Football at Four: Which Issues Will Eagles Answer on Sunday?

0:00Football 4 is powered by the Inside the Birds Podcast and it is brought to you by our good friends at Inside the Birds.com and the Inside the Birds Podcast. Adam Kaplan and Andrew DeChico flopped in today so Adam on a Thursday, Andrew, tomorrow show, we're getting you ready for the Eagles and commanders and speaking of the Eagles and commanders, if you want to win tickets to the game, stop out tomorrow and see us at Jersey Cal in Northfield for their 4th anniversary party, Jersey Cal in Northfield, we'll be there tomorrow, it'll be their 4th anniversary. You know I was there the first night that they opened. And you got that chocolate peanut butter banana? Well actually they were closed and as I pulled up with my girlfriend's son, the sadness on his face to see that they were closed was so evident and they grabbed me and said, sir, sir, what would you like? And they gave me a bunch of ice cream and I've been hooked ever since. Well, I got my cooler filled up with ice ready to go tomorrow. I'm bringing it down here. I know who's ready to go right now. Adam Kaplan is here for football at 4 with the Eagles getting ready for the commanders on Sunday. Adam, welcome.

1:08Mike, could you talk to you? Let's definitely talk Eagles. I can't take this Philly. I'm still mad, but anyway, it is tough one, tough one. Yeah, they fall to 1, the Phillies for those of you just tune it in. But one answer is, well Sunday's game gives about the Eagles. I talked about this with Jeff yesterday. I want to get your take on this. I feel like this is maybe remember when Chip Kelly took over in 2013. We had no idea what the offense was going to look like. Mike, real quick, I actually just talked to someone about that. I can't believe you brought that up. So what you're referring to is the anticipation. Like if you follow coach football and Argan. This is why chip went really fast. He's innovative going for it. His own 25 yard line and a lot of the things that we thought we'd see we didn't. So go ahead. I just that's what you were for that. That's what I my anticipation because we saw it by the way in OTA's and training camp. It was the first OTA's Mike. I was like, wow, this is super cool. I've never seen anything like it. Right. And you know, we went through all of the preseason and everything and we're like, what is this offense going to be? What is it going to look like?

2:10So we're in a similar situation here, Adam. What is this offense going to be and hurts and the and the offensive coordinator and the dynamics of this. What this offense and the passing game is going to look like. Yeah, Mike, it's been what we thought. There's been no real surprise. It's a West Coast offense timing offense. That's not the surprise. But what we don't know is what it's going to look like. When we get to 425 Eastern on Sunday, we don't know because first of all, Mike, yes, what you see in training camp is going to be what they're going to run. But first of all, the starters don't play in the preseason. So you don't remember that you can't touch the quarterback in practice. So you don't know how hurts is going to do in this offense. I mean, we can be optimistic. People don't think they'll do well. I understand that. But you're going to learn and by the way, we're going to me, Jeff and Greg Kosell. Greg is back with us, by the way, on the birthday on a pregame show, which will which the Patreon members will get Friday night and the rest of the public would get sorry morning.

3:14But Greg is going to be because one of the things I'm going to ask him give us an idea of this personnel group that Washington has because it is way better in last season. And Mike, if they could disrupt her to timing or if he's held on the ball too long, which has been something of an issue for him, what do they do? If they're not going back to Syria on its off, you can't do that. You have to stay with the West Coast. But you can scout stuff down. You could do less of it. You could run a shorter playbook. You can do less. That's not what they want. They want a dynamic passing game. And we're not going to get a start to get an idea until this game to be honest with you. Yeah, so obviously hurts us under the microscope. And so is Sean Manion, who's going to talk today in about 25 minutes. We'll hear what Sean Manion's anticipation is for his first game. And by the way, he has announced for I guess serionning announced that he will call plays from the booth in the game on Sunday. One of the big things we're all looking at is what about Sequan Barclay and the offensive line. And it all comes back to the offensive line and their ability to create space and holes for Barclay.

4:21Mike, I would say if we had to, if you said, okay, what are your top five questions for the football team? It's the hurts. New off at the quarter of dynamic. There's no question about that. That's number one. Number two. It's actually number one A. Where is this offensive line of run blocking? I have to tell you though. They look really good. And the thing is Mike. I'm so glad I went to the joint practices in Foxborough, New England with the Patriots because they were phenomenal. I'm like, I get that they're not tackling, but they look really good. So we're going to learn Sunday. The two biggest things we're going to learn and take one block. We can involved in this. We'll talk about them in a second. Is can the offensive line be remotely close to what they were to use the witches of historic? It's just they've got to do better with the run game. And then I said, I know people want to know about hurts. Well, he run more. He's got to run more. I couldn't tell you exactly per game. How many more have any more ruchis going to have. But the bottom line is Mike. We're going to learn so much about their offense that you can't tell because the starters don't play in the preseason.

5:24You know, the offensive line. If healthy, you hope that they're back. You had guys banged up in and out. You know, center position last year. Jurgins was not healthy. He was in. He was out. We don't think Dickerson was healthy all the way through Lane Johnson. Obviously, Miss time. So we hope that that's better. But what about Barclay? Obviously, he had the 2000 yard year. Last year was he not as effective or was there not. He holds for him to run through Mike. That's the middle of a question. Is he at 29 years old in a regression? Or is it just because the offensive line was so bad, run blocked and they were atrocious blocking for the run. Kim Jurgins, Greg Coastal, told us on inside the tape. He does for us that there were times when Jurgins could not even bend down. He was so stiff because he was coming back from his surgery. Lane and Dickerson, don't forget Mike. He got hurt in the evening practice at the link last year when he shouldn't have gone back in. So you're going to put the starters back in and he went up. Have a meniscus injury and he had the tremor. He didn't have the full blown surgery, which would have kept mouth for the season.

6:31He was never the same Mike. So that's the question. And Mike, think about this Mike. In 16 games in 2024, he ran for over 2000 yards, 2005. In 16 games last year, same amount, almost 900 yards last 1140. Unbelievable. But the belief was it was mostly on their offensive line. And he only have to do his yards for contact. He yards for contact numbers regress significantly. But again, to finish this off, they look better. They look much better. They look healthy, but we're certainly not going to know for sure until this game. Adam Kaplan football at four. And of course, the Eagles commanders. What do we think? Tantavian, which is roles going to be? Is he going to have a big roles? Are you going to be a bit player? What are we seeing with Wix? It's a big one because the thing with him is we don't know how many snaps he can handle. He's so far behind. He had the re-entry of the hamstring that he had in the spring.

7:37And he started practicing just after they returned from New England. He was doing individual drills when I was there. I did watch him do it. He looked fine, but they didn't let him do a lot. And now he's going to be playing. So the question is, because Wix is going to be starting on the outside with Smith, Durner's career. He was way down in depth. It would not surprise me if the Packers didn't trade him if they would have released him at some point. Because he was so far down on their depth chart, but they're going to be running West Coast and some of the coaches who would in Green Bay are now with him here. So they know him. He had a great training camp. My key was fantastic. He's not half the player of AJ Brown to be clear, but he's got length. Really good running after the catch. He's not fast, but the skiing gets his guys open, very impressed with him. He's another guy. We're going to get an answer. Hopefully won't be like his former teammate, Romeo, Doppler tonight. That's okay. I was going to say if he's not. He has the drops like his teammate did last night, Romeo, dobs, who we had on at the Super Bowl, by the way, at Radio Rove. You remember?

8:44Yes, we had dobs on. He was on talking about Sean Manian last year at Super Bowl, but we'll see how Tantevi and Wix ends up here in Philadelphia. Let me ask you real quick on lemon. Do you think Wix would have his bigger role had lemon not been compromised all off season? Well, here's a thing though. Lemon is mostly going to play inside. You could play him outside. He needs a slot receiver. Wix is going to play on the outside. He's not an inside receiver. He can play. You could line him up inside if you want, but that's not what he is. Now, because lemons behind, I suspect they're going to play more 12 personnel, which is 2-10 ends to receivers in obviously running back. Now, if lemon becomes a player, Mike, if he, by mid season, if he's through the Eagles think he should be or will be, they'll play more 11 personnel than they then they probably anticipated. And we didn't even talk about Darry Cooper and Hollywood Brown. A lot of more. Now, they're not going to dress six receivers most likely. Teams don't do that. They dress five. But this receiver, of course, interesting, Mike. There are a lot of questions with this group. And we're going to start getting answers in this game.

9:55Well, it's funny. We saw last night how things, you know, you have pictures in your mind. And then all of a sudden, boom, a Darnell gets hurt. AJ Brown goes down. Did the Eagles have the depth that wide receiver? Can they handle injuries this year on offense? Let's go to their defense because they do have an injury on defense already. It is Jonathan Grenard. We don't know if he'll play or not. They, you know, day to day. We'll see what happens here. I think Vic Vantio was kind of a non-committal, obviously, today. So with Grenard out, Jalik's hunt becomes the guy as the edge rusher, the past rusher, the main guy to get the quarterback is he ready to have one of those big breakout seasons. Mike, it's funny. You say that because he has been one of the most obvious breakout candidates in the nine years we've done inside the birds. He's been our guy since the beginning. We've talked about and we've told the story. We talked. Rico said a watch tape of them. It's hard to get his. You know, Greg, we're friend. I felt it was hard to get that tape because it was a huge incursion tape. It's not readily available. He wound up getting it. Now we didn't know that they're going to draft him. Be clear. We're not saying we knew this, which is guy we were very interested in. They wound up drafting them, which is surprising.

11:06Yeah, he's ready to go here. There's no question. He's going to play over Nolan Smith with good arts, ready to play full time. But this is going to be interesting to see because Mike, he's. He's got everything you want. He's explosive. This is only a fifth year at the ns rush or though. He still has a lot of learning, but he's probably a year ahead of where we probably where he probably should be. Yeah, I'm interested. You know, and I say break out. I don't know. I mean, are you like, what does that mean 12 1 1 1 2. Have sacks or just. What's causing havoc? Just where it's causing havoc when we let them in interceptions, which is crazy. Yeah. Just basically Mike, where we all watch and go, wow, he's it. This he's the guy. You know, we want to see the kind of week he should have a big game. If you want to have a break out, it's got to be right off the bat, right? Yeah, he's going to play a lot and he's so talking to someone who's scouting to me. He really wants it. And this is a contract drive. Let's not forget.

12:08Eagles can extend his contract after the season if they so choose. Yeah, by the way, Laramie, console, of course, is out in the game. So he'll be matched up most likely against a backup over on that side. It's pretty evident that Vic Fangeo is a fan of woolen. It's going to be fun to see what he ends up, you know, how he speaks glowingly about him. He's kind of been all over him. I'm a little bit surprised to be honest with you because he didn't have a good week against the Patriots or the two good practices. One was really bad. And then the other one is better. Yeah, and Mike, they have nowhere else to go here. They don't. Vic does not want to move to Jean back to corner. That's the last thing they want to do. So we'll see what happens. But there's so much intrigue here, but I'll tell you what, if woolen plays, if woolen is good, if he's who they think he is, Mike, they might wind up over the Texas. Texas has the best defense. Like they're elite. It wouldn't shock me if they want to be better than the Texans who would be hard to do because you can't find a weakness with that team. But let me tell you something.

13:16If woolen is that guy, show me a weakness that the Eagles really have. I mean, safety, it's average. The very average of safety. And Vic made a clear today that episodes of the guy not not surprising. Yeah, but you can get away with being average of safety. You cannot get away with being average of corner. I could tell you that. Well, they'll get the first chance at corner. It'll be woolen and Mitchell against Terry McClaren, scary, Terry. And you're going to get obviously Stefan digs. So some veteran receivers this week. Jaden Daniels is back. He was two and five last year after taking the commanders to the NFC championship game. It's Eagles and the commanders right here. Sunday on 973 ESPN. That was today's football and four with Adam Kaplan. Thanks Adam. Thank you.