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The DiCecco Daily: Going Inside Comments From Vic Fangio, Kevin Patullo Press Conferences · Inside the Birds: A Philadelphia Eagles Podcast

0:10
Speaker 1: Hey, what's happened? Everybody?
0:11
Speaker 2: Welcome into this edition of to check O Daily. It
0:15
is Andrew de Checko. On this Tuesday, this coordinator Tuesday,
0:20
we heard from Vic Vangio, Special Teams coordinator Michael Clay
0:25
and offensive coordinator Kevin Patulo, and I'm gonna provide for
0:28
you some highlights from those press conferences. I'll even read
0:32
some of the transcript answers from those coordinators on the
0:35
pertinent topics that I'm sure you're all wanting to hear
0:38
answers to, especially if you missed the press conferences earlier
0:42
this morning. A lot of really good stuff there. We'll
0:46
start with Vic Vangio, and Vic Fangio is a must
0:49
listen if you get the chance. He doesn't pull any punches.
0:53
He often references how important practice is, and he CODs
0:57
it in certain ways, but I always find that human.
1:00
But he cuts right to the chase, gets to the
1:02
heart of the matter, and gives you the answers that
1:04
you want to hear. Kevin Patulo very enlightening in some
1:08
of his answers, adding some perspective to some of the
1:11
questions that are sort of presiding over the offense right now.
1:15
And then special teams coordator Michael Clay. I always find
1:18
to be a really good interview, Always enjoy what he
1:21
has to say, always learn something from listening to all
1:24
three coordinators. So for Vic Vangio, the question pertained to
1:30
the philosophy of the blitzes. And keep in mind that
1:33
the Eagles did not send a single blitz in Super
1:35
Bowl fifty nine, and I believe there is eleven blitzes
1:40
Sunday against the Chiefs and Arrowhead. His answer was, well,
1:43
we didn't need them in the first game. You're always
1:46
the first game you're alluding to, and we needed them
1:48
in this game. They're always there, it's just whether you
1:51
need them or not. Here's one on Jalen Carter about
1:55
what his presence meant in his first game of the
1:59
twenty twenty five season in the middle of the Eagles defense.
2:03
VIC said he had some good rushes. I think he
2:06
needs to round into better shape. Both he and I
2:08
talked about that, and he readily admits that I think
2:11
we'll even get more. But I thought, for everything that
2:14
has gone on in his world, I thought he played
2:16
pretty good. Talking about that, for a moment, it appeared
2:21
to me and I was talking to another reporter during
2:25
training camp, and we were sort of alluding to the
2:29
fact that Jayalen Carter didn't seem he was making plays
2:33
in training camp as he always does, but we didn't
2:36
get the sense that he was in tip top shape.
2:39
And then hearing Vic Fangio today sort of validated what
2:43
we initially thought and aligned with our thinking. But think
2:47
about this for a moment, jayal When Carter played eighty
2:49
snaps against the Chiefs, and he was disruptive as per usual,
2:54
the more he plays naturally, he'll be able to get
2:58
in game shape fairly quickly.
3:00
Speaker 1: He still didn't impact his ability to be on the field.
3:02
Speaker 2: For eighty percent of the snaps, so I think that
3:04
he'll continue to round into shape the more he plays.
3:07
I'm expecting him to, of course, play a lot against
3:09
the Rams on Sunday, and that's going to kind of
3:12
work itself out. But interesting, nonetheless that Fangio offered that up.
3:18
So Darius Smith, the veteran pass rusher who's been on
3:21
a number of teams. The Eagles are his six team.
3:23
The thirty three year old who is an accomplished pass
3:26
rusher sixty nine sacks coming into Sunday's game, and I
3:31
just think that it's looking more and more like this
3:33
is a home run edition and has sort of fortified
3:37
the pass rush rotation. Well. He played twenty snaps despite
3:41
not having played football since January, not having been in
3:44
a training camp. But vic Vangel said, yeah, I thought
3:47
for coming in on such short notice, he made some
3:50
good plays. Obviously he can get a lot better too,
3:52
which I think he will with gaining more knowledge of
3:55
what we're doing.
3:56
Speaker 1: But it kind of put to bed.
3:58
Speaker 2: They have this rule where in training camp you have
4:00
to have these acclamation periods, notepads. They don't do acclamation
4:04
periods for signings in season, like linebacker Chance Campbell, who
4:08
we signed two days before the last preseason game, played.
4:10
Speaker 1: In that game.
4:12
Speaker 2: There's one of the little nudgets that vic Vangel threw
4:15
in there about practice and how important it is, and
4:18
he highlighted the acclamation period. But it speaks to the
4:22
kind of shape that Zadarias Smith kept himself in, and
4:25
he mentioned upon signing that that first practice he was
4:28
a little winded in the individual drills portion of practice,
4:31
but quickly rounded back into form for the team period.
4:37
But really good production from Zadarias Smith. You can see
4:40
the juice and energy that he provided and got the
4:43
half sack, which he shared with rookie safety Drew mccouba.
4:47
Speaker 1: But I think to a larger.
4:50
Speaker 2: From a broader perspective, I believe that he can kind
4:52
of step in and fill a leadership void. Remember this
4:55
is a very young Eagles defense and going into the season,
4:59
one of the questions that I got pretty frequently was
5:01
who was going to step in and be that leader
5:03
like a Brandon Graham. Well, I think Zadarias Smith can
5:05
fulfill that Brandon Graham esque type of role. Obviously, Brandon
5:09
Graham is one of one and hard to replicate. But
5:12
I think Zadarias Smith has really, in just over a
5:15
week's time, immersed himself into that defense and into the
5:19
Coultre's embraced it, and to see the play that he
5:22
had on the field, which was really inspired. He's just
5:24
going to get better as the games keep rolling on
5:28
and he keeps getting more and more familiar.
5:30
Speaker 1: With the defense and true mccouba.
5:34
Speaker 2: So if you remember back to the first week after
5:38
that first game, vic Vangio said, mccooba played okay. That
5:42
was his words, and then he said quote unquote multiple
5:44
busts in coverage. Well, I think you can see that
5:49
Drew mccouba took that and almost, I don't want to say,
5:52
used it as fuel, but took the took the coaching
5:57
or those words, and really just honed in on his
6:01
job and his task at hand. He had six tackles
6:03
a half sack in interception. But Vango is still kind
6:07
of keeping the rookie honest. His answer was, Yeah, he
6:10
had some really nice plays, the two you're alluding to. Obviously,
6:13
he did a good job when we brought him on
6:16
the one pressure. I thought he had nice plays and
6:18
then some other ones that we got to eliminate too,
6:21
So just kind of keeping him on his toes and
6:25
hungry for more. And Drew mccooba strikes me as a
6:28
player who is going to continually self evaluate and he
6:34
wants to be great, and he takes to the coaching,
6:37
and the more he plays, the faster you see him
6:39
make plays and throw his body around, and the instincts
6:43
and the ball skills and all of those things that
6:45
he brings, that high level football intellect reveal itself the
6:49
more that he's out there. And I think Vic Vangiel
6:51
if you look about the actions over the words. He
6:54
had a lot of confidence in Macouba, plugging him in
6:57
week one as the starter despite missing a lot of
6:59
time this summer with the shoulder and then the hamstring
7:02
injury late.
7:03
Speaker 1: So Macouba is going to keep getting things rolling.
7:06
Speaker 2: It doesn't get any easier though, because the Eagles play
7:08
the Rams Sunday and they have a multitude of weapons.
7:12
Vic Fangio highlighted the tight ends and of course they
7:14
have Davante Adams and they have Puka Nakua who.
7:17
Speaker 1: Can really threaten a secondary.
7:20
Speaker 2: So that was defensive coordinator of vic Fangio, but offensive
7:26
coredator Kevin Patula was one who I know that everybody
7:29
really wanted to hear from. And when asked about maybe
7:34
not getting the ball down the field as much, he said,
7:36
when you look at when we gain plan and stuff
7:38
like that, that's obviously always the first thing we do
7:41
is ask how do we want to push the ball
7:43
down the field. As a staff, we work really hard
7:45
on that plan, especially these next couple days, to put
7:48
that on there, and that's a part of it. Sometimes
7:51
in game it just doesn't happen. It's definitely something we
7:54
want to do. It's not something we're avoiding. I know
7:56
going forward, we have the plan in place and if
7:59
it comes up, it'll definitly happened. There was a play
8:03
the first play of the game, if you can remember,
8:06
Grant Calcatara whiffs on the block and cornerback Jalen Watson
8:10
blows past them, affects the play. Jalen Hurts fumbles the football,
8:14
picks it up and it kind of it ruined the
8:17
play and Stem made the drive for all intents and purposes.
8:21
But if you look closely on the other side of
8:23
the field, aj Brown was running wide open and it
8:27
looked like that could have been an explosive play to
8:29
start the game. And when I asked about that, Kevin
8:31
Botula said, yeah, we had a shot. It didn't happen, unfortunately,
8:34
and we were in a second and along and we
8:36
just had to play it out from there.
8:37
Speaker 1: But yeah, we definitely did. So let's see here.
8:45
Speaker 2: Beyond the lack of explosive Okay, so this is the
8:47
question about the there haven't been many throws to the
8:51
intermediate part of the field and the reasoning for that,
8:54
and that's something that if you really look at this
8:56
Eagles offense there's been a lot of predictable routes through
8:59
the first two weeks, the slants, the overs. There hasn't
9:02
been a lot of intermediate or deep completions or even attempts.
9:06
So Kevin Batulo said, I think sometimes it's just dictated
9:09
by the situation we're in. The other day, we're getting
9:12
the ball out obviously versus the pressure, so it was
9:14
a little bit different, which we did a pretty good
9:16
job off. Then a lot of times it just comes
9:18
down to just situationally, if we're playing it a certain way,
9:22
like hey, we're trying to get to a fourth down
9:24
mode or we're trying to take all four down, sometimes
9:26
it doesn't appear so really it just comes down to
9:30
if the first guy's open, sometimes he hits them, and
9:32
then if the intermediate thing is there within the play,
9:35
it's there. The other day we had a lot of
9:37
balls coming out quick with the pressure, which was good.
9:44
So Tom Brady, if you were watching the game, mentioned
9:47
that there didn't seem to be any receivers open throughout
9:50
the game, and I've been adamant about the.
9:55
Speaker 1: Receivers are open.
9:56
Speaker 2: I mean, you can look at any game and there
9:57
might be a handful of plays where a receiver aren't open.
10:01
But and it's impossible to see on a TV copy,
10:04
So you have to look at the all twenty two
10:05
of the coach's tape to really better assess whether or
10:09
not players weren't you know, uncovering or what the case
10:14
is before you make an assessment. But Kevin Botulo said, yeah,
10:17
I didn't watch the telecast. I listened to it. I
10:19
think really if you looked at how we were doing
10:22
what we were doing, we had opportunities. If he's speaking
10:25
to maybe downfield stuff or trying to do that, that
10:27
could be different.
10:28
Speaker 1: But just the efficiency, like I.
10:30
Speaker 2: Said, we got we kind of got the ball where
10:32
we needed to be in in time and space with
10:36
what was happening. So I mean, if you're expecting these
10:38
deep developing routes, that probably wasn't going to happen on
10:41
that day the way it was playing out.
10:44
Speaker 1: But yeah, i'd have to look at what he was
10:45
talking about in the moment. Let's see.
10:56
Speaker 2: Finally we'll say the lack of design quarterback runs. Kevin
11:01
Patulo said, I don't think there is a lack of design.
11:04
I just don't think they've come up necessarily right now,
11:07
He does a good job of running when he needs to,
11:09
and don't worry, we still have those now very quickly,
11:14
very quickly, we'll get to special teams coordator Michael Clay.
11:18
He spoke about the Charlie Hewlett where it looked like
11:21
he moved the football and it was a penalty that
11:25
was called. But he said, yeah, again the refs called it.
11:29
We just have to abide by the rules. I don't
11:31
think there was anything too out of this world. But again,
11:34
Charlie professional, He said, we'll get it right the next time.
11:37
We came back out of the half and hit the
11:39
fifty one yard or nothing to no infraction there, so
11:45
it were to get it corrected real quick. On Tank Bigsby,
11:49
maybe the perception that the Chiefs were avoiding kicking it
11:54
to him, which I don't necessarily think is the case
11:56
because Tank Bigsby hasn't done a lot of that in
11:58
his NFL career, just eleven returns. He does have those
12:01
qualities that could threaten a unit in terms of getting
12:04
downhill and maybe being able to rip off a chunk run,
12:09
but he said, I think it's just one. It's the
12:11
respect factor I guess Tank does have from his film
12:14
in Jacksonville. There's always playing the chess game against the
12:17
opposing team's coordinator in terms of trying to get the
12:20
ball into Tank's hands. But again, we don't want to
12:22
get outside of our own realm right there. What I
12:25
thought Tank did an awesome job was when he didn't
12:27
get the ball, he showed great awareness and hustle as
12:30
an off returner. He had some pretty big blocks off
12:33
that off returner. They were sending their one hot, one
12:37
hot right there and able to get that first kickoff.
12:40
He was able to get a good chunk off their
12:41
safety on their safety right there.
12:43
Speaker 1: So again it's just having the game come to him
12:45
more than anything else.
12:50
Speaker 2: And we'll talk about finally, we'll conclude with what he
12:54
believes Jake Elliott's range is.
12:56
Speaker 1: And Jake Elliot drilled a fifty eight yarder.
12:58
Speaker 2: He had a fifty eight yard in the opener, kicking
13:00
with a ton of confidence. The operation is firing on
13:02
all cylinders through the first two games, And Michael Clay said, yeah,
13:06
I mean Jake obviously has a couple of sixty one
13:08
yarders under his belt with him the confidence is back.
13:11
And if it was a perfect day, no wind, or
13:13
you're in a dome, maybe you could stretch it even
13:15
further than the sixty one yarder. Obviously you saw and
13:18
he's talking about Cowboys kicker Brandon Aubrey hit the sixty
13:21
four yarder to send it to overtime. When it comes
13:24
to these kickers around the league nowadays, I think they
13:26
are pushing the envelope to get those long field goals,
13:30
kick field goals, whether it's end of to half, end
13:34
of the half game situation. So if I were to guess,
13:36
possibly there's going to be some new records being held
13:39
out there from kickers around the league.
13:42
Speaker 1: That was Eagles special teams.
13:44
Speaker 2: Coordator Michael clay On a couple of key points to
13:48
the game in terms of special teams. Hopefully that kind
13:51
of brings you up to speed and answers any questions
13:53
you may have had coming off that week to win.
13:57
But for now, that's going to do it. For this
13:59
addition to check O Daily, I'm Andrew Dezecko, and I
14:02
will talk to you all tomorrow when Eagles return to
14:05
the practice field and there's open locker room and Nick
14:08
Sirianni talks all those updates coming right here on to
14:11
check Go Daily tomorrow, talk to you then