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Football at Four: How Close Are the Commanders From Winning The NFC East? · Inside the Birds: A Philadelphia Eagles Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Now live. This is football at four.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: Last year there was a gap because they won the
• 0:05
  Super Bowl between them and everybody. But I don't think
• 0:07
  there is no gap. There's no gaps right now. And
• 0:10
  here's why I say that. Look at our team last year,
• 0:12
  Look at the Washington Commanders. At the very beginning of
• 0:15
  the season, everyone would say there's a massive gap between
• 0:18
  the Commanders and this team.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Well you look.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Back on the season, you're like, oh, maybe there wasn't
• 0:23
  They were actually pretty good.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: That was Austin Eckler said that what's this gap? He says,
• 0:28
  what's a gap between the Eagles and everybody else, specifically
• 0:32
  the Commanders. But is he right? Last year we would
• 0:34
  have said, yeah, there's a gap between Philadelphia and Washington.
• 0:38
  Washington has been good in our lifetime for most of
• 0:41
  us now our lifetime. When I was a kid, they
• 0:42
  were really good, but they haven't been good in a while.
• 0:45
  But his point is, look, if you would have judged
• 0:47
  us last year, of course there would be a gap.
• 0:48
  There's no gaps now. Everything's back to starting point. Jeff Boscher.
• 0:53
  A lot of people look at the Eagles and say
• 0:56
  there is a gap between them and Washington. But when
• 0:59
  you look at the NFC East and specifically Washington. Is
• 1:03
  Austin Eckler fair to say that, and do you think
• 1:07
  Washington kind of looks at it like, hey, we're not
• 1:09
  getting enough credit, We're not getting enough respect this offseason.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: It's a great topic of conversation, Mike. I'm glad you're
• 1:16
  bringing it up. We'll have even more of this pretty
• 1:19
  soon on Inside the Birds podcast because we were starting
• 1:23
  next week our NFC East preview series. We do with
• 1:26
  great cosel. We break it up all four teams. We
• 1:28
  dedicated an entire podcasts to each team, and we did
• 1:32
  the Washington one. That'll be the third of the fourth out,
• 1:36
  so you may have to wait a little bit.
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: But the overall point on Washington.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: Is this, they're very They're much deeper now than they
• 1:44
  used to be, especially on the offensive line where they
• 1:46
  used to be abysmal. And now they have two guys
• 1:48
  on the bench who have started really big playoff games.
• 1:51
  That's that's big for them. They have obviously a franchise
• 1:54
  quarterback that they hit on. They have some really good players,
• 1:57
  good coaching staff. However, we think they lack as when
• 2:02
  you compare them to the Eagles, is as much explosive playmakers.
• 2:05
  Now maybe Deebo Samuel, you know, sort of reverts to
• 2:09
  the form he had a couple of years ago when
• 2:11
  he was all Pro.
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: Ter mclaurin's a really good number one receiver, but you
• 2:14
  wouldn't put him in a j Brown or justin Jefferson category, right.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: And then after that, they don't have somebody like Devonte Smith,
• 2:21
  and they certainly don't have a running back like Saquon
• 2:23
  So where I think that they can overcome those deficiencies
• 2:27
  and make this a nice little fight. They don't really
• 2:30
  pound for pound measure up to the Eagles as far
• 2:33
  as being an explosive team that can just hit you
• 2:37
  with so many different weapons. But sometimes a guy like
• 2:40
  Jade Daniels can be a neutralizer.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Like one of the areas where Washington really struggled last
• 2:45
  year was against the run, and you look at that.
• 2:47
  Did they do enough this offseason to kind of close
• 2:50
  the gap? If that was one area where the Sixers
• 2:53
  the Sixers where the Eagles gash them, do youal like
• 2:56
  at Washington and say, well, they did address that by
• 2:59
  doing this, and that might be something to close the gap.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: You know, I feel like maybe you're do you have
• 3:05
  a spy camp in my office because you're asking me
• 3:08
  questions that are literally I have on my website on
• 3:11
  my laptop right now a story I.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Was reading, can you move five hundred thousand I'm going
• 3:15
  to get into your computer? That actually happened to a
• 3:17
  couple of people. I know that they fail for that scam.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: Oh well, I couldn't move that kind of money because
• 3:23
  I don't have it, So I'm not really worried about it.
• 3:26
  But there was a story that came out on Monday
• 3:29
  from John kyn He does a great job friend of mine.
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: ESPN dot Com.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: Covers the Commanders and if you read the lead, the
• 3:36
  lead of the story is basically an anecdote of the
• 3:39
  first play of the NSC Championship game, where kind of
• 3:43
  a screw up on run defense allowed Saquon Barkley to
• 3:46
  score on the first carry of the game. And then
• 3:48
  there's a quote from not only their defensive coordinator, but
• 3:52
  a member of the organization, an anonymous member, who said
• 3:55
  that Saquon has been and what the Eagles did really
• 3:58
  has caused them this offseason to rethink how they're going
• 4:02
  to go about their run strategy. Now, they signed a
• 4:05
  guy like Javon Kinlong, who played pretty well for the
• 4:08
  Jets last year after not really panning out for the
• 4:12
  Niners as a first round pick. They added Dietrich Wise
• 4:16
  from New England. They've got Frankie Luvu, good good linebacker
• 4:21
  they draft. They've got a couple of good defensive tackles.
• 4:24
  So we'll see. I'm interested to see schematically, Mike, what
• 4:27
  they and other teams do after Barkley just went rough shot.
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: Over everybody last year.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and so he gave the Chiefs two weeks to prepare, right,
• 4:36
  and they stopped Barkley, but they couldn't then stop the
• 4:39
  pass offense right.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: And you know, it's one thing. You know, Austin Eckler,
• 4:42
  obviously a running back, plays offense, and you wonder did
• 4:45
  they do a lot offensively to change the dynamics. You
• 4:48
  go back to that game last year, the first time
• 4:50
  they played, not the playoff game where the Eagles just absolutely,
• 4:54
  you know, tore them apart, the first time they played. Now,
• 4:57
  Hurts got hurt in that game, but Washington did almost
• 5:01
  put up thirty points on the on the Eagle of
• 5:04
  the second game, they put up over thirty points on
• 5:07
  the Eagle defense in that game. They scored thirty six
• 5:09
  points in that game, So you know, Washington's offense is saying, hey,
• 5:13
  we could score on this team. We just had a
• 5:14
  bad day.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I would hate to just cherry pick
• 5:18
  one game and say because we did it that week.
• 5:21
  You know, it's kind of like your your great argument
• 5:23
  in the NBA season, just because you lost a game
• 5:26
  in February where you played like crap doesn't mean in
• 5:28
  the playoffs the same thing is gonna happen, right, and
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  then every once in a while on a seventeen game season,
• 5:34
  you're gonna not play your best. That was the number
• 5:37
  one ranked defense the Eagles finished with, and they just
• 5:39
  didn't play a great game that day. But in fairness,
• 5:43
  I mean, Shadon Daniels had some backbreaking runs.
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: You know that obviously you.
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: Had the bomb to to Terry McLaurin in that game.
• 5:50
  They moved the ball so much better they did in
• 5:53
  the first game when you could tell he was still
• 5:54
  bothered by that that shoulder injury. But the point I'm
• 5:57
  making is just because it happened last year in one
• 6:01
  game doesn't mean it's going to be the new norm
• 6:03
  for the Commanders.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: I think that their ability to what they did in
• 6:07
  the offensive line by getting Tunsel and drafting Josh Connery
• 6:11
  out of Oregon will help them be more balanced and
• 6:14
  better offensively. Yeah, but they just at the end of
• 6:17
  the day, they're putting so much pressure on Daniels because
• 6:20
  they really, to me, don't have a guy that you
• 6:24
  would consider a top five to ten playmaker in the league.
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: I love McLain.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I was gonna say, so you're looking at
• 6:32
  the Debo addition and not saying that's as impactful as
• 6:35
  maybe Washington thinks it will be.
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: Well, Debo's are if you get Debo from I think
• 6:41
  it was two or three years ago when he was
• 6:44
  a first team All Pro.
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: And that year, remember he was carrying the ball.
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: You know, he's catching the ball, he's doing everything in
• 6:51
  an offense conducing to that.
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: Then yes, I.
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: Mean then then the conversation changes. But this is several
• 6:57
  years later, and you know, what do you have?
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: He had like a he.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: Had seventeen hundred yards from scrimmage that year, my twenty
• 7:04
  twenty one, So.
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: We're gonna be four years to move from that.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And then he did have eleven hundred yards and
• 7:10
  twelve touchdowns in twenty twenty three, so we're only gonna
• 7:13
  be two seasons removed from that. But again, he didn't
• 7:17
  he's been injured before, and he's not He's dynamic, but
• 7:22
  he's a hard, high volume guy, right, Like, what do
• 7:25
  you think of those Jefferson?
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: What do you think about him? Though I agree he's
• 7:28
  not justin Jefferson, But what do you think about him
• 7:31
  as the other guy? Like, I don't know, Brandon Ayuk?
• 7:35
  Was Ayuk the other guy? That's an interesting like is
• 7:38
  mcclarin the guy? And now Debo can kind of hang
• 7:42
  under the radar? Was it different than Ayuk in the
• 7:46
  dynamic in San Francisco and how they used him there?
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, that's a good question.
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  Speaker 3: But you know, the San Francisco offense is designed to
• 7:54
  get players open in space. Now Cliff Kingsbury does a
• 7:57
  fantastic job of that as well. So I do think
• 7:59
  as long as he's healthy and can play fifteen games,
• 8:02
  he's going to be a weapon for them. Will he
• 8:05
  be a fifteen hundred yard like weapon? Would be a
• 8:07
  number one or one A? I mean, you can get
• 8:10
  away with him being two if McLaurin gave you like
• 8:14
  a fourteen hundred yard season, right as opposed to maybe
• 8:17
  one thousand.
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: Or eleven hundred yards. We'll see. I mean, mclaurin's a good,
• 8:21
  good player.
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  Speaker 3: I don't want to take anything away from him, but
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  I just I just think this team is lacking a
• 8:26
  little bit more in the explosive category.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, what do you think of the They're trio?
• 8:31
  Because you got McLaurin, who the Eagles have had some
• 8:33
  problem with, Deebo, and then Noah Brown, Michael Gallup, I mean,
• 8:36
  and then Brian Robinson always seems Zach Ertz the Eagles
• 8:39
  obviously new safety, new corner, the matchup between the secondary,
• 8:45
  and then the totality of what Washington now has because
• 8:48
  last year you have McLaurin, you didn't have Deebo, you
• 8:51
  had Noah Brown kind of as the you know, costplaying
• 8:54
  as a number two. They also have Luke McCaffrey in
• 8:56
  there as well. So when you look at the entire
• 8:59
  secondary and now the totality of what they bring to
• 9:02
  the table.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I definitely think that they're more balanced and deeper.
• 9:06
  McCaffrey's a third round pick, so they got to find
• 9:08
  out in year two if he can add a little bit.
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: Of pizaz that offense.
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: And the same thing with their tight end Ben Sinnett,
• 9:16
  who they drafted in the second round last year, who
• 9:18
  did not make much of an impact, and if he
• 9:20
  doesn't make an impact this year much for a greater
• 9:24
  impact than it's going to look like a bad pick.
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: So those are two.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: Guys that can probably help you, again, not necessarily explosive players,
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  but can at least help you move the change.
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: There's nothing wrong with being and the Eagles have been
• 9:35
  this before too, right. You look at the twenty seventeen
• 9:39
  Super Bowl.
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  Speaker 3: Team that was not an explosive team, that was run
• 9:42
  the ball with the Garrett Blunt and JAYJII and throw
• 9:44
  the ball to Ertz and al Seon Jeffery and every
• 9:46
  once in a while you'd get a big play downfield
• 9:49
  with Agalore or Jeffrey. But they were a ball control,
• 9:53
  time of possession team and that's why they were able
• 9:55
  with that offensive line. And that seems to me where
• 9:58
  the Commanders are headed, except they do have an explosive
• 10:01
  elopment with their quarterback and he can make that happen
• 10:04
  the way Carson Wentz did in twenty seventeen.
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: So there might be some similarities.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: There by the way, the Eagles and the NFL made
• 10:11
  it official today Sunday we will be officially one month
• 10:18
  away from Eagles training camp opening. The Eagles will open
• 10:22
  camp on July twenty second, and they will have a
• 10:27
  joint practice against the Browns on August thirteenth, So Sunday,
• 10:31
  the Phillies will play the Mets on Sunday Night baseball
• 10:34
  right here on ninety seven three ESPN, and the official
• 10:37
  countdown one month to training camp will be on Jeff Mosher,
• 10:41
  Are you excited? Are you ready?
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: I'm just can't wait, Mike No words of the immortal
• 10:47
  part Scott, I can't wait, can't wait Sunday. Also Sunday,
• 10:52
  we're gonna go from having Seattle like weather all spring long,
• 10:55
  the South Florida weather, as we just combined together, right.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Pro Football Focus most put out the NFL's best duos
• 11:07
  at every position. Okay, the Eagles had the best duo
• 11:12
  at three separate positions. Which ones do you think they were.
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: The best? Do?
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Now?
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: How does that work? With offensive line?
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Like best tackles, the best tackle combination, the best guard combination.
• 11:26
  I guess they didn't do center, so the best Yeah,
• 11:29
  the best tight end, the best running back, two at
• 11:33
  each of those positions.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna die if not offensive tackles, then I don't
• 11:37
  know what would be.
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: So I would go offensive.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Tackle, offensive tackle, Jordan Mylatta, Lane Johnson. They were the
• 11:45
  best tackle combination. That's one, all right. My lot by
• 11:51
  the way, had a ninety five overall PFF grade Lane
• 11:54
  Johnson in eighty eight.
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: Nice.
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna go even with sort of an un known
• 12:00
  on moro joemo, I'm going to say that the Jalen
• 12:03
  Carter just is so great that whoever you're putting next
• 12:05
  him with is going to give you the number one
• 12:07
  DT combo there, so that.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Although it was Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis is the interior
• 12:14
  defensive line. They believe Carter and Davis are the best
• 12:20
  duo in the league. Are you surprised by that?
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: No, not at all, not one slight bit.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Carter, by the way, was eighteenth on the list at
• 12:29
  seventy three, which is kind of surprising that he fell
• 12:33
  that low on the on their grading scale, yet is
• 12:35
  as dominant as he is right now.
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: The third one is tricky.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, I feel like the low hanging fruit is
• 12:41
  aj Brown DeVante Smith. But I personally think there are
• 12:45
  some better duos in the league than that. But I'm
• 12:48
  not the one doing this poll. And every other position
• 12:50
  I'm thinking of with two players at it, linebacker, safety, corner,
• 12:55
  we don't really know who the number two is gonna
• 12:58
  be yet, so I don't want to take the hanging fruit.
• 13:01
  Even guard, we don't exactly know Tyler SE's gonna be
• 13:04
  the right guard.
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: You know, I'm gonna go guard.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna say that they're just assuming Stein and Dickerson's
• 13:09
  gonna be the best guard combination in the league.
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: Is that it?
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: It is not guard Ah. The guard combinations, by the way,
• 13:18
  the top two according to Pro Football Focus entering this season.
• 13:22
  The two tackles were the Eagles. The two guards were
• 13:25
  the Chicago Bears in the NFC Joy Jodah Jackson. So
• 13:30
  this is a team that went from and this is
• 13:32
  a good conversation because this is an NFC team that
• 13:34
  now with two offensive line mean, do they have enough?
• 13:37
  You know, because we thought the Bears could be sneaky
• 13:39
  last year because of their skilled players, but their line
• 13:41
  was horrendous. Now do they have the offensive line to
• 13:44
  help them make that jump? Could they be the commanders
• 13:47
  of last year.
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, certainly, I know that that's the hot hot item,
• 13:52
  you know, the the hot prediction going into the year.
• 13:55
  To me, they're still the Bears until proven otherwise. But
• 13:59
  we'll see. It was an Aj Brown Devonte Smith.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: It is not wide receiver. The wide receivers were the
• 14:05
  Cincinnati duo. All right, Jason Higgins.
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: All right, let me ask you this.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: Are they assuming full health from Nacobe Dean and going
• 14:13
  with Dean and Zach Bond.
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: That's the only reason I didn't say.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Zach Bond and Nakobe Dean were the best duo at linebackers.
• 14:20
  So I'm glad it kind of took us here. Last
• 14:23
  year at this time we were saying they the weakest
• 14:25
  linebacking the core in the league, and now they're saying
• 14:29
  they have the best duo in all of football? Is
• 14:32
  that too aggressive? If Dean is healthy, do you do
• 14:38
  you think like And by the way, Dean being healthy,
• 14:40
  even if he is healthy, there's no guarantee that he's
• 14:43
  merely the player that he was with that injury. That's
• 14:46
  a lot.
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: I'll say this, and I'll try not to be evasive.
• 14:49
  I'll try to put my neck out there. Last year,
• 14:53
  Bond and Dean played like the best combination, and I
• 14:55
  don't think it's close. I really don't think it's close.
• 14:58
  I think that's how great both them played. In fact,
• 15:01
  Cliff Kingsbury said before the Super Bowl in an interview,
• 15:04
  I think on radio at Media Row that the Eagles
• 15:07
  had the most elite spacing on defense that he had
• 15:10
  ever seen in his life. And you know, spacing really
• 15:13
  refers to your back end and how you're playing that
• 15:16
  interior level between your nickel with the gene and your
• 15:19
  two linebackers.
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: And I think he was right by the way.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: Now, the only what I will say is you've got
• 15:25
  a very small sample size on Bond playing at this level.
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: And you know, while we.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: All hope that he comes back and played the Eagles,
• 15:32
  fans hope that he plays at that level, that's going
• 15:34
  to be really difficult for a guy to replicate. I'm
• 15:37
  not saying he's one year wonder, but with all eyes
• 15:40
  on him and having to repeat that with a lot
• 15:43
  of new guys around him on defense, I'm not sure
• 15:45
  that's going to be real easy. So I don't know
• 15:47
  that they'll go into I don't know that by week
• 15:50
  ten we'll be having this conversation that the Eagles have
• 15:53
  the best inside linebacker duo in the NFL. But they
• 15:57
  absolutely were last year, and I don't think it was close.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: All Right, Jeff Boscher and Adam Kaplan on the Latest
• 16:03
  ITV got a chance to catch up with Eagles tight
• 16:05
  end Dallas Goddard, and you know, let's get your thoughts
• 16:10
  on what Goddard thinks about the evolution of this offense
• 16:14
  this year. Does he look at this offense as, you know,
• 16:18
  something that's got more layers to it than we've seen before.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, there's no question in our conversation with
• 16:24
  Dallas that twenty twenty three is on the minds of
• 16:28
  the Eagles offense. And that's the epic collapse and the
• 16:31
  especially the stale offense, as Nick Sirianni called it, because
• 16:35
  they just did a poor job of expanding their concepts,
• 16:39
  freshening their concepts. That's what led to the firings and
• 16:42
  the hiring of Kellen Moore and Rus Meyron.
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and et cetera, et cetera.
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: So there's no question that Dallas was saying that it's
• 16:50
  good to have Kevin Patula who's been here through all
• 16:52
  the coordinators, knows this offense like the back of his hand.
• 16:57
  And Bitt was not only there for the highest the high,
• 17:00
  but also the collapse. So he has a good understanding
• 17:03
  of saying, Hey, we know what we do well. We
• 17:05
  need to continue to do what we do well, but
• 17:07
  we also can't get stale. We have to freshen up
• 17:11
  certain concepts.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Which is something that which is something they thought happened
• 17:15
  to them in twenty twenty three. They thought they got stale.
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: That was my point.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: Yes, that is on their minds that they cannot let
• 17:23
  that happen again, That they can't just line it up
• 17:26
  with all the talent that they have and think, we'll
• 17:28
  just do everything we did last.
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: Year, add a little bit here and a little bit there.
• 17:32
  We games.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: No, they will at times not necessarily reinvent the we
• 17:36
  all to redefine themselves, but they will have to be
• 17:38
  a different iteration. That's the word chill and hurts used
• 17:41
  a lot of themselves this year.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: All right. Check out that full conversation with Dallas Goddard
• 17:48
  on the Inside the Birds podcast, which you can get
• 17:50
  on all podcasting platforms just search Inside the Birds, And
• 17:54
  of course on Football at four here today, good conversation
• 17:57
  with Jeff Boscher. We're gonna be one week away from
• 18:00
  Eagles training camp the next time we talk to you, friend,
• 18:03
  one month away, one month away, one month away.
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: I don't jump through this microphone and scream and strangle
• 18:09
  you for.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Saying sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. All right, we'll catch up
• 18:15
  with mohaw on Monday. Thanks man. It's the Moser Monday
• 18:18
  Mailbag edition here on Monday. Take care, all right, there's
• 18:22
  Jeff Moscher. Everybody from the Inside of the Birds podcast
• 18:24
  it TB. The guys, of course, do a great job
• 18:27
  over at Inside the Birds dot com.