Latest / Inside the Birds: A Philadelphia Eagles Podcast / The DiCecco Daily: Recapping Wild Eagles Opening Win Vs. Cowboys

Transcript

The DiCecco Daily: Recapping Wild Eagles Opening Win Vs. Cowboys · Inside the Birds: A Philadelphia Eagles Podcast

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Hey, what's going on? Everybody? Welcome into this edition of
• 0:12
  to check Odily.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: It's Andrew de Checko checking in after Game one, the
• 0:17
  season opener, in which the Eagles hold on beating the
• 0:20
  rival Dallas Cowboys twenty four to twenty and look, the
• 0:24
  atmosphere was tremendous. Fans turned out early as expected. There
• 0:30
  was a lot of pregame festivities that included the light
• 0:32
  show and of course the unveiling of the twenty twenty
• 0:35
  four World Champion Super Bowl banner.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: And the stage was set.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: It was electric and to kind of set the scene
• 0:43
  even further, the game couldn't have gotten off to more
• 0:47
  of an I'm gonna start for the Philadelphia Eagles. You
• 0:49
  hear gonna fly now, which the Eagles play before every
• 0:52
  opening kickoff.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: The place was juiced. They run down the field on
• 0:57
  the kickoff.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: And then there's an injury sustained to full back in
• 1:01
  special team's ace, Ben Van Sumerin. And you know those
• 1:06
  who have you know, followed along with my coverage, You
• 1:09
  know that I've gotten to know Ben over the past
• 1:11
  few years talking to him.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: It's tough, man, It is absolutely tough.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: And it was difficult to see because this is a
• 1:20
  player who beat his timeline. Remember, he suffered a knee
• 1:24
  injury in November just before the Ravens game that cut
• 1:28
  his season short. He worked his way back to training
• 1:32
  camp and the Eagles had plans for him, only to
• 1:35
  have that at least spoiled on the surface with an
• 1:39
  injury on the first play of the game. And we'll
• 1:43
  have to wait and see what happens there. But that's
• 1:46
  a tough break for someone who did everything that he
• 1:48
  could to get back. And obviously, as I mentioned, the
• 1:51
  Eagles had plans to utilize him as a fullback offensively,
• 1:54
  and who knows, given his athletic traits what they could
• 1:57
  have done with Ben. But we'll see, we'll see what
• 2:01
  the extent of that injury is and and really exactly
• 2:05
  what happened, But it didn't look good. He threw his
• 2:07
  helmet in frustration. He looked frustrated and angry, understandably so,
• 2:13
  and was staring off blankly waited for the cart. The
• 2:16
  cart took him back into the locker room. Didn't see
• 2:19
  him after the game, But while the injury was taking
• 2:24
  place and there was that pause in play, the Cowboys
• 2:29
  offense obviously takes the field the Eagles defense takes the
• 2:32
  field and they're sort of getting getting set for the
• 2:35
  anticipated first snap of the game.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: But then there's this exchange.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: With Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott and Eagles defensive tackle Jaylen Carter.
• 2:46
  Dak Prescott was standing behind two of his linemen. He
• 2:49
  spit in the direction of Carter, but it was on
• 2:51
  the ground, and Jalen Carter walks towards him and spits
• 2:56
  on Prescott's jersey. He's promptly ejected. The Eagles lose their
• 3:01
  top defensive player. You can make the argument that Zach
• 3:04
  Bond's pretty damn good as well, but they felt the
• 3:07
  absence early on, and the Cowboys march on a six
• 3:12
  play fifty three yard drive capped by Javonte Williams one
• 3:16
  yard touchdown run. But you saw the impact of not
• 3:20
  having Carter in the teeth of the Eagles defense. They
• 3:24
  had some runs right up the middle. And first of all,
• 3:29
  it doesn't matter what Dak Prescott did or didn't do,
• 3:32
  or what the officials saw or didn't see. The bottom
• 3:35
  line is that can't happen for Jalen Carter. You have
• 3:39
  to have the presence of mind and the composure to
• 3:43
  not to avoid that and know how critical you are
• 3:46
  to the team's success, and that that was very much
• 3:49
  short sighted, and I would look at it as a
• 3:52
  selfish move because now you've put the other defensive tackles
• 3:56
  in flux, and now they're having to undertake a more
• 4:00
  prominent role, handle a lot more snaps than they ordinarily
• 4:03
  would have going into the game. It knocked the defensive
• 4:06
  tackles down to four ty. Robinson did not dress in
• 4:10
  this game, but I thought that you're asking an awful
• 4:13
  lot out of Mora Oshima and Jordan Davis. They got
• 4:17
  some good contributions from Byron Young, who played twenty two snaps.
• 4:21
  He nearly came out with a diving interception. He had
• 4:24
  a hand in on the Miles Sanders fumble that really,
• 4:28
  for all intents and purposes, closed the door on any
• 4:31
  hope that Dallas had of staying.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: In that game.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Then there was the lightning delay which suspended play for
• 4:38
  an hour and three minutes, and when the teams came
• 4:41
  back on the field, there wasn't the same intensity, I
• 4:45
  would say, and it seemed like both teams were flat. Now,
• 4:48
  I will say that both defenses benefited from that seemingly
• 4:52
  because no one scored. The Eagles allowed twenty points in
• 4:56
  the first half, didn't surrender anything in the after the break,
• 5:00
  but it almost seemed like they were playing more conservative,
• 5:03
  and I don't know that that's the right approach. Maybe
• 5:07
  given the opponent, they had a good feel for what
• 5:10
  they were able to do or not do. But Ceedee Lamb,
• 5:13
  the Cowboys prolific wide receiver, had a number of opportunities
• 5:17
  to put this game away or at least really start
• 5:20
  to significantly cut into the Eagles lead. But he was
• 5:24
  tacked with three drops in this game, one of which
• 5:27
  would have put them in scoring position. He had another
• 5:30
  one that was I guess considered not out of reach.
• 5:35
  Maybe it was the final heave that Dak Prescott had.
• 5:38
  But there was a lot of defensive woes in the
• 5:43
  first half, namely with cornerback of Dory Jackson. And I
• 5:46
  don't want to particularly pour on to a Dory Jackson
• 5:49
  who didn't have a good showing in his Eagles debut.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: He gave up a lot of completions. On the first drive.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: There was the thirty two yarder to Ceedee Lamb, then
• 5:57
  there was the defensive pass interference penalty the end zone
• 6:00
  on back to back plays and he just seemed to
• 6:04
  give up a lot of things underneath.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: So that was to be expected. If you're the Dallas Cowboys.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: You should be trying to take advantage of adri Jackson.
• 6:12
  But A Dory has to be better. I had a
• 6:14
  really good conversation with him after the game. He has
• 6:17
  the mindset that you would expect of a veteran corner.
• 6:20
  You don't want to get too high, you don't want
• 6:21
  to get too low. You need to bounce back and
• 6:24
  from play to play, he didn't let whatever was happening,
• 6:26
  good or bad, affect him. He did have a pass breakup,
• 6:29
  went into the blue tent was being evaluated for a
• 6:32
  concussion just before the half. Jacoryan Bennett, who Eagles acquired
• 6:35
  and the trade with the Raiders comes on, gives up
• 6:39
  a handful of catches, but they were all in close proximity.
• 6:43
  I know there was one to Jake Ferguson. There is
• 6:45
  another one to see thee lamb, but it drew the
• 6:49
  Cowboys in field goal position. Brandon Aubrey drills a field
• 6:52
  goal going into the break, and he got the sense
• 6:55
  that there was some momentum maybe going into the Cowboys favor.
• 7:00
  Eventually in the third quarter there was the suspension of play.
• 7:03
  Both defenses really they really rose to the occasion. I
• 7:09
  thought Dallas played the Eagles differently, applied more pressure. They
• 7:13
  didn't allow as many explosive plays from Philadelphia, and I
• 7:19
  think you have to look at that as a good
• 7:20
  adjustment from Vic Vangio and company. But I thought that
• 7:26
  Jalen Hurts on the flip side of things. I thought
• 7:28
  he had a really strong game. Beyond the numbers, he
• 7:32
  made decisive throws. He was electric as a runner and
• 7:36
  looked faster than I can remember. Jalen looking just really
• 7:40
  in control of the offense, did what he needed to
• 7:42
  do to position the Eagles.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: To win the game.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: Where there are the explosive plays that he would like
• 7:47
  to have seen from the passing game that a lot
• 7:49
  of folks, myself included, were really looking to see if
• 7:53
  that was going to be a new wrinkle of the offense.
• 7:55
  It's still game one, but you know, you want to
• 7:58
  see a little bit more. And aj Brown didn't have
• 8:01
  a catch until the wei moments of the fourth quarter.
• 8:04
  He hadn't gone I think he's played in ninety games
• 8:07
  and hadn't gone a game without having a target that
• 8:09
  occurred in the later stages of this game. DeVante Smith
• 8:12
  didn't do a ton in this one. Dallas Goddard had
• 8:16
  I believe, seven catches for forty four yards on seven targets.
• 8:21
  What I liked from what I saw from Jalen Hurts
• 8:24
  was that he had a willingness to attack the middle
• 8:26
  of the field and throw inside the numbers. That's an
• 8:29
  area that you want to see Jalen start to tap
• 8:31
  into as he continues to grow and evolve as a quarterback.
• 8:35
  But man, he really stepped up to the occasion last
• 8:38
  night and did what he needed to do to lead.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: The Eagles offense.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: Kevin Patulo, the Eagles new offensive coordinator, I've gotten a
• 8:45
  lot of questions about him already about how I thought
• 8:48
  he fared in his debut as the play caller. The
• 8:52
  scripted plays I thought were fantastic those first fifteen There
• 8:56
  was optionality. They were getting different players involved. Will Shipley
• 9:00
  had two carries for twenty five yards, finished with three
• 9:03
  for twenty six. You see the explosiveness that he can
• 9:05
  add that.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: I talked about.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Getting Dallas Goddard involved, and there was a lot of
• 9:11
  you know, eleven personnel, twelve personnel. There was even some
• 9:13
  thirteen personnel. Do you remember there was one occasion where
• 9:16
  they had three tight ends aligned on the right side
• 9:19
  and they opt to throw it to the left, which
• 9:21
  was a nice play by Saquon Barkley, makes a nice catch,
• 9:25
  shakes a defender or two, and is able to carve
• 9:27
  out some yards after the play. But I kind of
• 9:32
  I liked what I saw from Patula, largely especially when
• 9:35
  they score on three consecutive possessions touchdowns that is. But
• 9:39
  then I thought that there was a little bit more
• 9:41
  of a conservative nature in the second half, and they
• 9:44
  didn't quite have that urgency. But you may look and say,
• 9:47
  why didn't the Eagles counteract with the Cowboys were doing
• 9:50
  in the second half. I have to go back and
• 9:53
  rewatch the tape because at first glance, it's very difficult
• 9:56
  to come to a conclusion where receivers simply not uncovering
• 10:00
  was Dallas bearing down and it impacted what Eagles were
• 10:04
  able to do in terms of the passing game. There
• 10:07
  is a lot that I need to be able to
• 10:10
  fully assess before I can grade Kevin Petullo's debut.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: But I thought to start that.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Was about as good of a start as you can
• 10:19
  expect from the Eagles offense and Kevin Petulo in his debut. Now,
• 10:23
  I want to go back to a play that Jalen
• 10:24
  Hurts had because I thought it was the throw of
• 10:26
  the game. It was a fifty one yard or on
• 10:29
  a post route to wide receiver Johan Dotson, throw a
• 10:32
  complete dot Dotson runs under. It comes up with the
• 10:35
  play on a third and six, and I think that
• 10:37
  that really highlights what Jalen Hurts is becoming as a quarterback.
• 10:42
  He is willing to throw the deep ball. He throws
• 10:45
  with touch and pinpoint accuracy, so that completely dispels the
• 10:49
  notion that he's not willing to go deep or that
• 10:51
  he doesn't have a strong arm. That's nonsense, and you
• 10:54
  can point to countless examples suggesting otherwise. But I largely
• 11:01
  liked what I saw from the offense and Jalen being
• 11:05
  a little bit more selective and not willing to take
• 11:08
  chances because he has been prone to turnovers against the Cowboys.
• 11:11
  I don't know if he was mindful of that, but
• 11:13
  it was something that certainly crossed my mind as I
• 11:16
  was watching the game unfold. Big performances I should say,
• 11:21
  a heavy workload for defensive tackles Moro Ojima and Jordan Davis.
• 11:26
  For perspective, Moro played fifty five snaps. That was ninety
• 11:30
  percent of the total, Jordan Davis fifty three percent, fifty
• 11:34
  three snaps eighty seven percent.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: That's a big ask.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: For two players who were going into this with the
• 11:41
  understanding presumably that they were going to be supplementing to
• 11:44
  a tone for the loss of Milton Williams. And again
• 11:47
  they got a really good They got inspired play from
• 11:50
  Byron Young who played twenty two snaps.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Gabe Hall played five. They were really light in that area.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: The edge rushers sat Obo Okoronquo, and they also surprisingly
• 12:05
  sat Aszi's O Jealari. Now as He's O Jealari and
• 12:08
  Obo aren't prolific special teamers, they haven't had to play
• 12:12
  that a lot in their career. Obo has played it,
• 12:14
  certainly more than Disease, who was more of a headline
• 12:17
  pass rusher for the Giants for a number of years.
• 12:21
  But I think that also suggests or indicates rather as
• 12:26
  a better word for what Vic Vangio thinks of his
• 12:29
  edge rusher group. They went lean in the postseason last year.
• 12:33
  They opened the season lean in that area. I don't
• 12:36
  know if that's the way to go for the full
• 12:39
  slate of.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Games this year. I don't know.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: I'm keeping an eye on that position because it seems
• 12:44
  to me that that's something that they could look to upgrade.
• 12:47
  They elevated Patrick Johnson for this game, really good special teamer.
• 12:51
  You have to think that that was made with Cavante Turpin,
• 12:54
  the dynamic Cowboys returner in mind. Patrick Johnson he played
• 12:59
  twelve snaps on defense, so it was sort of a
• 13:04
  group effort there. Surprisingly, Jeremiah Trotter Junior didn't play any
• 13:08
  defensive snaps despite having a really strong summer. I'm curious
• 13:12
  to see if they're able to get a roll for him.
• 13:14
  But that leads me to my next point, because there
• 13:17
  was dynamics second level play from Zack Bahn and from
• 13:21
  rookie linebacker Jahad Campbell. Zach Bond made a really nice
• 13:26
  play on the tight end Brevian span Ford, tracking him
• 13:30
  deep down the field, getting a hand in there to
• 13:32
  break it up.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: I thought you hot.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: Campbell had a really nice play, showcasing his range about
• 13:37
  twenty five thirty yards down the field. He was in
• 13:41
  on that force fumble with Byron Young. These are plays
• 13:45
  that you're not accustomed to sing from Eagles linebackers. And
• 13:49
  I think that when you look at the defense, and
• 13:51
  I've mentioned this before, the hallmark, in my opinion, is
• 13:54
  going to be interior pressure when of course you get
• 13:57
  Jay when Carter back in the fold, and dynamics second
• 13:59
  level play from both Bond and Campbell. The Eagles have
• 14:04
  such a athletic group at that second level, and I
• 14:10
  don't know that that's fully appreciated.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: I believe it will in the coming weeks. But when
• 14:13
  you have.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: Ranginess from the linebackers who are adepting coverage and they're
• 14:19
  able to cover up tight ends or have makeup speed
• 14:24
  to get down the field and pursue the football, and
• 14:27
  they have a high level football acumen where they can
• 14:29
  read and diagnose and make plays behind the line of scrimmage.
• 14:32
  They play with immense physicality, They're well rounded, and I
• 14:36
  believe that when you have the defensive line that the
• 14:38
  Eagles do with the full complement of players, of course,
• 14:41
  it's going to occupy blockers and allow both of those
• 14:44
  players to kind of roam freely and make plays behind
• 14:47
  the line of scrimmage or even just in coverage. You
• 14:52
  might have seen Kylon Granson, the Eagles third tight end,
• 14:55
  involved a little bit more offensively than you probably expected.
• 14:59
  He played seventeen snaps twenty seven percent of the Eagles'
• 15:04
  offensive total, but a lot of that has to do
• 15:07
  with the absence of Van Sumer, and he sort of
• 15:10
  doubled as an h back. That really shouldn't be a
• 15:12
  surprise to anyone. That's something that he did when he
• 15:14
  was with the Colts. He played the h back bro
• 15:16
  he lined up in the backfield, he split out wide,
• 15:18
  he was in line, he did all of those things.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: He's a versatile player.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: But now I'm curious because of how heavily he was utilized,
• 15:25
  and because you have the knowledge of how they would
• 15:28
  use Ben Van Sumer, and to some degree you have
• 15:32
  to wonder if Eagles will look to add a fullback
• 15:34
  here that has some of those intriguing qualities that they
• 15:37
  might be able to use to further the development of
• 15:40
  the offense and keep things moving forward. They also lost
• 15:44
  Landon Dickerson late in the game. He left with a
• 15:46
  back injury. Brett Toth comes in, by the way, I
• 15:50
  know that Landon was battling through some things, and he
• 15:52
  is the ultimate warrior, tough as nails, but I didn't
• 15:55
  think that he had a particularly strong game, at least
• 15:57
  that first watch. Tyler st I thought did some good things,
• 16:01
  but as a whole the offensive line, I thought that
• 16:05
  there were some opportunities. And maybe when I go back
• 16:08
  and watch it a second time, I may think differently,
• 16:10
  But it just seemed like, especially in the second half,
• 16:13
  that Dallas was getting a lot more pressure than they
• 16:16
  were previously in the game. Cooper Dejean played three offensive snaps.
• 16:23
  Wide receiver Darius Cooper made his debut, playing two snaps.
• 16:26
  I noticed him on a couple of different tush push plays,
• 16:30
  and if you listen back to what Nick Sirianni had
• 16:32
  to say during cutdowns, he mentioned one of the intriguing
• 16:37
  possibilities of Cooper, or some of the allure, is that
• 16:41
  he can do the dirty work. He is scrappy, he's strong,
• 16:43
  he's physical, so it wasn't really a surprise to see
• 16:46
  him engage in those type of situations. Let's see any
• 16:52
  other notes. The edge rushers Nolan Smith way too many penalties.
• 16:56
  He had a taunting penalty which was egregious. You can
• 17:00
  call it whatever you want, but it was a tawning
• 17:02
  penalty by definition. He walked up on Miles Sanders after
• 17:05
  he made a nice tackle on a running play and
• 17:09
  stood over him and said something, Look, they're going to
• 17:11
  call that every time. But as someone who has leadership qualities,
• 17:15
  and this is a young defense, when you don't have
• 17:18
  Jalen Carter there, you need someone like Dolan Smith to
• 17:21
  be more poised in that moment. I don't know that
• 17:24
  was sort of uncharacteristic for him, but he's got to
• 17:26
  be better and more cognizant of how those actions could
• 17:30
  impact the team in a negative way. And that goes
• 17:33
  against really everything that Nick Sirianni preaches. He talks about accountability, discipline,
• 17:38
  team first, mentality, and you can't let yourself get caught
• 17:41
  up in the moment and become susceptible to plays like that.
• 17:46
  It's just not sustainable for the future of the team.
• 17:51
  I'm trying to see penalties. Eagles had way too many
• 17:54
  penalties for perspective to add some color to what I'm saying.
• 17:57
  Nine penalties for one hundred and ten yards. That's not
• 18:00
  good enough. I expect that to be cleaned up. I
• 18:03
  expect that to be a point of emphasis moving forward,
• 18:05
  and we're going to have to keep an eye on that.
• 18:09
  And it wasn't until later in the game that we
• 18:12
  learned who the Eagles pump returner was. Now, we went
• 18:15
  into it with the understanding when they didn't elevate Britain
• 18:18
  Covey that it was going to be either Johan Dotson
• 18:20
  or Cooper Degen. Johan Dotson was the answer. He had
• 18:24
  a couple of fair catches there. The first one was secure,
• 18:27
  the second one that was a little dicey there for
• 18:30
  a moment, But that's going to be your punt returner
• 18:33
  at least.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Now you save yourself an elevation.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: But we'll have to wait and see how that starts
• 18:38
  to take shape because Dotson has never done it at
• 18:41
  the NFL level.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: He's been a decorated punt returner at Penn State.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: But if the Eagles are looking for more security, you
• 18:47
  may see Britain Covey earn an elevation somewhere down the line.
• 18:52
  But those are just my instant reactions from the Eagles
• 18:56
  twenty four to twenty win.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: They start off the season one to zero.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: They now have a little bit of a break, which
• 19:01
  I think will really serve players like Moro Ojama and
• 19:04
  certainly Jordan Davis well among a slew of other players
• 19:08
  a Dori Jackson. We're gonna wait and see because Vic
• 19:12
  Fango has mentioned that whoever earned the starting job was
• 19:15
  going to have somewhat of a longer leash. We'll have
• 19:18
  to see if what he saw from adri Jackson was
• 19:21
  if it warrants a longer leash, or if they look
• 19:24
  to maybe at Jacorian Bennett next week against the Chiefs.
• 19:28
  A lot to figure out, a lot more to learn
• 19:30
  about this week one game, but we'll have all the
• 19:33
  coverage right here for you on all the Inside the
• 19:35
  Birds platforms, inside the birds dot com for everything that
• 19:38
  you want to read about this game and down the
• 19:41
  line as we preview the Chiefs next week. But that's
• 19:45
  going to do it for this edition of the Checko Daily.
• 19:47
  Andrew de Cheko here signing off, and I'll catch you
• 19:49
  on the next one.