Five Eagles Training Camp Thoughts With BLG!

[MUSIC] Filly special she'll kapati here on a Sunday night and we've got a man. You know what happened? We were about to like we just signed on and we just started talking and we were about to do the podcast before the podcast on like three separate occasions so I haven't even asked this guy how he's doing. You know I'm Brandon Lee Goughton from Bleeding, Green Nation, PLG. How's it going my friend? I'm doing great guys. Glad to be back here with you talking about presumably. So don't be Eagles and more. Are you getting like the shakes a little bit like you're on here with me on a Sunday night? Are you like, oh man, I got to pull it all night or I got I got so much Eagles covers that's going to be posted on Bleeding Green Nation. It's not that, PLG. Tell your body we're going to do the podcast for who knows hour hour and a half and then you're free to do what everyone get to bed at a reasonable hour because you've got a big week of Eagles training can practice this coming. Three straight practices coming up here which I feel like in the modern Eagles era here is kind of like the gauntlet for them. You know they like in years past at most they would go like two days in a row. Three is kind of like oh wow that's like a big stretch for them as opposed to you know years and years ago when there's two days and everything the real football guys still pine for. Yeah, PLG has been you've been to all three practices so far right, PLG. Yes, PLG has been to all three public not public practices but practices open to the media. I'm going to get down there this week PLG so I'll get to see you in person. Hopefully Tuesday and Wednesday. That's my plan. Let's see if the weather accommodates. Let's see if the other work for responsibilities accommodate but that's my plan to get down there Tuesday and Wednesday and then we'll have ZB on hopefully Wednesday afternoon or evening and we can discuss what I saw with my own eyes at Eagles practice but PLG has been down there for the three practices so I gave some homework. I don't really like I don't like to give the guests homework but in this case I was like he's probably just got all these Eagles takes thoughts observations bouncing around his head again you can find them all on bleeding green nation.com so he's coming to the table here with five takeaways so far now we'll do all the caveats here. PLG it's been three practices none of these are set in stone we might have you back on in a couple weeks and you're going to be like nope I've totally changed my mind on x, y and z but you know what people can't get enough of Eagles football and specifically Eagles training camp coverage I know that from my many years in this city so I think this is going to be fun we'll see what direction you go I've got some observations off your observations and we'll see where the conversation takes us. No pads on yet as well you know that's a it's a favorite of the the ringer's release but I favorite of shill kapadia's especially you know like on the pads come on the people who ask that question every year. Oh yeah my favorite for new listeners because we do have some new listeners BLJ now BLJ you know has been with me for a long time so he knows all my go-to's my staples and he knows that my favorite times of Eagles training camp for the summer two times one is when the pads come on and the reporters you know we'll go up to every single player they can find and they how to feel to finally put those pads on and get to hit somebody and then so that was that was always like an annual tradition there at training camp and the second one is whether it's a joint practice or the first preseason game whatever the first occasion is where they're going to play another team or practice against another team the other questions how's it going to feel to be able to hit someone in another jersey and then they go around and they ask 15 different players about that so we're not quite there yet BLJ but we might we we should be there at some point this week with the pads at least I think right it will be soon sooner than later I believe okay there you go all right BLJ let's get it started here give me your first takeaway from three days down there at I'm just going to say the practice facility I'm ready to get free ads yeah so this is not a ripoff as you'll say it here since he prompted this of the great zebra you know they coming into the show given us dynamite takes but I would say it is an homage to that in in reverence of that to some extent my number one thing thinking about the field of Eagles after watching few training camp practices and then accounting for the fact for what I saw in the spring practices as well is that this defense as we've all been talking about as I think the city of Philadelphia expects them to be a really really good defense like maybe the best defense in the NFL upside kind of defense but with the confidence I say that and I look at a talent here and I look at how they're a new year three of this system and they just look really well coached and all buttoned up it sticks out in contrast how the offense I think has a way to go and that's to be expected right new offensive coordinator and especially in contrast to a scheme that's entering their third year under the same defensive coordinator moving parts no AJ Brown different offensive line coach however I will say like I've been thinking about at what point do we just you know stop saying it's early right because at some point it's it's not going to be early and it's going to get late so I do think we have to give grace to the offense that's where I'm at currently but I am like wondering you know is this going to be uneven throughout is this something that jails this year or is this something that maybe we're just seeing isn't going to fully form at some point okay so you were down it seems like Saturday was the big day for this right BLG where the offense really struggled so give us some give us some color some anecdotes was it interceptions was it sacks was it not getting lined up right I mean where did people look frustrated is this just like all right it's only one practice but certainly they didn't look great like what were some of the things you saw specifically on Saturday or really they threw out the first three days that have your attention with the offense into your point and we'll get to this in a minute but yeah a lot of it is to be expected I mean we can't really overstate the type of change that the Eagles are undergoing offensively whether it's thematically whether it's offensive coordinator whether it's offensive line coach whether it's not having a j brown whether it's a rookie trying to figure this stuff out for the first time in macaquee lemon there is a lot going on there that I want to talk more about but what were just some of the things you saw at practice that maybe had your attention I mean quite simply they're thrilled to move the ball that's a big one the offense and we saw some different things in the third practice then we saw let's say the first practice where there's a lot more of the under center play action and I'm kind of buying into that helping jalen hurts as it relates to kind of being on time more with some of these throws I think that kind of helps them with that as a in contrast we saw a lot of more shotgun on sunday and I think there were times where holding the ball too long there were times where quick pressure it should be noted here that lean johnson did not practice on Saturday so he had Fred johnson in there and that was a big issue for the starting offense because I don't want to spoil one of my other takes entirely right now but jayles hunt at a big day and the pass rush defensive line had a big day against the eagles offensive line and dickerson also missed a little bit of time just rotationally with Drew Kendall filling in there so so you can you know kind of explain away a little bit you're missing some of your better offensive lineman in there that makes some sense but as a whole I just think they're again they just did not look crisp they did not look like a unit that is you know ready to roll from week one a clear day where when you're at the end of practice and you're assessing you know who won offensive defense it seemed like a clear win for the defense right next to you any set it at one point I think those specifically in reference to the end of practice you know situational drills they do but he said it on a speaker phone that the defense won the day got you okay all right so here's how I because I was thinking about this so BLG did give me kind of the general topics he wanted to discuss but I was like how do I feel about some of these things here's how I'm approaching the season BLG in regards to the offense and maybe I'll come off this stance before week one but kind of here's where I'm at right now and I think I probably will stick with this it's just the most significant change we've seen during the heart seriani era we just mentioned it new scheme that appears to be very different than what they were doing previously even though as you alluded to maybe they're still you know mixing in some of the old stuff maybe it's a certain week or red zone or an opponent or whatever where they'll mix that in a little bit more but I think the foundation of the scheme is going to be very different you have a first time OC and play collar you have a new offensive line coach as I mentioned Aja Brown McIlam and mentioned all so think about all those things and just like take a deep breath step back like it really is a lot you know some off seasons or some summers you make it into a lot and then you look back and we get and you're like all right it really wasn't that much new stuff going on there this I believe is really going to be a massive change from what they've done previously so how I'm approaching it is I think the first four six eight weeks I don't know what the number is Something around there, I think they're gonna be pretty up and down for the offense. I'm not saying they're gonna score 10 points a game. I'm not saying they're gonna be the worst offense in the NFL. I think it's gonna be pretty inconsistent. We're one week we might say, "Hey, I look pretty good." They let it off and scored 30 points. And the next week we might be like, "Man, that looked all the change we talked about in August. That looked like it showed up this week." And I think when you added all up, let's say the halfway point of the season, I'm gonna be pretty surprised if they're like a top 10 offense at that point in time. No, they could surprise me again. I'm wrong. I have a, we all have a bunch of predictions in August that we look back on and are like, "Whoa, I totally missed that, so maybe I'll be wrong about that." But that's how I'm approaching it. I think if you're a fan of what you have to look at is, can the defense be dominant enough early in the season where the offense has some of those ups and downs, you still have a pretty good record. Offense has their growing pains. And then maybe around Halloween, maybe around Thanksgiving, maybe somewhere in between there, early November, things really start to click. And we all start talking about, "Hey, I think they might be finding themselves on offense now where they went through those bumps in the road early in the season, but now they're getting it together." And then we get to December and we're like, "Hey, this looks like the offense that everybody was dreaming of and now the post season's about to begin." That's kind of the trajectory I'm looking at, a successful season for the Eagles offense. So I don't know what you get to the end of that, but do the final stats say I don't know, but that's kind of what I think, that's how I think it's fair to look at this Eagles offense, agree, disagree, PLG. - I think that's fair. It's just the point I'm making, especially in relative, in contrast to how we just feel, like the defense said it and forget it. Like no one's losing sleep over this defense. Everyone's like, "Yeah, it's gonna be a great defense." I think any kind of, and I don't think everyone's saying this, but I think any kind of assertion, that the offense will definitely be fine. I'm not there. I don't know, it's definitely gonna be fine. I'm not bearish on it. I'm not saying, like, there's no chance. There's no feeling for it. There absolutely is. I am keeping very much keeping an open mind on the offense. And like you said, almost like, I think they deserve a grace period even, which is not something I've always wanted myself saying, about the Eagles of Things. We won't be saying that in like week two, but you know what we can say in August, yeah, we know how this goes. And that's the fun of an NFL season. That's the fun about our jobs. Is that, of course, if they come out in week one and score 10 points, we're gonna be like, "Oh my gosh, this just could be a disaster." That's okay, but yeah, in our heads now, we can say it a different way. So, yeah, I think reasons to keep that door open, have hope for the offense, but kind of would like to see, you know, some more signs of life from them throughout training camp. - I still really cling to the idea that it all comes down to the offensive line. And I'm not trying to remember when, like, talking about offensive line play was like hipstree, you know, like 25 years ago, I was like, "Oh man, this guy, this person's really talking to that offensive line. It's not that way anymore. Sometimes when I say it, I still feel that way in my head, but yeah, I really think it's just gonna come down to how healthy are those guys, how effective are they? If it's a top five, top eight, offensive line, I really think the other pieces have a good chance to succeed, but that's a big if that we don't know the answer to until the games begin and until it's week six. And we say, "Who's healthy? Who's not?" Maybe their depth gets tested a little bit. And to your point, the pads aren't on. So again, that is even tough to evaluate at this point in time. I will say this, Bill, gee, I'm working. I have my Google Docs up over here. I'm working on, I always do offensive and defensive rankings for all 32 teams before the season. And I'm working on those. I'm not to the AFC yet, where I just started the AFC, but in the NFC, the only defense I have above the Eagles right now is the Seattle Seahawks. And that's kind of, you know, gotta give them the benefit of the doubt after what they did last year. To your point, where it shocked me if the Eagles, where the best defense in the NFL, it would not. In my head, I think Eagles Houston Seattle feel like the three best defenses in the NFL by maybe a relatively wide margin. So I mean, I mean, there are like, as I'm doing this exercise, there are a lot of bad defenses or a lot of defenses that I have a lot of question marks about. And it's actually the opposite for offense. 'Cause you look at, you know, when there are teams that have the same quarterback and play collar generally, and you could just say, hey, what have they done in the last five years? It's like, okay, I can have a pretty good idea of what that offense is going to be. There's not a lot of variance. So I see a lot of good offenses, and I have a lot of offenses, quite frankly, ranked ahead of the Eagles right now, just 'cause I have more certainty about them. And I have the Eagles defense right now as a top three unit in the NFL. We'll see where I come out on those once I get through the AFC. All right, biology, that was number one. Offense has a ways to go. It's only three practices. Let's see what it looks like here for the next few weeks. Let's see how we're feeling going into week one. What do you have? What's number two on your list? - Well, one of the big reasons why I think this Eagles defense is gonna be so good is that Jaleigh's hunt looks very much ready to make a leap from year two to year three, just like we saw him make a big leap last year from year one to year two. He's been dominating in this training camp. Yeah, no pads, all the time he got to one, but and it wasn't just the fact that he went up against Fred Johnson, which mind you, that's what a good player should do when they're going up against a backup is like dominate them. And that's what-- - And you're gonna face players like that in the regular season. It's not always, you know, it's not usually at all pro you're facing, especially at offensive tackle. - And then earlier in camp, he was going up on the other side of the line against my lotta. So, like, you know, it's not just like, oh, you know, he was been invisible and then he went up against Fred Johnson and had an awesome day. No, he's been great. Jaleigh's hunt led to Eagles in sacks last year with six and a half, which is in the ton. I wouldn't be shocked to be doubled that this year. Like I think he's gonna have a really big year. I think, especially with Bernard, you know, being banged up here, I feel more confident now saying that Jaleigh could very well, again, lead the team in sacks again. There's just every reason to buy into this guy. Like awesome personality from all we can tell brings energy, juice to the defense. He's always dancing around, swagger. Just is, you know, athletic can drop into coverage as well as being a pass rusher. And this was kind of the vision when he goes drafted him. Like it was not about Jaleigh's hunt, you know, being this finished product coming out of Houston, Christian and having previously played safety or Cornell, it was that down the road, this guy could really materialize into something. And really, he did show promise. I remember just dating back to his rookie training camp earlier than any of us thought. So like, almost like why not give him the benefit of the doubt and project big things for him because he just continues to blow away. I think the expectations we've had for him in the past. - Fiji, I must remind how we all the time, you know, I saw something at Jaleigh's time, told you guys to draft him and now look at him. And you're getting him on that rookie contract. I helped you out. You better listen to me in these future drafts. Yeah, when you said you wanted to talk about Jaleigh's hunt, I did a little mini deep dive, wonderful football player. And I was trying to think of his strength to me is all the different stuff he could do. You know, you mentioned it, drop into coverage so that the team in interceptions can play the run, can rush the passer, plays with a great motor, high effort player. Seems like a great teammate. It seems like somebody who really could be a fan favorite if he plays in Philadelphia for a long time. And you look at the past rush numbers. Not only did he lead the team in SACS, BLG. He had 54 pressures, which was 20 more than any other eagle, 20 more pressures than any other eagle. And that's, you know, next gen stats does it by, all right, how close did you get to the quarterback? That's basically when they track a pressure. So at least it's consistent there. But that was impressive. He led the team in quick pressures, which they also track, which is like how, I think it's two seconds, two and a half seconds. I forget what the number is, you know, how quickly did you accumulate those pressures? And he led the team in that as well. Now, as I look at him, the doubling six and a half SACS, I know. I feel like ZB is definitely, I don't know if he's had this in an article, but I feel like he's definitely going to say double digit SACS for JLX Hunt. The only thing when I watch him, I'm not like just him one on one versus tackle. He's like an elite past pressure, you know, the like sees with mild scarred and Mike Parsons and Will Anderson and Daniel Hunter and Aiden Hutchinson, whoever else I'm forgetting. Like I haven't seen that yet, but at the same time, I don't throw cold water on what you're saying because of the background you mentioned. Like this is still, it's not Jordan Milata, but this is still relatively new to him that he's playing edge rusher. He's only 25 years old. The past rushers sometimes take a little longer to develop. So I think that's seal, I think we'll be silly to put a ceiling on him, given all the things you said. - There's been durability there too, knock on wood. That hasn't been an issue for him. Contrast that, you know, with Nolan Smith who said injuries to his struggle to stay healthy. I just think he checks every box and there's like every reason to feel like, oh yeah, this guy could be special. And one of the, you know, we're all talking about when you're on Mitchell, Cooper to Jean, rightfully so. obviously John Carter and Jordan Davis too after getting paid, but Joe, I think it's going to be a big part of this defense. This Eagles defense for years to come. They're just so loaded on defense. It's like this dev chart is crazy. You know, I don't remember. For like, certainly since I've been covering the Eagles, I don't remember a depth chart with this, the defensive depth chart with this many good young players. Yeah, like I'm sure we could find one where we're like, although, you know, those were great defense is a those compare, but these are all guys. In their early to mid 20s that if you just follow the history of the NFL, this is when you are either, you know, ascending or peaking or you're maybe plateauing, but you're doing that for like the next three years. It's like the arrow is pointing up or at least pointing sideways for all of your most talented defensive players. I mean, it almost never lines up that way. And again, you just look at the other depth charts and the NFL. It's like night and day with with the majority of other teams in the NFL. It's just kind of no contest, whether the Eagles have a more talented defense or not. So yeah, if Jalice Hunt makes that kind of leap, you've already paid the defensive tackles. You made the grenade move. We'll see what you get from Nolan Smith. You like where you're at with linebacker with Zach Vaughn and Jihad Campbell. You really like where you're at a corner back. I know you want to talk about safety later. You're not going to have an all pro at every single position. But yeah, they are in a very, very good spot with the talent on this defense. A couple of other things I looked up on specifically on Jalice Hunt, BLG. One is that his time to pressure and his time to sack. They track those like what's the average time it to those are pretty high compared to a lot of the other top pass rushers. Now it was kind of backing up my eye test where I thought it wasn't always him just winning quickly beating a tackle was a lot of high effort. Kind of high IQ again. He hasn't played the position a long time, but a lot of high IQ plays, you know, when you're an edge rusher and you kind of notice, all right, the quarterback stepping up. I'm not going to continue to rush on the high side and be six yards behind him. When the ball comes out, no, he's stepping up. All right. Let me change my rush and kind of have a second move here and chase him down. I felt like that was the type of thing he was really good at. And so that's something that should be pretty consistent. I think year to year, I was looking at the rotation. Like, how do you think this shakes out? You know, let's say we don't know what, first of all, what's your level of concern with Jonathan Grinard, ZB was kind of talking about this on our last episode that he's on the PUP list. The Eagles messaging is everybody relax. You don't need to make a big deal out of this. We've heard that sometimes before and it's been true. We've heard that sometimes before and it's not been true. Just kind of from being down there observing it, having written about this stuff for so long. What's your level of concern with Grinard, not practicing this summer? Well, if it's Fantio, certainly seem to be a little bit more concerned than how he was. I don't think it's a matter of Johnson Grinard missing week one and he even posted on his Instagram story. He put like a little week one eyeball emoji thing out there. So I think he's going to be out there and how we did say that as much. I don't because I think he's a tough player. He played through injury last year. It's the question of, does it linger? Does it hamper his ability to be effective to some extent? Those are the questions I have this season when it comes to the injury and not so much. Is he going to be out there again ready to play when the season starts? Yeah, because I think the story last year was he was injured. He came back. He wasn't as effective when he came back and then they kind of shut him down. Not right. It was something to that degree. So it's not just a matter of his he out there. It's how effective is he. I've been talking about all off seasons and say, man, if this guy's healthy, like you're going to love him as Eagles fans. Hopefully I didn't put the cupidey curse on him. BLJ and he's you know all of a sudden he's playing injured and he doesn't look that good. People are yelling at me. I hope that's not the case. So hopefully he can be healthy. It's just kind of a situation to monitor here. But what I was starting to ask you there was just sort of the snaps here because I was looking at it last year. Nolan Smith comes back healthy and he really started to get a full workload. It was around week 12. And so I was looking from week 12 to the end of the season. That edge rotation and Jalen Phillips played the most snaps. And then Jalex hunt and Nolan Smith. It was almost the same amount of snaps almost exactly the same those two those two kind of split split the snaps right down the middle. Do you feel like this year it's going to be a granard sort of takes that Phillips role and he's playing the most snaps and hunt and Smith are still rotating. Do you feel like hunts definitely going to out snap Nolan Smith just because his performance is going to be better. And he's really thoughts on how they kind of rotate that edge group. Prior to the granard injury, I would have said him number one, but with having some concern about that. And then the fact that I've just seen Jalex, you know, continue to take off here is trajectory. I'm going to say Jalex is the top dog here. And I think it'll be close with granard. I think those are the top two. And then Nolan Smith will come in a little bit under that. And then we'll see how it goes from there afterwards. And then we'll be kind of like the big top three and then kind of a tear skip after that. But yeah, I think jail is going to be the guy at this point. Again, Jalex hunt, Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis, all these young guys up there upfront. There also just a bunch of police upfront. Honestly, like it's not just going to be about past. I think this will be a front that you can just feel week to week, the kind of defenses you love to watch. And then we look at it on Tuesday. And it's like, oh my gosh, they look at him ragdolling this tight end. Man, I can't believe they tried to block him with that guy or you know guards pulling like Nolan Smith did during the Super Bowl season. I mean, these are all just physical players who want to kind of bring that fight to the opponent. And those types of defenses are just so fun to watch. I really think that's going to be the identity of this front seven. A lot of energy there too. You know, I mentioned jail X, he's always dancing. Jordan Davis, obviously he brings a lot of energy to the table. Kind of like their new branding Graham, you know, swimming, branding Graham doesn't play this season brings a lot of levity and positive energy. Jalen Carter, you know, certainly as we know, can mix it up and show a lot of personality on the field as well. So you have that. Yeah, I think it's a dynamic group and that kind of goes hand in hand with the youth we're talking about too. These are guys who I think are genuinely excited to play and aren't just, you know, like, you know, there's no, they're not jaded at all. Yeah, I got to go back and look at those early 90s, Eagles defenses and just kind of see the age of all those guys and whether it was the same kind of, you know, was it a more of a mix of younger and older talent or was it like, nope, all those guys because a lot of those guys were pretty young. They probably were in their 20s will be front fun to do a little side by side of that later this summer. All right, let's take a break. We come back BLG has got a few more takeaways and listen, he's wearing a six or sat this pot. We're clip looked at him. It's like, oh, six or sat so you know, we have to get BL. We haven't gotten BLGs take on LeBron on his excitement for the six or wears the out with the fills fills take two of three. From the Orioles cliff will interrupt us if they make some kind of trade deadline move because we got as we record this what 21 hours or so until the trade deadline. So we'll get to all of that stuff at the end. But when we come back a few more Eagles takeaways from BLG. All right, we are back on the ringers. Billy special. How was your summer BLJ? What have you been up to? Yeah, any traveling? You just enjoying a great time to be in Philadelphia? What was the summer like? As much as I am some ways in the same boat as Zach Burman in terms of being energized. For Eagles training camp, obviously I can never Matt Zeebrem no one possible. No one can't. That's an unfair bar. I would be concerned if someone did. I think you know that's Zach's title. But you know, I do miss some of the summer. You know, I had some good times going to Vermont with one of my friends there went did some. I wasn't like a see I'm not the kind of person who loves like a camp situation. I was gonna ask. I didn't think you were an outdoorsy guy, but I wasn't sure. It was more of a glam situation at least how most people would define it. To me, even it wasn't even fully glam because we're in like a big tent thing that was already set up. It wasn't like we were rough on it on our own like that. And there was a bed like a full size bed. I think it's a tent. But you know, it's it's outdoors and like there's no electricity or anything. Oh, I was gonna ask. Okay. So what's the most important question? What's the bathroom situation in this bad boy? Exactly. Yeah, that I so I worked out where it was only two nights. So I only had to use the it was a privy as they call it. One time the other times, you know, it was trying to take you out. I was trying to take it right into what is a privy. I don't even know what that is. B L J. I don't really know if this is for the body. It was more like a bucket that was kind of set up a little bit more. Yeah. It wasn't literally just a bucket, but it was like effectively just a bucket. Oh, that doesn't sound like the glamping to me because I've seen some of the glamping stuff. It kind of pops up on my Instagram. And I'm like, oh, that actually looks kind of nice. I could, you know, I could get down at a place like that. I'm not sleeping in a tent. I have a bathroom. But you this sounds like you were roughing. I don't know if this is glamping. For my standards, it is roughing it for sure. - Good, a couple days up there, a few days in Vermont. I came back and then did a big road trip, ultimately out to see some of the friends I have in Michigan, but along the way we stopped in some places in kind of like Western Pennsylvania, not quite Pittsburgh, but like John's town. I believe it's called Ligonair, Pennsylvania. - John's town flood. You probably got some information on that. - I do not. - The Great John's town flood. - No, okay, all right. I can't Wikipedia that one after this. - But yeah, so went out there and then came back, obviously drove back as well. So that was about a week. And then basically, if I like the summer, it was over after that and right back at training camp. - Were you near any bodies of water in Michigan or when you got to like the Midwest? - We did go to like Detroit, you know, proper like downtown and go to, I think it's called Bell Island, which is like a little island they have off of the city there, a pretty place. And then I was down at the beach of course, and in lovely Brighantine, New Jersey. - Oh, that's where we went for a few days, Brighantine, BL. - Very nice. - Actually saw a listener there. Now I forget his name because it was several weeks ago, but that ice cream, you know, placed its, - Ah, oh, oh, well, do you want to say the name or? - We could say it, it was a nice spot. - It was, it's something cow, right? - Yeah. - Or no. - Is it moor cow? Or were we really messing this up? Anyway, good ice cream spot. But yeah, so ran into a, ran into a listener there, which was fun. So yeah, I like a Brighantine. You like a Brighantine? - I do. It's a great time. My girlfriend's parents are down there. So it's nice to stop by. Crazy. I mean, we did a nice time, most of all. Or more than not. There was a little fiasco with one of the dogs got out. So it was like driving around the neighborhood. Everyone was looking around. Thankfully, everything was okay. So I made it to a way back home, I think, before any of us did. And when I was like, oh, you're back now. So everything worked out, but a little stressful to mix in with the vacation time. - All right, we're getting off topic here. But I've been meaning to ask this, we'll get back to Eagles here in a second. But I've actually been meaning to ask this during a mail bag, but I know ZB doesn't have any dogs. So he wouldn't be the right person to ask here. I always wonder, like, I like dogs. I don't own any dogs. You know, if a friend has a dog, it's like, oh, this is fine. I don't get to play with the dog and pet the dog. If I'm going for a walk, like you just said, the dog got out. If there's a dog that gets out, and I'm just going for a walk, what am I supposed to do, BLG? Like, am I supposed to, you know, I've always wondered that. It's actually never happened, but you know, there'll be dogs who are just behind defense. And they're, you know, I walk by and they're barking and I give them a little wave or whatever, but they're not getting out. But I always wonder, like, what if the dog got out? And is there some protocol I'm supposed to follow? Like, if I'm pretty sure it's not, you know, like a dangerous situation or anything, you know, like, what am I supposed to do there? Do you know, is there a standard protocol that dog people could tell me about? - This happened to me earlier this summer, where I was on a run and, you know, I'm on my, oh, you're jogging along. And all of a sudden, like, like, look down. There's a dog running with me and I'm like, (laughing) and I was like, okay, maybe, you know, it was like, you know, on a, it was in a park. I was passing the park at this point. So, you know, maybe just ran out of someone's orbit. But I was looking around, I couldn't see anyone at first. And thankfully, I stopped and the dog wasn't a leash and I stepped on the leash and just like stood there and I was like looking around and eventually a person made themselves known. And so it worked out there. But, I mean, that's tough because you kind of really have to sus it out, you know, this could maybe not be a friendly dog, you don't know. - That's right. Yeah, that's what I'm like. I don't want to just start trying to pet the dog and then dogs, you know, not happy with me. So I never know what to do. - You gotta be looking around, right? You kind of have to like get a sense of like, is there anyone chasing it down? Is there anyone else seeing this? - Probably just stay calm, you know, just, yeah, okay. All right, I'm sure we'll have I think [email protected]. I'm sure there are people with expertise in this situation who can, 'cause we know what to do when you cross a bear. We learned that last year from what, you know, one of our e-mailers, but, you know, a much more common one is probably what to do. Well, maybe a dog gets loose and you're outside going for a walk or a run. What do you do there? So we'll say maybe later this week, we'll have an answer about that, [email protected]. All right, PLJ, give me, I actually have a lot of many more questions and many more thoughts, but you know what, I'm gonna keep us on track and maybe I'll come back to that later in the pod. What's your next topic here? What do you got? - This was really genuinely like on my mind a lot, on Saturday, after Saturday's practice specifically. It's something that, you know, I don't wanna be too negative for the sake of being negative. I wanted to check myself here in that regard, ask some of the other reporters attending practice, like, are you seeing what I'm seeing with this? Like, am I off base here? Am I way out of line? And that's not the sense I got from talking to others in the fact that, like, I'd like to see more from "Mahine Lemon" and Eli Stowards to this point. And I know they're rookies and, you know, again, new offense, all that stuff. But like, with Lemon, especially, they're counting on him to be a major part of the offense this year. Unless, you know, Don Havien-Wakes and Hollywood Brown just like, you know, absolutely defy expectation or they crush it and, you know, those guys are killing it and the offenses doing great, sure. I mean, I don't think that's likely. You know, like anyone thinks that's likely. But if that's the situation, sure. But I don't think it's going to be. Think, you know, they need "Mahine Lemon" to really step up. And, you know, it was a tough spring for him because he practices one time. Suffers a hamstring injury. Doesn't practice again. So he misses, I think, something like four practices there. And then he's been healthy in training camp. So that's good. It's also good to me that he's running with the first team. And the Eagles are clearly finding ways to get him the ball, scheming up plays. War him, I believe. So I think that's all good signal. But just kind of waiting to see the, the wow factor a little bit from him. Not quite seeing that yet. He's had a chance to make some plays on Saturday. One was a vertical route down the field, which we know kind of really isn't his game. Still didn't look right there. Couldn't create much separation. I'll be it. It was against Cooper to Gene. Then there was another play over the middle where I would say this is kind of one you'd more like to see him make based on what we know about him in his calling card. And it was a situation in 7 on 7, passed over the middle. It was like a curl route. And he gets, there's a chance to make you can contest against Andrew McCuba. McCuba bumps him from behind. I don't think he got there early. I think it was fair. And lemon didn't make the play. Couldn't hold on to the ball. That's a catch I want to see him make. So with lemon specifically in terms of what they need from him this year, I think that's been disappointing. And we can get into Stauer's next. But I wouldn't guess we'll see what you think about what kind of lemon this heart. Yeah, it's always hard with rookies. I feel like this is probably more of the standard. Now, not always, you know, sometimes I think Devantace, you were probably there for the Devantace Smith. Training camp built. Okay. And there it felt like it was pretty evident right away that this time. Okay. So sometimes you can tell right away, you know, other times it's just their heads are spinning a little bit, you know, it is their first time in this environment. Just, you know, stuff, learn when do you get to the complex? Where am I living? How do I get to the complex? What's the schedule look like? Am I tired? Am I tired? Am I not tired? What are we doing in meetings? There's just like a lot of little stuff that takes a lot of getting used to while you're trying to learn a new playbook as well. So I'm usually pretty patient with rookies. And listen, sometimes you see it in camp and then it doesn't translate to the actual season. Other times you don't see it. And then the season starts and it's like, oh, they actually do know what they're doing. But I do feel like it's good to set expectations for these guys. I mean, you're not wrong that if you expect the Eagles to be super bowl contender, it's almost hard to lot out of way where that happens without McCuy lemon being pretty good as a rookie. And so if you just look at it, I think I've given some of these numbers out before. But if you just look at first round picks that wide receiver over the last 10 years, and we might have talked about this when we did the draftpots. I'm not pretty sure what we did. But the median season is 686 yards. Which I don't like, when I say that, are you thinking, man, I would be disappointed or are you thinking that seems pretty fair? I'd be happy if he did that. I wouldn't be blown away, but that's pretty good. Like when I say 686 yards, if you could just sign up right now for the median rookie season for a first round pick over the last 10 years for McCuy lemon, are you signing up for that BLG? Or do you have higher expectations? I think that is, I think that's like, if he has that season in a vacuum, I think that's good. I feel good about it. I think in the context like we're saying of what the Eagles need from him, I don't feel good about that as much. Yeah, I think because in that situation, you would have to really buy into the fact that, hey, they're spreading the ball around. And he might have 686 yards, but Don Tavian Wix has 570 or Dallas Goddard has 600, you know, like a lot of those guys. Basically, Devote Smith is a monster, and then everybody else is doing enough to make the offense function at a high level. So, you know, and that's the median. So half the guys have fewer than six, and these are all first round picks. So like Jackson Smith and Jigba had 628 yards as a rookie, and he was arguably the best wide receiver in the NFL last year, 1700 yards, or whatever he had. About 12,000 yards. 20% of them have a thousand yards. So that's like a very high bar to clear. And a lot of those guys, they might be top five picks, top 10 picks, whatever. They're drafted before McIelement was picked this year. So I think around there, you know, 600 to 800 yards, if you're on the higher end of that, you're feeling pretty good about it. If you're on the lower end, it's like, all right, that's fair. And if you get down to, you know, four, 500 yards, then you might have a little bit of a tougher time. So he's definitely, I think just in terms of who I want to see this week, when I'm down there, it's McIelement. I saw my dad today. He was, how are you going down to Eagles practices? I say, I'm going down to a couple this week. I don't know. I want to see that young wide receiver. He must have heard Ray didn't just say something about him. Ray, this week, so that was the only player he mentioned that he wanted to learn more about with McIelement. So there's a spotlight on this guy for sure. And he's going to be someone we're going to be talking about throughout the summer here. All right, Stauwers is a little bit of a different situation, but tell me for first impressions here, or just what you've seen from the second round pick, Eli Stauwers so far. It just hasn't been much. It's kind of been invisible, you know, aside from maybe like at best, a few short catches here. And there were two targets on Saturday. One, we're actually thinking he did a nice double playing defense on a 10-arm key throw. It didn't look great. And he actually had to come back to the ball and knock it down. He actually did a good job at that. So we'll give him credit for that play. All right, maybe if there's like a hail Mary or something, he can be go out there with the defense. Yes, there you go. But there's another play again, where over the middle has a chance to make the catch and just bounces off his hands. Or it's in the numbers, bounces off. And like, but like really, especially he's getting limited opportunity to here, considering that it's not like Dallas Goddard and Eli Stauwers are the top two tight ends. Johnny Mutt has very, for all the Mutt heads out there, they're going crazy right now. He has been the number two tight end for this offense thus far. And I just think back to last year, Stauwers his best season, what gets him drafted in the NFL draft or second round in the NFL draft. He played less than or fewer than 60% of the snaps last year. I think he is a coach, or sorry, I think I split what I was going to say. I think he is a player who the front office and the scouts are going to look at. He's like, man, look at this guy. This could be something. And then the coaches get him and they're like, I don't trust this guy to play. So I think it's going to be more of a slow burn with him. And that doesn't mean I don't think he can have a good career. I do think it's a little disappointing. You spend a guy a second on a guy, and he might not really be able to give you much to your one, especially when you might need to play at some point. Dallas Goddard is exactly a paragon of health here. So I do think it's going to be a slow burn for Eli Stauper's. By the way, where anyone listening to this going, come on, guys, it's only been three practices. You can't be there. You know, you're probably the same ones who are, you know, LeBron, you know, LeBron, what did Rich call him? Donnie Downer? Yeah, so if you're the guys, it's only three practices and you're buried in these, okay, if you don't want us to do a podcast after three practices, we can just take it all and take the few weeks off and more weeks off, and then just talk about the Eagles before the season. We understand it's okay. It's only sports. These are our impressions after three practices after the first, you know, little part of training camp here, and then we're going to revisit them and do more podcasts. So settle down, because I hear at least three of you out there yelling that at your Apple CarPlay or your phone or your AirPods or whatever you're listening to over there. All right, Eli Stauper's BLG. This is kind of nuts. The median season for a second round tight end over the last 10 years, 244 yards. I mean, I would just say anyone who expects like big things from him as a rookie, it really would be the exception. It would be an outlier and to BLG's point, you know, and I think that's a fair one. That could be how that, you know, that happens all the time in the NFL. Brun office thinks, all right, this guy's got the traits and coaches are like, we're trying to win a Super Bowl. We can't put them on the field right now. We'll work with them in practice, but this isn't like, hey, learn on the fly type situation, especially, you know, sometimes if you feel if a coach feels like there's going to be a big pay off that season, then maybe they'll do it. But, you know, in this situation, it's not like he's going to be the starting tight end. They might not do it. And so again, Tremick Bride, who I think at 1200 yards last year, he had 265 yards as a rookie. I thought a good comp, maybe for Stowers could be Elijah Aroyo. Remember him BLG two years ago, Seahawks take him, you know, really athletic tight end. A lot of people were excited about him. I kind of forgot he was on the Seahawks side. He had 179 yards worth and that's for a team that won the Super Bowl. So maybe Stowers will be the exception and let's see how the next few weeks go here. But the expectation should be that he has maybe around 250 yards as a rookie and is really not a big factor. Maybe he has some, you know, he flashes a little bit, maybe something in the red zone. Maybe it's an explosive play in a big moment and you get really excited about what he can become. But in terms of overall production, I mean, it's going to be below Devon Tess Smith, McIleman, Dallas, Goddard, maybe Don Tavine Wicks, you know, like we're talking about fifth, sixth, maybe seventh, eighth option in the past the game. Now the part that's a little bit disheartening here is that the big question about Stowers was his blocking. And that's like not even a thing that's, you know, happening yet before the pads are on. So when it's a passing camp, you really like to see the athleticism pop from the tight ends, running backs, because it should be a little bit easier for them. On the other hand, he has a, like I said earlier, he is a rookie. So you can certainly say, all right, just pump the brakes a little bit, be patient and see what you get there. But yeah, those are two guys look forward to seeing them in person, look forward to seeing how they progress here throughout training camp. All right, BLG number four. What do you got? This is really on brand. If you listen to the ringers, Philly Special post game pods last year, and I was calling for this man to be more involved, not as a kicker turner, which did not go well. And he goes straight it for him and tried to pretend he was a kicker turner. But when they used him at running back and he was undeniable. And I think at one point averaging over like six yards for carry last season, that is tank bigsby. Tank bigsby looks like a player that needs to get touches this year. I think he only ended up averaging just less than a few than four carries per game last year. Yeah. Like and that mind you includes games where the goals had a couple of low outs. So we got garbage time. And it includes when they rested their starters in week 18 and tank got to start that game. Like he got that few touches with, you know, some extra time in there. So he just looks so good. Just not even trying to key in on him. He is explosive the way he moves. You can really just see it's different than other players. And to the Eagles credit, he's getting some first team run. Obviously, you know, I don't know what his ceiling looks like when you have say, you want to be on Barclay ahead of him. And it's not easy for me to sit here and say exactly how to get him involved effectively. But that's not my job. Number one. And number two, like, I don't want to hear excuses. I just think like at the end of the day, you have a really good player figure it out. Like that's what the money is for. You have to get him involved. He looks way too good to be an afterthought on this team, especially, especially if it's like last year where the offense is struggling and you're looking for a spark of some sort, like get tank Bigsby involved. So if you're the Eagles, your, you know, coaches, we just talked about kind of the differences between front office and coaches. It comes into play with rotating guys like tank Bigsby in as well. Because you know, if you're an Eagles offense and I do what I kind of understand it be all because they went three and out so often last year that it wasn't like, oh, we, you know, we need to give Saquon a breather. You know, it wasn't like they were stringing together 9 10 11 play drives where it's like, let's mix in. Thank Bigsby here. It's like, well, we just went three and out. We're not going to put tank Bigsby out there instead of Saquon. Barkley, you know, if we give him the ball here, everyone's going to be going, where why are you giving him then doesn't work out? Why are you giving him the ball? Instead of Saquon. Barkley, having said that, I'm with you. It was a small sample. It was pretty exciting. It looks like you have a legit number two back here. Now I forgot that in week 18. I mean, 16 of those caries came in week 18. And 17 of those carriers came when they beat the Raiders 31, nothing in a game that I couldn't tell you anything else that happened. I literally have no recollection of what happened in that game against the Las Vegas Raiders. So it's actually, you know, fewer than four caries a game. I mean, there was a game against the Giants. He had nine caries. I can't remember if Saquon was a little banged up for that game or not. But other than that, I'm looking at the game log here. One, three, four, one, zero, one, four, two is how it goes when you take away the 16 caries and 17 carriers. All right. So let's think about this zoom out. We're in the Eagles building. We're planning for the season. How do we want to sketch this out. One thing I was looking at, say one barkly. over the last two years, 828 touches for Sequan Barkley. By far, the most of any running back art, we're doing a classic Kapatiya stat thing here. I know I think was so like who first called me out on this, but I do love these types of stats, BLJ. That was 92 more touches than any other back. The difference between Sequan and number two Kyron Williams is roughly the same as Kyron Williams and number eight. Wow. Jameer Gibbs. That's how many more carries he's had than anyone else in the NFL. Again, 800, sorry, not just carries touches, so it counts for sections. And this includes the playoffs. 828 touches over the last two years. He's 29 years old. I do think it makes sense if you are an eagle seam that wants to compete for Super Bowl to really try to be committed. And again, I know it's hard. Like if you're in a close game and it's the third or fourth quarter, you're not like, let's get Bigsby out there instead of Sequan. But there are times in the past where they, I feel they've been a little reckless about this, where Sequan's getting carries where he's like, "All right, look at the score here. Look at the time remaining. I know you want him to get his numbers, but just you really don't need him to be out there in this situation." So the other thing I was looking at, BLG, was what percentage of carries Sequan accounts for, like running back carries, and how that compares to other running backs in the NFL. So last year, he had 78% of all of the Eagles running back carries. And it was the same in 2024. It's actually pretty much on par with all the, you know, upper echelon running backs in the NFL. Christian McCaffrey, who, man, if you think the Eagles play Sequan too much, you should have seen Kyle Shea and Han with McCaffrey in some of those blowouts last year. It was shocking. But McCaffrey was 76% of his team's running back carries. Derek Henry was 78%. Jonathan Taylor, 87% of his team's running back carries last year. James Cook, 76%, Breast Hall, 73%. So it's not that the Eagles are the only team that does this, but I am with you, where I feel like there's room here where let's say, you know, you have 22 running back carries again. That's just just doing, looking at some of these numbers. Maybe that's around where it will be, you know, rather than it being 18 for Sequan, six, I mean, four for Bigsby, could it be 16 for Sequan? Six for Bigsby. If you're up big in the fourth quarter, you can just be like, he's not going back out there unless there's a code, you know, a huge emergency where we're blowing this lead. But we don't think that's going to be the case. Like when your win probability reaches a certain point in the fourth quarter, you're just like, let's not put Sequan Barclay out there. Let's give Bigsby these carries. So there are a few different ways to do it. I'm with you. I'd like to see him get some meaningful ones when the game still matters. And we're not saying a 50/50 split. No one's crazy. Sequan Barclay is amazing. But just as a little change of pace, I mean, you see that with teams around the NFL. And I think it, you know, there's something to it, I think, when you have two different running styles, when you have a guy who hasn't touched the ball all the game, and he comes in and his legs are fresh and he's maybe breaking a tackle that Sequan Barclay might not break. So yeah, I don't know, is that the type of split you're thinking about BLG or is it different than that? Yeah, I guess almost like doubling maybe his care, like somewhere around what he said seven or eight. I think it would be a good number to get to sometimes, even as a pass catcher too. Like just the way he moves after the ball, after he catches the ball with the ball on his hands. And, you know, I've said this, I think other people have said this before. We've seen it in previous off seasons where it's been like, oh, maybe these are actually going to throw to the running backs this year. Because you see it in training camp. It's impossible for it. It's impossible to believe until we actually see it in the regular season. And, and it totally it does feel like they're doing it a bit more this year. Again, I'm not going to fall into that trap. I really see it. But listen, all the fantasy heads out there. Okay. And all the beat writers out there. Do not fall for it. This is every summer, every team. Don't want to ask the OC or the coach is running back so and so going to be more involved in the passing game. And the OC or the head coach is, oh, yeah, that's a skill set he has. You know, he did that in college. He did. We always just high school tape. We watched him in Peewee. Man, you should have seen his hands out there going up against these eight year olds. Just look at history. That's all you need to do. These are not things that generally change significantly. Year over year. Now, the Eagles are implementing a new offense with a new OC. So if you do want to, you know, if you feel like buying it a little bit this year, go ahead. You can do it this year, but I'm telling you more. I'm telling the beat writers. Don't write that story. If history tells you something different and to the fantasy heads, don't buy that when you're doing your ranking. Oh, I read in the Times Pick a Yoon that, you know, a crazy poll. You know, I was about to think of like the old was the Omaha world. Is that one? But then I was like, wait, there's no football team in Nebraska. She'll you got a pivot here on the listen. These are the things she got to do is a podcast. You're one thought pops in your head and you're like, no, get out of here. I got to move to a different one. But yeah, don't buy that whatever running back, you're going to draft. If they've caught the ball a lot in the past, they're probably going to catch the ball out this year. If they haven't caught the ball a lot in the past, they're probably not going to catch the ball out this year. Okay. That's my little shield. Kapadeus fantasy corner. Shield Kapadeus beat right in corner on the ringer's fairly special. BLJ. There you go. My my fifth and final point that I have here. And that's absolutely fair. Is and I've said this before, training camp. Again, new take from me, but I want to reiterate that I'm just not worried about the safety position as much as everyone else seems to be. I get that they're not perfect there. Like I'm not saying. They're going to be awesome. They're going to be you know, Andrew McCoop is definitely going to be an all pro. No, but I think he showed enough potential last year that I expect him to be a reasonably good starter. You know, you can factor an injury. Sure. That's a question mark. It's a lot of different positions. Markis Epps is a guy who has credibly started not just in the NFL, but for the Eagles specifically in the past. Vic Fangio gave him a ring endorsement, at least as maybe far as Vic Fangio goes when he said he will be fine if he has to start. And there's some competition going on there. It could be Michael Carter to who I know. Zeebroom has brought up on the show before. I think led one led one of these offseason pods. No, that was a lecture. Yeah. I don't get access to the numbers, but I'm sure I think Cliff was doing cartwheels when he saw the metrics line up on them. Michael Carter segment. Zeebay. But I just. I just think there's so much talent elsewhere. And from what I've seen from McCoop and Epps early on. Like I'm not worried about him. I think it'll be okay. I think it's not this pressing knee that they like, oh, they have to go out and get someone. Well, there was some kind of disappointment earlier this week when the Browns extended Grant Delted that had been a name kind of rumored about that maybe the Eagles could take a look at him if they need to address. And maybe they do address this position. I'm wrong later in camp. That's always possible. But right now I'm really not sweating that I think as some other people view that as one of the more bigger like weak points on the roster. So you expect it to be McCuba and Epps and maybe Michael Carter has an outside shot at sneaking in there for one of those guys has an injury or you know doesn't have a great summer. Is that kind of how we're any capping this thing? And then even then Epps isn't playing 100% of the snaps because it's Cooper to Jean at safety and base defense as well. So you're kind of even mitigating the amount of snaps that Marcus Epps is ultimately taking there. Okay. It's it's taught. I'm generally with you that I think what you're saying is this is a trust the infrastructure type deal at safety where you know sorry, Vic Uncle, you can't have like an all pro in his prime at every single position. I mean, you might have met a lot of positions this year, but maybe not at every position. So as I always say, this is what the money's for is stuff like this where figure out which guys do you trust? Who are the smart, you know who smart who's reliable, who knows their assignments, who's a good communicator and they don't have to be all pros, but they have to just be good enough. So I'm generally with you there and I would throw how we roast me into that as well, where if we get to you know August 23rd and it's like man, these guys are really struggling. Macubre is not making the lead. Maybe Epps is there since some kind of injury. All right, then go get on the phone. Let's watch some film. Let's get some other options in here. Maybe guys who have played in this defense or this style of defense before where it's not going to be a huge learning curve for them to come in and play well. But I mean, Epps joined them. When did Epps join them? Be honest, that was like sometime in the middle of the last season. Early on, yeah, the early on the season, I think the Patriots had cut him maybe like around final cuts and they go, got him back on their on their practice what at first, so then on their roster. Okay, so it's not like he had spent, you know, all summer at training camp and Vic Fangio system and knew it like the back of his hand and he still ended up again. I don't want to overstate it like he was amazing, but he was good enough. And you need those safeties to make the place that are there for them, but more importantly, don't screw stuff up and give up explosives. 'Cause we had a long stretch of Eagle's football, BLG post-Brian dockens, where that was kind of the story. I mean, they really, really until Malcolm Jenkins probably, Quentin Michael had a great year in there, I remember, but there was a long stretch where it was such a weakness that it was losing games for you. I mean, they couldn't find guys who could go in there and play, I covered a lot of the way. Nate Allen seemed like a great guy, but he wasn't giving them good enough football, Kurt Coleman, you know, same thing, they were guys in that stretch. And those were, I mean, those were guys who were good enough to play. There were guys who just absolutely could not be on the field or was gonna be a complete disaster. So those were just the names that popped into my head, but yeah, those weren't even, those weren't the worst of times with those guys playing. So that's what you're looking for out of this position. Don't, you know, you can't give up explosives in this defense and the safety is the last line of defense, whether it's a running back in the open field, whether it's your playing too high and you gotta get back there, deep is the deepest wide receiver where whatever pass catchers back there, that's the job. But I'm generally with you, I'm actually, I would say I'm more concerned than you are, but I'm not panicking. I do generally agree that I kind of trust our, Vangel, AoE, guys on the roster. They don't play a game for over a month. That by the time we get to week one, we'll be feeling decent enough about this. And with the other talent they have on the roster, it's not going to be a recurring theme all season where we're like, oh man, the safeties are killing them. I don't think that that's gonna be the case for this Eagle's defense, sorry. Anything else, Eagles-related BLG that you wanna get off your chest before we hit some of these leftovers and call it a night. - No. - Okay, do I need to know anything about training camp? This year, are there any changes, BLG, that I need to know about, you know, parking, credentials, water ice, where I can stand, sunblock, anything like that that I need to know before I make my return to the practice fields. - I have started going with the bucket hat, new this year, I think. - I need one of those, yeah. - The back of the neck, right? - Shockingly big difference, I would say. Cliff's got the visor on, the bad brother visor on. - The bad brother visor, that's nice. - But the bucket hat. - She shout out to my boys over there to bad brother, they hook up with the visor, man. - That's a good visor. - Yeah, it's fire too, yeah, I need to cop up. Now that would, I already have some weird tan lines on the head. Cliff, when you're a bald man, you know, there's really no great solution in the sun for the bald man, but the hat, because you go dad hat, and now I got the semi-circle tan line on the back. You go, you go mash like I'm wearing right now, and all of a sudden I got the little dots on the back. You can't really go with the like the nice fitted, it's too hot out there, I can't be wearing that at the beach, that's gonna make me, so there's really, yeah, I'm thinking of all of them. There's no great option for like the baseball hat for the bald man in the summer. - Wait, so the trucker hat is just gonna poke through and then it's gonna pop. - The mesh, yeah, yeah, the mesh and the semi-circle back there. - What if you get the jaw with the like the little dots on the top so we can kind of air out a little bit? - Oh. - You know what I'm talking about? - The holes? - Yeah. - Yeah, you know, I do, I think my US open hat that I have. - Yeah, like I'm sure there's a couple of hats like that, right? - It's like that. - All right, okay, me. And then won't the sun still get through the little dot Jones you're talking about? - It will, but I think the sun, I think the holes are too small, so I think it's gonna air out more than the sun will protrude into the head. You feel what I'm saying? - But you're still getting the semi-circle, you know what I mean? It is not finished. - That's too small, that's too small. - Wait, no, it's a real issue. - Yeah, it really is. - As another bald, yes. - Right now, yeah. - Yeah, I don't know right now. - You know what, my nose is big, it's big, it's fun of me. Where do I? - Well, here's the thing. I feel like as long as the front of the head is okay, what do I care? You know, like, I'm looking at the camera here, you're not seeing the back of my head. If I'm in public and someone's like, oh my gosh, she got to, like, what do I care? You know, by the way, I'm wearing a hat most of the time anyway, so I'm not just, now I will say this, when I mode the lawn, I've tried this. When I mode the lawn, maybe I go no hat. And I'm like, all right, son, do your work. - Down, yeah. - You know what I'm showing down? - Yeah, I'm showing down. - Showing down on the semi-circle. Then you got a sunblock, the rest of it. I thought this is, listen, bald man problem. - Get you a wave cap and a visor, a bad brother visor, you be hurt. - I like it. - I get you a way of cap. - I might wear that t-shirt to the Eagle's training camp. What's yours to, what do you think, BLG? You know, I think you're a t-shirt guy, a training camp, right? Or are you going with the golf shirt? - No, I'm usually going on t-shirts. - It's fine. - All right, we'll see. We'll see how I'm feeling on Tuesday morning. All right, we'll have much more Eagle stuff this week. I'm looking forward to getting down there. I do like watching practices. You know, all these things I'm hearing from the first three days. What do I see? Do I agree? Do I disagree? What am I observing? What's different? And just, you know, see you know, my friends and person. And we talked about socializing. That's basically my socializing for the summer. It's going down to a couple of Eagle's training camps. See you know, my friends saying hello, catching up there. All right, BLG. You got the Sixers hat off. We have not spoken to you about this Sixers office. About Jail and Brown, about Trading Fall, George, about adding LeBron James. You seem to be, you were kind of with me, I believe, that you had some Sixer fatigue for a while there. You were like, "Ah, not for me." Did get excited. Last year they beat the Celtics. That was fun like the young players. But in terms of this era of Sixers basketball, I think you felt a lot of the same fatigue that I felt, where are you? Are you the guy in the group chat, reminding everyone that LeBron, this is in 28-year-old LeBron James. Or are you excited about this season of Sixers Basketball? I am excited. And no one can question my Sixers support here. I was looking at-- - I was trying to. - Well, we're excited. - I did. - I was blogging about it. - Yes. - Yeah, good, not for nothing. How many times before we actually start talking on the pie, me and B.O. do we catch up every so often? And he'll get on here and be like, "Yeah, nope." Not with the Sixers, nope. Not with the Sixers. Like, there's a lot of negative-- But not for nothing. It's ballad, though, because the Sixers-- - Right, yeah. - Yeah. So I'm serious. - I'm serious team for two long now. Not worth anyone's true, like, die-hard emotional investment. Obviously, no people who are, and I'm not saying you can't. But it can't just be, like, automatically expected. - Yeah, right. - After what we've seen, or really haven't seen from them for an extended period of time now. And for the first time in a long time, I'm genuinely excited to see what happens. I still have questions about, like, I'm not just like, "Oh, they're definitely winning the title now." But I don't really care about that right now. I'm just excited to see what it looks like, and I'm more excited than I have been in a long time. I was blogging about the Sixers before I was even blogging about the Eagles back of that Liberty Golders. - Oh, exactly right. I didn't know that. - Yep, Liberty Ballers, 2012 or so. - A-B-O-G, the Sixers need a backup center, duh. - I'm retired. - Oh, come on, no, yeah. (laughing) - Yeah, Lacey Mutt, bro, come on. - I got some bad ankles, we can't do it. - Okay, fair enough, fair enough. - But I'm among many other reasons why that wouldn't work out. (laughing) No, I'm super excited. The Jalen Brown trade, honestly, I was really excited about that. I've been higher on hand than consensus for some time now. I felt like he was the true alpha on that Celtics champion team. I obviously won finals MVP, but I feel like Tiedem kind of, gets all the glory being that top guy to me. I want Jalen Brown, that's a guy who I trust taking the final shot when it comes down to it. He is a dog, and I was really excited for that. And then I thought there was zero percent chance. They were gonna get LeBron and then come on. I thought it was totally just like a ploy by the six years to kind of like do LeBron's campus solid, but then they get the benefit of being like, "Oh, we were close, we were in the mix, we were one of the finalists that came down to the wire and we just missed out." I totally thought that's the direction it was going in. I'm very happy to be wrong. I've never been the biggest LeBron guy personally. I'm a Jordan over LeBron guy, but I will say, I respect LeBron a lot for this decision. And not just because he came to the six series, not much is obvious, but I kind of felt like the Lakers era for him was just really lame to me from a standpoint of, it didn't seem to be all about winning, as much as he was just kind of like working on his brand or whatever, which I don't care about. Why should I care about that at all? And I felt like this is a move that you don't make unless you actually are serious about winning. I don't see any other reason to sign with the six years. So I respect him for that. - I thought it interesting that like, I've been hearing a lot of the value of Jalen Brown's value since he's gotten on the six years. Like have you all noticed some of that from, not from necessarily end-market people, but from people from outside of Philly, just kind of like talking down on his game? - Well, it's been like a three month, well, not three months. - It's weird. - However long it's been, well yeah, I mean, there was the whole analytics style, you know, the whole. - I'm saying, like, beyond it, I'm just saying just like, - Oh, just be out. - Yeah, just like regular discussions. Like, I feel like when you talk to, you know, just a regular NBA fan, like not a little bit more than casual, Yeah, you know, Jalen Browns. He's okay. He can't do it. I'm like, are we watching the same gang like I wonder the people be talking about I feel like once this six has kind of got this group together Yeah, the hate has just been storming down I like that clip so I don't feel he versus the world You know we get you in brown we get LeBron James now everyone hates us cuz they hate us. Let's go 2026 It is very I continue to be very excited about it. You know, I started following LeBron James on Instagram He probably noticed that right he comes in the King James King James he's posting you know the inspiration of quotes every day He's doing these workouts like clip he's doing these workouts where you got the two dumbbells Yeah, you're in like a blank position and then you're doing the row with one and then I'm like oh man I'm you know, I'm around the bronze age. I might need to the next time I'm at the gym that might be I gotta incorporate that Of course stability workouts. Yeah, you know what he has some bit. He has some very good like I could tell it's like core Stability like stability. I'm like these are actually the things I need to Anniversary clumber. Yo, the verse a clumber. Don't forget about that one. I saw that. Do I need to get on the verse the verse a clumber? Yeah, sure you try to do some high roxers home. Yo, that's the new fitness wave. Yo, it's like I rock Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's kind of like um Like a cro- a variation across it where people do like you know throw the I don't know throw like a medicine ball up you do some rowing and then you do some running mixed with it is like it's too complicated Like that's the best it's been a new wave right now. It's a high-roch train. Yeah, no I mean listen that slide pushing all that the algorithm is filled with the inclined treadmill clip, but you told me that's legit Yeah, yeah, no, that is you know When I do that I work up a nice sweat and on top of that it doesn't stretch your legs your joints and none of that So you feel fresh the next day and I show my industry while I do it. Yeah I just put on I just put on the ringer's fully special while I mean well Okay, all right, so BLG's pumped Uh about the six years listen no update yet on my pursuit Of this you know some type of season ticket plan now. I'm still in the mix My guy angelo has been very responsive shout out angelo so far Seems like he's a good guy to deal with but I don't think anything has been decided yet on who they are going to offer Some of these things too. So we've had a little back and forth We're in the mix Nothing has been decided yet. I will of course continue to update everyone on that quest because listen when you're a dad and you make a promise like that Uh, and it's to go watch the bronjames you got to find some way to try to follow through on it You know, I can't just hope the kid forgets about that. I'm gonna therapy about that You know over that 20 years from now. So I can't be having that happen. All right. So that's the six years Philly's BLG. I was you forgot the x-beelge about LeBron living oh yeah, oh yeah Any thoughts on the whole where LeBron lives zb said don't worry about it You think you're gonna hang out with the bron you think you're gonna see him at the pta meeting. No, you're not Your thoughts Do you even know if that's like a hundred percent true? It's not no, yeah, it's like anywhere I don't even think it's physically truly possible too like at the same time like I'm not saying he can't live in New York part time But I just like his whole like to not have a space gotta be a split. Yeah It has to be physically impossible. It's fine But philly you want to fill it off your resident. I gave it what I thought was an impassioned speech about you know It's a great place to live Yeah, I thought it I mean it is absolutely Yeah, I would hope he you know spend some time here for sure And you know at least some kind of split but ultimately as clear I will defer to Cliff as well and say what you mean to get him to the xmo by 7000 You get there early I think I forget that glow or someone saying he likes to get to the arena real early He's got a whole routine. He's got yeah, he's got the bron presser like you know when's that coming? I want to hear Now what we'll talk to our media day folks over at the section. I got to talk to somebody over there um actually hit somebody up over there a couple days ago So maybe he just doesn't exclusive on the ringer's philly specials is no actual press conference Yeah, like we do we gotta get rich Paul that's right man and Lebron That's the roundtable what is it and he'll just do it he'll do it. Okay, okay now we're thinking outside the box here This is the clutch this is our clutch sports Clutch sports conglomerate Is not worried about where Lebron Jane is gonna look now hold on before we get to the philly's The LG I'm just seeing this comment from Cliff one of the best times of my life was glamping he said Whoa in the chat which yeah, of course that's gonna be more important than what's happening with what's the cliff? Yeah, give us the details all right, so that's huge so y'all met my man rich before right? That's my that's my dog Of course my homeboy rich we went to high school really and high school in college together actually His mom had got married or his parents got married and they did a glamping wedding This is up in the add-on-run docs up in New York like middle nowhere I drop up there took like a couple I was living in Connecticut at the time so I drop up there took a couple hours or whatever Like as I'm getting up there. There's like no service right. I'm like whoa This is this is getting kind of weird and then you're driving and there's like legit dirt roads up there, right? I'm getting kind of spooked out a little bit. I'm thinking myself get out had just came out I know because like real talk. I was gonna be one of the few up there. You feel me? Yeah, I got I'm like I'm feeling kind of way, you know me. I get to the to the cabin joint cabin was cool and then We literally me and other homie that was staying there. We literally walk out of the cabin and walked on a dirt road to go to this like Place with like ranch style opening doors like the wooden opening doors and just sit there It was like a dad and his daughter and they made us a steak like it was nobody in there It looks super old school mad taxidermy like all across the wall Like I felt real like just back in the day cowboyish that type of vibe knows again barely any phone server So I'm kind freaked out about this, but we get to the actual so we stayed we didn't stay on the grounds We um say in the cabin a little bit off site and then we get to the actual grounds of the other place Bro this it was like one of the best weddings I've ever been to in my life No, it was so much fun outside food was amazing the glamping setup was amazing Like all the rooms and all the places there looked crazy like it was one of the most fun times I ever had my life Honestly, like no phone nothing just partying having fun in the woods Like I love nature too, so it was it was a blast Some of the clamping said some of the clamping stuff I see I'm like Making that look pretty interesting, but I'm just thinking of cliff BLJ cliff had to drive to Westchester to see EJs for a cookout and I'm his reaction after that and then I'm picture him going to the Adderontax I'm like whoa He thought Westchester was like in the middle of nowhere man Rich he must really love you. Yeah, it was really Jimmy was in a little I don't think just anything's gonna get cliff Going out there. No, a very family man. One of the best times I ever had my life honestly I still think about their wedding to this day. It was so much fun Ringerphiliageemail.com if you've got any clamping insight for us because when I when reason I asked BLJ If he was near anybody a water the other thing that looks interesting when I see photos of these like lakes in the Midwest I mean it looks like incredible. It just looks incredible people out there on boats It doesn't look crowded. It looks like having a great time. It's like Minnesota or Michigan or Wisconsin I'm like huh, you know, it would be worth it to drive out there one summer the little family vacay out there So if you have any insight on the Midwestern lakes, I'm interested in that too I'm already looking at the shieldbaticle 2027 It seems like I just got back don't get me wrong. I love my job. We're gonna have a great season But you know, you gotta plan ahead sometimes for some of these things. All right BLG. Let's finish with the fighting fills take two or three From the Orioles finally win a series Some people were upset with me thought I was going a little overboard with my Negativity on the previous pods. Where are you with the fill it off your fillings? I feel like I give the fillies so much of the benefit of the doubt that they don't deserve And but I I can't help it for some reason. I just have a soft spot for them and Look, you know my eyes are wide open here like I'm not saying like everything should be fine. Everything's great But I think I tend not to get as low on them as relative to the consensus that gets more angry about everything And I think understandably so I don't begrudge any of those people But it's not where I met personally I think you get people maybe less so after taking two or three here but saying like oh, they should sell Obviously, they're not gonna do that and I don't think they should because you can't really you there's actually nothing to really I mean when people say that I don't even know who you're talking like you're not gonna trade Christopher Sanchez You know, sorry go ahead, but yeah, I don't even think that's an option really I agree I think and I think it kind of stinks. I think you almost have to double down on this team And it's I don't think it's ideal and I don't really know what they can even give up realistically You know, I'm not as plugged into the farm system, but everything I hear it's not great But I think they kind of like I don't know that This next era of Philly's baseball is like Maybe worth salvaging as much as your best chance might be now and you have a team that It hasn't been pretty, but if you can just get this make sure you get this group to October I think that's important to get them to October they have a chance and I want to see him go down swing. I want to see Dumbbrowski be aggressive here at the trade deadline Obviously, he can't you know, you can only control so many things in terms of teams being willing to give up players But I would really hope he's aggressive here and they they make a An effort to go in here. The way I've been thinking about this is, I remember there was a lot of discussion back in, I forget if it was 2010 or somewhere around there where the Phillies were having, I mean, in mid-2011 when they just had an awesome year there. And there was some talk about, maybe they shouldn't buy too big at that trade deadline, like they did with 100 pence because they're already so good anyway. And baseball's like kind of random in the playoffs that it might not be worth it. I think this is, you know, in a different spot here where like, the Phillies need that little push over the hump here. I do think it would be worth it. I do think that can make a difference for them, obviously depending who they can get here. So I would like to see them be aggressive at the trade deadline and not just tinker. Although, if you're going to tinker, that's better than nothing, you know, we see Derek Hill coming out of nowhere and kind of being like, I think that's something they haven't done enough is like, just try something. Plunge or push. I totally agree with that. Like you can't just keep rolling out the same guys and expecting something different. Change the equation. Even if you're not signing a stud, obviously they've done that a little bit with, you know, terminal as a max Kepler or whoever and some of those haven't worked out. But that doesn't mean you should stop trying. Like keep trying to find those guys who might be able to make a difference. Yeah, that's been that that is honestly part of my biggest issue because organizationally, there's obviously an issue with the farm system, you know, when you get rated this poorly every year and you literally don't have like, you know, the Dodgers, I know people are upset about that. They have like great prospects to trade for some of these players or, you know, like, like schoolable where the Phillies just don't have people. It's not even a question of like, no one's having the conversation like, should you give up prospect? Like those prospects are nowhere to be found. They don't even have those guys to trade to even being positioned to make that decision. So that's been a huge issue. But then to your point, there's not there's been, there has not been enough of just tinkering on the margins. Hey, maybe it won't work out. But let's try to your point, Derek Hill, a batter last year. Like no one was doing cartwheels when they got him. But he's like, whoa, this is actually pretty cool. You know, he's actually he is additive here, even Duran. You know, that wasn't like that was that was a higher level where it was like, all right, it's a higher level player. But there hasn't been enough of that. There hasn't been enough of that in the off seasons, honestly, not just that trade deadline. But it should have been last offseason. It should have been like, all right, we need to do more of that stuff. And maybe it won't work. But let's see what it looks like. And it's just like you're looking at the same team over and over and over again. And they've won a lot of games in the regular season. This season has been way more up and down. But to your point about the push, I mean, if you look at the standings right now, Brave's have won five in a row. So Phillies are eight games back. And they're only one game ahead of the Padres for the final wild card spot. Like you mentioned in October, there is a scenario where they're not even playing it up in a playoff series in October. So we'll see. I don't think they're going to do anything significant. We're recording this on Sunday night, maybe by the time this is out there. It'd be great. If you're making fun of me, listen to this, go out. Oh my god. She'll said they wouldn't do anything significant. And look at this person that they traded for. I would love nothing more than to be wrong about that. But we'll see. I know Bunsy wants to get on here at some point this week and talk about what they did or didn't do. So, hey, I'm going to be at season's bank park a couple times in the next week. So we'll say I was very down on them last week, but we'll see how I'm feeling at the end of this week. All right, Ph.L.G. Any other thoughts you need to get off your chest? Maybe anything you heard in a mailbag, things you've been thinking about, or do we want to say goodbye and save those for next time? We'll see you remember for next time. I think this is a good part. I feel strong about it. It's good about it. You feel good. Okay. Yeah. E.L.G. feels good. Cliff, you feel good. Put your bad brother visor on. Feeling great, man. Love talking about you. So, you know, listen, better. No one's worn the visor that well since Dougie P. I'd say Cliff's looking good in the bad. And you know what? Dougie P would have liked a bad brother. I feel like, you know? Oh, yeah. Get a cold one. Yeah. Pull up at the bar. Yeah. Some sports sporting event on TV, holding court, telling stories about that 2017 season. Who knows? Maybe we'll make that happen at some point. All right. Thank you very much to B. L. G. Remember, bleeding green nation. You know what you have to do. I wasn't going to bring it up at the top. You got to sign up for an account because then you're not getting as many ads. You can be part of their great community. You could have the conversations that you would have on Reddit or wherever else. But it's more what was the word I'm looking for curated. Yes. You know, it's curated like-minded Eagles fans. And this is the time of year. They got everything covered on bleeding green nation dot com. B. L. G. is down there. Practice every single day with his takes and observations. So be sure to give him the wonderful Philly special bump. All right. Thanks to B. L. G. Thanks to Cliffey too. I'm Shilka Pile. We back later this week on The Ringers, Billy Special. 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas, Tarkasino or 18 plus and present in DC Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem called 1-800 gambler or 1-800-my-reset call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-32750 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8 hope-n-my or text hope-n-my in New York for Louisiana. Call 1-877-770-7867.