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00:00Adam Kaplan is our NFL insider, and he's been covering the NFL since before Christ.
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00:29It's all the way things should be and should have been from the beginning and have been.
00:35All right.
00:36You went to Eagles OTAs today, and I want to know about a couple things.
00:42One, this big Dom guy that everybody's talking about here.
00:45And two, what is wrong with these sports talk guys in Peralta, that they're like going crazy
00:54over the Eagles offense not being allegedly good in OTAs?
01:01Like how ridiculous?
01:02The Phillies are 44-19, and they're talking about the OTA practice?
01:08Yeah.
01:09Yeah.
01:10Yeah.
01:11The Eagles finished.
01:12Scott, good to be with you.
01:13The mandatory camp today, their third practice this week.
01:17They practice Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
01:19Nine other teams finished, and the other 22 teams around the NFL will finish next week.
01:23But let's get back to the Eagles.
01:25I was down there in South Philly today, and first of all, look, we have to understand.
01:29Let's talk first about their offense.
01:32The Eagles have installed a brand-new offensive coordinator, Kellen Moore.
01:37It's completely different than Jalen Hurts has played in.
01:39Jalen Hurts has gone through a lot of offensive scheme changes in his career, going back to
01:43high school.
01:44He's had a lot of different coaches.
01:45So Nick Sirianni, his scheme is out.
01:48Kellen Moore's scheme is in.
01:49Sirianni's involved, but it's Kellen Moore's scheme.
01:53Kellen Moore's also going to call the plays.
01:55So the thing is, the way I understand it is the timing is a little bit off, but that's
01:59to be expected.
02:00Remember now, Scott, as you well know, and everybody should know, off-seasons are shorter
02:05now.
02:06Going back to the 11 CBA, there are not a lot of practices.
02:09So yes, of course the defense is going to be ahead of the offense in this situation.
02:13Don't forget they're running the same exact defense under Vic Fangio, their defensive
02:17coordinator.
02:18This is the fourth year that they've ran his scheme.
02:20This is his first year there with Philly.
02:22The Eagles tried to hire him a couple of years ago.
02:24It did not work out, but he's there now.
02:26But yeah, does the defense look better than the offense?
02:29Absolutely.
02:30The Eagles are not worried about it, believe me.
02:32The talk radio hosts around Philly, the two stations here we have in Philly, they're blowing
02:36stuff up.
02:37It's not a big deal.
02:38Fans are going out of their minds.
02:39It's not a big deal.
02:40This is my 25th year of covering the National Football League.
02:42I never worry about this stuff.
02:44It's never really a problem.
02:46But yes, when you're installing a brand new offensive scheme, they're going to be growing
02:50pains.
02:51It's really not a big deal.
02:52Honestly, between Barkley, Brown, Smith, their tight end, their quarterback, they are loaded.
03:03What do I give a rat's ass about June 6th, the final day of off-season workouts, mandatory?
03:13I could care less.
03:14When they roll out in September, that offense, they are stacked.
03:21Yep.
03:22Not only are they stacked, by the way, this is one of the big stories of their off-season.
03:28All of a sudden, Mekhi Becton, who was drafted as a left tackle by the Jets, he signed a
03:33one-year deal with the Eagles a couple weeks ago, he actually has been lining up at left
03:37guard.
03:38You're talking about a six-foot, seven-and-a-half guard now.
03:42He actually lined up, filling in for Landon Dickerson, their starting left guard, who
03:45was away due to personal business, but there's an excused absence.
03:49It's crazy to see a guy that big, and by the way, he's slimmed down now.
03:52He's down about 30 pounds or so.
03:54The bottom line is seeing a guy like that play guard is interesting, and the Eagles
03:58have a great offensive line.
03:59There's no doubt about that.
04:00But again, Jason Kelsey is retired.
04:02They have a new starting center in Cam Juergens.
04:05He moved from right guard to center.
04:07That's going to be a storyline of training camp.
04:09We'll have our storylines later in July.
04:11But yeah, way too much, I agree with you, made of this.
04:14It's crazy because you talk about the Phillies, the Phillies have the best record in baseball.
04:19They play in London this weekend on Saturday and Sunday.
04:22That should be a bigger story.
04:23Somehow in this town, you know this market in Philly very well, somehow this story blew
04:26up this week.
04:27I mean, it's ridiculous.
04:29They're 25 games over 500, and they're talking about the offensive woes of the Eagles, which
04:37they don't have any.
04:38To deal with this mafioso type, this big Dom guy that's protecting everyone, and they
04:43gave him some juicy new title.
04:45Wasn't he in trouble last year on the sidelines causing grief?
04:49Yeah.
04:50So, okay.
04:51Dom DeSandro is his name.
04:52He's the Eagles vice president of security.
04:54His nickname is Big Dom.
04:55I saw him today on the sidelines.
04:58He's a guy you always see in a sweatsuit, lovable guy, very beloved by the organization.
05:04Back here in Philly, we actually have t-shirts made of him.
05:07When you see a director of security having a t-shirt made of him, but the Eagles have
05:10that.
05:11But getting back to DeSandro's situation.
05:12So it was that Sunday afternoon game, the Eagles lost to the Niners here last season.
05:17And DeSandro, remember, a Niners player got in someone's face, and then DeSandro got in
05:22the Niners player's face.
05:23You're not supposed to do that.
05:24So he wound up getting suspended for the rest of the regular season.
05:27So he does get involved with the coaches and with security.
05:32So what the Eagles did is to make sure that everybody knows what his title is.
05:37He has a brand new title.
05:38He actually has a third title where he's going to be, not only, he's already advisor to the
05:43general manager, Harry Roseman, and vice president of security, but he's got a third title now
05:47to make sure everybody knows that he's with the coaches.
05:50He's now involved with the coach.
05:51He's got like a title with the coaches here.
05:55So yeah, he's the only one who has this, but DeSandro is extremely popular here.
06:00And it's interesting.
06:03He's really come up here for the ranks.
06:04By the way, Dom actually played football for a brief time at Penn State, but he's all about
06:09security and you cannot miss the guy.
06:10He's always in a sweatsuit.
06:12Is he in charge of bringing Pat's steaks over to the field as well?
06:18Yeah.
06:19Dom's a sizable guy, by the way.
06:21You cannot miss him.
06:22And he's really bluff.
06:24He always has those glasses on, even when we have partly cloudy skies here in Philly.
06:29But yeah, by the way, the Eagles now have wrapped up.
06:34They will report in late July.
06:36They're going to have a joint practice with the Patriots for one day in the preseason.
06:41But this is a team that people want to know what happened last season.
06:45But you're right, Scott.
06:47The roster is absolutely stacked on offense.
06:50And they have one of the best defensive coordinators in NFL history in Vic Fangio here.
06:53So I like the win projection of 11-12.
06:56I think that's pretty accurate.
06:58So what's the deal with the UFL's ratings?
07:03This is an interesting story because I follow this stuff.
07:05In fact, there's a betting market for it.
07:07I know my friends at FantasyPoints.com put out betting stuff and fantasy information.
07:12So it's kind of a big deal, the UFL, because look, we don't have football in the spring.
07:16You and I grew up with the USFL.
07:19But what's happened here, Scott, is this thing surprised me.
07:23Their TV ratings, if you just look at the XFL in the past and the USFL in the past,
07:28the last couple seasons, the UFL is up by about over 200,000 per week for TV.
07:34That's great with Fox, ABC, and ESPN.
07:38But the bummer is, attendance-wise, now there are only eight teams.
07:43While we've got the St. Louis Battle Hawks coached by Anthony Beck,
07:46your former Jets first-round pick, they average, I mean, Scott,
07:51they average over 30,000 per game.
07:53But the other seven teams, they average less than 10,000 per game.
07:58And what I was told is, and the reason why the attendance is low,
08:01if you remember, the merger of combining the three leagues into one,
08:06that happened way later than they anticipated.
08:09And that is why it was hard to sell in those markets.
08:13And that's something they're going to have now because, for one,
08:15I understand there shouldn't be any movement.
08:18They've got the eight teams.
08:19Everybody knows where they're going to be.
08:21So they'll now be able to market and have a full offseason.
08:23But, yeah, the crowds weren't great.
08:24But the TV ratings are really, really big.
08:27That, to me, is a big surprise.
08:28I was not expecting that.
08:30People want to watch that D.C.
08:33Defenders team with their fans that drink five million beers and make that beer
08:37snake every week on national television.
08:39That's, like, bigger than the game.
08:42Oh, by the way, speaking of that, they've got the playoffs that start this
08:45weekend, and that's another kind of layer to this.
08:47But I'll be interested to see if they could actually draw on these markets.
08:54I've talked to a couple of their coaches.
08:56They definitely think that it's all about staying foot.
08:59Everybody knows where they're going to be,
09:00and that's going to help them this coming offseason.