Crossing Broad
The happiest people after Monday night’s demoralizing and embarrassing loss to the Chargers were not Chargers players nor that one Chargers fan. It was the family and friends of Eagles backup QB, Tanner McKee.
Four picks and a lost fumble is the story of the Eagles’ loss in Inglewood. One of those picks is obviously on A.J. Brown, but that still means Jalen Hurts had three picks where the blame completely lies on him. This is the Hurts we get when trying to appease a high-paid wide receiver who (rightly) knows the offense wasn’t playing up to their full potential.
The Hurts who doesn’t take risks won games. The Hurts who does take risks loses games. Such is life. The life many Eagles fans wanted.
The Birds won’t and shouldn’t bench Hurts unless he’s got some sort of physical injury. He’s more than earned the opportunity to work himself out of the funk he’s in. It’s as if people forget quarterback is one of the hardest positions to play in professional sports. Hurts did it at a high level for years, enough to be in MVP conversations.
But something’s off this season. The 2023 collapse is now fresh in everyone’s minds, and I can’t blame them. Anything that could have possibly gone wrong has gone wrong. The first touchdown called back because of a Jordan Mailata hold wasn’t even surprising. For every good play, there are 15 bad plays. Someone should probably get Nick Sirianni and Kevin Patullo bigger mirrors too look into.
Nobody loves backup quarterbacks the way Philly does. And plenty of social media posts called for McKee to get the nod behind center coming out of halftime and beyond. It’s just a silly notion to placate a person’s emotional reaction. I know different quarterbacks can see different things and make different reads, but the way fans think McKee is the answer, with the utmost confidence, is just proof of an emotional reaction to a very bad stretch of Eagles football. If the Eagles won’t replace the offensive coordinator or the head coach, the next easiest thing to do would be to replace the quarterback, right?
I was fine with Hurts not taking risks and relying on the defense when the offensive line was hurt (and still is) and his receivers just quitting on routes, but it would have been nice to see his receivers quit on different-looking routes at least. Everything looks the same and every defense knows what’s coming. That’s not on the QB. The coaches are paid to find a way to make their QB comfortable and also get the most out of their high-paid offense. How about calling a play that could set up the next play? Or the play after? It often feels like there is no offensive plan. Just call a play and hope players execute. Bing, bang, boom. Except it’s just not that easy in today’s NFL, no matter what the talent level is. We could talk about how good the...
