The WIP Midday Show is a house divided these days, as Joe Giglio thinks Jalen Hurts is playing well in his role but is just along for the Eagles’ ride, while Hugh Douglas thinks Jalen is a driving force.
So to break the tie, they asked Seth Joyner his thoughts when he joined them for his weekly Wednesday visit…and score one for the players being right?
“I don’t understand all of this apprehension about Jalen. He has proven that he can get it done when he needs to get it done,” Joyner said. “You just gotta look at it like every single year a team is wired and built differently. You go out and get Saquon Barkley to go behind arguably the best offensive line in the NFL and struggle the first couple of weeks in a new offense, and then you make the move to say we’re going to lean on the running game and you begin to have massive success with it – and when Jalen needs to be efficient, he is more than capable and more than efficient in getting the job done.”
As Seth noted, he wasn’t asked to throw much in the second half last Sunday in Baltimore, but when he was at the end of the first half, he was dominant – so it’s not how much action he’s getting, per se, but what he’s doing when he does need to step up.
“What do you want him to do when he’s being asked to play the game the way he needs to play the game?” Joyner asked. “And let's not forget or lose sight of the fact of how well he's played when he's needed to throw the football. If they’re built differently, what more do you want from Jalen as a quarterback when you know that he can get it done when he needs to get it done, but the initiative and the identity of the football team right now is rushing?”
Hugh thinks there will come a time where Jalen will have to be the stud QB we want, and the more comfortable the team is in their current iteration, the easier it will be for Jalen to do that – and Joyner can’t help but agree.
“A team who all they can do is throw the ball, at some point in time, the defense is going to stop it, but the team that can run the football, the whole playbook is open through play action, pass, misdirection, whatever, you can do whatever you wanna do,” Joyner said. “My thing is, are we Hell-bent on Jalen throwing for 300 yards every week, or on keeping what he calls the main thing the main thing, and that’s winning? Do want our quarterback to throw for 300 yards and lose a game, or do we want our quarterback to throw for 200 yards or 180 yards and we win?”
Take a listen to Joyner’s entire call-in above, as he goes into the defense’s role in what’s going on with the team, Saquon's chase for the rushing record, and more!