00:00I'll start with you, Tom.
00:01How do you think A.J. Brown leaving Philadelphia will impact this team?
00:08I think the hot take or knee-jerk reaction would be to say,
00:13oh, you're losing a guy that consistently puts up 1,000 yards.
00:17That's going to be a big impact.
00:19The offense wasn't great last year.
00:21Take 1 Barkley wasn't great last year compared to the year prior.
00:25What are we going to get from the offense?
00:26I think this opens up a lot of potential simply based on the experimentation that the offense could bring.
00:35When you have a wide receiver such as Devontae Smith, who I think is fantastic,
00:40he's had over 1,000 yards in three of the last four seasons, he's your new number one.
00:44This is something that the offense should be, at least the passing portion of the offense, should be built around.
00:49Then when you draft Lemon and you bring in Dontabian Wicks and you bring in Hollywood Brown,
00:53you have players that can play a role somewhat similar to New England, where you have a true number one,
00:58but then you have a lot of guys that really do bring some upside.
01:01And whether or not Dallas Goddard is going to be playing a long-term role there, I don't think he
01:07will.
01:07You have pieces that you can work with and true offensive talent.
01:11So if we expect the offense to be better just based on natural regression,
01:14we expect Saquon Barkley to be better.
01:16Again, maybe it's not going to be as high volume of touches, but he will be a little bit better.
01:19We know we get from Devontae Smith, you have a great wide receiver talent.
01:23And then you have some guys that are trying to prove themselves, Dontabian Wicks, Hollywood Brown.
01:27These guys want long-term contracts.
01:28They want to prove themselves.
01:30So now you have pieces that can rotate in and out.
01:33You will always have fresh wide receivers.
01:34An injury here or there won't impact the passing game too much because everyone's pretty good
01:39and we're waiting for someone to elevate themselves to be a star alongside Smith.
01:46So, Tom, give me a range of where you think Devontae Smith stacks up amongst the best receivers in this
01:53league.
01:56Based on pure numbers, at worst, 15, you know, worst 12.
02:03But we're not going to push him into the top seven or eight at this point.
02:06I agree.
02:07I agree.
02:08I agree.
02:08Here's my thing.
02:09And I think this is when the A.J. Brown stuff had been being discussed by a lot, you know,
02:14people about moving on from him and people are worried about replacing the production.
02:19There's two things that I think are very, very important to understand.
02:24Firstly, Makai Lemon is not replacing A.J. Brown.
02:28Devontae Smith is.
02:29Okay?
02:29And that's a very, very big distinction because I think anybody would agree that Devontae Smith
02:34can certainly be the number one wide receiver for the Philadelphia Eagles, right?
02:38He is a number one wide receiver level talent.
02:40The other thing is the Eagles having arguably the best wide receiver duo in football doesn't
02:49really make sense when you look at how they operate.
02:53Just factually.
02:55And I'm saying that as a Jalen Hurts guy.
02:57You know, so it's very funny that other people haven't been able to reach this conclusion to me.
03:00The Eagles want to run the football, right?
03:06They want to, you know, certainly, I think, increase the versatility in their pass attack.
03:14I think they want to, you know, be more aggressive in appropriate areas.
03:20But we're not going to throw it a Joe Burrow amount of times.
03:25That's, that just doesn't make any sense.
03:27Why would you do that?
03:29You're supposed to have a great offensive line with a megastar running back, a mobile quarterback.
03:34So I actually think we got to a point, Tom, where the allocation of resources was too much
03:40in the wide receiver room financially.
03:42And I think resetting the deck, and now Devonta Smith is your number one, and a, because it
03:51extends to the tight ends, the rest of the pass catchers, Lemon, Wicks, Hollywood Brown,
04:00Dallas Goddard, Eli Stowers, well, I like that, right?
04:04I don't know if any of those individuals emerge as like, oh, I'm clearly the second best guy
04:12maybe than like a late season Lemon, right, Tom?
04:15But I think the Eagles, based on who they are and how they operate, absolutely have enough
04:21in the passing game to be the kind of offense they want to be.
04:26I would agree 100%.
04:28And again, if we are looking back to last season in terms of offensive line ineffectiveness,
04:34offensive line injuries, you know, early in the season, Saquon didn't break off a run
04:39longer than, what was it, 15, 16, 17 yards in the first X amount of weeks.
04:43And he did that 30, 40 times the year prior.
04:46So if something that just has natural regression and he meets somewhere in the middle, which
04:50you could do in the first week, which will probably happen, along with the Jets having
04:53a pick in the first week, which we know is going to happen.
04:57The Eagles pass game, again, can be a spot where you don't need someone to be a superstar.
05:02When you have young talent that is ready to emerge, like a Stowers or like a Lemon, you
05:07have a little bit of a veteran presence with Hollywood Brown, these guys can now filter
05:12in and out and the effectiveness of the run game increasing naturally will open up more
05:17of the passing game for one of these players to eventually step up.
05:21And it doesn't have to happen immediately.
05:22It can happen as the season rolls on.
05:24And it doesn't have to happen.
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