Hour 1: Guest Host Tom Pelissero, Eagles-Giants, Plus CBS Sports Jason McCourty

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1:19Our YouTube channel. Subscribe at youtube.com slash richeisenshow and you'll never miss a moment. Now, on with the show. All I give a damn about Gotta move the back God, I love that guy This is the Rich Eisen Show With guest host Tom Pellicera Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles Cahez grounds it back to Kirkree He can't find it He throws home It's won Today's guests CBS Sports NFL analyst Jason McCourty Yahoo Sports College football analyst Ross Dellinger And now sitting in for Rich It's Tom Pelissero. Welcome to a Rich Eisenless edition of the Rich Eisen Show here on a Friday.

2:06Tom Pelissero sitting in the chair for Rich. Thrilled to be making my Disney Plus debut. Also on the ESPN app, ESPN Radio, presented by Progressive Insurance with my guys. Chris Brockman is here. Yeah, Tommy P. Great to see you in person, man. Jason Feller holding it down as usual because Mike Del Tufo is just posting photos of him at a Dua Lipa concert repeatedly for like 72 hours here. Never seems to be around when I'm here. TJ Jefferson, who is, I had to say, it seemed like you floated into the studio here today, TJ. It seemed like you slept well after that game last night. I'm still recording you like per usual.

2:46It's a guy saying hi to Tom. Hey, what's up? Hey, Tom. Good to see you, man. What up? Yeah, man. It was an interesting game as a Cowboys fan, those being two of my least favorite teams. I was really into that game last night at Cam Front. It was a fun watch. We also got Brian Burns, late addition to the guest list. Did not necessarily expect that I'd be on the stationary bike this morning seeing, like, can we get someone from the Giants on to talk about the biggest win they've had in three years? It's never a good sign. Was that a workout flex, too, by the way? You know, I keep myself on my own time zone when I come out here.

3:22It's never a good sign when about public perception, when the network broadcasting your game is promoting a documentary about a guy on the other team. If you're with Prime Video, you're making a calculated bet here. Right. That the main audience for that documentary is not going to turn off the game in anger by the start of the fourth quarter and stick around to watch the Saquon Barkley documentary. We'll talk about the Eagles because there's a lot. There is a lot going on with a team that when they were three and oh, when they were four and oh, there were complaints and concerns in the media, from the fans, from the public about the state of the offense.

4:08Now that they're 4-2 and have stumbled over the last couple of games and did not score a point in the second half last night. There's a lot to unpack about what direction this thing ends up going in Philadelphia. What they have to do is they go into a mini-buy to get this right. But I want to start by talking about the Giants. a team a front office that has caught as much flack as anybody over the last two years deservedly so i mean yeah they brought it i mean about how they handled saquon about how they've handled the roster about re-signing daniel jones about doing a documentary where they explained their reasoning on hard knocks for why they were doing it and i sat in this chair two summers ago and said that was the best behind-the-scenes football show I had ever seen.

5:01Because at minimum, you were telling people, this is why we're doing these things. We don't know if we're right or wrong. We're using our best educated response mechanisms here. We are trying to plan. Here's how the cap works. Here's how money works. This is why we're doing those things. They had the absolute worst-case scenario play out last year, which is not only did the player who they controversially let walk, they didn't trade him, contrary to what you might have heard a couple of times on the broadcast last night. He left in free agency. It was the worst case scenario for that guy to go and not just play well, not just stay healthy, which has been a challenge for Saquon, but run for 2 ,000 yards and win a Super Bowl.

5:41That is the worst case scenario here. But the reasoning didn't change. Look at what happened last night. And I understand this is a Thursday night game. Those can be weird. It is week six of the season. There's still a two-win team that's got a ton that they have to accomplish here to be even relevant when we get to December. But it felt like a moment for them last night. And everything and everyone that contributed last night, it all comes back to the decisions that they made over the last two years for what they were going to do with the roster moving forward. Yes, in 2022, coming off of a playoff season, where they went and won a playoff game on the road in Minnesota, they wanted to retain their core they tried to re-sign Saquon to a deal that was pretty close to what he ended up taking a year later from the Eagles they couldn't get it done they tag him they re-signed Daniel Jones and you spend two years in this kind of purgatory at the quarterback position fast forward a year a couple more attempts to get Saquon done they decided to let him walk it doesn't matter who your running back is if you don't have the quarterback they used some of that money and of course draft picks to go and trade for brian burns who was everywhere on the field and will be here again before the end of this show he's going to join us live uh he's tied for the league leave with seven sacks he is an absolute monster and a menace on the field as you saw last night that is a decision that if you went back in time they would do a hundred times out of 100 pay the elite pass rusher not pay the six-year veteran running back again i'm taking nothing it away from Saquon.

7:21The Eagles won a Super Bowl with him. Saquon Barkley was not going to be the difference between the Giants winning the Super Bowl last year and not. That's true. Flat out. It was not going to be the difference. So what do you do a running back now? You draft Tyrone Tracy at over 1 ,000 yards from scrimmage as a rookie, and then you draft Cam Scadaboo, who might be the most fun story in the NFL right now. I went back this morning and just watched the sequence, about six, seven minutes left in the game. They're around midfield and they're just calling the inside run after inside run to camp scadaboo and going try to stop us it's it's like their equivalent of the tush push he is running into traffic and you see the entire pile move down the field and the fans you know eddie from the bronx who was probably screaming on the first drive of the game there's saquon just running through people He's on Cam Scadaboo's side.

8:16Cam Scadaboo and Tyrone Tracy. Throw Devin Singletary in, too. They're making a fraction of what Saquon Barkley is. They've had wide receiver health issues throughout this season. Malik Nabors out for the season with a torn ACL. They didn't have Darius Slayton last night. They're throwing to Lil Jordan Humphrey. Who's not little, by the way. On the practice squad. He's big, Jordan. Big guy. But it's jump ball situations, and he's going up and making plays. And you get Jackson Dart. You get Abdual Carter at the top. You didn't panic and take a quarterback higher than you thought you should take him.

8:51But you trade back into the first round and you take Jackson Dart. Again, I understand this is one game last night. But if you want to have hope about the Giants moving forward, it's that maybe. And they certainly think this. They think they've got the quarterback. They think they've got the guy. You see, Jackson Dart, he might have a little fine coming his way for the other part of the Michael Jackson dance that he did last night. You can't actually do that. That's probably going to be$5 ,000,$10 ,000. Shmole. You can't go to that part. And that'll be Jackson's first experience with the NFL fine system.

9:29Doesn't it seem like Jackson Dart and Cam Scadaboo both have a little something wrong with them? Yeah, but in the best way possible. In a great, great way. They both seem to have a screw loose. Look at that photo right now. These are... Cam Scadaboo is going on the TNF set postgame and ripping his shirt off Hulk Hogan style. Like full on Hogan with Ryan Fitzpatrick. With the whole rug of Ryan Fitzpatrick's chest. It was so much. Which when you're sweaty, when you're a little wet and sticky, that's a bold move because you might be taking some of Ryan Fitzpatrick with you after that. But both of them just seem to be...

10:03I hate to do the generational taglines, but they both got the certain Gen Z to them. Certainly Jackson Dart does. Cam Scadaboo just might be nuts. Yeah, for sure. He is a different guy. I've interviewed him before on the Insiders over on NFL Network. He's just, he's a different type of a guy. He can be just very soft-spoken and straightforward, and then he can go into the absolute, you know, wild man type of mode. Think of these last two draft classes for the Giants. Again, these are all things that have taken place since they ultimately let Saquon Barkley walk. Again, I will remind people, after several attempts over the previous two years to extend Saquon Barkley, they drafted Malik Neighbors, Tyler Nubun, who's starting for him, Drew Phillips, who's been an impact player in the defensive backfield, Theo Johnson was everywhere last night, a breakthrough type of performance for him, and Tyrone Tracy.

10:56This year's draft class starts with Abduo Carter, Jackson Dark, Cam Scadaboo. That's your core that you're trying to build around now. And if you're retaining Saquon Barkley, a great player, who we've seen be one of the best players in the NFL, there are moves you cannot make. You do not have Brian Burns. You're not adding him to a mix that now includes him and Kayvon Thibodeau and Abdul Carter. You don't have that guy who's co-leading the NFL in sacks. If you're retaining Saquon Barkley, it's a salary gap leak. you don't have that flexibility. And then at the quarterback position, yes, you kind of had to try to patch this thing together and build it around Daniel Jones because coming off of a playoff year, you don't really want to blow it up at that point and go back to ground zero, but you were tied to somebody who as well as he's playing right now in Indianapolis, and he certainly is, you probably felt like there's a ceiling for this guy.

11:51So what did they do? They didn't go, well, we got to, we're all going to get fired if Saquon goes to Philly because they knew he was going to Philly. We're all going to get fired if he plays well and they go and make a playoff run and Saquon's a big part of it. You try to do the right thing. And Joe Shane, Brian Dable, the Mara family, and certainly John, who's fighting cancer right now, had to be wherever he is smiling at that game last night because there have not been a lot of those types of moments for the Giants over the last three years. Every fan, every media member wanted everybody fired.

12:23This is why you do the right thing even when it's hard. If you get fired for doing the right thing, you accept the consequences. Doing things because public pressure and let's just give Saquon 16, 17 million dollars and let's retain him and know we're probably not going to be very good. Or do we free up those resources, draft a couple of dudes who are both studs. Tyrone Tracy is a really good player, too, and try to build this thing in the big picture. I don't know where the rest of the season goes for the Giants, but for at least one night, when you rewind and go back to hard knocks 18 months ago, this is the math problem they were trying to solve.

13:03It's a complicated math problem. It's advanced algebra at the least. But it seems like you at least can understand why when they graphed this out on the board, they came to the conclusions they did. On the flip side of it, you have an Eagles team that when they walked off the field in New Orleans, and it's always hard to project out what teams are going to be. There's turnover. Guys age at various points. There's going to be players who suffer injuries. Eagles have not necessarily had those circumstances. They haven't had a devastating injury to one of their core players. It's a lot of the same dudes.

13:42I don't think anybody is aging out. You had, you know, yeah, the likes of, you know, the Brandon Grahams and Fletcher Cox's and Jason Kelsey's who over years have been there. Obviously, some of those guys were not on the team last year, but you're not having those guys like Saquon is not at an age where he's falling off. You saw Saquon. He still looks like Saquon last night. A.J. Brown, who was banged up in camp, but they got him the football last night. The passing game seemed to be off just in general. There's obviously a pick six in that game. I go back to the miss to Devontae Smith. It's a coverage bust.

14:16On a night that Shane Bowen's defense was really, really impressive, they completely turned loose Devontae Smith, and Jalen Hurts misses him by a lot. I'm not a quarterback expert, but that is a situation where put some air under the ball and let one of the fastest dudes in the NFL just go and get it. Then postgame, because everything for three days, it's a short week, there have been a lot of discussion, including on the pregame show, about the meeting early in the week. It was reported. Jalen Hurts talked about it. Saquon Barkley talked about it. A.J. Brown was asked about the meeting, and he said this.

14:52You had this meeting this past week with Saquon and Jalen. What was behind that? I don't call it a meeting. Oh, okay. The meeting never happened. I don't know what you're talking about. Those guys said it did happen. No. You didn't talk to him. you weren't you weren't in the meeting i don't recall i don't recall he's got a smile on his face okay i like aj brown a lot i've always enjoyed talking with him i think he's one of the great tone setters in the league but that was unusual was it not yeah pretty weird i mean if it if he doesn't recall it maybe it's time for another meeting a meeting about the meeting because the parts still didn't connect the way that the Eagles want.

15:38I don't personally lay this at the feet. I think it's way overly simplistic to lay this at the feet of Kevin Petullo, the new offensive coordinator. Every year, there's some level of this with the Eagles where early in the season, they're trying to figure some things out. Jalen Hurts has had a different play caller every year going back to high school. He has never had any consistency through Alabama to Oklahoma to obviously the Eagles, whether it was Nick Sirianni calling it in his first year, turn it over to Steichen, then Steichen leaves, hand it to Brian Johnson. That doesn't work out. You go and name a new play caller once again, and he goes ahead and gets a job.

16:14We can tell him more. There's all kinds of circumstances here, but it does not, it just doesn't look right. And the Eagles in general don't quite look right. Some of the biggest plays in that game, just in the fourth quarter, you mishandle a kickoff out of bounds. You have a critical fumble. And again, the pick six and the miss, The only thing that goes right in the big picture in that game is, yes, the tush push is still really good. So good last night, in fact, running it four consecutive times that it does, sitting there watching it, just makes me think they don't have confidence in anything else they're doing.

16:50You're paying A.J. Brown and Devontae Smith as two of the highest paid wide receivers in the NFL. You got the highest paid running back in the NFL. Red zone touch, a red zone opportunity. What is happening? And you've got Jalen Hurts, of course, who was the Super Bowl MVP, And not just because he can duck his head in behind the guards who may or may not leave a split second early. I do. I do find the comedy in after the third and two tush push. And then they cut to Kevin Petulo on the sideline who's going like this. He's got the play card. What could he be calling? Fourth and inches. We got to cover that play.

17:22We know it's the tush push. It's unstoppable. but there's not a lot else that it seems like the Eagles have a high degree of confidence in. Nick Sirianni said it after the game last night that you got to treat this like a mini buy. We'll hear from Lane Johnson a little bit later on in the show because he's talking about we're becoming too predictable offensively. Well, the part that's predictable is the unstoppable part. The unpredictable parts are where you're not executing things the way that you need to. It was a weird night once again for the Eagles, who for a 4-2 team that is still on top of the division is going to face all kinds of questions for the next 10 days.

18:00And it was a great night for the New York Giants. We'll see how the rest of this season goes. But if you want hope, those two wild man rookies are a big part of the puzzle. And you hope that's kind of the new definition of what Giants football is as you move into the future. Jason McCourty is going to be joining us after this he was at the game last night again phone lines will be open throughout the show 844-204-RICH thanks to those of you who are watching us on Disney Plus the ESPN app of course listen to us on ESPN radio presented by Progressive Insurance let's dive a little deeper into this and the rest of an exciting week 6 ahead when Jason McCourty joins us right on the other side of this break with me Tom Pelissero in for Rich on the Rich Eisen Show

18:51Rich Eisen here with some advice. If high-interest credit card debt is grinding you down, it might be time to call an audible with a SoFi personal loan. It consolidates your debt into one low monthly payment with no fees required. And with as soon as the same day funding, you can make the right play fast. Call an audible on your debt today at SoFi.com slash debt play. Loans originated by SoFi Bank N.A. member FDIC terms and conditions apply NMLS 696891 fast funds terms apply at sofi.com slash debt play rich eisen here for gusto on my shows we talk a lot about what happens in the spotlight the games the highlights and the moments that get replayed and debated but in any successful operation what happens behind the scenes matters just as much small businesses are no different payroll hiring onboarding benefits and all the details that keep things moving may not be the most visible part of the job, but they still have to be handled right.

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21:09The Rich Eisen Show podcast. Rich Eisen-less, Rich Eisen Show. Tom Pellicero in for Rich on Disney +, the ESPN app, and of course, ESPN Radio, presented by Progressive Insurance. You did not dream that last night, even if you might have dozed off at some point in the third, fourth quarter. Giants routed the Eagles. Our next guest was there. He is a Super Bowl champ. He's a 13-year NFL veteran, now CBS analyst. You can see basically Jason McCourty everywhere. I once, I think most famously, what he's best known for was releasing a single with me on the acoustic guitar and him singing back during his good morning football days.

21:54I'm not going to ask you, Jason, to sing today, mainly because of how that segment went. But I got to say, in my weird memories of nine years at NFL Network, that one is really high up on the list. I give you credit because you actually have musical talent. Myself, I expose myself to everybody to show how bad of singing. But I got to show how much of a team player. I bought into the segment, and it was absolutely brutal. But I appreciate you for playing along. You absolutely went for it, which I appreciated. But the moment you opened your mouth, I was like, oh, boy. There's no rhythm. There's no pitch.

22:27nothing here uh but appreciate you being here today man uh you were at the game last night met life stadium i saw the photo on social media you and your son when you walk through the doors of that stadium what are the chances in your mind you're going to watch the giants salting that game away in the fourth quarter my son wanted to wear his jalen hurts jersey to the game because at this age he's nine he just wants to be associated with the winner he didn't care really which team is going to be, but he was so sure that the Eagles are going to win. I'm like, buddy, like, New Jersey, Northeast, like, rolling up with a Jalen Hurst jersey, I don't want to have to fight anybody, so let's just go neutral, put on just an NFL jacket, but I didn't expect this.

23:10The Giants team we saw a week ago with five straight turnovers, with so many young guys playing in their game, and then the Eagles on the other side coming off of a loss to the Denver Broncos, where they had a lead in the fourth quarter and kind of gave the game away you expected the Eagles to be fired up that they didn't have to wait an entire week to play again and I expected them to win that game and win it kind of big and a lot of credit goes to Brian Dable he's been able to get this team going even coming off that loss on the roll to come back home the game plan centered around Jackson Dart and how it was able to kind of show itself throughout the course of that game they end up going down and continue to fight and really put a butt whooping on the Philadelphia Eagles.

23:54And I think it puts them in a spot where at 4-2, yes, you still feel good if you're an Eagles fan that you are where you are. But it's kind of that teetering point where is this going to be the 2023 Eagles where they were 10-1 and then absolutely collapsed? Or is it going to be more like last year where early on in the season, Hurts had turnovers. They were struggling. They went into their bye week. They came up with some answers, and they went on a terrific run to obviously win the Super Bowl. a lot of question marks surrounding the Eagles right now. So if you look at this Eagles offense, Jason, you spent a long time in your career, obviously game planning against and trying to pick things apart.

24:29What's going on? They're pretty close to full strength. It's not like they got injuries all over the place. Why outside of the tush push, the tush push, we're calling the tush push fourth and inches. Besides the tush push, why does it seem like nothing else is on time, on tempo the way that we expect? I think part of it is when you're a really good football team and really good offense like they were a year ago. Each and every year, you have to kind of recreate yourself and go back and look at it, what you did well, and how you have to adjust and adapt to whatever the new pieces are on your football team.

25:02Last year, they decided after the bye week, you know what? The best attribute of our offense is our line and our running back in Saquon Barkley. And we're going to fully commit to it because he's picking up three yards before he's even getting touched by a defender. And then he's able to do the rest. You come into this season, they haven't been able to do that. They've tried to line up in the shotgun like they always do and just run the ball at people. And Saquon is getting hit in the backfield damn near every single time. So you don't have the team to just bully people the way you did last year.

25:34We've seen them over the last two weeks try to rely on the passing game a lot more and put the ball in Jalen Hurts' hands. It's too vanilla. And I don't know if when you're looking at the Eagles, if they feel as though, hey, we're doing what Jalen Hurts likes and we're doing the things that work to the best of what his abilities are, or if they just feel like he can't handle more with their offense, more emotion, more movement, different things with the wide receivers, you're not seeing that. A lot of times they're just lining up and they're saying, we're going to beat you one-on-one, and they don't have the ability to do that this year.

26:07So I think when you watch them, to your point, outside of the tush push and the variations that they've done off of the tush push, they're struggling. and you're seeing it on first and second down, which has led to them. We haven't even seen that many tush pushes the last two weeks because they're always in third and six plus because they're not able to pick up the necessary yards on first and second down. This is an offense that has completely lost their identity and they have a 10-day break now. So somewhere along the line, they have to figure out exactly who they are. The flip side of this, I also was struck by how the Eagles didn't seem to have a whole lot of answers for the things Jackson Dart was doing particularly off schedule.

26:44There's kind of this looseness in his game. He's coming out of the pocket. It looks like a lot of times, I don't want to call it, you know, not full backyard football. I'm sure they have rules to the scramble drills. But, like, a lot of their big plays are coming from him either running or just getting outside. If you're scheming this up against him, you watched that tape last night and you're figuring out, okay, how do we not let Cam Scadaboo gash us and not let the quarterback run around and make things happen? What do you do against him? I mean, the first thing is you talked about him scrambling and you would hate as a defense.