Hour 1: Eagles-Rams Reactions, Unbeaten Colts, Should Giants Bench Russ Debate

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0:52For licenses, see HomeDepot.com slash license numbers. This is the Rich Eisen Show. Hey, everybody! Can't get enough of the Rich Eisen Show? You're in luck. You can find us everywhere. Watch us weekdays on Disney Plus from noon to 3 Eastern. Miss the show? We've got a podcast so you can listen anytime. But here's the best part. Our YouTube channel. Subscribe at YouTube.com slash Rich Eisen Show and you'll never miss a moment. Now, on with the show. The kick is away. It's blocked. It's picked up by the Eagles. Touchdown. Game over. This is the Rich Eisen Show. This is a 43-yard field goal drive to give Green Bay the league.

1:36It is blocked. Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. Today's guests, Academy Award-nominated actor Ethan Hawke. Plus, your phone calls, latest news, and more. And now, it's Rich Eisen.

1:57Rich Eisen:Hey everybody, welcome to this edition of the Rich Eisen Show. We are live on Disney +, the ESPN app everywhere, and we are live on ESPN Radio presented by Progressive Insurance. Hello to everybody out there listening to us on Sirius XM Channel 80. And just because you like taking this show in a podcast form, it's your right to listen to us whenever you want. or if you're watching us back somehow, someway later on when we're done on Disney +, we say hello to you too. You don't have to be just live listeners and viewers for me to say hi. So hello. We're equal opportunity helloers, I guess. 844-204-RICH is the number to dial right here on this program.

2:36Week number three in the NFL is mostly in the books. What a big one tonight on ESPN and the family of networks, the Ravens and Lions to wrap things up in week number three in Balmer. That's a pretty darn big football game. to say the list for the NFC North standings and for the AFC North standings and for the conference writ large. If you want to talk about anything, again, 844-204-RICH is the number to do. Good to see you over there, Christopher. How are you? Rich, what's up, man? Good to see you. Good to see you as well. DJ Mikey D is in these nuts. Good to see you. How are you? Good, good. Okay.

3:09And TJ Jefferson, fresh back from Wrestlepalooza in Indianapolis, where he and O'Shea Jackson Jr. expertly hosted Road to Wrestlepalooza on the ESPN YouTube and Facebook pages. Candles lit. Good to see you over there. How are you? Good to see you guys. You know, the great Maurice. Great job, by the way. Great job, by the way. Thank you. I appreciate it. You're very welcome. You know, the great Maurice White once asked, do you remember the 21st night of September? Ah. And I do because it was the night I almost signed that stupid document that you keep wanting me to sign. Oh, the one where you're giving up your fandom of the Dallas Cowboys.

3:42Bro, if I had it at 1.44 p.m. Pacific time, I think I was in the car. I think it would have gotten us in the car. Okay, listen, all I know is that based on what we saw in Chicago yesterday with your Cowboys, you might need earth, wind, and fire to play defense against the Packers next week, despite how poorly the Packers looked in Cleveland. No, we'll put a pin in that. We'll hit that later on this program. Good to see everybody. Again, 844-204, which is always the number to dial. I mentioned this last week after the Eagles beat the Kansas City Chiefs, that they look inevitable. That's what happens when you are the defending Super Bowl champs, and you come out of the box, and you get the Dallas Cowboys in your house, hitting you with all sorts of Dak to CeeDee Lamb attempts and hitting you in the mouth, and you come out with that win, hold on for dear life, and then you go to Kansas City, and you beat the Chiefs again, and you take advantage of their mistakes, like Mahomes not connecting with Kelsey on the goal line, ball pops in the air, and you darn near return it for a pick six, but you score a touchdown eventually anyway, and you take advantage of these opportunities, and the tush-push play is the personification of inevitable.

4:53We're coming for you. You can't stop it. You can't even hope to contain it, to use the Dan Patrick phrase. And then comes what we saw against the Los Angeles Rams. We've been hyping this thing up all off season long, all non-playing season, as we say it on NFL Network, long. That, the bottom line is, when it comes down to it, last year in the playoffs,

5:20Rich Eisen:which team gave the Eagles the biggest run for their money? Chris, you want to answer that question? Rams. Okay. And whose house is it normally? Rams home. Thank you, sir. And in the first half of yesterday's game in Philadelphia, it sure looked like the Rams' house. Just 33 total yards for the Philadelphia Eagles. The Rams were all over the Philadelphia Eagles. The fans were all over the Philadelphia Eagles. Lots of boo-birds. Lots of boo-birds going down. It was the first game with fewer than 60 total yards in the first half in the Jalen Hurts era. and the Eagles had a touchdown and 37 total yards in their first drive of the game and the Rams were doing everything they were beating them up in every phase of the game, special teams as well negative four total yards, no first downs no points for the Eagles in the first half after their touchdown drive on the first time with the football and then the second half began.

6:31Rich Eisen:And Jalen Hurts, I guess, was reminded there's a passing game as well. I guess Nick Sirianni and the rest of the offensive coaching staff was reminded that's 11 out there. What's his name again? Oh, A.J. Brown. Maybe we should target him before the fourth quarter when we're at home. Maybe we should start throwing him. We also have, what's his name? a Heisman Trophy winner we drafted in the first round, Devontae Smith. Let's get him eight catches for a touchdown after just seven catches for 69 yards in the first two weeks. Let's get E.G. Brown six catches for 109 yards and a touchdown after just six receptions and 35 yards through the first two weeks.

7:16Didn't have his first catch of the game until the third quarter. Ah, yes, then it all opens up a little bit.

7:21Rich Eisen:A little bit. A little bit. And then let's have the defense hold the Los Angeles Rams to zero points in the final 29 minutes of the game. Let's have that one happen. Let's start throwing it around. Let's, by the way, try Saquon Barkley in the first half. If you told the Rams coming into this game that they would hold Saquon Barkley to just 46 yards on 18 carries, they'd have signed for it they'd have signed for the halftime score they would have signed for everything that I was talking about in that first half but the Eagles come up with a win that makes them feel inevitable especially because after the Rams lost the lead had Matthew Stafford march down the field for an attempt at a game winning field goal and Joshua Cardi who had just had one blocked to allow the Eagles to go down the field and score a touchdown to take the lead.

8:26Didn't need that extra two-point conversion to take the lead because they blocked a field goal with 8.46 to go, preventing the Rams from going up by eight. Joshua Cardi comes out and gets another one blocked as well. And Jordan Davis, big man with football, blocks it, picks it up, and runs with it into the end zone. That was unbelievable. To make it a 33-26 final score.

8:57Rich Eisen:What more feeling inevitable can you come up with than that? Because it is the Eagles' biggest come-from-behind win, 19-point comeback since Bueller. Anybody? Bueller? The miracle at the Meadowlands 2. Oh. When Deshaun Jackson did it to the Giants. There it is on the screen, people. Coming back from 21 down in week 15 of 2010. In the old Meadowlands. That's what the Eagles did to the Rams. When the Rams feel like, yeah, we could have had you last year, but we didn't get it at the very end. And we got you now until the Eagles come back. and the Rams had it until the very end. That's what's calling feeling inevitable.

9:54And that's what causes Jalen Hurts to step to the podium and basically say we're feeling pretty damn good about everything. You know, let me just set the pace here. You know, when you look at a game, a game like that, and you're able to find a way to win, I know we're going to point the fingers and point our attention to what's going on on the offensive side of the ball, but we won the game. We were gritty in the game. We stayed together as a team. We did not quit. Nobody gave up. And in competitive sports, that's what it's about.

10:34Rich Eisen:That's what it is about. I can confirm that's what it is about. And you know what? You want to talk about feeling inevitable, too, because they did the tush push again to score the first touchdown. And Saquon Barkley's bottled up. Jalen Hurts is winning football games throughout this whole process where, yeah, Saquon's here and this is amazing. And the tush push this, the tush push that, that, everyone's done with it. We're over it, all that business. Put up on the screen, Mr. Hoskins. in the Super Bowl era. Minimum of 30 games in which somebody's attempted 30 or more passes as a quarterback in the NFL.

11:15Jalen Hurts now has the fifth best win-loss percentage behind Peyton, Montana, Brady, and Mahomes. That is what we would call darn good company. Or as one particular former person was popular with the Chicago Police department, Jack Walsh would say, the end of Midnight Run, that's a pretty respectable neighborhood.

11:40Rich Eisen:So, all right. Stop Saquon. Jalen will throw it. And then when Jalen gets it down to the one-yard line, he'll just shove it in on you. And you're up by 19 and everybody's booing in Philadelphia? We'll just do that. We'll just block two field goals at the end of the game. and we'll turn Joshua Cardy, poor Joshua Cardy, into the only kicker to have multiple field goal attempts blocked in the fourth quarter since at least 1991. And when you hear that, it's like, it's that people are like, we've given up. We're not looking further past 1991. Oh, and by the way, the last time the Eagles blocked two field goals in a game, did you know Sunday was the, wait for it, 50th anniversary of it, according to Elias, the late Bill Bergey blocked two field goals and an extra point to boot on poor Giants kicker George Hunt.

12:42September 21st, 1975. Talk about feeling inevitable. So, just three games in, but the Eagles are just like, okay, you want to beat us by, you know, coming to our house on opening night and putting a division game in the mix? Want to call us a little lucky because CeeDee Lamb dropped passes? Sure. Guess who lucked their way to the Super Bowl last year? Allegedly, the Chiefs. Who will beat the next week by taking advantage of their mistakes? And then the next week we'll just come up with our biggest comeback win since the Miracle of Meadowlands 2. That's how we're going to follow up our Super Bowl championship.

13:21As for the Rams, you know, listen, settling for those field goals did him in in the first half. I mean, it's Joshua Cardi. he's the only kicker to have back-to-back field goal attempts blocked in a game at all since 2010 and uh is he maybe the only kicker ever to uh make four field goals all of them in the first half and then get your last two blocked in the fourth quarter i don't know we'll have to look at that one has to be um and um so they got to feel good about themselves otherwise i'm sure it was a long-ass flight home from philadelphia where they were looking at hey we're going to be 3-0 and we're going home and we're going to start protecting our turf against the red hot Danny Diamonds we'll talk about shortly on this program but they got to feel good about themselves otherwise I mean Devontae Adams scoring touchdowns is with all due respect an upgrade on Cooper Cup a major upgrade on Cooper Cup just a flat-out monster upgrade from what we've seen out of cup you know third and cup is now third and Adams and then it's first in Puka and second in Puka and sometimes fourth in Puka all right and then they're protecting Stafford and his back is not an issue right now it's not like uh-oh what's going on with his back okay and we're not and Blake Corum my guy from Michigan he is getting some meaningful snaps and they are turning into, along with Kyron, a double headed running back threat.

14:54They're protecting. They're blowing open the holes. They've got young guys on defense. It's just one of those things. Don't, I guess, it's the old adage. Don't settle for field goals and then have two of them blocked at the end. You know what I mean? If I say it once, I say it a thousand times. How many times can we tell people here? Really, just chalk it up. Chalk it up. Unfortunate. Does that mean they have to go back to Philadelphia again and try it again? Yeah, it does. Has Stafford ever beaten Jalen Hurts? He has not. He's now 0-4 against Hurts. So are the Eagles the one team that's standing in the Rams way in the same way that the Chiefs did for the Bills all these years?

15:36I don't know. The only difference is that is the Bills would beat the Chiefs in the regular season, and the Rams have not done that two years in a row now against the Eagles. and next up for the Eagles though are the equally 3-0 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Put that one in your books as a must-see in week four and then they have Denver coming into their house which means potentially it'll be a tight game only to have the Broncos have something happen at the end that makes them feel sick to their stomachs and then two of three against the Giants with a visit to Minnesota maybe it's Carson Wentz throwing it all over the place against them would not be fascinating whence the eagles right and then a bye week so an interesting next five games in many different ways for the eagles and then as for the rams their next game as i mentioned is against one daniel diamonds coming in at three and oh into their house and

16:32Rich Eisen:then talk about a big week five uh thursday night kickoff purdy might be back and who knows are the are the niners going to be four now at that point in time because they're three you know right now before another trip across the country for the Rams taking on Baltimore. And I'll be calling that game in Wembley in week seven on NFL Network, Rams and Jaguars before a bye. I'm not concerned about the Rams. I'm just not. They are talented top to bottom, left to right. To use the easy reader song, I'm dating myself with electric company references here. Bottom line, not concerned about the Rams. just chalk it up to these things happen even though we really haven't seen it quite a bit and as for the eagles how are you gonna beat them can't stop the tush push you're up by 19 in their house they're booing like crazy they'll just block field goals to keep you off the scoreboard or you know the chiefs are feeling good about it and then all of a sudden one one miscue on the goal line and it flips the script so things are looking good for the eagles so far and the thing they did it with the pass when in the first two weeks it was like can't throw the ball what's wrong with aj brown jalen hurts uh and then all of a sudden boom breakout game for aj brown hurts is doing it winging it around and and they come back and win you've heard the phrase necessity is the mother of invention sometimes necessity is the mother of oh that's aj brown oh that's Devontae Smith.

18:02Maybe we should start throwing it. Because that's what I saw in a link on Sunday. We take a break. We come back and talk about Daniel Jones. Let's go. Oh, yeah. Danny Diamonds is going to stick, baby. So you're dropping the energy? Well, no. I mean, we could stay on it. Yeah. You know, other people talk about in the hunt for playoff spots. You know, we're always talking about sniffing it. Sniffing it. Not that we have a problem with in the hunt. We just have our own way of talking about things. That's how we do things. All right. And then the Giants and the Chiefs. We'll hit them. Maybe the Cowboys and Bears before we get out of hour one.

18:36We don't need to. We can skip that. Ethan Hawke's coming here. Let's go. We've got a celebrity, true or false, with him. Yeah, we're going to talk about his current project, the Lowdown on Hulu. Hulu. Debut on Tuesday night. You might go down the trading day memory lane as well as maybe hop on the desk and yawp. that's a uh oh captain my cap yeah yeah that's a reference to uh one of his more famous movies okay 844-204-rich number to dial when we take a break we come back don't you dare miss this week three monday edition of the rich eisen show the rich eisen show podcast

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21:01Rich Eisen:Because next doesn't wait for an invitation and neither do we. Hyundai has always moved the future within reach. We did it when we made advanced safety standard on every vehicle and engineered EVs with ultra fast charging capability because the future isn't some far off concept. It's already here. Next starts now. Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA.

21:24Back here on the Rich Eisen show, simulcast all together here on ESPN radio presented by Progressive Insurance, the Disney Plus app and ESPN app everywhere. Guys, the thing we love about the National Football League is it's the greatest reality show there is. Can't make it up.

21:46Rich Eisen:Things happen that you're like, wouldn't even make it in a script in this crazy town of Los Angeles in Hollywood. Can't make it up. When I was at the Combine and I heard whispers there in Indianapolis that the Colts needed to find somebody for Anthony Richardson to take a seat potentially. And where it was coming around, you're hearing the name of Daniel Jones and you're like, okay. And then they signed Daniel Jones for a quarterback competition. And all I kept hearing is like, yeah, that's not gonna be a competition. Sure enough, yada, yada, yada, who got the start? I'm not saying I was right.

22:28I was just hearing this information. Plus, any time in which I could potentially be right, right now, certainly. When one of my first takes that has gone all sorts of places throughout the ESPN realm, because we're now associated with them, is everything's going to be fine with the Cincinnati Bengals. Jake Brown is pretty damn good. And then we just saw what just happened. Not looking good one weekend there. So anytime I could sit here and talk about stuff like that, I will. That said, though, it's about Daniel Jones doing what he's doing for the Indianapolis Colts. And what he's doing for the Indianapolis Colts is quite simply something we've never seen from the Colts at the quarterback position before.

23:12Rich Eisen:And I know what I'm saying right now. Because just to name a couple of quarterbacks that have worn the blue horseshoe on the side of the helmet there. Peyton Manning is one. All you have to do is just stroll up the front steps at Lucas Oil and you see the statue. Johnny Unitas is another. Just to name two. Andrew Luck could be another one. Captain Comeback. My guy Jim Harbaugh is another. Just to name a few of note. There's a list of Indianapolis Colts and Baltimore Colts quarterbacks

23:50that have started a season 3-0 with zero giveaways. That list is one name on it. It's Daniel Jones.

24:01Rich Eisen:Now there's a list of all sorts of quarterbacks of note in the Super Bowl era. I'm now widening the scope of quarterbacks to play in this great game since the Super Bowl era began, which is always 1970, the merger, and all that sort of business. So, unfortunately, you've got to take Bart Starr in the 60s out of the mix. But there's still, I think, a large subset of quarterbacks from which to choose. There's a list of quarterbacks in the Super Bowl era with three or more passing touchdowns and three or more rushing touchdowns and no giveaways in the first three games of the season. And that list has one name on it.

24:43Rich Eisen:It's Daniel Jones. Oh, come on. That's how he's starting it off in Indianapolis. 20 straight drives without a punt. what's the name of the partner's name anyway he holds for him what's his name again yeah you're getting my drift here

25:06Rich Eisen:unbelievable jonathan taylor's uh quite something as well it's all working third career game with 100 or more rush yards and three or more rushing touchdowns he broke a tie with hall of famer Marshall Falk for the second most such games in Colts history. Only Edron James is in front of him. Michael Pittman and Daniel Jones are connecting. Daniel Jones has a passer rating when targeting Pittman this year of 144.1. That is the best quarterback wide receiver combination in the National Football League and there's some other pretty darn good ones too. They both raced the Titans. Anybody that's thinking, well, it was just the first two games, they were both at home, it was the Dolphins in week one, you know?

25:56Anybody's thinking, oh, they'll just turn into a pumpkin

25:58Rich Eisen:and on the road in Tennessee and Cam Ward's gonna show you something and it's on the road in the division. That didn't happen. 103 points through the first three games of 2025. That's tied for the second most in Indianapolis history. and you're thinking, oh, that's got to include Peyton Manning, right? Nope. The other team to score 103 points in the first three games in 1958, that was Weeb Eubank with Unitas. Good old Weeb. And then in 1967, they had 117 points in the first three games. The coach there was Don Shuler then at the time. Okay. And so Daniel Jones was told this. And of course, you know what he did.

26:43He spiked the football. He was telling me how great he was. He's pounding his chest, and he's emoting. Wait a minute. He's emoting. No, no, no. I'm told it's the exact opposite.

26:55Yeah, I don't know. I think obviously we're running it well. JT, you know, had another big-time day. I think huge credit to him and how he's been playing. And then the guys up front, you know, and they're blocking, and the run game's been big. And then guys are getting open, making plays in the pass game with some explosive plays and stuff down the field. So I need a lot of credit to the guys up front. I think it starts there in the run game and the pass game. And then playing off of that. Kenny Moore II with his fourth career pick six. Just to back up Daniel Jones' point, defense was doing it.