The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - The Super Bowl characters who have changed the way we think about them this season

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

Consider what you thought about Saquon Barkley before this season. How about Trent McDuffie? How about Nick Sirianni? Might feel a bit different about them now, right? Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen discussed nine people involved in Super Bowl LIX who have changed the way we think about them this season on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.RundownSaquon BarkleyNick SirianniHowie RosemanVic FangioZack BaunTrent McDuffieJoe ThuneyAndy ReidHost: Robert MaysCo-Host: Derrik KlassenExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeFollow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassTheme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Wednesday at Radio Row, trudging our way through Super Bowl Week. Our big preview is going to be coming a little bit later in the week. Today I wanted to take some time with me and Derek Klasson to just chat about some of the shifting narratives around the main characters involved in this game. The way that we kind of got started down this path is me and Derek were talking about

Sequan Barclay earlier this week and just what Sequin Barclay feels like now, and the way that we're talking about Sequin Barclay, compared to what that discussion might have looked like in August. But if you zoom out a little bit, you can apply the same thinking to a lot of guys who are involved in this game. Vic Fangio has shifted his legacy a little bit this season. What about Zach Bonn and what he is for the Eagles compared to what we expected him to be? So there are so many guys where I feel like what they've done in 2024 has just reframed the way that we think about them. So that's what we're going to do today. We're going to spend some time thinking about how this season has shifted the conversations

around a lot of the biggest players and personalities in this game. So let's get to that conversation with me and Derek right now. All right, Derek, here we go. From the Toyota Studio at Radio Row here in New Orleans. Day three at Radio Row. How are you feeling? It's a long week and this is your first ones. I've just been trying to like intermittently check in with you every so often to make sure you're doing okay.

This is the perfect day to ask me that question because I've realized Wednesday needs to be the like reset day to get through the rest of the week to get through Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night and get to Sunday. So today we're trying to get through our work. We're going to tone it down a little bit. We're going to get through the rest of the week here. Radio Row is always funny. Monday, Tuesday is much quiet. And then when you walk in on Wednesday, you can literally hear the difference in what this place is going to feel like the moment you walk in the door. There's just like a hum of more people in here.

They're more famous people in here. We talked to Roma Dunesay and DJ Moore today. I saw Greg Olson walking around. So the, Brian Curtis always talks about this, how like the stature of the guests increases over the course of the week. And Wednesday is when you really start to feel that a little bit. It's like a ladder that progressively like Monday show is like, okay, it could be anybody. And by Thursday, it's like, all right.

Now the real, the heavy hitters are here when you get to Thursday. You talked to Christian Gonzalez this morning. How'd that go? That was awesome. That was fantastic. I should have pressed him on this. The funny thing about him is every other cornerback in the league is the loudest person you've ever met. And Christian Gonzalez is incredibly mild-mannered. And I should have pressed him and been like, what's your deal on that? Do you think that's a red flag? No, I think it's, he's like, so I forget who I was talking to.

But they said he's the only silent assassin cornerback. And I was like, that's a cool if he could like get that to be his billing. It's actually pretty cool. If you can pull that off and not bring, because I remember that I did that show with Dominic Foxworth earlier this season about just cornerback culture and like cornerbacks in the league and the way that we think about the position. And he was saying you could just know who the cornerbacks are without even talking to people. Just by the way they look, the way they move.

So I wonder if it's an actual prerequisite for being good at the position and we should be a little bit worried about Christian Gonzalez. Coming into the league, I think that might have been a fair argument. Now that we've got two years of tape of him being like in all pro, I'm like, I'm good here. He's fine. Today we're going to talk about the Super Bowl, but in a sort of indirect way. And you and I were discussing this a couple of days ago when we were talking about how we wanted to handle this show. And I think that this is inspired in part by how different the conversation feels about the Eagles now

compared to the conversation we were having before the season. But I also think it applies to some individual players, people, characters that are involved in this game. So what we're going to do today is just run through some of those characters. from this season and how the discussion we're having about them now differs from the discussion we were having about them coming into the year. I think it's going to be really fun. I mean, that is, a lot of the time you do get to the Super Bowl, and it's like, okay, it seems that you expect it to be good, but the thing that actually got them over the line is always

some weird. It's, we're going to talk about these guys, but, like, you need a Zach Bond. You need a random, like, Mackay Bechton thing to work out for you. You need to go revive Vic Fangio's career in a way. Like, do you need all of these things to happen? So I think this is the perfect opportunity to kind of soak in all of that type of stuff. It's going to be a lot of Eagles in part because the story about the Chiefs is similar to the story that we've told before, right? This game, and we'll get to this in our previous show.

It's the same players, same characters, like what can you do? And I think that the thing they'll lay out here, the way I think about Patrick Mahomes now is similar to the way I thought about and talked about Patrick Mahomes coming into the year. The way that I think about Andy Reid now is similar to the way I thought about Andy Reid. coming into the year. With the Eagles, I think that there's been a lot of moving parts because there are a lot of new pieces here. They made so many offseason additions and changes that I think that the way that we think about some of those guys has shifted a little bit. The first person I wanted to talk about, because this was kind of the impetus for doing the episode, because you and I were discussing this earlier in the week, how we think about and talk about Sequin now specifically,

compared to how we've talked and thought about Sequin coming into the year feels very different. And I'm not saying that we didn't conceive of him as a really good player, but I think just the general air around him and his career feels much different now than it did in August. And you said something to me, maybe even yesterday, that I think is a really good entry point into this. And you said, it feels like coming into this season,

based on Sequan's history, what he was as a prospect, what he wasn't of the Giants. he was kind of a what if and now that's gone. Like there's no more what if about what Sequin Barclay can be as an NFL player. And I think that transition is kind of the biggest difference between who he is now and who he was in August. Exactly. Like the thing with Sequin Barclay, we all knew he was super talented. He sparked a million debates because it was like, you can never take a running back that high.

And then if you've ever watched the film and you're like, well, he's kind of insane. So maybe you can. But when he was with the Giants, you had some decent. years, but you never really got to see the peak of like what a number two overall pick at running back should look like. And so even though we all knew he was talented, had all these moments, you still never really felt like you got out of him what we thought we could have. Like not that he was a disappointment. It was just like there was five, 10 percent more here that we could have squeezed out. He had two 1,300 yard seasons and that was it. Right, he was good, but he was,

he was good. And then you just knew that there was still more. And like, obviously his last year in New York really, really did not go well. And people were like, is he starting to hit the wall? that sometimes running backs hit and all this other stuff. So the fact that he was able to be transported to the literal best spot for any running back in the league between the offensive line, the infrastructure with Stoutland, you have a running quarterback who kind of helps you facilitate some of that stuff. You've got two number one wide receivers on the outside who help lift the coverage a little bit. Like it's the ideal place to play running back. And so the fact that a guy that talented got to go play there and now we've, there are no more what ifs.

Like all of the what ifs of like, what if we saw the best of Sequan Barkley? what we have. He had two seasons. His rookie year in 2022, we had about 1,300 yards. And you could kind of feel what he was capable of in those moments. But then again, last year, he averages 3.9 yards per carry behind one of the worst offensive lines I've ever seen. It was a brick wall in the opposite way. It's like, usually the defensive line. The defensive line is supposed to be a brick wall. The offensive line was a brick wall in that case. And so you're sitting there being like, all right, like, I know he's still a good player, but like how good is he in the right circumstances? And it required a little. little bit of imagination. And when you go back to like what he was in 2018, I think that that can be lost in translation a little bit because his career considering what he sort of prospect he was is like a little bit underwhelming. And so when I was thinking about, all right, what he did with the Giants where you got a couple of 1300 yards seasons compared to what he was as a prospect, I was like, all right, how did we really think about him as a prospect? And so I went back to his NFL.com draft profile yesterday. And I was looking at the comp that Lance Zerlind, he does a very good job,

used for Sequin as a prospect, and it was Barry Sanders. Oh, that's it? Yeah. Barry Sanders. And so, again, it's like, I think it's important to remind yourself of how we thought about him coming into the draft. Even if you can Hem and Hall about whether the Giants in that moment should have taken a running back instead of a quarterback, all that stuff, no one was arguing about what sort

of prospect or potential Saquan Bark we had. But when he was in New York, we just never really saw him rise to that level. And so now, going from that being what kind of hovered over him, him to having a 2,000 yard season where you reasonably could have broken the rushing record, you're going to be the offensive player of the year. It's completely transformed what we could reasonably expect from his career overall. If he does this two or three more times, we go from a what-if player to one of the best running backs that we've seen in the last like 15 years.

It becomes a when do we put him into the hall as opposed to like what if. And I think what's so interesting about Barclay is that in a lot of cases when we have these superstar breakouts. It's either a guy who kind of did it from the jump or it can just be some random story and it's like, wow, who knew this guy would break out? With Sequan Barkley, the fact that it was such a long and winding road here and we finally get to the like, it wasn't a collective surprise that he got here. It was a collective, wow, it's so cool that he finally got to do this thing that we all knew that he could do. I think the biggest reminder of how this is all gone. And I think we know this inherently. But every once in a while, it's important to

reminded of it with really stark examples. Situation matters so, so, so much in an NFL context. Like, you think you understand what a guy is where it's like, you know, Sequin's explosive, he's kind of a home run hitter. You know, it's similar to Barry Sanders. It's like it can be an all or nothing thing. Maybe you've got consistency, efficiency, all those things aren't his biggest strong suit. And then he goes into a better situation.

And again, it completely reframes the way that we think about what he's capable of. And I think that's actually a really good point. too because obviously situation plays a ton into all of this. But the other thing in terms of how I'm going to think differently about Barkley, when he was in New York and even back in college at Penn State, it was a lot of hit or miss. He would try to bounce stuff that he probably shouldn't have bounced. And he would kind of run into the back of his guard every now.

And then not to the level of like a bad player like DeAndre Swift had been at certain points where he was. Yeah, I'm sorry. I had to get at least one Chicago jab in there. But it wasn't to that level. It was just like relative to the level of player he should have been. You watch him in Philadelphia and show. the rushing lanes there are very cushy.

They're very nice to run behind, but he doesn't miss anymore. He doesn't make mistakes. He's making the offensive line better. Yes. And I think that that, it's easy to think, all right, he's in this incredible situation now. That's driving some of that success. When I watch this running game, it cuts both ways.

There are moments where his patience and the way that he's seeing things and the way that he's setting up certain blocks, it makes everything else better. And that to me maybe is a little bit surprising. The fact that it flows both ways between the offensive line and him, that's something that over the course of the year, I think, opened my eyes a little bit. That's the thing. If you told me coming into the year, the Eagles would have the most explosive rushing offense because of Seaclawn Berkeley, I'd be like, yeah, of course I can buy that. But then I would ask about what is the down-to-down consistency.

And that is the part of the Berkeley thing, that's how he gets to 2000 instead of 1,500 or whatever it is. You know what I mean? Where it's just like you can feel the floor of the offense raised so much higher, which given how the rest of the offense went and they were trying to piece together this new system, like they needed him to be. be both the floor razor and the ceiling razor, and he was. The other Eagles guy that is a top of mind for me as we have this sort of discussion is Nick Siriani. And the reason I wanted to talk about him specifically is that I've struggled with figuring out how to talk about Nick Serianney as we've gotten closer to this game.

Why do you say that? As you think about what Nick Siriani is for the Eagles, we don't conceive of any other head coach like this. The fact that he's in his second Super Bowl in the last. the last three years. The fact that he has, do you know who has, right now among active coaches? Do you know who has the highest winning percentage among active NFL head coaches? I want to say Lafleur had it at one point, but I don't know if he does anymore.

Okay. The answer is, the answer is Andy Reid. Okay. And Andy Reid has the highest winning percentage among active NFL head coaches. It's like 730 or something. Nick Siriani is second. So Nick Siriani has the second best winning percentage among all head coaches in the NFL currently after Andy Reid.

He's about to go to his second Super Bowl in the last three years. But the way that we talk about him is that he's just kind of along for the ride here. And I get that because of a lot of different factors. You have the best roster in the NFL, arguably. The guy tasked with assembling that roster in Howie Roseman and some of the leadership there, have their hands in more the staff organization and hirings than a head coach typically might in another place. So even the stuff like, oh, he hired Vic Van Gogh. in Kalamore this off season. What a great job of vamping the coaching staff. Even that is something

where maybe we don't give him all of the credit we might give to another head coach. But at a certain point, I think the question we have to ask about Siriani is like, what is a head coach supposed to do? Like what is the job of a head coach that's a CEO type like him? And isn't he doing that job well? Because I kind of think it's undeniable at this point that he is good at certain parts of the job. At a certain point, you can't really quibble with the results. Yes. And like the weirdest part about it is I don't think he's actively bad at his job or anything. Like I don't think he's secretly, you know, holding the team back in any way.

Obviously, he's not. They've been to multiple Super Bowls. But I look at a lot of their success and I look at his job and his former jobs and like how he got to this position. I'm not positive like what he does for the team, which is like I don't. But what would you say? Okay. So that's fine. Yeah.

How is what Nick Siriani does for the Eagles different than what Dan Campbell would do for the Lions? The difference to me is that with Philly, you are walking into an unbelievable organization. You have Howie behind you already. You have Stoutland behind you already. Like the pillars are all there where like Dan Campbell had to build it. That's fine. That I completely agree with, where Dan Campbell had to kind of rebuild what the organization felt like. And we're giving him sort of backlog credit for that.

But in 2020, specifically. When all of that stuff is built, whether you did it or not, and we're just talking about the act of being a head coach for your respective organization, how is Nick Siriani's ability to dictate how the building feels, whether guys want to play, whether guys are motivated, all that kind of stuff. That's what a CEO type head coach is tasked with doing. Doesn't it feel like he's doing that in a pretty good way?

I was just about to say my complication with it was like, A.J. Brown and Jalen Hertz very clearly didn't seem to be getting along at certain point. So I was like, how well is he actually keeping the locker room together? But then I thought back for a second, a lot of the Tomlin era teams, like in the late mid to late 2010s, like they were also pretty spicy in terms of the way that the locker room was working. And so maybe Siriani is closer to that than I have been willing to really think or concede at any point. Zach Berman, who works with Ph.L.Y. now and was it one of our Eagles writers at The Athletic?

He wrote a piece a couple weeks ago about this topic, and it was smartly titled. It was like, what does Nick Siriani do here? Great question. Because I think that's a reason. I think a lot of people are asking that question. And either it was Zach framing it this way or something that Nick had said, where it was when you're in this position with this sort of roster and you have, I mean, literally a former head coach is your defensive coordinator, a future head coach is your offensive coordinator,

and you can task those guys and trust them with handling their individual sides of the ball. in a way you kind of become like chiefs chief vibes officer like that in a lot of ways what nick seriani is tasked with doing in that building and i think when you look at what this team feels like now compared to what this team felt like at the end of last year i think he deserves credit for changing what those vibes have felt like for this organization and getting them back to this place i'm kind of playing devil's advocate to myself here a little bit as i talk myself into this because i don't know exactly where to land on him, but it does feel like we should probably be giving him more credit than we have up to this point. I'm willing to do it honestly. The complication is just like, and again, I really don't mean this in, in a bad way, but it's just like I really have struggled to see what exactly he's putting his fingerprints on. And maybe it is the chief. You wouldn't be able to see that. That's, yeah, that's a good point. I think the complication is usually just like with guys we think of as these CEO types or even Chiefs vibe, chief vibes officers, they are doing the hiring.

And you mentioned this earlier, like, Howie probably has a pretty big hand in, like, who is getting hired at the coordinator spots. And so I do think Siriani obviously has done a good job. And they're a team that feels very prepared. And to Siriani's credit, a lot of other teams could have done stuff like the Tush push beforehand. Like, this is not, in theory, should not be unique to them. Like, other teams could have dove into this and they were the team that found it. So he had. has been able to tap into certain stuff like that. And the game management stuff, I think this year has been sort of a small step back for him.

I think in that regard, if you look at how often they're going for it on Fort Down, how consistently they go for it in the right moments. This year, it's been a small step back. And I think there's been some clock management stuff for him this year. But if you look at his entire body of work, they consistently are doing the right things from a game management perspective. And that's another thing that he deserves credit for because those are his decisions. And I almost wonder if this year specifically,

with some of the toning back the aggression outside of Tush Push, obviously, because that's not even a decision for them. We have the best defense in the league. Yeah, that's it. We have the best defense in the league. Do we really need to feel forced and pressed to do all of that stuff? And you have, not only is Vic Fangio a really good defensive coordinator and put together a really good defense,

it's also been a head coach before, too. And I'm sure he had some ideas in there, too, about like, when do we really need to do this? When do we not need to do this, all that sort of stuff. And I think that, you look at the way the way last season ended and how bad it was. And there was a level of volatility to how this team felt that I think my belief in it was sort of driven by Siriani's own volatility. Like my biggest issue with him, my biggest concern with him is that I think that when you are up and down and up and down as an NFL head coach, it's a hard way to be wired and have consistent success. Because the season is going to pull you in so many different directions.

And if you're somebody who's going to be chirping at fans and doing stuff when you're coming off, field and having it be about you in some of these moments, that to me feels like a recipe for failure. And I think there were a lot of those moments last year specifically where I was like, I don't know if this is going to work long term. And I know he's had some of those this year, but I do think that there's been a little bit of... You've noticed him less. Yes. In like the best way. I think that there's been a level of self-examination from him where it's like, what do I need to do to better withstand the demands of this job? And I think that even if it's been in quiet ways,

I think you have seen some of the ways that that's manifested. Yeah, absolutely. And I think maybe it's just the particular way that it manifests for Siriani with some of the ups and downs. And I was thinking that maybe that's my issue with him. But then when I really think about it a little bit more, like Matt Lafleur on the sideline can be like very up and down in the way that he operates sometimes.

But he's also a fantastic coach. And I've never questioned his ability to do any of this. So even though it manifests differently for him and it looks differently for him, maybe for Siriani, I just need to give him more grace in that sense. And then also, like you said, it's just not been as big of an issue this year where, like, you just don't notice those moments. And he has done a better job of calming down. And again, maybe that's Vic Fangio getting into the building.

Again, a guy who's done this before. Because I think that last year, you know, and this is, we've seen his role change over the last couple years. In 2022, he was the play. He gave that to Stuyken. 22, when Stuyken goes into the year as the full-time play. caller, that was the best version of this team that we had seen. Last year, with Brian Johnson being a first-time play caller, I think Nick felt compelled

to be involved in the process of how they built the offense a little bit more than he had in years past. And I think that some of the other things about being a head coach maybe start to slip a little bit. When you have Kellan Morekman who's done this, he's been a play caller, been an offensive coordinator at multiple different stops, I think you can kind of contract out a lot of the day-to-day procedural stuff with the offense. and I think it's changed his vantage point and his job requirements.

Now I'm back in a place where am I getting guys feeling a certain way, emotionally, mentally, am I getting the team ready to play in the way that I need to? I think that's what he's been able to focus on this year. And I think that's why we've seen such a drastic shift in what the vibes felt like at the end of last year and what they feel like right now. And I think further to that point, too, when they promoted a lot of the 2023 staff,

it was like, okay, we're trying to make sure everything that happened in 2022. We just want to keep it going. Like we're never going to die. Like the line is going to keep going up. We have to keep everything together. And I think at a certain point, kind of like you said, he had to take on the responsibility of really fostering those guys and making sure that those coaches were putting everything together very well.

This year, getting to restructure the entire coaching staff. And like you said, contract out both offensive and defensive coordinator to guys who have done this before who have either called plays for a long time, or Ben head coaches, it probably did take a little bit of a load off of Siriani and let him focus on the things that a head coach needs to do. I don't know how much I believe any of what we just said over the last 10 minutes. I just know that... We needed to talk about it.

Yes. And I think this is mostly... I haven't interfaced with it at all. Correct. And I think that's where I'm at right now is that I just want to reckon with how we talk about him more than we probably have. Because I think there's a tendency and a temptation to be dismissal. because we don't really, his imprint on whatever this team is is not as clear as somebody like

Andy Reid's or Sean Payton's or Sean McVease because of the play-calling aspect of it. And with somebody like Dan Campbell, it's like we saw him rebuild the culture. We saw him hire this staff. And so I don't think it's as cut and dry for somebody like him. But at the same time, you're going to get to a place where you can't really quibble with the results. And so he has to be doing something right. And I think it's just worth examining what that thing might be. And at least every now and then in this job in particular,

you have to find some way to keep yourself honest about the takes. And I think this in particular was very good. All right. Well, let's get to the guys who are in large part responsible for the other areas of success for the Eagles. But before we do that, we're going to take a quick break. All right. The next two guys I want to talk about it,

I think they fall more into the camp of like Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes, Steve Spagnolo, the guys that even if what they're done this year is impressive. I don't know if I've learned that much new about them, but I do think that there are small, kind of subtle things that they've done this year where it's been like, oh yeah, this organization sets itself up for success. And that's kind of the way that I've thought about Howie Roseman and Jeffrey Lurie and their role in all of this. I think we knew that Howie was a good GM and we knew that he was very good at assembling a roster, figuring out ways to pivot, all that kind of stuff.

But what they did this offseason and just their ability to kind of pull themselves back up again, I think it just reinforced how I feel about his ability to kind of consistently find these pivot points. Right? You have 2016, you hire Doug Peterson. 2017 you win a Super Bowl in part because of some of the schematic stuff that Doug was doing. But that was another roster that was probably the best roster in the league year that won the Super Bowl. they bottom out they get all the way back in 2022 with a rebuilt roster where you had to move on from carson wince you found an off ramp there you repeat like rebuilt some areas of the roster the defensive line was like the best defensive line in football then you bottom out again in 2023 and then you come back this off season and find other kind of subtle ways to reimagine the roster again the quarterback is the same but so many aspects that have kind of defined this eagles team are different than the they even were in 2022.

And so I know it implicitly that he is very good at this, but seeing him do it in a slightly different way again, at least reframed a little bit in my mind of what we should expect from Howie Roseman year in and year out. And I think that there are certain parts of this that it's like, okay, the Mackay-Bectin signing, for example, that's a good example of what they've done forever, which is like, we understand what types of players and what types of swings we can make. we have Jeff Stoughton, like, yeah, we can go sign Mackaybeckton and see if that works out for us. The part of it to me that is very interesting is the Eagles are one of the most forward-thinking front offices in the entire league.

Who would have thought that that would be the team that would go and pay Sequan Barkley a ton of money? When all we've been talking about for the last six, seven years was like, you can't pay running backs, running backs don't mean a whole lot, especially if you already have a running quarterback, like, why would you go need a superstar running back? The fact that they kind of had the foresight to be like, well, this player is incredibly talented. We've seen him twice a year for the last four years, five years. We know how good this guy is. What if we drop this guy into our insane offense? And I think the foresight there of understanding exactly how good that could be, I think that is the testament to me that really speaks to like, okay, they've been in this forward-minded,

but they're very willing to look for what is the next step as opposed to just being like, well, passing, passing, passing is going to go up. I think the fact that they had the foresight there was really impressive. There's a level of ingenuity and aggressiveness that I really appreciate. And I think one of the reasons that I've, I think I'm thinking about it in these terms is that I think look at some of the other teams in the league. And I think we just take it as a given that these organizations want to win, that these organizations will do what they need to do to win.

And that's just not the case. Like not every organization is wired where we're going to do whatever it takes for us to go to a Super Bowl or get back to a Super Bowl. This team and this city won one seven years ago, and they are no less hungry to win another one. And I think that some of the things that Howie is allowed to do, whether it's the way that they can spend against the cap and the way that they've structured some of these contracts, he is empowered by ownership.

But the fact that Jeffrey Lurie already has Lombardi Trophy in his atrium or whatever they keep it in the NovaCare Center, and he still wants to do it this badly, and he's still empowering his GM to do some of the things that he's doing, they deserve credit for that. And I think what you could say, a lot of the same things about the Chiefs, like, their ability to reinvent themselves and they're just how proactive they are with the moves that they're making, that's always true, but that's true every year. Like that that's not new information. I think that with the Eagles specifically, I was just reminded of in a slightly different way

because of the Seque One thing, because of some of the other moves they made this offseason. One with the Chiefs, it's like, you have Patrick Mahomes. You, I think any owner could be convinced that we need to go all out every single season if you have the greatest guy who's ever thrown of football. And so the fact that the Eagles have not had that, either during the Carson Wentz era or even during now with the Jalen Hertz era where they've kind of rewired the whole thing, the fact that no matter what, they don't have this one thing that forces them to go in all in every single season, the fact that they're still very willing to do it, make any move that they need to to get there. It is incredibly impressive. What I really appreciate, I think, again, the vision with something like Sequin, they deserve a lot of credit for that. I talked about it all offseason, and I feel like I was kind of vindicated in framing it this way. They bought the dip on running backs.

Yes. Like we got to a place where Sequan Barclay was making the same amount of money as Darno Mooney, and that wasn't okay. And I think the Eagles were more than willing to step in and try to correct that in a way. The two smartest, two of the smartest teams in the league bought the dip on running back. And it worked out in like literally historic fashion for both of them. So that, I think, the foresight and the vision that comes with that, they deserve credit for. The other thing that I appreciate about Howie specifically is that he doesn't throw good money after bad when it comes to correcting mistakes. So they give Carson Wentz that contract.

I think pretty quickly realize maybe we shouldn't have done that. They draft Jaylen Hertz in the second round to give them an off rant from the Carson Wentz thing. And it completely transformed the next three years of their franchise. Even if we can quibble with what Jaylen Hertz is, getting Jaylen Hertz on a second. second round contract and being able to use that as a pivot point. It's a win. It's a win. It's an undeniable win. So that's one example. The other example that I think is specific to this offseason, I think when they did what they did in 2022, there were guys they thought they were going to move on from that they were like, can we really

do this? Or do we want to try to keep this core together? And I think the best example of that is James Bradbury. In a vacuum, I don't think they wanted to pay James Bradbury. But because he was available for a little bit cheaper than they expected, they gave him an extension that almost immediately looks like a mistake. But instead of trying to make that work, he's just like, I'm going to draft two more corners and just give myself every opportunity to smoothly transition away from this. Some of that is possible because the missteps contract-wise on this team matter less because of how they handle the cap. The Bryce Huff thing matters less. The James Bradbury thing matters less. But I still think acknowledging and working

through your mistakes and not doubling and tripling down on them is one of the reasons that this team is able to operate in the way that it does. It absolutely is they, they are a very good team at like, again, they like kind of like you said, they are not afraid of when they make a mistake that they feel committed to it where they're like, oh, we have to see this through. They're like, no, everybody makes mistakes. They're like, we'll throw money at it. We'll throw another pick at it.

And I think they're typically very good at understanding where their issues are and why things are going the way that they're going right. So really, really good way to frame it. Two years ago, they had some of the worst linebacker play in the league. Last year, they had some of the worst linebacker play in the league. And obviously, they lucked into Zach Bonn this year. But two years ago, they had the foresight to be like, okay, we need to fix this somehow. We're going to go draft Nikobe Dean.

Like, just the fact that they're consistently understanding where the issues are. And even with the linebackers, it's like almost like the running back thing where it's like, how valuable is it really? And then I think they've seen this year how valuable that can really be for your defense. So they just typically do a really good job of not feeling committed to mistakes. but also just not having that many holes on the roster because they know, they can see it coming in advance where the issues are. Being able to evaluate your own problems. Your own talent is one of the biggest things you're going to have to do as a general manager.

Because it's so easy to lie to yourself. Absolutely. It is so easy to lie. Because you have so many incentives to lie to yourself. And I think their ability to not tell those lies to themselves and not tell themselves a story about what they really are is a huge driving force behind this. You mentioned Nacobo Dien and the shifting kind of linebacker play for the Eagles.

the shifting feel of their defense this year has been one of the other things I feel like we have to talk about because Vic Fangio is somebody that he's been around for a while right like he's been a fixture in the NFL for as long as I've covered the NFL. He was the Niners defensive coordinator when I started doing this almost 15 years ago. And I think we all kind of understood who Vic Fangio was in like the broader NFL universe. He was a very good defensive coordinator in San Francisco. He goes to Chicago. they have some of the best defenses in the league for multiple years. The 2018 defense is so undeniably good and borderline transcendent

that it gets a 60-year-old defensive coach, a first head coaching job. Do you know how good your unit has to be to justify that decision in 2021? That's the thing in a league where every single team is like, who is the 31-year-old offensive coordinator? I can go higher. And he's the opposite of both of those things. That's how good you have to be as a defensive coordinator. And then beyond just his individual results, you think about the way he shaped how defenses around the NFL feel.

And I know that we've kind of gone away from the Fangio model when it comes to individual defenses. Because there was a time two years ago where six, eight teams were doing that exact thing. Fangio, Brandon Staley, Sean Desai, Ed Donatel. So many teams are just picking off of that tree literally. Teams have stopped doing that, I think, in part because they, they've realized that a lot of the reason for Fangio's success is specific to Fangio and not just the structure. But even if it's not just the guys off of his tree, Mike McDonald is incorporating ideas from what Vic Fangio wants to do with what Baltimore used to be. So his imprint, even if a

little bit less direct, you can still feel it around the league. But even when you consider all of that in totality, his individual results and his influence on the league broadly, I still think we came into the season not totally understanding what Figg Fangio was at this point in his career. He goes to Miami. Everyone celebrates that. It's like, oh, great. You know, you have one of the best defensive coordinators in the league with one of the best designed offenses in the league, like, what can that be? And it falls flat a little bit. Like, they were fine, but he moves on after a year. It clearly didn't work. You had players on that Dolphins team openly celebrating him moving on. There was a mutiny. Yes. There was an actual mutiny.

So I don't think even when you consider all that stuff, it's unreasonable to come into this season being like, all right, what sort of juice does Vic Fangio still have left after 30 years in the NFL? And the way that he answered that was by building arguably the best defense in football this year. So even if- With a bunch of rookies and scrap pieces. Yes. And so I think that is, again, even if we can concede that we know that Vic Fangio is one of the best defensive coordinators in the NFL over the last. last like several decades, I still think that what he has done this year reshapes the way we're probably going to talk about him five, ten years from now when we think about his career.

There were two things about his stop in Miami that made me a little bit hesitant to buy in in that he could get back to like top five play calling type of deal. One, the mutiny that we already mentioned, where players just actively seemed like they were not very interested in him being there. And then the other thing too is if you watch their defense, they were more aggressive up front than Fangio had typically been, especially with his stops in Denver and in Chicago and stuff like that. Like, he's not a guy who wants to send the backer that much.

Like, he'll do it and he has some cool stuff when he does it when he picks his spots. But he's not like spags or where he's just doing this all the time. It's not like that. You saw them send David Long all of the time. And that to me was like, is this a David Long thing? Or is Vic like losing what he thinks is the best way to run this defense? and then you go see what he's doing in Philly and you very clearly see him start to pick the spots better again

and it's like oh he didn't forget any of that at all he knows how to do it now he just has the players that can make this all work the way that he wants it to work and I was reading a story I think Tim McManus wrote at freespan.com about just the influence that Vic has had on the locker room in general and I think he came in and explicitly said like you guys are going to work harder than you've worked previously under me And I think in Miami, that was a bad thing.

And I think the way that they had kind of built the culture there with McDaniel, it was very player-friendly, it was very player-centric, and I think it was a little bit abrasive when you added it to what had already been built there. And based on just kind of reading things from afar, it feels like that approach in Philly is something they needed. That that was actually the way to correct some of the issues that they were having last year. And so they've really taken to his way of doing things. And I think the other thing that really stood out to me reading that story, when we talk about why his success is kind of specific to him, when you hear about like the meetings that they have and how long they are and how detailed they are, I think that is what has really come through in what this defense is.

Like clearly the game plan stuff, the details of it all. And it's he's locked in. It's knowing when to pick your spot. That's what it is with defensive play callers. Guys like Mike McDonald or Spaggs, like people can draw. these plays up. It's knowing when is the right time to do it. When is the right time to call it? When do I need to be more aggressive? Is covered two the right call here? Do we need to be in more quarters this drive? Like Vic Fangio's pulse on it for a majority of his career has been fantastic.

But last year it felt like maybe he lost it. And then this year again, it's just like it's as good as it's ever been. It's just a remind again, it's like this is a guy who had been one of the best defense coordinators in the league for a really long time. You wonder if he's getting near the end. And this year has just been a very emphatic representation of the fact that he has not near the end whatsoever. He still got his fastball in a big way. Somebody that has not had that kind of earned benefit of the doubt or earned equity coming into this season was Zach Bonn. We thought we knew what Zach Bonn was based on his time in New Orleans. He signs with this team for a million and a half dollars to be a camp body, a rotational edge player. Which tells you that

Zach Bonn thought he knew what Zach Bond was. Yes. My favorite thing about the Zach Bonn transformation. And we've talked about this a lot this year, but you can't do this show without talking about Zach Bond. They signed Devin White for twice on the open market what they signed Zach Bond for. So I don't even think the Eagles understood what they were potentially getting in Zach Bond. So you have a guy who is a complete afterthought for the Eagles offseason plans for the free agent market that is now a first team all pro and in the conversation at times this year for a defensive player of the year. It's hard to change the conversation about yourself more than that in a given season. More than literally changing positions and like moving away from

the ball and like he just, I would really want to know what was the exact moment where Vic Fangio was looking at his depth chart, looking at maybe Bonn on the practice field. Yeah, something he did. Yeah, where he was just like, we should move you back a little bit. You're kind of decent moving backwards instead of forwards. And obviously they still put him on the line, which is what he had done in New Orleans and stuff. like that. They'll use packages like that. That's the value of a guy like Bond. But just again, it kind of goes back to so much of Philly's whole deal as an organization is the foresight. For Vic Fangio to come in and pretty immediately get to camp with the guy he's never worked with before and have the foresight to be like, yeah, we can just change in positions and it'll work out for us.

And obviously, I don't think they knew he would be an all pro. But the fact that they knew that he could fix what should have been a weakness on the roster with a guy that they did not sign to play that position, it's unbelievable. It was apparent immediately. Yes, he was immediately. Like week one, you were like, Week one, you watch him move and it's like, holy shit. And to me, one of the biggest, the most important things about this is that when they signed

Devin White, I understand low-cost dice roll on a guy who was a top five pick and is an explosive presence within your defense. But when you think about what Zach Vaughn has been for them specifically, like the skill set he's added to the defense, it's very, very different. than even what the best version of Devin White would have brought to your defense. What Zach Bonn has done moving backward, what he's done in coverage, how disciplined he is against the run. It's hard to build a linebacker's skill set that is more disparate from what Devin White was,

even at his best, than what Zach Bonn has been for the Eagles this year. You need the coverage stuff, and that's why this is so confusing. A lot of Vic Fangio's other linebackers have been good to grade in coverage. And so the fact that he had the foresight to take a guy who does not play in coverage because he was an edge player and be like, yeah, that guy will be good for us dropping back into the hook and like carrying the seam, making sure our safety has time to get over the top of stuff. It's just all of their foresight to do it. And honestly, the way that Bond took to it, like how smart he's been. Like you said, he's playing the position as if he's done it for six years. Yeah, he looks like mini Fred Warner and he's done it for like three months.

Exactly. It makes no sense that he was able to step into that role because what do we? say about linebackers coming into the league? And so obviously he's been in the NFL, so it's a little bit different. But like, linebackers coming in, we're like, oh, it's going to take a while because you're playing run and pass. It's a hard position. And for him to pick it up immediately, it's like, in a defense that puts a lot on their linebackers, it's like, how did you do it? That's my question. How did you do this? Like, how did you develop this sort of feel in this short a period of time? Whatever the answer is, it has transformed what this Eagles defense has been all year. And legitimately, like,

has a potential to have a real impact on whatever happens on Sunday. Absolutely. All right, we're going to take one more quick break here, and then we are going to get back with the Chief's side of this conversation. First Chiefs guy I wanted to throw out somebody you wanted to talk about as part of this discussion, and that is Trent McDuffey. So when you're thinking about Trent McDuffey now

and the way that you're conceiving of him, how is it different than the player that you would have been thinking about in August? So I think Trent McDuffie, when they drafted, him and very early on his career, you could tell that he was like, before Trent McDuffie got there, the Chief's defense wasn't good. And they didn't really have an attitude. It was just like spags every now and then he'd come up with a gameplay and that was incredible. When McDuffie got there, it was like, oh, this guy kind of embodies the new attitude that they want to play with, some of the new blitzes they want to bring, really like building the spine of the defense through him at the nickel.

I think the fact that they came into this year being like, oh yeah, we can let Sneed go. We're just going to move Trent McDuffie to the outside and it's going to be fine. I didn't conceive of him as the pivot point for what their defense was going to be. I didn't know who the pivot point was going to be, but I really did not expect it to be the guy who has been like an all pro level nickel for them. The fact that they were just like, yeah, we'll move him and it'll be fine. And their defense can play not quite as good as last year, but still better than every other year in the Spaggs era before the last season. So I just really didn't conceive of him as the outside guy who would be their pivot point as a defense. The fact that he stepped up into that, it's just, he always adds something to

his game every year. And the fact that he's been able to do this has been incredibly impressive. They have so many bodies on the back end. And I think being able to get your five best guys out there, it becomes easier when you can just slot McDuffie into one of those outside spots. Because coming into the year, it's like, all right, is Chamari Connor in the slot the best option for this defense? The answer probably would have been no. But as you go through the season, because of some of the injuries to the outside corners, being able to find those pivot points and Trent McDuffie being the guy who makes them possible, it's transformative. It becomes one of the biggest factors in them becoming what they're able to be by this point in the season. Yeah, every unit,

offense, defense, whatever it is, you're going to go through these transitions of change. And like, again, I just, I knew Spagnola would have something where he could figure this out. I just really did not conceive of it of the. Trem McDuffie's great. He's a little small. I, I, really did not expect them to be able to put them on the outside, especially in a defense where pretty much for as long as Spagnolo's been there, they're drafting the six three guys. They're getting six two guys who want to go punch you on the outside and McDuffie will hit and he'll punch. But at the end of the day, it's harder to get away with some of the stuff that Sneed was doing, who was significantly bigger. So again, it was just, it was never a change that I conceived of.

And the fact that it's worked so well is a testament to him. It's a testament to Spagnolo's vision. It's just, they have become such a well-run unit on that side of the ball, in part. because obviously Chris Jones is the star. Chris Jones is getting closer towards the end of his career. McDuffie's going to take over as like the face of the defense. And this was a great year to really start to jump into that. The other Chiefs player I want to talk about as part of this conversation is Joe Tuny. Because he's somebody that's been a fixture of this organization for the last few years.

But I do think that what's happened over the last month or so is going to change the way that we talk about Joe Tuny as part of the Chief's dynasty. because of what's being asked of him right now. And it's not the biggest deal in the world, but I'm just imagining like five, ten years down the road where we're thinking about these individual chiefs teams. And when we're talking about the 2024 team, especially if they win it,

he's going to be a big part of that discussion in a way as simple as like, hey, remember that stretch in the 2024 season when the chiefs just moved Joe Tunney to left tackle for like six games and helped him win the Super Bowl? he's been one of the best guards in the league he's one of the highest paid guards in the league he's been a member of two dynasty type teams

but what he's done over this last month and a half I still think has reshaped the way that we are going to think about his career and I think that says a lot considering he already was one of the most important pieces in what this team has been able to accomplish it's similar to the McDuffie thing where it's like okay I know that he's great

I didn't imagine him as the pivot point for our left tackle situation is horrendous. How do we fix it? I was just like, well, you have a quarterback who's to go to mitigating pressure, and I'm sure you can chip and stuff and do all that, and Andy Reid will come up with something, or they'll sign a guy off the street. And they tried to do that with DJ Humphreys, obviously. I just didn't imagine that Tooney would be the guy who would step in for them.

And I know he played a bunch of positions earlier in his career and obviously in college, but still. But still to do it this late in a pinch, one, this late into his career. and also this late into the season. Like, I can't imagine that this is something they practice consistently. For them to just throw him out there and him to obviously be their best guy. And for the line overall to be better, like, I usually am hesitant when it's like move your best line in somewhere else to fix a problem. Especially when you're moving two guys.

Right. When you have two new pieces, especially this late in the game, that would make my skin crawl in a lot of other situations. This is the best solution for that. It felt like you were going to create more problems than you were solving. Yes. And that obviously has not been the case. And it's just, it's a testament to what he can do. It's a testament to Reed being like, okay, well, this, we're going to try it.

We're going to see if this actually does make everything better. And it's still not a perfect offensive line, but it is significantly better than what they were working with beforehand. And so my biggest worry was, what is the run game going to look like if you do move touny? And I do think it's been a little bit worse since they moved him to tackle. But what you're getting out of protecting Mahomes, the most important player on the field, has certainly been worth it. if you have to step in because of injury and you have to kind of throw together a solution, that's one thing. The fact that now everybody is healthy and they have still decided this is their best chance,

that says so much about this guy specifically. That is a lot to put on him in the most important games of the year. And the fact that they've still been willing to do it, again, it just changes the way we should think about his career. And I think it says something about Andy Reid too, where I think a lot of coaches, kind of like you're talking about, when everyone gets healthy, okay, let's default back to what we did for the first 13 weeks of the season, because that's what I know. But Andy Reid is so good at this that he's like, no, Tuni's fine, I trust him.

We're going to figure this out. This has been the best thing, even if I've only seen it for four weeks. Like their ability to understand, like, you know what, we're good enough, we're going to figure this out and let him do that. I think it's been really cool. So it's funny that you mentioned Andy Reid because that's where I want to wrap this up. When we think about some of the other main players in this Chiefs dynasty, I don't think I've really changed the way I think about them over the course of this season. Mahomes, Spagnolo, Chris Jones, Travis Kelsey, we know what they are.

And this season has been really no different in that regard. I think that they've kind of run up the score on their individual. It feels like a rerun. Yes. Like I think that they've just thrown more stuff on the pile of greatness we've come to expect from them. Maybe this is a me-specific thing. and maybe I wasn't paying enough attention to what Andy Reid was doing before.

But I think with the Chiefs offense specifically, it's really tempting to look at this and say, well, they have Mahomes. Well, they have Mahomes. Well, they have Mahomes. It wouldn't be hard to be a great offensive coach with Mahomes. But what the Chiefs have done, really that, and we've talked about this a bunch,

that Texans game. Week 16 Texans game, watching that game planning and such a good Texans defense, I was just like, oh, yeah. Like Andy Reid and this offensive staff are so good at this, so good at devising these little details about game plans where you're really stressing what can be even really good defenses.

And watching what they've done from that game to what we saw from them in the AFC championship game has just been such a forceful reminder about what Andy Reid is capable of. And I think if you look back, let's trace this over like a seven-year period. when you go back and think about like the 2017 chiefs who were one of the best offenses in football, by the way, with Alex Smith, or even some of the teams before that, where they didn't throw a touchdown to a receiver for an entire season and still had an above average offense.

You can count on one hand how many offensive coordinators could get away with that. They had to do so much by design and structure and again details back with those versions of the offenses. And then we take a little break from that in like 2018 through 2021, where they become this team capable of throwing for 50 touchdowns and 5,000 yards and it's this firework show every single week. And then over the last couple years, as the offense has returned to a place where it's a little bit more surgical,

I think that Mahomes has gotten a lot of credit for what that transition has felt like. I don't think, and maybe, again, maybe this is just me, I don't think we've been quick enough to return some of that credit back to Andy Reed. And I think what we've seen from this offense over the last month and a half, and especially in the AFC championship game, whether it's the diamond formation stuff, them stealing that essentially wholesale from the Ravens and incorporating that into what they are, whether it's the shift in Xavier Worthy's usage where he went from being this vertical threat early in the season to now being this kind of eye-candy piece that is really dictating a lot of things they're capable of on offense.

Andy Reid deserves credit for that. This offensive staff deserves credit for that. And I think it's been easy to throw so much of this on what Mahomes is capable of that I personally have not thought enough about how Andy Reid has driven what the chiefs are right now. I think, and I'm guilty of this too, what I'm about to say, it feels like when Mahomes first got there in 2018, well, that was the first year he played. It felt like it was like, oh, it's the Mahomes and Reed show.

Because it was a fireworks show, like you said, they were doing a lot. of super cool stuff with Kelsey. Obviously, he was capable of more stuff at the time. They had Tyreek Hill who could do all this crazy stuff because he was a unique player. And you really felt Andy Reid's stamp on the game. I think since they've become a more boring offense since Tyreek Hill left the building, we've talked so much about like, oh, Mahomes's ability to be the boring quarterback now. And we're like, oh, Mahomes has developed. He's become Brady and all this other stuff. A lot of the conversation has been about Mahomes. And I think we and myself included have kind of forgot like, well, Mahomes' job is kind of made relatively easy because Andy Reid does such a

good job with the details and making it easy for him and making sure he has answers versus the blitz and in the flat and like, you know, just giving that extra half a foot in a window because you stretch the guy out with motion and stuff like that. Like he just does an unbelievable job with that stuff. I think when Mahomes took over, we started thinking of it where Mahomes was kind of fueling Andy Reid's greatness, right? It was flowing one direction. And I think this year, has been a reminder that it's circular. It flows in both directions. They're feeding each other,

and they're pushing each other forward. And I think it's been easy to forget that simply because of how dominant Mahomes has been. But that AFC championship game and just some of the other wrinkles that we've seen from this team over the last couple months, whether right or wrong,

has just been a reminder to me that, like, oh yeah, Andy Reid is really, really good at this stuff. Between the Joe Tuny stuff, their answers against man coverage, And then like you mentioned, they're very quickly with Xavier Worthy being like, oh, he's not the player we thought he was when he drafted him. But that's fine. We'll find a new way to use him.

Like, that's just for Andy Reid to immediately figure that out. It took Sean Payton two seasons to do that with Marvin Mims. Andy Reid did it over the course of one year with Xavier Worthy, which again, just another testament to what he can do. And now we get two weeks to game plan for Andy Reid, figure out how he wants to deal with this Fick Fan Gio defense. We're going to dig into all of that later in the week when we do our big Super Bowl preview show. that's going to be coming your guys' way on Friday on the Athletic Football Show feed.

We've got plenty of stuff coming to you from a bunch of different directions all week. We have our live streams coming to you from Radio Row every single week or every single day, 5 p.m. Eastern on the Athletic Football Show YouTube channel, the Scoop City YouTube channel, the Athletics YouTube page. So if you've not been checking out those shows, you can either catch them live at 5 p.m. Or they're just on the YouTube channels now. So please go check those out if you have not been watching them. We would sincerely appreciate that. For now, that's all we got.

We'll be back with our preview show on Friday. I appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you soon.