The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Joe Thomas Joins the Show, an Eagles Team Visit with Bo Wulf and Zach Berman, Analyzing the Bruce Arians Offense in Ted Nguyen’s Film School, and more

Episode Date: September 23, 2020

First up, Robert is joined by former Cleveland Browns offensive tackle, and future Hall of Famer, Joe Thomas to discuss the potential impacts condensed training camps will have on OL’s as the season wears on, how the absence of crowd noise is changing the games-within-the-game, the Browns’ Week 2 win over the Bengals, the play of Jed Wills, what he likes about Orlando Brown, Jawaan Taylor, and other young lineman, and more.Then, in this week’s Team Visit, Robert talks to The Athletic’s Philadelphia Eagles beat writers Bo Wulf and Zach Berman about the team’s ugly 0-2 start, what Eagles fans should be most and least worried about, the worst two game stretch of Carson Wentz’s career, and much more.To close the show, The Athletic’s Ted Nguyen helps Robert analyze the much-discussed Bruce Arians Offense, including the challenges it could present to Tom Brady, why the Bucs should or shouldn’t be encouraged by their start, and more, featuring insights from BA’s former player, Drew Stanton.Get access to The Athletic for only $1 at http://theathletic.com/footballshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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The next time you go shopping, make the choice to shop at local businesses. And look for the contactless symbol and tap to pay with a contactless visa to help support your community because where and how you shop matters. Visa, everywhere you want to be, official partner of the NFL. This is the Athletic Football Show. Welcome, the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays, and boy, do we have a jam-packed episode for you guys today. I'm going to be joined by Bull Wolf and Zach Berman, our two Eagles beatwriters at the

Athletic a little bit later to talk about the very panicked state of the O and two Eagles. Then Ted Wynn is going to join us to talk about the Bruce Ariens offense. It's a term that we've heard a lot, whether it's this offseason or the first couple weeks of this year as it relates to Tom Brady. We're going to dive into what that actually means and what that offense has looked like over the course of area's career and how it's kind of evolved and changed as Tom Brady takes over in Tampa Bay. And joining us now, I would say, I mean, pretty clearly the first guy ever headed for Canton to join the athletic football show. Many time pro-bow and all pro offensive tackle Joe Thomas. Joe, how are you? I'm doing great, man.

just happy that the NFL football season is back. And it finally feels like fall is normal again. I, it was such a nice weekend. It was crisp outside. You know, I was at a friend's house on Friday for a little Russia Shana thing. We had to wear a jacket while sitting outside eating dinner. I was like, yes, it's finally September. Everything feels right in terms of what's going on in the football world.

It was great. So we're going to talk about a bunch of stuff today. We're going to get into some of the injury stuff that's happened, especially along the offensive line that I want to ask you about. talk about some of the other season weirdness and how it affects offensive line play, get into some Browns talk, and then I want to talk to you about just some of your favorite offensive linemen in the league right now, guys that are maybe a little unheralded, some younger guys.

But let's start with what was pretty much the biggest story of the week outside of that Sunday night game and a couple other performances. And that's just kind of the wave of injuries that's happened across the league. A lot of people are tacking it up to the lack of practice time, a shortened, kind of abbreviated off season. I wanted to ask you about offensive line specifically, though. How do you think the lack of a ramp up, the lack of an offseason, the lack of practice time affects that position specifically when it comes to guys getting their bodies ready? Well, I think there's a lot of things you can talk about.

But one is there's just a callousing effect that needs to happen within the body that training camp gives you. There's the hitting. There's the strength training. there's the day after day of building up that tolerance for the hitting and the physicality, and then just building those muscles a level of endurance to be able to handle day in and day out going out and playing football, which is the most violent sport that we play in America. And so because you didn't have that long period like normal, guys can easily go out for a week or two weeks and be fine. But as the season starts wearing on and as you're getting into week,

three, four, five, 10, 12, I really think that you're going to see guys' bodies getting more tired with less of an ability to recover. And what that does is it reduces your muscles ability to have endurance and stability during a game, especially as the game wears on. And when you lose stability in your joints, a lot of times that's where you get a lot of these injuries. And, you know, it's always hard to say what injury is because of potentially just bad luck or what injuries are because of maybe reduced off season and the reduced ramp up and training period that bodies are used to. It's tough to say for sure, but definitely I think when you look back on this season versus other seasons, I do feel like you're going to have a higher degree of serious injuries this

year as opposed to previous seasons, especially when you look at later in the season. I think unfortunately for NFL fans, the second half of the season, I feel like we're going to see a lot of injuries because we haven't had that long training prep period to get our bodies ready for the long and physical seasons. When did you feel, or was there kind of a moment, or I guess how? How did you feel each year? Like, oh, I'm ready. What elements of just kind of your physicality and your body lends you to understand,

okay, my body is ready to do this this year? Well, it always changed year by year. So obviously early in my career, I felt like I needed more practice time just from a mental standpoint and also from a physical standpoint because you don't really know as much. how well to train your body specifically to get ready for a season when you're a younger player. Once you get older, you just have a much better idea of, A, what my body needs and what do I want to do in the offseason to make sure that I'm ready for the long, hard, strenuous season that is an NFL season.

And so I would say early on in my career, I felt 20, 25 practices were really what I needed. And those are 25 padded practices to really be ready for... How many did they have this year? 10? Maybe. Yeah, I mean, it was half that. Yeah, like maybe 15 total practices. And that's not even talking about strictly padded practices. And they lost the ability to play games. And so you lost all those preseason games, which are really good preps for the season because you're tackling to the ground. You're doing chop blocks. You're blocking more physically than you're doing practice because you're going against another guy and you're playing a game. So you're going to do some of those more risky things. that are maybe in a practice not worth it, but when you're talking about a game situation, you get those in and you start to teach your body how to fall, how to roll up,

how to be in a pile and pull your leg out successfully without getting hurt. And so I think you kind of lose that period of the preseason and you're going to be learning it during the regular season, which a lot of times that's, I think, when you are seeing some of these injuries happen. Obviously, you're a strange person to be talking about this with because you played almost your entire career with not even missing a snap, let alone a game. When you, I'm sure that, I'm sure guys, you know, came to you during your career for advice about how to take care of their body, you know, what did you do to kind of get you to this

place? How much do you kind of attribute just blind luck to your ability to do what you did? And how much of it do you think what are specific elements of the way that you prepared? Yeah, man, a lot of it's just luck, really. And I think part of it is, is luck in not being in a bad position, but a lot of it is just, the good fortune of the genetics that you have, right? There's just guys that don't ever get injured. I remember playing against Justin Smith.

He was one of the first guys I think ever to be named all pro at two positions on defense, defensive end defensive tackle. Guy was an absolute stud. And we used to say if he was in a hundred car train accident, he would be the only person that walked away without an injury. He's the real life unbreakable, yeah. Dude, he's unbreakable. It's unbelievable.

Like, he was just that guy that no matter what has. happened to him. He would walk away from the game and maybe throw an ice on one elbow and grab a Miller light for the other arm and walk away like nothing happened. And you know, meanwhile, let me be clear about this. It'd be blood light as a Missouri person. You better get that right or he's going to come after you. He actually does have an Anheiser-Bush tattoo on his arm. That's right. That's right. Very upset if I said Miller-Ly. But being the Milwaukee guy than I am, I'm a little bit more. Of course. You're a loyal man. Yes, absolutely. And actually, I am kind of a bush-like guy. So don't tell anybody. But anyways, we digress.

The whole point is Justin was unbreakable. And that was just a matter of his DNA. It wasn't like he had some magic water that he drank in the off season like Tom Brady that led you to believe like, oh, it's the water. No, it's just his DNA. Yeah, he worked hard. But a lot of it is just being very fortunate to have great DNA. Now, I will say I did try to take care of my body during the season and the off season.

And it became kind of like an obsession, especially as my. consecutive streak carried on a little bit. And I did a lot of yoga. I was big into stretching every single day. I religiously used the hot tub and the cold tub and the cryo chamber and just about every kooky exercise the trainers could throw at you to try to prevent injuries. So, I mean, I was on board with all that stuff. And I think that stuff definitely helps, especially when you're getting rolled up in a pile,

to be able to have a little bit extra mobility, flexibility, being used to be in those uncomforties, compromising positions like I am in when you do yoga. I think those definitely helped. And they were as times in my career, I can reflect back on very specifically that they made a big difference. I remember one time it was the very last play of the game. We were playing the Dolphins. And Cam Wake was playing over our right tackle.

And he took a big wide rush and ended up trying to leap for the quarterback, missed the quarterback, but dove right into the back of my leg. And just crippled my knee. I had a grade two MCL tear. The very last play of the game. And it's not like we were playing for anything because we were down by like three scores at the time. But I think to myself, like if I wouldn't have been really big on yoga and mobility at the time, and I wouldn't have been able to pull my knee out at the right time, I probably would have torn my ACL.

But I was lucky that I walked away with only an MCL injury. So it is a combination of everything, but just like everything in the NFL, most of it is genes. And then there's one to two percent of what you can do on top of that. So with all these injuries, I think that the offensive line is a particular interesting, group because of how you have to deal with them, the level of communication, what moving parts does for that group of players compared to others. When you and your career had to worry about playing with a different guy next to you or even playing with a different quarterback and having to worry about the depth of your sets and everything else, what stuff becomes harder for an

offensive lineman that maybe people don't consider when you're having to deal with a lot of moving parts up front? Well, it's just the communication issue, right? Like the best communication is a one-to-one communication, but you can't have that on the office of line because there's five guys. A lot of times the communication is coming from the quarterback. And so it's like sometimes it becomes a game of telephone, right? The quarterback gives it the center, but in an allowed environment, the center then is trying to give it to the guard, who's trying to give it to the tackle, who's trying to give it to the side end. And sometimes when it's nut-cutting time and it's really loud and you can't hear what's going

on, there can be a little bit of panic and maybe the wires get crossed a little bit. but it is interesting listening to the offensive lines this year because there hasn't been there hasn't been a lot of penalties there hasn't been a lot of miscommunications and i'm going to chalked it up early on in the season at least right now to the fact that there isn't a lot of fans in the stands and in some cases there's no fans so it's interesting listening to those guys communicate because they don't have to deal with a lot of the issues that they normally do where they're trying to shout and listen and communicate over a really loud amount of on a crowd noise. And a lot of times stuff does get a little bit confused. And so the nonverbal almost becomes as important as other things. Like offensive line pass calls are generally kind of simple, like either go left or go right. And so all the calls are generally like an L call or an R call. But a lot of times if you can't hear each other, you just point.

And because if you know the protection and you know the center's pointing left, that usually means he's going left in some manner. And so you can kind of use that nonverbal to sort through. what it is if you have some of the information like what the front is, what the defensive alignment is, and what the protection call is. So it's multifaceted when you're up on the line as an office alignment. What do you think is going to be harder in terms of kind of keeping things away from the defense when they can hear everything? Are there elements that you've seen so far where it feels like the defense has kind of be able to react to calls and read into stuff that

they wouldn't be if people were playing with silent counts or the noise was a little bit louder. Yeah, so this year, early on in the season, we mentioned the offensive lines have looked pretty good, right? The communication's been pretty solid, not a lot of penalties, but they're going to, I think, have some challenges as the season wears on. Because as a defensive lineman, you're sitting up there, and a lot of times, no offense to defensive linemen, but they don't have the most complex jobs on the field. And a lot of times it is kind of like, hey, I either go left or I go right, I got the A gap or I got the B gap. and then I go find the ball. So they're just sitting at the line of scrimmage listening, and they're absorbing all that information

and as much intelligence as they lack, being defensive lineman. You only play D-Line if you're not smart enough to play O-Line, by the way. I'm not sure if you knew that. But anyways. I have heard that, yes. So they're just sitting at the line of scrimmage and they're absorbing that information.

And as they hear the same calls over and over again, they're starting to figure things out, especially those veteran guys who've been around a long time. And so as an offensive line, I think they're going to have to start changing their calls a lot when they get up there and you're going to see the veteran offensive lines that have been together a lot. They might actually start using those calls against the defense. It's kind of like late in training camp when you've been going against your D line for 30 days in a row. They know your

calls, you know their calls and you start messing with them a little bit where you start giving them dummy calls to try to get them to go one way or the other to try to help yourself depending upon what the blocking scheme is. So I'm excited to kind of see the game within the game and start listening to that side of things as the season wears on and as a lot of these offensive line calls become really common knowledge throughout the defensive lines in the NFL. It was funny last yesterday, watching Mahomes really start to control the game with his cadence. They were going a lot on two and kind of throwing off Bosa a little bit because he was jumping it and really getting off the ball really fast early in the game.

Were there guys you used to go against that you felt that cadence was a huge part of it just because when they knew it was coming, they got huge jumps where a game like this and the way it's played right now would be particularly effective? Yeah, so Kyle Williams from Buffalo Bills, he always had, you know, 20 plus offsides during the season because he would get your snap count and he was willing to take the risk, right? Because if you think about it, a five-yard off sides penalty is not a huge deal. It's pretty much the biggest slap on the wrist penalty the NFL has. But when you talk about from an offensive standpoint, if he jumps a snap and gets a sack or TFL, I mean, that's pretty much a drive. killer. It's really hard to overcome a big TFL because you lose the down and the yard.

It's whereas an off sides is you just move forward in five yards. No big deal. And so a lot of those better defensive linemen, they're willing to take that risk. And Kyle Williams was one of those guys who we just said basically, hey, if it's third down, we can't go on one this week. It's just not happening. Like he is going to be jumping on one. And you hope that two or three of those, he's going to go to the sideline. And his coach is going to say, hey, Kyle, we know you're an all pro, but just take her easy one. and just watch the ball this time. Like, just try to do that for us.

But all the good ones do it. I mean, Von Miller does it. Terrell Suggs, does it. Like, those are guys. They try to pick up on every little advantage that they possibly have to try to win the snap count, because that's the most important thing on a pass rush between the offense and defensive line is who gets off the ball quicker.

Man, the Justin Smith and Kyle Williams, two names I did not know I'd be hearing today. Really bringing me back to like burly dudes in 2012 that I loved watching. I want to ask you, before we get into some specific guys that we've been watching this year, I want to talk to you about the Browns. I'm sure last week, going into that Thursday night game, you couldn't have been feeling good. There had to be a sigh of relief watching them play the way they did on Thursday against the Bengals. I mean, we did the Thursday night football, the pregame and the post game and the half time,

and we were talking all about it. Like, is this a must win? Well, obviously, there's no must wins. week too. But if there ever was such a thing as a must win, it had to look like that for the Browns, right? It's not like if they lost, they were out of the playoffs, but it would be what

a loss would tell us about this team. And now they don't have the expectations that they had last season, where everyone was kind of myself included, picking them to win the division and maybe, you know, make a run in the playoffs. But I think the expectations are still kind of that nine and seven, eight and eight, maybe

second place, compete somewhere down the line, maybe for a playoff spot. And especially with Baker, being this his third year, I was calling it his rubber match year because he played so good as a rookie. Everybody, and myself included, said, hey, this is the franchise guy we've all been waiting for. He looked awesome.

He set the rookie passing touchdown record. Year two was like a flip of the script. He just did not look the part. And so this is the year where I think he proves to everybody in the organization, like I'm either the guy from year one or I'm the guy from year two. and since the GM is not here anymore that drafted him, after year three, they're going to have to make a decision on his fifth year option. And there's only so much time and there's only so much allowance you can give to your quarterback,

even if you do like the guy, to prove himself that he can be that guy. And they've given him every weapon imaginable in offense. I mean, he's got the receivers. He's got the tight ends now. They even picked up two tackles because that was their big weakness last year. They had a lot of struggles protecting for Baker. at the tackle position. And now they've got Jack Conkton,

one of the best right tackles in the game. And Jed Wills, they picked him in the first round. I think he's going to be one of the best tackles in the NFL and he's already playing really good football. So their offensive line is really good. I mean, at this point, for Baker in that offense, there's no excuses why you shouldn't be a really good offense. And so playing a national televised game

on a short week against a rookie quarterback who's only playing a second NFL game, including preseason that we didn't have. like that's a game you should win. Like you don't have any excuses if you're not able to win that game because all the cards are in your favor and especially the way they played in week one against the Ravens. They didn't look very good.

You had to bounce back and prove that this season still is on track. We are a good team. And last week against the Ravens was just a blip on the radar. I totally agree. And I think that I wanted to see so much from Baker. And that was the one who really, he had a ton of stake. You know, we pick, we talk about it on Thursday show every week. was the most stake this week. And I said it was Baker Mayfield because you needed to see it.

Yeah, even if it wasn't a must win, you needed to see some glimpses. And that touchdown, he threw to Beckham, that's the exact type of stuff I wanted them to do, is get him on the move, you know, really kind of put him in structure and not allow him to kind of sit in the pocket and get in his own head a little bit too much. And it was so perfect to see. When you talk about Wills, what have you seen from him that you like so far? I loved him coming out. I think he's a smart guy, just unbelievably explosive. I was excited to watch him. What have you? you've seen from him so far that makes you that encourages you yeah wills is my favorite offensive linemen coming out of the draft um mckeye beckton was my second favorite and i thought

those guys are both going to be great pros um but the thing i like the most about jet is his technique his suddenness his ability to recover and change of direction when he does get beat which is so important especially early on in your career your technique's not going to be perfect although he does have good technique but you're going to get in bad positions there's a lot of great pass rushers in the NFL and they're going to give you the oky-doke and you're going to overset sometimes and you're going to get out of balance. But if you're a great athlete that can keep your balance and change direction and get back into phase, we talk about phases being with a cornerback and a receiver, like being in phase for a cornerback is the right position you want to be in. If you're out

of phase, the guy's beating you essentially. So it's the same thing as an offensive tackle. If I'm between my man and the quarterback, I'm in phase, as soon as he is off and I'm As soon as he's off my body, and I'm not on that line between my man and the quarterback anymore. I'm out of phase. I'm out of position. So you've got to be able to recover. The great ones have that ability to recover. And that's what I saw from him in college.

And that's what I've seen from Jed already so far. He's exceeded my expectations, and there's never been a harder position for a rookie offensive line to be in, as it is, this season, without preseason and with hardly any training camp to get ready for the season. And I think it's done a really good job. He's transitioned from right tackle to left tackle. And he's starting to look like a guy that you say, hey, he looks like he's played left tackle's whole life. He's looking like that veteran starter that you want. And that's really impressive going into week three of the season. I went back and watched the Bengals game this morning.

And the run game is just fun as hell right now. They're doing so many different things. And I watched that game. I was like, holy shit, Wyatt Teller. They're using him for the people who don't know. he's the right guard. He started the second half of last season. If you didn't watch a lot of second half of 2019 Browns football,

we can forgive you for that. They are legitimately using him as like a weapon in the run game. He's just moving people when they're running to the right. And he's pulling and just launching dudes when they're running to the left. I mean, they are legitimately like focusing the run game around him. You just don't see that very often from a single guard like they're doing right now. That's the fun thing that I've noticed with Kevin Sivansky's offense.

in Cleveland already here in week two is we knew he was going to be a wide zone guy, kind of like Kyle Shane-in-hand, right? They were going to kind of feature the outside zone. And they have done that, but he's not been afraid to throw in a lot of guard pull, the center pull, the tackle pull, trap type plays, sort of the more traditional power football plays that a lot of other teams run. But it's not exactly a feature in the West Coast or the wide zone scheme. But knowing the type of players that the Browns have,

Joel Botonia, White-Teller. They've got really good guards that are physical. And so why not pull them? Why not let them run around there and smash somebody in the mouse? Do a little Quentin Nelson impression. I mean, they're doing a great job running a lot of these pull schemes, these outside down, down, pull-around, kick-out-type plays. And you can tell Nick Chubb, Cream Hunt, they like running those plays, too.

They've had a lot of success. So it'll be interesting to see how much they feature of the pulling-type plays on offense versus the traditional wide zone stuff. Bo Calhans doing a lot of the run game design there. He's the offensive line coach, I think is a fantastic hire if you're trying to build a staff. When you're going into a week as an offensive lineman and you know that your run game is going to be varied, that you're going to have plays where you get angles, do you just kind of approach the game differently? Is it more exciting when you have that sort of diverse attack on the ground?

Well, you get really excited when they're installing the run game and they talk about, Hey, when we get into this personnel grouping and this formation and we make this shift, this linebacker, it's 100%er. He has not adjusted to the right gap. So if we do our job up front, we get the double team block between the guard and the tackle, and we're able to get our hat on the right angle, there's going to be a huge gap. And if running back, if you trust it, just trust it for seven steps. When you get to your seventh step, put your outside foot in the ground and cut up field.

Don't cut back. Cut up field. And there's going to be a gash in there that you could drive. have a truck through. There's going to be a gurney hole right there where you can you can put eight semi-trucks through and you get excited about that stuff as an offensive line. He go, yeah, that is there. And right. All of a sudden, you get a call in the first 15. He's right. You hit a gasher. And it's like, man, he was right. And then all of a sudden, you know, you go back to that. And then pretty soon you see him on the sideline on the other sideline. They're scratching their heads.

They're drawn on the whiteboard. They're trying to fix it. But what a great coach like Bill Callan. does he's got that change up right he goes you know as soon as they over adjust and they try to cover up this little problem that they've got going on right here well hey now we're going to hit him with the counter move it's going to look exactly the same and this is what's great about this offense like they've got a lot of plays that look exactly the same so you're going to say all right we're going to start exactly the same but we're going to run the windback play so the quarterback's going to open to the same side the running's back's going to take his first step but then all of a sudden we're going to pull the backside tight end and he's going to run around and we're going to collapse the backside

and we're going to get this running back where he's going to take one step and he's going to change field and then all of a sudden now you hit him with the counterplay and that's what makes the offense so dangerous because as soon as you hit him a couple times with the standard play and then you hit him with the counter their heads are spinning and they don't know what to do and then you got them on their heels and you got them right where you want them. All right. Let's talk about some of the younger tackles in the league that you've enjoyed watching recently. I want to start with Orlando Brown from the Ravens who I went back and watched the morning just a huge huge man which definitely kind of plays into his style and everything else

when you watch him play what jumps out to you about him well obviously the first thing that jumps out to you is his size right you know he's like the granite mountain of a man out there just like his father was who played for baltorn played for the browns uh big zeus they used to call him but um he's a big man too but he's a good athlete like he's got really good feet and for being a young player he's got really good technique you know there's plenty of big guys that are out there and there's even plenty of big guys that are good athletes but you've got to put the technique with the athleticism to be effective and he really has done a great job of that like he doesn't get himself out of position very much he's really in good balance a lot of times and that's the one thing you look for with big guys is like if they get out of balance because how big they are and a lot of times they're top heavy they have a hard time getting back in balance and so a lot of times you give them a counter-a-a-a-counterer move you give him a club or a swim or something like that you get him to overset they can't recover but Orlando he does a really nice job of not oversetting he's very patient in a set if he does get beat he's got pretty good balance where he can recover um so he's been really

impressive and he's been a young guy that's fun to watch i was watching he did the film session with brian baldinger that they do on NFL game pass and he was discussing a play against the browns actually where he knew that miles garrett was going inside because he could feel the nickel coming off the right side. And when you have that sort of play recognition, one is a young player, but two, when you have his length, you don't need many advantages to put yourself in the right position. So if you can pick up on little things like that to be able to use the arms that he has, I mean, you can just swallow guys pretty quickly when you know where they're going.

So you combine the athleticism, the size, and just clearly he has a certain level of awareness, and that's when you just have a guy who really gets it even at a young age. Yeah, that's the game within the game that usually takes guys three, four years to master because, yeah, I want to study my guy and I want to know what he's doing. But a lot of times what he's doing is going to be told to me by what the safety does and what the linebackers on his side or the cornerback does. And so when you're watching film, you start picking up on that stuff. And then pretty soon, like he said, you can come to the line of scrimmage and you can say,

okay, I know he's going to come inside because the safety's down and the linebackers creeping out a little bit wider and a little bit tighter than he usually is. And so I don't have to take my full kick. I don't have to take my full kick and get out of position. I can just take my set in place and get ready to accept that defensive end who's spiking to the inside. And now I look like I'm this great fast athlete when really I just knew what he was going to do before he did. That's how old guys in the NFL survive.

I mean, I survived into my 11th year and I was much slower and more banged up and crippled in my 11th season than I was in my first year. But I probably played faster because I was seeing things that were happening before they happened on the field. another guy that you wanted to talk about John Taylor from Jacksonville who has your offensive line coach that you had in Cleveland for a few years

George Wilhop, which I assume is why you started watching him. I'm sure you talk to him and though he tells you, yeah, you should definitely watch this guy. So he's in his second year. He was a guy that fell in the draft because of injury concerns, but was generally considered a potential top 10 pick.

They got him in the second round. What do you like about his game? What stood out to you kind of early in this season? Well, first of all, you're exactly right. George Warhop is one of the great offensive line coaches in the NFL. He's up there with Bill Callahan, and he does a great job developing guy. So Joanne is in fantastic hands. He's also got my old strength coach down there in Jacksonville, Tom Eislinsky,

who's fantastic at developing strength and mass in young players. So this kid's in fantastic hands. But what I really like about when I'm watching him is he's very powerful. He's got good technique. He's patient. He's learning the system very quickly. but he's also very powerful. And for a big guy, like run blocking is important,

but you make your money in the NFL, being powerful against big and strong rushers. And he does a really good job of anchoring when he does get bull rushed. And when he does get guys that countermov, he's quick enough to keep up with him, but then he's quick enough to stop him in their tracks. And so I'm doing the Thursday night game this week, Jacksonville versus the Dolphins.

I'm excited to watch him. You know, I know my boneheads, Mike Irvin and Steve Smith won't be watching any offensive line play. But I can't wait to watch the battle in the trenches because this is one of those young guys that I think is really taking the league by storm. A lot of the better offensive tackles in the league, I think are kind of defined by patience, especially right time. I even think about the way that Mitchell Schwartz plays and just kind of how in control. And that's why watching a guy like Chuan is kind of striking just because of how aggressive he is with his hands. I mean, he's really trying to like stun people. And you just don't

see that many guys who are high level offensive linemen kind of play with that level of aggressiveness all the time. So it was fun. Watching him this morning, I was like, oh, man, he's really getting after people, which I enjoy watching. And like you said, the strength is important, the physicality. And another guy that, you know, came into the league, great feet, really good athlete, but I think there were questions about his strength was Brian O'Neill with the Vikings. Kind of smaller. He was a former tight end. But I was watching him this morning. It looks like he's gotten a lot stronger. I mean, he was holding up against Zadaria Smith in bull rushes and just really anchoring down. How have you seen his game kind of change over the last couple years?

Yeah, Brian's a very good athlete. He came into the NFL as a guy that they said, you know, great athlete. You have some question marks about his anchor. Is he going to be strong and powerful enough? But a lot of times that question is just as much about your technique and your ability to get into powerful positions, hip mobility, ankle mobility, your ability to flex your knees and get low. Like that creates power just like mass and size and strength create power.

But I think he's done a great job. embracing the technique that it takes. But he's also benefited. He's in the system that the Browns are in, that the 49ers run. It's that wide zone, Gary Kubiak, Kyle Shanahan, back to Mike Shanahan's system. And I think that really benefits an athletic,

smaller type guy like Brian, because you're able to use your athleticism against the defense because you're constantly moving, you're constantly trying to shock the defensive line with your speed, and you do run a lot of play action passes. And so a lot of times those defense, linemen are used to running side to side and all of a sudden it's third and four and you run at them and it looks like a play action run or a run action pass like we would call it and the

defensive lineman takes two seconds before you can even get into his pass rush and so you're kind of using your feet and your quickness and athleticism to get on a guy before you even realizes that it is a pass and so those systems kind of minimizes the number of true dropback passes that you have i played in uh norv turner's system which was like a nightmare That's the exact opposite. It was totally the opposite. Yeah. We honestly led the NFL and I think we averaged like 69% of the time drop back pass or something insane.

And vertical passes too. Vertical. Slow developing. Yeah. Exactly. It was Don Coriol, like everybody go vertical, just run deep and cross and far and wide. And so for 60 plays, it's felt like every week, you were just past setting vertically and absorbing bull rushes. And so it was really tough.

It made me a much better offensive tackle because I did it. I passed block so much. But when you're in that wide zone scheme, and especially when the games are close, you maybe only have 10 dropbacks versus the average might be 25. When I mentioned when I had Norv, we were driving back 45 times straight back in the pocket. So I think that has helped him, especially early on when you're still trying to develop your technique and your strength in the true dropback vertical passing game. But I think he's done a great job,

and he's one of those young guys that's going to be fun to watch. When I was watching them play the Packers and watching him play against Adairus Smith, I was thinking about this and wanted to ask you, if you could choose to go against the guy that was really powerful, like as Adairius Smith or an Everson Griffin, somebody who plays with that sort of style, or going against the guy like, let's say, Cam Wake, who just is all sprinter off the ball.

Who would you rather play against him? against for 70 plays. Me personally, I always preferred the athletic fast guy because I was more of the fast athletic tackle than I was like the big guy. Like I think back to the tackles of the 90s, the great Hall of Fame guys, Orlando Pace, Walter Jones, Jonathan Ogden, Willie Roof. I mean, those dudes, the lightest one was probably 340. And, you know, Jonathan Ogden was like 365.

So these were massive human beings. and they were unbelievably athletic as well. But if you tried to bullrush him, I don't care who you are. You weren't getting through them, right? The 2000s, my generation, a lot more guys are in the 305 to 310, more athletic, less of like the big, strong physical type offensive tackles. And so for me, the matchup was always a little bit better with the athletic guys. But I would say if you're only a strong guy where you're sort of just like the bull rush type,

there are things to do to take that away. Like you can be aggressive in your sets. You can jump set. You can short set. And you can kind of get on them before they get started. The hard guys are the guys that are great bull rushers, as you'd expect, but also have some quickness and wiggle like a Terrell Suggs. Like those guys, von Millers, you know, the guys that,

Khalil Max, who have that power but also have that quickness. Those are the guys that gave me nightmares. Those were the ones where I didn't sleep the week going up to that. game. Joe, one of the guys I know you wanted to talk about was David Bakhtiari, who's one of the best left tackles, if not the best pass blocking left tackle in the entire week. Are there aspects to his game when you watch him that you think, oh man, even I had trouble doing that during my career, things that you're not necessarily jealous of that you look at him and just think are truly exceptional. Yeah, so David's the best pass blocking tackle in the NFL, in my opinion. He's been like that for a couple years. And the thing that I love watching with him is the quickness with which he moves. moves his feet. I was a good athlete, but my feet never moved quickly. Like, when you watch my sets, they were very plotting and methodical. And I felt like I needed that to keep my balance to make sure that everything was very precise. But David's like the opposite. His feet looked like a rabbit. When you're watching him, you can barely see those things as how quickly they're moving.

His set is so smooth and fast that it is really fun as an offensive line, a nerd to watch. So, and then the other guy, I think you could probably make a case that he's the best left tackle in the league right now. I love watching him play. I mean, again, he's so smooth like you said. He was another guy. You know, David and I have talked about this. When he came into the league, he was on the lighter side. His athleticism was never in question. He needed to get stronger. And he put on that weight. And now his ability to anchor against pretty much anybody. You know, you watch him. He can just shut guys down. It's incredible to watch. On the other side, you know, you could probably make an argument that Ryan Ramcheck is the best right tackle in the NFL right now, along with a couple other guys. I know that you're probably a little bit biased with the Wisconsin thing, but when you watch Ryan play, what jumps out to you about his game? I've never been a shame to admit my bias for Browns and Badgers. So clearly I'm biased. I think Ryan's fantastic.

Yeah, he's, you know, it's always hard for me when people ask me, hey, who's the best offensive tackle in the NFL or who's the best left tackle? Because to me, the position of offensive line is not about how many great plays you make. It's how few errors you make, because that's really how you're measured. Like, your team is counting on you to just do your job. Like, you don't have to do any more. Like, if you pancake your guy and they throw a touchdown pass

or you just block your guy and they throw a touchdown pass, it still counts as six points. Like, it may get the announcers excited. It may get the people at home. It may be get your buddies in the film room excited when you smash somebody's face and you break their face mask. But it doesn't count for anything more. And so really what makes greatness on the offensive line is a lack of mistake.

so you'd have to watch literally every play for every player the entire year to kind of be able to sort through the top five guys who are clearly head and shoulders above everybody else. With that being said, Ramcheck is really fun because he is that type of athlete that can keep up with anybody, but he also has a lot of power and strength not only in Pasro like to anchor and at the point of attack when he makes that contact, but when you get him in the run game, like he can move some bodies. He is super strong and flexible so he can get up and underneath his guys and he can push him off the line of scrimmage. He really is the total package as a right tackle.

And I can't wait to see the contract that the Saints have to toll out to him next year because it's going to be massive. With the 17 cents in cap space, they're going to pay him $20 million a year. Unfortunately, they're going to have to cut the rest of their offensive line and Drew Brees. But it'll be worth it. Joe, we could do this with 100 different guys. I would if I had the time or if I would think that people would continue to listen. But unfortunately, that's all we got. I cannot tell you how fun this is for me and how exciting it was.

I sincerely appreciate the time. So best luck with the Thursday night game this week. Best luck with the rest of the season. And sincerely, thank you for doing this. Yeah, man, I appreciate you having me on. I love talking offensive line play to the five people that are still listening after 45 minutes of O line talk. Thank you very much. For your service to God and country and fat men everywhere.

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Make it rain. Minimum $5 deposit required. Eligibility restrictions apply. See draftkings.com for details. All right, it's time for this week's team visit. And there was really no other direction that I could go with this except to go to the Womp-womp Eagles who are Owen to. And there is just nothing better to me in the football world than a sad Eagles team

because it's almost like the natural resting state for Eagles fans is to be fatalistic and mad. So when the Eagles are bad, it just feels like they get to kind of come right back into their comfort zone. And I wanted to bring on my good buddies, Bull Wolf and Zach Berman, both of whom do an excellent job covering the Eagles for the athletic. Zach, you've covered this team for a long time. I'm sure this feels like familiar territory to you, just people screaming at you all the time, just really mad about the state of the world. It's got to feel like you're back in your natural habitat here. Well, certainly back to like the Chip Kelly era and then the end of the Andy Reed era, the fans have been relatively spoiled here for the past two or so years. But it does, you know, when when talk radio is complaining about the coach and the quarterback, there is like order restored sometimes. I can't believe Zach was able to get a Chip Kelly reference in that quickly. That slayed the over under.

So fast. Bo, what's been your favorite thing that somebody's complained to you? about so far this season? Has it been one that stuck out? Well, I think the funniest thing to me is Doug Peterson the other day complaining about the lack of an offseason, which is so self-evidently ridiculous because, you know, this team has more continuity than almost anybody else in the league. And, you know, they just, you know, they got smoked by or blew a game to a Washington team that had a brand new coaching staff, you know, a Rams team that had new pieces, a new defensive coordinator. So I thought that was very funny. But I would say that the, the, one thing that is different about this year is you don't get the booze. We're missing the booze.

Oh, it's so true. I didn't think about that. Like week one after they won the Super Bowl at halftime, they're getting booed because they had a bad first half. So like that they put out that stinker against the Rams and didn't get like the booze that they definitely deserved. That was, I think, what was what was missing. So the Eagles are 0-2, but it's an ugly O in two. I mean, I think there are a couple teams around the league where you can kind of talk yourselves into, uh, they look good in stretches, yada, yada. But you lose to a Washington team, like you said, that has a ton of moving pieces that a lot of people predicted to probably be in contention for the number one pick this year.

And they were just complete. And yeah, there's still plenty of time there. But they were just outplayed and out coach. And we talked about that on the show I did with Nate after week one. I mean, that Washington defense was just in all the right spots. It just looked like they were more prepared or extremely prepared for whatever the Eagles wanted to do offensively. And then last week, they were just outclassed by that Rams team.

At no point during that game did it feel like the Rams were not in complete control. So it's not as if this team has gotten a couple bad breaks. They had bad losses in each of the first two weeks. So, Zach, if you were kind of doing an Eagles panic power rankings here, where people are going from the thing they're most worried about to the thing they're least worried about, where would you start? I would start with Carson Wentz. And that is the clear number one.

And the reason is, first off, the investment that the organization has in him, the fact that it's year five here, and there has never been this type of scrutiny on him. It's his first time throwing back-to-back multi-interception games. And there have been bad stretches or bad games before, but they've often been easier to rationalize. What you're seeing now is it's much harder to rationalize. He said there's little reason why Carson should be making the mistakes he's making other than him regressing. And when your franchise quarterback is regressing in year five, that is a major concern. So that would be one end of the spectrum. And when they're 0 and two and not playing well, it's hard to find one on the other end of the spectrum.

I suppose I could say running backs because Miles Sanders was back in the lineup and looked decently. He had a bad fumble to begin the game. But otherwise, I think there's a. optimism that they'll be able to run the ball with Miles Sanders. But really, across the board here, there aren't many reasons to look at this team through two weeks and say they have that figured out. So I was looking at some of the numbers today. When I kind of started digging into them, I assumed, oh, yeah, Wenz's been bad.

I'm sure he's down near the bottom of the league. And then you start to look at it. Not only is he dead last in passing EPA, he is dead last by so far that he has three times the negative passing DVOA that Sam Darnold does, he has been the worst quarterback in the NFL statistically by the widest margin you could possibly conceive. It is absolutely shocking. And they think there are a lot of issues happening right now. But Bo, if you were trying to characterize just where a lot of the concern is rooted when it comes to the way that Carson Wentz is playing, how would you characterize it? Well, I think that the number one problem right now is the

turnovers. And, you know, we sort of know who Carson Wentz wants to be as a player, right? He is never going to be a guy who makes all the layups, right? He's going to have some bouts of, you know, being inaccurate. That's, that's a thing that we know about him through the first five years. But he has done a very good job at avoiding interceptions throughout his career. I think it's like 1.8% interception rate throughout his career. This year, it's up to 4.7. So that's, I mean, that's probably not going to stay that high that will progress to the mean. But there was reason to believe that he was going to throw more interceptions this year. I think Ed Feng wrote about that in the off season. But he just, he doesn't look, he hasn't made the kind of jump you would expect. And it is a

little bit exhausting to be in year five and every game is still sort of a referendum on Carson Wentz's career. But I think like if you take a step back, there's reason to expect that he's going to get better over the course of this season. Like this is probably the worst two-game stretch of his career. There's no reason to expect that that's going to go out for the entire season. Like he's probably going to bounce back. But he's always going to take sacks. He has a fumbling issue. He's going to miss some throws. But he also is usually able to balance that out by making the big plays down the field, you know, those wow plays that other quarterbacks can't make. And when he's tried to do those through these first two games, you know, a tiny sample, it hasn't worked out. He's

throwing some interceptions. And I think you sort of see like some of the things that make him special sort of, you know, beaten out of him, especially in this game against the Rams. Like there was a play in the game third and eight right before the kick of field goal at like 2416. And he moves up in the pocket and he has Ertz there, but he just throws the ball away. And it sort of seems like an overcorrection to taking eight sacks the week before. And overcorrecting is sort of a thing that I think Zach and I have talked about is sort of endemic to this organization. They tend to do that a lot. But it seems like that was what happened in week two.

It's so interesting that you say that because on their first drive, when they eventually kicked a field goal, he had that little tiny flip to Miles Sanders for like two yards short of the sticks. And he got out of the pocket and got rid of that ball so quickly. And when I'm watching him play right now, it just feels like he's not settled at all. He's either playing way too fast where he's diving out of pockets that are actually pretty comfortable or he's I mean there was that one terrible screen I think he threw it to Sean Jackson's feet or maybe it was J.Rigger he's way too sped up or he's playing way too slow if you

look at some of the numbers more than half of his dropbacks have lasted longer than two and a half seconds this year it's about 54% of plays and he's completing 45% of his passes on those plays the only guys that are worse in the league right now are Matthew Stafford DeWain Haskins and Sam Darnold which not a good list guys stafford's fine but that the company you want to keep are not those other two guys. Zach, can you explain at all why he doesn't look very comfortable? We're talking about year five. We talked about continuity.

There are a couple moving pieces on this offense, but for the most part, you would think that the ancillary elements of the organization and Carson Wentz would allow him to kind of hit the ground running, but it looks like he's supremely uncomfortable playing in this offense right now. Yeah, I think you need to separate the holding on from the ball or the whole holding on to the ball too long to maybe any mechanical issues or fundamental issues that are leading to the inaccurate passes or the inconsistencies. I do think when you have Carson Wins as your quarterback, you accept the fact that it's not going to be out of his hands quickly.

He's not going to be one of those point guard type quarterbacks. He does hold onto the ball. He does try to extend plays, sometimes to a detriment. Other times in a way that he kind of dazzles. So, you know, if you think back to that 2017 season and, frankly, the statute of limitations on that year might be expiring by now. But that's really, that's the level that the Eagles expect Carson to play at, you know, that MVP level. And he had plays that season when he was dynamic, when he was holding onto the ball and making plays that were off script. So he can do that. So I think with him holding on to the ball, that's not as much. much a concern as like Bo said, the turnovers which have just been bad decisions, bad passes

and bad decisions. Whether he's missing the throw, whether the timing is off, you look at the critical interception that he had against the Rams. And so that one is, it's, the Eagles are driving. They're on the 21-yard line. They have a chance to take the lead. They have momentum in their direction. It's a first and 10. And he throws an intercept. in the end zone to JJ Arthago White's side that Doug Peterson flat out said was an unacceptable play. You can make the argument that the read would be okay if Carson threw the ball differently, if he threw it sooner or if he threw it to the back of the end zone, but the way he threw it was a poor decision. And then you see passes, like you mentioned, the pass that he missed to the

shown where just mechanically it's it's it's not what you're expecting to see in in terms of the consistency you would expect from cars and went so i think you need to separate those two things but i i really don't think there's an easy answer for this and i i think that's that's part of what is flummoxing the eagles right now is is that there's this expectation with carson lens that you'll get a baseline of consistency and he's well beyond he's he's he's he's well below that baseline right now. And I don't know if there's an easy answer other than crossing your fingers and hoping you're getting the quarterback you paid. The problem with that interceptions is it's a compounded issue, right? Not only is it a bad decision in terms of him going to that route probably,

but the ball placement is also bad. If he, like you said, if he puts that ball, if he tries to hit the upright with that ball essentially, and it's fine, because he's put in where only his guy can get it and it's okay. I can understand that ball placement. because you don't want to throw it into the other safety as it's coming across, kind of under through it a little bit. But if you're going to throw it where you don't want to get it picked off, just throw it above the guy's head. You have your tallest receiver whose number one quality is being bigger than people.

And that's the issue. That's what it should be. And that's kind of the issue. And even that the slant he threw to Arthago Whiteside in that game that got tipped that was a little bit behind him early in the game, it's the same sort of issue. He probably shouldn't have thrown that ball at all. But where he put it just doesn't make sense.

It just seems like he's so out of sorts. And I think you could probably extend that problem to the rest of the Eagles offense. But when I watched them in week one and they're just insistence on pushing the ball down the field, even though their offensive line was banged up and they're playing against a team that's fantastic up front. And then I watched them play last week. Not only does Wentz look unsettled, it just looks like they don't know what they want to be. Can you try to just distill for me or articulate what the vision is for this offense? because one of the issues coming into the season that

Sheila and I talked about actually in our preview was are there going to be too many cooks in the kitchen now when you have Skangarillo and you have Press Taylor. There's so many guys that that was a benefit of this team when they were going to the Super Bowl. People talked about how that collaboration was a good thing. Now it seems like it's just muddled. It's a very convoluted understanding of who they want to be.

So if you were trying to articulate, this is what the Eagles want to be offensively. What would you say? Well, it's such a good question because they were so different from week one to week two. Yeah, exactly. And as you said, and the big emphasis this offseason, if you talk to Carson Wentz and Press Taylor and Doug Peterson, was they needed to get more explosive on offense. And that was obvious for everybody to see who has watched this team over the past couple years.

Everything has been so difficult for them on offense. They have to sustain these long drives. You know, nobody is really open. It's this like grinding bog offense that is tough to watch. and tough to sustain. So instead of bringing in, you know, veteran wide receivers to help on the outside, they draft Jalen Rager in the first round, and that's about it and just cross their fingers that Deshaun's going to stay healthy. But the good one opt out too, who I think was probably part of that. Yeah, but Goodwin is, I mean, he was acquired for a fifth round pick swap. Like,

it's a, he's a, he's a dart that you're throwing along with John Hightower and Quaes Watkins. And I think the goal with him was to just to be able to spell Deshaun Jackson. But so week one, they come out and it's bombs away. And that first half, it looks good. I mean, the 55-yarder to Jalen Rager, they almost hit on two more at the end of the half. It was Carson Wins's highest average depth of target of the past three seasons. I almost tweeted, it's so nice to see Carson Wentz going deep again because he throws a pretty nice deep ball. I'm so glad that receipt does not exist because it would not have aged well at all. But it was, you know what, it wasn't that bad. Like, all they needed to do was have Carson Wentz not take as many bad sacks.

Like there was a middle ground there that they could have struck. And instead of just tweaking things a little bit, they completely retreated in week two to the same offense we've seen the last two seasons. They were in 12 personnel 80% of the time against the Rams. I mean, over on the course of the season, they're at 68%. Number two in the league is at 31%. They're more than doubled number two. It's ridiculous.

Sweet that it was performance art. Isn't that what you referred to it as? They're trying to build the whole plane out of 12 personnel. It's ridiculous. And, you know, it's true that, like, having Goddard and Ertz on the field at the same time probably gives them, you know, a better group of pass receivers. Zach and I have talked about this. But, like, it's just as much an indictment of the team building as it is of the coaching staff. But then week two, you know, it's like back to almost half the average depth of target. Six and a half it was exactly the same offense. we've seen over the past couple years,

and everything is too difficult to sustain. So I think you're right. They don't know who they are. It was like they dipped their toe into the water, week one, of trying to have a little bit of a downfield offense. And then week two, they decided, okay, you know, we tried it, we can't do it. Now, you know, you do have to say that the Rams were playing much more, you know, two deep safeties. So it would have been difficult to push the ball down the field.

But like there are no guys on this team who are getting consistent separation in that 12 personnel except for Deshaun Jackson. And it's like, I think you're right. I don't think they know who they are, who they want to be. And if Wence was the only issue right now, I think we're having a different sort of conversation and the tone of this is much different. But the offensive line is a mess. Salamalu went on IR.

He's going to be gone at least three weeks. You're gone three of your week one starters. It feel like, you know, you have Jason Peters. You can put him out at left tackle. Lane Johnson comes back. Maybe you can figure out the interior with Brooks gone. But now just the blows keep on coming. and you would say in a typical situation of guys were healthy, oh, they'll figure it out.

You know, they're on one end of the spectrum, then they're on the other. We'll meet somewhere in the middle. Progress will be made. But the offensive line concerns give you pause about that. And then you look to the other side of the ball and the defense is all over the place. And I know that the back end and the back seven is something they needed to figure out tons of moving pieces. And that looks like a group that has not figured it out. Zach, what's kind of the company line right now about where the defense stands and where they

wanted to go because it seems like that is a group in flux and very far away from kind of getting where they're trying to get. So we spoke to Jim Schwartz today and the company line for the performance against the Rams was was Jim taking responsibility. Jim saying that he had a bad game plan. He said it was it was too simple and it was on him. And the point he tried to make was that they had experienced players making uncharacteristic errors there, mistakes there, and that goes back to the defensive coordinator. And Jim's experienced enough that he knows how to fall on the sword, but I think the problems go beyond Jim.

And the reason I say that is because there are personnel issues here that were apparent going into the season. Really what the Eagles did, and they made dramatic changes. I don't think that's overstating it to their lineup. from what they've had in the past. Really, they thought that if they had a number one cornerback, which they have now in Derry Slay, and they haven't had that in the past,

and they have a really strong defensive line, which they hope they have, with three of the top 10 paid for three defensive tackles in the league. And then they have some good players on the edge. Brandon Graham's a good player. They're expecting Derek Barnett to be a good player. So they have... You're not going to throw in Josh Sweat, Sack?

Josh Swet might be their best defensive end right now. Yeah, so right there you have six defensive linemen that you believe you can hang your hat on. But like you said, the back seven had questions going into this year, and they haven't done anything really to answer those questions. And so I think that in some cases with this defense, they're not getting what they're paying for. On the defensive line, for instance, they didn't get enough pressure on Jared Goff. Going forward this week against Cincinnati, if Joe B, Burroughs jersey is not dirty at the end of the game, then that's a major problem because this is

an offensive line that they should be able to be. But at some positions, frankly, they're getting exactly what they're paying for. Their linebacker core, this is how I would put in. Their long snappers being paid more than any of their linebackers. And that goes to show you how the organization values that position. They haven't allocated a pick higher than a third round pick at that position since 2012. They let basically all their players that aren't on rookie contracts leave. It's a group that they'll tell you they're trusting, their scouting, and their development. But frankly, there hasn't been any evidence that they're scouting and their development is apt enough in that area or good enough in that area to be sufficient. And I think going

forward, linebacker could be more of an issue. And frankly, same thing at safety. They let Malcolm Jenkins go. and they replace him with Jow and Mills for they're moving over from cornerback. And that's fine if he's complimented by, you know, a high paid safety. But Rodney McLeod was the less expensive of their two veteran options. So I think at that position, frankly, they're getting what they're paying for as well. To me, I think this is a team building issue because the last two seasons, even though go back to the Super Bowl, you know, they had mediocre at best cornerback play, right? and they still won a Super Bowl and made the playoffs in back-to-back years.

And they went out this offseason. And the big move they made, or the big two moves, if you count the J. Von Hargrave signing, was trading for Darius Lay, you know, trading a three and a five and giving him a new contract. And Darius Lay has been great through the first two games. He's been exactly what they paid for. And the defense still stinks. And so, like, what was the point if, and Howie Roseman has talked about this? Like, if you have two options, one is trade for Darius.

Slay and one is basically beat the Cardinals package for D'Andre Hopkins. Like, you could have done that or you could have addressed the offense, and, you know, which we know is more important and tried to get by with, you know, fine cornerback play again. And they didn't do that. And it doesn't seem to me like that was, you know, the right course of action. It's a roster building thing. And to Zach's point, like, you know, the linebackers are bad.

And then the guy that took in the third round, who's a linebacker, is basically a redshirt player because he's not experienced enough to get on the field. You guys talking about the overcorrection, I think, is a really good point. And the sleigh trade speaks to that. They're like, we need a number one corner. We're going to throw the resources to get that. And they do it. And when you skimp on linebacker and then even corner on the other side,

when you watch that game against the Rams, Sean McVeigh had his sights set on Nate Gary that entire game. He put him in a blender for 60 minutes. And when you have smart, really good offensive coaches in this lead that can say, here are your two weak links. I'm going to hammer them over and over. over again, they're going to take the free money. And that's exactly what McVeigh did that entire first half. Every pass they completed to the right side of the field was like a five-yard

out. Every pass they completed to the right side, left side of the field or over the middle was a 20-yard game. That's not an accident. He knows exactly what he's doing. The Nate Gary thing is so funny to Eagles fans because I have never covered a player with a greater disparity of between the way he's talked about publicly and the way that people like view him and see him on the field. People talk about Nate Gare in the building. The Ken Flajola linebackers coach has called him the smartest linebacker he's ever coached. He could coach the position. Like, that is not what anybody's seen on the field. Tell us what we're missing. Yeah, there are so many linebackers like that where they're just glowing reviews from the coaching staff. Then you

watch them play and guys like Shane Han and McVeigh are like just smashing the button over and over again. All right, before you guys get out of here, I just want to know on like a DefCon 1 to DefCon 5, where do you think the Eagles panic is right now? Is that we'll start with you. It's as bad as it's been since 2015. And that's obviously to say they're all in two. But look, they have Cincinnati this week. And then after Cincinnati, they have San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Baltimore.

So this schedule is not getting any easier. It's conceivable, even if they beat Cincinnati, they're one in five. And maybe they steal one of those games thereafter. but I would say that Doug and Carson have enough equity and Jim Schwartz. They have enough equity that you give them the benefit of the doubt that you're not looking at at like a bottom of the league team yet.

But they've done little this season to give you confidence they can turn this around. So what helps them is that they're in a division that you can theoretically still get out of or you can finish second place and you know, you can get two wins against the team. Giants, you can potentially, you can assume you get another win against Washington. But I think the confidence in this team is as low as it's been in the Peterson era.

But where are you at right now? Well, I mean, I'm pretty low. And if I'm an Eagles fan. You're such a cheery guy, though. I'm so surprised. Well, what is so depressing about it from an Eagles perspective is that, you know, not only are they bad, but there's no hope for the future, like for the short term future. This is not a team that is built to turn things around.

Like this is a team that is at the end of its window and is trying to maximize what they have. Their, you know, their top 10 highest paid players are Carson went to the top and then nine guys who are at least 30 by January 1st of next year. It's all of these guys who are on the downside of their career and they have not had enough pick equity or like impact from the guys who they have drafted over the past few years who are like, coming up to take those spots. I mean, the young guys who excite you if you're an Eagles fan are Miles Sanders, who's a running back, Dallas Goddard, who's like right now a number two tight end, but okay, that's exciting. Jalen Rager, that sounds good.

And then, you know, what? You know, Avanti Maddox is maybe a starting caliber corner. Jalen Mills is maybe a starting caliber safety, maybe. Like, Derek Barnett has been a relative disappointment. Andre Dillard has done nothing in two years. Like, what's exciting? And the scary thing for the Eagles, if the answer to that question is Jalen Hertz, because if this thing goes south. Oh, man. I was waiting for when that was coming.

At some point, the conversation turns to you spent a second round pick on this guy. You know, if they have a losing record in November or they have a losing record in December, it's a conversation the Eagles won't be able to avoid no matter how well or how poorly Carson's playing. Just Jalen Hertz's presence there. it makes sense on a winning team that as a rookie backup, but if it's a losing team, it becomes a controversy.

I love that we started with Chip Kelly and we ended with Jalen Hertz. What a perfect coming full circle Eagles conversation. Gentlemen, thank you very much for doing this. I sincerely appreciate it. You guys do a fantastic job. Please go check out the work that Zach and Bodu

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That's my last name today. If approved, you'll get $15 off your first order of ED-3. treatment. That's get roman.com slash m a-y-s. Get-Roman.com slash maze. And now it's time for another edition of film school with Tedwin. Ted, we wanted to talk about a concept and an idea that a lot of people have just parroted over the course of the off-season and early this season, but hasn't really been

analyzed in an in-depth way. And that's just the concept of the Bruce Ariens offense. I think people have heard that term a lot as it's related to the Buccaneers and to the transition for Tom Brady. everything else. So we wanted to take a deeper dive and what that actually means. So if you had to describe the Bruce Ariens offense and how it differs from other offensive systems, where would you start? I think a good place to start is this longer developing pass routes. So, he's aggressive. You know, everybody kind of knows him for his famous quote, no risk, no biscuit,

no biscuit. And that's his offense. He wants to go heavy play action, take deep shot. Some of his concepts are, you know, you'll find him in other playbooks, but his might be a little deeper. For example, you know, if he's running a sale concept, which is a three receiver concept, outside guy runs a fade, slot guy runs an out route, and most inside guy are running back, runs a flat. You know, usually that slot running the out route would be around 12 yards, but, you know, he might have a 16-yard out route or even a 20-yard out route in his offense. So just things like that. And funny enough, you know, we know Brady loves throwing a tight ends.

But this week when he asked about Rob Grunkowski and his targets, he said, we're not throwing the ball 50 times at tight ends. That's what we have receivers for. So I think, you know, Brady's going to have to get used to it and Rob Gruncowski's have used to it. But funny enough, he actually loves throwing a running backs. And he's not scared to throw deep to running backs, too. And we saw that when he had David Johnson with the Cardinals. And he even threw a deep one to LaShawn McCoy that he dropped in the end zone this week. So, yeah, and there's just a ton of route adjustments and conversions in his offense.

That's one thing that surprised me studying his offense. I thought the Patriots had a lot of option routes and conversions, but he has even more. I mean, and these are like some deeper option routes that it's pretty unique to his offense. So if you look at the numbers from 2013 to 2017, Carson Palmer averaged 9.65 air yards per throw with Bruce Ariens. It was the second highest mark in the league after deep throw king, James Winston. James last year with Bruce Ariens, a meeting of the minds when it comes to deep ball throws led the league by a lot at 10.35.

In 2012, when Andrew Luck was with Bruce Ariens, he was second in the league at 10.2. This is something that Bruce Ariens has taken with him everywhere, every stop of his offensive career in the NFL, whether it was with Ben Rathusberger in Pittsburgh, Andrew Luck in Indianapolis, Carson Palmer, Tom Brady now. Byron left, which is the offensive coordinator in Tampa. He's the play caller now for the first time in Ariens' career. But when I talked to Ariens last summer about Byron taking over play calling, he essentially said, the reason I wanted Byron to do this is that Byron thinks like I do. He has the same values. He has the same approach.

So this stuff has stayed consistent at every stop of his career. And to a ridiculous extent, here's Drew Stanton, who played for Bruce Arients with both the Colts and the Cardinals, talking about how that approach has remained consistent over the years. He just believes in a system, and he kind of has this confidence about him that kind of permeates throughout the entire building. Like, from when I first met him in Indianapolis, we had the same exact script for OTA 1 through 15 because he didn't care. It was his stuff. You were going to write it. going to learn it. And it would be like, I mean, you could literally, to a T, go back to the script

that I had in Indianapolis and five years later in Arizona, the same seven-on-seven pass from, you know, that was on there because it was. It was 88 go or, or, you know, 88 bench where the quarterback doesn't have to worry about protection, doesn't have to do anything. It's a max protection. We're going to take a shot down the field. NBA, you know, is notorious for being known for wanting to take shots. Drew says that they had the same installation, essentially every single year, the first 15 plays during OTAs, which I think is kind of wild. Yeah, and I think, you know, I have a good idea of what those 15 plays are.

Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, I think the first play that they would install is probably Trips write 80-go or 88-go, and the number difference is just the protection. It's hilarious that you say that, because in Arian's book, which actually starts with an anecdote about him drinking paint as a child, which is the most Bruce Ariens thing you could possibly imagine. He describes 88 go as his favorite play.

And that's a, it's a max protect look with three vertical routes and the inside receiver either bends the play across the field against a single high safety or takes it deep against a two high safety. And if you watch the completion of Mike Evans last week, the 50 yard one down the middle of the field,

that's the play, which is nuts. That just tells you how much of this stuff translates from season to season. So, Ted, when you're looking at those deeper developing routes, and I know you talked earlier about how he'll just edge things a little bit further, would you say that the overall approach to push the ball down the field with Ariens, is it just the structure? Or do you think that that's kind of coached into his guys about how they're reading

from long to short within the offense? It's definitely part of the structure. So the landmarks in a routes are going to be a little longer. And I think he also coaches his guys. to wait on routes a little bit longer and let things develop. So speaking of those longer developing routes, here's Drew Stanton again. He's got not only a home run section, he's got like a play action shot. He'll try and sneak those deep shots in it and being with him for an extended period of time,

you grew to love it. And he would do it different ways and put different window dressing on it and do all these things. But the concepts are the concepts and being able to better understand what he's trying to do within it. So that was the beauty of it. plan for BA. So we know that the deeper developing routes are a huge part of the Bruce Ariens offense. Some of the things we don't know, though, are that he builds options into that offense to protect his quarterback from getting hit too often as those routes develop.

When I asked Drew Stanton about how he would define a Bruce Ariens offense, he didn't go straight to deep passes or can go hats or any of that. He talked about the control that he gives his quarterbacks with site adjustments and with hot routes. Let's hear from Drew Stanton one more time. Basically, a side adjust is a weak side hot. Okay. Or lack of a better turn.

So, like, you know, you might think that you're good on. Side adjusts is based on. It's called what label as a side adjust in normal down and distance formations. So that seems like a lot on a quarterback's plate, whether it's, you know, having to hold on to the ball a little bit longer. That's a little bit of a different stylistic thing from other ways that other teams play. Or having to have that control with the side adjustments. So when you're thinking about just the overall workload and mental load on

Tom Brady in this offense. What do you think he's had to sift through more than anything else that differs from the approach that he took in New England for all those years? I think first, I mean, you know, he talked about the language difference and how that was a pretty big challenge for him in the offseason picked this up. I mean, just an example of here, here's one play and two different ways of seeing it. For example, like a four verse with a halfback option in New England, he would say gun zero. Girl Flood, Wright, 64, Bender, H.O. In Arian's offense, it'd be Gun Trips, Wright, 66, Jet.

And it seems like a small difference, but when you're doing something for 20 years and it automatically just registers in your brain as one thing, having that extra half-second hesitation is going to be a bit of a difference. And he's probably picked up a lot of it now, but I'm sure there's still a little hesitation that eventually he'll get over eventually. And like we talked about, you know, Ariens once quarterback. to let those routes develop, but that's something Brady doesn't really do. He likes making quick decisions, likes getting rid of the ball.

So just watching him the last couple weeks, there are longer developing routes, but Brady's kind of playing it his way where if it's not there right away, he's going to check it down. But what makes Brady so special is, you know, what separates him from a checkdown captain type of quarterback is he knows, he has a great feel for when to be aggressive. So he can let those routes develop. But he's just not going to do it as much as James Winston did last year.

He's going to check it down. And when he needs to, he'll start letting those longer plays develop. So one of the things that I feel like was not talked about enough coming into the season is just the relationships that Ariens had had with his quarterbacks over the course of his career. If you go read Ariens book or even the things that were written about that 2015 Cardinals team when they were really rolling and even conversations I've had with people over the years, you know, Bruce loves having meetings with his quarterback. the day before the game on Friday or Saturday, and the quarterback will go through the play sheet, and he'll mark his favorite once. And that's just a collaborative effort

that doesn't always exist in every place. And I know they're still doing it in Tampa, even though Bruce isn't the head coach, it's the Byron conversation, but it's collaborative. That's the important thing. There's input from both directions. So when you're thinking about just a middle ground

between these two offenses, beyond Brady just becoming more comfortable with letting those things develop, what sort of aspects do you think fit both Brady's taste and what Ariens likes to do that you feel like can kind of come together as they figure out this partnership over the season. I mean, we talked a little bit about it before, but, you know, Brady loves throwing the running backs and taking advantage of that middle linebacker against running back mismatch. And that's been a big part of Ariens' offense for a long time.

So that's a commonality they both have. I think one thing that they will need to collaborate on, and I think one area where Brady will kind of ejects them of what he knows is when they go no huddle. Ariens hasn't had a quarterback that really went no huddle a lot in his recent years. And as we know, Brady loves going no huddle in New England. They had a very complicated system at the line of scrimmage, language system, where they communicate a lot. I don't know how developed Ariens no huddle system is,

but I think when those two collaborate on that, I think that's where Brady's input is going to be most valuable. I think that you look back at a lot of those Cardinals teams and even some of the stuff they've done already in Tampa, there's a lot of empty. And New England thrived in empty. You think about even that Super Bowl and they beat the Rams, but beyond that, they loved motioning backs out,

having that dictate information to Tom and having him make decisions based on the information. One of my favorite plays that he made against the Panthers last week was a play where Fournette actually motioned out wide in the red zone and then he waited for Fournette to kind of break back in when he saw there was a little bit of a scramble drill and it was a really smart play by Fournette actually.

So that I think is a really good example. But just beyond that, I know he's not as comfortable letting those plays develop, but what you've seen from Brady so far, is there anything physically or with the types of throws on the table for him now that he's either struggled with or you don't think he's going to have an easy time making?

because when I went back and watched that game against Carolina last week, I thought that his arm looked live. I thought that he was making a lot of those throws. And it actually, despite what the box score said, encouraged me about what this offense can look like moving forward. Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, we see Drew Breeze really struggling to make a lot of throws in New Orleans. And I kind of half expected to see that with the Buccaneers after week one and seeing those numbers.

but I didn't really dive into the film. And when I looked at week two, I saw Brady just throwing dimes and making all sorts of tough throws. So I have no reservations about Brady's arms and making the type of throws at Arians wants. I mean, you look at, you know, he made a perfect back shoulder, zipped it to Mike Evans early in the game. It's beautiful. It was a third and six.

He throws an out route, a 12-yard out route from the opposite hash to the opposite sideline. Perfect. So, you know, he's able to make these throws. I think one thing that might be concerning is if he has to take some hits waiting for some routes to develop. But other than that, you know, Brady could physically make all the throws needed in this offense. And I think watching that throw to Evans, that was my favorite one he made last week because that really does illustrate the ownership the quarterback has in this type of offense. When I was talking to Drew Stanton about some of those side adjustments, he was describing to me that it's often the backside receiver in a three-by-one set. So that's exactly what Evans was on that play.

He was the single receiver to that side. And there's clearly a flexibility and freedom when he's the single receiver to go back shoulder on that throw. You saw as soon as he caught it in the end zone, he pointed right at Brady being like, that's it. That's exactly what I needed there. And that's the type of stuff is going to be cool to watch them figure out because that doesn't happen overnight.

Those back shoulder throws, you think about Rogers and Nelson, for example, those take years of working on the timing and the trust. And I really, like you said, physically I think he's there. Mentally, I have so much faith in Tom Brady's brain and how much football he's seen to have those plays show up a lot more often as we keep going through the season. Yeah, and if you watch that Carolina game, they left a lot of yardage on the field too. So his numbers should have been a lot better than what they were. I think there were three blatant drops that could have been big plays in that game,

including that touchdown to Lashon McCoy that he should have caught an end zone. My favorite, I tweeted about this earlier today, the drop by Cyril Grayson down the left side line. I felt it was not a good throw. Brady bent that outside more than he had to, and I think it snuck up on Grayson as a result. But it almost looked like the ball jumped at the end. It hit him in the face.

It's comical. And those are just the sorts of tiny miscues that in the Spock score, that's an incomplete pass and we're going on to the next play. Brady's incompletion percentage takes a ding, all of that. those things I think they'll iron out as we keep going through the year. So all right, Ted, as always, buddy, thank you so much for doing this. And I know I learned a decent amount kind of digging into this. I hope other people did as well.

We'll be back next week with our next edition of Film School. And I appreciate the time. I'll talk to you later. All right, talk to you later. All right, guys. Thank you so much to Joe Thomas. Thank you to Bull Wolf and Zach Berman for coming on and chat about the Eagles. Really fun show.

I had such a good time doing this today. As always, sincerely appreciate you guys listening. please rate and review the show on your podcast platform of choice. Please subscribe to The Athletic. We have a great promo going on right now. Theathletic.com slash football show. I'd really appreciate it. As always, guys, thank you so much for listening.

We will be back tomorrow with Lindsay Jones to preview all things week three. Talk to you later. This was The Athletic Football Show.