Patriots Joint Practice, Old Friends Rekindle, Preview of Patriots Game

Conversation on how the Eagles' offense looked during the joint practice against the Patriots, Jalen Hurts and AJ Brown talk, who to look out for against the Patriots, and some comments from coaches and players on Sean Mannion's offense. #FlyEaglesFly #PhiladelphiaEagles #NFLonX

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I'm ready to roll if they need me.

SPEAKER_02 0:02

I'm 26 years old.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

What's going on, Eagles fans? Welcome into another episode of the 610 Podcast. I'm your host, Jay Holohan. Back here for another episode here discussing the Philadelphia Eagles as we get ready to take on the New England Patriots in game two of the preseason. We'll be talking about the joint practice sessions. We'll be talking about everything that went into the joint practice sessions, stuff on the field, stuff off the field, the offense, whatever have you. Oh, but first, apologies for not putting out an episode recapping last week's loss to the Baltimore Ravens in game one of the preseason. I've been dealing with an upper respiratory issue, a cough that seems to have stemmed from, and I don't want to gross you out with the details, but an ear infection, so whatever that may mean. But did the Phillies episode last night. I had to take like four breaks to s step aside and cough and get all the junk out, but uh looks like we'll be good to go for this episode, hopefully. And obviously we're gonna have another one coming out here soon as the Philadelphia Phillies just walked it off against St. Louis Cardinals, so we'll be talking about that as well. We'll have another episode out for that. But about the Philadelphia Eagles. Uh let's start with where everyone has wanted to be this week. And that's of course talking about the Jalen Hurts offense, the Jalen Hurts and A.J. Brown thing, and all that fun stuff. Well, some notes from the joint practice. Number one, from what we've gathered, the New England Patriots seemed to really have all the answers for the Philadelphia Eagles. Didn't look like the offense was lighting it up. Now there was no Devontae Smith or Makai Lemon out there. Dontavian Wicks, though, looked really good. The running game on day one looked really good, not so much day two. There was some skirmishes. But the bottom line is, and what everyone's gonna talk about, is whether or not Jalen Hurts looked good during the joint practice. He had a couple interceptions, tossed a couple touchdown passes. It's you know, it's practice, but you know what? You practice how you play. And for Jalen Hurts, he's gotta be able to, and a lot of it was throwing across the middle. Now we've seen throughout the years that a lot of the mistakes Jalen has made in his career is the fact that when he goes across the middle, his passes do tend to get intercepted. That's why I think last year he wasn't going across the middle as much, because at times those passes do tend to get picked off. And listen, when it comes to this new offense, when it comes to him trying to go over the middle, that's kind of what they seem to be honed in on h honed in on, and I think the Patriots were just kind of uh A ready for it, and B, he's he's not as good throwing across the middle as he needs to be. And that's something that Jalen Hurts has really had a detriment, and until he proves he can do it, it's going to continue to be a thing. Now, in terms of these joint practices, it doesn't totally kill me as to whether or not the Eagles can or cannot move the ball effectively on their opponent. It just doesn't, you know, let's face it. It's joint practices. It's not necessarily something that I'm gonna sit there and go, oh my god, because of observations, they did not win the joint practice. At the end of the day, we want to see what it's gonna look like week one. In a couple weeks, it could look completely different against the Tennessee Titans. It could look completely different in the month of September and they come out and they're you know hitting the ground running. Other teams get a good chance to look at the Eagles, the Eagles get a good chance to, you know, in terms of what they're seeing with the opposition, it's just kind of feeling it out. So maybe it's better now than come week one. But as as usual, everyone's waiting on baiting on baited breath about whether or not the Eagles quarterback has actually played well. Well, listen, there are many out there who believe that Jalen is not cut out to be the Eagles' long-term quarterback. They think at the end of this year he's gonna be moved on. Um they envision this year to be like 2020 Carson Wentz. So, I mean, for for those who are in the media and have a much higher platform than this one, we should all go into this season with that expectation, right? I mean, that's just kind of what the general vibe around this kind of situation is. Now, here's the one thing that I just don't understand. And I've heard people talk about this separately as well. Well, quarterbacks, franchise quarterbacks don't grow on trees. So as much as people want to sit there and complain about Jalen Hurts, he did just win you a Super Bowl. Like two years ago. You've gone to two out of the last four Super Bowls with him as the quarterback, the Eagles offense has maybe not scored and averaged over 30 points a game. But aside from last year, and for the majority of Jalen Hurts' time as the starter, the Eagles' offense has performed really well. Now, they also had wide receiver extraordinaire AJ Brown that reminded everyone, I think, over the last couple days that you know you may be missing him throughout the season and him and Jalen Hurts after day one of people wondering, well, how come people haven't reached out to one another since being traded? Listen, we know the situation there. I'm not we did an episode talking about it. We have a general idea of what went down. Let's not go down that pathway again. But the two of them, you know, talked seemed fine. Um I don't really know whether or not that's something that fans or anyone really should continue to talk about moving forward, but as of right now, everything seems to be fine between the two of them. Now I don't know if years down the line if things will start to come out, but whereas Donovan McNabb and T.O., if there's a reunion for that 04 Eagles team, uh probably those two won't be in the same room as one another. Looks like Jalen Hurts and AJ Brown, as they've shown a couple times, they can manage to be cordial around one another. Um I know that there's a lot of people who speculate, you know, whether or not that was just an act for the cameras, or whether or not that was genuine. Um I personally believe that one day AJ will wake up and realize that you know what? Maybe I should have just stuck it out in Philly. Maybe I made mistakes that I should not have done, and I really left a good thing. And that I think is the best situation for all parties. But moving on from that. And let's kind of wind the clock back here a little bit, and then we'll wind it forward into the future. But let's go back into the past. The Eagles lost last week to the Baltimore Ravens, they did not look good. Their offense looked pathetic, and here was Nick Siriani describing it after the game.

SPEAKER_03 8:56

Obviously, you know, wanted to uh put a better performance out there on all part on all parts right there. Um you know, we had 40 plays of offense and uh, you know, kept the defense on the field too many too many times. So, you know, not converting on third down. Um, you know, so that that's everybody, you know, that's just not the quarterbacks. But you know, they got the ball in their hands, and you know, we'll go watch all the tapes, see what happened. You know, there's things that you see on the field, and you say, okay, this is the issue here, and then there's sometimes you don't know. So um, you know, what what happened in the in the heat of the battle. So we'll go back, look at the tape. Uh, but you know, we want a better performance uh altogether by the offense.

SPEAKER_05 9:33

Why ultimately decide not to play the offense in budget?

SPEAKER_03 9:39

Yeah, um, you know, we obviously think that when we go out and practice, we have high, high intensity of practice. Um, we got a big week this week uh coming up with and the ones are gonna get a lot of reps um, you know, in New England for the joint practices. Um this is a big week coming up. Uh, you know, this is where we this is what I decided to do um in this particular case. Um, you know, every week's a little bit different, though.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

If you're gonna tell everyone, which in this day and age in preseason, and I get you don't want to expose everything, but if you're gonna talk about what we ran at Vanilla offense, well, I'm sorry, that kind of leads me to believe that going toe-to-toe with an opponent, just off of brute strength, and just off of talent alone, your backups are not as talented as a team in the Baltimore Ravens that, you know, tend to have some uh really solid depth. You know, they were 8-9 last year, barely missing the playoffs, and had a lot of injuries last year. Ton of injuries. And from the standpoint of your backups, it doesn't lead me to feel too confident if one guy goes down, someone's gonna step in. We already have Jonathan Grenard out, we'll talk about that later, but obviously that's not something that I feel too great about. And, you know, the Sean Manning offense, not a I mean, aside from whether or not he gets the plays called in and the management situation, that's all well and good. And here was Nick Seriani talking about that with Andy Dolphin.

SPEAKER_03 11:12

Yeah, I thought the communication, the plays were, you know, I didn't feel like we were rushed. I wasn't staring at the play clock at any time, I didn't think, and debating whether I needed to call a timeout or not. So the operation was good. We had a vanilla game plan as as they did as well. But I thought the operation was was good, uh, subbing in and out of the huddle. The communication from the from Sean to the quarterback um had one pre-snap penalty on a third down, but I didn't think that had anything to do with uh the operation. So it as far as the operation goes, uh, I thought that was fine.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Yeah, I I think it's it's like anything, you know. I feel like early on you can try to read, all right, which plays am I getting? When am I gonna be going in? And now it's just like it's not even my my thought process. Whenever they tell me to go in, I'm going in. And I feel like Tanner's kind of thinking the same way.

SPEAKER_05 11:56

You've you've had a lot of play callers in your ears over your career. How was Sean first time ever doing it?

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Yeah, Sean was Sean was good. I felt like he was uh he was comfortable out there, he was confident, confident getting uh getting the plays in, and um I think for us from just the communication and the um organization of the whole thing, I thought we were in and out of the huddle quickly and uh we never got really behind the uh the the play clock on on any of them. So uh I feel like everything was smooth.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

So I think we were we're all anticipating what this Sean Manning offense is gonna look like. And I think week one, we're gonna get a pretty good idea as to what the offense is gonna look like. Well, we'll we should have a really good idea as to what the offense will look like, but you're not gonna find that out in preseason. You're not gonna find out whether or not the Eagles are going to put up, you know, historic numbers on offense. You're not gonna find out if they're just gonna straight up suck. But there is a lot of intrigue as to what this new offense is going to look like and against the New England Patriots. The ones did not appear to do all that great. And, you know, the the twos from the s sound of it, Tanner McKee, who is the guy that everyone was talking about last year, ooh, whether or not that Jalen Hurts and Tanner McKee, is that a butting rivalry? Well, Tanner McKee has not done well in this offense. And this should be an offense that you would think could play to his strength as a passer, but it just doesn't seem like it's been trending towards that direction. So he spoke about where he is as a player after the game against Baltimore.

SPEAKER_05 13:35

Obviously, disappointed in in today's performance. Um, obviously still the same player. Um feel like I'm a year better of learning um and and knowing defenses, um, picking Andy's brain, Jalen having another year and picking his brain with the new offense. Um obviously wish I could have showed that a little bit more um tonight. Um but I definitely feel like I'm an improved one-year better player from that sample.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Now, this offense does really bode well for Andy Dalton in what he's been able to do in his career. But he's going into year 16 in his NFL career. And Andy Dalton has well, looks like he's quarterback too. You heard him talk about Sean Manion. They went with him to start the game last week. Looks like it's going to be him against New England. And Nick Siriani talked about the decision to start Dalton.

SPEAKER_03 14:33

You know, I wanted to get Andy, uh, and again, nothing's decided there as far as who's the two, who's the three. Um, and wanted to, you know, Andy's played a lot of football. Um, I think he's had like 160 plus starts. Um, Tanner's had two starts, and you know, just wanted to make sure Tanner continues to be able to develop in live action. Andy's had a lot of live action, but wanted him to get some. Um, and that's just how we decided to go today. Um, you know, been rotating them in in practice. I think both of them have continued to grow within the offense, and uh, you know, again, that's just what we decided to do.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

My hope was at this point, Tanner McKee would be off and running with the offense, and there'd be all a rave about him during training camp, and maybe a team like the New Orleans Saints would be giving a call saying to Howie, you know, hey, what do you want for him? Maybe the Colts, you know, whomever have you. And that hasn't been the case. So it doesn't seem like things are going too well for Tanner McKee right now, but hopefully things will uh trend forward for him. Now, someone who did show a really strong game last week was Ty Robinson, and here he was.

SPEAKER_04 15:50

I learned a lot. Uh, you know, it's definitely a step up from uh from college. Uh, and like I said, you know, just being able to have a full off-season to really recover and like I said, learn about my body and and know what things I needed to improve on, because you know, in college they have a set plan for you, and you know, I just showed up and I did that, we're here, and now it's kind of mom and thumb. So just being able to, you know, whether it was staying after or getting in early or you know, whatever guys have in this conversation. You know, I think this is more consistent. Um taking the leaves and one video. You know, you know, the work that I've been putting in on and off the field, um showing up on the field tonight where everybody can see, you know, it's you know it's a good thing for me. You know, I might do it for me and the and the fellows in the room. And so, you know, for the first game, I thought we played pretty well together. Um obviously, you know, it's gonna take a few games or a few days for us to learn how we play during the game, because you know, in practice, sometimes you know you're just your dog tired from from you know the fifth period and it's your freaking eighth play in a row, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:34

So being fresh out here and being able to play with each other is uh, well, Vic Fangio made headlines when he said that Ty Robinson was uh pretty much lost in the shuffle uh in terms of where things were going. He said he came to life, he's been on life support since he's been here, but he came to life against the Ravens. Well, he's my player to watch against the Patriots as hopefully he continues to come to life. Um and didn't necessarily stand out in the joint practice, but hopefully Robinson will start to make some headways. My quarterback to look out for is Tanner McKee, especially with the way things have gone. Cole Payton, though, did have a nice drive to end that game against the Ravens. I really want to see him more as a passer, though, although, you know, it's good to see because again, if they do move on from McKee, Peyton could be the next guy up. Now, running back, I had Damian Pierce. I'm gonna go with Carson Steele. It looks like a prop possibility to make the roster at the very least, could be on the practice squad. A wide receiver, Darius Cooper, all the rave about him during training camp, but didn't really show much against the Patriots during the joint practice, and with the Eagles now waving Johnny Wilson today due to injury, uh, that really opens up that door for Darius Cooper. So that's interesting right there. Tight end Eli Stowers, he's been nowhere to be found during training camp. Didn't necessarily play great against the Ravens and had a viral video one-on-one where he just got clamped. Things have not looked good with Eli Stowers thus far. And you know what? I don't know where things are gonna go from this point forward, but hey, it's early and we can only go up from here. Willie Lampkin. I'm really intrigued to see what this guy can do. Looked good against the Ravens. I'm intrigued to see how he's gonna play against the Pats. At the edge spot, Arnold Abaket Abacetti. Uh he with the news coming out about Jonathan Grenard, and about there's serious doubt as to whether or not he'll suit up for the week one against the Titans. We're gonna need to see that edge rusher room grow. And Abacetti, someone that I'd like to see play well. Jeremiah Trotter Jr., there's been a lot of rave about him. Want to see him continue to play well. Michael Carter the second at cornerback. A lot of rave about him last week, being you know a guy who can switch from cornerback to safety. Uh, I'm curious to see how he'll uh line up, and I'm also curious to see at the safety spot Cole Wisnowski. I kind of figure this is a special teams guy where he can make his name, so I'm curious to see where he goes from that standpoint. But, folks, that's gonna do it for me. We'll be back on uh hopefully soon to discuss preseason game two against the New England Patriots. We'll talk to you next time.