Postgame Show: Eagles Lose 38-20 vs the Vikings

to come in and have a better showing. We've done a nice job of not allowing explosive plays. I think when they look back at this game, that's the thing that sticks out to me the most is the big plays given up in the first half. I believe the Vikings able to score four times on their first four drives, putting up twenty four points. Like, that's a tough way to start a game when you're on the road. Really allowing that crowd to just speed off of that energy.

It makes it an uphill battle for your own face. Yeah, Eagles trail by twenty one. Able to get it within four. Still not enough when you put yourself in not much of the whole. Yeah, I think, And you look on both sides, right, there's offense and defense. The defense too often you had some busted coverages in the back end. I know, that long long touchdown just to find Digs down the left sideline looks like a busted coverage resuls

expecting help. There wasn't any help there. Certainly some miscommunication, it seemed like based off what we saw on television. But I think when you look at this game, you know, just not even missed opportunities, but just putting yourself in bad situations on both sides. You know, defensively you can't have that many big plays given up against you. You put yourself in that early hole. And then offensively, they're

they're trying. You have to try really hard to get points against a good defense, right, So to be able to stack plays on top of plays, you have to be you have to be able to execute at a high level. They weren't able to do that today. Today too often they're setting themselves back. Well, look coming into this when we were talking about, hey, it's that Eagles run defense against the Vikings run offense. The Vikings did put up the most rushing yards that the Eagles have

allowed this season with one hundred and twenty two. But it was really the big place through the air that seemed to really crushed the Eagles today. What did you see from the secondary? I will start with you, Mike. Yeah, Fran mentioned it miscommunication. You're right, you know you get plays like that when you get guys running wide open

down the middle of field. You know, Jim Schwartz isn't a call on the coverage where he's gonna leave Rossul Douglas with that much field to cover Stefan Diggs man to man miscoverage, and then you need to gonna you have to have defensive backs that are willing to get up and challenge receivers. It's too difficult in this league to play defense against the offense. The rules just want to allow it. So you gotta be able to get

up at the line of scrimmish challenge guys. And too often the day I thought that bike is wide receivers were able to really just run freely through the zone defenses, and even when they're in man coverage, they're beating our man coverage with pretty much ease. I want to get into ice takeaways. But Fran, think about this because you're not usually with us at the top of the show. So I'm going to give you three takeaways as well, So if you want to chew on that for a second,

let's get to yours. Well, I'm pretty sure they may be similar, and I my first takeaway. My first takeaway is another slow start. You know, this is the thing that has plagged this team all year long, getting behind the eight ball, down ten points again. I think it got down to seventeen twenty one points at one point

early in the game. It's just too big of a hill to climb up in this league against these type of teams, especially when you're on the road, especially when you're missing DeShawn Jackson, when you're missing that deep threat, that quick strike ability. To have to say, Okay, we're gonna come back down from three scores down and matriculate the ball down the field, not have that quick it's very,

very tough. It reminded me of the Redskins game, the first game of the season, where the Vikings really just dominated the whole first quarter. I mean they had the ball the entire time, two drives in that first quarter, pretty much eight up the clock, got got ten points out of it, and it just wears your defense down and it doesn't allow your offense to really get in the rhythm because they're sitting on the sideline off a long time for your takeaways more. Oh, then you look

at it, Yeah, look at the defense. Yeah, look at the defensive side of the ball. Right, we talked about the explosive plays, just way too many big plays through the air, Kirk Cousins with Stefan digs. Whether it's blown coverage or whether it's the right plays called at the right time. This is a copycat league. That first time, that first touchdown the Stefan Diggs had remind me of the same touchdown that Terry McLarin scored against us in

that Red Skins game. You know, when you when you when you give up big plays in this league, you're gonna see them repeatedly every week until you figure out a way to stop them. And how many times do the Vikings use play action play action pass then then go deep. They must have did it three or four times easily in that first half and seemingly connected on all of them. So when you look at the explosive plays given up on defense, you can't have that in

the game. And then my final takeaway Stefan Diggs, I mean, my goodness, that's that's just you know, for god, it want to be traded eight nine, ten days ago. He certainly looked happy on the sideline today and they certainly wanted to get him in the game. When you look at this Eagles defense, it's difficult to run the ball. I know they got over one hundred yards, but I'd like to look at the yards per carry. I think

the Eagles did a decent job. How many of those yards came on the reverses to that straight off runs. I mean they when it came just to Dalvin Cook first three quarters did a great job sto run. It just couldn't stop stop the Vikings passing game. And the book on this Eagles defense is, if you want to move the ball, move it through the air, not on the ground. I thought Stefan Diggs obviously had a career day. Three touchdowns, over one hundred and sixty yards receiving. We

did it. We did a bad job containing him today. Yeah, you mentioned those average numbers, thirty five carries for three three average three and a half yards to carry. Vikings so you know, pretty you'll take that one ten point eight yards through the air. So that's really where they got to look. I have all over my notes here. Stefan diggs touchdown looked really easy. Stefan Digg's touchdown looked

really easy. What's baffling to me is that, like you said, this was a guy you know eight ten days ago, wasn't sure if you wanted to be in Minnesota, and you have Adam Feeling coming out and saying things about Kirk Cousins not being able to get him the ball. I mean, this was just a totally different Vikings team

than we saw earlier this season. I think really what you have with that Minnesota team is a team that's they're very hard to play against defensively for all the reasons we talked about on Eagles game Plan, for what we talked about on the Kickoff Show. Because this is a group that a they want to run the ball, they want to do play action, they're great with the screen game. So as a defensive line, like from a

front seventh standpoint, that's a lot to handle. There's a lot of things going on, so on the back end, you've got to have things buttoned up and from a just from an assignment standpoint, it didn't seem like that was the case, especially in that first half and all that takes. We talked about this so many times is that in football, so many games are determined by four or five plays, and when you don't know when those

four or five plays are gonna come. So ultimately, if you're not ready on those four or five plays, you're gonna give up. The big plays are gonna go the other way. Here's what was maybe, friend, you can explain this to me because I'm watching this whole game, and I'm watching the Eagles front seven do a really good job to blow things up and stop the run, and then you see those big plays over the top. But when you're looking at this secondary obviously there's a couple

of injuries there, but so many just mistakes there. Where do we isolate what actually went wrong in the secondary? Well, I think ultimately it's some number one. It's tough at times to be able to tell without being able to go back and look at the film, you know, especially from a secondary play, because without the all twenty two it could be a little difficult. They did show some good replays on TV, so you were able to get

a couple of things on that one long touchdown. The Eagles were in what's called quarters coverage and quarter every glook. Every coverage has strengths, every coverage has weaknesses. If you're gonna be able to go up against a team that played likes to run the football, you like quarters coverage because your safeties are going to be impactful in the run game, so you're gonna play a good amount of quarters.

The downside of that is that you're the deep middle of the field can be easily manipulated by crossing routes and things like that, and that's what you saw. You know, Roddy McLeod, he's jumping up on a crossing route. And if you've got run responsibility as well, that can leave you vulnerable a little bit. So you know, Rasul Douglass, he's playing as if he's got help, but that help's

not there because it's being taken away. So that's one of those things where you give your tip of the cap to the offense and say, hey, they beat the coverage. That's a tough one. That's second one. That's tough to say. What happened on that I'm that second one, and we can't really give the answer that because we don't know. It's clearly there was some kind of miscommunication there somewhere in the back end. I'm sure there's going to be a question YEA to coach very early about that. Yeah, yeah,

I thought you explain the coverage. They're great. I think it's difficult for Malcolm and Rodney to play their run responsibilities when you had that play action and a guy like Dalvin Cook in the backfield, you need all those guys up there to be able to bottle him up. But the flip side of that is a team like the Vikings, they're gonna use your speed against you. So they know you're a fast flowing team, they give you

that play action. All it takes is a few steps of you stepping up trying to support that run, and it allows stealing and digs to get behind those safeties, leaving those corners vulnerable with no middle of the field help because both guys are basically trying to get up there to run support and help out that front seven. Just a purchat call from the Vikings offensive side against what they know the Eagles are likely to play defensively in that coverage. It's a quarters beaters. It's just a

difficult play to have to coverage. Teams all over the NFL do a great job playing for you know, Buffalo is one of the best defensive in the NFL. This year. They played primarily quarters coverage Carolina playing great defensive football. I know it wasn't great today. They had five turnovers though of Jameis Winston. A lot of quarters coverage down Carolina. So the coverage is one that works and it is good against the run. But there are, like I said,

there are strengths and weaknesses to every coverage. They got caught with one of the weaknesses on that play. Let's go to the Eagles offense and when we look at what really went wrong for them today, I mean, just looking at the stats, it seemed like for the most part, they did everything well. They just weren't able to get into the red zone. What did you think really went wrong for them today? Well, they couldn't get the run

game going. Yeah, as well as I think we would have expected, right, I mean, that was one thing that we've seen from this game. Would go back to that Thursday night win over Green Bay. We made that connection on the kickoff show numerous times amy that you know that would be something that you would hope they'd be able to get that going. You did get the running backs heavily involved in the passing game, and that's been a really prevalent team throughout the course of the last

few weeks. Is you know, getting Miles Sanders opened down the scene, get him matched up on linebackers, that's been great. But the run game just couldn't get going to the point where you felt like, hey, they they've really they're really in a rhythm right now up front. Yeah, yeah, and some drive stalled on us in the first half. Right, you got to be able to pick up those first downs third and two, fourth and two. You're throwing on both plays. We don't pick up the first down, that

gives the Vikings the ball in great field position. They're able to go on top in the very first play to go up twenty four to three, and at that point I thought we became one dimensional, right, you get down three touchdowns, you got to try to pass, pass pass to get back in the game. Not being able to score right before the half to get any points

out of that drive. That also hurt you because you need to be able to stay close in a game like that, and although they were able to pull within four late in the game worthily late in that third quarter, I thought miss too many opportunities early in the game to where you couldn't get back to the run game. You almost the Vikers knew what you were going to

do just about every down, which is basically thrown. When we came into this game, Eagles one of the best third down teams in the league second statistically with fifty two percent conversion rate. That was a big area they struggled today thirty three percent conversion. What about the Vikings defense was able to really stop with the Eagles do best on those third down conversions. Man you up, I mean they're gonna man our guys up, and we got

to be able to beat man coverage. There were a couple of times there where Carson was able to get the ball to guys and you gotta be able to pull it in. You've hit al Sean in his hands on one, zach Ertz got hitting his hands on one. I Novid thought it was a little bit of passing afference there, but the ball still hits you in both hands. You got to be able to catch the ball. You catch the ball. Either those occasions, you're extending the drive.

You're giving yourself a chance to go down there extended driving path and put points on the board instead of putting that hot Vikings offense back on the field. So as much as the Vikings were doing offensively in the first half, I thought we had opportunities in that second quarter to sort of move the ball. First quarter, they sat on the sideline watching the game like most of us did. But in that second quarter there were some opportunities there through the air. We just didn't come down

with the play. So many drops there too many drops overall over the course of the game, and something that they won't even go down as drives drives, you know. And even the one deep ball to Nelson Agiloor landed in bounce in the back of the end zone. I mean, yeah, there are there are a lot of players were say, man, they left some meat on the bone offensive in the past game. Let's go back to our keys to the game that we talked about in the pregame show. Um,

I mean we're gonna evaluate what those looked like. What did you see from that friend? So mine was the screen game and they did hit a couple of screens. They were very I mean, they were very active. And when we talked about it on the Kickoff Show, was it's not just Davin Cook and the running backs, the tight ends the wider series. How many screens did we see that Adam Feeling and Stefan digs today they were

picking up. It's not about the eighteen to twenty five yard pickups on those, it's the eight yards and eleven yards. It's those little chunk players that now all of a sudden a second and one and you're like, all right, well, now they run the ball. You might stop them for two, but you're moving the chains, you're keeping drives alive. So the screen game was very, very tough for them, just

struggle to stop the bleeding. And I was looking at the offensive line against the Minnesota front, very aggressive, watching the run game for the Eagles, but also protecting Carson Wentz. Carson sacked twice in this one. One I think was in garbage time and then one was like that really awful one on third down. What did you see from the Eagles offensive line in this one night? I thought they did a good job. For the most part. I

thought Carson had time to throw the ball. I like the fact that Carson when the pocket did collapse, the time he was able to escape, get out and find new passing lanes. That was something I wanted to see for him today. And listen, Mike Zimmer is a guy who's gonna heat you up. He's gonna bring in extra guys. You know, we didn't do a great job on one of those pass for Texans where we missed the blitzer coming right up in the middle. I think that was

Jordan Hallard there, you've picked that up. That's where sad comes from. But I thought the officeive line, for the most part, the Eagles had time to throw the ball. Today, they had time to throw the ball. That was an issue, and I thought Andre Dillard it seemed that fairly well. Yeah against EF, that's a pretty good pass rush. Yeah,

you're talking about trial by fire. I think let's spend a little bit of time talking about Carson because one of my big takeaways obviously, you know, not the results that this team wanted, but one of my big takeaways I thought we saw him do some really special things with his legs that you alluded to that extend extending the play a little bit when the pocket collapsed to get out and do some like superhuman athletic moves against the you know, the Vikings pass rush pass rushers. We

really got to see why he is so special. I mean, like you as a linebacker, I mean, Eric Hendricks down on the goal line is putting a tough spot on that Alshon Jeffrey touchdown. Because you have a quarterback breaking the pocket. You're kind of stuck in no man's land of do you go up and attack the quarterback who

has already running. You had that twenty three yard runner early in the game, so you know he's got the ability to beat you with his legs, or do you kind of stay home and coverage and he was kind of stuck in no man's land there. Yeah, I think that's when we get the best Carson Wentz when he's able to extend plays, and also our receivers that struggle a little bit with man and man coverage. When he's

extending plays, he's allowing them to get uncovered. And I thought we saw a lot of that today where Carson was able to either escape to his left or escape to his right, and then the receivers did a great job of staying active, getting open and Carson is typically smart with the football. He's not going to put it in harm's way. He was able to make some plays down the field. I like to see a little bit more of that. I know we want him to be efficient from the pocket, but I think I don't think

he's ever gonna be just a pure pocket passer. I think he's at his best like guys like the Shaun Watson Pat Mahomes, when you get them out on the perimeter and he's able to be a threat either running the ball or throwing the ball. Well. A part of his evolution has been to know when to do that, when not to do that. I think this year we've really seen, at least for me, him kind of turned a corner and when to be part about doing those things and went to, you know, kind of take care

of himself a little bit. I mean, the interception total has been so down coming into this game, so him being able to take care of the football, you know, I think you kind of tow that line, especially without DeShawn Jackson, you don't have that vertical thread of Okay, how how long do I want to hold onto the football and let things open up, let guys that maybe don't separate as quickly as Deshaun would to allow those guys to get free from a corner, didn't you know,

seventeen eighteen yards downfield versus you know, let me take the check down and let's play for third down. You got to try and tow the line there, and for the most part, he's done that. I think that the criticism of him, I think, you know, from a big picture standpoint, has been a little bit overblown. From that standpoint, but because he's not He's not gonna be perfect, but you know, a lot of none of these guys are. But I think that that's an interesting storyline to kind

of follow. Do you does this game feel like an eighteen point loss. I think it doesn't. It doesn't feel like an eighteen point loss to me. I thought they

played him a lot closer than the eighteen points. But when you think about the plays from the first half and the big chunk plays and they're down twenty four to three, that's who you realize, like, yeah, we forget that they gave up a lot of explosive plays in that first half, and really the vikings are caught between when you get up about that many points that early. Now you're caught between do you keep the gas down

or do you start running the ball. They try to eat up clock and that kind of got their offense out of whack and allowed the Eagles to get back in because it's difficult for a coach, right you get a twenty one point leaned that early, you're saying, run the football now so you can eat up some clock instead of giving the ball back to the Eagles, which they did, and that allowed the Eagles to get back in the game. We always say, like a tale of

two halves. This one was like the first quarter and the fourth quarter put them off to one side, and then the second and third quarter. This was a game like this is not good. This we're going back and forth. It was a look they always want to start fast, and that's been a theme throughout the course of the last three years. You're twenty seventeen. They started so fast consistently on both sides of the football. Everyone makes the

thing about the offense. The defense has also allowed ten points i think on four of six games so far this year on the first two drives, so allowing them to get to score on the opening two drives. I mean that puts you in a hole as well, and no matter what you do on offense, so both sides of the ball have got to figure out where to start faster. What was the turning point of this game for you? What play would you label as the turning point?

I think like and I are on the same page here, and it's the when they had that four point it was a four point deficit. And then you give up that touchdown to go down eleven. The Eagles get the ball back six plays, they punch the ball away and then they go down to score again at eighty eight yards. So giving up those two long drives of seventy plus that was what kind of stealed the victory. I agree, I agree. I mean, you get to twenty four to twenty, you seem to be back in the game. The offense

got some momentum going. You give up that touchdown drive a seventy five yards to go down thirty one to twenty. Now you're putting even more press shore on the offense because you know you need to get points on that next drive. Offense stalls in six plays, you get a ball back to the vikings and then you see that really that that dagger that ad a yard touchdown drive to really really put the game out of reach. Yeah. For me, it was that sack that Carson Wentz took.

You know, they're third and four at the top of the fourth quarter delay of game penalty. They go, yeah, third and nine takes that sack, and at that point I'm like, okay, the vikings go up by eleven. Not enough time on the clock to me. That that sack and that that penalty. Really the film is really yeah, because when you get third and four, you got better options of players you want to run right third and four, you can send someone deep, someone intermediate, someone short, and

still get that first down. You go on third and nine, Now the defense knows where to play. The defense said how to get to the sticks, and because they do such a great job and man and man coverage, they're gonna send extra guys to make Carson get rid of that ball fast. And so that's that's a great game changer right there. That delayed a game, really put them behind the a ball. That's what everyone talks about, staying ahead of the sticks. If it's third and four, exactly

what I just said. I mean, the defense, you know, forget even when an offensive standpoint what you've got at your disposal, but the defense can say, hey, we're gonna go cover zero here, We're gonna send more than they can block. The ball's gonna come out quick. We're not gonna let them get nine yards. That's not going to happen, and it was ended up being a busted protection in a sack. But that blitz may not be in play

if it's third and four, not thirty yards. I'm sure we've talked about some of those things, but friend, we always look ahead to what you're most excited to take a second look at when you can really get that film, get the all twenty two, get all the different angles. What are some things that you are especially looking forward to exploring, kind of getting a little more insight on

this week? I want to can we talk a lot about the pass rush and the marriage between that and coverage because they impact each other so greatly over the course of a game, So you know, going up I talked about it earlier. When you have this Minnesota offense and all the different things that they do, I am interested to see what the pressure looked like from the defensive line because it did see that there were bodies around kirk Cousins and the coverage didn't always hold up.

And and but there are examples going the other way too, where you know, the were just tight, the rush doesn't get hold. Now kirk Cousins has time to roll around. So those two are very are tied together, very closely. As always, I'll be interested to see what that team looks like tomorrow morning. Any thoughts on Brand thought, Well,

I mean, listen, he's right about the pass rushing. It seemed as if kirk Cousins had guys around him, especially in that second half when the defense started to really get at them a little bit and they were getting stops. I thought the guys up front, even Fletcher being around the quarterback Brandon Graham with a sack early, those guys were able to get in front of kirk Cousins, get hands up in his face and it really allowed them to get back into the game. Just got to that

fourth quarter. I don't know if they're gassed, you know, or what, but we couldn't get him down when we needed to be able to get him down late in the game. Yeah, let's talk about Brandon Graham a little bit because I to me, I thought he had a great game. Like, let's talk about a couple of guys that did really well today. We've been dissecting a lot of what went wrong. Let's talk about Brandon Graham a little bit. Like you mentioned that sack, but to me, he was stopping the run all day and made a

lot of big place What did you? I agree? I mean, Brandon the last few weeks has really come on right. He's been He's been one of the league leaders in getting quarterback hurries and quarterback hits. The last couple of weeks it seems to have paid off for him. Four sacks in the last two weeks. Another good He always plays the run well. So I thought they did a great job up front clogging up those running lanes, and

Brandon is a big part of that. When you talk about stopping Dalvin Cook, if you really had an interception on that one screen pass right, it so well I was able to retrace it and get back into the throwing lane. I think when you look at BG he's gonna be able to impact the quarterback off the edge. We saw the sack on third down for the lining up inside as a three technique, so you know that

versatility is so pivotal. And what I loved about that play was the offense they slid the protection towards Fletcher Cox. So Fletcher's getting a double team that allows BG to be one on one. The offense has to kind of pick their poison, and we want to slide towards the side that's got two defensive ends and say, okay, we want to make sure we cover up here, or do

we kind of take care of number ninety one. So Number Fletcher Cox impact in the game once again from that well, and they talked about that earlier this week. Bed a fun moment in the locker room where actually Fletch crashed into BIG's interview and said, hey, did you did you credit Fletcher for your sack for any of your three sacks against the Jets, and and BG was like, hey, you know, I paid them the real defensive linement. Do you, as a former player, do you know anything about this

transition here? Well, actually it sounds like we're about to hear from coach coach Doug So yeah, well, well maybe I'll forget that by the time we come back, but I'm sure lots of questions for the head coach about this one. I think probably some of the things that we discussed. Um here, I'm really interested to hear his thought. Let's take a listen. First question. Yeah, yeah, disappointed, you know that we didn't do a better job there. Um, disappointed a lot of things. But we just gotta we

gotta look at this tape. We gotta be critical of each other, critical of myself, and and we gotta we gotta fix, uh fix what's wrong. Uh yeah, until I really look look at the tape, it's hard to say at this point. I gotta talked to Jim and see what we were, you know, coverage wise, what we were in and if there was a breakdown. But until I look at the tape, I really can't answer that. Yeah. No, it's uh, it's credit to those guys in the locker room, you know. But uh flip side of that, we can't

be down twenty four to three. Um, we gotta start the game well faster. We gotta be better. U Um. We were a little sloppy, had some mistakes early that kept some drives going offensively. Um, and just gotta you know, as a staff and really as players, we got to evaluate it and and and get it corrected. Well, one. Uh, you know, were there are some injury you know, but you know again, I'm not going to use that as

an excuse. So you guys have to play, you know, and UM, you know, we just we just gotta we gotta leave the tape. We gotta be critical of of ourselves as coaches first, uh, and then make them make the corrections during the week with the players. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, we had to. We had to. Look. We wanted, um try to take advantage of it, get a little bit closer, an opportunity to maybe shoot it in the end zone. After that, Um made a great play. That would have

been the idea. Yes, complete the pass right, we were gonna get out of bound. The play was designed to hit Dallas and get out of bound. We're in the short side of the field, so ran a lot of gadgets. They have a lot of reverses that they take you by surprise at all. No, I mean, that's that's kind of who they are. Um. We understand their personnel and and uh, you know I thought kind of looking back now, just you know, they had a good game plan, you know,

kind of misdirection, um utilizing the receivers that way. Um, but uh, Yeah, we've got to you know, we've we've got to be ready for all that. Yeah, you know, just commented on that. Until we look at the tape, it's hard to answer back. Yeah, I think I think there's some similarities. I think we can draw from, you know, some conclusions from that. But you know, different season, different team. Um, you know, we still got a lot of season ahead of us. Ten games and and um, you know it's

it's where we are right now. Uh, we gotta get gotta get guys healthy as we know, Um, and uh gotta get everybody, Gotta get everybody kind of uh you know, focused in on on you know, win in the next game. Winning going to want to know and um, you know, I think that's something that our team does best, is rallying around each other and picking each other up and moving forward. We all have to, uh you know, take accountability, and myself included. You know, we're all we're all in

this together. And and um it's an ownership and and you know it starts with me. And I gotta I gotta look at myself in the mirror and am I doing everything I can to help this football team win? Uh? Through you know, decisions during the game or during the week, or how we practice whatever it might be. Um, but we all have to do that and um, you know, hold each other accountable and move forward. For the last week, it's been just very I don't have a crystal ball, um,

if that's what you're asking. But we've got definitely got to do a better job there. UM, got to evaluate it and UM, you know it. It just comes down to just understanding, we gotta we we have to start the game better. Um, you know. Uh, and and uh we'll take a look at that this week. Obviously he's not out there. We had some opportunity today, UM to get down the field the ball was was you know, we stretched the field a little bit a few times. So you know, we get creative with it, um, with

with moving some guys around. Obviously Deshaun helps that, UM when he's out there. So uh, you know, but that's as something that we got to continue to you know, work work with and work through and and and find ways to to be creative. That way. Sanders was very effective in the past. You need to talk about. Yeah, he's been uh, he's been doing really well in the passing game. You know, he's been uh making some plays

down the field. The touchdown catch was was big. Um. You know, he's just he just seems like each week there's a there's a chunk play with him, you know, in the passing game. So something we'll keep looking at. Nah. First play the game was actually a down the field pass. It's a shot play, but based on coverage, we killed the play, which is what we're supposed to do. Um. And then and then on the third down play, we had a mental assignment up front on a third and

short and uh kept us off the field. We I guess, but you only got forty six guys. I don't know what else it's gonna play if I start kicking guys off the field. I mean, yeah, we gotta we gotta look at it. Obviously, we gotta coach it up, and we gotta show him and and teach them, and the guys have to um understand that you know, this is you know, this is something that uh you know is

being called more and more. Um. But yeah, you're right, we gotta you know, we have to eliminate those penalties, those mistakes, those are those are hard too hard to overcome, you know, um, whether it's on offense or defense, Um, but we'll take a look at him and you know, keep keep coaching our guys. How do you did some really good things? Um, you know he we gave him again each week like we do with run pass or pass run checks. He did a nice job there in

a game. You know, obviously the end of the game, which is something we're trying to trying to get chunk plays and you know that's going to happen from time to time. But you know, I thought overall he played tough again, you know, in the pocket, made some made some tough throws down the field. So again I thought, thought he played overall, thought he played good. Okay, okay. Coach says, it starts with me and a lot of things to look at, but address some of the different

parts of the game. We need to be critical of each other, critical of myself and fix what's wrong. Um, if you're coming in here Monday morning, what are the big things that you're looking at in that department? Yeah?

I think really the he when he talked about some of the critical penalties, some of those negative plays, I mean that's those are the things that kill drives and if you're on offense, and he's obviously speaking from an offensive standpoint, those are the things that turned you from second and two, and second and three to second and nine or second to eleven. Those the things that you

really can't have too often. Those things, those mistakes compound on each other when you're playing a defense like this on the road. For you as a former player, and obviously you didn't play offense, but every week we come in here and talk about the lack of the fast start. It's something the coaches have been addressing, the players have been addressing. Have you experienced something like this as a player where it's like we talk about this all the

time and we are still not executing. Where do you plug the hole on something like that. Well, you just got to keep working at it. And I thought they came out and sure I have when I've been a part of some bad teams where it looks as if we can't do anything right on the offensive side of the ball. I remember rookie year, we average ten points a game, scored one hundred and sixty points on the entire year, so there was a lot of three and

outs in that season. But I thought they came out today with the idea to try to run the football and they ran the ball three consecutive plays. That's that's a rare for Doug and so they lets you know that he wanted to put the onuses on his offensive line to try to move that line of scrimmage. They

weren't able to do that. And when you're on the road and you have the offense conversely putting up points, meaning the Vikings offense putting up points and extending drives, it puts your It puts even more pressure on your offense to try to get something going. And they've yet through six games, they've yet to clean up a lot of the little things that good football teams just don't allow to happen to them. You just don't beat yourself

when you're a good football team. And when they were able to put nine wins in a row together back in two and seventeen, those are the things that didn't happen to them. As an offense, they were able to score on early drives, they were able to have sustained possessions because you're able to pick up first downs. Even if you're not scoring, you're eating up the clock, you're

allowing your defense. I remember that year they played the fewest amount of snaps that season as a defense because their offense led the league in time of possession because they ate up the clock every game and this here thus far, they've lost time of possession and just about every game, even the games that they've won, the lost time of possession because that defense is out there on

the field. And Fran mentioned it early. You talk about getting off to a fast start offensively, there's no guarantee you're gonna pick up first downs, but the more cracks you get at it, the better you will be at executing. And far too often our defense can't get off the field on third down early in games. Yeah, that's really been one of the biggest things is the you know,

the slow start you start. It's not that you press every start of every game, but when you start slow and in a giving game and you get into that early hole, now on both sides, you start feeling the pressure. Maybe you know, you try and press and try and make a tackle, go in a little bit differently than you normally would. You're trying to fit a ball in, or you're trying to catch a ball, or fight for extra content or extra yardage more than you normally would.

Those things that you kind of get out of your comfort zone a little bit, a bright spot coach talked about and no, we talked about in here a little bit. Look, we've talked about the absence of DeShawn Jackson and especially as that big play threat who can really just break the game open in a second. But Miles Sanders was that guy today year, Brit, I mean, what kind of

value is this guy to this team? Well, I think that's when you look at Miles Sanders and yeah, a second round pick, a relatively early second round pick, when you're talking about somebody who can impact the passing game.

We talked about this last week on The Eagle and the Sky podcast that it's almost like what the Saints have had over the last few years with mark Ingram and Alvin Kamara, where you had a guy that was your early downs, you know, your your tone setter, you're finisher as a runner in mark Ingram, but then you

had your dynamic playmaker in Alvin Kamara. I'm not saying that Sanders Alvin Kamara, who was one of the best young stars in the NFL, but what I'm saying is is that he can play that kind of a role. He can be used that way that brings a lot of value to this offense. And when everything is clicking together, now you're talking about being able to attack defenses in a lot of different ways. And he gets his first NFL touchdown today, it's a receiving touchdown, which we all

totally predicted that. What did you say from the rookie? I guess well, I thought he had a very nice game. And I like the way the Eagles are using him. Right If you're not going to give him a bunch of carries from behind the line of scrimmage as a runner, you want to use him in the passing game. I actually like the game plan from the offense today. I thought they were going to need to at least test this defense down the field. All right, we are going

to hear from Carson Wentz on this game. Here's Carson at the podium. You know, offensively, you know the slow start. Um, it's a good defense, tough place to play again, down early makes it tough. So, UM, you know a lot of things. We gotta we gotta come out and execut better, we gotta stay on the field, maintain drives and um, you know that's that's a good team. They beat us today, but it's on to the next I don't want to talk about that. But after the slow start, you guys,

really sounds car and go about the state. Yeah, I mean there's that's that's football. You know, that's football. It's slow start, and you know we're down and we gotta make some plays and we do, but we just didn't make enough, you know, offensively, we didn't make an off Like I said, we got to stay on the field better. We got to put ourselves in better situations and just execute a higher level. Yeah, we don't, you know, look at it like that. Necessarily, we just try and stay

the course. You know, early in the ballgame, a lot of time left. You try to avoid putting pressure on yourselves and just um, like I said, stay the course and keep playing playing offense and coach keep calling it, you know, the same way. And um, you know, I thought we did a decent job of that, but just you know, it wasn't good enough to say. I wasn't on the sideline. I mean I was standing there waiting for coach to just tell us what was going on.

So uh, yeah, that wasn't involved in that. I mean, hey, coach, coach, make the call and you know, if it works, it would have been awesome, you know, and it didn't. So that's football. A lot of chub so just a team that much. Yeah, I mean, you know, hats off to them. That's a good defense. You know. There are some shots today that we just we didn't connect. You know, there's some other times where um, you know, I might have

missed some guys and those types of things. But it's a good defense, and um, we really had to earn it today, and like like you said, I mean, we we just we we didn't get any of those deep shots really really going today. Yeah, I mean, everyone's just gotta do their job. You know. We know the guys that we have, We know the talent that we have and the ability we have um in that locker room. And so for us, it's just stay in the course, you know, push put this behind us. You know, it

is a tough road game. We got beat, straight up, we got beat today, but we're excited for next weekend. We'll turn the page past that. I mean, the plan is to learn from this without doubt. I mean, you know, you never want to want to lose a game. But we're gonna watch the tape, you know, really thoroughly, and UM, you know everyone's gonna take ownership and accountability of where they can improve, where they can get better. UM. And

like I said, we're gonna turn the page quick. And you know we're excited to go down there and face a good Dallas team. Yeah, we just miscommunications up front and we didn't we didn't get it off. It's it's frustrating one. Something that we got to clean up for sure, and I got to do better. UM, I don't, I don't think so. No, there a lot of plays today

that UM, I mean without a doubt. You know, like I said earlier, we gotta stay on the field, you know, whether that's third downs, fourth downs, UM, put ourselves in better situations on you know, from second down. UM. And so we just got to stay on the field and make better plays in those key key situations. Play right after one yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was that was a good, good defensive scheme there. You know, they schemed us up, they got us there. UM. A frustrating one,

tough one, but you know, hats off to them. They made heck of a play. It is what it is. You know, coach is gonna make that decision and uh, you know, I trust whatever whatever decision he makes home town. I'm sure you had a lot of friends and family. Anything special about playing in Minnesota, Um, you know, it's cool knowing you know a lot of support out there, friends and family, a lot of you know, NDSU fans

in the area. You know, I wish, wish could have given them a better show today and come out with the victory. But you know, it's it's actual being this close to home and you know, playing in front of you know a lot of people that I grew up knowing and and caring about. Thank you guys. Okay, last week you had the Denham jacket. This week we have the green. The green jacket, We've got the hat, We've

got the pattern. It's a little North Dakota green. Yeah. Yeah, he was going back home or close to home as the closest he would be at home, so obviously expecting a bunch of fans. That's that's what we would call friend a victory suit. You on the hat though, ye oh, I mean that looks like a Brian Dalkins Hall of Fame edition type of hat. I have two of those myself on the shelf, So yeah, no big deal. You know,

but it looks like it. Man, Listen, that's that's that's a that's an outfit that you expect to sort of win the football game. Man, Happy birthday of the Hall Fame or something. By the way, that's right, be dog, happy birthday, Happy birthday, dog? What is he seventy? I can see. I'm want to go back and reflect the things Carson said. You're teammate. If you guys can deal with that show, we're gonna Oh is he calling me

right now? We I really loved Carson's demeanor. Um, I just thought, you know, he he was just like, let's put this behind us, and you really I believed him, you know, just we have to stay the course, put this behind us. We know the talent we have and everybody just needs to do their jobs. I think there's a difference between this team is not good enough versus we know we're good enough and we didn't execute today. What kind of vibe did you get from him? The

team's three and three. Yeah, at the end of the day, there are three and there are three and three. We're going on the road. A great opportunity this week against a team that you were either going to be tied with or behind one game in the division. So you very much. It's not like the season's over. We can, you know, I think with his demeanor, I think you can kind of appreciate that. Look. They're gonna come back. They're gonna try and improve on some of the things

that they need to improve on. This week. You've got this week of practice, you go on the road with a night game on Sunday night down in Dallas. Is gonna be a huge matchup. All right, friend, we're gonna give you a little bit of a break here. We're gonna uh, we're gonna send it to Mike Quick, who got to talk with head coach Jack Peterson one on one.

Here's that interview. Coach, thanks you for joining us. First of all, tell me about the decision to go for it on fourth down with Jake Keller on the fake field goal. Yeah, we had we had worked out in practice this week and it's it's a look that the Vikings presented actually on our earlier in the game, and so we we elected to go right there. We still had some time on the clock. We execute that properly, we get out of bounds, give us another opportunity to

shoot the ball. Into the end zone. Great played by Minnesota, But does he have an option there that is just the option to throw it too. Yeah, I mean it was just an option to throw it to Dallas. And again, you know, they made a play and and uh you know, uh Jake was trying to make it play as well. Came back strong in the third quarter. You got it to twenty four ten or twenty four twenty. Um. Talk about what did it take to get the guys to

get back into this football game. Yeah, you know, again, halftime, they they had no panic. Um, they felt comfortable with what we were doing, made that made the necessary adjustments that we needed to make, and n the run and the pass game and really you know, came out and and and and put that nice drive together. We got some explosive plays, got it in the end zone. Um, and it really was a spark that we needed in the second half. And then we went back down the field.

We got the field goal after that and thought we had some momentum, you know, especially in that second half. How much are you concerned about the play of your secondary Well, you know, it's definitely concern um, you know, and it's not the only concerns there's things we can we can you know, look at you know everybody can

look at. But you know, there are some injuries back there. Uh, you know, we got some guys coming, guys are getting healthy, you know, but still we gotta we gotta hold it together. And and and coaches, we got to coach our players up and make sure they're in the right spot and then understand the game plan. And um, you know that falls on us. But at the end of the day too, the players have to go play and make plays, and and uh, we got to make sure that we're doing

doing right by them. Now, how do you handed us getting ready for the Cowboys? Do you just turn the page on this game? Do you look at it and do the corrections? Or I think you gotta look at it. You gotta you gotta see what we did right. You gotta see what we did wrong. Um. But but we'll do it quickly, um, you know, because we got to go back on the road again. A great opponent, NFC East opponent, the Cowboys coming up next weekend, and and uh, you know, we're just trying to figure out how to

how to beat them. Thanks coach, good look next week, Thank you. Verry candid. We gotta put this behind us. Another road opponent coming up. Thoughts on coach's conversation there, what do we learn? I mean, he's right, great domainor I mean, listen, one thing you don't want is to allow one loss to impact you next week. Right, there's still a lot of football left to play. They got the divisional opponent coming up next week against the Dallas Cowboys.

You got twenty four hours to sort of get this thing digested and get it out of your system, get ready for next week. Coach knows. I mean, you can't allow one loss to linger into another. It's a cliche for well, what are the one of the options? He's like, Okay, we're gonna come back and feel sorry that we lost this game, and you know, don't worry about getting ready for the Dallas Cowboys. I mean that the only option is, Okay,

we're gonna think about this on the flight. We're gonna worry about what we gotta fix tomorrow, and then we're gonna worry about Dallas. I mean, that's that's the mood right now. All right, we are going to take a quick break. Friend, thanks so much for joining us. As always, on the other side, of this break, we will continue breaking it down like we always do on the postgame show presented by Rico. We'll see in a minute meat the wa wa hoogies. Every hogi is made for you

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Thanks for joining us on the postgame Show presented by EGO, as we continue to unwrap the eagles thirty eight to twenty loss to the Vikings. Eagles rookie Miles Sanders had his first touchdown in the NFL today, was a receiving touchdown for thirty two yards. He was three catches for eighty six yards and of course that touchdown along with another big forty five yard run in tonight's game, and he is a star of our RICO review today. Fran Duffie has more on that touchdown by the rookie right

here in the RICO Review. So a rough start for the Eagles in this game. The Vikings jump out to a twenty four to three lead in the second quarter. The first touchdown for the Eagles comes on a long pass from Carson Wentz to Miles Sanders. It's a familiar play. Let's take a look at how they set this up and what you're going to see first. Obviously, this is

Miles Sanders in the backfield next to Carson Wentz. You've got Nelson Agilor coming on the jet sweep, so he's gonna be coming from left to right, and that's a big part of what we're gonna see here. The other unique part about this, this is really fun, is how the Eagles you both of their tight ends. You're lined up in a why why formation? Why why just meaning that you've got two tight ends. Two why tight ends run on the line of scrimmage on a condensed look

here on the right side. So when you've got those two athletic tight ends here, two guys that are versatile, that can get down the field and even be vertical stretch options for you down the field, that's where the Eagles can get creative. And that's exactly what you're gonna see here. They're gonna catch the Vikings in a form of man coverage. And really what you've got is you've got Dallas Goddard and zach Ertz running vertically. That's ERTs

running an over route. Here's zach Ertz. He's gonna run down the seam. And all that's meant to do is just take these two defenders from Minnesota and remove them from the picture. So if you just kind of remove those guys and say, Okay, they're not going to be a factor on this play. Now you're also gonna have this jet sweep action from Nelson I brought up earlier. That's also just gonna serve as I can you give the defense at the second and third level something to

look at here in the backfield. Really, what you're trying to do is you're trying to get Miles Sanders, the rookie running back, matched up one on one with the linebacker Eric Kendricks. That's the matchup that you're trying to get here. So when you remove these two players, you have the jet sweep to hopefully kind of minimize the rush and pull away from anybody's eyes. The one guy that Carson Wentz has to make sure he accounts for

here is the safety Anthony Harris. And what you're gonna see from Carson is after the ball is snapped, he's gonna drop back and his eyes are gonna stay to that left side quickly, so his eyes are gonna be there to hold that safety. And now you're just gonna get Miles Sanders releasing down the seam again. Those two tight ends here, they're gonna be running out. That's gonna open up a nice void for Miles Sanders to run through it. We'll let this run and you can see

exactly how this plays out. Again, maintain focus on the relationship here between Miles Sanders and with Eric Kendricks. You could see the sea. He's running right down the seam. There's the matchup, great throw over the top. It's all created by those two tight ends that are stretching the defense Vertically. You've got the horizontal stretch with the jet suite from Nelson Aglor that helps create a big throw

and catch from Carson Wets to Miles Sanders. Always great stuff there from fran Ducky, Duffias Ducky, Okay Brand Duffy, especially in the Rico review. We're gonna take a quick break. On the other side. We will give you the Toyota Players of the Week nominee, and we will look ahead to the Eagles next opponent, a night game on the road against the Cowboys, a division rival. We'll be right back. Thank you. The road to night. Hey, the road by

was Rocky. Ain't gonna break must shot. Sometimes we prosper most when we help others. We respect that because it's Santon, their bank. Respect as these nuts Deet's nuts Diets and Watson, Deet's nuts, those are nuts. Deeps nuts aren't nuts nuts? Deeps nuts are meat nuts. Thank you one of those? Go ahead, Hey, Chris, how Deet's nuts taste any delicious? What a fun snack? Deets and Watson? These nuts are meat nuts? Mea nuts. Now is your chance to vote

for the Toyota Player of the Week. Go to Philadelphia Eagles dot com slash Toyota Player of the Week to cast your vote and get a chance at a brand new Toyota this week. The nominees are Carson Wentz, Miles Sanders, and all Sean Jeffrey and three really good choices there. Ike, Yeah, I like Miles Sanders. I like Miles Sanders. I mean, the other two guys sort of did what we expect them to do when you put the ball up as much as they were able to put it up today.

But I like Miles Sanders in the new role, right. I mean, they're trying to find a way to get him involved in this offense. And we talked about this offense sort of lacking the ability to be explosive. Well, Miles Sanders is an explosive player, and his great job of these coaches finding a way to get him involved in this offense. I thought it helped out the passing game tremendously today. Yeah, I think it's kind of an easy one here on Miles Sanders based on the big play.

But look, all Sean Jeffrey gets a touchdown in this one. He caught ten pauses twelve times, seventy six yards in one touchdown. And he, out of all active players, leads the patient in touchdowns and receiving yards against the Vikings. So he just has their number out there in Minnesota. Ike, Yeah, I remember the big one, a big game in the NFC Championship game, right, called the deep touchdown against him, and called a touchdown in Super Bowl fifty two as well.

So he likes. He likes when he sees the Bikers or when he's playing in Minnesota. And I'm sure if you talk to all Shan today, he would say he does not care how he did. He would rather have the win, as all these guys would. Of course, Coach Doug Peterson saying in his press conference, look, we still have ten games left. There is a lot of football

to play, and they're in a road. They're in a three game road stretch, and it's gonna be a tough one next week on the road against Dallas their next opponent. Dallas currently losing to the Jets right now seven to three. We'll see how that score holds as the day goes on, but Dallas currently three and two. We'll see how they are at the end of the day. But it's gonna that should be a really good game. You know, the

division rival, but I mean this division is wide open night. Yeah, top two teams in this division get a chance to meet up for the first time this year Sunday Night, America's Game one against that team down there on their field. I'm sure the Eagles are looking forward to getting back out on the field and trying to get get that winning taste back in their mouth, get this losing taste

out of their mouth. What better way to do it than against your chief rival in this division, a team that you expected to be sort of neck and neck with as it pertains to winning this division. And so first game you get a chance to see them next week, Hey, what a way to get a victory. Go down there and get one very high stakes in that one. But as we always stay around here, it is the most

important game because it is the next game. That game kickoff at eight twenty so we will be back here seven fifty pm with the kickoff show friend Jeffie and myself and then of course the postgame show presented by Rico I. Griss always will be joining us. We will see you next week when we get ready for that one. Have a good one everyone,