We chatted for a while with our buddy Jeff McLane of the Philly Inquirer about what's new with the Eagles after their run to the Super Bowl. We discussed Jalen Reagor, the new coordinators, their more lax summer than the Patriots, changes on defense the Patriots could exploit and whether the Patriots have a chance in this game.
You can listen in video or podcast form. There's an edited transcript below for BSJ Members.
A couple of notes from today:
WR DeVante Parker was back at practice but Riley Reiff was not.
QB Matt Corral was on hand.
The NFL clarified its third QB rule. Sounds like, if Bailey Zappe is not on the 53, that neither he nor Corral can serve as the emergency third QB:
Q: What is an Emergency Third Quarterback?
A: A club may designate a bona fide quarterback as an Inactive/Emergency Third Quarterback for a regular-season or postseason game. The player must be listed on the Gameday Administration Report that is submitted prior to or at the 90-minute meeting, subject to the following:
The Emergency Third Quarterback must be on the club's 53-player roster; the player cannot be an elevated Practice Squad player. The club's starting quarterback (QB1) and its backup quarterback (QB2) must also be on the club's 53-player roster.
A club must have two bona fide quarterbacks on its 47/48-player gameday active list to designate an Emergency Third Quarterback.
A club cannot designate an Emergency Third Quarterback if it has three or more bona fide quarterbacks on its 47/48-player gameday active list.
What are the Patriots getting in Jalen Reagor, the former first-round pick of the Eagles?
That was a pick that was very much panned here in Philadelphia as soon as It happened because Justin Jefferson was the guy who was picked next. And we all know how that turned out. And he was kind of like a guy that seemed obvious and Reagor was more of a projection because he had some speed college. And they all talked about how, while he didn't run a great 40, he had game speed - you've heard that term before. And it really didn't translate here and he really struggled. I think there's a lot with him beyond just the fact that the speed didn't translate. It was just like getting to know the system and having good hands and running the right types of routes. Then I think, you know the pressure being a first rounder in Philadelphia, and you don't really thrive right away, can get to some guys. That being said, you get another opportunity to go to Minnesota where he doesn't have that type of pressure and really couldn't get on the field. And they brought him in to return punts and that was even something he didn't do well in Philadelphia. There's obvious talent there raw talent because of the speed. But I think they're probably just taking a flier. Or maybe they think that I don't know he was in the Philly system, the the Nick Sirianni system for a bit. Maybe they think he can ... you bring in guys on the practice squad that know a particular system. Maybe that had something do with it. I don't know. He's gonna be out of the league soon. He's just I don't think he really has it. But...
What's different about this version of the Eagles, if anything?
I think primarily on the defensive side is where you're going to see most of the differences because they lost a number of guys to free agency. They were able to keep some guys but they lost their starting middle linebacker in TJ Edwards to the Bears. They lost their both safeties, CJ Gardner-Johnson, they were willing to bring back but there was a lot going on there behind the scenes, but he ended up walking and going to Detroit. Marcus Epps, not a really a great safety but he left (Raiders). And Javon Hargrave was the main guy they lost up front. So that's kind of the middle of your defense there. Pretty significant, but they have Nakobe Dean that they drafted in the third round a year ago and they've groomed him he's gonna step in and be the Mike. They have S Reed Blankenship, he was an undrafted rookie last year but he got like five starts under his belt and I really like what they see out of him. And they still have both starting outside cornerbacks Darius Slay, James Bradberry. They still have Fletcher Cox in the middle they have Hassan Reddick was one of the best edge rushers last year Josh Sweat who was very good, you have Brandon Graham behind them. And you have a bunch of young guys. Two of their first round picks the last two years our defensive tackles Jordan Davis and Jalen Carter, and both those guys, they're gonna play. So you have like young talent up the middle. But there's some question marks about ... we haven't seen these guys perform much, so we don't really know. And then there's probably the most significant addition, which is Sean Desai, the new defensive coordinator who stepped in for Jonathan Gannon. And he has one year as a coordinator in Chicago, but that's really it. So there's a lot of questions about what that scheme will look like.
The track record of Super Bowl losers is not good, especially early the next season, the whole Super Bowl hangover thing. Are the other Eagles aware of this? Do you think they handle it?
They're aware about of it, because I guess Nick's been asked about a million times and I think he's kind of done the math and looked at the history of it and kind of looks at the particulars of each team and what played a part in it. He won't give all the results of what they found out. But he said injury has been a huge factor in a lot of those teams not being able to get back ... The Eagles were one of the healthiest teams last year. And they haven't really had many issues here in the preseason, either. So now we all know what can happen once the season starts. I mean, you know, all bets are off and there's bad luck and guys can get hurt. But they've done a very good job over these last several years of keeping guys healthy. The soft tissue injuries are down so they feel like maybe they have kind of an infrastructure here in place medically, and in terms of their sports science department that they can kind of keep those injuries down, and that won't affect them.
Offensively, a few small changes. Isaac Seumalo, the starting right guard, he moved on via free agency and they're taking Cam Jurgens, who they drafted in the second round (2022) to be Jason Kelce's eventual replacement at center, they've groomed him now to be the right guard for I guess a year or whenever Kelce retires. And then at running back, Miles Sanders, who was basically their workhorse last year, at least their number one guy, he left via free agency as well. So they brought DeAndre Swift in (from the Lions), they brought Rashaad Penny in (Seattle) and they have Kenneth Gainwell as well. They'll be the three primary running backs. Then other than that, that's pretty much it.
How are the expectations in Philly? I mean, are they sky-high for this team?
Yeah, yeah. Obviously, people in this town are always kind of like cautious just because they've been let down so many years before. But, you know, I don't care about that, right. You don't care about that. Let's look at what's really there on the roster. And they have Howie Roseman, the GM was able to do a very good job of minimizing the losses in free agency. They let guys go, but they were able to retain some of their guys. And they've really kind of invested a lot in the draft over the last few years, knowing that they're gonna have to replenish with like, their four core guys are Fletcher Cox, Brandon Graham, Jason Kelce, and Lane Johnson. And those guys are all like 33-36. So they've begun the process of getting ready for when those guys So the last few years, Landon Dickerson was drafted the second round, Devonta Smith was drafted in the first round. Both those guys produced right away. The next next year's draft, Jordan Davis, Cam Jurgens and Nakobe Dean didn't really play last year at all, all three of them. But you have those guys kind of in store then of course, people are out of their minds about Jalen Carter and you have Nolan Smith so I think people like the balance of the old and young here, so they feel like there's certainly an influx of talent there. Nick Sirianni they obviously got all the way to the Super Bowl, got very close to winning it. And I think people were happy that Jonathan Gannon left here in Philadelphia. They felt like it was the talent more than it was a scheme and that you know, the Super Bowl pretty much showed ultimately that he wasn't really a kind of a big game coordinator.
I've heard the Eagles have practiced less than the Patriots...
Yeah, so what they've done increasingly here in Philadelphia, and Nick Sirianni, I think it's more like Howie and the sports science staff, but Nick has gone along with it. They really dialed back on the number of practices - they only practiced six times in the spring formally. I mean, it's crazy here. The first week or so it was like every other day. They have walkthroughs some of those days, but we're not allowed to be there. And walkthroughs aren't really practices. Nick was trying to push the envelope sometimes. But it was like an hour, hour and a half. I mean, I think it was like one hour and 40 minute practice. It's crazy. Last year people were all up in arms, they are not gonna be ready, blah, blah, blah, they're not tackling. They did play the starters in the first preseason game, but then basically didn't after that, because they had joint practices with the Browns, and the Dolphins, one of which was cancelled with the Dolphins because they had like a food poisoning incident when we were down there in Miami, but it didn't matter. They came out like gangbusters and won their first eight games. So you tell me whether that's an issue or not? So they're pretty much going under that same premise this year. They haven't had any of the starters, none, play in the preseason. They had two joint practices with the Browns and one joint practice with the Colts. And again, these practices are not long. They're not very intense in terms of the contact and hitting, I mean, maybe thud. And then in terms of when the Eagles have practice with themselves, they have one on ones, and I could see Nick trying to maybe push it a little more with this team at certain points because maybe he is concerned, he doesn't want anybody kind of taking it for granted, especially the new guys. But, you know, based off the last year, I gotta say they're ready because they did well against the Browns, especially the second practice, they really kind of outperformed them. And the Colts, as you would expect me it was just a completely uneven affair.
Last year in the opener, they beat the Lions 38-35 on the road in the opener. What do you remember from that start?
So one was that the Lions blitzed the crap out of Hurts and the o-line was not ready for it. Because they had no idea schematically what they were doing, because, yeah, they have a new defensive coordinator (Aaron Glenn) and a new offensive coordinator, he's really good. They blitzed Hurts a lot and the offensive line wasn't prepared for some of the exotic blitzes that they threw at them. Jalen Hurts, to his credit, was able to kind of make something happen with his legs, and everyone wondered how long can they sustain this? They got better at that and picking up the blitz and Jalen got better at seeing the blitz. But they also threw the ball a bunch of times. AJ Brown, he had like, almost like 200 yards receiving just — I mean, just throw it up to AJ sometimes. So that was what I remember offensively.
Defensively, I think DeAndre Swift, who they ended up picking up, had his best game rushing. And so people were very concerned about Gannon's scheme and I think the issues then were ... they play the Vic Fangio scheme. So it's basically three-man front on run downs and they'll go to four on obvious pass. And Jordan Davis was the new nose tackle that they drafted, first overall, moved up for him, and they weren't really using him a lot. And then the other guys they had in that spot just aren't like nose guards. So you saw them attacking, the Lions, on the ground and just seemed like Gannon couldn't adjust to it. And they so they just scored - it was probably the worst defensive performance they had until the Super Bowl, in fact. He got things tightened up after that. And I think people realize that the Lions were better than many were expecting, and the offensive coordinator was a really talented guy. And they were able to throw a few times on them too as well. So that was what I remember about that game.
Do you have any worries/weak points about the Eagles' offense?
Obviously it was one of the best offenses last year, and AJ had an MVP-caliber season. But I mean, yeah, year to year, you have to be unsure about how it's going to look. And you know, whether they're going to be able to stay ahead of what defensive coordinators are going to do to take away what they were effective with last year, right? Schematically, yeah, I want to see if they're not too reliant on what worked for them in the past, I remember, like 2018, after the Eagles won the Super Bowl, Doug Pederson, he was wasn't ahead after that. They were very good at kind of, you know, having different plays that have different formations, they were very conscious of that. And so, and I think they just kind of lost sight of that in 18 and 19. They had other issues going on as well. I have asked Nick about this. And he said, yeah we're really trying to stay ahead of the curve here. To me, the issues a little bit with Jalen are like, Okay, here's this guy, he just signed this huge contract extension, do you need to dial back a little in terms of the plus one quarterback run game, because that is huge for them, not only in the run, but also in the run-pass option game. So how much of that do you want to do, but you also don't want to get him injured. And that really frees things up for the other running backs. So it'll be interesting to see how much of that they do or don't do. So that's a concern.
But they have, obviously, skill all over the place. I mean, but right guard, Cam Jurgens, has never played a game, a real live game at right guard. So you know Bill is going to go right at him right? And quite frankly, I thought he's a little up and down in camp, and then a couple of joint practices, especially against the Colts, in that practice there. He was one of the few weak spots I thought, and I think Cam is going to be really good. I like what I saw him even last year as a center, and I think maybe we'll be fine. He's a little on the smaller side for that position. So I'd be concerned about that.
And then of course, there's like, the big picture question is like, okay, you know, is Jalen gonna be able to maintain that level? Is he going to be able to kind of still develop but also be able to handle what, how they're going to attack him sort of thing? I've always been saying this because I've been talking to people ... don't ever count Jalen out. You probably watched enough of it to know that what he went from in terms of passing from year one to year two to year three is just mind-boggling. But he still hasn't been asked to win games exclusively with his arm. Teams haven't really found a way to make it say, okay, Jalen, it's got to be your arm and that's it and also win it late. He hasn't really kind of had the two-minute win it with my arm situation yet. So maybe if the Patriots get them into that situation, maybe it's something that could play to their advantage.
Tell me about the new DC, Desai. Will he be ready for the wrinkles of Belichick and O'Brien?
Yeah, that's a great question. And you know, I was even going to say to you in terms of when we're talking about the offense, it's, yeah, I know this offensive scheme. I know a lot about it at this point, two years of Nick running it. Obviously, there's gonna be changes in the offseason, but they're very cognizant of us and obviously, in the joint practices, and obviously in the preseason, people having film of what they show. So I don't know what the wrinkles are, they're gonna have.... I do think that like the mush rush, you know, obviously against the zone read, having, you know, someone behind the unblocked defender to kind of cover him in terms of, you know, the read element of that for the quarterback has been one way to kind of curtail Jalen, I mean, Todd Bowles in that playoff game and the Buccaneers — perfect way to stop Jalen and Jalen as a thrower just couldn't match it. Last year teams tried to do that, and he was able to match it.
Which brings us to the defense and the reason I bring it up was because, it's really hard to tell what Sean Desai is going to do. Basically what they show us is what you see - very much vanilla type of scheme. He's really more Fangio's acolyte than Gannon was. Gannon kind of learned it from someone else. Desai worked with Fangio in Chicago and he kind of nurtured him and brought him up. So he's really a Fangio guy. And in fact, you know, Pete Carroll brought him to Seattle, because he wanted to kind of change that scheme. His scheme. can you believe that? That great cover 3, 4-3 under scheme that he had so much success with, he brought in Desai to kind of crib some of those ideas. You know how it is in the NFL, the new fad was the Fangio scheme. And there's a lot that goes into it.
So, you know, so I expect to see a lot of the same - a lot of zone coverage, a lot of two high safety looks, you know, at least pre-snap. But I think you're gonna see a lot of that, and in general, like they don't want to give up the explosive play, Fangio and I think Sean Desai will end up falling into that category as well. So, you know, good quarterbacks have to be accurate, they have to take advantage of missed tackles, that type of stuff. I think he's gonna be a little more exotic in his rushes. Gannon kind of got a little static .... that being said, they got like 70-plus sacks last year, but I think that was a combination of factors .... but I think Sean's probably more willing to, I don't think he is going to blitz a lot, but I think he's definitely going to be like, Hey, we're gonna have, you know, show double A gap and you know, or like show overload and then maybe just drop whoever and still send four but give the impression that you're sending more — I think you'll see a lot more of that with Desai then you saw with Gannon. But that being said, I don't know. It's really been hard to tell what it's going to look like when it really comes to game time and certainly that that plays into this conversation. They don't want anything getting out there and they certainly don't want Bill Belichick and Bill O'Brien having any idea. But those guys are smart. They know what the Fangio scheme is it's basically in its basic elements.
Are there any defensive weaknesses you think the Patriots will exploit?
Yeah, I mean, it's gotta be the middle - the linebackers and the safeties. I mean, I'm the Nakobe Dean, while he's got the college pedigree, he's on the smaller side, when I've seen him, he did play a little bit in the one preseason game and he was hurt before that, so he missed the first game, they had him play the second game. His technique on certain things didn't look right to me but then he made a splash play and got a forced fumble at the 1-yard line or something like that. But he's (basically) a rookie - smart kid, but he's a rookie, right? And he's gonna be your Mike out there. He's gonna have to call the play and he's got to set the front. I mean, that's a lot, right? They ask a lot of their linebackers in the scheme. Typically the Fangio scheme asked a lot of those inside linebackers so and then the other inside linebacker is going to be probably Zach Cunningham. And they brought him in just at the beginning of camp because they just never invest in that position, which I understand you're gonna go weak you go at that position. And then safety the same thing never really invested that position. Reed Blankenship, I like the kid but you know, five starts last year, fine. And then the other safety spot. that's the one we don't really know who's gonna start there yet? No, I think they're gonna have probably some sort of rotation maybe based upon matchups. The other guys up for it are Terrell Edmonds and Justin Evans are the two veterans and then they have a rookie Sydney Brown who they really like but he's a rookie. Are you really going to throw the rookie out there in this situation? That's where they're going to go at. Misdirection maybe ... get their eyes going ... you probably know much better than I do what Bill do but....
I have a tough time seeing the Patriots winning this game with their issues on the offensive line. Would you be surprised if the Eagles lost this game?
It's nice to hear a point of view of someone who covers a team from there in terms of like ... we tend to be down on the teams that we cover sort of thing. I mean, I'm not down on this team. They're the class of the NFC, which is not saying much, because the NFC sucks this year, but, yeah, they're still good. And they took the Chiefs all the way to the end of the Super Bowl, and they're returning a lot of guys. Offensively, I mean, they're stacked. And I guess if you're the Patriots, do you think okay, our best versus their best maybe can help us keep the scoring down. And their worse versus our worst, you know, maybe cancels that out and on the road, they have some struggles, it's early for them, they have whatever, you know, miscommunication. Sean Desai maybe isn't quite ready for the job and calling plays in this situation and so things kind of snowball from there? It's possible. In the NFL, anything's possible. Its the line out yet? I mean, I wonder it's got to be maybe six points?
The line is only three and a half filly by three and a half in this game. So that's a bit odd.
But, again, no one knows. Maybe Belichick gets, you know, benefit of the doubt a little bit too much here. He's earned obviously the right. They're fearful here in Philadelphia just because it's Bill and it's on the road and it's the Patriots but this isn't the Patriots of Tom Brady, not even remotely close. Yeah, I don't know what that line is. Vegas typically knows something that we don't know I guess but, again, like you said, this is probably the best time to get the Eagles in the first game of the season. The Eagles' first month or even two months aren't like, devastating. They have a run though in November and December that's on paper looks really tough. Bills, Chiefs, Dallas. They got a really tough run of teams late in the season. Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna pick the Eagles. First I've really kind of thought about the Patriots is now talking to you. And I don't even know what do they have a receiver?
DeVante Parker, Juju Smith-Schuster, Kendrick Bourne, a rookie they like in Demario Douglas and the two tight ends, probably a lot of 12 personnel.
So if they go 12 personnel then they'll keep the Eagles' bigger defense on there which I guess like yeah, like do they want to keep their 3-4 front on there more and then attack the linebackers? Yeah, that makes sense to me. I can see them really going a lot of heavy 12 vehicles. I don't know exactly what the personnel packages are gonna look like when they go. I mean, nickel Avonte Maddox is a slot but their big nickel they've done certain things with the safeties, I don't know who that's going to be. And they do have various dimes. ... But yeah, I mean, when you've mentioned some of those names on offense, it seems like kind of like a lot of, I wouldn't say has-beens, but ...