The Philadelphia Eagles might be the best team in football; they’ve won 13 of 14 games, including Sunday’s relatively breezy wild-card victory over the Green Bay Packers. Saquon Barkley is an unstoppable force, the defense is resurgent under Vic Fangio, the chatter about an unhappy A.J. Brown has mostly died down. All should be well in Philly, and yet…
On the latest episode of the “Scoop City” podcast, we touched on a point that Chase has been making for a while now: Jalen Hurts might be a good quarterback, but he isn’t throwing like one right now.
The partial transcript below has been edited for clarity. The full episode is available now in The “Scoop City” podcast feed.
Dianna: I want to start with Jalen Hurts. I had a text exchange with someone in football this morning and he just wrote to me: “Jalen’s passing is going to be a problem.” I’ve heard you say that. How can you —
Chase: Be outspoken about it?
Dianna: You have! Can you explain to people — especially those Philadelphia Eagles fans that listen to the show, we love you guys, but you guys get mad when Chase says this — about his passing game that drives you nuts. Or perhaps, maybe, that you have some of these worries it seems that other people do.
Chase: I don’t know if “driving me nuts” is the right word. Maybe “driving the receivers nuts to be reading on the sideline” is more like the words that we are looking for because I don’t have any say. And if people think I hate Jalen, I don’t hate Jalen. In fact, when he’s playing, he’s one of the better winners in the NFL.
Now, there’s a huge difference, Dianna, between winners and stats. Everyone’s like, “Wins are a QB stat!” Well, this game is going to go to show you that wins are not a quarterback stat. Stat-wise: 13-for-20, 185 yards, two touchdowns, high passer rating, looks great. But if you really dive into it, 37 yards passing with three minutes left to go in the third quarter. Some of it has to do with Green Bay’s defense; they were really good at times. Most of it, I would say, falls on Jalen. Could he have been rusty? He didn’t play in 21 days. Maybe. But I’m seeing some stuff open, and I feel like Jalen has to see receivers open for him to throw it. We started talking about this after the Panthers game. That’s when A.J. Brown, after the Panthers game, stood up and said passing is the issue. No kidding it’s the issue. It’s always been the issue. It’s really the only weakness on the entire team.
That’s not saying Jalen Hurts isn’t a good quarterback. But when you look at it, it’s exactly what they did after the 2-2 start. In their first four games of the year, Jalen Hurts was averaging 37 pass attempts a game. Kellen Moore and Nick Sirianni got together and said, “Jalen throwing the football is not the way we’re going to win. Let’s pass the football less.” They averaged 22 pass attempts per game after that. We talked about this a ton. They even said, “Hey, we can’t trust Jalen to throw the ball when the game’s on the line.”
My issue with the Philadelphia Eagles — and it’s a real one: If this team gets behind, will they be able to throw their way back into a game? That is what I’m worried about, because if you play the Rams, they’re going to score points. I get your defense is great. Their defense has been carrying them all year. This is in no way, shape or form hate against Jalen Hurts whatsoever. It’s just the facts on what I’m seeing. He’s not going through progressions really well.
Dianna: Yeah, I think people have to listen to the argument you’re making, the observations you made and separate the emotion in this. I think people hear you make a critique of his passing game and they think you’re calling him a bad quarterback. I think the situation that you’re painting, this idea of the Philadelphia Eagles coming from behind, are they going to be able to do this? It’s a big question, and I think it’s a really fair one.
(Photo: Mitchell Leff / Getty Images)
