Ike Reese, Sports Radio 94 WIP Host

The most unique NBA podcast is out on Odyssey, Heat Check with Trista Crick. NBA fans, listen up!

I'm Trista Crick, host of the Heat Check Podcast, and if you love this league, the storylines, and want a funny, digestible way to get all the news from around the association, and someone to break down what's really going on straight up, no chaser, and make you laugh at the same time, follow the Heat Check on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcast. Ah, the satisfying sounds of more sales in your business. And from the sound of it, your business is growing. But you shouldn't have to pay more to scale your business. With Stamps.com, you can import orders from wherever you sell online, find the lowest rates with the fastest delivery times, and instantly deliver tracking updates to your customers and stock up on supplies.

Get started at Stamps.com today with code PROGRAM for a four-week trial, free postage, and a digital scale. We continue. This is Zach Gelb's show Coast to Coast on CBS Sports Radio. Seahawks stunned the Eagles last night as Drew Locke completes a touchdown to Jackson Smith and Jigba for the Seahawks' first lead of the game with 28 seconds remaining.

Let's go out to the guest line right now. Welcome in former Eagles linebacker and special team star, and now does a great job in the afternoons for a while in Sports Radio 94 WIP, and that is Ike Reese. Ike, how you been, my friend? What's up, Zach? Thanks for having me, brother. I know the sky is falling in Philadelphia today after another Eagles lost their third straight.

Just how did you process it last night? Because there's losses and then there's really bad losses, and to see what Drew Locke did go a 92 yards in less than 90 seconds, I couldn't believe that. Yeah, I thought it was probably the worst loss from a filling standpoint that I've had under Nick Sirianni, you know, as a head coach.

You know, they've lost some games during his time here, but expectations and circumstances matter. And when you look at that game last night, after losing two straight coming into that game, the expectations and circumstances, in my opinion, was that the Eagles needed a win last night, almost in a must-win fashion, just from a psyche standpoint, and to come out and play the way they played. I'm not going to say they played great football last night, although I thought the defense showed a lot of promising things last night up into that final drive, but I like the way they started the game opening drive. They ran the football effectively. They went down and got a touchdown. You had a 10-point lead at some point, and then, you know, I don't know if they took their foot off the gas or things just stopped executing or they stopped executing the way they were early in the game. And particularly at the quarterback position.

And what happens is you let Seattle hang around. They just chipped away at the lead. And even when you have control of the game late, you know, those turnovers, you just can't have them. Like, you can't have those two interceptions there. You know, you got a four-point lead, and with about seven to eight minutes left to go in the game, you're at midfield or a little past midfield. It's first down.

The drive is moving smoothly. Looks like you're about to go down and get points while taking more time off the clock. And he throws the ball up to Quiz Watkins, and I understand what he's thinking there. Be aggressive.

You see a one-on-one situation, but you got to know your personnel. It's not AJ Brown you're throwing the ball to. And then secondly, I got to put a little blame on the wide receiver because when a quarterback does trust you like that, you have to reward his trust by not allowing the worst-case scenario to happen, which is an interception. If that's an incomplete pass, it's second down, we run something else, we still have the ball. So to me, that's a play where Quiz Watkins, you have to go up and at least make it a tenth of the ball, and you certainly can't allow the DB to make that interception. I don't care if they call an offensive pass an appearance. You can't allow that interception to happen. Yeah, I actually thought that was the most egregious play last night, because like you were saying, they hit AJ Brown, they hit Devante Smith, they're moving the ball down the field.

It's a four-point game. You're looking to put that one away, and I thought it was too aggressive in that spot. But Ike Reese, how about at the end of the game, it looked like he had Gainwell open, and it looked as if Jalen was trying to play hero ball when all you needed was a field goal limited time. Yeah, and when those plays work, everybody loves you for it. You know, you're being aggressive and all those things, but this is the flip side of that coin, is that there's times when that play is not going to work, and you have to be situational aware, right? And Jalen's a smart quarterback.

He's heady. He understands in-game situations. I'm a little baffled that he really rolled the dice with the game on the line there. You're in a manageable situation with two timeouts still left. You got the entire field to use.

You can use the middle of the field and then call a timeout. You need about 10 to 15 yards at the most to get Jake Elliott in reasonable field goal distance. You got one of the most, if not the most, outside of Justin Tucker. You got one of the most clutch field goal kickers in the entire game, and that has to be in the back of your mind. Not only Jalen, it has to be in the back of the coach's mind when you call a play. At least remind me, hey, we don't need to be greedy if it's not there.

Take your check down. We got two timeouts. We're just trying to get in the field goal range. And I just thought that play, the risk wasn't worth the reward there. It just wasn't worth it because, A, there is safety coverage over the top of AJ there, and B, I mean, even if he catches that ball, okay, you still have to kick a field goal. Like, we're not going in for a touchdown there because it's going to be about, what, five seconds left on the clock, six seconds left on the clock, so you're still probably going to wind up kicking a field goal. I just think it was an unnecessary risk, and I know that's probably the play that Jalen wishes he had back because you really basically robbed yourselves of an opportunity to at least send that game into overtime.

All right, Grease here with us. I know the answer is probably a mixture of both. It's not one or the other, but if you had to put the blame more on one side or the other, is it the coaching without having Shane Steichen anymore and changing both coordinators, or is it more so this is just on the players they have to execute better? Yeah, I'm more of a, it's the players guy. I put the onus on the players. Unless something is egregious as far as we can all obviously see things wrong from a schematic standpoint, I think we have the ability to have hindsight and look at plays and say, okay, we should have did this or we should have did that.

And some of that's there. Some of that is true where you can scheme up some things a little bit better and put your players in a better position. But if I'm going to tip the scale one way or the other, it's to the players. It's to the players.

And you got to do it in your position. Like take for example, you know, we just talked about Jalen in those situations. Those aren't play designs. That's the quarterback having the option to go where he wants to go with the football and understanding the in-game situation. Take it to the other side of the ball. You know, James Bradbury, the play he got beat on that touchdown, that just can't happen.

I mean, it can't happen. You can't allow a receiver to get behind you in man-to-man coverage. And his explanation last night that he was playing the sticks. I mean, you're not trying to keep them from getting a first down. You're trying to keep them from getting a touchdown.

The score is 17 to 13. Not even a field goal beat you. So, you know, they had to score a touchdown there. I say all of that to say that if you're situationally aware of what's going on, you know how to play that coverage and you give yourself a little more cushion. By the way, he was lined up 10 yards off the ball. But you still allow Jackson Smith and Jigba to eat up your cushion, excuse me, and then run by you when you know you don't have any safety help. Now, he's the one who said he wasn't expecting any safety help.

He said that last night. So I don't have some question out there as to whether or not just Sidney Brown had been over the top of him and wasn't expecting safety help. Well, according to James Bradbury, he was not expecting safety help. He just played the coverage poorly from a technique standpoint. And that's really what allowed that touchdown there. But that's another one of those situations where you're saying, okay, even if he catches the ball underneath you or what have you, you make the tackle. They don't have any timeouts. They don't have any timeouts.

So even if you make the tackle and bounce, they're still in a hurry up rush panic mode. And let's see if Drew Locke can make a decision correctly under those circumstances when he has more pressure. To me, he made two easy throws that his guys just went up and made a play. DK Metcalf made a great catch in between double coverage. Again, Bradbury was over there. And then they went back at Bradbury with Smith and Jigba. And that was one on one.

And for a guy who's a former All-Pro, you expect him to play that coverage in man to man a little bit better. Ike Reese, the press conference Jalen Hurts had after the game was so bizarre when he said they're not committed enough. And then when pressed on it, he's like, I don't have a dictionary to define commitment. What did you make of that?

Is there something more there? Is that just a player after a game frustrated just saying things? I lean a little bit towards that. You know, Jalen hasn't been one in the past that has thrown out inflammatory comments to where the next day he's making headlines or saying something. He usually plays things by the book. He's going to usually keep things close to his best. And he's going to take responsibility of his own play and not necessarily point the finger. So I look at that situation, Zach, and I say maybe he misspoke.

Sometimes you're up there and you're searching for answers and things are going through your head and you already have the emotion of how that game just ended. He's human as well. I just think he misspoke and didn't really have a clarification of what he was trying to say in that moment. At least that's what I think.

And you know what the bizarre part is though, Ike? This team last year, they had such great team chemistry. And just in the last two weeks, and I know it doesn't help when you're losing, but you basically have Darius Slay going on his podcast saying, hey, I played perfect. The rest of the defense basically sucked.

And then you just have this commitment quote. I don't know if there's more to it, but it doesn't seem like the same team chemistry is there this year. And it's bizarre because it's not like they've changed that many players from last year to this year.

I'd have to agree with that. Not having the privilege to be in the locker room amongst these guys is hard to pinpoint where there could be some sort of chemistry issues. But when you are playing this way and you lose to San Francisco, how you lost to San Francisco, and then you come back the next week against Dallas and then you have a game like this, yeah, first thing I'm thinking, man, there's got to be more behind the scenes that's going on.

Something doesn't seem right. It doesn't seem like everybody's pulling in the same direction. And that's the making of a bad football team. Certainly when things seem to be going awry, you're either going to pull closer together and unite as a team, like we saw in 2017, or you're going to pull apart, like we saw in 2018, 2019, when things weren't going well for the Eagles. And we know the drastic season that happened in 2020. So I don't want to push the panic button and feel like that's where we're headed. But when losses continue to melt up, you can't help but wonder, is there more to it than what we're just seeing on the field? Is everything OK behind closed doors, behind the scenes? You know, sometimes when you win games, it masks certain things, you know, the way people may be feeling or what have you.

And as soon as you start to lose a game or two, that's when it rears its ugly head and it shows itself. And to your point, I thought it was curious to comment Fletcher had, I think it was after the Cowboys game or maybe it was after the Niners game, when he talked about, we're going to see what we're made of right now. Who do we have in this locker room?

Who's going to be willing to fight? Like that doesn't come out of nowhere. Like that came from a place where Fletcher is directing something to his teammates. He's not just speaking to us as fans. He's really speaking to his teammates and he's speaking to maybe an issue that could be going on as far as people being committed. And that's where the Jalen Hurts comment comes in at.

So, yeah, when you start to put things together there, yeah, you know, maybe that's me hoping that there's no issues behind the scenes. But to your point, it was a weird comment and statement to make. And then even when asked to clarify it, he didn't know where to go with it versus, oh, that's not what I meant to say. This is what I was saying. It was almost like, whatever. And so, boy, I tell you, it would be a shame because this season isn't over with. The season isn't over. They've already qualified for the playoffs.

You hit a rough patch. If you can get things together, we know the one team they had to gear up to beat. And that's the only team, yes, that's the only team that I'm concerned with is playing San Francisco. Are we good enough to beat them?

Right now, we're not good enough to beat anybody. But ultimately, that's what you're trying to work towards because you know that's the monster you're going to have to take on if you want to get to the Super Bowl. Last thing I'll ask you, because you were a respected voice when you were in the locker room.

Let's say you were a Brandon Graham or a Lane Johnson, a Jason Kelce, Fletcher Cox right now. What would you be saying to your teammates to prevent this ship from sinking because it's looking like it's going down the wrong road right now? To me, and I'm pretty sure these guys have already tried different methods of talking to the teammates and rallying the troops here. But to me, it's about enough of the talking, enough of saying this is what we're going to do.

We know we're a good team. The less said, the better off you are. Put your head down, get to work. Put your heart, put your hard hat on, put your boots on, grab your lunch pail, and we got to dig ourselves out of this. Nobody's going to help us. Nobody's feeling sorry for us. Quit blaming the coaches, quit blaming this, quit blaming the schemes. We're beating ourselves with penalties at the wrong time, with turnovers at the wrong time. That's stuff that we can control as players.

And if we clean that stuff up, and at the end of the day, we can say we did those things, more often than not, you're going to come out victorious. So for those four, I call them the forefathers. Fletcher, Brandon, Jason, and Lane. Yeah, you know what it's like to be a Super Bowl champion. Not everybody else on this team does. You know what it's like to play here when things aren't going well.

Not everybody else knows. They have to be able to get that resonated with their teammates. But you have to wonder, here's the thing I'll say Zach before I get out of here. Especially on defense. There's so many new faces, you wonder if everyone is connected. You just wonder. Because sometimes you can preach that message and it doesn't hit with everybody.

It doesn't resonate with everyone. So from a mixture of the youth movement they had through the last two drafts, to the guys they brought in to help the Julio Joneses, the Kevin Byers, the Bradley Robies, the Shaq Leonard, guys like that. They brought in to try to help. These guys don't know what it's like to play here in Philadelphia, to wear that uniform, what it means.

And to try to get them to all be on the same page. Man it was amazing they were able to do that last year and get to the Super Bowl. And they did it in 17 and won the Super Bowl. But then there's plenty of other instances around the league of history where this doesn't work. Where you can get a collection of talent and it can only carry you so far.

But you need character. You need guys that will fight through the tough times and stick together versus looking to point the finger when things aren't going well. And I didn't like the Derrick Gunn stuff that leaked out to him. Whoever did that to me was pointing the finger at somebody else.

That type of stuff is not conducive to a winning culture and certainly isn't conducive to winning a championship. He's the voice of Philadelphia Sports Afternoons on Sports Radio 94 WIP. Of course it's Ike Grease. Ike, always great to see you. Thanks so much. Alright Zach, thanks for having me brother. Thanks for watching.