Commanders Versus Eagles Week 1 Preview

0:00Hey, buddy. Hey, where are you? Hey, buddy. Hey, buddy. It's time to take command with former NFL tight end Logan Paulson. This past spot by Paulson the tight end and from 1067 the fan Grant Paulson. Welcome in to take command week one, the Philadelphia Eagles hosting the Washington commanders with Logan Paulson spent a decade in the NFL. I'm Grant Paulson, listen to me on 1067 the fan from 2 to 630 each and every day. The rhythms of the week have changed. If you guys didn't notice, we're going to be dropping pods now on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. That means we're recording Mondays and Wednesdays for Tuesday, Thursday. And then we've got your post game pods on Sunday as well. But Logan, it is a massive week for the commanders. They are on the practice field and they're getting ready for game number one year three of the Peters Quinn regime and a big test with the Philadelphia Eagles.

1:01Yeah, I feel like the stakes are really high obviously for this team and for this season. And so I'm really excited to see this thing get started. And you know, like against the divisional opponent with so much news around the team this off season, I think it's just really exciting. I'm really excited to see what it looks like all, you know, the new coordinators, the new forage and additions, the draft picks, like what are their roles? What does that look like in a real game? Because I think one of the things that we've talked a lot about on this show is that we haven't really seen the real thing, like even in practice, we haven't seen the real thing. And so I just want to see again, like what this thing actually is, you know, week one and I think that's the other thing that's kind of disappointing and just need some context on it is you probably don't know what the team is. And so probably week four or five of the season. So even though this is just a, you know, just a small smidgen here, like it's a, it's just excited to see some ball. Yeah, that's always important, I think, is a cat. Yeah, and I'm not saying that because I don't think it's going to go well. I just think period, this is a big deal. But the NFL season is oftentimes when you look back at the end of the year at week one,

2:08it's an evolving kind of shape shifting thing. And if we assume that week one is gospel, we're going to be wrong on a lot of stuff. Think about the Raiders beating the Patriots last year. You know, some of the really good offenses in the sport, struggling the Rams, I think score like 13 points, the Seahawks last year lost in week one went on to win the Super Bowl. So you get some of those things and I've been kind of wondering how telling how revealing will this game actually be to who the commanders are, but we're going to assume in real time. It's very revealing because it's, it's all we got. They chose not to really use the preseason. We didn't see a lot of what they're going to run. Having said that, let's get into the match up here. I want to start with the Washington offense against the Philadelphia. The Philadelphia defense first focusing on the command. Enders, man am I pumped to see this David Blowsky. See what he's drawn up here. We're going to get our first look at Nick Aligretti in real time as a center. And it's the biggest test, maybe of his entire season against Jalen Carter. Jordan Davis, the interior of this watched an offensive line.

3:09I would say is my least favorite match up here because the Eagles are that dominant and dynamic on the inside of the interior of the other way. But we get to see McCloran and digs for the first time. Neither was targeted in the preseason. We can see Jaden Daniels under center. You and I watched it all camp long. He looked great in this offense. People will get to see him dropping back some of the bootleg stuff, making layered throws middle of the field. And we get to see a healthy bill who hadn't been on the practice field since prior to the joint practice. Or I should say the final preseason game against the Ravens. Yeah, man. Lots of things to be excited about here with regards to again, what this offense is and what this offense can be. And I think like, you know, looking back at some of the stuff, like some of the teams that played this similar style offense against the Eagles. Last year they had a lot of success. Now again, like this is going to be tougher, David Blow to kind of figure out like what his identity is and who he wants to be as a play caller. But again, I look back at that Chicago game where Ben Johnson, who was his mentor, is coming up football game and calls one of the best games I've seen against the Eagles

4:13in the last probably four or five years, man. He just did a great job using most engine shifts to kind of move linebackers around using personnel to get them into good, complimentary personnel on the other side. And so like I think that there's a lot here when it comes to what what he can do. Now it's like the question becomes can he do it? And I think that's something that again, and why this game is so interesting. It's like you look at Ben Johnson, he's been a play call for a long time. And he absolutely dissected again, the Eagles. And again, there's a lot of crossover, a lot of principles there that you kind of say, oh, like David Blow can tap into. The question is like, you know, as a first time play call or first time play designer, first time, you know, kind of setting up an offense, like, can you scratch the surface of something that's up then Johnson did? What do you think the balance David Blow wants? Looks like what do you think the identity of this offense is going to be? I feel like they want to be a run first heavy play action team. That's kind of been the way that Ben Johnson operates Kevin O'Connell,

5:16maybe not to the same extent, but when the Vikings were going well under him, they've certainly run the ball to really high level with Dalvin Cook, or recently, you know, they've had other backs, but not as effectively. So I guess to me that that's what I'm looking for is can they run the ball? Is this offensive line allow them to lean on people a little bit? They're not very deep at running back in terms of quantity. They just have Bill Rashad White to add practice much at all. And then Kate Trin Allen is a rookie. But how do you think this thing's going to look and what do you think they're going to try to establish? Yeah, I mean, I think that it's going to be trying to run the football. And again, like they're, how do you, how do you do that? I think it's going to be an interesting thing. Like you know, I went back and watched a couple games from last year against Philadelphia and teams that kind of run similar systems like I watched the Green Bay game. And they're like, we're going to get into 12 and we're just going to try and run against Philadelphia is kind of base three, four structure where you get those big kind of three interior players get those overhangs or a certain violent vertical edges. And they just got kind of worked, man. Like they just didn't do a good job of that. And so like, again, they're trying to run outside.

6:17John trying to kind of do some, you know, gap scheme, duo stuff. And they just couldn't move, move them off the spot. Like Carter Davis did a great job or a Zromo, the other kind of defensive tack rotation. The guy did a great job. Philips, who's gone to Carolina now did a great job setting edges, but no one Smith is a great headshed or Hux is a great edge set. Or so I think what I looked at comparing that match up to what Chicago did, it's really comes down to how you do it, right? So like what they did is they ran a lot of the same styles of runs. You saw outside's own power, pin pull, all that kind of stuff. When Chicago did it, but what they did is they said, we're going to get an 11 personnel and kind of get into base offensive formations or like what you would try to traditionally think is 21 formations with a receiver. And like it just kind of did really interesting things to wear the land back. There's a position that created good angles. Like they didn't ask the tight ends to block these hard setting edge shutters. Really like and it really created these great vertical creases in the defense because they kind of found a person. Oh, they felt they could attack.

7:17They did some things for Macy Lee that put them put like physically put the defenders in the right spot. So yes, you want to run the ball. Absolutely. I think that's going to be a big part of what they do. The question becomes is how you do it. Like I've said to see before one of the best ways, one of the, what are the number one indicators to me of a smart play collar is a well organized, well constructed run game. And when you watch Ben Johnson in that game last year, the Chicago game against Philly, like it is a master class man. It is so fun. But then you compare that again to other smart guys like I think that Lefort, Lefort is smart dude and it didn't go as well. So like I think that decision, which is happening right now in the game plan week for David Blau is maybe the most important decision for this game. What's the thing you're most pumped about seeing? Like as I think more about this for me, it's offensively for Washington, probably the digs involvement. I mean, once he got here in camp, you saw this logo and everything changed. Like they went from featuring chick who I think probably pays the pipe for a little bit for the addition or the night.

8:19Anyone else to everything kind of going through digs. You and I both said on a recent pod, we could see him leading the team and catches. The first play, the only play really they ran that we got to see develop that they designed the first play of the preseason with their starters on the field was basically a choice route for him where everything revolved around what he was going to do. So I can't wait to see digs McClore in the passing game in that way. How do you think that's going to look? Yeah, I mean, at first thought. So you asked me what the thing I'd be most excited. It's definitely the decisions David Blau makes when it comes to running the football. That's the first and foremost thing. But then the secondary thing is how that how you then incorporate the past catchers, right? How you incorporate digs and Terry and chig and Antonio Williams and how you use the backs out of the back field. All those things become really, really important because not only are you kind of including the past catchers, but how to in that in that dance of kind of making sure we get all these guys who you know catch football do some dynamic things with the ball on their hand. How do we then insulate the offensive line?

9:20So to me, I guess what I'm obviously the past catchers are important. The past game is important, but I also really am curious to see like the tools that David Blau uses to insulate this offensive line versus again, one of the better fronts in the league. Like Jordan Davis was a machine last year. Jalen Carter by all accounts coming out of Philly is healthy. So like what does that look like and does it? And if you don't take care of that, if you don't take care of like step one of offensive line pass protection, making sure everybody's locked in, then we can't access these great past catchers. So I think the the the thing that again, and then this is me as a football nerd that I find most fascinating is how you elevate the offensive line from a run games perspective because that sets up the play action past that sets up the boots. That sets up some of this, the kind of waggle half roll stuff you can do with Jalen Danes and get the ball down the field again to digs and Terry over the top, you know, Diamy Brown on the nice vertical row tree that he can run and then couple that with the protection plan because again, like one of the things coming out of the preseason is again, the offensive

10:23line didn't quite gel the way we wanted. Allegrette wasn't healthy. But to me, that's the that is the story, man, to me. The playmakers are going to do their thing. I think they have tough matchups on the perimeter. It's putting on Mitchell and Rieke. Well, I think this this very well could be one of the better secondaries in the NFL this year when it's all send on. But we got to protect and we got to give those guys an opportunity to get down the field and distribute the coverage that Vic Fiedge is going to play. Yeah, just looking at the defense for the Eagles from a year ago, they ranked seventh in yards per play. Fangios running it back here, as you said, same coach, many of the same players added Rick Wolland in the secondary. They are a team that ranked seventh against the pass and 16th against the run. They were more susceptible there. Middle of the packet picking off passes, 15 to sex per pass attempt. That's why they went out and got Jonathan Grenardo. Though it still seems like there's a decent chance he won't play. But this was a really good defense at a time dominated that I think has a chance to even better. All right, let's let's look a little heavier into the Eagles personnel.

11:24So starting with their defensive front, they return much of the core of their D line, 95.3% of the interior snaps logged last season came from players who remain on their roster in week one. That's the second highest percentage in the NFL, only the Seahawks at 98% or higher, 88% of their total snaps of the interior came from four players. So that's Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis, a Jomo and then Byron Young. And those guys are back. And that continuity is going to help. They counted for a league guys 16 instances of a defensive tackle, recording a percentage of at least 75% in a game. So that it's not that heavier rotation like those guys stay on the field. So let's start with this. How does Washington manage that? And is this as bad of a matchup as I feel like it is for the interior of the offensive line? I mean, to me, you can mitigate someone what they do really well. Cause again, like they do, they are, and we'll see, because this is something else I think is

12:25important to talk about. Like Vic Fange, you know, has been kind of traditionally the same guy all the time, you know, very consistent in terms of what he wants to do. This year, like with Rick Willan, do they play a little bit more man? Do they bring a little bit more pressure? I think that's really interesting. But when you're talking about fronts, so they're like, I'm going to draw something up appropriate for you, because I think it'd be helpful. So like when we're talking about fronts with this group, right? So they, and they like to again, kind of be in this, I don't know, it's hard to explain. Like they like to be in a four down spacing. So this is the offensive front here. The second we get into nickel, like they get a nickel, they want to be in this kind of deal here, right here, like end tackle, tackle, and they like to set the three technique to the strength as they determine it. So like one of the benefits of this is that you know where they're going to be, right? And then their next change up to this is they go into a into a five man structure, right? So they go and tackle, tackle, and they put a small body here at the end spot.

13:28And they put kind of a nickel player, like Cooper D'Agin here on the perimeter. So they get into their five man space, spacing a nickel, but they do it with different personnel. So like this match up here is one that you can exploit. This match up here is one that you can exploit. And obviously you can run away for the people listening on the radio. You're saying basically that interior and that's playing over top of a guard on the left side or the nickel, like a corner opposite tackle essentially. You're saying you can win those matchups, especially in the run game out thing. Yeah, 100% you can absolutely win those in the run game. And I think that's kind of what I'm talking about here. So like basically in nickel, they get in these very specific structures, right? So even if they're even though those guys are really good, like if we talk about their four down structures, like, and we want to run Wanda. So the back's going to run this way. Like he's running to the offensive right and the three techniques away. Like this is a double team here with good leverage. And you can bring a receiver here and kind of sift this guy out and we can work a cut back here. But we can find double teams in their four man spacing that I think is really

14:29important to kind of be aware of. And so, which makes sense, by the way, this is why I mean, they were an average run stopping team last year when they were really good at just about everything else. Well, I think the other thing too, just to kind of bring attention to this with, you know, with regards to what, like what Vic Fangio wants to do is they don't want to play heavy boxes. So like we're talking about nickel here and I kind of what they want to be like, this is the common structure they want to get into here. They want to get into a nice. This is again, our kind of nickel formation. They want to get into like a four down spacing, right? And let's say we have a tight end attached. They will leave two linebackers in the box here and like that's it. And then the safety is play nice and high safety, safety, nice and high. So they will play a six man like run defense surface to a six man blocking surface, which is really unusual. Usually if you want to stop the run, if you have six blockies, you play seven defenders, you have seven blocks, you play eight defenders. And so they don't want to do that. They are perfectly content, quite honestly, letting you run the football,

15:32like they want you to run the football because they're kind of limiting the explosive opportunities in the past game. They want to play as a past defense. They want to play, you know, four over three in terms of defenders over receivers or three over two and they're letting you nickel and diamond. They want you to take your three to five yards because they're counting on the holding penalty getting you behind the stakes or, you know, eventually somebody making a mistake fumbling. You miss an assignment, your second and ten and complete. Now it's third and 10 something like that. So then my question is should Washington come out in 11 personnel to keep him in like with extra DB's on the field? Or we think there's going to be a lot of 12 some 13 this year with two and three tight ends. If you do that, do they then match with size and then the advantage goes away? Yeah. So I think they would match with size, but then I think you could throw the football out of there. Like is like, so what they'll do is they'll take one of those outside linebackers. Let's say you go 12 and baits is attached and you then you remove jig from the blocking surface to account for that depending on what coverage they're playing.

16:32They have to take one of those big run stopping outside linebackers and walk them out over jig. And so now all of a sudden your hook player is a defensive lineman essentially and it's not Cooper Dijin. So like that's where for again, if you're playing Vic Fangio, because of what he's shown for the last shoot, he coached me when I was in Chicago. So last 10 years in the league, right? Like that he's been very consistent with how he handles stuff and what he wants to do. So like if you're looking at last year and the year before, again, last year's a little bit of an ally because they played a little bit less man coverage because their second corner wasn't very good. But assuming he operates kind of in this traditional manner, you can get him with personnel a little bit more than some of these modern defenses like Seattle, for example, who wants to stay in nickel like all the time. He's not going to do that. He's going to give you some, some action when it comes to the personnel you choose to try and the field. So basically like what I love again, looking at Chicago, I think that was one of the best called games, one of the best design games.

17:32They ran them all in 11. So nickel and they threw the ball in 12 and they had a really, really good success with that. And I actually didn't think they threw the ball. Caleb Williams was a very accurate in that game, but the run game and the play action past their role set up was excellent. So I think that's kind of the way I would attack it just as a starting point. Like if you and I are game planning right now, Grant, I kind of we close the door and I say like, this is something we can exploit. How do we do it now? It comes a sweet science of coach and football. All right. So a couple of other specific guys on this defense. First, Jalen Carter, who I think you start with, he posted a career low when he was rushing the pasture last year, 7.7% pressure rate, 2.98 seconds, average time, two pressure. Those were some of the worst numbers of his career despite getting his lowest double team rate of his career at 41%. I thought he still was dominant. Like when you watch the tape, did he struggle? Was he different? What did you see from Jalen Carter last year? Yeah, I definitely thought he was different, but he's come off like a shoulder surgery last year, right? Or something like that.

18:33And you could definitely see he was a little bit less effective now, a little bit less effective for him still means like he's a plus starter in the game. He went from a nine to a seven. Yeah, correct. It's like, so I think when he's at his best, he's probably like a top three guy at the position. Like when he's like really cooking, you're like, oh my gosh, this is a problem. But obviously without the stability and the strength and the shoulder, like guys can get after him a little bit, like kind of wear him down. But every once in a while, you'd be watching kind of going through clips and you'll see like some offensive linemen just get ejected from the screen. You're like, you're like watching the tide and you're like, what happened over there? And like, oh, Carter just threw some guy five guards off the ball. As far as past rushers go, I don't think Jonathan Grinard's playing. Let's pay close attention to that, though. I mean, that was just the momentum of the last couple of weeks, but we haven't had a Wednesday practice yet. We're recording Wednesday morning. We don't have an injury report yet. So that's TBD as far as we know. But they bring him in from the Vikings. I really, really like this player. He was awesome with the Texans before that. In fact, last year his average time to pressure was 2.62, which would have been

19:34second quickest among all edge defenders who generated at least 25 pressures. He appeared in 12 games, generated 50 combined quick pressures under two and a half seconds during a couple seasons with the Vikings. Pretty special talent with speed off the edge. So if he doesn't play, it would be a big deal and really help. I think David Blouin in game one. The other guy to know is Jalik's hunt, it wears 58. Be curious to get your thoughts on him, but his pressure rate last year was 16 and a half percent in a smaller role than they'll probably have this season. That was the eighth highest rate among 89 edge defenders with at least 200 pass rushes last season. That pressure rate increased by 9 percentage points from his rookie year in 2024. He feels like a guy that could be on the verge of a breakout to me. Yeah, Jalik's hunt is an interesting guy because you're watching it at the beginning of the year and he's a little bit of like a crazier. So you know, he's a converted DB from like a D3 school somewhere in Texas. So like he, his, his maturation as a pass rusher over the course of even just last

20:35year, I thought was pretty impressive. And so like coming out of training camp, everyone's talking about him. Like he didn't play to me at like an elite red, uh, edge rusher level, but he definitely got better each and every week. He's more of a power rusher kind of in the classic, you know, like, um, mold of every Philadelphia edge rusher. You're your Trent Coles, your Brandon Graham's. These guys are going to kind of run down your face. You know, he's a little bit more athletic. You can play in space in a nice way. And then you, and so I think he becomes like a big linchpin here. Like you don't go sign Jonathan Bernard. If you think you're in a good spot from a pass first standpoint, like, a Jonathan Bernard, like you talked about, man, has this really interesting way of rushing, which doesn't really play in my mind for 99.9% of the league, but he just, all he is doing is he is timing the snap count, getting off the ball and just ripping the edge as fast as he can. And like most guy, like most guys now, most tackles are too good for that. But for some reason, his get off, his process, his base makes that work at a high level. So I think that stat you alluded to there, Brandon, about like his time to get to the quarterback

21:36is significantly better than I've seen anybody that I've studied over the last couple of years. But obviously probably not going to play. So I think that's a huge factor. Quenyan Mitchell is one of the better young corners in football. We've seen him play really well against Washington, Halter and McClurenton in a game to one catch at one point. Mitchell's the guy who after week nine when the Eagles had a buy last year, one of the changes they made on defense was instead of moving him all over the place. They kept him on the boundary, like 80% of the time. And from week 10 on last year, he had more PBU's than he allowed catches. Nine six across 29 targets. I think Wolland comes in as a fit because he mostly played to the field. I get a 70 some percent clip last year. So you know, maybe those two guys have their roles kind of carved out. Wolland, by the way, just 10 catches for 85 yards and two touchdowns on 31 man coverage targets faced last season. That was a big addition for them. And they've already had a guy who on the interior, you know, inside in the nickel, Cooper DeGene has been considered one of the better talents in the sports since being drafted there.

22:41Aligned as an outside corner more last year, like 26% of the time, only had nine snaps out there as a rookie. But still in the slot over 70% of the time as a, you know, rookie. And then last year that number came down a little bit. But I would think that's still where they're going to mostly use him. Just looking at one more stat here. We look at Quinyan Mitchell. League high 36 tight windows across 82 targets faced when aligned out wide. Cooper DeGene right behind him amongst some of the numbers. If he had a qualifying amount of reps out there. So these are guys that stick to you that can cover, I think it's a really nice test for McClore and Diggs and for Blau. Yeah, you know, I think we want to talk about the front line. And rightfully so those guys are impressive in the Philadelphia front. You know, Zach bonds are like a player, dog camels, you can play. But I think the thing that makes this defense go is the secondary, which is kind of unusual. You know, usually I'm talking about the fronts and how the past rush is the thing that insulates the secondary. Like these dudes in the back end are good, are very, very good.

23:45And they allow like we just talked about Jelix Hunt kind of be more of a power rusher. Right. Like one of the reasons he's able to get home is because the back end of this thing is beautiful, man. It's beautiful. The way he, Bangeo coaches it, the way these guys can play the way they can cover ground. And initially I want to say like Reepable and Winham and a great fit for this because of the checks because of how complicated the coverage stuff is. But he just played in this defense in Seattle or a version of this defense. So obviously he's very familiar. Or any play at a high level. So you look at Quinion Mitchell, you look at Reepable and you look at Cooper, D'Agean and just their ability to make the throwing windows on stuff that should work versus the covers. They're playing like this big man is just incredible. Now the one thing that I'm kind of keeping an eye on is the safety room for them. Like obviously they sign veteran Marcus Epps, they bring an Andrew McCuba. But like to me that all of a sudden like McCuba is a second year player, third year player. I think out of Texas, good player, but again, a little bit of injury, like injury history there, but they've lost some of that consistent depth there with blanket.

24:45You've going to Houston. So that's one that I'm kind of like, OK, maybe again, the underneath coverage guys, the bonds, the jeans, the outside guys are really good spot. But can you maybe exploit some of the safety work? So what does that mean for a guy like Stefan Diggs, who's going to kind of be in the slot working off a little bit more right? Is he going to draw D'Agean or they're going to have to use a safety down there in those like kind of three wide receiver sets that they're going to get into. So again, I think the secondary every year for them is exquisite. It's well coached. It's well designed. They match stuff really well. Like the way they match stuff, it even in zones, it feels like man. And so I think that's really going to be the story. And then not so much. Can you win your individual match up? But how do you space them? Because they don't play traditionally big fans. You hasn't played a lot of man. It's more like man match. And the way to beat that is with great kind of spacing and route distribution on the field to make those tight windows just a little bit bigger. So to me, it's really going to kind of bring to the forefront the detail. The David Blau has been coaching with and then the experience of guys like Terry McClaurin and Stefan Diggs.

25:49Logan Paulson, Grant Paulson, take command. Yeah, looking up the official numbers in terms of forced tight window throws like draped in coverage. The Eagles have two of the top three guys in football last year because the team was third and Quinyan Mitchell was number one in that stat. 43% of throws to him, by the way, were tight window throws, which is wild. He's one of the best corners in the sport. All right. So before we move on, Washington offense, Philly defense and a final thought. Your team plan going in, give me your big picture. You're the coordinator. This is what we're doing. This is our beat. Yeah. So I would say like for me, it's got to be like, first off, like, how do we run the ball? Like that's going to be like, we sit down the meeting. We're sitting on the whiteboard. Like, how do we do it? And let's make sure we really invested in it. And those guys can own that element of the game plan. Like physically you talked about, you're going to have a hard time moving some of those guys interior guys off the spot. But can we position the linebackers in a way based on formation so that the double team can stay a little bit longer? Can we use a little bit of misdirection to make sure those linebackers aren't triggering down hill?

26:53That's one of the things that make those guys so good as well. We didn't talk about it. Is Zach Bond again? And it was a guy from Georgia last year. Gosh, I can't remember. It could be Dean. Nicole be Dean running down hill, peeling doubles and letting those guys win their one on ones. But again, like when you look at teams that ran the ball successfully and the list is very short, they were able to kind of say, Hey, like one of my favorite plays that Chicago ran was like, Hey, we're going to motion the receiver to the backfield. We're in 11 personnel. We're going to switch the side of the tight end. And the receiver is going to run like a quick to the flat on the opposite side. And the linebackers got delayed, right? They didn't trigger down hill because I thought it was a pass. And so the right guard and the right tackle who were absolute monsters for Chicago just exploded Carter, like drove him five yards off the ball because there was no one there to peel the double. And then there's whoop there, but dude, God, I mean, they called them. And they got asked me some hope because you know, that's what blouse kind of offense. Essentially, now you don't get to bring all those players with you and it's the first time you're running it.

27:54But there is some reason to have some confidence for sure. Yeah. And so then I'd say if we can get that established and say, Hey, you cannot play like boxes to us. You have to look at how to allocate more coverage players or more defenders to stopping the run. Now that open that all these tight throwing windows, all these this bad math in the past game starts to go away. And then we get these nice one on ones with Terry and Quenyan Mitchell or Stefan Digs and Rick Woolen or Chica Conco on Coupardigine. And I like those matchups. You know, nearest past I haven't felt as strong, but I think those are ones you could win. So really it comes down to running the football run, run, run, run, run, committing to the run. And again, that comes that there's a defensive element to this as well. Like they have to keep the game in a close proximity. But run the ball. Let's find these matchups. Let's kind of get them out of what they want to do. And so then we can use these playmakers that we have offensively. You just said something that I think is really interesting, by the way. You like those matchups. I mean, that's a good sign for Washington's skill guys.

28:55And it makes sense. You've got McLaren, you've got digs and Chica Conco. I mean, but it's the best trio of pass catchers they've had this side of probably when cousins was throwing the Pierre and Dishon and Jordan Reed, who is exceptional at tight end. All right, let's get to the defensive side of the ball. Next the commanders dealing with a new offense that isn't yet been unveiled. Jalen Hertz at quarterback, no AJ Brown. Do listening to take command. Welcome back to take command, Logan Paulson and Grant Paulson. We are looking ahead to week one against the Philadelphia Eagles at the link on Sunday. So let's get into when Washington's defense is on the field against the Eagles offense. The Eagles sputtered on offense last year to the extent that they made significant changes, including at OC and to the offense in the scheme in general. They were 19th in yards per play. They were 23 running the ball a year after.

29:58Say, Juan Barkley went for 2000 yards. They average barely over four, a carry, which is a big problem. There are 14th in yards per play in the passing game. They protected the ball. Top five of it, avoiding interceptions. Middle of the packet, avoiding sack 16th. Didn't move the ball all that effectively though. 24th and first downs among some of the key statistics. 24th on third down. So we look at the Eagles now. It's Sean Manion who's going to be running some variation of Kevin O'Connell and Minnesota. It's a lot of the same stuff in principles. Honestly, the David Blow is implementing here. How do you game plan for this? We've talked all off season about the Eagles and teams not knowing what Dorauntay Jones wants to be. What are you looking at to game plan for Manion? You said Minnesota. It was Green Bay, correct? That's where he was. Sean Manion. He was with the Packers last year with the floor. I always say Minnesota because he was a backup quarterback there for a couple of years. And I've seen in an interview where he talked about like loving that offense and the principles of it. But it's not that different.

30:58I mean, O'Connell and the floor, they're all kind of variations of the same thing in a sense. Yeah, yeah. So I think if I'm Dorauntay Jones, like one of the things, one of the benefits you have is that this offense has become very prolific, right? Like you've got Green Bay, you've got Detroit runs a version of this, like even in their division, like in Minnesota runs a version of it. And so obviously they're different offenses. They emphasize different things, but I think the principles are largely the same. Like we're going to run, we're going to run them all. We're going to use Placian Pass. And we're going to try the one thing about the Kevin O'Connell offense that I think is really interesting. It's kind of different from those other ones. Like so when you compare to a Green Bay, for example, like Kevin does a really good job of maximizing the number one receiver. Like so he's going to basically instead of using kind of like your, the third receiver in some of these routes, choice routes. It's like we're going to have Justin Jefferson, Justin Jefferson do that, right? And so I do think like that's maybe something that I would kind of key in on here is like if he's pulling from Minnesota,

32:01if he's pulling from Green Bay, like I'm expecting a little bit more outside zone than they were in. They've talked about that in training camp. That's what Minnesota. That's what Green Bay does. They do it at a pretty high level. And they mix in some nice gap game compliments to that. So like that's kind of what I'm thinking about. And then if I'm thinking about what Kevin O'Connell does, like I'm thinking about how they take Smith the receiver and just put him in as many situations as possible. So like what are my solutions? Like when he motions to a bunch, when he changes strength, like how do we handle his movement? Because I think that's going to be a big feature. Like I remember talking to somebody after Sam Darnal was in Minnesota and I said, like, hey, man, like how did you fix him? Like what was the thing you guys did? He's like, you know what we did? As we mentioned, the number one target, the number one person in the progression was open all the time. And if you look at what happened in Seattle with Sam Darnal, they did the same thing with Jackson's with the jacob. So I would expect to see, you know, everyone talks about Jalen Hertz, right? And having a difficult time with anticipatory throws, like with the pen as a play collar, and we have a receiver like Smith in this offense who can run every route,

33:04route under the sun in this offense that would be required. Like let's, like let's get him the touches and let's find ways to make sure he's open. And I think if Jalen Hertz can throw with just some level of like kind of basic anticipation, like that's how the offense is going to function from a pass game standpoint, right? So that's kind of how I would look at it. It's like you're probably bringing the principal in of getting the number one receiver open from Minnesota, some of the run principles from Green Bay, and you're going to mix that thing up. And I think that's the version of the offense. So if I'm drawn to Jones, like I've seen those things, you know, I played in that division. I know what that looks like, and I know approximately how to stop it. How much do you care about or how much does it matter carry over when the guy wasn't to do that whooped you, but that offense has. And what I mean by that is it is pretty well known that Matt LaFour has kind of had Dan Quinn's number. Having said that, they're not running Dan Quinn's defense anymore. They're running a different one. And Sean Manion was under Matt LaFour for two years, but he's not Matt LaFour.

34:05You get what I'm saying? Like is that a zero? Is that a five? I mean, could he reach out to Matt LaFour during the off season? Because he knows that's his first game and go, hey, you've destroyed Dan Quinn's defense over and over and over again. Or does it not even matter because they're not running DQ's defense anymore? I don't think it matters. I think the more important match up to watch is how Matt LaFour played Minnesota when Brian Flores was there. So I went back and watched both those games. And it's funny when you watch divisional opponents play each other, especially when it's like a novel kind of defense or offensive setup. And one of the things that came to me was like, Green Bay has a plan. They have a good protection plan for what Flores in this case was trying to do. Like Flores is trying to bring all this different pressure. They're trying to manipulate the man's side of protections and get you to overset the wrong way. All this kind of stuff. They're trying to bring sim pressures and terminal pressures. And I saw more slide protections in that game in the first screen, big game that I've seen like the entire year. Like I got last year. And it's smart because basically you say like we're just going to slide the protection.

35:08We're going to use the back to cut the defensive end and rely on the quarterback to get the ball out. And so there wasn't plan there. So I do think there is some familiarity with kind of the approach. But I think the number one thing that I would point to here in this matchup grant that I took away from watching the Green Bay game was not the past game. Not necessarily the protection plan. But if you can run the football, all of this crazy pressure stuff that we've talked about all off season, it doesn't really matter. It doesn't really matter. And so like what I noticed, Green Bay did is they were just like, we're going to put our mouthpieces in and we're just going to kick Minnesota's front all over the field. And so they were running for here's a four-yard gain. Here's a five-yard gain. Here's a third and one that goes for 10. And I just was like, oh no. If you cannot stop the run, this is going to be a long day. Because what in the course of that game, which I think are pretty good example of what's going on in this game, you're getting the closest thing to the Rante Jones defense. And you're getting the closest thing to Sean Manion's offense. And what they did is they were like, hey man, we're staying out of long downed distances. We're deliveraging the quarterback.

36:09When we are in the long downed distances, we have a plan of firmer protection standpoint. And I think there was probably four or five plays that love made in that game, where he's like on the back foot throwing a ball versus zero coverage. And the ball gets out and it's completed. Like they were able to make those moments so deep leverage for the quarterback. So the story of this entire offseason has been, Jalen hurts this, Jalen hurts that, 13 picks. How's he going to throw in the middle field? It didn't really matter in this game, right? Didn't matter at all. So like again, with that offensive line they have there, with that running back there, like what is their plan to run the football? And Ken Washington, the Washington commanders, be physical enough on first, second, down to base. But like, hey man, Jalen hurts. No, like the narrative everyone's been talking about. It's on you. You have to win this game. One other caveat, just these are the kind of things I think about. Sometimes his manion was in the Minnesota building in 23, when Flores was in his first year there now. Defense has taken on very different vibes. And Dorante Jones is going to have variations of it.

37:11For all of this stuff we talk about, like this being a surprise, like he saw it every day in practice. He was probably a guy at that point, end of your career is a backup thinking about being a coach the following year. Maybe you're trying to learn a little bit about defense too. Like, I do think about that in the back of my mind. I just wanted to say at some point this week, because we try to overturn all stones here. Specific to the Eagles personnel on offense. Seek on Barclay down year from the season before. You're not going to go for 2000 back-to-back seasons. But he's the anchor at running back to still have tank bigsby. They got in the trade from the Jags at one point. Will Shipley, former fourth round pick, who had a big kick return and has had some success against Washington. Running the ball in his career as well. The wide receiver position is very much new look. Obviously, AJ Brown is out. So, Devante Smith takes over as a one. I was surprised by how high you are on him. We'll go into that in a second. It sounds like you think he is like one of the better receivers in the league, despite his size. He's a diminutive, tiny guy. They brought in Don Tevian Wix. We've mentioned from Green Bay.

38:11He comes over Manian, I think, probably like the cut of his jib, former Virginia Cavalier. He gets open all the time, had dropped problems with the Packers. Or, you know, I'll see what a broken out is, a legitimate stud. He's open that often. He runs good routes and has good size. McCoy lemon was a first round pick. Now, he was interesting about him, Logan. He missed almost all of camp. And then he played in their final preseason game, and it was kind of a disaster. I think it was like a one catch for a yard with a drop that went from interception kind of situation. But it's just one game. It's a tiny sample. Doesn't matter that much. But that'll be interesting to watch. They've pieced together some veteran journeyman behind that with Hollywood Brown and Elijah Moore. And while Jeff Stoutland there, elite offensive line coach, one of the most important people in their building is gone. They still have Jordan Milada and Lane Johnson at both tackles. Their bookends are among the best in the sport. On the inside, Landon Dickerson at left guard, Cam Jurgens at center, and Tyler Steen at right guard. So not all it used to be maybe on the offensive line, but they've gone from the unquestioned number one group in the league

39:14to still a really, really good one. Yeah. And I think that's the thing. That's the story for me. It's like, where's the offensive line at? You know, like, because again, Landon Dickerson was banged up last year. Lane Johnson was contemplating retirement this year. And I think Lane Johnson still playing at a high level. You know, I know he's not on every single list all the time. Didn't make the top 100. But like, when he plays, he's a stud. Jordan Milada, a little bit of a down year for him last year. Again, I still think he's a stud. But you could tell that like, teams had kind of figured out the Stoutlin run philosophy and how it didn't really pair with anything else they were doing. It was like, Stoutlin was doing his thing and the offensive was doing his thing. So I'm kind of curious to see how they adapt to something that they haven't done. None of these guys have done. Like more outside zone stuff. More like traditional duo, more different formations, more condensed formations. Because it like really, that's the story to me. Like if that group is regressing and they're regressing in this year, like that offense is going to struggle tremendously. Because there's been, you know, we go ahead. What's the tape say on Lane Johnson?

40:14I'm just curious because he's 35. And he last year, like people point to, oh, he gave up more pressures than he normally did. When you dig in on that and I saw this via NFL pro last year, his pressure count is completely misleading. Like 15 of the pressure he gave up. 1% Dude, it's over 4.3 seconds on average. Like he's the only line that has 15 or more pressures given up over four seconds of like holding the ball. So I just think that talking about him, declining is over done. Dude, I think it's, I told, I think that whole group, it's totally over done, right? It's some of us, I'm talking about like my lot is in the run game, but as a pass protector, like no shot. Like this is the thing that I find so maddening. And now I'm going to vent here. I need like, you know, my therapist grant to come to the forefront. Is people talk about Jalen Hertz in this like very, like either you love him or you hate him. But the thing that has stuck out to me every time I watch Philadelphia play is the thing that has carried this team

41:16is the offensive line. Because there are no way that a quarterback can consistently hold the football back there for three plus seconds a lot of times. And then and he and there, there be nobody in his vicinity, right? Nobody in touching. It's crazy. It's crazy. It's unbelievable. And so people like, man, Jalen Hertz is balling. And he's like, no, like he is putting them at such a leverage position all the time. And like you talk about Lane Johnson, like there were plays last year, where I was watching him. He's got this guy locked up, like two hands in on the chest. We're blocking. We're blocking. And Jalen Hertz, like runs into the defensive end. And I'm like, I would be so pissed. If I was him, because like you could not have blocked him better. Same thing would draw my lot of. So like that's the thing that gets me about this whole Jalen Hertz conversation. He again, he's one super balls. He's a winning quarterback. He could run the football. He can throw the football down the field. He's got a nice deep deep ball. When it comes to doing some of the minutia of this offense, I think that statistic illuminates the issue that I have.

42:16He's not on time. And when you're not on time in the NFL, it hurts everybody. It hurts the receiver. It hurts the offensive line. And so maybe Shaman he comes in and like fixes it. And he's totally on schedule and everything's good. But he has not done that in his eight years in the NFL. So that's the thing that I just cannot get past this. I cannot move past it in a way that makes me a sane human being right now. Because everyone talks about no one, I can, it drives me nuts. So yes, I think the offensive line is fine. I think they are regressing. They're getting older. Father time waits for no man. But they are the issue when it comes to pass protecting. It is the quarterback in my opinion. Yeah, I totally agree with that. By the way, you mentioned hurts and he's got his strengths. Obviously 63 rushing touchdowns. Many of those on the push push third most by a quarterback in NFL history now behind Josh Allen and Cam Newton. Nine rushing touchdowns and 11 career games against Washington, by the way, that includes the postseason. The Eagles are 5 and 0 in week one game since 2021 tied with the

43:19bucks for the longest active such streak. And those are the five Jalen Hertz starts. So they are 5 and 0 in his 10 years, so to speak, is starting the season with a win. I want to go to Devonte Smith though, because I was surprised to hear. You know, I think of their receiver room as now needing more like almost substandard. They lose AJ Brown. I think you've got like a one and a half two in Devonte Smith and then some question marks. But it really sounds like you think he's a true legitimate one. Like maybe you were saying he would rank above like Terry McClaren and some of the guys in the league that have put up some huge numbers as number one wide receivers. Last year average six receptions per game, 87.8 yards per game in five games without AJ Brown. So if you extrapolate that out over a full season, you know, that's 87 times 17. That's a 1480 yard year. For him in the games he played without AJ Brown to your point.

44:21Yeah, I think again, to me, this is more of a reflection of where the receiver position is going. Like these true like height, weight, speed guys. I think they're becoming less prevalent. Obviously you have your exceptions. You have your DK Metcups who win just because they're like stallions out there and can run like just run by everybody and be big. But when you look at Devonte Smith, there's a little bit of like Jackson Smith and Jigbo to him and that he can run everywhere out. Now, couple that with maybe the best shorty or equictus of any receiver in the league, maybe just a Jefferson is a little bit better. But like he can do it all. And so now you're going to go to this green Bay offense. We're going to condense the formations. You're not going to get press. You have free access into the defense. They're going to find ways to scheme you up. And you're not going to have to deal with some of these issues that may be associated with your diminutive stature. Like I think he's going to dice. If he can stay healthy, I think he's where we are. Where were you before my fantasy draft last night? I don't know. It actually is a good argument. I mean, you're right. Like him with free releases and stuff,

45:22like spraying him out in stacks. Scary. I mean, that's kind of nasty. So how do you combat that? Washington comes in with three corners. And if Aby and Marrow, they added after the fact. Trey and Mrs. On IAR. They'll have Mikey San Restill to go along with Rasool Douglas who's played with, you know, he's talking about green Bay, Philadelphia, he's well-traveled, he's been in these places. On top of that, you know, the other corners of Mik Robertson who was in the division and played a lot against this green Bay offense with Detroit. So what's the plan in the secondary with the Vante Smith company? So yeah, I think obviously the Vante Smiths are stunned. I think the offensive line's pretty good. But I will say this, like pressure burst pipes, man. And so like as much as like we can do cool stuff and get the ball out and you get it to these dynamic playmakers, like I remember watching the Minnesota game versus Seattle like earlier this week. And it was nuclear in terms of the amount of pressure they were going to bring. So like Jackson's with a jigua.

46:24Yeah, he's open, but the ball can't get there, right? And so like if we can, if we, if, if Dorontay Jones can do some of the things we've seen in camp, bring some of the stuff we've seen from Minnesota to this game, I think we're in a spot where like, it doesn't matter necessarily how good Devante Smith is or how good the offensive line is. And people say, well, why the offensive line they're past protecting? One of the things that's hard about this defense is the pattern that they're bringing. So it doesn't matter. Like if they, if they are in a bad call, they're in a bad protection call, the numbers just don't math and you're going to get a free run of the quarterback. So like as Dorontay Jones, like, yes, this is a big lift, like we talked about this all off season. Like for a new play collar, first time like DC at the NFL level, like this is a big lift. Like you're relying on you to insulate the entire back into this defense, right? But like that's what this defense is. So like, can you call it that way? I think it's not my big question heading into this game. What changes from a play calling standpoint if O A plays or he doesn't?

47:24With or without a Dauphate, I mean, you're just, Doront's Armstrong, I remember suspended. So you would just plug him in, but you can't. So now you're down to like Joshua Joseph's as your second edge opposite Caleb on chase on. Does anything change? So I think the gravity that O A brings is important here. So like the way you would target protections is there certain players you want to send the slide to red. There's certain bigs that you can't leave on tight ends or backs. And I think that's kind of what he would bring. Like I remember watching clips of him when he was with the chargers. And so what they would do is they kind of put him and the other edge rusher to the right of the formation. And so it got to the point as he's cooking last year where teams are sending the slide to him. They're sending the slide to that position because he's going to win. If you don't send the slide there, we don't get three on two. And so I got to a point like, I want to say it was like week 10 where they put him over there him and the other edge rusher. And then they would both drop spot drop. And then they would bring forward to the man side and they get a pressure. And so he's now in the hot window throw. So the gravity of him, I think it's the thing that changes

48:26how you call the defense. Like you lose the tool. Like you use the ability to be like, hey, we can set your protections. Like everyone says, we're looking like, how like with regards to my previous statement, like how do you know where the protection's going? But if the offense is always on the field, I can assume with some reason of confidence that they're going to send it to him because he's the best pascher usher on the field. And especially if we put him and another good edge rusher on that side, they have to send the protection that way. So that's where we can then take advantage of normal protection rules in the league and exploit the man side of the pro. So he's not out there. Yes, it does negatively impact your ability to dictate the way we've seen this defense dictate up in Minnesota. Do you think we're going to see some unleashing of and coming out party for sunny styles where they haven't used him, like they're going to use him. We've been saying, I think that's true. But does it all happen at once? Where it's like, oh my god, this was the plan. This is the sunny styles, like coming downhill, but seeing, or is it, are we going to be saying

49:27after the game? That's why they drafted him number seven or could it take more time to that? I think it might take more time, but I do think he's going to play better in this defense as they've called it. If it looks anything. When they're going to do things that he can do well. Yeah, I do. That's how I think about it. Basically, when I watch him on practice, I'm like, this dude's a beast. He can just do stuff that normal people can't do. He can be in the A gap and then cover the scene. He can blitz on a back and win. And so we got none of that. There was none of that in the preseason. A little bit of an impractice, but that's how the defense should function. We didn't see Frankie Luviewicz best. We didn't see Leo Chanolat best. They were pretty much like standard five, read and react, they'll get this thing. In my experience watching the Minnesota defense, that's just not how those players play. They're attacking downhill. They're being aggressive. Again, are there coverage responsibilities? Yes, but I think that's sunny style. Super power anyway. So we're taking all of that thinking and like, where do I fit this? How do I take this offensive lineman on? Like, who's the second puller? And we're just being like, go hunt.

50:28And I think that's going to be beneficial not only for sunny styles, but literally the entire second level of the defense. I think it's going to be beneficial for Nick Cross. So like, that's what I'd say is it might feel like he's being unleashed. He might feel like he's being unlocked. But I just think that's how the defense is should be practiced. So give me a final thought then on the defense. I always like to kind of end it with what your game plan would be. Kind of the summation of what we've talked about, but also any final thoughts you have on trying to attack Hertz and Philadelphia. Yeah, I don't know for sure. Again, this is just what Logan Paulson would do, but I would look at kind of the things that, again, Brian Flores did a Minnesota to make this thing successful against this type of spacing, against this type of offense. So I'm anticipating a little bit outside zone. So what do we do versus outside zone? We get in six to what's the counter punch to six to? We're going to run some type of gap scheme runs. So when I start feeling the outside zone dying, anticipating a gap scheme, do a run, what kills that usually some type of internal movement, such pressure. So crossdog, think about that game.

51:29Remember where Jermir Gibbs against Detroit? He dropped a crossdog for people at the most for sure. I've seen that, but I saw maybe on YouTube that haven't. Yeah, where's a technical? There we go. So let's do crossdogs for quick. So crossdogs are just basically like an internal pressure for the, so like here's your setup. We're going to draw the offense because I'm an offensive guy. I always got to have an offensive line in there. And so you get some. That's a lot of Paulson speaking. Oh, line Paulson. No doubt funny because when I draw up the tape, I have my first thing I draw is the kicker on the sideline because I'm kicker Paulson just in the net just getting out. Yeah, just getting ready. It's just ripping kicks into the net. Yeah, so this is basically a crossdog. This is the most generic version. And obviously you can do this in different spaces. But usually it's a four man pressure. It can be a five man, but you can drop these guys out. You're going to work for contain here with the tackles. And then you're going to bring this because basically what's happening is in this protection or in the run game, like the front side double is targeting the mic. And then you just got to replace these guys.

52:31And so usually, again, if this double teams heading up to the mic, this gets spilled and you get a free runner to the back. And so if you think about that game versus Detroit versus Minnesota, where Jameer Gibbs gave up like five pressures, they just did this a time. Because in that, at that moment of the season, Detroit wanted to run a lot of gap scheme stuff. And this just eviscerated it. And you know who's really good at a crossdog? Frankie Lovoo. You know who's going to be a crossdog? Leo Chanol. You know who's good at a crossdog? Sonny Stiles. So like I do think like having that kind of thing on deck is going to be super important. Just to make sure that like we're okay. You know what I'm saying? In terms of like stopping the run. And once we stop the run, we've got negative play. Like let's make sure our pressure package is really well designed. And our DBs are playing with good vision. Not necessarily to the receiver, but to the ball and to the concept. So we get some turnover here. I think it's kind of how I would generally approach this thing. All right, so there's your breakdown of the defense. Next, we're going to make our predictions on who eats on both sides of the ball

53:31for the commanders before we get out of here. Take command week one feels good to be talking football in season again. Welcome back to take command. So let's wind this pot down with the final segment. We do every single week before a commander's game. Who's got to eat? Now this should theoretically be sponsored by some type of food place. So producer Evan, I'm going to task you with tasking whoever needs to do this. Like, I don't know, there's a million of these. Like we could do like a steak place maybe. Maybe someone could bring Logan and I out for a dinner. They could sponsor it. Rotisserie chicken. Let's see what those are. Rotisserie chicken spot. You think this is like that? We could sit on a curb and eat rotisserie chicken. Yeah, like that's good. That's good eating right there coach. All right, what about like you like salmon, right? Salmon. Yeah, let's go. Like you say salmon. Do you prefer your salmon from the Pacific Northwest or from the Atlantic?

54:36Question. I think the shipping cost probably from the Atlantic. You know what I mean? Probably low. I'm more Pacific Northwest Salmon. I try not to eat my salmon from the almost at the athletic. Are you saying Salmon? What are you saying? Say it again. The fish. I'm talking about the like the orange. How do you say salmon? Salmon. The is that sound? Evan, is that sound funny to you? That sounds funny to me. Is that how you say salmon? So S-A-L-M-O-N Salmon? How do you say salmon? I'm not. How do you say salmon? Yeah, salmon. Not salmon. I like the salmon. How do you say salmon? Here we go. I like that you had to bring in a friend just to make sure. No, because I was like maybe I've been saying it wrong this whole time. No, this is a bit that I do. So you sleep on the show hard knocks, I guess, but there was a safety. I want to say something was like Jonathan Abraham. Was that a guy? Yeah, for like the rock. Jets and Raiders.

55:37Jets and Raiders. I think you play for the Falcons too. But yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Okay. So he was a safety. He was like a first round pick. But on hard knocks with the Raiders that year, he was like talking about food and he's like, I'm trying to go get some salmon. And everyone was like, what did you just say? And he's like, I'm trying to eat some salmon. So ever since then, I just I call it salmon. I just think it's the funniest thing in the world. I love and the best part about the bed is you can be like, yeah, I'm doing a bit, but you just kept doing it. And then I was like, wait, am I like, am I messed up? Like am I? I know it's delicious. It's salmon. Jonathan Abram, I guess, was his name. There we go. Okay. No, no, if it's Jake J.J. and it's plural, no, West style. I'm not sure. Oh, right, right, right. But, but anyway, so okay, who eats is the question. So it's currently sponsored by At Grant H. Paulson on Instagram and At Grant Paulson on Twitter. I think Logan's at Logan Paulson NFL or wherever you want to find him on social media. Yeah. But offense, who's got to eat?

56:38Offense, who's got to eat? I mean, obviously this is the low hanging fruit, but JD5's got it absolutely eat here, right? And I think we, then this is why I'm so excited, man. I like, he is practiced so well. And if he can play with any kind of semblance of what he's done in practice and David Blach and put him in a good spot, like, this is going to be sick. I think the fans are going to be super excited. Now, that's obviously the big one, the easy one. I would say the person that's got to eat the most here, I'm going to say Sam Cosmi, right? He's got to be a leader of that group, be physical up front. Let's get after those guys. Let's create space in the run game. Let's be a feature. I had to talk to a coach one time. I said, like, how do you view offensive linemen? He's like, I view them as playmakers. Because if Sam Cosmi can take Carter's lunch and kind of move him off the spot and get after him, like, we have creases in the run game. Because the whole defense is designed to be supported by those two guys. So I'm going to say Sam Cosmi's got to eat. My answer in the game is Bill for similar reasons. I think he's got to get going and run well, run through tackles,

57:42be effective, hold onto the ball and make a big player too. Like, turn a first down into a touchdown. Sometimes blocked up for 12, make a guy miss and hit for 29. And that can change a lot of things. Sneaky thinks Stefan Diggs is going to have a nice game. I think it's going to be like a six catch 70 yard kind of first game with the commanders. Wouldn't surprise me if he even catches seven or eight balls in this game. But they're going to have to be on the field a bunch for him to do that and sustain some drives. All right, on defense, who's got to eat? This is a good question. And I don't really have a good feel because my first answer would be a Daffa, O.A., because he's here $100 million in school. But we don't know if he's going to play necessarily. So I want to say, Frank Lube, I think when you look at Frank Lube from the spring, from this offseason, what I expect his role to be in this game, like he could wreck this thing if he won. If he's used in a way that I am anticipating. Now that might change based on who's available who's not. But I'm going to say, Frank Lube. I kind of want to be a hipster and say like Tim Settle. Honestly, dude, that's a great one. Right.

58:42They have to stop the run. And I, this is the quiet thing that worries me the most about the team. I keep bringing it up subtly on the pod. I don't know if they're going to be good at stopping the run. I don't know why I have this spidey sense. But I feel like we've talked so much about the pressure. Everything's about the pressure and the packages and this and that. And you said it earlier, if you don't stop the run, it's all irrelevant. And I don't know that they have the personnel to be great at that right now. So that worries me. And I think Tim Settle is super important. So I'm actually going to say him. Yeah. And so I will say I totally agree. He did a great job. We limited sample size, but against Baltimore, I thought that a great job showing why he was such a priority addition in this roster. But the other thing is you could bring pressure on first and second down and disrupt. We talked about the crossdog. We talked about some of those other things. Detroit brought some STEM 6-2 type of pressures against us. And it kind of disrupted our target. You can do some of that too. But again, you got to make sure you're really disciplined and that stuff. So again, maybe the guys, Dorontay Jones, it has to eat.

59:42Because we talked about the scheme a lot, insulating players. Who's really good at movement pre-snap is Kimla. Pain Settle. So maybe that's the way you can kind of minimize or maximize those guys in these moments. And again, we talked about the pressure on third down. So maybe he's the guy that's got a really come to the forefront here. If they win, how excited are people going to be around town? I mean, we're going to be talking like big, big stuff. Super Bowl, deep rod. Can you imagine if they're wanting to know when they beat the Eagles? It's so funny how quickly things change from the sky is falling. They're going to be terrible too. They'll be wanting talks of the league. Dude, it's going to be pandemonium. And I think it'd be great for the fan base here, obviously. But like going from that, the last data point you have, which is the Baltimore joint, the Baltimore Preseason game, to this and to win a division rival. And again, I think they could. I'm not going to predict this game. I won't do it because I think it's just too crazy.

1:00:42You know, like there's too many unknowns here to kind of even make an assessment. But I think it would be fantastic. I mean, at their spot, that would be a dream come true. All right. I've got a new wrinkle. Okay. You can tell me if this is a terrible bit, we'll never do it again. Okay. I think it's a fun way to end the pods previewing the upcoming game. I'm going to ask a trivia question to producer Evan about the city where the team is playing that week. Love it. Okay. Well, you know, Evan's the type of guy who probably knows it though. You know what I'm saying? He's like, yes. Now again, if this is a terrible thing and no one likes it, then we can never do it again. But I think it's good. So this week's Philadelphia, which you should know. Yeah. Aren't you like from around there? It's like an hour, hour away. So you have no good excuse not to know this. What is the name of Philadelphia's famous indoor food market that opened in 1893? What?

1:01:43What is the name of Philadelphia's famous indoor food market that opened in 1893? I have no idea. I knew I knew the Boston one was the Quincy market. I just went there. But I don't know the field. You never heard of the redding terminal market. Redding now. I mean, I know the mind of the team. I know the mind of the team. You got the ready and fighting fills out there. That's okay. That's good cut. I'll give you one more. What river separates Philadelphia and New Jersey? Damn. Evan, you're letting me down, bro. I have been on your home state. What are we doing? Home state. What are we doing here? I don't remember touches. You're saying I honestly, I wasn't trying to throw my guy into the bus to smell here. I thought I was going to be there. You know what it is? He knows so much about sports. I like to talk to my boys and see they're actually this guy did this. Apparently, all that information is just sports relevant for Evan at the moment.

1:02:43Everybody's just a sponge bomb when he forgets everything. But he forgets his name because he's so focused on something else. What's the river, Graham? What we got? It's the Delaware River. Oh, damn. I don't think I've done it. What is happening here? All right. Well, now I think we have to keep it. I mean, I'm going to have to stop right now. Evan's going to be like brushing up on knowledge. What are we reading all the Dallas facts? All right. There you go. There's your preview. Commanders Eagles on take command for producer Evan and for Logan. I'm Grant saying so long. We'll be back with you on Sunday after the game.