Latest / Inside the Birds: A Philadelphia Eagles Podcast / The DiCecco Daily: Can Eagles Defense Overcome Its Youth?

Transcript

The DiCecco Daily: Can Eagles Defense Overcome Its Youth? · Inside the Birds: A Philadelphia Eagles Podcast

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: What's happened to everybody?
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: How you feeling on this Friday afternoon? This is Andrew Dicheko.
• 0:15
  Of course, this is the latest edition of the czech Odaily.
• 0:19
  Hope you had a chance to catch some, if not all,
• 0:22
  of unfiltered. It was me and Ricky Bow from two
• 0:24
  to six. I'll be joining Bill Colarulo for the entire show.
• 0:29
  Monday last they get into with the big weekend for
• 0:32
  the Pills as they take on the Mets. But today
• 0:36
  we're here to talk about the Philadelphia Eagles and more importantly,
• 0:42
  the biggest question that I have regarding the defense as
• 0:46
  we move towards training camp. Yesterday was the offensive question
• 0:50
  that I had the primary one, and I mentioned about
• 0:53
  the offense and its ability to evolve under Kevin Patulo,
• 0:57
  and I'm curious to see how that all shakes out
• 1:00
  out and transpires in the coming months. But defensively, there
• 1:05
  are a lot of questions, in some of which I've
• 1:08
  been asked personally, I've seen on social media or what
• 1:12
  have you. And I know that there's a lot of
• 1:14
  questions out there regarding the defense and its ability to
• 1:19
  maintain that level of play with so many new faces
• 1:22
  and a lot of.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Inexperienced, a lot of youth.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: That's the reality of the situation when you build the
• 1:29
  team the way the Eagles have intended to this offseason,
• 1:33
  they're trying to Well, what they've done is is they've
• 1:37
  it was an off season of maintenance and they've secured
• 1:39
  their nucleus and they're building around their young pieces, and
• 1:44
  with that should come sustain success, should be a competitive
• 1:48
  force for years to come. Now with that, obviously, there's
• 1:52
  going to be growing pains because not every not every
• 1:56
  case is going to be like you saw last season
• 1:58
  with Vic Fangio able to take over a defense that
• 2:02
  had a lot of question marks. Let's not forget for
• 2:04
  a second that there were questions about Zach Bond. A
• 2:08
  lot of folks didn't know who he was or what
• 2:10
  he was capable of. Myself included. You had Na Kobe
• 2:13
  Dean who had questions. You had Noen Smith, who played
• 2:16
  sixteen percent of the snaps of the year before as
• 2:19
  a rookie, and there were many who wondered whether or
• 2:21
  not he was going to be a starting caliber player
• 2:24
  based off of that small sample size. Not to mention
• 2:28
  the young corners and Quinna Mitchell and Cooper Dejen Gardner Johnson, CJ.
• 2:33
  Gardner Johnson, could he stay healthy? We knew how he
• 2:36
  was going to fit into the defense, but could he
• 2:38
  stay healthy? And you go down the defensive line, Jayleen Carter,
• 2:43
  Jayen Carter, Let's not forget hit that rookie wall. And
• 2:46
  there were many that were wondering whether or not he
• 2:48
  was going to rebound. Well, he answered that, and then
• 2:51
  some he answered the challenge, and now he's quickly vaulting
• 2:55
  into a tier of his own at his position. And
• 2:58
  then there was the Jordan Davis questions last summer that
• 3:01
  he had to answer about conditioning, and they were fair questions,
• 3:05
  but he answered it all the right way. And then
• 3:08
  he goes out there on the field and improves that
• 3:10
  he was well conditioned and able to handle more of
• 3:14
  a workload or more responsibilities under the Vic Fangio defense.
• 3:18
  And then finally there was the questions surrounding Josh Sweat
• 3:21
  because there was a large chunk of this twenty twenty
• 3:24
  three season where he didn't really hear from him.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: He wasn't impactful, he didn't pick up a sack.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: I think from Week nine all the way until the
• 3:31
  Wildcard game against Tampa Bay and it looked like he
• 3:34
  ran out of gas. Well, whatever happened, and a lot
• 3:37
  of it had to do with maintenance.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: During the season.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Strategically, he picked up a couple of sacks in the
• 3:42
  Super Bowl, and you could also argue that he could
• 3:44
  have very easily won Super Bowl MVP because his plays were.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Made when the game was still hanging in the balance.
• 3:49
  I guess earlier on.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: But the point is is that there were a ton
• 3:53
  of questions and the Eagles answered them at every turn.
• 3:56
  That's not always going to be the case every year.
• 3:59
  I fully understand that. But you have Vic Fangio, and
• 4:03
  you have a nucleus of coaches on the defensive side
• 4:06
  of the ball that directly oversaw progression and they oversaw
• 4:12
  development across the board. There wasn't a single player that
• 4:15
  you could point to and say that they took a
• 4:17
  step back.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: There was no regression.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: So when you couple Vic Fangio, who knows exactly what
• 4:23
  he's looking for in terms of his personnel, he knows
• 4:25
  exactly how he wants things to look, and you have
• 4:28
  the coaches there that are keen on development and explaining
• 4:31
  the fundamentals and the why behind their calls.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: There shouldn't be.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, I understand if you feel a little apprehensive
• 4:39
  about the defense, but there really shouldn't be a lot
• 4:43
  of skepticism or questions surrounding the defense. I guess there's
• 4:48
  always going to be questions, but there shouldn't be reservations.
• 4:51
  I guess I should say, because you've seen them go
• 4:54
  through last season and check off all of those boxes.
• 4:57
  Now there are questions that we're going to have, and
• 5:00
  for me, the most pertinent, the one that's front of
• 5:03
  mind is the linebacker depth. Obviously, with all players healthy,
• 5:08
  Zach Bond, Jahad Campbell and the Kobe Dean, that's a
• 5:11
  pretty good top three linebackers off ball linebackers. But the
• 5:16
  reality of the situation is is that Jahid Campbell won't
• 5:22
  be hitting the practice field until sometime in August.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: We have yet to see.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: What that's going to look like in terms of a workload,
• 5:30
  much less how he's going to be able to absorb
• 5:32
  a fic Fangio defense and be able to help the
• 5:35
  Eagles in the immediacy early in the season. He very
• 5:39
  well may, and you're getting the mental reps now, but
• 5:42
  as we saw with Sidney Brown last year, some mental
• 5:45
  reps can only take you so far. You have to
• 5:47
  be able to get that work in on the field,
• 5:49
  and sometime in August, could be early, could be late August.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: We don't know.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: And maybe Jahid Campbell is a very fast learner. But
• 5:57
  the point is is you don't know what capacity the
• 6:01
  Eagles are going to utilize him at and the snapshare
• 6:04
  and how that may figure into the discussion here in
• 6:07
  the early part of the season.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Na Kobe Dean. I've talked a lot about.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: Nakobe Dean because I view him as the heartbeat of
• 6:14
  the defense.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Everyone wants to talk about CJ. Gardner Johnson.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: You like the energy and his attitude and swagger that
• 6:21
  he brought to the defense, but in reality, it was
• 6:23
  the Kobe Dean and his mindset and his leadership and
• 6:28
  wearing the green dot and doing all of those things
• 6:30
  that come with a preeminent position on the defense. I mean,
• 6:35
  there was the mentality and the identity of the defense
• 6:40
  was largely derived from Nakobe Dean and the way that
• 6:43
  he envisioned the defense looking so not to have him
• 6:47
  and you heard Vic Vangiel, he said he won't be
• 6:49
  back for a while.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: That's a murky timeline.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: We don't quite know what that means, but he is
• 6:55
  working his way back from a gruesome and arduous process
• 7:01
  with that petell or tendon injury. So with question marks
• 7:06
  at two of those three top positions at linebacker, it's
• 7:10
  fair to have questions about how that position is.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Going to look early on.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Will they be able to stabilize and have enough there
• 7:19
  to carry them until you get Jehad Campbell perhaps you know,
• 7:22
  up the speed or being able to undertake a large workload,
• 7:25
  or Nikobe Dean when he gets back into the fall,
• 7:28
  whenever that may be.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: So you look at.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: What they have behind that, beyond that, and you're looking
• 7:36
  at Jeremiah Trotter Junior, who has done a wonderful job
• 7:40
  behind the scenes, and he's he has the football IQ,
• 7:45
  he's instinctive all those things that you look for from
• 7:48
  that position. Though he doesn't have the size and his
• 7:50
  sample size is extremely limited. He played just one hundred
• 7:54
  and four defensive snaps last season. It is worth mentioning, however,
• 7:58
  that Vic Vangio has a ton of confidence in Trotter Junior.
• 8:02
  He wouldn't go out of his way to praise him
• 8:04
  unless he did, and he's not somebody that just doles
• 8:07
  out praise for the sake of doing so, so that
• 8:09
  has to be worth something. But the problem is is
• 8:12
  if you always have Zach Bond and Jeremiah Trotter Junior
• 8:16
  to start training camp healthy, well, let's look at some
• 8:20
  of the names beyond that. You have Dallas Gant, who's
• 8:22
  a holdover. He spent most of the season on the
• 8:24
  practice squad last year. He can probably be a special
• 8:28
  teams piece if he latches on and makes it.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: It's going to be tough for him to make it.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: And then there's Lance Dixon who was an undrafted free
• 8:34
  agent who was from Toledo.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: And they're very.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: Shallow at that position, and it really wouldn't surprise me
• 8:42
  if the Eagles added to that position just for the
• 8:44
  sake of adding a player to take on some of
• 8:47
  those training camp reps.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: That they're really light at that position.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: I think linebacker is going to be a position that
• 8:54
  stabilizes maybe in October or late October, who knows, But
• 8:59
  I think they're going to be formidable once all the
• 9:02
  pieces are healthy and and they're sort of gelling and
• 9:07
  being that cohesive unit because there is so much talent there.
• 9:10
  But the reason why I say a linebacker is because
• 9:13
  of the question marks and the health of two players
• 9:18
  that you're really counting on to to undertake a prominent.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Role on defense.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: I don't have the same I guess reservations or questions
• 9:27
  about the cornerback position because I think Kaley Ringo has
• 9:30
  what it takes, and if he doesn't, they have Adoy
• 9:33
  Jackson who's still playing at a competent level and can
• 9:37
  give you adequate production from that position. There's not a
• 9:42
  lot of guesswork there's he's not a high variance player
• 9:45
  and if he's assignment sound, Vic Vanjoel is going to
• 9:47
  find a way to keep him in, keep him, keep
• 9:50
  him in the mix. Safety again, that's not a question
• 9:53
  mark for me because I think very highly of Drew mccooba,
• 9:57
  who had a immensely high football IQ and coming out
• 10:02
  of the draft that was one of his hallmarks. And
• 10:04
  he's versatile and he's rangy, all of which are qualities
• 10:08
  that Vic Fangiol prioritizes when he's assessing defensive backs, and
• 10:11
  to me, it seems like he had a heavy hand
• 10:13
  in bringing mccuba to Philadelphia. Sidney Brown's a player that
• 10:18
  he inherited and Brown. Sidney's going to have a big
• 10:20
  opportunity to put to challenge mcuba, and to a degree,
• 10:24
  so will Tristan McCollum, who Vic Fangio threw into the mix.
• 10:28
  But I think the Eagles are okay and comfortable with
• 10:30
  the players that they have. They're challenging for that position.
• 10:34
  Another one that you're going to hear a lot about
• 10:36
  is defensive line. And I look at defensive line about
• 10:39
  defensive tackles. I separate edge rushers and defensive lineman, you know,
• 10:43
  real football guys stuff here. But I think the defensive
• 10:47
  line is going to be okay because I'm expecting Jordan
• 10:49
  Davis to take that leap. The Eagles are banking on
• 10:52
  him doing so. They have a lot of confidence in
• 10:54
  the player, and if last season was any indication. Late
• 10:57
  last season, the way he closed it out, I think
• 11:00
  that he still has something left that we haven't seen yet,
• 11:05
  another level that he can tap into. But the key
• 11:07
  here is going to be Moro Jomo, who I really
• 11:10
  like the Eagles like and Fangio has praised. Now, Jomo
• 11:14
  is undersized, but what he can give you is the physical,
• 11:18
  violent play from the interior. I think He's going to
• 11:21
  be disruptive and displace opposing guards and be somebody who
• 11:25
  can take on some of that some of that workload
• 11:30
  that was previously held by Milton Williams. And that's the
• 11:33
  guy that I'm looking at. Ty Robinson's another player who's
• 11:36
  a rookie who could play anywhere from twenty five to
• 11:38
  thirty five percent of the snaps I think would be realistic.
• 11:41
  But they have options, and they have players of different
• 11:44
  skill sets and don't be thrown off by the youth.
• 11:47
  That should in factor into the way that you perceive
• 11:51
  it because they all offer something different. The key here
• 11:54
  is going to be Jordan Davis and Moro Jomo, but
• 11:57
  I think both players are going to sort of compliment
• 11:59
  each other in helping atone for the loss of Milton Williams.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: So I don't have a lot of questions there.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: We've talked about the edge rusher group, so as you
• 12:07
  can see, linebacker is front and center for me only
• 12:11
  because and I mean this, you know, I can't be
• 12:13
  more emphatic in this only because of the injuries at
• 12:16
  two players that you're banking on to have a very
• 12:20
  important role on your defense when they're healthy and on
• 12:25
  the top three Zach Bond, Jahan Campbell and Nakobe Deen
• 12:27
  are healthy, that's going to be a very very strong
• 12:31
  linebacker corps. But right now, the concern for me is
• 12:35
  that there's not a lot of bodies there, and it's
• 12:38
  Zach Bond, Jeremiah Trotter Junior and two players who are
• 12:42
  going to have to fight to make the roster. So
• 12:45
  the really light there, and that's why I chose the
• 12:48
  linebacker position as the biggest question mark on the defensive
• 12:52
  side that I have as we advance towards training camp.
• 12:56
  That'll do it for this edition of the check O Daily.
• 12:58
  Remember from nine to twelve Early Birds on ninety seventy
• 13:02
  five The Fanatic hosted by yours. Truly, we get into
• 13:06
  obviously a lot of Eagles talk, but I also work
• 13:09
  in some Phillies, I'll work in some NBA finals, maybe
• 13:13
  get into some Ace Bali six Ers conversation. I try
• 13:15
  to mix it up, but it's predominantly Eagles, so I
• 13:18
  think you'll like it. If you haven't checked it out yet,
• 13:20
  that'll do it for me. Until next time, have a
• 13:23
  good one and I'll talk to everybody soon.