm familiar that he won a playoff game. He made some plays in it. They also had like multiple pick sixes in that game and one

going away. I also watched him throw away their season in the only other playoff game he played. This game seems to make it pretty easy for him. He executes it well. But he doesn't add like any scariness or creation himself. Do you think he does? I mean, he doesn't create out a structure a whole lot.

Okay. He hasn't thrown interceptions the last several weeks and shown that he's not as productive when he doesn't take those risks. I was just about to get to the sack stuff. Maybe part of this is that there were multiple times this year, that I watched them play, rooting hard for them to win because they were playing the lions and the Vikings and I wanted the Eagles to get the one seed. And he sort of sucked in all those games, honestly. He's streaky. Ascribing the approach, like, we talked yesterday about how Jalen Hertz

doesn't target a receiver on, like, close to a quarter of his throws, right? Love is at the other end of the spectrum. He has the fourth lowest non-target rate in the league. So that graph that we put up yesterday, like, we put it up to talk about Jalen being at the bottom of it, but Love was at the very top, or near the very top. He gets sacked on 3% of dropbacks, throws away on 3% and scrambles on 3%. That adds up to 9%, which is less than Jalen's sack,

like just sack percentage alone, right? But, like, I'm not saying this to pre-s him. Like, I think that this has a lot to do with the system. Like, his EPA per dropback is worse than Jailants. His overall success rate is worse than Jailants. He's not part of the run game in any way. On a team that runs the ball, more than any other team in the league, like,

or second most or whatever, why do they run it so much if he's so great? He's a question you could ask. How about the same question about Jalen Hertz? Well, okay, fine, but he's part of the run game. Is it your part of the run game? You're still using him. Quarterbacks are just automaton's and they're just reflections of the scheme.

You don't blame Jalen Hertz, you blame Kellen Moore. I'm not. Jordan Love doesn't get credit. It's all Matt LaFloire. Vic Fangio said in his presser this week that like one of the things that's made it easier for Mount Lafleur this year is that running the ball is a good option now. He didn't think it was like easy for him to call the offense before. Is this something anyone said about like a Patrick Mahomes or Tom.

Brady offense. I mean, like he's Patrick Mahomes. No, but people act like he's this like clearly better quarterback. Like, I would rather have Jalen Hart's than Jordan Love because of the because of the dimension that he adds to the run game and because he can create out a structure. I think that those things matter a lot. And I think when you have a system like they have

and he just kind of stays on schedule, it can be hard to disentangle the quarterback from the rest of the stuff. And yeah, he doesn't get sacked. But when he gets pressured, his EPA per dropback, despite not having like any sacks, it's still 18th in the league. Like it's not like he's creating like when he's not getting sacked, right?

So, Jaws, who I don't always agree with things Jaws says, like sometimes they seem kind of outdated to me, but Jaws was very outspoken about him earlier this week. He called him overrated. He said he's good one, everything's perfect. And like, as soon as there's any kind of chaos, he melts and that he thought that that's what would happen against Fangio.

And maybe that's just what I hope to see, but that's also what I think we'll see. I really do. Like, I just don't see it. Okay. That's fine. You also, we spent some time yesterday talking about both of their man's own splits. One guy is one of the best in the league against zone and not very good against man. Yeah.

And Jalen Hertz is vice versa. Obviously, it matters more to be doing that against zone coverages. Yeah. I listened to Fran talk about how there are so many drops in that offense. And so his numbers should be higher. I don't know. I don't think that it's definitive in either way. I think when you look, he's a very good quarterback.

I think, I think it's like, it's easy to say. it's obviously both of these are oversimplifying it. But when you say Jalen Hertz is way better against man than Jordan Love is, it's easy to point to the receivers and say like he has better receivers, that's why. And it all, and I think similarly with Zone, it's easy to point to the scheme and the play caller and say that that's why it is for Jordan Love. And it's really hard to tell. Like if you just switch the quarterbacks into, you know, those coaching staffs,

like what it would look like, right? It's hard to tell. I just, I'm just not seeing that like if like, if this game had been against Jaden, Daniels, I would be like, oh, man, like, you can play everything perfectly, and he can still beat you with a 29-yard scramble on fourth down. And, like, in a playoff game, that could make the difference. Whereas I don't see Jordan Love making that play in a positive way. I can see him throwing a interception to read Blankenship,

like, that he shouldn't throw, like, to make the difference. But I don't see him making, like, that play where it's like, oh, man, Jordan Love, like, beat us with this play. I think he is a good enough quarterback to win the game on Sunday while the Eagles still play a pretty good game. Sure. But I mean, that's how many quarterbacks would that be true for? I think in the NFC,

Goff and Jane Daniels, I mean, you could argue Baker Mayfield, but like I don't. Okay. I don't know. I guess Stafford, but yeah. I'll wait while you list like every quarterback in the... Because you have to add Jane Daniels too. Like, who are you not saying is part of the list?

Well, I'm not saying, Donald. Okay, that's fine. Is that it? Okay, yeah. Okay. All right. So you think Jordan loves better than Sam Darnold. I think he...

That's fine. If I was drafting NFC quarterbacks, I don't know. He might be at the top. Wow. Okay. Maybe. I don't know. You just have a thing for Packers' quarterbacks.

All those years, you love... You loved Aaron Rogers. Maybe when... Maybe Jordan Love will also go bad shit crazy, and then you'll start hating it. I mean, he's going to turn out to be some kind of demon. That's just the track. All right. Well, you're talking about the running game.

Why don't we talk about... the run heaviness across the league, which is, you know, your beautiful past first NFL. This is really kind of to shock you. It's killing me. So I guess we have some graphs. Yeah, yeah. These are, let's see. There are a couple of graphs from different years where these are the ones I sent you that were three together.

Yeah, the thing that were, the thing that this is, these are some graphs that I tweeted out maybe last week at some point after the regular season was over and I was just looking at some league-wide trends. And it struck me as someone who's like a, you know, like passing is more efficient than running guy as you all know I am. And I know Claire is very much into running the ball. It struck me that four of the top five teams this year by EPA per Drive were above average in neutral situation. run rate, right? So when you look at just how often teams run the ball in neutral situations, neutral situations are early downs, not in garbage time, and like not in the last two minutes or something like that. I forget exactly what it is, but it's like neutral situations. So it's filtering out all these things where it's like you're running it because you're in the lead at the end of the game and things like that. So this is basically like an approach to the game type thing that the like so the teams further to the left

on this graph are the teams that run the ball the most and you'll notice one reason we're talking about this now is that the Eagles and the Packers are the two heaviest run teams in the NFL and you've pulled out all the playoff teams there the highlighted teams are the ones in the playoffs exactly now the higher you are on this graph the more efficient your

offense was overall so the teams with the best offense by EPA per drive for the season are at the top and you'll notice there are a lot of teams in the upper left of the scraft and that means that a lot of the best teams in the league on offense were very run heavy this year. And we're not just counting like running back yards because that could be like all yards when you have a huge lead, right? That's not what this is.

So the bills, the lions, the Ravens and the commanders were all top five by APA per drive and they're all run heavy teams. And by run heavy, I mean that they are above average in how much they run it. That's four out of the top five teams. There were two last year, San Francisco. go in Detroit. One in 2022, none in 2021, one in 2020,

two in 2019, and then none in 2017 or 2018. And I think Julie, you might have like the 2018 graph there. If you look at the 2018 graph, it looks like almost perfect positive correlation between how much you pass the ball and how good you are. Like, there are almost no outliers on that. Seattle

looks like a little bit of an outlier, but that's it. So again, like none of the top five teams are in the run heavy part of the graph. there. In fact, it looks to me like none of the top eight are or none of the top seven are. So that's how the NFL was. And one of the reasons that

this is exciting to me as an economist, like this is my day job, right, as someone who teaches game theory, is that over time I was waiting for this to happen. Like, teams are going to realize that stopping the run should not be the priority, right? And that kind of happened.

Like these Fangio style, two high defenses that have focused more on stopping deep passes and focusing less on the run, more of the kind of double gapping or one and a half gaping type stuff. And that made running the ball become a more efficient way to attack than it had been before. There was an era where teams were still kind of focused on stopping the run, but offenses had learned that like, well, you can throw it over these guys when they're doing that. And I think the Legion of Boom 2013 like era Seattle defenses are partly to blame.

I think a lot of defense coordinators thought like, hey, I should do what they're doing, but they didn't have like Earl Thomas like who could cover like as much range as two safety is Richard Sherman sure and so that led to a lot of teams being able to be productive passing the ball and just like moved away from running that also explains why there was so much less running

and so much more passing in the league as an overall volume for a bunch of those years and so it's fascinating to me to see that kind of kind of come back this year right like this is the first time in recent memory that there's like literally negative correlation between how much teams pass the ball and whether they're efficient.

And I think that's cool. I think it's neat. Like, it's neat to see that, like, defenses have come around to learning to stop the pass, and that's made running and passing, like, closer to equally efficient. Kind of like in the NBA, like twos and threes are almost equal expected points now.

Like, for many years, like, threes were higher expected points than twos. And now we've finally gotten to the point where the percentage of three is made is, like, exactly, like, one and a half. that this is the status quo moving forward or do you think that this is just a one-year blip and things will cycle back the other way well one of the things i think that i think i i think so evolutionary game theory says that once players learn how to play the game it stays in equilibrium for a while right so you would think that it'll stay like this for a while where it'll be balanced and it won't be obvious that like passing it just makes you win or running it just makes you win i mean the

chiefs are still good and they they pass it all the time you know what i mean i do think another part of this that's interesting is all the talk about how this is the return of the running back and you know that I don't think that the running back is the main thing that makes a run game good yeah you were you were very angry that Dallas got her was named first team all for a running back yeah I mean you know like whoever said that in the chat very clever here's here's the here's the thing that here's the thing that I'll just quote to to make my point about this I think teams are going to be wrong about the value of signing good running backs

the same way they were wrong about the value of playing like cover three the whole game the way Seattle did. The reason that Sequin Barclay and Derek Henry and to some degree Josh Jacobs though he's not that efficient have been good this year is that they're on good teams and all you have to do is

look at what they were doing last year right? So by success rate Sequan Berkeley went from 47th last year to 13th this year Derek Henry went from 35th last year to 4th this year Josh Jacobs went from 48th

last year to 15th this year I don't make up the numbers man 47th out of 57 running backs if you do it by EPA per rush Sequin Barclay went from 52nd last year out of 58 running backs that you didn't have Dallas got hurt or Lane Johnson blocking for him last year

to fifth this year DeAndre Swift was like eighth last year. So all I'm saying is obviously Sequin makes the Eagles better but the Eagles make Sequin more better than he makes the Eagles better and this is going to be true if teams think that like oh if if like the if some terrible team thinks that like signing a big name running back is going to make them good they're going to be wrong

the same way that teams thought it would be a good idea to play cover three with like a you know bad safeties. Yeah but the flip side is that all of those teams that are towards the top of the league they were in that top left quadrant the Ravens the Eagles the Packers all big money free agent acquisitions

The Lions used the first round pick on Jamir Gibbs The bills had a second round pick on James Cook So the resource allocation there Is still significant That's all Well Jamir Gibbs is on a very good team And he's very good

I mean he's first He's first in you be a brush I mean yeah I'm not I'm just saying I think you're right that there is is running back, we can look at it as a position that's, that is luxury is not the right word, but it's like it's a multiplier on an infrastructure that is already good. And maybe you're chasing the upside.

But it does play out that those are all teams that have invested significant resources into the position. Yeah, but I mean, they would have been good without them. And so the economics point to be made here is that like a good running back complements an already good offense and vice versa. And so this is a very good offense.

The result should be that the best teams are the ones with the best running backs. And that's not because they're good because they have the good running backs. It's because they're the ones who should value the best running backs the most. It's like we already have everything

kind of nicely here. Like now we should get a good running back to kind of make it even better. I think that's reasonable. It would have been like people say like oh the Giants were so stupid to let's take Juan go. Like, I disagree. Like, it's like Sequin wasn't making them better.

You thought they should have thrown them off a bus. I'd just let him go. I mean, punt him off the canyon. I don't know. Jamie Gilliam. I'll let you, I'll let you. I'll let you finish. All right, let's take a break here from our sponsors.

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Danes, you want to talk about deep balls? Well, we were on the run-heavy thing. Okay. Just you guys touched on this a little bit on Tuesday, but just to link it to one of my favorite stats, which is how efficient you are on first down and whether you're moving the chains on early in the downs. Chain rate.

Chain rate, sure. The Packers are like the worst playoff team at both in both sides of the ball on on moving the chains and also like having the chains moved on them on first down in particular. They run the ball on 62% of first downs, which usually means you're not going to have negative plays or, you know, getting like second and 10, but it also means you're not moving the chains, right? So it's going to be like second and something. They run it on 57% of neutral downs, which is the most in the league, even more than the Eagles. and so they are 26th in the league and the worst of all playoff teams at actually, uh-oh, what's going on?

Julia's just going back. Okay, okay, good. Oh, we were crazy. 26th at moving the chains on first down. So the Eagles are going to get to second down. I mean, the Eagles defense is eighth in the league at getting to second down, first in the league at getting to third down. So we should see that we're getting to those late downs.

It's just going to be a matter of what happens, of course, on those late downs. The Green Bay has been very good. good at moving the chains once they get the money down to those late downs oh money down but I mean they're they've also been decent at making it third and relatively short okay and then on defense they're they're 29th at getting to second down they allow more first down first downs than any other playoff team on defense and actually a lot of the stability metrics we were talking about this yesterday in the show about green Bay's defense but a lot of the stability metrics are like it's like they're making the splash plays they're getting the interceptions things like that but on a down-to-down

basis success rate first down which is the most common down they haven't been they haven't been that good yeah i am i mean i am skeptical of the packers defense being so turnover reliant no doubt about it um it it's i mean it's it's why i think the the eagles should be able to move the ball on offense it just comes down to can they protect the ball and i don't know that's not that's not great analysis but it's what they got to do Yeah, and the Eagles defense was not getting any turnovers earlier in the year. Yeah. And has been recently.

So we'll see if that trend continues. Okay. One of the things to keep an eye on that front is the deep balls. Yeah. This Eagles team that is very efficient when they throw it deep, but throws it deep at a very low rate going up against a Packers defense that has created a lot of turnovers on those specific plays. Julia, these are the charts from yesterday that we didn't use yesterday.

I think it's a deep pass something got it which one do you want to do first we can talk about offense first yeah the the eagles real quickly I mean at times we talked about this before so just real quick like

they throw the ball down the field 2.6 times a game I think it is they're in a virtual tie with the lions for the least in the league now part of that of course is you have the lead late in the game

things like that. They also throw it less in general than anyone else. It is interesting to me that the Eagles and Lions are both there because you would think if you are run heavy, then just play action-wise, you should be able to take deep shots and defenses. And the Lions run a crazy amount of play action. Like, I mean, they run more play action than anyone else. So it's surprising. That's a little surprising. Yeah, I guess their offense really like, you know, hopefully in two weeks we'll be doing like a big Lions preview. Their offense relies a lot on those like intermediate in-breakers, which don't quite go 20 air-yard. I guess. And this is a 20-air yard style.

So that's the main reason. The Vikings, by the way, when you watch the Vikings, if it seems like they just chuck the ball up and Justin Jefferson catches it, like that is the chart really shows that that's the case. A complete outlier, they complete 50% of their deep passes, which is crazy. That's insane.

The league average is 35% and, you know, like there's no other team above 40%. So the Vikings have just been doing it with smoke and mirrors that way. but yeah so deep balls is that something we're going to see the eagles try that much probably in this game um i don't know we'll see maybe this game will be different the packers are kind of at the other end of the spectrum 4.5 times a game that they that they throw it deep they also lead the league in percentage of pass plays that that go 20 yards like not just air yards but like big passplays you know what i mean like 12% of their passplays result in 20 yard gains or more that's a lot of

lot, you know, and that that's first in the league. And the Eagles defense on the flip side is best at preventing those. Only 6% of the throws against the Eagles have gone for 20 or more yards. And a bunch of those were in the first month of the season. Like if you take out the first month of the season. Four of them in the week one game? Yeah. And if you take out that game and also the Tampa game, like you end up with and the Atlanta game had a couple as well. If you take out those four games, I mean, the Eagles are first even with those four games. But it goes down. down to like three point something percent, which is a total outlier from the rest of the league.

The Texans are the only ones who allow a higher percentage of deep passes completed against them as well. So that's what the other chart, the defense chart on this. You can kind of see the Eagles there near the bottom. Teams attempt over four 20 yard passes against the Eagles, but you can see the Eagles and the Texans are kind of outliers and how few of them get completed. So, you know, and Matt Lafleur was talking earlier this week in his first presser of the week on Tuesday.

He said that he said something like the Eagles defense is humming. We're not expecting to get those explosives. Especially because they came on mistackles. Like, and I don't think, like, that is one thing that I'm definitely not worried about. I mean, mist tackles. A couple mistackles. And then there was one. Yeah, missed assignments where like it looked.

There was one where it really looked like Cooper de Gene wasn't wide enough. So it was like a domino effect. It looked like it was CJ DJ's fault at the end. It kind of wasn't yet. And I'm also not really worried about the running game. I just, I totally trust the Eagles run defense. Yeah, I mean, the Eagles run defense is, is what is it by DVOA? Is it first or is it second or second?

It's first or second. Yeah, it's second by DVOA. So, yeah, it's also like second. Denver is first. Yeah, that's right. So, I mean, yeah, just kind of continuing with the trend of from yesterday of talking about like the rosters and all of that, especially on when Green Bay has the ball. I just think the Eagles are just like,

going to be the better unit out there. And I'm just not that worried. And going back to week one, the first thing I did this week was like, I went back to week one and I watched that game. And I texted Fran after the first play. Because the first third down, I should say. The first third down,

Eagles are in three, two dime personnel, which they don't run anymore. There are three linemen, two linebackers, dime behind it. They run a drop eight spy cover one robber coverage. They haven't done like any of those things since then. Like they don't do spy. They don't do drop eight. They don't do anything.

And then the play was Avanti Maddox getting beat on a corner route. And Amante Maddox doesn't play anymore either. So I was like, okay, maybe I'm wasting my time watching this game because it's like completely different. It's a completely different defense now. You know, like, and Zach asked, Vic Fangio earlier this week about whether all the blitzing

in that game was more a product of Green Bay or if it was more a product of him just not knowing his own team yet Van Gio ran 10 blitzes in that game four exchanges. So that's 14 times out of 34 dropbacks that a non-defensive lineman was rushing

the passer. That's almost half. I mean the rest of the year that number's gone down to like 23% or something like that. Okay. And there were four snaps of cover zero blitz. in that game. Guess how many snaps of cover zero blitz there have been in the last 12

Eagles games? One. And do you know which play it was? Was it the Jane Daniel Scramble? No. It was not. Because there was a guy there to miss it. It was the Xavier Leggett drop. Really? Yes. That is the only snap of cover zero blitz. The Eagles have played. Interesting. Since the

Cleveland Browns game in week six. Wow. It was just crazy. I mean, they have only they've only had eight total for the year and nine total for the year. Four of them were in that first game. And so I'm not expecting to see any of that is kind of my point. And then one other thing in terms of just looking at, and you could, and you could say like, love's, you know, love hasn't been good against the Blitz. Like, like, you know, his splits against the Blitz, like, aren't that good and all that.

But I just, I just don't expect, like, it to be. I think, like, Vic is going to trust the things he's been doing most of the year. Like, do you think we're going to see anything crazy? Like, Sheal was asking the other day, like, it's like, crusty old DC, are we going to see some crazy stuff? Like, I'm just not, I'm just not seeing that. I mean, I think, I'm not on this year there will be some kind of, maybe special blitz package, not even a package,

just one or two plays on third down at some point. But yeah, I think it's going to be mostly sticking with what they're good at because they're so good at it. I would think so too. And then maybe against Josh Allen in the Super Bowl, like we'll see some crazy stuff or something. I just don't think you need to do that in this. in this game.

Like I think like your stuff should be good. I think so too. Yeah. I don't, yeah, I think even probably not until Detroit. We're maybe Minnesota because you're trying to try to get after them sooner. But I think that's right. Maybe.

You're watching on TV on Fast, by the way. Check out the rest of this episode on all p.chly.com. We still got a little bit more to go. One thing to look for and this is, and I'm basing this on like something I heard Sean Sia I'd say he was like,

I expect Green Bay to go a lot of empty in this game. And I was like, that's kind of weird because, like, they are in a big empty team. He's not here to defend him. No, I think, I think it's a good thing that he observed because they hit a 26-yarder to Jaden Reed in the, in the first game out of empty beating Quinyon Mitchell. And so that made me go back and watch all the empty snaps in that game. I was surprised. They ran empty 10 times in week one against the Eagles. And Fangio handled those, I think, again, differently than he will, I think this time.

He had three cover zero blitzes and three exchange pressures on those. and empty snap. So he was not just sitting back and and and they it worked. I mean, Bonn got a sack on an exchange and then the Reed Blankenship Interception was on a on an exchange as well. They

haven't been a big empty team. They're 24th in empty around the same rate as the Eagles but it'll be like something about the Eagles in that game made LaFlor think that empty would be a good way to go. So it'll be interesting. I would be willing to bet that they'll use empty more than the Eagles will

in this game is my is my thought okay should have made that a swooper but uh speaking of the my dear friend friend duffy who's in the chat um love the guy uh accosted him in zach this morning with the text that in my uh my focus my steel focus on the matchup i had forgotten that we had to do the annual playoff team draft oh no where we draft the playoff teams, and you're just going total wins. So buys do not count as a win. Just total wins for your roster.

It's a snake draft four rounds, so two teams don't get drafted. And Fran, as the new guy, got to have the number two pick. That was his choice. He wanted the number two pick. The right choice, because I think there was a clear top five here,

and you don't want to get caught, not having one of them. Zach got to choose. He went with a three or four. so I led things off. Who do you think I took first overall? Eagles. I did not take the Eagles.

It was between the Eagles and another team, but I did take the other team. Ravens? I took the Bills. Okay. All right. Because the Bills get that game at home against the Ravens,

which, listen, that'll be a great game. So I went to those at home in the playoffs, like every year. No, no, that's fine. I'm just, I'm buying it. So I took the Bills. Fran took the Eagles. I was just telling everyone yesterday

that I think that Bills, Broncos, game will be closer than people think. So possible. Yeah. Okay. Fran, you're going to like Friends roster them because Zach then took the one seats. He went Chiefs Lions. So Fran got the Ravens.

There's no need to even text, Seagull's Ravens. I then went Chargers, Bucks. I think the Chargers is a, I think I could get, I think the Chargers are capable of upsetting the Chiefs in the second round, potentially. Fran then took the Vikings. Zach took the Rams and Texans. Fran took the commanders. and I closed it out with the Packers.

So I have Bill's, Chargers, Bucks, Packers. Fran has Eagles, Ravens, Vikings, commanders, and Zach has Chiefs, Lions, Rams, Texans. Mostly reasonable. Now everybody knows. Yeah. You think the Chiefs are going to do it? Smoking mirrors all year.

Yeah, but they looked good at the last week. The last time they actually played, I don't know. I'm not doubting them. I'm not saying they're definitely going to go but yeah I think it's possible okay and how many turkeys do you give the Packers of winning this game out of 100 or out of 10

it's usually out of 100 isn't Bowley's out of 100 I'm gonna go 42 wow that's high the money line implies that it's something like 35 right I think is that it is I think so okay I think it's up it's up to five now

I believe last time I checked on the the point spread yeah oh so it might be it might be less than 35 then for the other thing okay I think it's telling that after a week of film and then stats and then going back in more film and Fran is a friend all these kinds of slander about me this is outrageous oh I thought that was about I thought that was about Zach yeah I mean he's he's just making stuff up one thing he said is true but Yankees Lakers and Cowboys you forgot Duke you forgot Duke God absolutely that would that would upset the most offensive I would upset him even more.

As a fellow ACC... That's the most offensive thing you could ever say to me. As a fellow ACC grad who hates Duke, I know that that will upset Bo. So... And he was even closer by proximity. That's right. Super chat from Rob, who says, Fair to expect Vic to go man-heavy this week?

Love has a massive man-zone split. And his EPA per dropback falls to the bottom of the league versus man. We have talked about this throughout the week. Yeah. There was more man than usual in week one. But, I mean, again, like... Yeah, I don't think it's... gonna go crazy

meaning man I don't either I don't either I mean there'll be there'll be some third downs where they do and some situations where maybe they run certain plays that they think will do

they're also not I mean they're not as they're not as to the top of the league in zone percentage as you might expect given Fanjo's reputation coming to the season they're like 19th in zone rate right or man rate

yeah something like that yeah yeah it's not like they're not like bottom court tile yeah on dropbacks we will see it let's see on dropbacks it's uh 20th on all downs and 29th on late downs

so it goes up on late downs but not as much as it does for for other teams okay yeah uh yep friend this is this is beneath you Christian Leightner jersey huh I think it's telling that after a week of doing this and I'm tired I got to get some sleep tonight and tomorrow night otherwise I'm going to get like sick when I go to the game my main fear is best expressed as like it's just one game anything can happen there's some percent chance that like things go wrong as opposed to anything to do with the opponent like i just think that's telling like i normally am able to build up fear about something the opponent does that like will hit a weakness for the like before the super bowl i was horrified i was like oh man like when they have the ball this is not going to go well i just don't i'm not thinking that with

this game and and you know these could be words that make me cry all off-season but that's just like you know like someone fumbling a punt or something like seems like more of a potential cause for disaster than okay then than anything structural about about the way these teams play supposed to be about like mid-30s for this game you're gonna be taking the bike still oh yeah well the bike depends on whether the roads are still icy okay I'm very risk-averse when it comes to Icy roads. Like I don't bike when it's icy. Okay. So if it snows again

tomorrow, which it might do and all that, that might make me lean subway. Okay. This one, yeah. And that wouldn't go, that wouldn't be like bad luck or anything. I've taken the subway to games before. I like that. I like that you said that as if every single person was thinking, well, that's going to be bad luck. Yeah. Well, I heard

I saw the chat. The chat was asking about the hat. No, I did not wear the hat before the commander's game. The hat is undefeated. So, they were asking. Yeah, but I, You're double dipping on the hat. Does that change?

Does that change? The hat combined with the shirt is too good. Will you consider wearing that shirt to the game? Maybe under my stuff. Yeah. I've got like, you know, outward presenting like midnight green gear that I have to wear for the midnight green games. Do you keep stats on the outfits? On my outfits?

Yes. My outfits always match with the team's wearing. Okay. Yeah. If the team's wearing black, I wear black, you know. What do you think they're going to wear? Oh, they're wearing midnight green on white for sure. Sure.

Yeah. So I have a stat on that. This is their not good. The Eagles have worn green on white for all 16 home playoff games in the midnight green era, 11 and 5 in those 16 games. The last time the Eagles did not wear green at home in the playoffs was 1995. The Rodney Peak game against Detroit. So there are your playoff uniform stats for those of you who tuned in for that.

All right. Zach, I believe, is still waiting to hear from Jaila Hertz. I believe he's going to give a press conference at some point. point, but you can stay tuned to his social media feeds. I think he'll do one of those handsome standups where he gives you the updates. We'll get that bad boy on social media for what you need to know about Jalen Hertz. Did you want to save the defenses, the good defenses this year being a lot of them were very bad last year. We can save that.

Oh, yeah. Let's talk about it very quickly. Okay, yeah, very quickly. You're the one who said you were tired. I'm, I am. I got to get sleep. It's been interesting to see that a lot of the teams that are, are very good on defense this season,

were terrible on defense last season. People were talking about, like, this is a historic turnaround for the Eagles defense and all that. And it is. 29th to second. 29th to 1st by DVOA. But when you look at the other teams that are good, you look at the Broncos went from 30th to 4th.

The Chargers went from 26th to 9th. The Seahawks went from 28th to 10th. Green Bay went from 27th to 7th. Now, those are all teams except for Denver that have a new DC. this year. So I was going to ask you what you think about that. Like is this something that, and similarly, Jacksonville went from 10th to 31st.

The Jets went from third to 20th. Dallas went from fifth to 24th. And the Patriots went from ninth to 30th. This is completely crazy. A lot of those teams did make changes to their staffs. All of them made changes of the teams I mentioned, except for Denver. And the Jets, the DC became the interim coach. And so that messed it up a little bit.

So Denver's the only one that just got better without changing coaches. it's a it's a very like scary thing like to me my my biggest takeaway is is like the eagles better do it this year because there's no guarantee the defense is going to be that good next year yeah that's right and I mean you you'd say like well if Fangio stays you've got all these young players like it should be good well that's the thing that's that's the trick that you are always able to play on yourself in the off season season is that like oh well these improvements have been made they were this good last year everybody's going to like the progress is going to be linear like when you Mitchell is going to be even better.

Cooper DeGian is going to be even better. Vic's going to know these guys. There are absolutely no guarantees that that will be the case. Zach Bond got the third most votes for all pro of any defensive player at any position. Would you say that Vic Fangio invented him

more than you invented Tanner McKee? Or would you say it's comparable? It's a really good question. I mean, it's definitely comparable. I would say that we have evidence that Zach Bonn played in the NFL before. Okay.

And we don't have evidence that Tanner McKee played in the NFL before I invented it. That's a good one in your column. Yeah. I think the position switch is a good one in his column. Like if you had turned Tanner McKee

into like a left guard. That's a good point. You know. Yeah. I think. Well, but honestly, I am curious how you feel about the like Bonn as a free agent

signing. Mm-hmm. Is it like he's so good we can't let him go? Or do you think to yourself, well, Vic was able to do this with this cast off, why can't we ask him to do it again? And maybe that guy won't be an all pro, but he'll be playable. When the season is still going on, I am like the most, no, it's not that I don't care.

It's, no, it's not that I don't care. It's, I am so loss averse. Like, I don't want anything to change. I'm like, I love this team. I don't, you know, like, this team is good. And it, my, my first instinct is like, pay him. Like, who cares how much it is? Like, we have to keep Sackbon, right?

As soon as the season's over, you get a little more rational about it. Like you see the price tag and all that, I might think differently. But right now I would think like, man, you got to keep the sky. Like, and I would hope that he would not take a huge discount or anything, but like part of him would want to stay here because he knows that he knows that he was invented by Vigangio in a way. Yes. But also this is his one chance to really cash in. And if the Eagles aren't willing to meet the market.

If they're super stingy, then it's not going to work. My question in the, my story this week was, if he, leaves is he the best one-season eagle in franchise history and I think he is actually pretty clearly yeah I'm trying to think like who are the other candidates Patrick Robinson Ernest Jackson

I believe in the 1,000 yards season okay I mean it's like it's pretty the only other player when you go back in history there weren't there wasn't free agencies so you didn't have the other player in Eagles history to have made the pro ball in his only season with the Eagles oh man

is it like a clearly didn't do the homework to read the story is it a specialist it is not okay Pro Bowl in his only season I'm I'm blinking

sorry DeAndre Swift oh wow okay I forgot he made the Pro Bowl he was ninth by EPA Perush and success rate last year 43 spots

43 spots ahead of Sequin The thing about defense that worries you as well, it's not just that bad teams get good, it's a good teams get bad we're talking about it. The Steelers were the only team from the 2023 top 10 teams that are still in the top 10. But that's crazy that only one of the top 10 stayed in the top 10.

Here's a question though. Maybe there is a correlation between the two things that we've talked about. Maybe that's because the league turned run heavy and all these teams that were good last year were teams that were suited up to stop the pass. Yeah, it'd be interesting to see like the run-pass splits of these teams. and that kind of thing.

Yeah, that'd be interesting. Maybe these were the teams that were ahead of the curve. Yeah, I don't know. All right. Or maybe it's just noise because everything in the NFL is. Sure. All right. That'll do it for this episode of the P.H.O.Y. Eagles podcast.

We are loaded with content for you on Sunday. We've got the kickoff show. We've got the halftime show. And we've got the post-game show with Jamie Lynch, Super Bowl champion Vinnie Curry, and the guy in the chat. Fran Duffy. The best in the business.

Justice for Fran. Even as he slanders me. And I'll have my lawyers get in touch with his lawyers. That'll do it. Julia, thank you very much. Jane is, thank you very much for pulling double duty this week. It's been fun. Look forward to hopefully doing it again next week.

If you'll have me. The Eagles win next week. We'll have another six show week and maybe a double dip of Dana. So we're looking forward to all of that. For all of us, to all of you in the chat, Thank you for watching and listening. Please subscribe and like the video, all that good stuff. We will talk to you on Sunday.

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