It might have been the most creative thing the Eagles did on defense all day.
Members of the unit yelled “Papa John’s” at Peyton Manning when he tried to bark out signals for the Broncos offense during Denver’s 52-20 rout of Philadelphia. Manning is the pitchman for the pizza chain and has appeared in multiple commercials.
“Well, I know — I think I might have heard Papa John’s once, but I don’t know who said it, I mean that’s kind of funny,” said Eagles linebacker Connor Barwin, who confirmed the audio to 94 WIP in Philadelphia.
“When any quarterback goes and talks at the line or any center, they start yelling ‘Mike’s 59′ or ’98′s the 4th down’ where they try to figure out the protection, we, on defense, we start, like I’ll say—if they start yelling ’98′s down, meaning I’m the fourth rusher, I’ll start yelling ’59′s down’ because it just confuses them. We can say, we tell the referee that we’re changing who our fourth is upon what they say. So that kind of stuff happens all the time when quarterbacks are making calls and defenses are trying to make calls back.”