In this episode, Taylor talks About the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl 57 win over the Philadelphia Eagles. When he focuses on the Chiefs, he laughs the performance of Patrick Mahomes and the offense, talks about how the win effects their various legacies, what the difference between the first and second half was and what the chiefs may do in the off season. When he switches to the Eagles, he praises Jalen Hurts’s play, talks about what went wrong for them in the game and what the off-season decisions they will have to make are
In this episode, Taylor talks About the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl 57 win over the Philadelphia Eagles. When he focuses on the Chiefs, he laughs the performance of Patrick Mahomes and the offense, talks about how the win effects their various legacies, what the difference between the first and second half was and what the chiefs may do in the off season. When he switches to the Eagles, he praises Jalen Hurts’s play, talks about what went wrong for them in the game and what the off-season decisions they will have to make are
Taylor: What's up everybody? It's the round table sports podcast. My name is Taylor McLean and we finally had our last game of the year. The Super Bowl has has taken place and we finally have a champion. It's a game of attrition and we had two of the healthiest teams that we could have possibly had out there on the field, even though Patrick kind of had some issues during the game. And of course, we've all known about his ankle stuff going into his game with the Jacksonville Jaguars getting hurt there. But it was exciting. It was about as good as any game I can remember in recent memory. When it comes to the big game, we've seen some disappointing games in the past, and when it's your team, that's exciting, but when it's not, that's not really good for everybody else. And I said to myself, even if the Eagles had won the game, that I still would have been pretty enthralled with the results. Even though I did not want the Eagles to win, I respect really good football and had the Eagles been able to pull this game out, it would have been a respectable effort. Either way, because of the talent and because of the way both these teams played. Before we get into that, let's give a quick shout out to the sponsor, Evergreen Power Solutions. They're a concierge power company here for our Texas listeners only that will go in there, try to save you money on your current power bill and got access to a bunch of different power companies, and they're going to go in there and search out the best rate for you possible. Try and save some money in the short term, and then in the long term they're going to go back in and renegotiate your rate for you. If they can get that rate down during that point. And if they can't, you're not going to participate in the price going up. You've locked in your price and it's not going to get higher at that point. So give him a call, 8886-6586 use prop number two and let them know that Taylor McClain and the Roundtable Sports Podcast sent you. Now let's get on to the rest of the game here. And of course, this is a huge win for Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelsey, not only for this year, but for their legacy. Overall, winning a Super Bowl is insanely hard and a lot of things have to bounce your way as we saw in this game. I don't find myself amongst the people that look down their nose at teams that only won one championship or quarterbacks that only won one championship. And while it's still the most important position in sports today, we've seen in the past that it doesn't always take the best quarterback or the best quarterback doesn't always win. So to see Patrick and the Chiefs be able to put it all together in this season was pretty special. Reed becomes one of 13 head coaches to have two Super Bowl wins. And as Tony Cornheiser stated, there was a lot on the line for him, that this would have been the second Eagles coach to win the Super Bowl after Andy Reid left versus him having to there's a big difference between those two things. So it's a big swing in legacy for Andy Reid. Patrick becomes one of six players to have two Super Bowl MVPs and he becomes the 7th quarterback to win the league MPB and Super Bowl in the same season. That's not as common as I would have thought and there's a couple of other players that did it, including a kicker as it turns out. And then the more exclusive list is Star, Bradshaw, Montana, Emmett Young and Warner as the only players to win the league MVP and Super Bowl MVP at the same time. So a lot of accolades there and they're well earned even though the game stats themselves. Holmes was clearly the MVP, right? But it's not like he had a big time game through the air. Thought it was interesting that their furthest play was 22 yards when it came to in the air. The Eagles did a good job of keeping the Chiefs in front of them throughout the game and they seemed pretty committed to not letting themselves get beat deep. Despite getting called for the hold late in the game, the Eagles defenders were pretty well on to the different receivers and the like. And of course, outside of some interesting scheming later in the game, there was just a lot of tight windows that Patrick was able to fit it through throughout the game that kept them going. Part of the reason for the low numbers when you kind of dig into it was just a low play count overall. The Chief, the Chiefs only ended up running 53 plays because as you saw in the game, the Eagles just had these long extended drives that they kept extending both by their prowess at the quarterback sneak and just with them being able to move the ball with some solid play from Jalen Hurtz. So that's going to drive the totals down overall. But you see with the 21 for 27 and the different ratings that he had there, holmes played an extremely sharp game and when you think about that, they didn't have a penalty, a turnover or a sack in the second half. That's playing some really tight football, playing within yourself on one of the biggest stages there is in a game where you were down ten and halftime. It takes a lot of poise, that takes a lot of know how. And it felt like the experience factor of the Chiefs, having played in a Super Bowl twice before played a role in all this. I don't think that people think about it a lot because they're more enthralled with the actual performance itself with Rihanna being out there doing her thing, which I did enjoy the Super Bowl halftime and I thought it was a pretty good show from, I guess, what I would have expected. It's kind of like hot tub time machine. I didn't have really high expectations for the show or for that movie, and then it beats those expectations. That was impressive and unexpected. But to my point, it's a lot longer than most half times and there's a lot more going on and there's a lot more going on on the field and just the timing itself can throw a team off. And the Chiefs, having been through that before, it seemed to give them a better advantage in the second half and they seemed to take advantage of that time as far as from a schematic standpoint, what they were seeing. And that was one of the things that I came in really specifically looking for when it came to what happened from one half to the other. And the big difference in this game and throughout the game was the Kansas City Chiefs running the ball. The Chiefs came out and ran the ball 19 times for 119 yards in the second half and the Eagles really didn't have a whole lot of answers for that. The Eagles are more set up to rush the passer, even though they have some pretty big guys up the middle. The Chiefs were really creative with how they ran the ball and the different ways that they schemed. Things open in some of the short passing as well. And then really, to be honest with you, the offensive line for the Chiefs handled its business in the biggest way, which kind of allowed them to dictate the terms as far as where the battle took place. It's kind of like in MMA when you have a wrestler, they can't be taken down very easily. So if someone wants to fight them on the ground from the top, then they can't. And if they want to fight someone on the ground, they can take them down and do so. When an offensive line is able to handle a defensive front in the way that the Chiefs did, they're able to decide what they want to do and how they're going to do it. And it's not like they just ran straight over them, like in the eye formation or anything. There was a lot of creative things that went to it as well. But between Isaiah Pacheco running hard and being a great fit for this scheme, jerry McKinnon obviously adds that passing element in a little bit tighter and more fluid way than Pacheco does, even though Pacheco has some chops there as well. But it's a really solid combo for them that they finally got right this year. Clyde Edwards, alair, just dances too much before he hits the hole. Isaiah is straightforward and uses his speed to take advantage of those holes and get through them and get more yards with the speed and leveraging that with his angles rather than having to create space with his shiftiness. And then when you dance around too much, sometimes the hole closes up and then you're left with negative gains on those plays. So definitely credit Kansas City for getting that right down the stretch and getting Isaiah Pacheco in the 7th round. He was a very hot name down the stretch of fantasy season last year when they started talking about him. And it's rare in my experience that those type of players meet up to the hype that they receive during those times, especially when they're a speed based player, because a lot of times they'll be playing without the pads on, and speed players will have a little bit easier times than your more physical talents at those positions. So the fact that Isaiah was able to put those things together and play a very important role for the Chiefs not only in this game, but in their playoff run is really impressive. And you look at the list of ball carriers that were the starter or the leading ball carrier and what their salary was, and what you come to find out is that there aren't hardly any of them that are making over five a year. This is just a super glaring example that the Chiefs were able to pull this type of talent out in the 7th round. And then not only does he get the big run on the first drive, but just throughout the game, like I said, he was the emphasis of that big section of game where they just ran right at the Eagles and they just couldn't handle it. And when you're able to mix in Mahomes doing what he's able to do, you've got the defense on what I like to call a string, because they don't know if you're going to run or pass, and they start guessing. They get kind of out of sorts, and they don't know it disrupts the flow of the defense and what they're trying to do completely. I think that's a big part of what scared me off of betting more on the Chiefs before the game is everybody had been talking so much about the Eagles front and the pass rush, and rightfully so. Asan Reddick had been a terror, and they'd gotten a lot of pressure up the middle with Hargrove, with Indomic Ensue, and then you've got Brandon Graham on top of that. That was the big talk, but not only with that 119 that they rushed for, but also the way that they handled the pass rush, both with the brute force that they handled it with, but also the schematically. What they did there was a lot of chipping on Hassan Reddick, especially early on. I want to give a shout out to Noah Gray, who did a lot of that chipping and does a lot of the dirty work tied in wise for this team. I don't think I'm going to rip off a ten minute section on Noah Gray, but he definitely deserves a shout out. As a part of this team and an underrated part, in my opinion, of what makes this team work overall and how this team was able to overcome losing Tyreek Hill because of salary cap reasons and were able to retool on the fly amongst that. And part of the thought process behind that retooling was getting the offensive line to a certain point where they could protect Pat and they didn't have to rely on Patrick pulling miraculous plays, which he's absolutely capable of pulling off, and did so in this game with that long run. That long run was really incredible, really late in the game, too. The plays were there, no doubt, but they were just having to put too much of their resources into that deep game and they kind of spread it out and they put the resources into the offensive line. Adding Orlando Brown tuny, drafting Trey Smith, drafting. Creed Humphrey. That's big. He's one of the best centers in the league and he's a big reason why they got this done because between him tooney and Trey Smith, they did a great job of handling defensive tackles and still being able to create holes when you have defensive tackles that can be that disruptive is really impressive. And then Wiley on the right side, I think I thought of him as the weak link a little bit in this scenario and he definitely handled his business. They did give him some help and that got rid of he's kind of temperamental a little bit and I think that got him frustrated and just kind of got him off his game because by the end they weren't chipping him as much and he still wasn't getting the same amount of past rest. It wasn't that he wasn't getting back there some too. It's just the Chiefs also did a good job of not pressing things down the field more than they had to and that's why the ball was coming out of Patrick's hands and putting it into playmaker's hands. And then, of course, they took advantage of the motion from the Eagles following the receiver across and then not keeping up with them. They scored twice off of that play and I came into this wondering, what happened, what was that big difference? And it was the run game, but it was also the play calling and just schematically. It didn't feel like the Eagles had another punch as far as what they were doing defensively. And down the stretch, they couldn't stop. They scored on the first possession and they score on their final four possessions. And you Dang Near need to kind of turn your head like, Wait, what? They scored on their last four possessions, but that's how few plays there were in this game. 53 is not a lot of plays for an NFL football game. I think we're usually more talking in the for an affair like this, but there was also the touchdown that they recovered the fumble on, too, so there's that. But regardless and very impressive. Marquez Valdez scantling didn't really get much going. But the way that not only did they retool the offensive line, which also just quick side note, offensive line is one of their big positions that they're going to have to decide about going forward as well, because Orlando Brown and Wiley are both free agents and played huge roles in keeping the Eagles off of Patrick Mahomes. Because make no mistake, there were some really nice pockets for Patrick to throw from as well. A lot of that was because they were having to worry about the run, too. Bulk of that was the Chiefs offensive line holding up and handling their business in a big way, and then Patrick being able to navigate those waters when they got muddied. But as I was saying, it's also MVS Juju drawing that huge holding penalty, which was absolutely holding. I hate to break Eagles fans hearts if your heart was set on me saying that it wasn't a holding penalty. It absolutely was. And both teams were doing a little of it, for sure, throughout the game. And that's just part of playing tight coverage a little bit in the NFL, is being able to make that subtle enough where it's not called. And that also works both ways. It's the Travis Kelsey's ability to push off just a little bit or to be able to be physical with the guy without making it blatant enough to call offensive pass interference or like that's a big part of both the team's games. And you could see Patrick threw that ball, like ten yards out in front of him. Patrick isn't perfect, but he also wasn't throwing that ball away either. So you can tell that Juju was going to be further out there had he not been impeded by that. And then that last play with Jared McKinnon, or not last play, but that last run by McKinnon that he had to get down in that scenario is pretty impressive as well. We've seen it backfire on a couple of people this season and throughout time. I go back to Nick Chubb scoring his third touchdown of the day, and then the other teams miraculously scoring 13 points after that. So it can definitely go the other way. And somebody brought up that. But Kerr could have missed that field goal pretty easily. But that was the play. The Chiefs made it. They didn't want to give Jalen Hurt's time to any amount of time to get the ball down the field, regardless of how that last throw looked. And I think we all knew that when you saw that the Chiefs were going to get that ball back, they were going to have five minutes to do whatever they needed to do to get down there that you knew in your heart of hearts that Patrick was going to pull it off. And that's kind of a big deal for me. And that's kind of where I place this dividing line between elite quarterbacks and the rest of everybody else. It's like, who do you believe makes that last drive or is capable of making that last drive given the opportunity? Do you believe that Jalen Hurts would have made that last drive? Possibly? I believe it's possible. I think that given the chance, I think there's about four or five, maybe six quarterbacks that I would trust in that scenario or at least feel like it's above a 50 50 proposition that they were able to get the job done. And then from there it drops precipitously. It's a big time drop off from there. My five just off the top are Patrick, Joe Burrow, those are the two I trust the most. And then Josh Allen, herbert trevor Lawrence is getting there. And then Jalen hurts. ARod. Matthew Stafford I actually trust them a little bit more than Jalen just because I've seen them do it before, but I think Jalen is the more talented at this point and I think that's who I'd rather have just to see if I could build an offense around. But Matthew and Araud are right there as well. And then you have your Lamar deshaun Watson, Dak Prescott. Kyler Murray, actually. Justin Fields. Kyler Murray. That's actually the order that I would want to have those guys going forward, just for the record. Then you throw in your Bryce. Then you probably are looking at possibly the rookie two, Bryce Young and CJ stroud, followed by the two Kirk Cousins, Russell Wilson and forgetting somebody, I kind of have Kenny Pickett right below that. I like Kenny, and I think there could be something there. But anyway, I digress that's just something I've been thinking about a lot. The point is, I believed and it was true that Patrick was going to go down there and get the job done and it took a somewhat controversial holding call to get them there. But it is what it is. And honestly, the Eagles had a ton of momentum going into that fumble by Jalen Hurts, too. And I don't mean to start Eagle talk necessarily like a house of fire. Got the fourth down, was throwing the ball with ease and had the crossing routes going, hit AJ. Brown on the deep touchdown. So they came out on fire. And you know what? Before I get into Eagles, we'll finish up with Kansas City. But to finish that point, this game could have gone either way and could have been very different had that play not happened. But there was a couple of those points in the game where if something goes a little different, the ball bounces a little differently than the Eagles could have absolutely won this. And to my point, that's how football goes. That's how when you play one game and you're out. Sudden death games for a game that has a ball that doesn't bounce correctly all the time, and it could be a matter of inches on which direction that ball goes. It's tough, but that's how slim the margins are in the NFL when it comes to these top teams, especially this year. It's not always that way. Sometimes there's a dominant team. Sometimes the Cowboys beat the Bills by 50 points, and the real Super Bowl was played in whatever championship game that was. But it made for a great game, a special game that I think a lot of us will remember positively, even Eagles fans. I mean, I think you should have your head held high here, and I think that you shouldn't be ashamed by anything that happened here and should be excited about your future. As far as this goes, which we'll talk more about before we move on to that, let's finish up with the Chiefs here, who have a couple of key free agents decisions. You know, they've got the Orlando, Brown and Wiley decisions that they're going to have to make. They're only 7 million under the cap right now, as it stands. And they you know, the left tackle was making 20 million and should still have a nice payday as a somewhat steady left tackle. And then you've got some stuff happening with your wide receivers. Juju was a rental. You may rent him again, but that may be tougher with the situation. McKinnon may be out the door. He might have played himself into a little bit more money than what the Chiefs have can afford, and then Juan Thornhill has been solid for them. So they've got some decisions to make, but they could probably restructure some stuff, too, if they need to. Maybe Kelsey, maybe Patrick has a restructure coming that you can always push that stuff down the line a little bit, but it'll be interesting to see what they decide with those key guys. But to my point earlier, they've got a lot to look forward to here, too. Patrick is just 27. He's been to five AFC Championship games in his five years as a starter. Three Super Bowls in those five years. Now that he's won two of them, he's got two MVPs, and he's one of the most talented quarterbacks we've ever seen. The goat argument, he's still got a long way to go for that. But as far as talent goes, as far as arm strength and the ability to run on top of that, I'm not sure that we've ever seen anybody quite as talented as Patrick Mahomes. Now he's just fighting against the other greats of his sport, and he's following the greatest of all time at this time. So he's got a big mountain to climb to be that guy. And Tom Brady had a ten year period that he went between wins, and that's not just to take a shot at Thomas to say how hard this is and how lucky you have to be. Both these teams are two of the healthiest teams in the league going into the playoffs. I know Jay On hurt his shoulder and Patrick Mahomes ankle came up for sure. But outside of that, they had their full offensive lines, both of them. They had all the skill position people that I can think of were healthy. I don't remember they stat exactly, but this might be two of the healthiest teams we've had going into one of these things. This game, there's so many games that you play. I played 14 games in a season where we went to the semifinals as a center, and I can tell you that I wasn't good for many months, maybe even a year after that. My baseball season was ruined. My elbow was all messed up because this is super physically taxing to play that much football. And I didn't play anything close to what they did because they added all these extra games to it. So to have made it through that type of seasons, every last one of these guys is a freaking warrior for getting this far and doing what they did. So heads held high. Only one team can win, and it was the Kansas City Chiefs this year. And my overall point with all of that is I think we can see more with Patrick. I think that they've got a smart brain trust around them as far as the players they bring in and the way they draft and the like. And that's key. It's a multivariable problem. It's a health, it's quarterback, it's scheme, it's the offensive line, it's the defense, it's the way the injury staff takes care of its players. It's a multivariate variable problem that most people just point to the quarterback or point to one thing or Zeke or the coach or whatever as the downfall of a team. But it's a group effort. Everything has to go just perfectly. So the fact that that's the thing about the Tom Brady thing is they had a whole stretch there where they couldn't get it done and they had this injury there, or they had this player file out here. So to have it come together in this year certainly special and certainly special for me to watch as a Texas Tech graduate, I was telling the guys I sat close to Patrick's dad and mom when he would play at Texas Tech and couldn't ask for nicer people. And Patrick, from everything that you can see about Patrick, he seems like the real deal, and I think that he'll do a good job of keeping himself together. The question I have about him is for him. I know I said I was going to move on to the Eagles, but how long can he last in comparison to Brady when he is a little bit more reliant on his legs for his greatness and his legs are kind of his kryptonite too, because that seems to be where most of his injuries crop up. But at the same time, even if I could, I wouldn't change Patrick at all. I would still want him to run. I would still want him to do the incredible things he does with the escapes and whatnot, because while it does lead to some hits from time to time, it also leads to some of the biggest plays of the game. And that was one of those plays in this game, too. That run was tremendous. I mean, there was a ton of big plays. Like, we didn't even talk about the punt, right? The punt was super huge at that point in the game to get the ball down there and get the sky more touchdown. The second one of the motion touchdowns, you can see when you watch the coaching film that he has the yip, or he gets the yips right in the middle of it, or you can see on the coaching film that someone gets close enough to the punter to spook him, and he kind of short legs it. And then Tony, of course, takes it across the field and gets him down there. That was a key play in the game, too. But to my point, it's all of those things coming together that made this happen. And we're one Nick Bolton booting that ball instead of picking it up and scoring away from this game, possibly being different, because the Eagles also played really well in this game. And I know I talked for a long time on the Kansas City Chiefs, both going over how the game went, but also talking about the Chiefs. And I think that the Eagles deserve equal time as well as one of the great teams of this year. I think no matter which way you slice it, they were one of the top teams. I liked the Bingles a lot. I liked the Bills a lot, and I think they would have given Philadelphia a good game for sure. But I think the Eagles were the second best team at this point. I really do. I think they would have handled what would have been the Bingles at the time that they played their playoff game, because they had lost some offensive lineman at that time. And I think the Eagles would have had an easier time of taking advantage of that than they did in this game where there wasn't any pass rush. And that was one of the big things that kind of fell off for the Eagles at the wrong time. And as I said before, that was more of a credit to the Chiefs than it was a super negative to the Eagles. Maybe you look at the defensive coordinator a little differently, that they didn't adjust as well in the second half as the Chiefs did, but other than that, it was solid on both sides. And despite it not going. Their way. I thought the Eagles didn't have anything to be ashamed of. They went into this season with a big question mark above their heads as far as what they were going to end up with. With Jalen hurts. They had a really bad loss, too, in the last year. So a lot of questions. They got picked in the fourth round of our team draft, which makes them, let's see, which would have made them like a top twelve team as far as where they were picked. And with Jalen Hurts being a second round pick and being in his fourth year, you don't get the fifth year option with him. And you had to kind of figure out what you had to see if you want to pay him as a starting quarterback in the future and have to think that Eagles fans, after watching this game, have to be on board with giving him some sort of mega contract here. I don't know what the number is exactly, but I think all things considered, the way he was able to put the ball both in the air and on the ground this year was really impressive. And despite him missing games and despite him probably not being 100% in this game either, I think that if anyone's going to be able to maintain a more running style of quarterback, I think it would be Jalen Hurtz, which would make me more excited than I would have thought I would have been coming into the season. Now, you might say, Duh, they made the Super Bowl, right? But they also now know that Jalen Hurts is not just a one trick pony, that he can actually read the field, he can make big throws on time, throw guys open, and really, this is just year one with him having a full complement of wide receiver so that could even get better as time goes on. And all of those things were question marks going into the season. So to have that kind of settled so that you know what you need to do now is a humongous deal for the Eagles and a big pivoting point turning point for them going forward. Because if Jaylen Hurt kind of has like a season where he's up and down and he's making some plays, but then there's a lot to be desired and they get knocked out in like the second round or even they don't make the number one seed. They get knocked out in the first round, and you don't know which way is up and down. With Jalen Hurts with this, I think he's a top six guy. I mean, somewhere between six and eight. And I mean, I've heard as high as I like him as the second best quarterback, there's some of my fellow roundtable members that are a little bit higher than I am on Jalen Hurts. And to have that be the case when opinions were where they were to start the season that he's probably a good fantasy quarterback because he runs, but what else can he be? He answered a ton of those questions and whether that was him having A. J. Brown and Devante Smith and Dallas Goddard on board and not having Dallas Goddard not be hurt, and having Devonte Smith more appropriately be like the second guy. I don't know if we get to see this, but at the same time, I think he made enough advancements where I don't think that it's just the offense around him. They're going to lose some guys when they have to sign hurts to his money. I don't think they can afford Hargrove anymore. He's kind of in his 30s. They're probably not going to pay their right guard, who I like a lot. I like Isaac a lot, too, but he's probably gone. Travis Jason, Kelsey, Lane Johnson. They're kind of getting older. Miles Sanders. He's probably gone. There's going to be some of the peripheral pieces that you have to get rid of that you can't afford anymore with the Jaywood Hertz contract, but at least you know he's worth it now. It'll still be on him to take some extra steps and to get better as a passer, no doubt. But I think this game shows you and I think the way that he played this season shows you that he is capable of doing so. And he has the extreme speed and wheels to be able to paper over some of his deficiencies there while he's figuring it out, too. And of course, he's always been able to run, but this year there was a lot more fun running. Fun running is when you're running to open spaces when they've diagrammed a really sweet quarterback sweep or a diagram to a great running play for the quarterback, and not when you're running away from traffic and trying to escape. It's more like running for your life. There was a lot more of that this season while at the same time he was also more willing to look down field, throw the ball, and he had an easier time reading the field, too. And when you put those two things together, it makes his quarterback equation equal out a little bit better and equal to more wins and more winning quarterback play. And bonus, he does it in an exciting way that is pleasing visually because he's such a smooth runner and he's such a fast runner that he creates really strong problems for the defense, both on the edges and up. The middle, which maybe he had to run a little bit too much in this game because the Chiefs did a really great job of playing downhill on their regular running plays, and they really shut that down. I didn't really talk as much about that part of it. And the Chiefs deserve credit on the defensive end that they played really downhill and did a good job of disrupting a lot of the side to side stuff that the Eagles do, and then the Eagles weren't able to run at them as directly and get pushed. That's a credit to the Chiefs defenders and Bolton that they played so far downhill and committed to stopping that run in addition to having to cover everything else they have going on with AJ. Devonte and Goddard out there. But also, to the Eagles credit, they kind of realized that and went away from it and played kind of against their grain, so to speak, as far as the way that they play. And they did a pretty good job and pushed the Chiefs to the limit doing it. I think that if they had had a little easier time running the ball and were able to use more of their side to side game on the Chiefs, that they would have been a little bit more successful. But the Chiefs once again had them down a little bit more patched strategically and were able to take more of those things away from the Eagles than the Eagles were able to take away from the Chiefs. And that's probably the next step for the Eagles and for Jalen Hurt overall is to continue to get better and to get more proficient in the pocket passing portion of it, increase the accuracy, increase his anticipation as far as throwing in, and increase the amount of things he can do as a quarterback overall. So that when you're not able to rely on the run game that you have an extra plan or you have another plan there because he is walking at the wrong side, possibly of the tightrope that you're trying to walk as a quarterback or run in this case, because you want to run some right? You want to keep the defense honest. You want the defense to have to think about you. You want to take advantage of the yards they give you when they leave you uncovered and leave space in front of you, no doubt. But you also don't want to put yourself in undue danger and to take too many hits because then you end up missing games. And of course, the best ability is availability, as we talked about earlier. And of course, maybe if Jalen hurts, his shoulder is a little bit better, that they get a little bit sharper passing and they make a first down or whatever. There's all kinds of sliding glass door things that can happen with that. And I just don't want to see Jalen, first of all, take the big injury, but also miss four or five games a year like he's a running back. Four or five is a little strong, but ultimately, running backs in the NFL typically miss somewhere between one and three games. That's the good ones. Very rarely do you see an NFL running back play all of the games. It's just a fact. And for your Jalen Hurts, running 15 times in this game, for your Danny dimes having to run in that kind of fashion to make his quarterback equation work out. The careers are shorter and the chances to win it all are fewer and far between because you spend more time injured and the injuries eventually pile up and you lose some of your physicality. So while I'm excited about Jalen and I think he can be one of the good quarterbacks in the NFL and give the Eagles a chance to be in the mix every year, he's also got to make some advancements on the it's like quarterback Jedi. You just got to continue to get better. You've seen the defense before, so you know what to do better. And it's just going to be more on him than ever because he's going to have to raise the level of his teammates now rather than having the team be so good around him because it's just not going to be able to afford it. It's the economics of having a quarterback that's worth paying. And if they let him go and decided to step back into the quarterback woods, I guarantee you someone would pay him. Step up and pay him just like somebody's going to step up and pay Lamar. If the Ravens decide that they're not going to do it, they'll franchise them and they'll get some picks out of it for sure, but someone will do that. The quarterback woods are super scary. You were just in them with Carson Wince and miraculously picked yourself out of it at a time when you wouldn't have thought you would have done so. But it will be on him to get better. It will be on Miles Sanders not to play a turret of a game. I didn't think that he got really any explosion, not that he got a bunch of chance to, but it just seemed like he was just kind of running into the line a little bit and may probably be moving on. He's definitely going to be one of the casualties, I would think. And just like he doesn't care about our fantasy teams, I don't care about how bad he looked in this game, I'm actually quite enthusiastic about it because that's just kind of the karma you build up when you're a **** like that. And okay, that's probably a little strong. I do have some affection for Miles. He's one of the guys that I saw in my first real year of film. Watching that kind of jumped off the page and gave me some confidence because he didn't get the carries initially but did later on. And I kind of snuck him into trades and stuff and ended up having a good season because of him. So to have him come out against fancy football a little bit was disappointing. But you know what? He'd been kind of frustrating and I'm guessing that people are pretty annoying when they hit you up about your fantasy performance. But I digress the Eagles do have question marks coming off the loss, and there's a lot of teams that have problems after a Super Bowl being able to recreate the Magic, but I feel pretty strongly about the Eagles and the roster they have around them. They do have a lot of free agents, and with Jalen Hurts, he's about to get paid. I would guess somewhere in the DAC range they can franchise him for around 32 million if they want to go that route, which would probably be cheaper than the average annual value of a contract he might get right now. But it kind of feels like you should go ahead and take care of him. At least he gave you the requisite amount of good play that you'd want to see to give him that contract and to make you feel good that you at least have one of the guys, or at least he could grow into one of the guys going forward. But you are going to have to make some tough choices. I mentioned Hargrave. I just mentioned Miles Sanders as far as guys that might be on the way out. Jason Kelsey has been kind of doing one year deals. I got to think they'll probably give him another one, you would think, if he decides he doesn't want to continue to play, but they've got to make decisions on Brandon Graham, Fletcher ***, Hargrove, James Bradbury. Robert Quinn didn't play much, and that's super disappointing to give up a fourth round pick for not playing much, but still Isaac as, we talked about the guard, Andre Dillard, who might have been somebody you might have put in for him, but he hasn't really showed much, so maybe you can get him at a cheaper price. And Dominican Lindval Joseph, boston Scott is probably on the way out. Miles Sanders and the other big one, Gardner Johnson, who they traded for, is also a free agent. And when you throw hertz contract on top of that, it's going to be tough to keep all those guys. They all played a role on this team, and that is part of the economics of the league, that you're going to have to have a floor razor at quarterback if you're going to pay them, but at least you know that you're paying somebody that has more talent than Derek Carr. When the Raiders had to give him the contract. He was kind of hot at that time, and then now I think he's washed and I think whatever team he's going to go to is probably making somewhat of a mistake. Although it's hard to fault them because, as I said, going into the quarterback woods and wandering around for as many as 20 years, just ask the Cleveland Browns how long it took them to find somebody that they were. Excited about, and they went ahead and overpaid him, and he didn't look good in this first year. And we'll see how that looks going forward. But it can be scary and it can make you do some things. And I just think you have to be happy for yourself, that you don't have to worry as much about the hurts part of it, but you are going to have to worry about the rest of it. And you've had your assistant coaches leave one after the other, with Staichen taking the Colts job and the Arizona Cardinals deciding on Gannon. And when you have an assistant leave, invariably they take a couple of the other assistants with them that might have lesser positions, like the passing coordinator becomes the offensive coordinator for this regime, or like Dmiko Ryan just took the passing game coordinator of the 49 ers with him. So you're going to have some attrition as far as the coaching staff goes, which it's good to have a coaching tree that's successful, that's good for being able to attract other coaches to your situation. It just kind of snowballs on itself a little bit. But at the same time, while you might have other candidates that are more willing to join you, they might not be of the same quality, they might not fit the same way that the outgoing guy did. It's just hard to replace those guys over time like Bill Belichick. Part of the reason that I think the Patriots suffered this season was that they just had a lot of coaching attrition from coaches on the way out, going to other places, and then when they brought a couple back that had failed but had been good coaches in the past, like Patricia had had success at the defensive coordinator. It just didn't fit them into the right place. Patricia and Judge were miscast as the offensive coordinators and now they're going to have Bill O'Brien, who I think is a much better choice, and I got to think they wish they would have done that move instead of what they did. But now the Eagles are going to have to deal with that attrition, and it's not always easy to fill those staff positions. And sometimes the coaching staff gets thinned out too much and you end up not having the same brain trust and not getting the same ideas filtered to you as the head coach and the team doesn't work the same. So that's something that you do have to worry about because the Cardinals and the Colts had fired their coaches, one of which was a former Eagles coach that had done the same thing, like when Frank Reich left Doug Peterson that took some of the heat out of the Eagles game plan and they eventually fired Doug Peterson. I think he might have left, but regardless, they moved on from him and now he's coaching with Jacksonville and he kind of has his s together. So we'll see if Siriani can similarly keep everything together and keep his coaching staff moving in the right direction. It may be harder for him than some of the older coaches that maybe have a more extensive tree, but maybe being closer to the age of some of the hot, some of the assistance, some of that age range where you can maybe relate to them better, maybe that helps him on the same end, so we'll see. And this is all just happening for them. So a lot of the other assistant coaches, candidates have already kind of taken jobs. This might also happen to the Chiefs. Like Eric Bannemi might move on from the Chiefs and take another offensive coordinator position just to prove that he can coordinate offense without Patrick. Because some of his contemporaries, like Matt Naggy, who was the offensive coordinator for the Chiefs, he struggled out of the gate and couldn't really get the offense going without Patrick. So there's talk about him taking a different job to get out from under that stereotype so eventually he can get a head coaching job himself, because it seemed like he should get a job much like these coordinators from the Eagles did for some time, but it just hasn't happened to this point. And that's been a big thing for the Chiefs, I believe, to have him in there helping Andy Reid coordinate the offense over a number of years. That continuity along with Patrick is a lot of what's given them strength to this point. So we'll see if that affects the Eagles, what they end up looking like next year, how they replace the players they're going to miss. There's a lot of moving pieces for the Eagles after this. And just like the coaches, sometimes the players get paid right after this coming off of a run like this, because it's been proven that they're winning players and that they can help a team in a certain way so much. Like Orlando Brown might go out there and find himself to deal. Hargrove and all the other guys we talked about, especially along that defensive line, may be finding other places, and that means moving on from guys like Fletcher ***. A guy has been an institution for the Philadelphia Eagles for some time. He isn't quite the same player, and sometimes when you're not quite the same player, you have to go play somewhere else to finish off that career. And that's unfortunate. You never like to see that. Like, you don't like to see Clay Matthews finishing it up with someone else, or JJ. Water. They see institutional players. Hell, I watched Emmett play for the Arizona Cardinals. That was one of the weirdest things, and I didn't really know how to process as well as I think I was like twelve or something. I remember it being very weird regardless. But once again, that's all offseason stuff that we're going to have to figure out later. Looking forward to all of that coming. It's been a heck of a season, and while I'm excited to have a little time off after it, I think I'm going to miss football in a big way. It's a long time to remain focused, even when it's something you love as much as I love football. And I know that I'll be missing it here pretty shortly. And I'm already just thinking about all the video ideas and all the different stuff that I want to do with this podcast and with everything and you've gotten to this point and you've been listening to me this season, I want you to know how appreciated it truly is. This is a labor of love for me up into this season, and now, even with it being sponsored, it means a lot that people have kind of latched on to me a little bit, and I want you to know it's appreciated. Also look for more videos throughout the off season. Definitely got some ideas as far as what I'm going to do, both football and non football wise. Definitely going to be streaming my best ball drafts when I get that started. I usually don't start bestball until the season or until the draft, so you know where all the rookies are and where all the free agents are and stuff. But I may do a couple before the draft because I'm a sick, sad individual and I'm probably going to live stream I'm going to live stream all of those. So look forward to that. Thanks for all the support this season and have a great rest of your day. Thank you.