👋 Good morning! Mr. Janky Rondo, how does a Big J Journalist like myself officially give you the proper attribution?

According to Janky Rondo? As told to Janky Rondo? Per Janky Rondo? Janky Rondo has learned?

If you are reader, Mr. Janky Rondo, please just hit me up.

And you know who else you should hit up? Righteous Felon Craft Jerky.

This Chester County based company has the perfect snack that satisfies your hunger and provides the right amount of protein to fulfill your body’s daily needs, and they have been doing it for over a decade. If you are the kind of person who wants a deal and snacks delivered right to your doorstep, you can order online using discount code PHLY20 for 20% off. Righteous Felon has all kinds of cool variety packs and bundles on the site.

As always, you can reach me at [email protected]

Motownphilly trivia!

(1) Eagles: The Birds beat the Lions 58-37 in a 1995 wild-card playoff game at The Vet. Rodney Peete threw for three touchdowns, but name the two Eagles running backs who scored on the ground that day.

(2) Sixers: Not a great time to be Chauncey Billups. But it wasn’t always that way! Billups’ Pistons knocked the Sixers out of the playoffs three times in the aughts (2000-2009). What years did that happen in?

(3) Flyers: The Orange and Black got swept in the 1997 Stanley Cup Finals. Who scored the winning goal in Game 4 for the Red Wings?

As always, answers at the bottom.

Do I want to be writing about this? Not particularly. But burying our heads in the sand on this one is not the right course of action, either.

A.J. Brown went on Janky Rondo’s video game stream (“as told to Janky Rondo”) in the middle of the night. As one does. And A.J. did not mince any words. Some of the highlights…

More one-liners than Rodney Dangerfield.

Tim McManus had a good piece the other day about the Eagles’ culture. I have been thinking about it for a few days. The gist of that piece is that the Eagles internally feel exactly how some (many?) fans are feeling at times during this unprecedented run of success around here: How much does the never-ending pursuit of excellence affect all of this? On one hand, constantly striving for excellence can help avoid complacency, lead to innovation and spur improvement. But when you are doggedly chasing something (perfection) that is neither realistic nor attainable, it also can lead to unnecessary disappointment and sometimes friction. After all, this is the NFL we are talking about. The other guys get paid, too.

It goes back to the Jalen Hurts quote: “What's more important, winning or the standard?"

A.J. Brown pretty clearly cares about The Standard. Remember his Instagram post two days after the Super Bowl? The one where he basically said, “The championship was nice, but my thrill for this game comes when I dominate.” You probably cheered that one in the moment. I certainly did, you can check the newsletter archives. At that point, we naturally viewed A.J.’s pursuit of excellence through the positive lens. He isn’t satisfied! He is gonna get even better!

Now, I look at it a little differently. That reaction is also natural, because you are seeing other end of the double-edged sword. The Eagles are 7-2 with four excellent wins on their resumé. It’s never perfect for them within a game, not even close. But then you zoom out and as far as title defenses go, this one ain’t all that bad. Again, winning in the NFL is hard. But A.J. Brown is falling woefully short of his standard (dominance), and thus is clearly not happy on this 7-2 football team. In response, A.J. is going on Twitch streams and telling the world, “I am not happy!” There is no misunderstanding here. There is no media creation.

So, I hold two thoughts at once here:

This brings us back to the Eagles culture. It’s understandable to view the A.J. situation through the same lens as past feuds that tore apart locker rooms — Donovan and T.O., in particular — but I do not think that is the case here. E.J. explained here and here about how he does not think A.J. voicing his displeasure publicly creates as many ripples within the Eagles locker room as we might think from the outside. That these group of Eagles, for whatever reason, are not fazed by this.

And maybe that is because this locker room, full of Georgia and Alabama guys on top of guys who have won a lot in Philadelphia, understands a player striving for The Standard. That they understand a guy wanting “to let your killers do your thing.”

You know who does not want to talk about A.J.’s usage, though? Nick Sirianni. He got a little testy at the press conference yesterday.

Sirianni is the perfect encapsulation of Winning vs. The Standard. The man has the second-best winning percentage in the Super Bowl era behind John Madden. If we remove Guy Chamberlin, who coached before The Great Depression, this list goes Madden, Lombardi, Sirianni. It’s truly wild. And yet, his conservative leanings are part of why his star wide receiver is underperforming and unhappy… and, by the way, aren’t emotional intelligence and handling the locker room supposed to be the strength of Sirianni’s? Again, Winning vs. The Standard.

Obviously, these two ideas are not mutual exclusive. Brown said it at one of his monthly State of the Unions at his locker: “Thank you for the ring, but it’s a new season. They adapted, we have to adapt and continue to get better and find new ways.” That’s a guy who wants the offense to be better, which contributes to winning. The Standard.

But that is the double-edged sword that comes with these Philadelphia Eagles. Hey, from the outside, I’ll take it.

And yes, it’s very funny that Janky Rondo is the person who spurred all of this self-introspection.

Some leftover defensive notes from the game: Thanks to Fran, for the most part…

I wondered how the defensive line rotation would shake out, and some things we saw:

Edge-rusher usage: Of 68 snaps, we had…

In the alignment, Phillips primarily played on the left side with Smith and Graham mostly moving over to the right. As Fran pointed out here, Campbell was not great against the run a few times as an edge player. And as Nolan Smith gets healthier, you wonder if those on-the-line snaps decrease for the rook.

Linebacker usage: Uncle Vic had a full bye week to come up with a plan. Here is what he settled on.

Secondary usage: Mainly Adoree’ Jackson at CB2, along with the other Core Four.

Quinyon Mitchell is insanely good, by the way. Nate Tice posted that Q is first among outside corners in completion percentage against and success rate.

Some offensive notes from the game: Really, just A.J. notes if we are being honest.

Teams that have played more zone coverage have limited A.J.’s targets. Matt Eberflus and Jeff Hafley played the most zone so far this season. But as much heat as Kevin Patullo is taking, Jalen Hurts just did not see A.J. Brown a few times in the game on Sunday. Fran pointed out a rare man snap from Green Bay here that might have been a touchdown. And Deniz pointed out a missed opportunity against zone here. Neither of these are examples of a film grinder simplifying QB play, A.J. was open on both plays.

Some good news? The Lions play the third-most man-to-man in the NFL.

And while we are at it, make sure you are signed up for Fran’s draft newsletter. Just like this baby, it’s free.

The whole offensive line is hurt: Well, except for Jordan Mailata.

That said, two good pieces of news there: Cam Jurgens back practicing and Lane Johnson being a limited participant. I was not happy with Evan Williams at 10:00 p.m. on Monday night. He missed that tackle by a mile! But when the Eagles announced that Lane had an ankle injury instead of a knee injury, you felt a little better.

Dan Campbell, The Man: Dan “The Man” Campbell, that is.

I saw three clips from Campbell’s presser today and all of them were just a delight. Game preview coming tomorrow, but there will be no Man Campbell slander in this newsletter. The Lions were the only team on the Eagles schedule who voted to save The Tush Push, by the way. Don’t know about him calling plays, but big fan over here.

Edmonton 2, Flyers 1 (OT): Could have been a regulation win, turns into an overtime loss. Post-game pod is here, I am sure Charlie will have a bunch of notes on the site.

Three continuing storylines…

(1) The Flyers vs. The Blue Line: So, Travis Konecny would have won this thing with about 20 seconds left in regulation. But Owen Tippett messed up big time by going offsides. And this one stunk for two reasons:

This was more egregious than Sean Couturier the other night, because unlike Matvei Michkov, Konecny was skating straight ahead with the puck. Rick Tocchet gotta have a talk with the fellas about the blue line.

(2) The Flyers vs. Toronto: Not happy with the powers that be taking away points from the Orange and Black. A bunch of Colin Campbells up there! After this and the goaltender interference in Carolina, we are gonna need some calls!

(3) The Flyers vs. Overtime: Just get it into a shootout, boys. Sit on the puck!

Elsewhere, Matvei Michkov scored his third straight goal, and Dan Vladar continues to rock.

Sanchy comes in second: So, Paul Skenes won the National League Cy Young. Unanimous, all 30 first-place votes. But you know who got all 30 second-place votes?

Congrats are in order for Cristopher Sánchez. Phenomenal season. And Sanchy makes it three Phillies in five years that have come in second for the NL Cy Young. I am still mad about Corbin Burnes’ 2021 win over Zack Wheeler, by the way. Rob Manfred, you’re an outside-the-box kinda guy. You can retroactively give that one to the rightful winner any day you’d like.

#UniformTalk: The Sixers will have five, count ‘em, five uniforms this year. The regular whites, the regular blues, the regular reds, and the throwback blacks, and now this one…

Basically just changed the color on these jawns from 2019-20. Seems like they are only gonna roll these out for a few games, a more half-hearted release.

I understand why the Sixers keep releasing new jerseys (so people have new jerseys to buy), but we are close to a decade into the Nike alternate jersey renaissance and I would not mind seeing some of their better choices ran back. The Spectrum jerseys with the Spectrum court? Those were beautiful.

V.J. Edgecombe is struggling after his hot start. Gonna write about that a little more tomorrow. The fellas talked about that more here.

Picture this: a fan cave that actually feels like your dream setup. Thanks to Ashley, that could be real. We’re giving away a $2,500 Ashley Furniture Gift Card! Go big on a sectional, add some stylish pieces, or trick out your space for game day. All up to you. Just visit ashleyfancave.com, see if you're eligible, fill out the form, and you’re entered.

It’s that simple. Enter now and you might be watching the next big game in a fan cave built by you, courtesy of Ashley.

Nothing game-wise! We will be talking Eagles-Lions. And I will probably throw on Pats-Jets, because why not, I’ll watch that garbage.

Your tentative Thursday schedule at PHLY:

And oh yeah, the trivia answers:

Let’s make it a good one.

Rich Hofmann
Daily Newsletter Editor
PHLY SPORTS