00:00And, Ike, we wanted to have you on because, you know,
00:03really since about midway through the season,
00:06towards the end of last season,
00:08it seemed like there was some unease in that Eagles locker room
00:12or on the field anyway.
00:15But they have obviously made some changes in the offseason.
00:17You get rid of Petulo.
00:18You bring in a new offensive coordinator that seems at least like you're –
00:24it's not just one of Sirianni's boys.
00:26You're bringing somebody new.
00:27Right, yeah.
00:28And then this – we've heard about the A.J. Brown drama.
00:31Sure, it seems like he's getting traded this summer.
00:34But now this story drops from ESPN.com about Jalen Hurts.
00:40J.H.
00:40And what he's willing to do, what he's unwilling to do,
00:44kind of his leadership style.
00:45And we just thought we'd check in with you because you know the pulse of that team.
00:49You let us know what's happening.
00:51Yeah.
00:52Yeah, listen, I'll tell you, you know, reading through the article,
00:55and it was very long, 11 pages, I believe.
00:58Man, they wrote a book.
01:00Yeah, yeah.
01:01A lot of the stuff wasn't sort of breaking news to those of us that are here locally
01:07that have been close to the team the last few years or what have you,
01:11watching this team go from what they were in 2021 to what they are become now.
01:16And that includes two appearances in the Super Bowl, playoffs every year,
01:21a Super Bowl title.
01:22So there's certainly been the very highest of highs.
01:25And there's been some sort of dips as well in production from that offensive side
01:30of the football, particularly after the Super Bowl seasons.
01:35And even with this, some of this can be attributed to what happened during the
01:40Super Bowl year in 24 when it's sort of around week five or six,
01:45all of a sudden the shift in offensive philosophy just went heavily towards
01:50running the football and relying on Saquon Barkley.
01:52And that was the smartest thing we could have done as an organization
01:56because we saw that led to the second Super Bowl title.
01:59I say all of that to say that I'm not surprised by some of those things in there.
02:05I've sort of heard, you know, whispers down the lane with some of this stuff
02:09that's sort of been reported there.
02:12And what it really boils down to me, fellas, is in the end once you sort of shift
02:18through everything that's there is that the organization is certainly putting the
02:26quarterback on some form of notice that he needs to perform better and that the
02:33offense, particularly from a passing standpoint, the last two years has not met
02:39expectations, especially when you think about the firepower that's on the
02:44offensive side of the ball, particularly from a passing standpoint.
02:49So that is no, even when they won the Super Bowl in 24, I think we had the 29th
02:54ranked passing offense in the league.
02:56I think we, I think we threw on average the fewest attempts per game than any other
03:03team in the league like that year, somewhere near the bottom there.
03:05So it certainly wasn't because of the passing game, the success they had in 2024 that
03:11led to the title. And last year when the running game wasn't as effective and
03:17couldn't lead the team and they wanted to turn to the passing game, they weren't
03:23able to do it effectively consistently enough. And that has been seen as an issue.
03:28Now, some will say schematically, it was an issue. The offense got stale, too
03:33predictable. Some of those things are also true. It's like, it was the chicken or the
03:39egg, which, which came first. And so you wonder, all right, is the, is the passing
03:43game or the offense ineffective because the quarterback isn't playing well, or is it
03:48the parts around him? Is it necessarily playing well? Well, from a schematic
03:53standpoint, the Eagles addressed that this off season, they pretty much have changed
03:57offensive schemes going with, with Sean Marion, who's sort of on that tree of starts
04:04with the Shanahan's. You guys are very aware of that down in Washington. And those guys
04:09that were on that coaching tree, the Sean McVeigh's and the Matt LaFleur's, all those
04:14guys, you know, this offense is sort of derived from that. And that's where Sean
04:18Marion has been brought in. And the Eagles want to change some of the things they've
04:23done in years past to sort of evolve the offense and give it a little more of a
04:28dynamic feel to it. And they feel like at least I get the sense is that the
04:36quarterback is going to be the igniter of this and meaning his play has to ignite
04:42this to make this thing succeed from an offensive schematic standpoint. And, and you
04:48read some of these articles and you read about how Jalen in the past has been
04:53reluctant to sort of change and do some different things. I don't know how,
04:58how much to buy into that, you know, be Mitch can speak to this better. He's been
05:01in the offensive huddles with quarterbacks. I haven't, I don't know how much do you
05:06put, you know, if a quarterback isn't comfortable doing something, is it the
05:09coach's job to find things he's comfortable with, or do you make him do things
05:14that you feel schematically would be beneficial, but he may not be the best at
05:19doing it. I just don't know how that necessarily works, not just with Jalen, but
05:23around the league with any quarterback, I would imagine they would have some say in
05:27those type of things.
05:28I think when you look at this whole deal though, for me, I, I watched the game that
05:32I watched Jalen from his first year until now, and he does not run the football.
05:37Okay. Yeah. He doesn't take chances with the football.
05:40Well, numbers back that up. First of all,
05:42the numbers back that up that he's not running the ball as much as he had been
05:46early in his career.
05:47Yeah. And then I can recall, look, listen, JP says it all the time. His best two games
05:52were in Superbowls.
05:53Unreal. Okay. So when you could play that good in those levels, you got it in
05:57you. But I think he, he's gotten to a point where he
06:04doesn't want to do something that may come back and be on him, which in turn
06:09affects your play throughout. But now I'm also giving him kind of a pass. How many
06:15damn coordinators he's had since he's been there?
06:19These are all facts. I think he's got a new coordinator just about every year.
06:23Every year you have a new coordinator and you never get adjusted to anything, but it's
06:29amazing how all the, listen, I say he deserves some blame, but also an organization who constantly
06:36keep putting new people in front of you, changing up your office every year. Like I get pissed at
06:41the NFL for changing rules every year. And they think the referee is supposed to be perfect
06:44with it. I think that they have to understand if you're going to keep switching stuff around
06:49him, you might want to find out what he likes to do as well. But I still don't understand
06:55when a quarterback don't want to do something. If that's what the team said we're doing, that's
06:58what we're doing, right?
07:00Yeah, that, that is, that is the sort of complexity of this situation. I, I, I don't think I disagree
07:07with anything you just said, B. I, I said that on the show yesterday. I'm like, well, there's,
07:12there has to be some rope given to him considering the, the, the, the, the offensive schemes you
07:19ask him to learn every year versus somebody who's been in an offense for two or three years straight
07:24in the same offense. You can sort of start to master it. The more you're familiar with it,
07:29it's hard to get familiar with an offense right away. Now I'll also say this, and this is no slight
07:37at Jalen. Cause I think every player is different and we all learn at our own pace and our own
07:43rate.
07:43And so just because some other quarterbacks may be able to change offenses and, and, and, and it can
07:50sort of adapt a little quicker. It doesn't mean that every quarterback is going to be that way.
07:56And so, and especially when you have a quarterback that has dual threat ability, that has some other
08:03athletic skills traits to his game that has benefited him that you may not necessarily want to incorporate
08:10in the offense. It's, it's, it's, it is such a, a sort of complicated thing to sort of put together
08:19as to do you stick with something that he can get comfortable with to try to get the best out
08:25of him
08:26or are, are they at a point where they feel like this isn't evolving enough? We need to do some
08:32things differently that will allow the offense to be better as a whole. Cause quite frankly,
08:39some of this is why AJ is frustrated and doesn't want to be here, right? Like, like some of it
08:44is
08:45the offensive structure and, and.
08:59Things are, it has a trickle down effect. So the Eagles, the Eagles know better than all
09:04of us because they're in the building. So they know exactly what's going on. And so I'm, I'm sort
09:09of, I guess I'm reacting to the last couple of days of, of articles that have been out. Cause Jeff
09:15McClain of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote an article today as well. I haven't necessarily read
09:20it through, but I imagine there's nothing new in there that I haven't already heard. It's, it's,
09:25it's, it's, it seems like it's more of what has been talked about from Tim McManus and Jeff,
09:30uh, Jeremy Fowler's article on ESPN yesterday. When things like this come out, there is some,
09:39some, a method to the madness behind this. This isn't coming out for no reason.
09:43Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. And when they have 12 sources in the building that's talking,
09:48yeah, like that, this isn't made up. This isn't conjecture. This is something that's
09:54been put out to send. They want some sort of messaging put out there. So I sort of take
09:59from it. The message I take from it is that the way things have been done in the past with,
10:06with Jalen and allow him to do some certain things or have him have say or final say in
10:11the offense and plays and this and that and the other, that's going to be different moving
10:15forward. And he needs to be on board with what they want to do moving forward. We're
10:21sorry. Like that's, that's kind of what the feeling I get from these articles. Oh yeah.
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