Daily, Sept. 12th: Jonathan Greenard OUT vs. WSH: Previewing Eagles OLine vs. WSH DLine

What's going on, everybody, and good morning. Today is Saturday, September 12th, and this is your daily Go Birds morning update, giving you all the Eagles news you need to know, as well as what to keep an eye out for today. And happy Saturday. Looks like it's going to be a little bit of rain in the forecast, which we'll get into later in the pod. But we got college football today, Temple at Penn State. Should be an exciting Saturday, but most of what we have is one more day until Eagles football, as we are now, about, I don't know, 18 hours? No, 24, 32 hours away-ish, depending on when you're listening to this, until the Eagles kick off their season against the Washington Commander. So, as we always do with the Saturday pod, we'll keep it a little bit on the shorter side. Hate to take weekend time from you guys, but there is stuff to talk about, as we have the Eagles final injury report. We heard from Nick Sirianni one final time before the game on Sunday, and of course, we're going to continue to preview the matchup. So, let's get right into it. But first, which I feel like I do a lot, I say let's get right into it, and then I say but first. But the touchdown for Book Drive. If you've listened to this pod for a while, you know I've worked with Treehouse Books for the last four seasons, I believe it is. Time flies, man. It's been awesome to work with them, and it's really been awesome to see the generosity from you guys, all of you guys, all you listeners. As over the past four years, we've been able to raise enough for almost 9,000 books. Yeah, you heard that right. 9,000 books. So if you don't know about Treehouse Books, they are a non-profit based in North Philadelphia, right off Temple's campus, that works hard to put books into the hands of kids. They give them to local community centers, local schools, directly to families. Look, we all love sports, but I think deep down we also all probably love to read. We all grew up with kids' books, our favorite ones, and not everyone's lucky enough to have access to books. So Treehouse Books works with kids in Philadelphia that need more access to books. So over the past few years, like I said, we've raised 9,000, enough for 9,000 books, which is just wild. So how does it work? Well, the link will be in the podcast description, but basically hit the link. If you donate $5, that's good enough for one book, and every single book counts. If you're able to donate, thank you very much. If you want, though, there is the t-shirt option. So we have a sick shirt that was designed this year. We had an awesome shirt designed last year from Duwani Sarai, who did an unbelievable job. But now, in an effort to work with more local artists, we worked with Olivia Smith, live on Twitter, who did an unbelievable job. It's a shirt, a lot of inside jokes, WIP, ESP jokes, all type of good stuff. So make the donation, you get the shirt. Would love to see people out in the shirt. That would be a surreal moment for me. But what it's really about is getting more books into the hands of kids. And a $100 donation, which gets you the shirt, means 20 books for Treehouse Books, as they're rebuilding their whole facility. I'm talking about it like it's the Jefferson Training Complex. As they rebuild their whole location. And I know a lot of local teams are working with them, which is really cool, so go check it out. Hopefully it's another really successful year. You'll be hearing about it a lot on the Daily Pod. So the touchdown for Books Drive with Treehouse Books is back up, it's running, and let's have a good year with it. So all right, from an injury news perspective, just to jump right into it, we did get an injury update on Friday as Jonathan Greenard was ruled out. Not overly surprising, I didn't think he was going to play. And Eli Stowers, questionable. It looks like he might play. He did say at his locker on Friday that he plans on playing. So he's questionable. Guess we'll see how the hamstring feels on Sunday. But maybe he will be active. And if he is, look, certainly a chance to turn things around with how it's gone for him so far. So from a health perspective, the Eagles enter this game, they enter pretty healthy, but no Jonathan Greenard officially on Sunday versus Washington. All right, let's get into some minor roster moves the Eagles made on Friday as they did sign Xavier Gibson to the practice squad and placed Danny Gray, the wide receiver who I think actually had a pretty good training camp on IR. So Xavier Gibson has been a kick returner and a pump returner for them in the past. I do think it'll probably be Britton Covey on Sunday. I think there's a good chance, you know, I think you could see McKay, but Covey, you just look at the practice elevation. So they're allowed to elevate, fumbling my words here. They're allowed to elevate two players for the game, right? So they don't have anybody they have to elevate. Like when I was initially making my 53, I was thinking, all right, well, maybe if they don't keep AJ Appanessa, they elevate him. If they don't keep Elijah Moore, maybe they elevate him. Well, those guys are on the 53 man roster, so they don't have guys where you go, okay, they're going to have to elevate him. Like the long snapper is not on the practice squad. So I think you could see Covey elevated for short, and then maybe McKay is out there for one or two of their returns. But I think Covey, having him there and the security that he's done it, you feel good about him back there, would be a benefit. So we'll see, but Xavier Gibson has done that before, so interesting that they brought him in. Now, in non-Eagles injury news, AJ Brown with the Patriots officially placed on IR, which means he will miss at least four games. It did seem like he was going to miss four games. He has a high ankle sprain. Watching the game, he was clearly in a ton of pain, had to hobble off, was seen in a boot, leaving the stadium. So look, maybe I'm in the minority with this. I feel bad for AJ. He was an awesome Eagle. He helped Eagles win a Super Bowl, didn't handle last year well, no question about it. But I think overall for Eagles fans, he provided a lot more good than bad. And seeing him hurt, you don't ever want to see anybody get hurt. So yeah, he's out for at least four games. I think it's a bad sign for the season he'll have. Just missing time in season with an ankle injury is so rough, especially early on. You can never really fully catch up to feel fully healthy. So hopefully he's still able to have a good year. I don't know if you agree with me or not on that, but AJ Brown, yeah, added to the IR, and he will be out four weeks, at least, for the Patriots. All right, so let's get into, you know, Saturday, keep it short. Let's get into some stuff Sirianni had to say on Friday, as he did speak to the media for the last time before we see him on Sunday. So the first thing was, and I've talked about this on the pod a little bit, but I wanted to ask Nick about it. So I'm pretty impressed with the fact Mannion ended up picking the booth. And the more I think about it, the more the week goes on, the more impressed I am with it. The fact that he was open-minded, the fact how he went about the decision, calling people, collecting advice, leaning on experiences, I think it's a good sign of how he makes decisions, especially at such an important job at such a young age, to be honest. So I did ask Nick about that, about the process of Mannion making the decision, and not so much about the decision with the booth, but more about what he learned about Mannion's decision-making process during it. So here's what Nick had to say about that. I was wondering what you learned about Shawn Mannion's decision-making process during the decision to decide to go to the booth. Just what you saw from him, how he goes about it, not about the decision specifically, but about the process and how he goes about it. That's an interesting question. Yeah, just everything's very thought out. Everything's, you know, and that's with Shawn, that's with our organization, that's with our coaching staff, that's with our players. We want to think through every situation to make sure that we're giving ourselves the best opportunity for us to win the game and be at our best. And also understanding that, you know, there is no right way to do it or wrong way to do it. There's many different ways to do it. I think we can get caught up so much. It's like, this is the only way to do it. You have conviction in what you believe, but there's many different things that can work and have worked. And, you know, it's just about making the best decision, what's best for your football team and for you to do your job the best. And that's how we went about it. So yeah, I mean, look, the results are going to dictate whether it's the right decision or not. And we probably spent too much time this week on the pod talking about it in general, but I do think it's a good sign. And if I'm Nick, I'm happy about how this played out. The other part of it is, it is showing that, you know, Mannion is gonna be allowed to do what he wants. Not that I didn't think he would, but Jalen's always had his coordinator on the sideline, Nick's always had his coordinator on the sideline, and Mannion's up in the booth. So maybe, you know, some of the experiences last year with the sloppiness on offense, maybe they felt that was part of the reason there was that, having Patullo down on the field, but the fact that Mannion's going to the booth, I like it. I like the decision. All right, so Nick was then asked later on in the press conference about the quarterback two spot, the backup spot, and, you know, whether or not he has told them yet who the backup is, how the reps are being split, and here's what Nick had to say about that. What about the reps? Yeah, same. You know, they were able to have meaningful reps, both of them, and they went well. They've been getting enough since their split. Yeah, they all need to continue to get reps. You know, obviously, we do different things to be able to do that within scout team, but also doing that in our ones versus twos period, and also doing that in our developmental periods. I think we do a good job of creating a lot of opportunities for guys to develop as football players. You know, as far as our developmental stuff, our situational stuff, that we'd work into practice, and then our fundamental things as well. So both Andy Dalton and Tanner McKee talked this week, and both said they didn't know who the backup was, or if they knew if they were the backup. We'll find out on Sunday. It'll be obvious with the roster decisions. It'll be obvious in warm-up, so we'll know who the backup quarterback is and who won that competition. But I think that there's been some pushback on this in terms of the silliness of not just saying it. And we talked about that earlier in the week on the pod, so I'm not gonna do my whole argument again there. I think if Washington, if they take five extra minutes, then it's worth it. But there was some discussion on Friday about if they owe it to the players to tell them, and if Andy Dalton is owed it after being a veteran for this league and so long and all those things. And I think there's two ways to look at that. The first way is, whether right or wrong, if Andy Dalton is not having a good experience here and he tells players that, that's not great. You don't want to have Andy Dalton being saying, they're jerking me around, they're not telling me who's the backup. Andy Dalton's been in the league for a long time. I'm sure he knows a lot of players and coaches. That's not great. The other part of it is, it's the backup quarterback. Tanner McKee has started two games in the NFL. Andy Dalton has been a backup for the past three years, hasn't played well, and he got traded for a seventh round pick. So I think at the end of the day, if the Eagles feel that it is beneficial for them not to say who the backup is, I don't think they owe it to Tanner or Andy to tell them publicly and for it to be public. If how he thinks it helps trade value in even the littlest way, I think they should do it, right? Now, I think that they are, if that's the case, it's silly. We're talking about a minor asset here that you would be getting like a six or whatever. But, you know, the way teams are great is by winning every little decision and by getting every little asset you can. So if the Eagles feel this is the best way to do it, I don't think it's a big enough deal where people should be outraged about it or upset about it. Like, yeah, I get it. It's silly not to say who the backup is. But teams win and teams maintain greatness by focusing on every little decision and not taking everything for granted. And I think some of that is baked in here where it's like, oh, it's silly. Just say it. Well, you don't get great or stay great by just minimizing certain decisions in your life, right? You do it by emphasizing and putting importance on every little decision. And so I'm OK with the Eagles with the way they're handling it. Now, one thing I would disagree with them on is if they're splitting the backup reps, which it sounds like they might be, that seems silly to me. Now, it's not a ton of reps, right? Backups during the week don't get a ton of reps. The reps are majority the time for the starters. The backups do scout team and stuff like that, but I don't think that splitting the reps would make sense. I think that's when you start to hurt the product on the field because if neither Andy or Tanner are getting enough reps to feel ready for Sunday and they have to go in, well, maybe they're not as prepared as they used to. Ike said this on Friday. I know he said it kind of in jest, but I think there's truth to it. The football gods might not look down kindly on this, this whole playing a game with who the backup is and all that and maybe not getting either as prepared as they could if they would have just picked one. So Jalen's been very healthy throughout its career. Hopefully that stays the case. I think it will stay the case. But if one of these players has to go in, I don't feel confident either going in right now because they haven't gotten enough reps. Like it's not even about them as a player. They're just not getting enough reps. So if they're splitting backup reps, I don't love that as they prepare for the season. So finally, it looks like weather could be an issue on Sunday. Not a huge issue. The forecast is kind of moving all around. But it's gonna rain hard at some point on Saturday, evening into Sunday. In Philly, how long into Sunday the rain goes, we'll find out. And then also, there's a game on Saturday at The Link as Temple is playing Penn State, Go Owls. Nick was asked about the field conditions and kind of, you know, whether it's something they're concerned about. And here's what he had to say. Build the expectation of a little bit of sloppiness in week one at all because of not playing starters, because of, you know, just it's week one. And there's changes. There's new coordinators, new players, all that kind of stuff. We want, part of our goals are for this week is to understand that there is, as week one happens, when you watch football across college football, early on, whatever, from the NFL, that there are things that happen in week one that you have to be ready for. Whether that's, you know, live fundamentals, whether that's, you know, errors in the kicking game, or whatever it may be. But the standard doesn't change of what we accept and what we require and what our guys do on the field, right? So, we practice like that every day. You know, anytime there's something loose with the ball or we miss a tackle or whatever it may be, or miss our approach on a tackle, if we're not tackling to the ground, it's discussed, it's watched, it's critiqued. And so, our standard, your goal is to be playing your best football by the end of the year. Our standard does not change. But we also understand, and one of our goals here for week one is to be able to have a short-term memory. To be able to move on. That now, yes, you make mistakes in practice, but it's a little different. You make a mistake in a game, you've got to move on and play the next play. And so, we talk about both ends of that. Our standards will remain the same, regardless of game one or game 17 or game whatever. But we also understand we need to train our minds to be able to be mentally tough in situations where we did make, we missed a play, that we needed to make and be able to play the next play. And that goes as far as the same thing as not getting too high when you make a play. It's okay to be excited. It's okay to show your emotion when you make a play, but ultimately you got to go play the next play again. And so, all those things I think have been really important for us in game ones and it will continue to be so this upcoming year. So it does seem like the weather won't be terrible for the game, but when you take into account the game taking place on it, taking the game, there being a game on Saturday, now as much as I love Temple, possibility this is a blowout, so maybe the field's not getting beat up too bad, but Temple and Penn State play and then immediately be followed by Rain. Now I'm sure they'll put a tarp on the field. Obviously the link is always in really good playing condition. So I don't know if there's like ton of reason to be worried about it, but it's not ideal to have a team playing on the field the day before and then obviously if there's Rain during the game, you know, is Mackay Lemon returning punts. We talked about that, like he dropped one in the preseason. So we'll see if weather is a factor. You know, it wouldn't make it a factor. You know, it wouldn't make it a factor. Do I even have to say it? If they had a dome, but they don't yet. That'll be in a few years. So anyway, I think Eagles will be prepared for it. I think their staff does a good job getting the field ready, but just something to keep an eye on heading into Sunday. All right, on the other side, let's continue to preview the matchup. In fact, we'll never finish previewing the matchup. We'll continue to preview the matchup as we will talk about the Eagles offensive line versus the Washington defensive line. So that'll be on the other side, but first, a word from our sponsors. Okay, let's continue previewing this game as we are going to get into the Washington defensive line versus the Eagles offensive line. And I saved this matchup for last because there are some injury concerns for Washington when it comes to their defensive line. Now, for Washington, the good news is, those guys that were questionable, they're gonna play. So Kavon, Kalevon Chason, the edge rusher that they signed from the Patriots, that's where he played last year, he's good to go. Dealing with a knee injury, no designation for the game. And then Odafe Oweyo, Odafe Oweyo, I believe is how you pronounce it. He is also good to go with a calf injury. So Washington will have both of their edge rushers. Ron Payne added to the injury report during the week with a knee injury, he is good to go as well. Kavon Kinlaw, or Javon Kinlaw, my apology, sorry, it's Friday. Javon Kinlaw, the defensive tackle, a back injury, he's good to go as well. So all the guys that were dealing with injuries and frankly, probably their four best defensive linemen, all good to go for Sunday. Now that doesn't mean that they're 100%. They're obviously dealing with injuries and the Eagles offensive line, I think, I don't want to say they have their hands full, but it's a tougher matchup, maybe, than you would initially think. And that's because Washington went out and they added two really good players in Chase On and Odafe Oweo, O-Way. I swear my life, I spent 15 minutes practicing how to pronounce this before the pod. Maybe I'm not a big time player. Maybe I'm not a big time podcaster, but I watch videos about it, like Peter Schreger did a whole thing on it. Odafe Oweo, I think is how you say it. But regardless, he's an unbelievable player. So let's talk about the matchups for this. First, we'll start at the defensive tackle spot with Javon Kinlaw, 34 pressures last season. Not great numbers like Daron Payne, 26 pressures in 15 games. So their top two pass rushing defensive tackles are only okay. Now they're missing Newton, the rookie that they drafted. I believe it was in the first round last year. He had six acts last year. He's a good player. I liked him coming out of the draft. He's on IR, so they're going to be missing him. They go out, they sign Tim Settle out of Seattle. 17 pressures last season. Did F38 in 2024. Sorry, not from Seattle, my apologies. They signed him from Houston. So he's decent, but they really don't have a stud pass rushing defensive tackle. So for the interior of the Eagles offensive line, Cam Jergens, Landon Dickerson, Tyler Steen, not the toughest of matchups from a personnel perspective. We'll get into a larger pitcher discussion about the offensive line in a minute, but just the defensive tackles themselves, not a ton to deal with. I think the concern is on the edge, and it's because of adding Odafe Oweo and Kaleiwaan Chaison. So Oweo, 47 pressures last year, 30th in the NFL, which is not crazy good or anything, but it's not 65th either. Like 47 is actually decent, in which is for what it's worth, the same amount as Greenard. Now, he lines up on both the left and right side. So he will be going up against both Lane and Jordan Milata. So, you know, if he is on either side, he's someone that both players are gonna have to prepare for. And then Chaison plays 90% on the left, which means if he's gonna be lining up on the left, Oweo Oweo will be on the right side. So if he's on the right side, he'll be going up against Milata. Left side, obviously Chaison will be going up against the right tackle. If he's lining up on the left side, he'll be going up against Lane Johnson. So outside of them, they have Joshua Josephs, a fifth round pick out of Tennessee. Obviously not a ton of experience, hasn't yet played an NFL game. And then Givante Jean-Baptiste, the seventh round pick in 2024, had two sacks in 15 games last year. So I like the Edge Rushers. I think those are good additions that they, I think they're good additions for the team. But overall, it's not a line that has like a stud guy that they have to pay attention to. So from a matchup perspective, I think the Eagles have the advantage in this matchup. The two Edge Rushers are banged up. They're only, I mean, Aweo is like a good player, but he's not a stud player. And then the defensive tackles are only okay. So I think from a matchup perspective, this is a good one for the Eagles offensive line. So while it's a good matchup for the Eagles offensive line, it's not really, the concern is not the Washington defensive line for me. The concern is themselves. This will be the first game playing in this new running scheme. And we've focused so much on Jalen Hurts and the new parts of him being in, the parts of him being in this new offense, right? We'll be able to throw over the middle, timing, all those things. All fair questions, all things we've talked about at length. I don't think we've focused enough on the possibility that the Eagles offensive line could struggle in this new offensive blocking scheme early on, right? So I've seen them in training camp. They've looked good. I think they've run the ball well. There's been moments where you've really seen big holes open up. I thought they ran the ball well against New England in the joint practice. So I feel good about it, but it would not shock me at all if on Wednesday you see mental errors, because it is, I don't even know if mental errors are a way to phrase it. If you see errors from running a scheme that they have not run before, pre-snap penalties, miscommunications on the cadence, like miscommunications on who's picking up who, right? All those things I think are very possible. So I think they'll run the ball well overall. I'm not trying to like sound the panic alarm. What I am saying though, is that for me, this offensive line on Sunday is not about Washington. I just don't, Washington is again, solid players. You know, you could argue Odofeo is a really good edge at times. But like overall, they're not a group that you worry about. The worry is the communication with the Eagles offensive line from with each other, the chemistry of never having run this, jail and communication. Those are my those are the concerns. So going into this game, I think they'll win the game. I think the offensive line will play well. But the concern would just be for me, the lack of experience in this offense. But only one way to get experience and that's to do it, which they will on Sunday. So that'll do it for today's daily pod. Go out, enjoy your Saturday. Man, I'm just ready for this game to get here. I'm really, really, really, really, really just ready for this game to get here. So that'll do it. Go out, enjoy your day. And until next time, he's Eliot. I'm James. Talk to you guys later.