‘All or Nothing’ TV series doesn’t tell all about the Eagles’ season, but it does tell a lot | Les Bowen
A filmed chronicle of the Eagles' 2019 season shows what Brandon Graham is all about, and how the Eagles' crumbling roster fought to keep going.
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The Amazon/NFL Films “All or Nothing” series on the Eagles’ 2019 season takes a look inside what went wrong for a team that went to training camp aiming to dominate the NFC but ended its year with backup quarterback Josh McCown crouched in a Lincoln Financial Field hallway, shedding tears of frustration, exhaustion, and pain from a badly torn hamstring.
I found the later episodes of the eight-part series, which will be available to stream Friday on Amazon Prime, to be the most poignant. That’s when the Eagles fought their way through an absurd list of injuries, plus the uproar engendered by their 5-7 start, to a four-game winning streak and a playoff berth — only to have Carson Wentz’s first-quarter concussion in that wild-card playoff loss to Seattle apply the coup de grace to their ravaged championship hopes.
Watching the first episode, I had to remind myself that NFL Films needed to set the scene for a national audience. I doubt a lot of Eagles fans will be thrilled to extensively rehash how 2018 ended, or are eager to relisten to a lot of talk-radio hype from the 2019 offseason about how great everything was looking.
Speaking of talk-radio hype, let’s get right to my main quibble with the series. There is some great stuff in here, especially scenes deriving from the extraordinary entree that defensive end Brandon Graham allows the project. Cameras even film his family opening gifts on Christmas morning, the Grahams wearing matching pajamas. But if this series was all you knew about the team, you would think Eagles fans experienced the season and their team almost exclusively through the lens (or funhouse mirror) of sports talk radio.
Jon Hamm is the credited narrator. I think Angelo Cataldi and his brethren should have gotten equal billing. Every game aftermath, every issue that arises, is framed by often-outraged WIP radio voices. I guess this injects drama into what could be dry topics. There is one reference to a podcast, but I had no idea who a few members of the geek chorus might be.
The fifth season of “All or Nothing” portrays a world in which the written word — online or in print — has ceased to exist. I wasn’t expecting Hamm to read stories to us, but an occasional shot of a banner headline or a tabloid back page has always been a staple of this genre. I guess we’ve reached the point where the people creating such projects don’t know what headlines or back pages are.
Yes, that’s a boomerish observation, but really, social media posts fare little better than newspapers in this series. Everything revolves around overheated talk-radio dialogue.
Profanities are not bleeped out. Hoo boy, are they not bleeped out. The big profanity, the four-syllable one, is employed extensively.
It’s obvious that NFL Films received a lot more cooperation from some subjects than others.
Graham is the star of the series, and fans who might have been puzzled over why he is considered so crucial to the defense, despite stats that often aren’t superstar-ish, will get their answers here.
Graham’s relentless, tough-minded brio — the drive that propelled him to strip Tom Brady at that crucial Super Bowl moment — charts a course through the roughest parts of the season. Graham prods, cajoles, and drags teammates along with him.
Malcolm Jenkins comes off as just as tough, and more cerebral, but Graham’s raspy chuckle is the soundtrack to the season.
Carson Wentz has his moments. The quarterback’s addresses to teammates are heartfelt, but the camera doesn’t follow him to his home, or inside his marriage, the way it does with Graham. I liked it when Wentz jokingly challenged Fletcher Cox to get past him one-on-one, during a practice lull. Wentz then dived to the ground and explained to Cox, who stood, puzzled: “I was cutting you!”
Likewise, coach Doug Pederson is most often heard during beginning-of-the-week auditorium addresses to the team, which aren’t terribly revealing.
Salty defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz seems not to exist; he might as well be a reporter. (Apparently, this was Schwartz’s choice.) But on a ride in general manager Howie Roseman’s SUV, we learn why Roseman opted for tinted windows. (Before he got them he was sitting in traffic, unable to escape a fan’s hearty “Hey Howie! F— you!”)
The shots of the city, often from bridges or drones, are gorgeous. And NFL Films certainly doesn’t ignore the fans, though it might go overboard on the blue-collar bit — we see barbers, firefighters (no Danny Watkins), Mummers, Italian Market vendors, Reading Terminal Market vendors and construction workers. Apparently no Eagles fans work in offices.
A barber, lamenting the failures of the Eagles’ defensive personnel against the Vikings, declares in Episode 4 that “they couldn’t stop water from runnin’ if they had a plastic bag.”
Here are some key moments, episode by episode:
Episode 1
Pederson tells Wentz in training camp that when the games start, he will find it hard to overthrow DeSean Jackson. “There’s practice speed, and there’s game speed. ... You got to put it out there.”
As Jackson is catching eight passes for 152 yards and two touchdowns in the opener, Lane Johnson advises the offensive brain trust: “Keep throwin’ them to that little d—head over there.”
Episode 2
We meet housemates Dallas Goedert and Avonte Maddox, whose Nerf gun battles remind us how young these guys really are.
Wentz, being proactive lest he not be allowed to slip a tackle, tells the referee before the Lions-Eagles game, “Don’t blow me down early, now.”
Wentz sure yells “Let’s go!” a lot. Seems to be his favorite phrase.
The dramatic highlight of the episode turns out to be that Maddox is wearing a mic when he is blasted in the head and neck by then-teammate Andrew Sendejo on the final series at Green Bay. Medical personnel immediately surround Maddox, who went on to miss four games with a concussion and a neck injury. Maddox keeps trying to shake them off and get up, as he is placed in a brace and lifted onto a cart. “I’m good. We got to win. We got one minute left, man. I’m all right now. I’m always all right.”
Episode 3
Graham celebrates a sack of Jets quarterback Luke Falk with a dance. “Is that some Pee-wee Herman [stuff]?” Vinny Curry asks. Indeed it is!
Turns out Jeff Lurie’s box at the Linc has a framed photo of his kissing the Lombardi Trophy.
The botched fake field goal in the blowout loss to the Vikings is presaged beautifully, the cameras and microphones recording practice rehearsals. In the game, the defender who usually peels off doesn’t do so, Jake Elliott hesitates, and he ends up throwing the ball out of the reach of Goedert.
Jenkins advises Sid Jones on improving “your body language, your demeanor more than anything.” Later, Jenkins tells reporters — without mentioning a specific player — that “this game is not for suckers. If you’re not confident, we can’t use you.”
Episode 4
In the Dallas loss, Jalen Mills interrupts an Orlando Scandrick excuse with: “You just gotta make the play, bro.”
Brandon Brooks, riding with Isaac Seumalo to a Sixers game, discussing fan criticism, says: “If you can play here, you can play anywhere. And that is 100 percent true.”
Jenkins, breaking down the pregame huddle in a downpour at Buffalo, after the Minnesota and Dallas losses, offers a variation on the oft-quoted “we all we got": “All we got is the [four-syllable-profanity]s right here, man!” Jenkins previously has referred to Scandrick as a [four-syllable profanity] after Scandrick gets cut and criticizes Jenkins’ leadership, among other things.
Episode 5
Rookies, costumed as superheroes, pay a Halloween visit to Children’s Hospital. Miles Sanders, brushing back his long blond hair as Thor, laments: “I wish my hammer was bigger. It’s a damn meat tenderizer or something.”
During the bye week, we visit Graham’s kin in Michigan, Cox’s spread in Texas, and Sanders’ family in Pittsburgh.
As the replay booth decides whether Goedert’s touchdown counts against New England, word comes down through the coaching headsets that TV analyst Tony Romo feels Goedert scored. “Romo’s usually right,” Wentz opines. Heads nod.
Episode 6
We watch Brandon Brooks in a martial arts class. He talks about how it helps with hand speed and hand placement. Brooks’ struggles with anxiety disorder also are explored.
Maddox and Goedert have moved outdoors and are splattering each other in a paintball battle.
After the Nov. 24 loss to Seattle, Graham and Jason Kelce are walking off the field and Graham mentions youngsters having to step in for injured vets. Kelce says there are “guys who have been here a long time” who aren’t playing well. He tells Graham he doesn’t want to get into it right then — presumably because of microphones.
Episode 7
In the wake of the horrifying Miami loss, McCown talks to running backs coach Duce Staley about advising Wentz to just get completions, to simplify. McCown speaks of the need to “keep [Wentz] there.” When Wentz leads the comeback to an overtime victory the next week against the Giants, McCown tells quarterbacks coach Press Taylor: “We can win a lot of games with him playing like that.” McCown is a strong, steadying presence.
Five-foot-6 running back Boston Scott looks up at Wentz, who is 6-5, and asks: “Would you mind donatin’ 2 inches of height to the Boston Scott Foundation?”
Graham’s narration of an amazing Sanders touchdown run: “Boy, look at this [stuff]!”
Episode 8
Jackson, recovering from surgery, asks to address the team at the start of the second Dallas week, with first place in the division in sight. “F— Dallas,” Jackson says. “We got an opportunity to turn around this [stuff].” He tells younger teammates that the fans who weeks earlier soured on them so completely will forget all if they win. “I never understood the [stuff], but that’s Philadelphia for you,” he says.
Carlyne Graham, washing dishes as her husband deals with laundry nearby, warns him that she has to show her face in public and that he’d better not lose to Dallas again. Brandon Graham, carefully folding a baby’s onesie, assures her that he’s on it.
Zach Ertz reaches for a high Wentz pass and suffers what turn out to be rib and kidney injuries on a hit by the Cowboys’ Xavier Woods. “My bad, 86,” Wentz tells him. On the sideline, Ertz has trouble finding medical personnel who aren’t busy with other players. He eventually goes to the locker room, but returns to the field. On the sideline, director of team development Joe Pannunzio asks Ertz, "Will you at least put some [expletive] pads there or some [stuff]? Ertz assures him that he has added padding.
Brooks is mic’d for the regular-season finale at the Giants, when he goes down with a season-ending fracture in his right shoulder socket. “My shoulder’s out of the socket. Just pop it back in,” Brooks advises medical personnel, who ignore him as they load him onto a cart. “I’ll be back,” Brooks assures teammates.
On the field before the season-ending playoff loss to Seattle, Jenkins implores teammates to “let your soul bleed, man!”
Graham is obviously in extreme pain when he injures his knee. He tries to rise and mutters “Nope, nope, nope, nope.” He tells medical personnel “[F — in'] kneecap. Left one. Oh, my goodness!”
When McCown has to take over for Wentz, Pederson’s idea is to start off with tempo. McCown, who hasn’t taken the field since Oct. 13, tells Pederson he’ll need a series or so before trying that.
After the game, McCown, in tears, provides the coda to the season. “It was a heck of a ride. I left it all out there — I know that much.”