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Football at Four: Taking a Look Inside Eagles TEs and Personnel Groupings · Inside the Birds: A Philadelphia Eagles Podcast

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  Speaker 1: And Football four is powered by the Inside the Birds podcast,
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  Speaker 1: Jeff Boscher's back for football at four and of course
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: the Eagles final day on the field and Jeff Moscher.
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  Speaker 1: Weo figured out that last year the Eagles were back
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  Speaker 1: on the field for training camp July twenty seconds, So
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  Speaker 1: that would be a little over a month from now
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  Speaker 1: that there'll be no Birds. But you know, July twenty
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  Speaker 1: second will be here before you know it.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, it will be.
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  Speaker 3: But I don't like your reminding me of that, my
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  Speaker 3: annual reminder to let me enjoy my summer.
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  Speaker 2: July twenty second. You know, all right?
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  Speaker 1: I saw this over at ESPN dot com today and
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  Speaker 1: I definitely wanted to get your take on it. They
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  Speaker 1: had the rankings of the best personnel groups. I don't
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  Speaker 1: know if you caught this or not, but they ranked
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  Speaker 1: the Eagles twelve personnel, one running back, two tight ends,
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  Speaker 1: two wide receivers as one to watch in twenty twenty six.
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  Speaker 1: And now that would kind of indicate that Eli Stowers
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  Speaker 1: the tight end might be a big part of this
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  Speaker 1: offense that maybe we you know, don't you know, envision
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  Speaker 1: all that much. But what do you make of their
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  Speaker 1: twelve personnel grouping? Is that a way that we could
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  Speaker 1: see them line up a lot this year?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's something that we've talked about being a staple
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  Speaker 3: of the kind of offense that Sean Manion is going
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  Speaker 3: to bring. I mean his influences are Sean McVay he's
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  Speaker 3: coached or who he played for, he's coached under Matt Lafleur.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, these are guys who came up through the
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  Speaker 3: Shanahan Kubiak school. And what that is is is putting
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  Speaker 3: two tight ends on the field more so than what
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  Speaker 3: the league average is. And the Eagles were already above
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  Speaker 3: the league average in twelve personnel, but now they're going
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  Speaker 3: to be even more. And I as opposed to last
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  Speaker 3: year where you were where you're number two was Grant Calcata,
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  Speaker 3: and he's on the line of scrimmage and being asked
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  Speaker 3: to block guys that he shouldn't be. You shouldn't have
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  Speaker 3: to see that. This year, they've got a guy like
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  Speaker 3: Johnny Mnt who can block. We'll see where the elastowers
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  Speaker 3: will be a pass catching he'll be an f tight
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  Speaker 3: end who gets flexed out a lot. I don't think
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  Speaker 3: you'll see him in line that much unless he's well
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  Speaker 3: ahead of the game in terms of blocking. But there's
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  Speaker 3: Dallas Goddard, who is your vintage why. But it's really
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  Speaker 3: more about the backbone and the identity of what the
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  Speaker 3: Eagles want to do, especially in the run game. By
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  Speaker 3: having two tight ends out there in the run game,
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  Speaker 3: and then when you're on a play action pass, it
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  Speaker 3: actually gives you a max protect look right from the
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  Speaker 3: start because you're really passing out of a running look,
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  Speaker 3: and then your tight ends can release from there.
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  Speaker 1: It's interesting because if you heard Lane Johnson talk the
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  Speaker 1: other day, he talked about the new you know, offensive
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  Speaker 1: line coach and possibly getting some more help this year.
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  Speaker 1: Sounded like something that he was kind of intrigued by
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  Speaker 1: getting some help from the guard because essentially the Eagles
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  Speaker 1: have always let him out there on an island, just
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  Speaker 1: saying we don't need to give you help one on one.
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  Speaker 1: So how you know the offensive lines assignments are about
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  Speaker 1: to change, it seems like as well.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so let me sort of try to help everybody
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  Speaker 3: in Layman's terms understand what Lane was talking about. If
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  Speaker 3: it's third and seven and Jalen Hurts takes a seven
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  Speaker 3: step drop and there's five offensive linemen out there as
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  Speaker 3: usual and maybe a tight end who's probably gonna be
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  Speaker 3: a pass catcher in that regard, you're not going to
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  Speaker 3: see Lane Johnson get help on the edge. What he's
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  Speaker 3: basically referring to is sort of what I was just
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  Speaker 3: talking about with play action, when you've got these larger
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  Speaker 3: surfaces of five offensive linemen and two tight ends out
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  Speaker 3: there creating a seven man offensive line, and then a
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  Speaker 3: play that might be under center and start off looking
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  Speaker 3: like a run, but as a play action pass is
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  Speaker 3: going to start off looking like the tight end on
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  Speaker 3: the play side blocking the edge defender, and then the
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  Speaker 3: right tackle Lane Johnson, the right guard Tyler Steen putting
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  Speaker 3: a combo block on the three technique. But because it's
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  Speaker 3: gonna turn into a pass right, those two guys were
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  Speaker 3: blocking the same guy, and then all the assignments the
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  Speaker 3: way they'll they'll be, they'll be the ability for the
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  Speaker 3: guard to help Lane Johnson there. So what he's really
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  Speaker 3: talking about is wide zone blocking, play action passing more
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  Speaker 3: so than just pure drop back conventional offense. And that
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  Speaker 3: I think will be some of the passing offense, not
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  Speaker 3: like a big It's not like there's gonna be this
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  Speaker 3: big thing where Lane Johnson's getting guard help a lot
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  Speaker 3: this year. It was just in that specific instance.
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  Speaker 2: So let me go back to this twelve personnel stuff.
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  Speaker 1: Is that where you think they will line up primarily
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  Speaker 1: the most, like, that's what we'll see the most.
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  Speaker 3: Of Well, I mean, everything you do is dictated by
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  Speaker 3: how well you're doing it and down in distance. For example,
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  Speaker 3: the forty nine Ers play a lot of twenty one personnel,
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  Speaker 3: which is you know, the full back, the running back,
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  Speaker 3: tight end. They play a lot of twelve personnel, which
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  Speaker 3: is the two tight ends. But when George Kittle got
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  Speaker 3: hurt and left the game, the forty nine Ers had
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  Speaker 3: to play a ton of eleven personnel against the Eagles,
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  Speaker 3: and they wound up moving the ball pretty well. The
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  Speaker 3: LA Rams last year and in week three was it
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  Speaker 3: that they played the Eagles? Are week four? I think
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  Speaker 3: you were a week this year? It's four, right, So
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  Speaker 3: last year I think it was Week three, right. Last
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  Speaker 3: year in Week three, they were still probably more of
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  Speaker 3: an eleven and a twelve personnel team. They were definitely
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  Speaker 3: more of an eleven and twelve personnel team as the
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  Speaker 3: season went on and they gained an identity and offense,
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  Speaker 3: they played thirteen personnel about thirty percent of the time
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  Speaker 3: because they realized their tight ends were more multi dimensional
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  Speaker 3: than their third receiver, who's like Jordan Whittington, right, And
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  Speaker 3: yet they were still able to run some good field stressing,
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  Speaker 3: defense dressing plays because they have Devanta Adams and Pukinnakua.
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  Speaker 3: Even out of thirteen personnel, which is like nobody puts
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  Speaker 3: three tight ends on the field, they did a thirty
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  Speaker 3: percent of the time. The next highest team was like
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  Speaker 3: the Steelers are twelve percent. So that is something that
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  Speaker 3: worked for them and they did it. So to go
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  Speaker 3: back to your question, will we see the Eagles play
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  Speaker 3: more twelve personnel? Theoretically?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, they should.
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  Speaker 3: I mean that's the identity of the offense that Sean
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  Speaker 3: Manion's bringing here. But what if the Eagles are for
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  Speaker 3: whatever reason, I have a lot of injuries on defense
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  Speaker 3: and they're down in games by ten to fourteen points early, Well,
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  Speaker 3: then they're gonna have to throw the ball and then
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  Speaker 3: they're gonna want to be in eleven personnel or what.
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  Speaker 3: The defense is fine, but the running game looks like
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  Speaker 3: it did last year because the offensive line is not
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  Speaker 3: good and they're in third and six and third and
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  Speaker 3: seven and third and eight a lot like they were
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  Speaker 3: last year. Well, you're gonna probably have eleven personnel on
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  Speaker 3: the field. And then Mike we get into the sort
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  Speaker 3: of murkiness of well what happens when you have two
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  Speaker 3: tight ends on the field, but one of them is
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  Speaker 3: Stours and he's flexed out because he's really just a
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  Speaker 3: wide receiver at that point.
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  Speaker 2: That's his skin.
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  Speaker 3: That's really twelve personnel, but an eleven personnel. Look, it's
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  Speaker 3: like eleven personnel and a twelve personnel body.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Well, one of the things that I guess I don't
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  Speaker 1: know who wrote this, but they wrote look for the
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  Speaker 1: Eagles to give you more under center. I think we
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  Speaker 1: think that's gonna happen, right, which leads to timing, boot
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  Speaker 1: and play action concepts out of twelve personnel.
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  Speaker 2: We think there's.
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  Speaker 1: Gonna be a lot of boot leg play action concepts
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  Speaker 1: because that's not something they ran a whole heck of
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  Speaker 1: a lot.
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  Speaker 3: Of Well, I think it would make a lot of
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  Speaker 3: sense because we know that Jill and Hurts typically prefers
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  Speaker 3: not to have his back to the defense. So even
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  Speaker 3: in a bootleg, Yeah, as you fake the handoff, you
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  Speaker 3: have to have your back to the defense. But then
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  Speaker 3: you're running to the opposite side of the play and
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  Speaker 3: you're facing the defense, and you have usually deep overs
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  Speaker 3: or crossing routes involved where guys are coming from your
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  Speaker 3: right to your left. Let's say, if you roll out
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  Speaker 3: left or or the other way, if you're rolling out
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  Speaker 3: the other way. So I it's just it's again, it's
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  Speaker 3: a staple of the offense. It's especially when you have
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  Speaker 3: a mobile quarterback. It's a really effective play because it's
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  Speaker 3: essentially a misdirection where you get the one defense flowing
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  Speaker 3: the opposite way of the place.
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  Speaker 2: Strength.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, one of the things too, you know you're talking
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  Speaker 1: about the twelve personnel. You have Goddard, who we know
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  Speaker 1: other than Goddard, I mean Calcultara. I guess it's been around.
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  Speaker 1: But would you say that the depth at wide receiver
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  Speaker 1: is better than your depth at tight end?
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  Speaker 3: Probably more so? Yeah, And weirdly I wouldn't have said
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  Speaker 3: that in the last few years, but yeah, I.
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  Speaker 2: Mean, you know, yeah they had.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, your third receiver is Marquis Brown. I mean, he's
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  Speaker 3: been a thousand yard receiver in this league, so that
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  Speaker 3: that's pretty good. Dantavian Wicks, it might be your third
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  Speaker 3: receiver behind Mackay Lemon and Devonte Smith. He's had success
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  Speaker 3: in this league, whereas your number two tight end is
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  Speaker 3: either a blocker like Johnny Munt who is not going
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  Speaker 3: to catch more than ten pass is in a year,
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  Speaker 3: or Elec Stowers. There's really a wide receiver anyway. So yeah,
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  Speaker 3: I would say that that's a fair statement.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. You know, I think you have Now you
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  Speaker 1: just said Hollywood Brown. You think he is a bigger
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  Speaker 1: has a bigger role in the offense than Wix does.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know that.
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  Speaker 3: I mean I think that if they're in twelve personnel
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  Speaker 3: and you have two receivers out there, it's probably gonna
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  Speaker 3: DeVante Smith and either depending on down and distance, it's
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  Speaker 3: either gonna be Wix or it's gonna be Marquise Brown
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  Speaker 3: unless they want Makai Lemon out there and feel like
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  Speaker 3: he's doing a good job of winning on the outside.
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  Speaker 3: I think maybe later in the year, but earlier you'll
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  Speaker 3: probably see Lemon mostly in the slot, and just depends
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  Speaker 3: on how Brown's performing within the offense. That's what's happened
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  Speaker 3: to Darius Cooper. How's WIX performing? Are they in the
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  Speaker 3: red zone? Because then you want to use taller guys theoretically.
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  Speaker 2: All right.
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  Speaker 1: Jeff Boscher Football for looking at some of the Eagles
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Ota stuff today, one of the first questions right on
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  Speaker 1: a shoot today, what's going on to backup quarterback? What
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  Speaker 1: is your read on them rotating guys? Because I think
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  Speaker 1: most people would think Tata McKee was the guy they
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  Speaker 1: trade for Dalton, And it was like, that doesn't make
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  Speaker 1: a lot of sense. What do you make of that
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  Speaker 1: whole situation? Because I know, look, it's the backup quarterback,
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  Speaker 1: but the backup quarterback of this town means something, right,
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  Speaker 1: And do you read anything into the fact that they're rotating?
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  Speaker 3: I do. I just don't know what to make of
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  Speaker 3: it yet.
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  Speaker 2: And that's something that I do read into it. I
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  Speaker 2: just don't know what I'm reading.
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  Speaker 3: Right Caplin and to Checko and I have kind of
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  Speaker 3: chatted about this and said, this is something we have
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  Speaker 3: to kind of monitor and look into a little more.
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  Speaker 3: Because before, when it was just a couple of open practices,
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  Speaker 3: it was easy to assume that if they were trading off,
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  Speaker 3: maybe we were just the practices that were open to
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  Speaker 3: the media happened to be on days that Dalton was
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  Speaker 3: the guy. But I think it's now back to back
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  Speaker 3: practices whe Dalton's the guy, and then Nick siriy I
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  Speaker 3: didn't commit interestingly to McKee AS's number two, so that
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  Speaker 3: definitely it bears some investigation.
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  Speaker 2: Now.
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  Speaker 1: So they write that twelve personnel, is there a grouping
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  Speaker 1: intrigued by.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I'm sort of intrigued on how Stowers might
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  Speaker 3: be used as a second tight end, but really a
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  Speaker 3: second or a third wide receiver. You know, might we
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  Speaker 3: see some one by three formations where your ex receiver
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  Speaker 3: the one the number one to the quarterbacks left is
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  Speaker 3: Stours because they used to use zach Ertz that way.
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  Speaker 3: They've occasionally used Goddard that way. But the skill set
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  Speaker 3: that Stowers has, you could probably line them up on
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  Speaker 3: the outside, and with his athleticism, he could probably beat
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  Speaker 3: a few corners on an inbreaker or even a deep
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  Speaker 3: deep shot. So especially in the red zone.
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  Speaker 1: He brought up many times today that Stoward is kind
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  Speaker 1: of new to that position. He was kind of talking
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  Speaker 1: about his blocking. So it'll be interesting, Yeah, how they
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  Speaker 1: him in, what kind of role they want to utilize
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  Speaker 1: him in.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it'll probably be situational and slow to begin with.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, you have to be able to block in
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  Speaker 3: this offense. And if you're gonna run twelve personnel and
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  Speaker 3: he's we saw that, Greg Calcatara. If you can't block,
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  Speaker 3: it's gonna be it's gonna just foubar the entire operation.
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  Speaker 3: So but he can catch, and I'm sure you know
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  Speaker 3: we know that training camp for the most part is
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  Speaker 3: a passing camp. And he's still very early in his career,
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  Speaker 3: so it may not be right away, but I am
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  Speaker 3: curious to see how he develops throughout that.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think that the running backs will be a
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  Speaker 1: much bigger part of the pass game or not necessarily?
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  Speaker 3: You know what, I'm not even gonna rubber stamp that
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  Speaker 3: because I've seen it so many times and we talk.
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  Speaker 3: Me and Kaplan just joke about this on the podcast
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  Speaker 3: all the time. Every one year they threw the ball
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  Speaker 3: to DeAndre Swift like twenty times in a week, and
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  Speaker 3: we're like, oh, yeah, this is the year that they're
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  Speaker 3: gonna get the running back involved in the pass game,
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  Speaker 3: and it just has not happen. I think theoretically they
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  Speaker 3: would like to. I think it makes a lot of
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  Speaker 3: sense to do it. But and you probably will see
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  Speaker 3: it a lot in practice and in training camp. But
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  Speaker 3: when when it's real in September, that's when I'll be
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  Speaker 3: proven that somebody will prove to me that they will
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  Speaker 3: or won't do that.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I agree with you on that one.
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  Speaker 1: I don't because Barkley's not a guy you want to
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  Speaker 1: throw the ball to a whole hacker a lot. But
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  Speaker 1: is it, you know, the year that they get that
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  Speaker 1: second running back a bigger role? Right Because Kapla we
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  Speaker 1: talked about this yesterday a little bit with you Barkley,
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  Speaker 1: this could potentially be Barkley's last year here.
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  Speaker 2: It could be.
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  Speaker 3: I think he actually is a guy I would like
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  Speaker 3: to see catch the ball more. He caught the ball
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  Speaker 3: great at Penn State. He has good hands. I know
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  Speaker 3: he's had some drops of times, but it's weird when
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  Speaker 3: when he gets the ball in the passing game it
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  Speaker 3: typically tended to be wheel routes that were down the sideline.
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  Speaker 3: I mean he would he probably has more catches than
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  Speaker 3: twenty or plus yards than he has for ten or fewer.
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  Speaker 3: I would love to see some quick dump off, some
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  Speaker 3: scarby screens, real quick checkdowns or misdirections where he catches
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  Speaker 3: the ball in the flat and give him some space.
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  Speaker 3: I think he's I think he can be a McCaffrey
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  Speaker 3: like back if he gets the ball quickly from the
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  Speaker 3: line of scrimmage in the passing game.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Jeff Bosher Football at four. The Eagles OTAs are done.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: The players are now talking to the media, so they
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: are officially you know, that's it. They're done till July.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Sometime about a month from now, they shall be back
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: for training camp. And of course we'll keep the football
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: role in football at four here on the Sports Batch Live.
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  Speaker 2: On ninety seven three ESPN. All right, Bocher, we'll see it.
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  Speaker 3: But all right, but thanks man, appreciate it.