In this episode, Taylor reacts to the Philadelphia Eagles NFL Week 15 win over the Chicago Bears. When he focuses on the Eagles, he talks about Jalen Hurts play this season, how he looked before and after his shoulder injury, and what his expectations for the Eagles are going forward. When he switches to the Bears, he talks about the competitive play of the team, the progression of Justin Fields, and what needs to happen to outfit the team for his success.
In this episode, Taylor reacts to the Philadelphia Eagles NFL Week 15 win over the Chicago Bears. When he focuses on the Eagles, he talks about Jalen Hurts play this season, how he looked before and after his shoulder injury, and what his expectations for the Eagles are going forward. When he switches to the Bears, he talks about the competitive play of the team, the progression of Justin Fields, and what needs to happen to outfit the team for his success.
Taylor: What's up, everybody? It's the Roundtable sports podcast. My name is Taylor McLean, and we've got the fourth game of the week on deck for us here, the Philadelphia Eagles win over the Chicago Bears. I'm a sucker for a good quarterback, and this game has two of my favorites in it, so I definitely had to get in there and see what happened in this game. Plus, the Bears were able to keep themselves in it and remain competitive throughout the game, so I wanted to see how it all happened and what we're thinking about going forward for both these teams. Before we get into the football, let's give a shout out to the sponsor, Evergreen Power Solutions. They're a concierge power company looking to save you money. They'll go in, shop around for the best rate they can possibly get you now, and then they'll go in for you renegotiate in nine to twelve months, get you a lower rate, or if they can't, they're not going to raise the rate if power costs have gone up. That way you don't have to participate in rising energy costs. Give them a call at 8886-6586, use prop number two and let them know that Taylor McClain and the Roundtable Sports Podcast sent you. Unfortunately, this is for our Texas listeners only. Once again, that's 8886-6586 prop number two. Now let's get to the football. I definitely had my eye on this game. First off, I had little cash on the Eagles in the teaser, which they came through, and I'm sure Eagles fans will be delighted to know that the Cowboys portion of my teaser did not come through with their loss. Pretty sure that cemented the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC East, and then the Cowboys went ahead and clinched the playoffs with the loss to the Washington Commanders. Full disclosure, I'm from Texas, so I think we can all agree that having the Giants and the Commanders remain in dysfunction is in both of our interests. Unfortunately, it does look like the Giants have found themselves a coach. It's not right off Ron Rivera completely, but I like the Commanders in a little dysfunction myself, so at least we can agree on that part. The good thing is I'm realistic and I have to watch all of these games, so I'm interested in every team, and obviously the Eagles have a lot of interest of the nation at this point with the way they've been playing. Part of what got me interested in the game was how close Chicago was able to keep it. So when it wasn't immediately clear, when you were watching the game live, and then even when you did know that the game had jalen hurts with the sprained shoulder in the third quarter and he played through it, it still felt like the Eagles kind of had this in hand. The late Justin touchdown where the Eagles lose byron Pringle in the mix and they get the touchdown, was a great play for Justin, but I don't think that's a sustainable piece of offense that you're worried about getting from the rest of the contenders in the NFC. I'm not really scared of any of those quarterbacks in the same way that I'm scared of Jalen or that I'm scared of Justin Fields. The thing about Jalen is, and it was apparent he's a lot farther along than Justin is in the passing aspect of it. I think Justin is faster and more dynamic as a runner, but Jalen is good enough by any measure at running the football, and he's made strides in his accuracy and his timing. He also chalk that up to finally having a full complement of wide receivers. It seems like forever ago, but then again, it seems like not that long ago that the Eagles were struggling for weapons. And even though they had been drafting at wide receivers for some time, they hadn't been able to really get their quality to the point where you felt like Jalen was getting a fair shake. Devante Smith was good last year, but he's ill suited as an end all beat all number one. Just because of his physical size, he's not able to beat every cornerback, and some cornerbacks are still able to give him fits, thus the up and down nature of his game. But he is really good at the point of contact and with his separation. So for a quarterback like Jalen, that's a big time number two. But to my point, it just hasn't been that way. And then all of a sudden it seems like everything's built up to the appropriate watermark and everybody seems to be excelling in their role, like Quez Watkins. Quez Watkins is probably not a number two receiver in a good offense, right? But as a number three, he can be devastating because you're worried about everybody else in the offense, and then he's able to squeak out and take you over the top or just have a lot more space to operate in as the number three. And he's had to step up without Dallas Goddard in the lineup, especially over the middle, and he's done a good job of doing so. His looks may be trending downward, and that's bad for his fantasy stock, but for the Eagles, getting Dallas got it back. To have him as a dynamic presence up the seam could really add something to this offense. But I don't want this to seem like I'm not super high on Devante either, by the way. It's just AJ. Putting him over the top of everything else that they already had. Just a chef's kiss. That means that you got the recipe right when it comes to having weapons for your young quarterback. It was an up and down day for Jalen overall. I think anytime that you're going to have a shoulder sprain but still win the game, that basically qualifies as up and down by itself. Jalen has been very impressive with the strides that he's making. As I said earlier, as a quarterback, it seems like the throws that he's making are a little bit more anticipatory. He has a better sense of the timing of his throws, so he's hitting a lot more guys in stride than he ever has. And when you've got someone like AJ who's dynamic with the ball, or Devante, who can also do something with the ball, given the space then, and you're hitting those guys in stride, that's going to lead to dynamic offense and big plays. AJ is really good going deep and really good at going up and getting it, but he's also really physical and hard to bring down. And if you can get him the ball without him having to juggle it or having to go back and get it, he can think about running and think about demolishing that next guy. Sometimes he just does it on the route, too, like he did to Christian Fulton. But the point is, he's a beast, and the more on time you can be with the throws to him, the better off the offense is going to be for all running quarterbacks. And for Justin, as we're seeing right now in his second year, it's about cleaning up the mechanics and having a repeatable throwing motion that is quick enough to allow you to remain in the pocket, but still allows you to power the ball down the field. Jalen has done all of those things and cleaned up his feet. It seems to be smoother when he throws the ball this year from within the pocket, and then you still have all the different threats that he gives you with his legs as well. On a quick side note, I can't say that I've seen anybody get so many open quarterback draw touchdowns as Jalen has accomplished in the last bit between the Colts draw and the draw today. I just don't think that I've seen anybody stroll into the end zone with so few people around them. It was crazy to see that, especially on the coaches film. The safety runs in and bangs into the lineman that might have had a chance at Jalen, and then there's just nobody left in the middle of the field and he takes it to the house. And he's not just taking advantage of open field either, he's doing that and he's threatening the defense that they have to keep up with him and keep up with his receivers all the way down the field, too. That's one of the danged if you do danged if you don't propositions that NFL offenses are trying to create to pressure the defenses and keep them off balance. For a lot of the season, the Philadelphia Eagles have been doing that via the run game. The Bears were pretty intent on stopping that run game and putting the ball in the hands of Jalen Hurtz. And despite making some errant throws, he was able to deliver on that for the most part. And I say errant throws because there's still some spots that can be cleaned up a little bit, I believe. I say errant throws weren't that egregious or anything, but between the two interceptions and a couple of other throws that were just simply not all that super close, it did show that there was some room for growth there. I've been having some talks with the fellow members of the roundtable about where Jalen ranks in this quarterback structure, where Jalen ranks in this current quarterback market and how good is he compared to other guys. And I think he's always had a ton of talent. This year just has obviously bumped him up a lot of people's lists, and I think that's actually right, and I think it's legitimate because it's been incremental, but he's absolutely upped his game, and there's more and more throws that I think to myself, that's a real quarterback throw. That's not him escaping the pocket and throwing it over to a wide open guy. That's him hitting people with guys close to him, making contested throws and throwing guys open. Those are things that you have to be able to do in the NFL. And really, up until this year, those haven't all been on the table. It's been a little bit more rudimentary, and it feels like the Eagles have been able to open things up a bit and put more on Jalen's plate. And sometimes you see teams put more on the quarterback's plate and they struggle, and sometimes they respond like Jalen has been responding like Mac Jones. Mac Jones looks about the same as he did last year as a rookie. The decision making is kind of still on the same point, and his physical tools are a little below average, especially in the running game part of it. The arm is fine, but the running game part of it, he's pretty slow. Two things have changed since last year that kind of give everybody a little bit of pause when it comes to Mac Jones. One is that the expectation is that he would have gotten better and progressed in the offseason, and with everything moving a little slower, turns out it's kind of the same. And then two, they're leaning into more of what he should be able to do at this point if he had made those improvements, and he's not able to execute that type of stuff. So they've had to dumb it back down a little bit. And since they've done that, they've been in a lot better shape for the Eagles. The point being that they haven't had to do that. They've been opening things up and adding things to Jalen's plate, and he's been responding to that. Jalen has such tremendous physical tools. The speed, the strength with the speed, the fact that he is so substantial, and it doesn't feel like he's in as much jeopardy as other quarterbacks. I know that's ironic when he hurt his shoulder in this game, but think about when you see quarterbacks that are more slight run out there. They are desperately trying to avoid the hit. And maybe Jalen does put himself in jeopardy sometimes like he did when he got hurt, but that wasn't his fault, and that's not what I'm saying. The point is the strength plays, and I think his running is more sustainable than I think it is for some other quarterbacks, which means that he can continue to do it without putting himself in as much jeopardy as other quarterbacks. Once again, I say this with a full understanding of the irony of him spraining his shoulder, but at the same time, the guy went seven and ten for over 100 yards and iced this game with his arm, and I was expecting that it would look even more off. He hadn't been absolutely sharp as a Razor that whole game. As I mentioned, there were some throws that did give me concern, but I expected for the shoulder to really bring things and make things look bad. But he was powering through it and was still ripping some fastballs, and it didn't seem like he was wincing or he didn't seem to make a big deal out of it on the field. And they've been talking a lot today. I'm getting to this game a little later on a Tuesday. And the talk was at first that he was going to be out for sure and that it was going to be Gardener Minchew facing the Cowboys in a game that was a little bigger when we didn't know that there was going to be so much separation between the two teams. And then today the talk was that Jalen hasn't been totally ruled out and might still play could be gamesmanship by the Philadelphia Eagles to not allow the Cowboys to key in on which quarterback the Eagles are going to have. And Gardner Minschu didn't practice today, which is Tuesday. Once again, when I'm recording this, he was speaking at Mike Leach's funeral, which is really sad. Actually went to Texas Tech University, so that's a big time bummer for all of us. We still held him and still hold him in really high esteem. So good for Gardner for going ahead and going to the funeral even though he's got added responsibilities regardless of Jalen plays this week. So I think the Eagles are probably fine either way. I thought, as I said, could be gamesmanship, right? But the shoulder didn't look that bad when he did hurt it, and maybe he was playing through some pain, but kind of felt like he could get out there the next week. Once I saw him play post injury. Maybe it would be smart on the Eagles part not to do that. That's certainly on the table. Absolutely. That resting Jalen hurts when there's not a lot to play for at this point. Makes a lot of sense as a fan and as somebody that watches all or nearly all of the games each week, it would be a big bummer to have this game wiped off the slate a little bit by having Gardener Minchew in there. I still think Gardener Minchu is a good backup and I'm still looking forward to watching him play if that is what ends up happening. It's tough because we don't have a lot of information this early on while I'm reacting to this, but count me bummed if we don't get to see Jaylin out there in what is turning into one of the marquee matchups, especially in the NFC. I was super interested in seeing what the Cowboys were going to throw at the Eagles after the defeat last time. I think that they've got a lot of growing to do. And I felt like the eagles out coached the Cowboys by a good margin last time, so I'd be a little bummed if we didn't get to see the full strength. But this is still going to come down to the playoffs. And I've been talking to my dad about who the cowboys are going to face for weeks in the playoffs, and it does kind of seem like they were talking about three matchups between these teams. So I wanted to see what the Cowboys had in store and what they kind of experimented with in this game to try and stop the Eagles. I guess we can still see that and see what the Eagles do on defense versus the Cowboys, but I'm hoping Jalen plays, Cowboys fan be damned. I want to see big time matchups. I'm a football fan first, even though I was seven, eight and ten when the Cowboys won their championship. So pretty much locked in for life at that point, and I've been tormented since. And watching the Eagles knock out Michael Irvin was one of the more traumatic experiences of my childhood. So you'll always have that on me and enjoy that for now. On the other side, Justin Fields gave me a lot of pleasure to watch him play the game once again. I've been a big fan of Justin since I saw him at Ohio State. It's not saying anything revelatory here. A lot of people liked Justin, but he was my number two quarterback after Trevor Lawrence, and it kind of befuddled me at the time that the jets were going to take Zach Wilson instead of Justin Fields. I think a lot of people didn't like his throwing motion, and while I think that he still has a lot of work to do as a passer, I'm absolutely more than pleased to see the strides that he's made from last year. First of all, the team is using him in a manner that is a lot different than what they were doing last year. He didn't really change the offense a whole lot. When Justin was in the game and took over, they ran a lot of stuff that it looked like you would run for Andy Dalton when Justin Fields is the least Andy Dalton quarterback that you could pretty much come up with. He has a ten times better arm. And if Justin Herbert, Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes are throwing 100, justin Fields is probably throwing 95. I like to use baseball analogies would say Jalen is probably throwing 94. They both have pretty good arms. Not outstanding, right? Not where we've got laser rocket arms, but plenty of arm to push the ball down the field and threaten every part of the field. For Justin, it's an accuracy thing and in addition to a personnel thing, not having Claypool and Mooney out there definitely hurt the passing game. And for the Bears themselves, it's probably going to be a lot of just getting better personnel around Justin. I can tell you that I go and I search through stories and I do a lot of things to keep myself informed on all these different teams because I'm not an expert in all of the teams, but I can probably name just as many people on the team as most people can that live in that city. Maybe not the diehards, but I mean, I've got a pretty good feel for these teams. When I was sifting through the Chicago Bears stuff, nearly everything is about what are the Chicago Bears going to do in the off season, what free agents are going to be available, who are they going to draft with their top five pick? And that's all they're thinking about. And the good news is that's a lot easier to think about and a lot more fun when you've got your guy and you're no longer in the quarterback forest. There's a useful construct that I think of when you're talking about an NFL team and their situation at quarterback. If you don't have your guy, it's like walking around in a really dark forest and sometimes you can see the light to get out of the forest, and sometimes you can't. Like the Cleveland Browns, they've been walking around in the forest for a long time. That's part of the desperation that got them to trade and give the contract for Deshaun Watson that they did, which is consequently why Lamar didn't get signed to an extension because he also wants that contract. So a lot of dominoes that fall in the quarterback landscape here. And when you're walking around in the dark, you don't really know what you're exactly planning for either. Like if you're the Houston Texans, you made some strides, sure. But until you have that quarterback to put in there, you don't really know what you have. And the other guys and it's really hard to know if they're going to fit your system when the guy that you eventually have as your franchise guy is there, or will they even be on the same time frame? Will you be wandering around trying to get a guy like you're, the Washington Commanders right now, and then you're stuck with the Philadelphia Eagles, leftovers with Carson Wentz. Good news is they're not stuck for long and I'm guessing they try to upgrade their situation as well. The point is, you could be one of those teams. You made a good trade, you traded up to get Justin at the Opportune time, and you didn't even have a first round pick to outfit him with someone to help him this year. You didn't do a lot to address the line or the wide receivers, even though you ended up getting Claypool. That may end up working out for you, it may not, we'll see. But the point of all of that is Justin is really good. He plays a workable style of quarterback, especially if he's able to get better inside of the pocket and with his accuracy and be more consistent. Those are all things that come with experience at the quarterback position. And then you can start outfitting him with guys to help him. I can tell you one position that 100% needs to be upgraded. Just as an aside from the game itself or really not. This has everything to do with this game. Cody white Hair cannot allowed to be a guard on this team going forward. He looks undersized and underpowered out there and he just has an extreme lack of awareness in the passing game. Every time I looked up, it wasn't every sack because there was a couple off the edge too, but it seemed like nearly all of them were his fault in one way or another. There was a stunt, there was him just getting beat, there was him getting clipped by somebody and not being able to get around. It was just every mistake you could possibly make from an awareness standpoint as an offensive lineman. He made that today. I don't like the right tackle either. To be clear, I'm not a big fan of this line overall either. I'm not clamoring for them to keep any one of the guys they have braxton Jones, he might be okay. I mean, he's been playing better and settling in a little bit, really. I know the Bears record isn't all that good, but it feels like they've gelled a little bit and it hasn't been as egregious as it has been. But Justin covers up a lot of that too, his ability to get away. And of course, he has one of the best escapes I've seen in a long time when he powers out of the guy's tackle, is able to spin with that power and then scores. What should have been isn't the right word, but what was. Nearly a touchdown. He just barely steps out and then gets David Montgomery the touchdown later on. So now that you're going to have a really high pick, pretty much no matter what happens, and really it could be the second pick where you could take willie Anderson or trade it for a package because somebody is going to want the second quarterback after the Houston Texans take theirs. Maybe you're able to replenish your draft stock, get the the three first round picks that the 49 Ers traded for Trey Lance, by the way. There's a reason that it's three first round picks and you don't ever hear anybody talk about four, is that three is the most you can trade of your own picks at one time. So you'd have to have additional picks from another team that were within three years because that's as far out as they can trade them in the NBA. They're talking about 2029 picks for the Los Angeles Lakers. So little different year scale on that because there's a lot of holes on this roster and you trade away some of the pieces on the defense and really you need to retool after the Ryan Pace era. It's not that he was the absolute worst at drafting, but he has a pretty sketchy record and you really need to be resigning your own guys, not going and not having to dip into free agency to find the guys that you want to, quote, unquote, marry. But that's where we're at at this point with the Chicago Bears. So it is what it is. And by the time it's time to pay the players that you're drafting now, the free agents that you sign right now, their contracts will be up at that point. So I think it's okay for the Bears to dip in and try to get guys for Justin in this free agency. It is everybody's cast offs and the guys that are truly elite, they get resigned with extensions or they get franchise tagged. But got to do something here because if I see Cody White hair on the field next year, I'm going to be extremely pessimistic because he got blown up. Man, this game was terrible. I hate to pile on on that part, but I just can't stress he's been one of their better linemen. He got exposed today. But hey, that's what we're talking about. We're talking about upgrading this team around your quarterback. You're no longer in the woods and you actually can tell what you need now. And that's something that you haven't been able to say in Chicago for some time and I'm so happy for you. I have a soft spot for teams that have been in the woods for this long and I have a bunch of respect for this coaching staff because it has looked a lot better. Like, if the previous coaching staff would have been able to show this much progress with Justin and have shown this much awareness on what to do with them, they might still have a job, probably not that's crazy, but still, this is what you wanted to see from Justin last year. You wanted to see the coaching staff put him in more situations to succeed and this coaching staff has absolutely done that. They look stronger from a schematic point on the defense, too, and seem to have better ideas on how to play defense despite being in a talent deficit there, too. So hope all around. I know losing game sucks, but when your quarterback plays good, everything kind of lines up and it feels like there's hope. There's hope in Chicago. That's not something they've had for a little while here. Maybe some false hope, maybe some Jay Cutler style hope, right? But this feels like something real, and that's exciting. That's what I've got for this game. If you haven't done so, download the podcast. Let me know that you're here and listening. It's easy when you have two quarterbacks you like on the field and you get to go in there and watch them. So this is a fun game for me. I look forward to watching both these teams. I may be a Cowboys fan, but this Eagles team is pretty impressive. And I'm a fan of good football. And if you can put good football out there and challenge these teams and pull off epic games out there, I'm all for it. The Eagles have a lot to make up with with that last playoff experience. They're kind of a different team now, and they all look healthy. We'll see who's healthy when it comes time for the big games. Look forward to more videos. I've got some I got some video from this game to the Justin play I talked about. There's some good jalen plays in there, so we should have some good short videos from this game. So look forward to that and have a great rest of your day.