5 X-Factors For Eagles/Commanders | 'WIP Daily'

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1:03there's never an off day on Broad Street. It's the biggest news of the day, every day, with takes from someone who's never short on them. It's WIP Daily with Joe Julio. Welcome on in, WIP Daily Joe. Julio with you, appreciative on listening, subscribing, following the podcast, YouTube feed is 94 WIP. Check it out there. We got a lot to get to. It's football Friday, a foot, the first one, the first football Friday of the season has arrived. What a surprise last time. Shock, frankly, I was. At the 49ers dismantled the Rams, 27 to seven. So certainly a twist to start this season. Tomorrow, checking your feed, WIP Daily Saturday Pods will begin with my five favorite NFL place for week number one. So that'll be in your feed tomorrow morning. Check it out as we'll try to have another winning season betting NFL sides. Before I get into today, which is my five X factors that will determine the Eagles and commanders week one game, I'll remind her my book, What If,

2:06tackling the biggest unanswered questions in Philadelphia sports history is available now. My website is WhatIfFillybook.com. That is the website to order the book directly. You get free shipping, a personalized autographed, actually received the first hard copy of the book yesterday, which was really cool. It felt real. You know, because it just had been digital stuff throughout the process. So to see it in person was really cool yesterday. I will I will share some of that coming up in the next couple days. But I have it and I will have a lot of copies soon to ship out to you. What if Fillybook.com? All right, let's dive into it. Five X factors that will determine the Eagles and the commanders week one game here in Lincoln financial field on Sunday. In the division matchup in the NFC. Let's start with the obvious number one. And that is the Eagles defensive front against the commander's offensive line. This is a non-negotiable. This has to be a dominant effort by the Eagles. They have a major advantage up front and they probably had it anyway.

3:07But with Larry Mietzanzelat, it is an acute issue for the commanders. They don't have a good offensive line. And the Eagles have which should be one of the best defensive lines in the entire NFL across. With Jordan Davis in the middle, Jalen Carter, Mora, Jelmo, as your end. So defensive tackles, whatever you want to call it within this front. And then of course the Ed rusters. I expect a big year. I expect a big day at a Jalex hunt. Nolan Smith, the chance to kind of resurrect his career here in Philadelphia. And I think we'll get a lot of snaps on Sunday. We'll see about Jonathan Grenard. I'm not expecting much because he hasn't practiced all summer. He said, we'll see yesterday when asked. I think if he plays, it's going to be very limited steps. I'm not not going to expect a lot in week one at a Grenard after the pec injury and the issue of missing most of the summer. But the Eagles should have enough without him in this particular game to dominate up front. This commander's offensive line is patchwork a couple of weeks ago in a joint practice against the Baltimore Ravens.

4:07Understood the Ravens could have one of the best defense in the NFL. Jesse Menter's awesome. But in that joint practice against the Ravens, commander's reporter said that it was in an inoperable offensive line. He just absolutely could not block anything. We'll get the Ravens that dead. And I expect Sunday to be more of the same. The Eagles defensive line is going to wreck this football game. They need to wreck this football game and they need to deliver a victory on today. That's number one. Number two, run the ball. The Eagles have had a lot of success the last couple of years running the football on the Washington commanders. And you look at the changes the commanders made on deep as they did. Had a couple of edges away that came from Los Angeles. It's a good player and he could be a breakout star as the years go on. He really broke out when he got to Los Angeles last year. So he's good. And I think he'll he'll get some pressure on Cheyenne Hertz. But he's he's a past roster. He's I run stuff and you think about the players that the commanders have brought in the age they have it linebacker would Wagner and Lou Vu. It's just a weird defense.

5:07They were not good. They were really bad last year. And I don't see how they're going to be that much better defense based against the run now. They do have a need defensive coordinator. Jones coming over from Minnesota where he worked under Brian Flores. So what I could see is the combination of Dan Quinn as the head coach and Jones coming over from Minnesota with Brian Flores. I could see some interesting and some confusing blitz packages because that's that's something I could see Quinn and Jones putting their head together and really come up with something that will confuse Jell and Hertz. But it gets the run. I only the commanders have the pieces. I don't even have the person now. I think you could run the football and the team. Eagles did it last year in the game. They played where they played their starters in Washington. They did it obviously to the tune of hundreds and hundreds of yards a few years ago in 2024 in the team's play three times, including the NFC championship game, where the Eagles ran to the tune of seven touchdowns. It's been a matchup where the Eagles offensive line over the last couple of years against this personnel group against the end Quinn's defense has run the ball

6:10down their throat. That should be the game plan. Don't get fancy. Don't get out of your comfort zone. I'll throw the ball around the yard. Run the ball down the commander's throat. If when the game ends, you tell me the Eagles defensive line dominated the commanders offensive line and the Eagles ran the football down the commander's throat. It's a blow up like that. That's the game. If those two things happen, it should be a blow out. That should be the game. Key number three, extractor number three that will decide Eagles the commanders on Sunday afternoon, like the financial field. It's a coaching familiarity. I think it's interesting. Yesterday, listen to the new commandos defensive coordinator talking about how he knows Sean Manion. Sean's going to do a good job here. He and Sean crossed paths a couple times while in Minnesota. You know, we're getting to a point in the NFL now where a lot of these teams are running very similar things. And these coaches all cross paths with each other on the path to be coming what they become. So, you know, what's the separator?

7:12It's not so much my scheme just beats your scheme. Well, my scheme is your scheme and your scheme is my scheme. You know, as the years have gone on, it's copycat leak and the copycatters are doing this. They are trying to run derivatives of the Shanahan McBae offensive. That's the invoked thing. It's what the Eagles do. That's what I'm saying. It's here. And defensively, they're trying to do stuff similar in a lot of ways to what McBae and G.O.D. That is the kind of the root of philosophy and offense and defensive philosophy in the NFL these days. So, you know, when you have that familiarity, you probably not shock the tendencies and tendencies can give things away. So it's going to come down to execution. It's going to come down to almost out-guessing the gester. You know, if this new commander Z-Pez and coordinator has a beat on Shanmanian's personality as a beat on what he feels philosophically is the best on second down on third down, that could give the commanders an edge statement in the other way.

8:14Right? If if Shanmanian who knows this commander's lead that's a coordinator says, you know, I remember those meetings. I remember those practices second down and long. He likes to do this or that, you know, I think he's probably going to do this based on our conversation the past. You could use that to your advantage. So the familiarity there is interesting. And the fact that there's a lot of new. I mean, the only of the four sides of the football Eagles offense, Eagles defense, commanders offense, commanders defense, the only one of the four that isn't going through a transition here in this particular game Sunday is the Eagles defense. Obviously would be a NGO for the third year. Eagles offense, new offense coordinator Eagles, commanders offense, new offense criminal with David blouk coming over from the Detroit Lions. And of course, Jones on the other side on the defense. So the commanders have new new Eagles have one new lot of new. It kind of comes back to familiarity and it comes back a little bit to where's the continuity and that would be with the Eagles defense. Key number four X factor number four for the Eagles and the commanders on Sunday

9:15afternoon, Lincoln financial field 425. Well, the pregame, by the way, count down the kickoff starts at 1 p.m. And the pregame show myself, Hugh Douglas, I grease all of your parks. We'll get rolling at 2 p.m. From the link, I expect a rowdy atmosphere that's going to be, you know, it's warm out. It's nice. It's early in the season. It's a 425 game, which means those parking lots can get filled pretty yearly. I expect a rowdy atmosphere at the link on Sunday in front of our pregame. So come on out if you're going to the game, say hi and I will have a great time getting ready for the game. But number four is tackling, you know, tackling, I'll put it this way. I'm going to go a double one here, tackling and conditioning. So I've noticed something the first couple games of the season. I thought late in the game on Monday night, the Patriots were tired or Wednesday night, but they all run together. They were tired. And I thought last night, the Rams looked like they had in practice enough

10:16and played enough and prepared enough for that football game. They just didn't look prepared physically. My old scary, it looked right. They looked tired. They look sluggish. Matthew Stafford looked like they had thrown a football summer. It looked like the preseason because these guys don't use the preseason anymore. And two things stand out when there's not a preseason. One fatigue is set in. So which team is better conditioned in the fourth quarter, where to find that out. And the second thing is fundamental slip because you haven't done them enough. And the one thing I always look for early in seasons is who is tackling well. I thought the Niners tackled really well last night. I thought the Seahawks tackled well on Wednesday night. The Eagles under Vic Fanzio, you would think and hope are going to be a good tackle and see the one thing that you have to note though. And the real is is they haven't tackled all summer. That's just not the way the NFL works. And a lot of these guys don't play in the preseason. So tackling will be something I'm looking for early in the season. You know, guys that are usually sure tacklers, but having a really himely body significant tackling in the preseason, will they be ready to go?

11:19And will they tackle well to start the year? You know, the commanders, the same thing. Will they tackle well to start the year? You figure some guys, they do it again, they're asleep like a body Wagner. Probably, you know, he'll have to tackle till he's a baby. I mean, he probably type the tackle, it's a baby. You know, tackle till is an old man. And he did that's credit intrinsic in him. But the other guys, you want to go after them in space and force them to make tackles because they just haven't done it. Nobody tackles. And then even in the joy practice is you're not tackled into the ground. You're not going with a full wrap up. You're not trying to take the guy down because you don't want to enter someone in a practice, but the fundamentals and the mistackles early in these seasons are phenomenal. And then the conditioning, I thought the Rams last night, you know, I could put that on me very, not even going to the flight thing and then you know, miners being there, but just like the Rams were out prepared. And I thought, stop for the, was really off just with accuracy and just every he just looked totally off in that game. And that's a product of not being prepared.

12:21And the fifth and the final X factor for the Eagles and the commanders on Sunday is the kicky game. You know, the kid be commanders have shifted kickers throughout the summer. And they've gone through competition and they're trying to bring, you know, they're trying to change things up because they don't like their status. Quote Eagles have done the opposite, which the Jake Elliott is their guy. Has been their guy that guaranteed his money. No competition. But you know, I expect early this season, the offense for the Eagles, the house of grown pains. We expect the defense have to carry the team. Well, in low scoring games, the margin for an a variance is, is, is small. So I made field goal a mist extra point, a mist field goal made extra point or making everything. Let's just say if you're Jake Elliott, could be the difference between a, when you feel calm about and when you don't, I'll give you an example. Let's say the Eagles on Sunday control the football game, but Jake Elliott misses an extra point in a field goal.

13:22And in the fourth quarter of the game, instead of scoring being 29, 19, it is suddenly 25 to 19 or something in that vein. Four points are off the board. You know, instead of being 20, four to 14, it is 20 to 14 in the fourth quarter. That is a way different viewing experience for you, for me, for all of us. It's a way different coaching experience for Nick Siri. I need to wait different game for the Eagles. You know, that, that takes you from a one score game to a two score game. It takes you from a one score game that could probably at worst put you in overtime to a one score game where you go up a touchdown late, you lose versus being comfortable up 10 in the fourth quarter. That's the power of the field goal kicker on a team that's probably going to have, you know, limited offense and point scoring. Well, they try to figure out a new system. It matters. If they're in field goal range, Jake Elliott has to hit him.

14:24He has to be able to be trusted to hit 50 plus yarders. It can't just be 50 and in. That's not the modern NFL. You're going to see guys bomb 60 plus yarders. And Elliott has to be at least in the upper 50s. At least if they, if we can't count on Jake Elliott to hit a field goal above 56, 57 yards, it's a problem and it hamper's the Eagles as they build their football team. And as they build out, you know, they're scoring opportunities each week. And then the extra points should be guineas. You know, I know there's, they'll last you. There was a lot of weather games, a lot of wind and cold. That's not the case this week. There might be a little rain Sunday during warmups. And the first couple hours, those guys are on the field. But in terms of game time, last time I lost, we're talking about, you know, very, very low chance of rain, very low chance of wind. It's probably going to be, you know, your regular September day to where maybe a little bit warmer than your typical football game, but a regular September late Sunday afternoon, it's got to be dominant by by the team and specifically Jake Elliott on those there. He's asked to make. So the 5 X factors that will decide the Eagles and the commanders in week number one.

15:29Eagles front versus the commanders, oh line Eagles have to dominate that their mat. That's their matchup to win in this game. Run the ball Eagles find a lot of success over the last couple years running the football on the commanders right down their throat. I'm not convinced the commanders have fixed that weakness to their football team. Coaching familiarity, both sides, the ones spot the Eagles should have the best continuity of any of the units entering the game is their defense year three under Vic and you know, number four, tackling and conditioning two things they have gotten lost as the preseason is disappeared on us, which team does it better as a great chance to win the football game. And number five is the kicking game. The commanders have shifted bears, the Eagles have stuck with theirs, who makes their kicks on Sunday, especially the game. He's don't forget my book. What if tackling the biggest unanswered questions, Philadelphia sports history? It's doubt now. What if Phillybook.com to order your copy? Can't wait to get him out to everyone. And NFL picks in your feet tomorrow morning for week one in the national football league. Thank you so much for listening, subscribing and following WIP.