Marcus Hayes of Inquirer.com has been a frequent guest on WIP this season, but we may not have heard as definitive a statement on the Eagles as we did from Marcus Monday Morning when he was asked about the Super Bowl LVII matchup:
“The Eagles are the best team in the league,” Hayes said proudly. “The Chiefs are really well coached, much to your dismay, and Patrick Mahomes, by the time he’s done, may be the best quarterback ever – but all that said, the Eagles are, by far, the best team in the NFL, and they should smoke this Chiefs team that had a hard time at home with a Bengals team that was just pretty good.”
Hayes punctuated his point on Mahomes by noting how he threw for over 300 yards Sunday on one foot, but also said that line, vis-à-vis the game result, shows how good the Chiefs aren’t.
And, oh yeah, the Bengals didn’t have a pass rusher as good as Haason Reddick, or a secondary as good as the Eagles’ that gives Reddick time to be as effective as he is.
“To me, the secret to the Eagles, the best thing they do, is they cover good receivers to a degree that Haason Reddick has a chance to get home, now 19.5 times in 19 games,” Hayes said. “He’s not a guy who is bull-rushing a guy or blowing past you; he’s an effort artist, who keeps going. You can’t be successful as that guy unless you have time to get there, and these defensive backs give him that time.”
Hayes also gave some insight into the Inquirer story this year about how Reddick almost quit football and quit school early in his time at Temple, where he walked on in 2012, as well as some more minutiae about the Eagles-Niners NFC Championship Game – take a listen above.
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