The Ringer's Philly Special
Eagles Lose Again. Is It Time to Sell? Takeaways With Rich Hofmann!
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Visit petivity.com, petivity.com/catfeeder to learn more. To The Ringer's Philly Special, Sheil Kapadia here with Rich Hofmann of The Broad Street Bulletin, after yet another loss by your Philadelphia Eagles, 25-14 against the Carolina Panthers. We're gonna switch it up a little today. Are we gonna talk about the game? Yes, of course, we'll talk about the game. It's a post-game pod, but there are big picture conversations about this team that we have to have that are happening in your group chats across the country, across the world, that are happening. Rich Cliff told us he does a debrief with his homies after every game it's happening on that group chat, whether, I don't know, that's a group chat. I guess he's not at the green room or at bed brother. I don't think those are in person, but we're gonna try to have those conversations for the people, me and you, on this podcast. Let's do it, man, because I don't think we can do our normal a lot of time on just that game. I don't have game balls, Rich, in this game. I don't know if you do. I'm not giving any game balls. Maybe like Dallas Goddard's pants, maybe? Like, you know, I don't know. That's a good one. Yeah, I like that. All right, I'll start off with something light and funny here. So the family went to the game today, and I was just told that in their section, people were getting up left and right during the game, before the game's a blowout. And every time somebody got up, Leela would cough and go, heathen. So Cliff's influence just on the Kapadia family of Leela, just calling out heathens left and right at Lincoln Financial Field today. I mean, that's something we can all smile about. All right, so Eagles lose this game 25-14. They make it interesting. Hey, should we get the game stuff out of the way, Rich? Let's get the game stuff out of the way. And then once we're like, all right, we don't have anything else to say there, let's get to the conversations that we really want to get to, that people are having. So Eagles lose 25-14. Got a little interesting in the second half. I think the key sequence there, nice touchdown drive, cut it to 19-14, defense gets a stop, offense takes over around midfield. You're thinking, wow, one drive here, and they really have a chance to take the lead in this game. And then who knows how this one ends? You're in the second half, you get a bad snap from Jake Majors on first down. You lose 12 yards on that bad boy. You go three and out. Not only do you go three and out, the punt gets blocked. So now the Panthers only have to go 48 yards on their ensuing drive for a touchdown. They go 48 yards with ease on that next drive. And just like that, it's 25-14 with six minutes left. And that ends up being the final. At that point, Rich, I thought they had a chance. I really did. The previous drive was nice. We can talk about some of the things maybe that were looking more functional offensively. I thought they had a chance. And it's like, all right, I can't kill a guy who's not even supposed to be really a bat. He was a fringe roster player for a bad snap in a key moment. But that was a bummer when you go from first and 10, the second and 22. No, I mean, it's the same story as the past few weeks where they're getting outplayed on a down to down basis by a lot. But they're in a spot where they can take the game. And like you said, very good field position right around the 50 yard line. And that happens. And yeah, man, they just do bad team stuff. Like the snap, bad team stuff. Getting the punt blocked, bad team stuff. On fourth and one in the goal line, the whole defensive line jumping off sides, bad team stuff. So look, they're doing the big things poorly, but they're also doing the small things very poorly as well. But yeah, that was a huge, that was killer sequence for sure. Yeah, it's not just one thing. Like we're going to get into these discussions and I'm sure everyone else says, is it, well, they're just so injured. What are you going to do? Is it, well, they're not well coached. I mean, you really can say all of the above to a lot of these things. I believe you can say all of the above to a lot of these things. But to your point, Rich, they have now been outgained by 650 yards on the season. That ranks 32nd in the NFL. So I saw our friend Jimmy Kempfke, he, because I was just thinking about, man, how much are they getting outgained by? Because I've been watching a month of these games and it's just like the other teams moving it, they're not moving it. And Jimmy had the stat, let me look it up to make sure he has it right, or that I have it right for him. Okay, just in the last four weeks, man, 874 Eagles yards, 1597 for the opponents. That is minus 723 for the month. Look, I don't know what the worst months of all time were. I'm sure there were some one in 15 teams that had some pretty bad months. That's pretty hard to do. You're just getting outgained by almost 200 yards every single week. It's a hard way to live, man. It's a good reminder when you're thinking about, well, how far away is this? When you're having those conversations about, well, they could have won against the Rams. They could have won against the Jaguars. You know, if they win just one of those games, they're three and three, and we're recording this before that Cowboys game, so who knows that? But then you look at stuff like that, and you're like, all right, that's a nice reality check. That's that from Jimmy. Again, on the season even, outgained by 650 yards. That's horrible. There's just not a lot of evidence you can point to that they should even be in a lot of these games, that it really is as close as the final score says. So that's something they'll look at, I think internally. Certainly, Howie Roseman, Analytics Department, as they're making some tough decisions, which they're going to have to make here over the next couple of weeks. That's something to keep an eye on. Offensively, 17 first downs, 222 yards, 29th percentile game EPA, 25th percentile success rate. Here's what annoys me, Rich. The first play of the game. Okay, first play. We've been discussing week one film review with Sean Syed. Go check Sean Syed's social media feed. He wrote after week one, that one way teams are combating under center play action, they are blitzing. Most often, they're blitzing those linebackers through the A-gaps. You have to have a plan for this. You're going to see this around the NFL the entire season. After week one, Sean Syed told us that. We can find that clip on our week one film review. They come out the first play of the game, under center, play action, blitz, sack. It happens to them literally every single freaking week. They are the worst under center team in the NFL. I'm not even going to look up the stats because I know it's true. They're the worst under center team in the NFL. They're the worst under center play action team in the NFL. I'll look up the stats later in the week if anyone really wants them. I feel confident here that that is still the case after this performance today. How do you, and I know you got the Jalen Hurts news during the week. That's fine. You had multiple days of practice. You had over 72 hours, whatever it was, to come up with a game plan. How is that your first play and you can't protect it again, which has been a theme through the first six weeks and it happened throughout this game, by the way. That wasn't the only time. It's not like they got to the sideline and said, okay, would this happen on that under center play action? We're going to get a fix on the next one. Ross Tucker is calling it out during the broadcast that their Panthers are, every time they're under center play, under center, they're going to blitz. And if it's play action, Tanner McKee is going to have pressure in his face immediately. For that to happen on the first play of the game, that to me is just such a red flag about the coaching staff, which again, will get into more depth that had me so annoyed and had me annoyed throughout the entire game when it continued to happen over and over again that I'm just like, how could you even talk yourself into these guys coming up with solutions when this is happening in week six? Totally. And it's one of the fears from the off season was, did you chase a trend or did you hire a coach? And right now, it looks like they chased a trend. And as I think ZB and you and everybody pointed out, when you chase a trend, those trends end at some point. The defenses figure things out. And it's clear that in the two staples, and this isn't like hindsight bias for me either too, because I supported the Mannion hire, I supported more under center play action. But it is very clear that around the NFL, that there's two things that are going on specifically with the Eagles. Under center play action, instead of having the linebacker be confused about, is it a run or is it a pass? It can kind of be stuck in the middle. Defensive coordinators are saying, just go get the quarterback. If it's a run, then you get the running back and you'll be able to make a play there. If it's the quarterback, then just go blitz them. The running back won't be able to block you because they're carrying out a play fake. Then there's another thing, we didn't see it really that much in this game. But with these condensed formations, okay, yeah, that can create some confusion on the outside. But the defensive backs are also much closer, so they are much more in play as blitzers. We have seen it all season so far. Man, to say that the offensive line and the running backs, and Sean Mannion and this entire scheme are not blocking these blitzing linebackers, that's putting it mildly because you can lose and maybe the quarterback gets hit at the end of the play. No, the quarterback, there's a linebacker in his lap every time. The first Tanner McKee snap, like you said, the dude, there's two dudes in his lap and if you freeze frame it, they got four linemen on that play block and two guys. And it's just Damien Pearce, poor guy, is doing a play action fake. He's got no idea to block because there's two blitzers coming right at him. He can only get one of them, of course. It's just, it's tough. And I agree with your framing on this because, look, Sean Mannion, he is in a tough spot with this personnel, but you got to show me something a little more than that. When these same mistakes being made over and over again, you just can't have it. And we could talk about the other times too. There were at least two other times where drives ended because Johnny Munt missed a block on an under center play action play. I get it. Like when you do block it the one or two times a game, and it looks good, yeah, it looks good. You can create a chunk play out of it. But is it worth it if you're continually making these same mistakes over and over again? And to me, the answer is very clear. No, it's not. It's no, they don't have a second pitch to your point. I remember we had that conversation in the summer and I'm with you. They looked at all these retread offensive coordinators, and I told everyone Brian Dayball stinks and he does stink. That's been proven out. Mike McDaniel would have been an interesting hire. He's got the worst offense in the NFL with the Chargers, and they hired Mannion. And I said, hey, I think it's a good swing to take. Get someone new who hasn't done it, who you believe in, who you think has potential, and take a swing on them. But we did always give the caveat, it can't be just because you think he's gonna be able to run the LaFleur scheme, or you think he's gonna be able to run the McVeigh scheme. It has to be because you think he's a smart offensive mind that's gonna be able to come up with Plan B and Plan C and Plan D, because that's what coaching in the NFL is all about. And he has shown none of that, absolutely none of that. I mean, this is just like bad football, elementary football. And I get that they're injured. I understand. We're not expecting them to put up 35 points and light the league on fire. Like, believe me, I think we would both have a reasonable take if they were, you know, the 22nd best offense and it looked ugly at times. And it's like, oh, like they snap. I understand. That's not coaching, all right? You're putting in a guy who's in a tough situation, Jake Majors, you're not telling him, snap the ball between Tanner McKee's legs or whatever it was with that low snap. That, that I'm not, that is not the coaching at all. That's tough circumstances that you're putting. But there's all this other stuff. And this whole scheme, the whole idea of this scheme is it's supposed to make life easier for the quarterback. It's supposed to, remember the Jordan Milata quotes in the summer? My gosh, you know? Evil genius. Oh my gosh. This is just evil. We didn't know you could run offense like this. This is unbelievable. This is so much easier to block than the previous scheme. And they can't block anybody. Maybe there's a theoretical of that where that is the case. But when you're actually playing defenses and defensive players and defensive coordinators that are trying to rip your head off and just dominate and make you look stupid, it's not that easy. It really is not that easy. And we've seen that before everybody got injured. We saw that the first couple of weeks of the season, that it wasn't the case. And it really just has not gotten better at all. So that's the offense. The offense did not look good. Looked very similar, quite honestly, to the first five weeks of the season. Defensively, you give up 25 first downs, 399 yards. You don't build at all on the performance you had last week. It's a 38th percentile performance. Your run defense is terrible. Chuba Hubbard runs 28 for 120 and a TD. He's running through your tackles all game long. Bryce Young, 20 for 39, 281, two touchdowns. It wasn't like the most prolific, you know, there were stretches of that game where I thought the past defense was pretty good, but it still wasn't good enough overall. You didn't have a takeaway. And Rich, I thought the worst defensive stretch there was there was a point in the second half where you have them backed up. You have a chance to get into the game and you give up a 14 play, 92 yard drive. It's a 13-7 game at that point where, you know, get off the field. You give up a first down or two. It's not the end of the world. Get off the field there. Get the offense, the ball back. And the defense is underwhelmed. It's not to the same degree as the offense, but I was painting the picture of a defense that could be top five in the NFL that could just, you know, buy you time while the offense figured it out. And that's not what they've been. And we're a third of the way through the season and they haven't been a good defense statistically. They're not even an above average defense through the first six weeks of the season. And it's not like they faced, you know, a bunch of offensive juggernauts in there. So I thought the defense was disappointing as well. Yeah. So I will say, like the last month, they've played pretty good offenses the last month. The first two games were, that was very underwhelming because they were playing Washington. I'm not giving them credit for Key. I mean, Keynham, you know, if you got Caleb Williams, you're right. They faced a good offensive coach, but you still got the third string quarterback. Yes. The last, the previous two, I think you're right. And maybe this Panthers offense is maybe it's real. We don't know. Yeah, it's you don't know. So, yeah, and it feels like a situation where I've seen a lot of people say, I don't even care about the defense because the offense is putting them in really bad spots. And there's a degree of that. That's true, right? I'm sure it's deflating to see the offense go three and out four to seven times every single week and have to go back on the field. But I think there's also some nuance in there where, like, you were expecting a dominant defense this year, and they haven't been quite to that level. And that's for a few reasons. There's a few, I think, weak links on the defense personally. Like, I'm not that crazy about Jihad Campbell and Andrew MacCuba, how they have played so far. I think the pass rush when Jalen Carter is not going god mode has been very underwhelming for the most part. And yeah, the coverage, there are long stretches where the coverage is pretty good, but it feels like there are some occasional miscommunications back there, whether it's, you know, Rik Wolin and Cooper Dejean passing off somebody. And you saw, I mean, that Tommy Trimble, the second touchdown, is that just a complete bust? Like, they just, they just were not organized on that. And I think some of the credit you do give to Dave Canales on the other side, because they actually are scheming some things up and they are getting guys open and they've done well against other teams. But yeah, like the idea of wanting a little bit more from this defense in terms of sacks, in terms of turnovers, I think it's fair, like these teams are moving the ball on them pretty consistently every week. It's not just that the offense is giving them almost no yardage, the defense has given up almost 400 yards every week too. And that is, while I don't think this defense is even bad, like I think it's probably gonna be above average by the end of the year, it's fair to be a little underwhelmed with what we've seen through six weeks. What you said about Canales, I feel like a lot of Eagles fans watching this game probably had the same thought that I did when the broadcast is showing and Ross Tucker's pointing out how often the Panthers are scheming something up to create confusion for the defense or to get a guy wide open. I mean, Tommy Tremble, like, yeah, Jalen Hurts, Tanner McKee, Cole Payton, a lot of people can make that pass to Tommy Tremble when he's wide open in the end zone. That is such a decided victory for the coaching staff on that play, a massive play in the game, a touchdown play in the game that creates confusion on the defense. And that wasn't the only one. It was shown with motion. You get Jalen Coker matched up with Zach Bond on that big play. You get Teteroa McMillan matched up with Drew Maccuba in the slot to create multiple explosives. I mean, this was a running theme throughout the entire game. And by the way, we can rip Vic Fancio for this. I mean, his team has to be more prepared to handle stuff like that. It can't be that easy to create mismatches. He lost today against Dave Canales in that Panthers offensive coaching staff. There's no doubt about it. So it's not just the offensive coaches. But when you see offensive coaches like that, or you watch other teams around the NFL, and it's just like the coaches are getting them stuff like that. They are putting players in position to succeed. They are creating confusion for the defense. They are creating open wide receivers. They are scheming up explosives. All these things you want your offensive coaches to do. And you literally do not see that. I mean, I can't remember a play today for the Eagles offense. I mean, the plays that they actually made, it's like Devontae Smith, you know, make it a contested catch in the end zone. It's like McKee on the sidelines to Wicks. Yeah. It's nothing like, oh, this looks like something they practiced during the week, and they called it against the right look. And man, that guy's wide open. That was the whole point of this coaching change. Offensively is to get stuff like that. And again, we're not expecting it to look perfect. We know there are injuries. Why aren't there three plays like that? Every game that we can point to and say, oh, okay. All right. I know he's in a tough spot, but man, hey, at least, you know, they created that in that situation. There is nothing like that. And we have seen six weeks of football, even in previous weeks. I don't remember anything like that. It was Jalen Hurts making a play here and there. It was other guys, you know, Dottavion Wicks, Devontae Smith, Darius Cooper, making a play on like a contested catch in the end zone. I mean, those have been their positive plays this year. They haven't been due to coaching or scheming, or you're getting any edge during the week. They've been to some players making some plays. So that was something, that dichotomy between the Panthers and the way they were being talked about during this game, and thankfully so, with their offense, versus what we've seen from the Eagles. That had to stand out, I would imagine, for a lot of our audience. It just feels to, and part of it's the offensive line play, part of it's the coaching, like you just mentioned. Sometimes they say in hockey, I don't know if they say it in other sports, but the ice gets tilted, and that sort of just means one team is in the offensive zone compared to the other one. I feel like the field is tilted. The other team is playing downhill on offense, and the Eagles are playing uphill on offense, just for a multitude of reasons. It's hard to watch, honestly. I was talking about it with Cliff before the show, where the other team, when they scheme up a good play, that's like a 30-yarder. That's a big chunk play, 25, 30-yarder. The Eagles had a good play. If it's not Devontae winning one-on-one down the sideline, it's like 10 yards, maybe, like 8 yards. You still got second and second and two, and they still might go three and out because there's disaster potential on every single play. So it's rough, man. I mean, this is clearly the worst offensive football I have seen in a long time from this franchise. They've had some bad teams too, but this is as bad as it gets so far through six weeks. Well, it is just statistically, you know, I just am updating the stat every week, looking at is this still the worst Eagles offense this century? You know, I just do my search in true media and the answer is yes. Through six weeks of a season, the Eagles this century, 27 offenses since 2000, have never been this bad based on, I know you don't need the stats, but EPA per drive or success rate. This is the word. And you're right. There's been a lot of good teams in there. There's been a lot of good offenses in there. But there have been, you know, at least a few down years in there where they've had injuries at quarterback or other positions, or they've just been bad teams. And it's never looked this bad through six weeks. All right, let me see. What else do I have here? From the game, before we move on. You mentioned in the beginning, Goddard getting pantsed, you know, keying a touchdown. Great moment. Great moment. Maybe, yeah, I guess if you're making the highlight reel of like best moments of the 2026 Eagles, that's probably in there pretty early, I would imagine. Yeah, it's almost a metaphor for this offense and how the season has gone. I did like the full moon line. I forget if that was Ross or Iron. That was Iron Eagle. He's great. He's great at any sport. The game took forever, by the way, too. I know I'm sort of branching off right now, but didn't that feel like a five-hour game? Yeah, because I had the flex. I got the three TVs on. I'm trying to follow all this stuff for Ringer NFL show. So in the late window, stuff ends at different times because there's 405 and there's 425. I'm very attuned to this because of my job. When games start and how likely games are to end at the same time. The other games had like two minutes left in the first half, and this game had like 10 minutes left in the first half. Like, what in the world? It's happening here, the game took forever, and yet nobody wanted to pay attention by the time. It got to the end there. You mentioned. Eye in Eagle, the other note here. Havertown. Oh, Havertown. That was rough. Yeah. I mean. Now, I was very interested there I'm very. rich because I thought Ross is from around here, from Pennsylvania, knows the Philadelphia area relatively well. I have to imagine he had a little moment of indecision. Do I correct him because he's going to get ripped for this? Or do I just let it go because there's millions of people watching who are probably like, we don't care if the announcer pronounces Havertown wrong. People across the country who might have gotten this guy. I think he had a moment where he thought about correcting him there. I think he did too. I got a little bone to pick with Ross Tucker too as well. There was a butterscotch crimpet anecdote for Bryce Young, the wizard of Wynwood that Ross Tucker dropped during the game. Where did he get that? Where did you get that, Ross? I don't know. I think it might have been in The Philadelphia Inquirer. Was that from the Alex Coffee story in The Philadelphia Inquirer? Oh no. Listen, announcers, we got to be better at this. Longtime listeners know I have a decade long grudge against Joe Tesitor that he doesn't even know about because he wronged me on a Monday night football broadcast. It's not that hard. If you read it somewhere, Ross, where we're friendly, we're just telling you for future broadcasts, especially in the town where you're doing radio, you're doing the pre-season games. If you're reading that, so now it might be, I do want to give Ross a little out here, that might be on the production research staff. Could have been a production meeting too. They might give him a little, well, you're right. He could have gotten that on his own. That is possible that he got it on his own during some of the conversations. Yeah, it's also possible he got some type of production research packet and the attribution on that was not correct. And he got that. So then we got to rip those people. They got to do a better job. So Ross, you know, I thought you did a good job on the broadcast, but come on. Did a very good job, yep. Hard working reporters out here doing a great job too. Like Alex Coffey, who's writing like 17 features a week, finding stories, no one else in the market's finding. One of the great sports writers we have. Let's give her a little credit once you unearth a little butters. I mean, if you're unearthing a butterscotch Crippet nugget, they all take you behind the scenes. You know, when you're a reporter and you get a nugget like that, you're like, let's go, baby. People are going to love this. This is a great. And you're working to get that nugget. And someone else is just using it. You're like, come on. Like one that I got at one time, Rich, was Zach Ertz. His passcode where his phone was like, I think it was a yardage record that Rob Gronkowski had and he wanted to break it. And so anytime he had to unlock his phone, he had to type in this exact number. I forget. It was yards. I don't know if it was yards in the season or what it was that Gronkowski had. When he said that, I'm like, oh, thank you, Zach. That is a nugget that I can use in this feature. So there you go. That's enough to broadcasters around the country. Okay. What else did I have here, Rich, from this game before we go? Big picture. I mean, the jumping on fourth and one, that was a big play. And you're right. It wasn't just Ogimmo. What's going on there? How does the whole defensive line jump on fourth and one? And that had to dry. That had to be Nick Sirianni's worst moment of like, I don't know, the last five years? Yes, I mean, the amount of times he has tried that and has not even come close to getting somebody to jump off, that's not true. I bet you he's batting in the low, you know, four, three percent, something like that. He's got it a few times. But most times he does not even get close. Yeah, that had to be tough. That had to hit him in his soul, Nick Sirianni. It was tough, man. And it was the whole line too. I'm sure, I think they said it was on, Ojumot was the guy, but they could have gotten everybody on that one. Jordan Davis jumped, other guys jumped. Brace Young hit him with the finger guns too, like, we got you too. It just really was, that's how the whole day was, right? That Brace Young, I don't even think, he's playing great and I'm actually happy for him. Me too. How rough his career started to see him just slinging it and playing so well. He didn't even have to play that well today. I didn't even think he was that good and yet, because his offense is just at such an advantage. I mean, he's just like three steps ahead of the Eagles the whole game. Yeah, no, it was a pretty average passing performance. Yeah, Cliff said he was screaming at the TV. He got benched for Andy Dalton once. Yeah, that's true. He actually wouldn't have gotten his job back if Andy Dalton, or he wouldn't have gotten his job back quickly if Andy Dalton didn't get in a car accident. It's one of the weirder stories of the last few years. He gets benched for Andy Dalton in Carolina. Andy Dalton plays, then Andy Dalton gets in a car accident, so Bryce Young has to go back in there. Really, he has not played this well in his career until this year. This is by far the best six-week stretch he's had in his career. He had some moments last year, he had a nice playoff game last year, but in terms of just stringing together a bunch of solid to above average games, this is the best Bryce Young has looked. Okay, other things I had here. Rich, real quick, you mentioned Campbell and Macuba. That 2025 draft, I understand there's time, patience, all that. It's not looking great. Campbell is split snaps with Trotter today, where Campbell plays 45 snaps, Trotter plays 26, according to True Media. This is in Campbell's second year, you know, in the NFL. It's not like you have Nicoby Dean on the roster. This is for, you know, another young player on a rookie contract. So you have that. And Macuba is just, again, it shouldn't be that easy to just get Macmillan lined up on Macuba one-on-one, but the Panthers found a way to do it. And then last week, he gave up the big play. I think if you're being generous, you would say he's giving you slightly below average safety play. But I mean, there's a case that it's actually much worse than that. So yeah, he has not kind of solidified that safety spot, if that's what you were expecting. Yeah. And the other thing that happened in this game, and again, you do have to coach around this, but to a degree, the edge depth in this game just took a hit. At some point, I don't know if it was the third quarter shield, but when I kept hearing the name James Newby get called, I was like, man, that is a guy. Keyshawn James Newby, he is a guy that most years is not even making the team and we don't even hear from him again. Maybe he's on the practice squad. Here we are in week six and he's one of their two healthy edge guys for a stretch of the game, so he has to play. It's just like, man. When it rains, it pours. They're doing a lot of things wrong from a strategy standpoint, from a pick in the personnel standpoint, but they're also just getting decimated by injuries right now. Keyshawn James Newby plays 43 snaps in this game. Jonathan Grenard. Jonathan Grenard plays 24 snaps because Nolan Smith left the game with a concussion in this game. I don't know what Vic Fangio is going to say about Jonathan Grenard this week. He has seemed at his wits end about Grenard not being on the field. It's always hard for us to say like, no, a guy is injured. We don't know what kind of pain he's in. I never call anyone out for that. You never call anyone out for that. When the defensive coordinator is just calling a guy out for that, then you just pay attention. Okay. Fangio obviously believes that Grenard should be on the field more at this point. He's pointing out that he got hurt in the weight room, which I don't know, to Fangio, it seems like funny that you get hurt in the weight room. But yeah, that's a situation worth monitoring for sure. I maintain that when this guy's healthy and on the field, he's a very good football player, but that has not happened yet this year. And it hasn't happened for a few years too. You know, he had, I think he had one pretty nice play against the run, but he looks like he's like a little gimpy still, like honestly, like it looked like he was still limping a little bit as well. I see him weirdly a decent amount in coverage as well, but you're not getting what you paid for both in terms of what you traded and then what you actually paid him after you traded. So that's been a rough start to the Granada Eagles era for sure. Arnold Abicade played 67 snaps. That's a lot. That's a lot. 67 for him and 43 for Keyshawn, James Newby in this game. All right. Last things I have here on the game, the official John Hussey, you know, being all trying to lay the smackdown on the audience. Unbelievable crowd. The quarterback was outside the pocket. That's why it's not intentional grounding. The quarterback was outside the pocket. And then you got egg on your face, Hussey. Because then they review it. And no, it wasn't. You had to change the call to intentional grounding. So before you scold everybody, why don't you make sure you have the call right? How about that, Hussey? What was the strange moment? Incredibly strange. Because even if he was right, I've never seen refs like scold the... I've never seen him do a double thing like that. Yeah. Like to double down and say the same thing over again with more emphasis. No, it was because he was outside of the tackle box. That's why it was grounding. But dude, you were wrong. You got replay resist. Like, oh man, you got replay reviewed. And the NFL office said, hey Hussie, you got to come back with your tail in between your legs and tell these people that you were wrong. And honestly, the fact that he just was like, after replay review, the call has been changed. No, you should have personalized that one too and said, I was wrong. Come on, Huss. Dude, you're absolutely right. If he had any sense of humor, he would have been like, all right, everyone, my bad. It would have been like a viral moment. All right, Philly fans, I apologize. You got me. It actually is intentional grounding. That would have shown a nice human side, Hussie. But you know what? You got your chest out, acting like, oh, you're the big man, you're just going to make fun of everybody. No one knows what the pocket is. And then you come back and you look like a dummy. All right. Now that we're talking about it, that was easily the best part of the game. That was the best part. That was so good. That was fantastic. What are you doing, Hussie? All right. I wouldn't have known his name, but they set his name on the broadcast. So I'm like, all right, let me write this down. His name is Hussie. All right. I think those are the main things I have. I mentioned the Nolan Smith injury done. At one point, Devontae Smith and Dontavian Wicks go down on consecutive plays. Smith came back in the game. We'll see about Wicks. Jordan Davis left the game at one point with an injury. Cooper DeGene, they're just showing the sideline for three seconds. It's like, oh, there's Cooper DeGene limping. It's like, oh my God, how many more guys can get injured for this football team? So they're in a tough shape. We'll figure out what happens with the injuries later in the week. All right. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to take a break. We're taking a little later break today because I wanted to get all the game stuff out of the way and then I want to discuss what everyone's discussing. And I think there's two topics. Okay. One topic is, is it time to punt on the season and become sellers now? Or is it about to become that time very soon? And then number two is, how do you assess the coaches given the circumstances here? And maybe more importantly, how do you think Jeffrey Lurie, the owner, will assess the coaches given the circumstances? I think those are two big questions facing the Eagles here after six weeks. Take a break, we'll come back, we'll get to those two topics. The Ringer's Philly Special is brought to you by FanDuel. All right, we're spending this whole podcast trying to figure out what we actually believe about this NBA season. Who's winning the title, which teams are going over, and which prediction are we going to pretend we never made by February? And FanDuel has a reward stack built for exactly this. You get a stack of rewards to use on NBA futures, so while we're sitting here talking ourselves into teams the rest of the show, you can make your future picks on FanDuel. Put your rewards stack to work on NBA futures with FanDuel. Check it out in the FanDuel app and make this your most rewarding season ever. 21 plus select states or 18 plus DC or Wyoming opt-in required. Bonus issued as non-materialable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. 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Make your home Santa's favorite stop with the holiday decor you want. All waiting for you at The Home Depot. All right, we are back here on The Ringer's Philly Special. All right, Rich, so they've got the Dallas Cowboys next week. Again, we're recording this before the Cowboys play the Packers on Sunday night. The Eagles are now 2-4 on the season. The Giants lost here in week 6. The Commanders play on Monday night. So the standings as of this recording, Giants are 3-2-1. Cowboys will either be 2-4 or 3-3. Eagles are 2-4 and the Washington Commanders will be either 1-4-1 or 2-3-1. So no one is running away with the division. That is true. Having said that, we gave you those stats with the yards. This is our first time recording since the Jalen Hurts news came out that he is in fact going on IR. So he missed this game and now he has to miss at least the next three games. And there's no guarantee that he will be back after that. As we've said before, you just don't know with blood clots. It could be longer than that. It could be the whole season, but it's at least going to be three more games after this game. You have a chance, the potential, unless Dak Prescott gets injured or something in this game Sunday night, you're going to be underdogs next week against the Cowboys. And you may lose your fifth straight game and fall to two and five. Are they at the point? Are you at the point? Well, I guess I want your perspective and what you think Howie Roseman's perspective is. Whether that they should be sellers? Yeah, whether you're at the point where you say, all right, right now, I'm already in. It ain't happening this year. It's a season from Helsinki. Start taking calls. If you need to trade some guys who aren't going to be around next year, then go ahead, add draft capital. Doesn't mean you're tanking. It just means if guys are going to walk at the end of the season, you might as well get something for them. That mode of moving on, are you at that point? Do you think you need to see another week? Where do you think Howie Roseman is on that question? No, I don't need to see another week. Now, I will say my heart as a fan, I don't want to watch the game next week and root for them to lose and see them just get destroyed by the Cowboys. I like when they beat the Cowboys. But because of how bad they have been on offense, and because you keep hearing, this NFC East is still very winnable. It's like, when did the Eagles care about this? Let Washington win the division in the terrible years. That's their thing. They win the division, and then they're cannon fodder in the wild card round, and the Eagles reload, and then when the division is actually good, when them and the Cowboys are good teams, well, they can actually make a run because they've been able to reload. So, yeah, I mean, I think just the offensive line and the state of it makes me think that things are going to go poorly probably regardless. Like, I kind of think just the way this is trending, I would be surprised if they made the playoffs now. The NFC East is really bad, and so to be the best of those four teams is not the craziest lift in the world, but they're getting their butts kicked in a way that like, you know, it's like a top five pick type of stuff right now. Hey, maybe it changes, maybe they figure some things out, maybe they go to Tanner McKee. Like, we didn't say this during the game. If Sean Mannion has any sort of flexibility, like, let's see if some shotgun spread the next week. Like, let's see. Oh, I got that comment when we talk about the coaches, yeah. Okay, that's right, yeah, we're gonna talk about that. So, okay, but anyway, there are a couple different buttons that they could push to theoretically be better, but part of me is like, man, this is supposed to be a good draft, and we have proof of concept over the last 20 years of Eagles football, that reset years, man, this franchise knows how to do them. They know how to do them. It doesn't mean when you stink for one year, that usually doesn't mean you stink for two or three years. Usually, by year three, you're back in the pseudo contender status by that point. So yeah, it's more a question of, I think it's trending that way. Does Howie Roseman want to give a little bit extra of a shove to it, and that means trading older players who maybe might not be here in the next two or three years at some point and are not in this window but are still very good players. And I could name about probably about four or five of those guys right off the top of my head. So that would be the question. I would support it with my head, even if it would also kind of hurt me as a fan, because it's a weird thing where you know that actually them losing might not be the worst thing in the world. But I don't want to root for that every week at the same time. Yeah, we went over this on a recent mailbag with CB, where the listener, I think his name was Ayush from the UK, was like, the Eagles role in my life is to bring me joy when I'm like stressed out about other stuff. You know, and like I live for watching them. I live for listening to this podcast. I live for consuming the content around my favorite football team. And that's a very real thing for I would say most people listening to this podcast. Not everybody, I think that, you know, there's a segment who can think more with their head who are like, I'm going to be a fan of this team for the next 10 years. And I want the next 10 years to be great, you know, rather. So if I have to take one bad year, that's okay. Cause they've been really good for a long time. And if that means, you know, sacrificing a little bit this year when I don't think they have it anyway for the future, I'm okay with that. But that's not everybody. You want your Sundays and your Mondays and all those other days that they play this year. You want those days to bring you joy and give you some moments and give you games that you remember about and players that you remember about and all those things. So I'm never one to, especially in the NFL, be quick to punt on a season. However, the circumstances here, like, if it was one of those things where I felt like they were getting unlucky or I felt like, hey, once they get healthy, there's a great ceiling for this team. Or I felt like, hey, with this coaching staff, they've earned the benefit of the doubt, give them some time, they're gonna figure it out. And who knows, once they get into the playoffs, they might be able to come up with these creative game plans, and maybe you win a game or two, like what a year that would be, that would be fantastic. The problem is I don't believe any of those things with this team, you know? You're two and five with this product, you're injured, you're getting more injured, you have no idea when your quarterback's gonna be back on the field, and you're getting outgained more than any other team in the NFL, and you have the worst offense you've had in the franchise this century. So it's just like, if I could point to one or two things, where I felt like, all right, I don't care about the record, there's some good things happening here, where I feel confident that there are good things that are going to happen in the future, then I would be like, just stick with it as long as you can. You know what I mean? You're not getting like 10 first round picks or anything for these guys you're gonna trade. It's not that big of a deal. Stick with it. But that's not the case. So I think where I'm at, you're not in a rush to like trade everyone this week, you know, that's not where you're at. I think the trade deadline, I believe, is November 8th somewhere, right around there, so you have at least one more game, maybe two more games. I'm fine with seeing where you're at. At the end of that, you know, maybe surprise the Cowboys on Monday night and we're on here next week having a different conversation saying, okay, you know, they're not gonna win the Super Bowl, but at least there's some signs of life here and you stick with it. So I think you can do that. I mean, if next week is just more of the same and we're on here saying, oh, you got outgained by 200 yards and who cares what the score was because you were never really in the game and we haven't gotten good news about guys getting healthy and you really don't feel like it's gonna be any different, then I think that's probably the smart point either next week or the week after that where you start saying like, all right, let's make sure people know who's available. And some of the guys, you know, Moro Ojumot, you're probably, I don't think you're in position to sign him. You're just not. You signed Jalen Carter. You signed Jordan Davis. You made those decisions. You basically agreed Moro Ojumot is going to be gone after the season, just like Milton Williams was. He's an above average starting defensive tackle. Good against the run, good against the pass, three down player by all accounts has great intangibles. Doesn't make a lot of money. So a team that's trading for him, it's not like he's going to have significant impact on their cap. There's going to be a pretty good market for a player like that. So that's the type of player. Three for him would be my guess. What's that? I think you get a three for him, honestly. Yeah, I'm thinking a day two pick. Now, it's always tricky because it's such a rental. He's not going to go somewhere and sign a contract right away. But teams do get aggressive. We saw it last year. The Colts gave up two first-round picks for Soft-Sgardner. These teams that are feeling really good about themselves, this is the time when they actually make more irrational moves than the off-season. Well, and there are also teams like the Eagles last year, they gave up a three for Jalen Phillips, and the way the comp pick formula works, right? Like, you're going to move down a little bit in the round because those picks are at the end of the round, but you're still going to get a three back for him at the same time. So maybe they find something like that as well. But yeah, he's the first guy off the top of my head. I would say him and then Rick Woollen would be the other one, just off the top of my head. Hasn't been here for that long. We thought he was going to be a one-year rental anyway. They tried to find a soft spot in the market and said, this is an opportunity to get a talented player. And he's been okay, right? Like make some mistakes in the secondary, but he's still got a lot of talent. Would he be somebody that a team that maybe took an injury in the secondary? Maybe it seemed like Carolina, right? That had their two corners out today. Would that be something? Detroit, they might have already called about Rick Woollen. I mean, Detroit is a team that their secondary is decimated and they don't have a lot of paths to make it better other than their safety is getting healthier. I think that's one that would make a lot of sense for a team like that. But like, what if the Seahawks lose a corner in the next week or two? And they're like, all right, we let him walk, but he knows the scheme and he played for us last year. You mentioned Carolina. I'm with you. Rick Woollen was the second guy I had on that list. Dallas Goddard. There wasn't a big market for him in the off season. Has he shown he's healthy and maybe a little bit more reliable now that he's come back from the injury? He's over 30. He signed him to a one year deal again. He doesn't make a lot of money. Would a team give up a pick for him? And then I think you get to like, do we get to a point where we're talking Saquon Barkley? Say it, yeah. That's like a big one. I'm looking at that Seahawks. I'm looking at a team like the Seahawks. I'm looking at a team like Houston that tried to sign Saquon Barkley and is now back in the mix and doesn't really have a running back. Would that be a team that would say, let's go crazy because we're trying to win this division and make a trade for a player like that. Landon Dickerson, does he come back and play for you? And then another team says, oh, okay, he's at least an average interior offensive lineman. So there's a lot of players like this and we're going to talk about them I'm sure in the weeks ahead if things keep going this way. But that's kind of where I'm at. I'm all right with giving it another week, giving it another two weeks. If it continues to look like this, even if the rest of the division, even if they're not, no one's running away with it. If your team looks like it's luck through the first six weeks, I would say, all right, be smart about, by the way, to your point, everybody who is involved with the draft. And I know I get annoyed with this a lot of times. So I'm like, you guys don't know if this is a good draft or not. But they've literally been saying since last year, they're like the 2027 draft. Now, this is actually going to be an amazing draft. So if this is the draft, if you're trying to accumulate draft capital in a specific draft, this would be the one to do that for. So that's kind of where I'm at with that question. And wouldn't it be nice, like it's just, again, I don't want to sit through X amount of hours of slop football, which, you know, whatever. There's 11 games left. So we're looking at, you know, somewhere around 40 hours of slop football the rest of the year. That's a lot, right? Even in the NFL. And I'm an NBA tanking guy, Sheil. I've, the amount of slop basketball you watch, way more hours of your life you spend with that. Even the NFL, man, 40 hours, that's daunting at this point of the season. But the other part of me says to myself, you know what would be nice? If the Eagles were like, you know, had the six pick in this loaded draft and one of the top tackles, instead of watching 10 tackles go off the board, which has been the case, we've been talking about offensive tackle of the future for the last three years, for them to have the option to take the top one, maybe, in the draft, instead of just watching these guys get plucked off and saying, hey, you're a good team, you're picking in the 20s or you're picking 32 the one year, that those guys aren't going to be available, those super obvious top tackles. So that would be nice too. I don't want to sit through the slop football, but if you do sit through the slop football, then, you know, March, April is a lot more fun at that point. Because they do still have, I know right now it feels like they're not a talented team, but if you project like the starting lineup for 2027, you know, it's like Devontae Smith and McKay Lemon at wide receiver, you know, defensively, you still have Cooper DeGene, you still have Quinian Mitchell, you still have Jalen Carter. I'm not saying they're loaded. They definitely have areas where they can upgrade, but you're not like a bottom of the barrel. To your point, this is where Howie Roseman has kind of excelled throughout his career. He's excelled at different areas, but when he has to sort of figure out how to get out of a bad situation, which to be fair, if you're a Howie hater, you're like, don't forget to remind everyone when they are in a bad situation, that's also his fault, which is true, but he's gotten them in many good situations. They've won a lot of games, but yeah, when you get yourself into a messy, bad situation, can you find your way out of it? And he has the luxury because of his relationship with the organization, with the owner, he's going to be given the opportunity to get out, and he should be, I'm not saying anything otherwise. Of course, he's the one you want doing that. He's the one you want rebuilding your franchise, but he knows that, all right, this was a bad year, but I could make moves to get us right back on top. And he's earned the benefit of the doubt that he can do that. He got into three Super Bowls from 2017 to 2025. So he knows how to do that. He knows when to kind of pull the trigger and accumulate that draft capital and where to spend it and when to make the move on hey, let's trade for a player with this draft capital rather than use the draft capital. All those things, no one has a perfect track record, but he's got a better track record than pretty much any GM in the NFL at doing those things. So it's not like this is, oh, if you trade these guys, you're bad for the next three years, you might be the favorites in the division literally next year with a couple of these moves and it might set you up better for the next five, eight, 10 years, whatever the case may be. So that's gonna be something we continue to talk about here in the weeks ahead depending on how they perform on the field. Now, the other big question, Rich, they are banged up, they are very injured. In terms of the head coach and the offensive coordinator, and I don't know if we wanna talk about those two guys separately or at the same time, Nick Sirianni and Sean Mannion, do you believe that we just say Mulligan, Sirianni's never had a losing record, he's been in the playoffs every year, this year things were out of his control, of course he comes back next year, this is a dumb conversation, or are you, not so fast my friend, Jeffrey Lurie has, he's not like he's the most patient owner when he sees something he doesn't like, when he just feels like it's time to make a move and I can improve by hiring someone else, I'll go ahead and do that. Where are you with, maybe start with Sirianni, and then we'll get to Mannion here in a second, unless you think they're connected. I do think they're kind of connected personally. I mean, that's a good question. Is there a scenario where maybe the defense rallies to an incredible degree and you would credit Nick for that while the offense continues to stink? Maybe and you probably should in a just world with Nick Sirianni's record, his Lombardi-esque record, although that's taken a hit over the last month for sure. Would that be just? But no, I mean, I talked about proof of concept with Howie Roseman rebooting this team. Jeffrey Lurie is the proof of concept that, hey, when Jeffrey Lurie fired Doug Peterson, I remember that press conference, he did a Zoom and he spoke and he was a very unpopular guy at that point. He was like, people were like, this is terrible, Doug won a Super Bowl. How can you do this? There's been so many, the roster is so old. Howie hasn't done a good job over the past few years. But he is proof of concept that he turns it over to Nick Sirianni and with Howie rebooting the roster, that worked out fine. I wonder if he looks at it the exact same way. But the reason you would say that Nick, this isn't just the season from hell, they underperformed offensively last season as well. Here we have the Nick Sirianni dynamic where he is managing the game. Didn't have any issue with Sirianni managing the game. Dave Canales, I don't know what he was doing at the end of the- No hill Mary, there at the end. Come on man, give it a shot. What are you doing? So yeah, I think if you look at him and Mannion, if they're connected, it's what we talked about earlier. You got to show us something. As of right now, I understand that the personnel is not good, but there's no imagination, there's no answers, there's no creativity, there's none of that stuff. And my guess is that Jeffrey Lurie would feel the same exact way. And I remember, I think he said, I think it was asked during that conversation something about like, is it fair or something like that? And I forget exactly how he answered it, but it was basically like, it's not about whether it's fair or not. It's about like, what do I think is best for the franchise going forward? Like that's the kind of the only question that matters. You know, it might be unfair, you know, that Doug Peterson, who has won a Super Bowl and just had one bad year, is out of here. But it really was just one year out of the playoffs there, right? At the end, where things fell apart. And that team did have injuries. You know, I don't know if they were to this degree, but that team did have injuries and he wanted things to change. And Doug Peterson put his foot down and said, I don't think that I don't want to be here. Those are the things that have to change. And they said, okay, then we're going to go our separate ways. So he's not afraid to do that. So I think Mannion, to me, if I'm just being honest, seems like a nice guy who at some point might be a very good coach in the NFL. Right now he looks completely in over his head, you know. He's not ready for it. He's not ready. I mean, I know he hasn't had a full roster, but I'm not just talking about this game. It's what we talked about earlier. You know, they haven't figured anything out six weeks into a season. They haven't shown any flashes, any wrinkles, any moments where you say, okay, that's something there that the offensive coordinator's doing a great job with. And this is six weeks, you know. Like, yeah, I was preaching patience all summer. But six weeks in, you just want to see signs and you're not seeing any signs. Like, if you believe, if you're a Sean Mannion supporter, I would love to know the one thing that has you encouraged that he's done. Literally, one thing you can point to, where you're like, well, he did the issue, and it can't just be the guys are injured. Okay, given the circumstances, what's the thing he's done given the circumstances he's been dealt that you point to and say, this has given them an edge offensively, or he's got them going in the right direction here. I literally can't find that. And again, you compare that to what you saw. What we've seen with some of the other offenses the Eagles have faced here in the last month, you know, referring to what you said earlier, and it's like, it's easy to see it with a lot of those teams. And it doesn't mean those teams are perfect, and it doesn't mean they do it every week, but you can see it, and you can't see it here. So I do think Mannion, you know, part of what the rest of the season is about, whether you trade guys or don't trade guys, you get more time. I'm not calling for him to be fired during the season. Give him the season. Let's see what it looks like. Where are we after week 18? Maybe there comes a point this season where I say, oh, this was nice. Sean Sayed's like, oh man, that was a great Sean Mannion game last week. And we're doing an hour on how he cooked some defensive coordinator. I would love for that to be the case, but he does need to show that. If it looks like it looked the first six weeks and you have your worst offense this century and I'm still posting those stats after week 18, no, of course you're not gonna get another year if you've shown nothing. I don't care that guys were injured or not. So that's the Mannion part of it. And then you ask yourself, okay, well, if that's the case, you bring Sirianni back with a different offensive coordinator at that point? I mean, that's where it gets pretty tricky. And I think if you're a Sirianni backer, you can say, come on, Sheil, everybody's injured the season from Helsinki. Never had a season like this before. You just, you know, you're a hater. You haven't gave him credit even when things were going well. But I do think there's this question of even if you're someone who feels like Sirianni was a big reason for their success, 2021 to 2025. I think it's fair to wonder, and I think for Jeffrey Lurie specifically, is he the right guy for the next era? Because the next era, you might not be the more talented team most years, most games, which he has been throughout the course of his career here. You might not have an elite defensive coordinator who he can just find for you and pluck you a Vic Fangio. You know, the defense might not be as good. You might not have an elite offensive line coach, which you had for those five years, which you don't have anymore because at least partially, you butted heads with him. And that's part of the reason why he's gone. So the circumstances for whoever is going to coach this team to their next Super Bowl could be very different than the circumstances that Sirianni got them to multiple Super Bowls with. That might just be a once in 25 years, once in 50 years scenario, where you're just on such a heater with the draft and trades and you have such a loaded roster. And I tried to bring this up at the time, and I know we've talked about it before, but that just might have been like a golden era of great players everywhere that is not going to return to the Philadelphia Eagles for the rest of our lives. And if that's the case, where is Sirianni giving you an edge? I mean, it continues to be proven out that he is giving you nothing as an offensive schemer or problem solver, even as a right-hand man, even as someone who Sean Mannion can bounce ideas off of and say, Nick, this under center play action, we got to protect this better. What are your ideas? Obviously, those conversations are not leading to anything positive here in terms of the things that are supposed to be his strengths, game management, culture, motivation. Are we sure those are edges that are really meaningful that if you bring in another coach, you're not going to have those? Like, I think he's fine at those things. I don't know that that's a separator from other coaches. So I think those are the conversations that Jeffrey Lurie and Howie Roseman are going to have the rest of the season. Depending on how this goes, I don't think it's just going to be, we were injured, he deserves a mulligan. You guys are crazy for even asking about this. I think they're going to look at it a little bit differently. I'm not saying they're definitely going to move on and fire him if things continue to go south. But I think it's going to be a conversation in the building of, what's our best path going forward? Is it with Sirianni or do we need to find someone else? No. In professional coaching, Deserve usually has got nothing to do with it, if that's the case. The interesting scenario though is if you combine these two conversations, should Nick stay, what should how we do over these next few weeks? If they do lean into, we're going to retool a little bit and we're going to get what we can for this select group of players, not trading from our core, but our select group of players. The fun name that you mentioned, I mean fun or just the juicy name around the league is Saquon Barkley, who's a guy that first of all, I think any team that has a decent offensive line and maybe sort of average running backs should be all over getting Saquon Barkley. If the Eagles did make them available, I feel like he would just be awesome just getting him mid season. At the first game, it would be like when J. Ajayi came to the Eagles and he started just running for 25 yards a carry even though he's better than J. Ajayi too. But if they do that and they signify that, hey, we're looking more towards the future, then you have a scenario where the GM and the ownership, the organization, they have different priorities than an offensive coordinator that would definitely be a dead man walking and a coach that might not have a job at the end of the year too. So it could create sort of an awkward scenario and I mentioned this earlier. The thing he's got to do with Tanner McKee over these next few weeks, if he wants to figure out this offense a little bit, the under center play action stuff which we've panned for 30 minutes on this pod, enough, stop, you just can't do it. Maybe you bring it back in December when you have something figured out as a change up. Put Tanner McKee in the shotgun and figure out what works that way. That's clearly where he specifically is most comfortable. It's not what you were brought here to do, Sean Mannion, but I saw it today. He clearly looked the most comfortable doing that. He gets you a touchdown to Devontae Smith in that game. That's your best shot to move the ball at least over the next few weeks. We are not NFL coaches. I had that in my notes so early in this game, and it was shocking how long it took them to get to that, how they were still trying. It's so obvious that if he's comfortable, shotgun, get the ball out, keep it, make quick decisions, don't lead to negative plays, that again, I'm not saying he's going to be elite at that, but that at least gives you a chance. Once he started doing that in the second half, you're in hurry up mode, he started at least completing passes and they strung together a couple of nice drives. The fact that it took them that long, the fact that they've seen him practice all summer and all off season, and that was not a key feature of the game plan. Is it that you're stuck in, well, this was the scheme I thought I was brought here to employ versus this is the scheme that might give us the best chance to win this game, and you can't figure that out. Again, is that a scenario where Nick Sirianni's got to step in and be like, all right, maybe we should lean into this stuff a little bit more. You know, when you have a young coach, a first time play caller, do you need to step in there or is it like, well, I'm supposed to be hands off with this guy. I don't want to overstep my bounds. I understand that's a difficult thing to do as well, but it's your job to manage that relationship as the head coach. So I'm with you. Next week, you're facing a bad Cowboys defense. We saw where Tanner McKee is comfortable. In this game, you presumably will have Devontae Smith or that game. We'll see who else you have for that game. That should be the game plan. If we are watching the first or second possession and they're going under center play action, he's taking a sack. I mean, I don't know what else I'll have to see, honestly, at that point. So let's see if they can. It is true, coaches say it all the time. When you have the full week with the backup and you get to scheme the whole game plan with it, we didn't find out until Wednesday about Jalen and we were rushed a little bit. First of all, I mean, that is what the money is for, to figure out those situations, but I can understand that a little bit. Now you got a Monday night game, you have time, you know who your quarterback is going to be. It has to look better. Next, the circumstances are there. You again, terrible defense, you have extra time, you're a little bit healthier. Maybe get Saquon back for that game, I don't know. It's got to look better next week against the Cowboys offensively. And if it doesn't, maybe that's all you need to see. And you figure out the direction of the moves you want to make before the trade deadline, and how the rest of your season is going to shape up. And then you figure out what you're going to do with the big picture questions down the road later this season. So there you go. All right, Rich, do we forget anything? We still talked about the Eagles for over an hour. That's some compelling conversations in there. We didn't have to break down every aspect of that game to do so. No, I don't think we needed to. I'm trying to think if there was anything funny in our notes. All-time Covey hit in the game. He got closed line on a play. That was again, he's a good returner. He's like, you look at the stats, he's like one of the better ones in the NFL. But man, he gets hit harder than anybody, I think we'll ever see play football. How does he get up? They're like, was that a closed line? No, that wasn't a closed line. They showed the replays like, no, that was a closed line. He just got taken out. Oh my gosh. But he gets up every time. A couple ones where he had trouble fielding them. By the way, they had an unbelievable dirty kickoff today with the holder. That was pretty good. It's like, man, you know when that would have come in handy? Last week. What you needed. That's literally the kickoff you needed last week. You have another win under your belt. If you just do it at that spot, they got scared and thought it was too high risk. But man, that was pretty nice right there. There was some weird special team stuff in this game, but I don't know how much people really care about getting into all that. All right. I think that's everything. There you go. That's good. Philadelphia Eagles, two and four. Always interesting. As Cliff tells me, don't worry. Don't worry if they're good, bad, what their record is. People are going to listen to this podcast to hear us talk about the Philadelphia Eagles. And we're going to continue the talk about the Philadelphia Eagles. So we will do that throughout the week. I'm thinking Sean will give us a little Tanner McKee, a little Sean Mannion. I don't know. Maybe I did see the Nathan Fielder Elizabeth Holmes movie. So maybe we might have to do 20 minutes on that. At the end, give you a little spoiler alert if you haven't seen it. So we'll do an update there. We are going to do a pod with our friend Roy Burton after the opener, Sixers opener on Tuesday. So that'll be a combo pod. We'll do half film review, half Sixers-Nicks on Tuesday. Very excited about that. And then ZB, we'll do a little later in the week, probably Friday morning, I think, because we got a Monday night game. So we'll let him get to the, get to the locker room, get some insight from the practice facility and ZB. Now I don't know if he wants me to let this out of the bag, but he didn't say off the record, we'll be in attendance for the Sixers home opener. How about ZB having the connection? You might have some Sixers thoughts on Friday as well. Cliffy Dose, what do you got, my friend? Let's go, baby. The Flyboys got their first win of the season. You got to give them a shout out too, man. You almost forgot about the Flyers, man. They got their first win of the season finally, in the middle of October. A lot of happy fans walking around downtown last night when I left the Philly Film Festival and headed to my homegirl's birthday party. I was talking about being outside right there. No, it was cool, man. Shout out to Justin Mann and shout out to Adam Shapiro for my two-second role in their Philly Pretzels film. But yeah, it was a nice night. You were in the movie? For like two seconds, yeah. Oh, man. I might have to see this now. I'm trying to get a little- It's a short. I might be trying to get a little copy of the clip, Rich, you know, for our socials. Again, follow Cliff, Rich and me. We're posting a lot, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. Where else am I? I don't know. You name it. There's only one Sheil Kapadia doing football content, so you could find me on all of those. But yeah, Rich, I'm trying to get my hands on that baby, and then we'll post Denzel, Ace producer Cliff Augustin there. Yeah, you can't get me there. I can't get there yet, man. I can't get there yet. Yet, though, with the power of yet. Let me get the baby steps first, you know what I mean? And then I'll try to get to that level, you know? I bet people at the Philly Film Festival were probably shaking Cliff's hands after watching his performance in that one, too, in the lobby, you know, like Cliff. You killed it. I mean, that was inspired two seconds. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. The actors in there absolutely smoked it. Again, shout out to Justin. The film is great. Dope concept. Anybody from Philly will love it. It's a dope concept. It's fun, too. So definitely shout out to Justin for making that one, and Shapiro for doing it, and they're trying to make it a full film. It's premiering at a couple of different festivals this week. So yeah, shout out to Philly Presos. By the way, Task, what are we doing? Rich, my wife's telling me every day, Task is filming here, Task is filming here. It's all within like 10 minutes. I can't get one role as an extra. I mean, I love the show, I'm very supportive of it. I work for The Ringer. I mean, who's been pumping up Task more than The Ringer? I'm literally right here, guys. It doesn't have to be anything important. Just let me walk in the background or something. I feel like I should be able to. Inglesby, come on, man. Let's go. I don't think your ex is strong enough. Your ex is not strong enough for it. I can work on it. Sundy, Bundy, we can figure it out. Now, the problem is, he can't be listening. Ruffalo was listening to like KYW, I think, during the preview. I don't think he would really be a podcast guy, but maybe there's something, like a younger detective or something is trying to get him. Turn that off. You got to listen to The Ringer's Philly. I don't know. Maybe it's just on the Apple CarPlay or someone's car. I'm just saying, I think there's opportunities for a little. Where have they shot it at recently? I don't know. I'm telling you, my wife's social media must just be all years where they're shooting. I seen a clip in like Mannion right off of Main Street where they did it down the hill. Oh, really? Yeah. It's been closer than that too for a lot of this. My homie used to live off a side block right there and I recognize it immediately. So yeah, I remember I saw a scene over there, something downtown, I think, too, as well. Matter of fact, there might have been some people over here on Fairmont Ave shooting time recently too. See? Maybe you're in it and we don't even know. I should have ripped them like this. Maybe Brad Engelsby watched this movie, Cliff, and it'll lead to bigger things here. Big role. Season 3, Taz, Zaron Ait's producer, Cliff Augustin. Man, I would love to be in a Philly movie. That would be so dope. I want to be in either a Hood classic or some small town. This happened at this little local park. Just something. I would love to do that. I think that would be so dope. RingerPhilly at gmail.com. That's how you get in touch with him. I'll negotiate the contract and I'll take 3%. There you go. All right. Thank you. Thanks, producer. Brian coming on Tuesday, man. Brian coming on Tuesday. I know. I'm looking forward to it. And you know where you can read all about that? The Broad Street Bulletin previews, recaps, analysis. Rich knew that the Flyers won their first game. I knew that they lost a bunch of games because of Rich. So like he told you last time, go to broadstreetbulletin.com, broadstreetbulletin.com, and you could sign up for the free tier. Just give your email, get the free tier, then you'll get hooked like I did immediately, and then you'll pay for the upgraded tier. But if you don't want to, you don't have to. Just get the email in there, and at least get a little bit of rich in your life, a little more rich in your life, and you'll get a lot of rich in your life every morning, like I do. Yes, Cliff. And real quick, I think Rick Taki gave the game puck to Jason Martinez as well. That was cool. Fighting cancer, that was pretty dope. That's a pretty dope thing. I never met Jason Martinez, I never really crossed paths with him, but I think that was a pretty dope thing to do. So shout out to Rick Taki for doing that. Good job by him. Shout out to him. Shout out to Jason. Yeah, that was great. Okay. It's time. All right. Thank you to Cliff. Thank you to Rich. I'm Sheil Kapadia. We'll talk to you next time on The Ringer's Philly Special. 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in DC or Wyoming. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 1-800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8777. We'll talk to you next time on The Ringer's Philly Special. For Louisiana, call 1-877-770-7867. This is US. Bank's COSI Cash Formations with your chief financial playmaker, Fernando Mendoza. You are worthy of financial security. Budgeting is not restriction, it's freedom. You are smart, you are capable. You are giving your money a purpose. You are learning the language of saving, of growing, now streaming. Member FDIC Copyright 2026, US. Bank. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. Fall is here and Whole Foods Market has everything you need for cozy meals, seasonal treats, and easy entertaining. Elevate your hearty dishes with tasty bone-in beef short ribs or New York strip steaks with no added growth hormones or antibiotics. 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Takes mentioned in this episode
- Philadelphia Eagles team · negative
“They win the division, and then they're cannon fodder in the wild card round, and the Eagles reload, and then when the division is actually good, when them and the Cowboys are good teams, well, they can actually make a run because they've been able to reload.”
- Philadelphia Eagles team · negative
“They've had some bad teams too, but this is as bad as it gets so far through six weeks. Well, it is just statistically, you know, I just am updating the stat every week, looking at is this still the worst Eagles offense this century?”
- Philadelphia Eagles team · negative
“Okay, just in the last four weeks, man, 874 Eagles yards, 1597 for the opponents. That is minus 723 for the month.”
- Dallas Cowboys team · negative
“They win the division, and then they're cannon fodder in the wild card round, and the Eagles reload, and then when the division is actually good, when them and the Cowboys are good teams, well, they can actually make a run because they've been able to reload.”
