👋 Good morning! Chris Jones: Amazing player, but gotta be honest, leaving something to be desired as a trash talker.

You ever miss the perfect comeback in an argument (because it’s hard to think of the perfect comeback in the heat of the moment), and then think about it for the next few hours? Of course you have, George Costanza and his Jerk Store obsession summed that feeling up perfectly. Now, Jalen Hurts delivered a very good comeback here, a solid 7.5 out of 10. Won the game, won the encounter.

But could Jalen have done better? Something like, “I would’ve had 400 yards in the Super Bowl if we weren’t up five touchdowns on your sorry-[redacted] team!” Look, that is a great win for the Eagles, and a great comeback by Jalen Hurts. But as the Eagles’ team plane was over flyover country last night, and Jalen was unwinding with some Frankie Beverly in the AirPods, was he looking out the window and thinking he could have done better?

Probably not. But I might have!

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Lots to get to today. And oh yeah, I have something fun for y’all dropping later tonight.

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

Before we get started today, our awesome post-game show with Bo, Vinny, Jamie, Les, Fran and EJ (from Kansas City) is here. And you can listen via your favorite platform by going to our podcast page.

While watching all of the Super Bowl 59 mic’d up content, one of my favorite underrated subplots was how much Zack Baun enjoyed that the Eagles were not blitzing.

Baun was downright giddy about the state of affairs. Early on, while sitting on the bench, Baun told Oren Burks, “Hey, Vic is not gonna blitz at all this game.” Towards the end of the game, Baun pointed up at the scoreboard and marveled at the Eagles’ pressure numbers despite the zero percent blitz rate. And after the game was over, Vic Fangio tells Baun: “The guys were rushing, I didn’t need the pressure!”

And yes, the Eagles’ front four absolutely dominated in the Big Easy. Six sacks with a zero percent blitz rate, the platonic ideal for any defensive coordinator. So, with a bunch of new faces on the Eagles defense and two new faces on the Chiefs offensive line, would Uncle Vic decide to run it back and drop seven all game?

Absolutely not. The opposite, in fact. Our guy ZB looked it up.

And it worked! Not to the degree that we saw in the Super Bowl, but in fairness, that is the best defensive football we might see in decades. The Eagles improved to 2-0 on their title defense with a sloppy 20-17 at Arrowhead Stadium, and Fangio’s defensive game-plan felt like the biggest reason why.

Patrick Mahomes had 60 rushing yards in the first half, including an impressive 12-yard scramble for a touchdown down the right sideline. But unless Travis Kelce shook free of someone in the middle of the field, Mahomes had basically nobody else to throw to. Mahomes’ scrambles are usually of the back-breaking nature, but with such a banged-up receiving corps, he had to run like a madman in the first half. Despite Mahomes’ early success on the ground, that is a decent place to be as a defense.

And the formula predictably turned out to be unsustainable. Mahomes had six rushing yards after halftime.

That was not by accident. The Eagles’ pass rush and blitzes felt more disciplined as the game went on, as the mid-game adjustments are another Fangio staple. I am so thankful that the 2023 Miami Dolphins had a bunch of weak-minded players and this guy happened to be born in Scranton 65 years ago.

I am not inside Uncle Vic’s head (although I can imagine what he thought of Aaron Nola’s start yesterday), but I would guess that the decision to turn up the pressure was partially to throw a curveball (and not the Nola kind) at Mahomes and Andy Reid. After all, Big Red was probably not expecting Vic to blitz like Steve Spagnuolo. But coaching is also about adjusting to your own personnel, and Vic now also has some young legs on the defense in Jihaad Campbell and Drew Mukuba. The Eagles’ first two picks in April were both were among the blitzers in this game.

Mukuba had a very interesting day. As Fran masterfully broke down on the show, he made three unambiguously massive plays… three plays so important that he earned being called Drew.

But Mukuba also had some negative plays. He got truck-sticked by Mahomes, and not in the sideline trickery sort of way either. And as Fran pointed out here, Mukuba was probably at fault in Cover-4 on a pretty unforgivable late 49-yard touchdown pass to Tyquan Thornton… when the defense really needed to just keep everything in front. Quinyon Mitchell closed and almost made the play, but it seems like it might have been Mukuba’s coverage bust. If so, he made a few similar mistakes against Dallas. Understandable for a rookie, and it is clear Mukuba has a nose for the football, but a safety cannot keep making those killer mistakes. Not in this defense.

If Uncle Vic went deep into his bag of tricks, offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo did not. Or Patullo needs a new bag. Maybe both.

Watching the Eagles deal with Spags’ blitzes, it was the darndest thing. It felt like the offensive line and Saquon Barkley, for the most part, did an excellent job of picking the blitzes up. Not too many free rushers, certainly not as many as the Eagles had on the other side of the ball. It felt like Jalen Hurts, who used to struggle mightily against the blitz, got rid of all his bad habits from those past disasterclasses against Todd Bowles. Jalen stayed in the pocket and kept his eyes downfield, not seeming flustered. From snap to throw, it sure seemed like the Eagles did quite well.

And it got them… almost nothing? It is so weird.

The basic numbers are no bueno. Hurts threw for 101 yards on 24 dropbacks, as this passing game is scheming up no explosives. The advanced numbers? Unlike last week, when Jalen was at least efficiently dinking and dunking, they absolutely stunk. You cannot see much of the back end on the TV copy — A.J. Brown’s health and Patullo’s pass concepts are easier to discern on All-22 — but it fundamentally should not be this hard to have a functional passing offense with A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith if the blocking is sound. This needs to get fixed ASAP.

The Brian Johnson comps will be out for Patullo, but this looks different than Johnson’s 2023 offense. Brown was eating in September and October of that year, and eventually the Eagles’ issues against the blitz did them in. But right now, the Eagles are getting nothing explosive in the passing game despite Jalen Hurts seemingly playing pretty well. Patullo and co. are rightfully gonna be under a microscope this week. It just should not be this hard.

Like last week’s deep ball to Jahan Dotson, Hurts did hit one key explosive play: Zero blitz, 1-on-1s everywhere, and he stands in the pocket and hits DeVonta Smith down the sideline. Jalen delivered a nice ball, just like Nick Sirianni delivered a nice challenge flag. Nicely done all around, but there needs to be more of that.

This is not unfamiliar territory. My friend Sheil had a good stat: The Eagles are somehow 4-0 the past two seasons when they have less than 100 net passing yards. The rest of the league is 5-17. So, here we are, back with a ruthlessly successful football team with an offense that we can all rightfully pick apart during the week. Groundhog Day.

In that sense, the perfect Philadelphia team.

And since the Eagles beat the Chiefs, why don’t you take a look at our new shirt? Purchase one of these babies, just to rub it in Chris Jones’ face one more time. Who does he think he is, talking to Jalen Hurts about his stats?

Ivan Fedotov traded: I liked Bill’s joke on the live reaction pod: Uh oh, the Flyers are trading a Russian goaltender with minimal NHL experience to Columbus. Well, when you put it that way…

OK, so this is not 23-year-old Sergei Bobrovsky turning into a Vezina-level netminder. Honestly, the 28-year-old Fedotov might not even be an NHL-caliber goaltender. He had an abysmal .880 save percentage last season, and every time you watched him play, it was absolute chaos. This 6-foot-8 dude was just flailing all over the place, and not giving you a ton of confidence even when he was making saves. It’s too bad, because I loved his backstory coming from Russia and he seemed like a good dude. Remember when Fedotov made his debut, with Torts throwing him in cold in the middle of a playoff push? That was ridiculous, but also cool.

So, why did the Flyers make this deal? Two reasons, in particular:

Kolosov apparently loves himself some Lehigh Valley nowadays, which is a shock to everyone who followed that soap opera last year. Maybe he hit Dorney Park a few times over the summer and thought to himself, “Hey, this place ain’t so bad.” As Charlie wrote in his piece on the trade, do not discount him just yet. Judging from Jonesy’s comments, the Flyers certainly are not.

Flyers rooks split against the Rangers: A comeback 4-3 win in the first game on Friday, a 5-2 loss in the second. You know what they always say, it is really hard to sweep an NHL rookie game series.

Our coverage was awesome for the two games:

Barkey, formerly of the London, Ontario law firm Barkey and Bonk, is an interesting guy. He is generously listed at 5-foot-10 and 174 pounds at a time when everyone around the league is Florida-pilled and wants to field a basketball team size-wise. But Barkey was a prolific scorer in juniors (10th in the OHL in points per game last season) and seems to have a competitive streak to him. Barkey was ranked sixth in our most recent prospect rankings, but remember, it’s a pretty good system. I am rooting for him.

Penn State 52, Villanova 6: The best part of the game? The Wildcats reenacting Joe Montana to Dwight Clark on the final play of the game to cover the spread. You might beat the boys from the Main Line, but good luck covering that 48.5 number. Mark Ferrante’s guys aren’t messing around.

Temple lost by 39 to Oklahoma, too. That’s OK. It’s Oklahoma.

Phils get 2 of 3: Despite the Royals salvaging a game on Sunday, Philly decisively won Kansas City Weekend.

If the Phillies had won yesterday, there would have been amazing stat that went around: Before the Eagles’ Week 1 game, the Phils’ magic number to win the National League East was 17 games. And if the Phils won (or Mets lost) on Sunday, they would have clinched the division before the Birds kicked off for Week 2. Mini-bye and everything, that would have been an incredible sprint to the finish. The definition of “running through the tape.”

Unfortunately, the Phils had a rough day yesterday for the first time in what felt like forever. Oh well, happens. They will just have to pop bottles in Los Angeles over the next few days. The Phillies are already in the playoffs, which is something we all would have went crazy about a few years ago. Now, it’s old hat.

Aaron Nola gave up six total runs in the Rav 5th and 6th innings yesterday. Jim wrote about it for the site. I still do feel great about Nola for the postseason, but for this week, I will give him that his timing was good. If you are gonna throw one gem and one dud in a seven-day span, make the gem Game 1 against the Mets and Nolan McLean and the dud against the Royals on Sunday when football is on.

Loved how the Phillies offense looked for most of this weekend, relentless stuff. And they will need it this week, because we have a monster series in Los Angeles. The Phils are 4.5 games up on the Dodgers for the No. 2 seed, and they are in Chavez Ravine for three starting tonight. The good news? We have the three horses going: Ranger, then Cris, then Jesús. Shohei Ohtani is pitching on Tuesday for LA.

Vancouver 7, Union 0: Not a typo.

Oh yeah, the Eagles definitely got away some false starts on the Tush Push yesterday. Weary warrior, gather ye strength, The Tush Push Wars will be raging today and tomorrow. All of those exotic blitzes from Uncle Vic? Nobody will be talking about them today. It will be all Tush Push.

I will see you on the front lines. Bring your screen shots of encroachment in the neutral zone, and I will bring mine.

Other than that, we have late-night baseball (10:10 p.m., NBC Sports Philly, MLB Network).

Your tentative Monday schedule at ​PHLY​:

Let's make it a good one.

Rich Hofmann
Daily Newsletter Editor
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