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The DiCecco Daily/Positional Preview: Nolan Smith Becomes "Headliner" Of EDGE Group · Inside the Birds: A Philadelphia Eagles Podcast

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Hey, what's up everybody. This is Andrew Dichecko with another
• 0:12
  edition of the check o'daly and the position preview series
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  continues on with defensive ends, edge rushers, olb's, whatever you
• 0:22
  want to call them. I separate the defensive line with
• 0:26
  the edge rushers, and the Eagles have a interesting contingent
• 0:31
  of edge rushers this year, much like I mentioned the
• 0:34
  interior defensive line. But it's really top heavy and there
• 0:39
  are some questions that I have. But we'll look at
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  the top two players first, and that's gonna be Nolan
• 0:45
  Smith Junior, who's entering his third season. If you look
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  at the way that he finished last season, four sacks
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  in the postseason, plays with aggression and violence and knows
• 0:56
  how to set the edge. He added some weight last
• 0:59
  offseason and you can see how much it affected him.
• 1:03
  He is a budding leader on this defense and somebody
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  who has continuously gotten better the more that he's played.
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  He only played sixteen percent of the snaps as a rookie,
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  really elevated last year and became somebody who Vic Fangio
• 1:18
  could obviously trust, and he became and now he's going
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  to be the headliner of that edge rusher group and
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  a budding leader. As I mentioned tourist tricep in the
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  Super Bowl is recovering from that and should be should
• 1:31
  be full go for training camp. We'll off to wait
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  and see if there are you know, if there are
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  any limitations or what have you. But we'll learn all
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  that later this month. And I think that he's going
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  to have a double digit sax season when you look
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  at the way that he plays the game and how
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  much he's grown in terms of having a plan with
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  his pass rush, being a two way player, physical against
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  a run. He's not somebody that the Eagles are probably
• 1:57
  going to want to take off the field. So I
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  think no one's going to have a really big year.
• 2:01
  Wouldn't be surprised if he goes ten to twelve sacks.
• 2:05
  The next player is jalbx Hunt. I talked a lot
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  about Jayalox Hunt yesterday, so I won't go on too
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  much today. But this is a player who is drafted
• 2:12
  in the third round out of Houston Christian last year.
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  Many assumed he would be a red shirt player without
• 2:18
  having seen him play a single snap, just based on
• 2:20
  the college background. But this was a player that was
• 2:23
  on the radars of all NFL evaluators. He was at
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  the Senior Bowl. He ac quitted himself. Well there, goes
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  to training camp and makes the most of his opportunities there.
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  He's obviously inactive for week one in Brazil, and then
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  he starts the factor into the rotation and makes him plays.
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  He had a sack and a half last year in
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  the regular season two hundred and forty one snaps. Then
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  in the postseason he picked up a sack and a
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  half sack in the Rams game and a half sack
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  in the Super Bowl. So you look at the rapid progression,
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  he's going to make a significant jump from two hundred
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  and forty one snaps to what will be starting snaps
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  this year. But I think that Jay Oggs is ready
• 3:05
  for it. When you look at somebody who makes that
• 3:07
  big of a leap in a year's time, I think
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  that that suggests that there is still room to grow.
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  And he hasn't been playing that position very long. I
• 3:17
  think he's really gonna take to it. He's had to
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  add some weight and his lower body is stronger, and
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  if you listen to my interview or if you read
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  my story yesterday and listened to my podcast, he's get
• 3:30
  off and his power have really accelerated this offseason, and
• 3:35
  that is per his trainer, Corey Clark. I think Jay
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  looks and you never want to put too much pressure
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  on a second year player who's stepping into a starting role.
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  But I wouldn't be surprised. I guess I have expectations
• 3:47
  of seven to nine sacks because I think he can
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  be a player who just makes such a dramatic jump
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  from year one to year two and year two to
• 3:55
  year three, super athletic and twitched up. And I think
• 3:59
  the best is you have to seven to nine sacks
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  for jalal Hunt this year. Now, the depth behind those
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  two players gets a little tricky. Azizo Jalari, who comes
• 4:10
  over from the New York Giants, signed a one year
• 4:13
  proven deal and he has the I guess you could
• 4:17
  say the best upside of all the reserve players who
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  can step in and help. He played twenty two career sacks,
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  twenty five years old, familiarity with a lot of his
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  defensive teammates, and has a lot of production in the NFL.
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  And there was one time, I think it was his
• 4:33
  rookie season. I think he played sixteen games in the
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  Giants and he had over seven hundred defensive snaps. Now,
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  barring something totally unforeseen, that won't be the case in Philadelphia.
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  He's likely to slide in as the third edge rusher.
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  But having someone like that, who has that ability in
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  that experience as you're number three, well that has to
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  make you feel pretty good. Now he's gonna have to
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  go out there on the field and prove it, and
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  he's gonna have to make sure that in injuries don't
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  surface once again, because that has been probably the only
• 5:04
  thing that's held him back. Now he leaves something to
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  be desired as a run defender, but Ojilari has it
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  in him to, I think, translate into Fangio's system and
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  be somebody who can rotate into a situational player. The
• 5:21
  next player on the list is josh Ousha. Now, josh
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  Usha is a name that you might want to highlight
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  because it came up a couple of times. In the spring.
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  He was signed to a one year, proven deal. He's
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  bounced around a little bit over the past couple of years.
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  After picking up eleven and a half sacks with the
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  Patriots in twenty twenty two, played the most STAPs of
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  his career that year, he played thirty eight percent of
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  their stats. He's more of a situational rusher. He's a
• 5:47
  little bit undersized and it doesn't give you a lot
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  as our run defender. But I think as a sub
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  package pass rusher he can help you. But he has
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  to be more consistent. I am sort of chalking up
• 5:58
  the lack of production because we talked about the eleven
• 6:01
  and a half in twenty twenty two. Well, he's only
• 6:04
  combined for five over the past two seasons with the
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  Patriots and the Chiefs. Maybe he wasn't a scheme fit.
• 6:11
  That's always the case. But what we've learned from Vic
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  Vango is we're gonna find out whether or not josh
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  Uche is a scheme fit here because we saw that
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  with Bryce offf last year and it was very evident
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  in training camp that something was a miss. So we'll
• 6:26
  learn more about josh Ushe here. He's flashed at times
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  as a pass rusher. He has all the ability in
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  his body, and now he has a fresh start, a
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  start that one year proven deal that sort of mirrors
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  Zach Bond from last year, and when Zach Bond had
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  to tell his story during a team meeting this spring,
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  I think it was josh Ushah who the story resonated
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  most with. So you're perhaps you're getting a player with
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  a chip on his shoulder who's primed to maximize that
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  opportunity because he's going to have to if he wants
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  to make this football team. May even also have to
• 7:01
  dabble into special teams as well. So those Ojulari and
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  Uche were the two offseason additions. Patrick Johnson was signed,
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  but he was drafted by the Eagles in the seventh
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  round and twenty twenty one made the team twenty one,
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  twenty two, twenty three, twenty four, was waived last season
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  and then claimed off waivers by the Giants, where he
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  spent the remainder of last year. Wanted to come back
• 7:28
  to Philadelphia, was my understanding, and his camp made it happen.
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  Now he's more of a special teams player, and that's
• 7:35
  really important when you're trying to assess depth here. But
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  he doesn't really have a ton of experience helping on defense.
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  You know, he can help you sporadically here or there,
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  but that's really not what his primary role has been
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  in his career. He had a really good summer last year,
• 7:52
  flashed as a defender and if he does make it,
• 7:56
  he will be a core special teamer. So that's Patrick Johnson,
• 8:00
  and I mean it's gonna be an uphill battle, but
• 8:03
  he does have experience working in his favor. O'shawn Mathis
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  is another player twenty six years old, sixty five, two
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  hundred and sixty pounds. Was on the Eagles practice squad
• 8:15
  last year, was actually active for a game, I believe,
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  so he has some some veteran experience to him that
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  that's somebody that I think is going to really have
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  to dazzle to really factor into the roster conversation here.
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  He went to Nebraska, played with the Rams, the Patriots,
• 8:35
  and the Eagles. Eight games with the Rams, five games
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  with New England, and one game with the Eagles. Three
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  tackles and no sacks on it in his career. But
• 8:46
  he does have you know, you like the length and
• 8:48
  we'll have to wait and see how that goes. And
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  then there's Antoine Powell Ryland of course, the Eagles rookie
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  pass rusher from Virginia Tech. Wildly productive the past two seeds.
• 9:00
  Since the question with him is going to come down
• 9:02
  to his ability to set the edge. Can he help
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  you as a run defender, and can he help on
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  special teams because he's kind of built. He has a
• 9:12
  squadier compact type of build, but he's explosive. He doesn't
• 9:18
  necessarily have the length that you look for. But I
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  think that he's somebody that will thrive in situational instances
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  on the field. And I have to think Eagles are
• 9:28
  going to give him a long look, having invested a
• 9:30
  six round picking him in April. He's an interesting player
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  because we'll have to wait and see how he's able
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  to disengage, if he shows a willingness to participate in
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  run defense in the preseason. All of those things are
• 9:43
  going to be something to keep an eye on because
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  you can't just be purely a pass rusher. And again,
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  he was very very productive at Virginia Tech, but you're
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  gonna have to do, you know, a little bit more
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  in order to really factor in to an NFL defensive
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  substitutional package and all that. But six fifty eight it
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  kind of reminds me of that Brandon Graham type of bill.
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  I can't wait to see how he fares in training camp.
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  There's also O'shawn Mathis. There's also kJ Henry and kJ
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  Henry was signed in the middle of last year. He
• 10:22
  was on the on the practice squad tore he finished
• 10:26
  the year. He went to Clemson and he was pretty
• 10:30
  close with will Shipley, so I found that to be
• 10:33
  pretty interesting. And he was I believe. I believe he
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  was a fifth round pick of the Commanders. He didn't
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  appear in the game last year. Six and fifty five pounds.
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  One tackle, Yeah, one tackle, and that was in Week six.
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  But he kJ Henry was. He played in twentyes. I'm sorry.
• 11:06
  He was with the Cowboys, drafted with the Cowboys, played
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  in three games with them, then he went to the Bengals,
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  played in two games with them, then he went to
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  the Commanders. Scratched that he was drafted by the Commanders.
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  I had it right the first time. He played in
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  ten games with them, two games with the Bengals. Last year,
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  two games with Dallas, And that's really been he sort
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  of bounced around, and that's what he's gonna He's gonna
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  have to really find some stability here in Philadelphia, and
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  the way to do that is to be consistent each
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  and every day. He's probably last in the pecking order.
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  He's not going to get a ton of reps in
• 11:43
  training cap, but that's somebody that has actually been around
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  here for a little bit now, so he's not unfamiliar.
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  And he seems to have established a pretty good rapport
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  with his defensive line mates, so that counts for something,
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  especially when you know, you see how how apt these
• 12:02
  players are to help one another and all that. I
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  think to have those guys as a resource should help
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  kJ Henry. And he does have sort of draft pedigree
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  as well, so we'll have to wait see it's a
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  really interesting bunch. I'm of the belief that the Englis
• 12:18
  should stick with the players that they have before going
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  outwork and trying to add another player for depth. But
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  if that'll do it for this edition of the Checko Bailey,
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  this is Andrew Dicheco and I've locked everybody tomorrow