The Ringer NFL Show - The Eagles Win the Super Bowl LII Shoot-out, and Nick Foles Is the Super Bowl MVP | GM Street (Ep. 234)

Episode Date: February 5, 2018

The Ringer’s Mike Lombardi and Tate Frazier break down the Eagles' win over the Patriots in Super Bowl LII and discuss what the Patriots could’ve done better (02:15), trick plays by both teams (06:00), and what’s next for Nick Foles after winning Super Bowl MVP (25:05). Then they hand out awards for the game (31:20) before taking fan questions (38:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of GM Street is brought to you by Seatkeek. It is the best app for buying and selling tickets to sporting events, concerts, and more. For $20 off your first Seatkeek purchase on any game or sporting event, all you have to do is use the promo code, Ringer NFL. Download the Seatkeek app or go to Ckekeek.com now. Welcome to GM Street part of the Reinger Podcast Network. It is Sunday night. It is Super Bowl Sunday, and the Philadelphia Eagles are going to Disney World.

They are the world champions, and I'm joined by Michael Lombardi. Lombardi, how you doing? I'm good. You know, we were giving them a lot of, lot of stuff all year about planning the parade route. Well, now it's come true. The parade is going to happen on Broad Street. I mean, congratulations. It was a great game. They deserved it. They played exactly kind of how I thought they would play. They continue to convert thirds and six at an astronomical rate. They just make those plays. And it was a great game. And New England,

really, at the end of the day, Tate Fraser had no answer at all for the Philadelphia offense. And we talked about it leading in on Friday Focus before the game. We said, what did the Eagles do? Doug Peterson do. They play left-handed and they are aggressive and they're always on the attack. And the things that you had to watch out for is when they got conservative is when they got away from who they were as an Eagles team. We saw it against the Seahawks and they've gotten back on the horse at the Rams and ever since then they've been rolling and tonight they did it again. And I think this is a little misconstrued because people will view this game as the turnover takeaway battle was even that Philadelphia committed one turnover and New England committed one

turnover. Not really the case. Okay. Philly won the turnover takeaway battle, plus too. The miss field goal is a turnover. I don't care what stats you look at, how you play it. It's a missed, that's a turnover. They turned that ball over. And then when they went for it on fourth down, and they didn't make the fourth and downplay, the play right, the play after the Brady pass play that it was overthrown, that's a turnover. So there's two times that they had the ball. They turned it back to the Eagles without punting. Remember what I said the beginning of the on Friday. I said this. The Patriots can't lose this game punting. They can lose the game turning it over. And those three

turnovers were the difference in the game, along with all these other things we're going to talk about later. But to me, that was the essence of the game. And it was very uncharacteristic of the New England Patriots when we started this game. And we're going to jump to one specific play, and then we're going to work our way back throughout the whole game and how it all kind of played out. But I want to talk about the Miskowski is a guy that's dependable. No one ever thinks about Stephen Gaskowski having to miss and that being an issue with this team. But early on, we have the Misfield goal. We hit the Up Right. If you had that prop back, congratulations.

I'm sure Cousin Sal had it. I know he had to have it. I mean, you know, did Pinko two minutes or over? Under, the under. She was under, wow. Cousin Sal recorded it recorded it. It starts on the first word. It doesn't start when the music plays.

Okay. That's what I learned today. Thank you for clarifying. And then Peyton Manning was only in one commercial. I would have lost that bet. What commercial was he in? You were looking at your computer. He was in, I don't even know what it was.

And then, of course, Eli and Ferris Bueller were. Because God knows, I mean, why wouldn't we have a commercial for a giant, what were they, three and 13, have two of their marquee players in a company. They're coming back. It makes sense. Pat Schumer and the Giants are coming back. Anyway, I think when you look at this game, I think the Patriots, because they could never get off the field on third and six or more, never got control of the game.

They never could get control of the game. They were never out of the game, but they could never get control. And I think what you talked about, the special teams, to me, this is an area that New England always dominates against most teams they play. today their special teams lost the battle. Even at the end of the game when they tried that kind of end around, the kind of different play, the Eagles were ready for it. Deanne Lewis throwing it back to Burkhead.

Yeah, I think it was pretty clear that the Eagles won that phase. And the Eagles' offense dominated the Patriots defense. They won that phase. So they've won two of the three phases you're going to win the game. And they made one play on defense for Tom Brady, which let me say this. I mean, it's an incredible win for Philadelphia. I mean, it's great for the city. It's going to be unbelievable.

There will be, I live in Ocean City, and I would probably say there's going to be 3,000 Eagle Flags within a 10-block radius of my house, right? I'm going to, I told Millie that we may have to sell the house. I don't know if I could really deal with it, but you'll probably get tired of the chance. The entire Barry family lives next door to us. They wear every Eagle guard, every Eagle Flyers, Sixers, Villano. I mean, it's just going to be brutal. But I'll handle it. It was a great game.

I really enjoyed it because I thought it went the way, you know, we talked about. it right after they beat Minnesota. I said it was a horrible matchup for the Patriots, and I think it proved that to be right. And we're going to talk about that matchup, and the buzzword of the day, and we heard it probably 15 times during the broadcast was RPO. It's all Chris Collinsworth and Al Michaels wanted to bring up and what the Eagles were doing.

But the mismatches that they had on that Patriots defense, it was almost a 7-on-7 game at one point. It was just back and forth. You compared to tennis. It was trying to hold serve. Yeah, it was. And I think the RPO's great. You can talk about that all you want. But the reality of the RPO's, that highlighted was the lack of

athleticism in the Patriots' back end, especially at linebacker. And covering the width of the field was really a problem for them, which is what we talked about. You have to cover the width and you have to defend the middle of the field. They weren't fast enough on defense. Look, the Patriots played three playoff games. You know, they got that one turnover against Nick Foles, but that was almost, you know, that was almost a great catch by Alshon Jeffrey. So, you know, their speed on defense was always a concern going into this game. And they did not play a typical Patriot game. They didn't win third and six or more.

They had to do that. They didn't win the turnover, take a battle. They didn't do that. They didn't play really good on red zone third down. They didn't do that. They knew all the trick plays were coming. You know, this really was almost reminiscent of a Big 12 game. You know, Oklahoma playing Texas Tech. Actually, the Nick Foles touchdown pass, we saw that. Oklahoma ran that against, I think Oklahoma ran it in the Rose Bowl, right? I know Clemson ran it with Tage Boyd years ago.

I mean, that plays great call. I mean, an awesome call, the right call, because I think people, Peterson knew three points were really not relevant. And you were talking about the trick plays, so I don't talk about the two trick plays in this game. One did work out and one did not work out, and they were both on fourth down. The one that did work out was the one you just mentioned with the Eagles. When Clement gets the ball tosses it back to our boy, Trey Burton, who we pointed out, may throw a pass in this game, former quarterback at the University of Florida,

Tim Tebow, Akrleit, or whatever it is, he throws a touchdown to Nick Foles, Nick Foles makes the catch. And that was a gutsy call from Doug Peterson, because on fourth down there, you're thinking they may even try to draw them off sides or something, but I said they may this unbelievable call and they get the touchdown. It's a great single-wing play. It was different than Oklahoma because in this sense, Mayfield didn't have to hand the ball off, right?

So what happens is because he motioned out. Now, some people think the receiver was lined up off-field and didn't cover up the tackle. I couldn't really tell that. I thought he did. But what happens is by him motioning out, okay? Now all of a sudden he's still the quarterback, but there's nobody in the defense that has them.

You know, like, so what happens is, I got 81, you got 82, I got 15. You know, that's everybody's calling out. I got, but when the quarterback's not the quarterback, nobody has them. And that's what makes the magic of the play. Unless you have a QB spy. And no one's spying. And they were spying that play. When they moved in, they thought they were going to get some inside run. Now, you know, really what should have happened, New England probably could have called timeout. But I mean, look, Philly won that game because New England never could get control from the first, third and 12. They couldn't get control of the game. And it proved to be, it proved to be their downfall. And it was like they didn't have. an answer. They wanted to play zone. They wanted to play Matt. Look, we started this out. We really didn't cover the Malcolm Butler thing. You know, Malcolm Butler didn't play. Would that have made a difference? I don't know. You've got to believe Malcolm Butler did something last night, whether he missed

a curfew, whether he did something that caused this to happen. Because if Malcolm Butler was going to play a limited amount, and Johnson Batamosi ended up playing in the game, and he was in there quite a bit, it was because he did something that motivated this action.

And we saw Butler a couple times on the sideline, he's visibly upset, at least before the game, we saw that he was visibly upset. So that was a whole separate storyline. I want to talk about another guy in the secondary that really stepped up a little bit for the Patriots. Early in this game, Alshon Jeffrey, he scores the first touchdown along pass from Foles to sort of set the tone for them. And then he has another great catch on a wheel route that's basically the kryptonite for the Patriots defense. But Gilmore gets matched up to him late in that game and pretty much shuts him down in the second half. But then other guys.

Yeah, Aguilar started making plays and then Tori Smith caught the ball. I thought the Eagles did a remarkable job of not drop. Eagles typically, last year, dropped a lot of passes. This year they caught the ball much better. You know, Mike Row, the receiver coach, they did a really good job of catching the ball much better this year. But I think when you break down what happened in New England was they could never get any way to stabilize their defense. They couldn't play coverage. They couldn't play the inside run.

And look, big plays was the downfall. We knew Philadelphia was a big play offense. We know that they have a lot of third and sixes. They're seventh in the league. But they convert them. what happened in the first half. Rose got the guy covered. Can't make a play on the ball.

Jeffrey's touchdown, you know. And so they could never get it handled. And there was never really an answer. I mean, I don't think, to be honest with you, Tate Frazier, I'm not sure that Nick Foles really, I mean, I've seen him get hit a couple times in the game, but he was never really rushed to like you said, oh, my gosh, he's got to get rid of the ball. I never did.

I mean, and really, this is why the Patriots, if the Patriots can't get control of the game with their offense, they never get control of the game with their defense. And we were talking about it. front for the Patriots. I mean, Malcolm Brown was a guy that they were trying to get some sort of leverage on the inside to get a pass rush up the middle to give some sort of problems to make holes. And until the end of the game, there were no sacks in this game. They put Trey Flowers in there. They covered him up over Kelsey. They couldn't get anything. They went to that odd look and then then they ran the ball in third and six. I mean, they played chess very well with New England.

And New England didn't have an answer because New England could never get off the field. I mean, I think they were 10 for 14 on third down in this game again or 10 for 16, whatever they were. and the last third down, they basically ran it for the field goal. So look, they played it exactly. Look, if you were a Philadelphia fan and you gave them the ball back, Tom Brady the ball back with 220 to go in the game, you're thinking you're going to lose the game, and their defense made the one play they had it made at the right time.

And New England had to play perfectly, and they didn't do it. And let's talk about the setup. So we get to halftime. They have the Trey Burton touchdown. The trick play to Nick Foles. So we go 22 to 12 in the half. The Patriots deferred the kickoff. They get to ball to start the second half.

And you know, you were talking about you listen to Philadelphia or radio coming in and they seem to be settled on the fact that, hey, three and out, we get the ball back, and score a touchdown, we steal this game up. But Tom Brady and the Patriots come down two minutes, 15 seconds, and score a touchdown. Yeah, I never thought in the first half the Patriots weren't out of the game. I thought that they were, their trick played it and

Phillies did, right? And they missed the field goal and Philly made theirs. And Tom Brady was wide open. If Danny could have made the pass, we're wide open. Yeah, I mean, they've run that play before. That's a trick play they run before. And it's had success. It's worked. And Tom's kind of usually just cradles the ball. in. And this time he kind of just, I thought he jumped too early on it. But I didn't think in the first half they were out of the game. I thought that they, I thought that they would do a better

job in the second half of getting control of the game, especially on third down. You know, they get, I mean, they had, when you have over 600 yards of offense, again, here's another typical Philadelphia game. You got 600 yards of offense. That's great, right? You got 600 yards of offense. You only have the ball 26 minutes. That's remarkable in terms of what you did. But the problem is you have three possessions where you didn't get anything out of. You didn't punt the whole day. You turned the ball over three times. That cost you the game. And you were saying before we went into this game, the whole aim of the Patriots, right, is to keep that Eagles defense 30 minutes on the field. That was the idea heading into the game. And they were, they were

revitalized and ready to go late in that game. And the Falcons last year, we saw them where, the wear and tear on that game really got to them, especially once we got to overtime. But this Eagles defense, they kept coming. And then, of course, we see the Brandon Graham Stripzack and and the rest of history. I thought that was really, I thought that when they started that drive, I thought they would run it on the first down call and they threw it to Gronk. I thought the second down call they should have run it to go to the two-minute warning to kind of get control of the game a little bit because what New England couldn't do in that

situation was score too soon either. And I thought at the end of that, before Philly scored with the Zachert's touchdown that Collinsworth thought wasn't a catch, I mean, I don't understand that at all. Like that's a catch a thousand times. Like I don't even know why we spent five minutes going to that. that point to me, New England started blitzed on that series because New England figured they're either going to make a play or they're going to get the ball or they're going to get the ball back

because they give up a touchdown. That's really, that was their logic on that. That worked in the Carolina game. We talked about that with Cousin Sal. It didn't work in this game. Yeah, and you talk about the urge touchdown. We might as well bring it up right now. I mean, we're sitting there.

We're on a third and six. The classic Nick Foal situation, it seems like this whole Eagles offense is going to be third and six or pass that and they're going to figure it out for some reason. but Zach Herc makes the catch, he dives, puts the ball across. He gets compared to the Jesse James play with the Steelers. Which I didn't see, like, I didn't see any of that. Like the ball, he extended the ball out.

The ball is a piece of glass. Once it touches the glass, it's over, right? He ran with it for three steps. Like, I don't even understand why it took so long to do that. Like, it made no sense to me whatsoever. But, you know, I guess they needed more commercials to run them in there. I mean, I felt bad for Roger Goodell because now he's going to have to answer this whole catch rule again, especially if they overturned it.

it would be a whole other thing. I thought to be honest with you, if they would have overturned the Clement one, I would have said I got it. I don't agree with it, but I got it. But if they would have overturned the Ertz one, I would have said, no, there's no way. See, to me, this was, again, this was a game about pace. And as the game was narrowing down, neither team could get control the pace because New England could get off the field. I mean, we saw New England on fourth and two. They couldn't get off the field. I mean, how many times in the game did Philly have to go for it on fourth down? And they were successful. I mean, that the, the, I mean, really, when New England goes back and watches this tape,

it might be one of the worst defensive performances they've ever had. But it was a horrible matchup. They had no answer. They couldn't make them play left-handed because they played the unconventional swordsman. And you said that as we were watching the game, you were trying to put it out there, as they're making this run when they're going down, that led to the Earth's touchdown, that drive for the Eagles,

you were saying at this point, you might as well just blitz them as hard as you can and just see what happens. Just throw the house at them and just see if foals reacts in any sort of way. but they couldn't get any pressure up the middle. They couldn't do anything. I mean, look, Philadelphia exploited New England in the right way. New England's slow on defense.

New England has no speed on defense. They don't. They just don't. That's why they don't turn the ball over. The indicator for whether you have great speed on defense is always how many fumbles do you force. You know, it's the theory. You know, speed and power hits somebody and the ball comes out. And that's what New England doesn't have.

They don't have speed on their defense. They don't run fast enough. And then I thought this was one of the worst tackling games New England could have ever had. Because all that space plays they had to make out there, they didn't make any of them. They really, you know, what looked like a three-yard game became a six-yard game. And that stuff wears on you. And this is one, I think, I mean, Philly's never going to forget this. This is a great, great win for Philadelphia.

It's a great win for the city of Philadelphia. It's a great win for Doug Peterson. It's a great wing for Jeffrey Lurie. I think Howie Roseman deserves great props for what he did. I think you could see all the moves. but I think more this is going to be a really heartfelt loss for New England because they lost in a game that of all the games that they've lost, right? You could easily say the two giant games could have gone the other way.

If Welker's, if Brady throws the ball to Welker in the seam that he overthrows them against the game in Indianapolis, they win. Games over, right? If Asante Samuel catches the out route. I know you're going to bring this up, yeah. Okay, that's games over. Okay, so there's a couple plays. And in those games, they never really didn't have control the game, okay?

Field position destroyed them. I think Steve Weatherford should have been the punter, should have been the MVP of the game, not Eli. But then who would be doing commercials now? Okay. So those two losses that they had, those were legitimately, you could say, it could have gone either way. This game, I just think they never had control of it. They were beaten today by a team that was their worst nightmare. And the guy that was the face of their nightmare was Nick Foles.

and he just came out that he was the Super Bowl MVP. Had to be, right? And has an incredible playoff run. And his third down playoff run, he's 10 for 14 against Minnesota. He threw, you know, he only threw three incomplete passes on. I mean, it's really remarkable what he's been able to do. And this is going to carry over into the offseason. Yes, he's under contract.

We know that Eagle fans. But he's the Super Bowl MVP who's playing on a team with one of the best young quarterbacks in all of football. Okay. that's a valuable chip to have. And there's a lot of teams in the quarterbacks. We should say we saw Carson Wentz five times. So if you made that prop back, congratulations. Carson Wentz was showing a lot tonight.

We knew that was going to come tonight. But now we're in a situation where you have a Super Bowl winning quarterback on your roster that's going to come back for not so much money. And then you have Carson Wentz, who is obviously the franchise for the Philadelphia Eagles. And you have this bargaining chip where there are going to be a lot of teams making phone calls because they want the Super Bowl MVP to be on their team next year. And that gives them leverage. to possibly turn that into draft picks or, you know,

prime time player, whatever it is. But the Eagles are not just Super Bowl champions. They now have a lot of bargaining power going on. They got a good young team. I mean, look, they got a really good young team. I mean, they pieced it together. The guys made plays. They've got them all under contract.

I mean, they got a good young team. And they added the right veteran people. I mean, Blunt was outstanding today. We should say, yeah, LaGaree Blunt and Chris Long, those two guys that were former Patriots last year came into this game and had impressive performances. And I mean, look, they did exactly what they had to do. they didn't they didn't bow down to the pressure of the game the game wasn't too big for anybody i think

too much people make too a too big of a deal out of the game getting away from the guy great players guys who've been there before they understand it but but going back to new england tape fraser this is going to be one that's going to be a hard one for them to swallow for a long time josh mcdaniel's going to become the head coach in nianapolis patricia's going to go to detroit tom brady's going to be 41 years old you know there's that song we may never pass this way again i think that could be the case. And Tom Brady is obviously facing time, as we know, by his Facebook show and also by what we saw tonight when he

tried to make this miraculous last minute drive with no timeouts, 58 seconds, and he still had a hell-marry chance to finally get in, you know, an opportunity to go to overtime, which is incredible way of itself. It's remarkable what he did today at 40 years old against a really good defense. I mean, I think what you saw was New England basically said, we don't think you have anybody in their

secondary that can cover. Right? And New England had no, I mean, when you get 600 yards against, I mean, this was really a Texas Tech play in Oklahoma in a play. This is Big 12 football all the way. Yeah. So, but, you know, New England's now got to figure out what they're going to do with their defense. Philly made the one play, but their secondary still.

You know, I mean, to me, they've been able to get away with it because of their front and their front made that play. And we talked about it leading into the game that Philadelphia Front Seven is, you know, they call themselves underdogs they have all year. But they've also been renowned as the number one defense, the top defense in the NFL. But they were getting no pressure on Tom Brady. I mean, they hit him a little bit early, but then they got away from that, and Grancowski kept going, and the Patriots get the lead 33 to 32, and it seems like everything's rolling. And it's the perfect script to Tom Brady's, you know, sixth Super Bowl,

the narrative and the perfect storyline that was going all according to plan. But Brayne and Graham, when he makes the strip sack, and then you have a rookie Derek Barnett, who's had an amazing sack earlier in the playoffs. It all comes full circle, and that front seven really does make the play to get the win. It really did, but it wasn't a front seven like the giant front seven dominated them in both those games. Both those games.

OC. This was, I mean, other than that one time where Brandon Graham slides down, and that's where he's a problem over the guard. Look, people don't realize, Cameron Fleming, the right tackle for the Patriots is not really, he needs help. He needs help all the time. And so the Patriots do a good job of mixing and matching and trying to help them, and they did in the game.

I mean, could you imagine that the Patriots gained 600 yards? We never really heard Fletcher Cox. Now, Collinsworth mentioned him on a couple of run plays where he made a tackle. for four years. But for the most part, his play was never in the game. I mean, they neutralized him. The Patriots lose Brandon Cooks. That didn't really affect them. But what affected the Patriots more than anything

is they couldn't get control of the game with their defense. It just was a fact. I mean, they forced them to punt one time in the whole entire game. You can't win like that. And you talk about that trifecto, guys. I mean, we have Bill Belichick, obviously, at the top of the totem there.

And then we had McDaniels and we had Patricia. And this was their last ride together, their last game together. and this is how it ends in this bitter fashion. I mean, we know how the Patriots usually react to these things. They use it as motivation to come back. But just sitting in that locker room right now, knowing that we have Tom Brady, who is going to be 41 years old,

we have Bill who's been doing it for this long, and then our two guys are leaving. I mean, just sitting on that in the Patriots locker room and with that franchise right now, if you're Robert Kraft, if you're Brady, if you're Belichick, I mean, how do you deal with that? I mean, obviously you have to be proud of yourself for the accomplishment of getting to another Super Bowl,

but still, it's tough to swallow. I don't know. I've been to four Super Bowl. I've won three, lost one. And when you lose one, you don't want to go to the party after the game. Unless you're Grankowski. Unless you're Grank.

But, I mean, I don't know if Grunk can want to go. This one's going to sting a while. I mean, Philly's going to have a hell of a party. I mean, the town is going to go berserk. I mean, it's going to go crazy. They might tear down the Walt Woodman Bridge. I mean, you know, it could go. But when you lose these things, you have no real, you just feel empty.

And you lose the way you lost, you know. whereas it wasn't like you lost on a play here or a play there. You lost because your defense couldn't get control of the game. It's why you lost. Nick Foles, backup quarterback, came in, and you never harassed him. You never forced him to play with make difficult throw. He made all the throws. The throw to Clement was a great throw.

The throw to Jeffrey for those two touchdown throw, they were great throws. I mean, this guy played, you know, like people said, well, if they had had Wins, I don't know if Wins could play really much better. Maybe he would have run on a couple of plays that. that Foles didn't. That Foles didn't, but for the most part, I don't know how much better, you know, it's like a guy, a pitcher shuts you out, pitches nine innings, give up three hits and no runs. And you say, well, he's not our best pitcher.

Well, what would your best pitcher have given up, right? He couldn't have done better. I don't think Wins could do better than this. It's like having Smolts and Maddx and Glavin, you know. It's like whoever's in right now, a quarterback for the Eagles seems to be able to deal with out. And I've apologized to Peterson and I've admitted I was wrong, but they did a great job of call and plays. and keeping them so unpredictable. I mean, they went for it on fourth down.

They had a couple times, a couple times. Look, you know, if the Eagles didn't win this game, they would go back to that third and two call where they try to run the, they stole a play from the Rams. Almost was an interception. Almost was an interruption. They stole one from the Rams. They stole, you know, they were a bunch of plays that they kind of,

but they didn't. And Foles, the play he got away with that I think might have killed Joel Solomon. If Harrison would have intercepted that pass. And taking it back to the house. It might have killed Joel Solomon. Would have hurt a lot of Sears fans, I'm sure. Yes, it would have. Absolutely.

And we're just talking about time of possession in this game. And I want to talk about the Patriots and what was going on with that. I mean, were they trying to elongate drives to try to keep that defense out? I mean, I know they threw the ball a lot. Even Brady on that's second and two, he throws the first pass to Grancowski, and then he gets sacked by Brandon Graham. You were saying that that could be an opportunity to maybe run the ball there. Yeah, you need to run the ball there.

I think when they go back and look at that, I mean, it was going down to the two-minute warning, and I think they needed to run the ball there. and I think, you know, you get into that rhythm and you have to really kind of manage the game because, look, let's face it. Just hypothetically say they would have scored a touchdown to take the one point or two. The Eagles were going to come right back down the field again.

I mean, they couldn't stop them. I mean, they could never stop them. The thing that shocked me in this game tape razor is neither team tried an onside kick after they scored. Like, to me, I was thinking, you know, maybe you should, because field position at the end. The Sean Payton act. Yeah, field position didn't really matter in the game.

I mean, the Patriots get the ball at their own 25. One scene past the Gronk, they're at midfield. You know, it was like when you get 600 yards, does field position really matter? No. So that's kind of what I was thinking. Maybe New England would have tried an onside kick when they got up by one, you know, to see if they get the ball back. Because once you could have, once, if New England could have gotten the ball back

and built on the lead and made Philly play from behind, maybe it was a different game. But Philly never played. Look, Philly was the. number two team in the National Football League last year in first half-point differential. They went into a half-point with another 10-point lead, okay? They beat the best team in first-half-point differential at their own game, and you've got to give them credit for that. Tremendous credit.

I mean, it was remarkable. It really was. And just talking about, we are doing this live. This is hashtag ring your NFL. If you have any questions, please send it into us. We'll probably read a couple tweets here at the end. I want to do one of our favorite segments, and I know that I say everything is our favorite segment, but this is really one of our favorite segments.

guest narratives, stuff that's going to be going on this week after the Super Bowl, is sort of what the pulse of the nation is moving forward. Well, it's got to be Nick Foles. You know, it's going to go to Disney World. I'm sorry. It's Disney World. It's going to go to Orlando, but maybe he can go to Anaheim and go to Disneyland too. Millie went to Disneyland with my little man, and I mean, they were going crazy over there.

So, you know, they say it's nice. I don't know. I've never been to Disneyland. I've never been to Disneyland, but I've been to Disney World. It's the magic. I've been to Disney World, too. I would love to go there. East Coasters.

So you've got to think, you know, with Kirk. Cousins, you know, first of all, with Kirk Cousins, pending free agency, the Redskins are talking about, perhaps they're going to franchise them to see if they can get cute and try to get a draft pick for him. Okay, great. See how that works out. Secondly, you know, who's the next best quarterback other than which in the draft? And Fowles playing like this, you know, to me, he's going to get some attractive offers. We think Jimmy Garoppolo, we know Jimmy's going to get signed, so he's not going to be a free agent.

So I think the narrative for the week is going to be about Nick Foles. and then it's going to be can the Eagles repeat? Can the Eagles come back and repeat? And frankly, because the Eagles are so unconventional, who knows? I mean, you know, who knows? If they play like they played the way they've played their defensive lines all coming back,

they're not going to lose anybody. I mean, they could easily repeat. I mean, right now, can the Cowboys beat them? Can the Giants beat them? Can the Redskins beat them? It would be hard to think that. Yeah, watch out for Alex Smith, though. We should say, just looking at the whole landscape

with the Philadelphia Eagles, right? now. I mean, you do have a little bit of a situation where if Nick Foles is traded to somewhere else, right? And the Eagles come back next season and Carson wins, you know, let's say, like we're going to get in this situation where we just traded away a Super Bowl winning quarterback. Yeah, that's where it gets a little hair. Yeah, because you're not sure about the injury to the player, right? So you don't want to be too cute here. And you don't want to get yourself in some kind of trouble and trade the guy. And then all of a sudden, you know, something would have happened to Brady this year in Garapolo, you know, he's not there. So I think you've got to be

really careful because the one thing that makes you have great trades is say no all the time. All right? If you say no all the time, the Annie will keep getting better for you. If you honestly say no all the time, it'll get better. And I think that's what the Eagles will do. They're smart enough to know that. I mean, they're not going to have to worry about that. This is a, this is a player that came in off the bench after he was, you know, I mean,

we could still see the Jeff Fisher cutting the poor guy, you know, and didn't want to bring him to camp. I mean, this guy's been resilient. I mean, it's really remarkable. And so when you do that and you win, I mean, look what it did for Joe Flacco. Yep. It's like Shane Falco and the replacements. You know, he's got this great story. It all worked out.

I want to say one thing for the narratives. I know that, you know, Roger Goodell was out and about, and he's saying that he really wants to address what a catch is. And in this game, we have two huge sequences that really put the rule to test. We have the Chloe Clement touchdown that Chris Collinsworth said was not a touchdown. But it gets— Collinsworth was old for— He was had an over.

He's over two for that. So then he has the Earth's touchdown. Can we also talk about an over? I mean, my poor man, Al Michael, saying that Patricia was going to coach the Pistons. Can you imagine? Could you imagine? SVG was upset.

Can you imagine Matt Patricia in that Piston huddle? I mean, could you see Andre Griffin and Matt Patricia and Drummond talking to him? Reggie Jackson, chewing gum. With the pencil and his hat turned backwards? Yeah, I don't think it would work. I don't think you wear a hat on a sideline at a basketball game. Don't you find that fascinating that coaches that when you're indoors, usually you wear a hat to block the sun or you're outside you know people wear hats right but when

you're inside do you ever see a hat on i mean you know remember when tony sperano was tony sarano was at the vesuvio when he made that kid take his hat off you know like when you're inside you don't wear a hat right of course not but when you're inside sporting events you always wear a hat like everybody keeps their garb the same as if they were playing outside unbelievable especially the backwards hat i mean that's that's the worst you know my dad would never let that happen with the pencil and the laminator i mean i don't get i don't get i don't get it, but look, hey, look, I mean, you know, like I said, head coach of the Pistons, right?

Head coach of the Pistons, but like I said from the beginning, you got, you basically, this game came down to, we can't turn the ball over, we got to stop them on third and six, and we got to play really good on third down the red zone, and the Patriots didn't do any of that. Absolutely. And we'll see if we figure out what a catch rule is, but we'll never go figure that out. We're never going to figure it out. That's what I would say. And maybe one day we'll know if Des caught it, but not until then. Well, I mean, Des is probably sitting home saying, I caught that ball. If they're going to give,

now, to me, to me, the Ertz thing was not even worth the discussion. Like, I thought that was like, how many guys have you seen?

Like, if Ertz would have been bobbling the ball before he extended, I got it, right? Okay, then it's maybe not a catch. But that was a catch.

The other one, the Clement one, I thought the ball moved. Like, how is Clements a touchdown and Jesse James not? That's what I wasn't sure of. And then apparently I heard that everyone was saying

that based on the replay review, his toe was in, his second toe. I never saw. I never saw that. We never saw that close enough to see if his toe was actually in, but it did to the naked eye, to the blind eye. It looked like it was out of bounds originally.

But it stood and it's a touchdown and it all worked out. And the Eagles are world champions. Absolutely. And there is a parade that you and I are uninvited. The Broad Street bullies are going to make it happen. They're probably going to crack the Liberty Bell again at this rate. Quick break to get aware from our sponsor, Proper Cloth. Finding a dress shirt that fits as hard, something is always off.

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Stop wearing shirts that don't fit. Start looking your best with a custom-fitted shirt. Go to propercloth.com slash NFL today and enter code NFL to save $20 off your first shirt. Do it today. Okay, back to GM Street. Do you want to do some awards? Yeah, I think so. We should.

Why not? Why not? First up, we have time to go on the lamb. I don't know if there's anyone that really needs to go in the lamb after the Super Bowl, because you just made it to the Super Bowl, but is there. I mean, I think, look, let's face it, the Patriots defense, they're going to go on the lamb this week. I mean, you know, Matt's going to hide in Detroit. Maybe he'll find out where Jimmy Hoffa is since he's going to go back to Detroit. I mean, look, it's going to be, you know, that's going to be one that's never real. I mean, Patricia and McDaniels both have great challenges in front of them, and they both have rewards for the work that they've done in New England. And it's hard to feel that sense of accomplishment two days from now when you have a press conference on Wednesday that you're after what just happened.

I mean, you know, if you give up $3.50, but you give up all the yards that you did. I mean, if you're Indianapolis, you're saying, hey, we just got to coach again, 600 yards against him. Now, everybody knows it's Tom Brady. But a lot of those things that McDaniels did on the tape, the way he, the interesting thing he did in the game, where he took the receivers and he moved him inside, but he didn't move them until they lined up outside first after he moved the back back. So he moved the back back to make them declare, right? So you can see the coverage? Well, no, the Eagles that were checking it. They were going to check it. So then he reverted it so that

now they were kind of like, okay, what are we going to do? Scambling. It was really a good, he did it. I thought he called a really good game other than that I would have, that second down play with, you know, to me that was a, and I said it out loud here in the studio, like you got to run it here and they threw it and that's the play, it got sacked.

But I think the defense of the Patriots, I think this has got to be a rebuilding mold. Alan Branch hasn't played. He hurt his knee. That hurt him inside. They gave him a huge contract last offseason. He's probably not going to come back. I mean, he didn't play to that contract. earlier in the year. Their defensive line is really not very good that can't get any pass rush on anybody,

and they're slow. So I think the defense is going to have to change and it's going to have to get better players over there because even though they say, well, we're good in the secondary. Yeah, you are, but I mean, you can't be good in the secondary when the quarterback has all day to throw. And next up, we got Can't Tell My Courage from my desperation. Is there anyone that stood out to you as courageous in this game? We know in the AFC championship game it was Danny Amidola, but right in this one, who was it? I think all the Eagles skill players were courageous. I think they did it. I think the Eagles offensive line deserves this award.

They did a great job. They really did. Kelsey played really well. They were going to attack Kelsey. They tried. He stood the challenge. I mean, I think they did a great job of keeping Foles having more time than I thought he would have. Look, the Patriots can't rush, period. End of story. They're not a great rushing team. But they had

a lot more time and he could look off some things and he had time to do it. And I thought he was, I mean, Foles was sensational with his reeds. And he understood it and he had the Patriots to where they didn't have an answer. Absolutely. Let's do another one and uh... How about the Fred Palermo? We gotta get it. Now, you know, Fred lost his brother Mike, which is a horrible thing. Mike was 90. Mike was 93, passed away, got rest of soul. He, uh, passed away last week and, uh, and Fred's now 91. Fred still as a brother 97. So

three brothers in the 90, he just lost. Family. They're just going to keep going. He just lost one. And my mother died well before all of them. But anyway, I would obviously, the Eagles offensive staff deserves. I mean, it was really the best. They had it perfectly executed. They did exactly what they had to do. They did a bunch of different things. They had them off balance. And the Eagles players, this was always a game about players, not plays. And the Eagles players were better than the Patriots players on defense by far. Absolutely. And next step, we got the KGB Award. It's probably going to be the Patriots defensive staff if I had to guess. Yeah, I would think so. I don't think they really, again, what we talked about? They didn't really, how do you, what are we going to do? Like, okay,

what are we going to, how are we going to stop them? We saw Belichick come over to the huddle with that defense a few times during the game just to try to give, you could tell he was trying to meddle a little bit just to say what's going on here and then he would pop back out. But it just seemed like they had no answer the entire night. They had no answer. I mean, they couldn't make it a man game. They're not fast enough to make it a zone game. I mean, they made the Eagles offense without Foltz, without Wents look like the Rams offense. I mean, back in the heyday.

So this win for Philly was a great win because they really had control of the game. I mean, they really did. And the final one, if you don't know, now you know. Now you know I was wrong on Doug Peterson. He obviously is Super Bowl winning coach. I mean, they were 55 to 1 to go to the Super Bowl this year. Think about that, Trey Frazier? Yeah.

55 to 1. I think it's the ice cream. Look, I mean, I was hard on the guy, but I don't think there was a lot of people that were, I know there's not a lot of people in the NFL that thought this guy was going to win a Super Bowl at any time. And he did. So hats off to him. Congratulations.

And we should say, I mean, Doug Peterson, he's very unassuming guy. He doesn't like to put the spotlight on himself. And, you know, we saw that backing up Dan Marino and all these guys over the years. It just seems like he's soaked in a lot. He doesn't think a lot of them. He's a very humble guy. I mean, look, look, I tell you what he has. He has the guts to call these stuff he does on third down.

And, you know, the fourth down call, you know, they've practiced it against Minnesota. They were ready to utilize it. And they didn't run it this week in practice, but they always had it. I mean, the one thing I give Doug Peterson a lot of credit for, he has a huge sheet. But he runs a lot of different things. was always hard on macadone was because he had this huge play sheet but he kept running the same plays over and over and over again whereas peterson you know he's got a lot of different things sometimes you know he gets a little too cute sometimes he doesn't but that's who they are and their unpredictability

is really why they're so good because you really look you knew it was going to be a fourth down game right that was another thing we talked about once they crossed midfield you had to be ready to go for it on fourth down i mean every box the patriots had a check to win the game they didn't check that's why they lost And that's why you got to give credit to Philadelphia. And we should give credit to a guy that we've been talking about all season, and that's Jim Schwartz. And what he's done with that defense. And obviously they make the play with Brandon Graham,

and that's what's still the championship with that front seven. But Jim Schwartz is a guy that didn't get talked about for head coaching jobs as much as we thought at one time. But he really has had an amazing season with his defense. Yeah, I think obviously he's going to have a – he's going to sit there and say, oh, my gosh. I mean, he knows that was a tough one for him to swallow. But I think the reality here is, look, you know, you're playing Tom Brady.

They got a lot of weapons over there. You know, once he knows his secondary is limited and it's the liabilities. I think he would probably say we just didn't play very good in the red zone, which they didn't. And they played good on third down. They got bailed out a couple. They got a couple times they got called for holding. They played good in the Redsville. They held the Patriots two for four in the Red Zone, which ends up being the difference

of the game. Patriots held them two red zone-wise. So I think third down, they were a little better in the first half than they were in the second half. But look, I think Schwartz did a great job. And the one thing about that defense, when they were, they get better guys than a secondary, which they will, they'll be even better. Yeah, we're going to go to a couple fan questions right now. This is from Steve Horowitz, and he asks,

who will be the offensive and defensive coordinators for the past next year? What about Spagnolio as the defensive coordinator? No, no, the name I saw was Greg Shiana, right? No, no, that's, I don't know where that report came from. Some of these reports. I knew that was going to make you mad. That's what I was going to throw it out. I love Greg Siano.

I think Greg Shianna is a great coach. I think he wants, I mean, I think you know that that was not the I mean, that's just people throw stuff out there. left or right. It's like, you know, this is not a catch. I mean, come on. Watch the game. Like, you know, like, just watch the damn thing. You know, I think Brian Flores will do a really good job. Offensively, I think that's going to be the true challenge because does Dante Scarnicca come back? I mean, 70 years old, does he want to go through? Great line coach. Does he want to go through another offense coordinator? Will Chad O'Shea be the offense coordinator? You know,

Chad's been in the offense a long, long time. I don't know. There's nobody out there. The problem the Patriots have is Brady's intellectual level in this office. would be at Oxford. And anybody that you would bring in to coach Brady wouldn't be at that same level. There's no young guy that has kind of gotten to that point. And Bill typically what Bill likes to do is not name a guy a coordinator right away and let him see if he can grow into it, like not put him out there so he's going to take a lot of heat. I think Flores will definitely get the other one is Joe Judge. If they lose Joe Judge, who's their special teams coach, you know, the Patriots are going to have to spend some money on the coaching staff, something they've

never really done. Absolutely. We're getting some more. more questions as we roll us out. One name I don't have here, but someone did send in. What do we think about Eli Manning figuring out that he is now the star of the Manning family? We said on Friday that Peyton Manning was going to be the star of the show. He's going to be all over the commercials. I blew that one bad.

And Eli, he takes the stage from his brother. I mean, now you know why Eli had to come back. I mean, they already had that commercial on the thing. That's why Gettleman got the job. That's why everything happened. Everything came to plan. Do you think Eli could have done any of that stuff on the field today? I don't think so.

Well, he did it a couple times. Is Nick Folles better than Eli? Right now? Yeah. He's a Super Bowl winning quarterback in 2018. Would you trade Nick Foles for Eli? Yeah, why not? He just won the Super Bowl.

We just saw him do some perfect stuff. I'm sorry, Eli. I feel like Eli's going to be upset. He did this whole bar. His Q scores are up. I feel bad for Eli too, but it just seems to me, are the Giants going to pick a quarterback? The second pick overall?

That's for another day. Geno Smith's there too. From another guy, Henry McKenna, at Henry McKenna, I think is his name. He says Rob Grancowski, this is a USA Today reporter actually. Grancowski said he was going to reflect on his future when asked if he's considering retiring. And he says he would not commit to returning in 2018. We've seen this with Ben Rathesberger.

We've seen this with a couple guys where they say this at the end of the year. And then they tend to come back. I mean, it's tough after a loss to have that question. You put a microphone in front of anybody after they just lost a tough game like that. I mean, would you want a microphone in front of you? Like, were you coming back next year? Are you coming back next year? I mean, like, could you imagine you just went through the emotional roller coaster of your life?

You know, you've given your heart and soul to this season. You've played your guts out and you lost. You lost the Super Bowl. I mean, you thought you were going to have a chance for six years. And then you're going to reflect on, am I got another chance to ever come back again? I'm losing my coordinator. I'm losing the defense. You know, I mean, Tom Brady's 41 years old and Jimmy G isn't around.

I mean, that's a hard one. It really is a hard one. You can't. It's like asking an owner after a game, you know, a question. They're all irrational. Players after games, especially on tough losses like this, there's really no answer. There's no right answer. Don't even hold them for it. If he says he's retired and he comes back, don't blame him. I mean, just everything that they say, don't even listen to it. Well, I'm going to ask you another question that you're going to be upset about. Jeff Keith asks us, he says,

do you think Bill Belichick is coming back? And at first he just said, do you think Bill is coming back? So I thought he's talking about Bill Simmons. So I hope Bill Simmons is coming back. Yeah. Does anybody checked on Simmons? We have not. But our thoughts and prayers are with them for sure. Yes, I know. But about Belichick, I mean, we obviously, he's at a crossroads of his career right now. He's done a lot in football, but 17 years. I will say this. I don't know that for it. People have speculated that he's definitely coming back. I know this. There's no one who keeps a secret better than Bill Belichick. Okay, no one knew he was going to resign as the H.C. of the NY Jets. Okay, nobody knew that, right? So he is going to make a decision based on what he wants to do, not based on he's talked to his friends. So I don't think anybody really knows. I think this is probably going to sting him for a long time because, you know, as he would say, we didn't deserve to win giving up that many points. I mean, he'd be the first. want to tell you that, right? We didn't deserve to win giving up this many points. So with that being said, I can't predict one way or the other, and a lot of it will have to do with conversations in the offseason. Where are we going? What are we going to do? I mean,

it's hard. I can remember we were on the team playing flying back from Phoenix after we won the Super Bowl, and Bill was already working on next year stuff. You know, Scott O'Brien was going to resign. Millie, my wife says to me, she said, God, he's already worried about next year already. Like, there's no time off. This one might cause it some time to reflect. And this is, especially coming from the point where he's such a great defensive coach, this has got to really really sting him. Yeah, it wasn't the formula that he had put in place all these years.

It was sort of, I mean, it's weird how it all goes back to 2001 where we have this strip play with Tom Brady that leads, you know, the tuck rule and you know, and you with it. Of course you did. No, but I'm saying, and then you come full circle to this play. I mean, great, great point. It's like almost artistic. It's almost like the bookend. This is, you lost

the Super Bowl because you got stripped, You've able to go to Super Bowls because you, I think that's really good. I think that's a really good point. And I think there's a lot of, there could be, and I could be a great narrative. You might want to release that out as a narrative because that could be. I just did it. I just put it here. There you go. That could be it because I think there's no doubt that that's something to think about.

I don't know. The Bill answer, I really don't know. I would never want to speak for Bill, but I think that we're getting closer towards the end than we are. It's not five more years. You know, I think there's no question about that. This loss is going to take some time. I'm going to take some stinging out of them. And we're getting to the end here of our GM Street Rapid Reactions,

Sunday night Super Bowl show, which hurts my heart because we've had such a long run here together for all these weeks, three times a week. I mean, we've been Sunday. We've been Sunday, and like, I mean, we've been more than church on Sunday. You basically were church. It's the church of Lombardi this year for me. Was there anything else in this game,

just big picture looking back, standing back, looking at what happened in this game that really stood out to you where you're just like, this is what Super Bowl 50 or two, this will be what I remember when I think about this game. Well, the first thing I want to say is I don't want, you know, the Malcolm Butler thing is not why the Patriots lost the game. I really don't want to have to hear that. If he would have been on the field, would they have held the Patriots down? I don't think the score would have been pretty much the same, okay?

I really do. I don't think it was going to make a difference. And if he missed a curfew or did something to cause him to not play, which pretty much has got to be the case. And, again, I don't know. Then I would say, you know, if you're not willing to sacrifice some things, you probably don't deserve to play. So that being said, I think this game came down to what the Eagle season was all year long. And I think one thing I've learned in pro sports is whatever you are in preseason, everybody says, well, you've got to dismiss the preseason.

Well, if you don't convert third downs in the preseason, you're probably not going to be a good third down team during the regular season. And the one thing about the Eagles this year that I think has been very obvious is they've been unbelievably able to convert third and six or more. And that has held up through every single time and test and challenge, and nobody's really had an answer for it. I mean, they lost really two games all season. They lost to the Seattle in a game that I think really influenced this game tremendously tonight. Seattle's game was about, and I talked about this on Friday, they were going to play a much more open game tonight because they felt like they weren't left-handed in Seattle.

So that really did help them. And I think the Kansas City game was so early in the season. but this whole notion that they've been able to overcome, it's been remarkable, and it happens all the way through. So to me, I think that's the one flavor of the game that I would always get. And then I think the other thing is the Patriots are going to have to really do a lot of rebuilding. It's going to be a challenge for them to get back to pick some of these pieces because they're playing with guys. Eric, they're playing with guys Lee. They're playing with guys who are getting off of the practice squad.

They're not this, oh my gosh, talent of defense. They're going to spend some money and fix it. And we know Tom Brady, obviously now five and three in Super Bowl. Bowls and the silver lining. You're going to find the silver lining of everything, right? Well, LeBron James is three for five. It's better to be five for three. There you go. Yeah. But this one, this one to me was the one that was of those eight games. This is the one. Now, people say, well, this is the one they never had control over game. They never really did. Like, you get 600 yards against your opponent and you lose, you know, it's not Tom, me, Tom Brady lost

the ball, yeah. But there's three series in this game. They miss a field goal. They turn it over on downs and a strip sack. Those three series are why they lost the game. They never punted. They never punted in the game, but yet they lose the turnover takeaway battle. Please, America, understand a miss field goal is a turnover. It has to be put up there.

I know the announcers are never going to tell you this, right? I know they aren't. It's a turnover. And when you turn the ball over on downs, that is a turnover too. Just because it happened on the fourth down doesn't mean it's not a turnover. There was no point or a punt or a change of field position. so that indicates a turnover. And I think this was the perfect example of a game

why we have to start talking in a different language. You know, when I was driving over here at halftime, we went to Tony Peace. We missed you at Tony Peace, by the way. Hell of a crowd. My Lord. But anyway, you know, they talked about, well, the Eagles have, you know, they turned the ball over one time.

They're behind the turnover takeaway. No, no. They were ahead two to one. And I think that's, nobody's going to talk about those turnovers, but that was really a key part of the game. And that's what GM Street's all about, We're going to keep the conversation going, keep talking about these things. Talk about the draft and all that stuff.

Absolutely. And this has been the final edition of the 2017, 2018 season, Sunday Rapid Reactions, GM Street. Mike Lombardi, thank you so much. Thanks, Tate Fraser. Finding a dress shirt that fits as hard, something is always off. Thankfully, ordering a custom shirt has never been easier with Proper Cloth. At ProperCloff.com, you can easily create a custom-sized shirt in seconds by just answering 10 simple questions. Not to mention, you can choose from over 20 collar styles, 10 cuff,

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