Emergency ITB: Jalen Hurts Out Sunday Vs. Panthers With Blood Clot; Plan Going Forward?

Hello, everybody. Welcome to an emergency edition of Inside the Birds. Man, I think this is our second emergency ITB already in five weeks. So you know a lot is going on with the team. And there is an emergency situation. The quarterback Jalen Hurts will not play Sunday against the Panthers. He was determined to have what's called a superficial blood clot in his calf. Adam, we have discussed the fact that he landed on the injury report late last week with the calf. We talked about when he played in the game, he didn't run at all. And maybe some things are now starting to come together before we talk about it. Because this is different than some, like, say, a pulmonary embolism, I do want to read the statement from the Eagles just so that everybody has an idea of the timeline and the injury itself. Okay? So this came from the Eagles statement directly. On Thursday, October 8th, Jalen visited the training room after practice requesting treatment for his calf. He informed the medical staff he had been cleated during the Rams game on October 4th. This was his first treatment session for the calf injury following the game after having practice in full both Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday, Jalen received treatment, practiced in full and was added to the practice report. Out in abundance of caution, an ultrasound was performed Saturday following the team's flight to London and walkthrough. The ultrasound revealed a superficial blood clot. Our medical staff and doctors in London reviewed the results and concluded that activity and mobility were important and that Jalen could safely play. Doctors recommended a follow-up ultrasound within 72 hours of the game and a return flight to Philadelphia. Jalen played without limitation in the game Sunday, received treatment on Monday and Tuesday, and practiced in full on Wednesday as reflected in the practice report. Throughout our time in London and this week, we have remained in communication with the League Office regarding the matter. On Wednesday night, a follow-up ultrasound revealed movement in the small blood clot. Jalen will be out for Sunday's game versus the Panthers as we determine the appropriate course of treatment, his health and safety are our highest priority. That is the situation. We can get into that in a second. Tanner McKee is going to be the starting quarterback. Cole Payton right now is the number two, the backup, but you and I have some doubts that by the time they line up Sunday that that is going to be the case. Either way, Adam, in a season with so many injuries, this is just the last bit of bad news the Eagles could afford with their season hanging here. Yeah. If they don't get Andy Dalton back, I mean, it's going to be tough. They got to get someone who knows the system. Sure. The verbiage, the West Coast system, because you really don't want to call Peyton be the number two quarterback if you could help it. Here's the problem. This is Thursday. If it's not Dalton by Friday, who could you possibly get in an emergency situation? I mean, Josh McCown's long since retired. He's coaching, so he can't do that. I'm trying to think like these West Coast, is it Nick Mullins out there or is he still with somebody? I don't even know. I haven't heard his name in a while. It's a good question, but they would have to get someone from the system, so it's tough. I had been on Bloodthinners, I don't know if I ever told you, some years ago, wasn't quite like Jalen's dealing with, but I do remember distinctly, I could not bleed, so I was restricted in what I could do. I couldn't play tennis. It was like five or six years ago. I couldn't play tennis and the clot had to clear. I was restricted from doing certain activities, so he won't be able to play until it totally clears. The key part was the last paragraph of the statement. In that graph, the blood clot moved. That's the thing that you get concerned about, because it's superficial, but it moved. That's scary, man. Look, we're not going to question the doctors. They treated him. They thought he was okay to do it, but unfortunately after that, it moved. That's scary. He's week to week. We'll see when he gets cleared to play. But until then, it's Tanner McKee. Wow, this is not the way Tanner McKee wanted to start, but it is what it is. That's where they're at. We'll throw on top of that. We've gone through the injury report already, and we'll do it again in Friday's pregame show when we record Friday. But there's a real likelihood that there will not be a Saquon Barkley, there will not be a Devontae Smith. We'll have to see. We already know the offensive line is banged up, through Kendall has been banged up. I mean, this is about as makeshift as makeshift can get for the Eagles. The line, we talked about how the Eagles were actually favored at one point by I think point and a half. That went down even before the Hurts injury. And now it's now tilted toward the Panthers. I thought I last saw by three or three and a half. So clearly when I woke up on Thursday morning, the Panthers were one and a half point favorite. So yeah, I mean, there's no doubt and see, that's the thing with this. It's kind of like, which tenor McKee are you getting? The guy who is super aggressive prior to the Washington game, it really started downhill for him in week 18 at home against the Commandos. And I remember we were doing Inside the Tape, we were watching with Cosell. And Greg said, I guarantee you that some of these plays that he didn't make, he's going to keep them up at night. There's some layup throws he didn't make. That was on the old system. That was on the Sierra Yantai system, non-West Coast. Really starting in OTAs, I was like, wow, he's not really driving the football. What is going on with him? He's overthinking. Right. And this is what happens when quarterbacks overthink. It takes someone, it makes someone who's got a strong, who's got a strong arm, who possesses a strong arm, makes it look weaker when he's really not. But he's thinking and he's not driving the football. His footwork is all messed up. I saw this repeatedly in training camp. Then in New England, I remember one of the practices, he threw the ball really well. Where the hell has that been for the last couple of months? Yeah. But then the last preseason game, thumbs down. Yeah. So that's the problem with this. You just don't know what you're getting. Even if you have a much more improved version because it's been a few weeks, I mean, what to expect if his number one running back is some combination of Damian Pearce and Carson Steele, and the two guys are blocking in front of him or continue to be majors or Lampkin or even Dickerson gets back, but he's not very healthy. I mean, and you can't get a run game and then the best guy you got to throw to might be at this point Wicks, who's not bad, but I mean, you get what I'm point. No Devontae Smith, especially when you have a backup quarterback is really tough. So I would even say even if he felt better and look, it may be just a tough sledding for the Eagles offense overall no matter what, but we'll see. There's a lot at stake. I think the biggest thing you just hit on was the fact that yes, they are without him, Jalen Hurts on Sunday, but they have to determine a course of action here, and this could extend longer than Sunday. Oh yeah. I was down. I couldn't. God, I'd have to look this up. I remember being on blood thinners to clear the clot. Yeah. It's just, other than I had to do what the doctors told me to do, what I could do it exercise-wise, but I just remember saying you can't do it, you can't do these, like they list the things you can't do, but one of them was you really don't want to bleed. There's a whole concern if you bleed, you'll be going to the emergency room. I just remember them scaring me. I was like, this thing came out of the blue that I had. But yeah, so he's weak the weak and we wish him well. Yeah, it's scary, man. It's scary. You saw, ironically, Taylor Moten, the right tackle of the Panthers had a blood clot, and his was, you know, his internal, right? It was different and he was at months, not weeks. Hey, football is heating up and everyone's pulling up because PrizePix has all your picks in one place. New users, get yourself a head start with PrizePix. Best offer yet. If you win your first $5 lineup, you'll get $150 in lineups. That's right. New users get $150 in lineups. If you win your first $5 lineup, PrizePix is available nationwide. So what are you waiting for? Lock in for kickoff with PrizePix. What you want, I'll tell you what I'm on. It's the Bengals wide receivers, T Higgins, Jamar Chase, they're unbelievable. 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And staying ahead means having the right system, not just working harder. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled Q-U-O, the business phone system built so you never miss a call. Quo is the number one rated business phone system on G2, trusted by over 90,000 businesses who rely on it to stay reachable and look professional every day. Money is on the line. Always say hello with Quo. Try Quo for free, plus get 20% off your first six months when you go to quo.com/birds. That's quo.com/birds. Yeah, I think the big difference here, and we're recording this literally a few minutes after, so it's not like we've had a chance to talk with doctors that we know or personal people that we know, but I do believe the difference between what Hurts has being a superficial blood clot and what Moten or others have had, like Chris Olave in his chest, is that those were pulmonary embolisms which are far more severe. Those are scary by the way. Very scary. In fact, you may remember this. I was misdiagnosed with pulmonary embolism in my lungs two labor days ago, and I was in the hospital. And man, was I getting emergency medical treatment, which wound up becoming unfortunate when they realized they misdiagnosed me. I just had something else going on that was very minor. But the point is, the doctors, I had surgeon upon surgeon, I had a blood doctor, I had this doctor, this doctor, that come and all talk to me, and I was getting a little bit nervous there. So those are more severe. In fact, I'm not even sure if you have to be on blood thinners for the superficial one and maybe anti-inflammatories. But the bottom line is... Here's the problem. It moved. If you move, I was going to say the bottom line is the movement is the scary part. Yeah. And you're right, they're not all the same and not depends on the location, but it started in this calf. Yeah, I'm not a doctor, but I just know I had it. I had to take them one time in my life and it was scary as hell. Right. Because it's something that happened when I came out of the blue. I'm like, okay, you're sitting, doctor sitting down in the office. He goes, okay, here's what you're dealing with. Here's what you have to do. Yes, you've got to exercise because you won't be able to do that for a while. There's certain things you don't want to bleed. And I'm going, this is like six years ago. So I'm remembering, trying to remember what they told me. But it's scary. So we wish Jalen well. And then just getting back to football. So look, the thing is with Smith and Barclay, we're not expecting them to play. Let's see what happens. You never know, man. This business is funny, how guys respond to treatment. But the problem with, as we've detailed, Smith has had this injury for 10 weeks. Yeah. It's early August, man. And Barclay's had hamstring problems in his career. This is not good. I mean, with Bigsby in his surgery, then... Shipley's out. Shipley, I expect that that's going to be a while. It's going to be a while. You're not going to see him for a while. And it's... They're in a tough way. And as we talked about yesterday, actually, this show, we had a really fun show this morning, if you haven't heard it yet. We detailed big time the Panthers' injuries. Like, we went over a lot of stuff with the Panthers. Probably more than you would ever... I would say it's more than I could remember talking about an opponent's injuries. Yeah, there's a really significant... Because it deserved it, that they have a really... Well, before the Hurts situation, I said they had it worse than the Panthers. Yeah, now not so much. The Hurts and the Eagles? Oh boy. But right now, the Eagles are in a situation where they've got to take advantage of everything they have. We mentioned Carson Steele. Okay. Got one big time season of ball state at over 1,500 yards. Not as successful at UCLA. Wasn't drafted for a reason. Okay, I get that. But if you saw him in the preseason, you probably said, who is this guy? Like he was jumping over, like he was high stepping it, jumping over guys. Like he looked like an NFL player. We know it's football. I know it's a preseason. And the opponent was not playing their starters, but he still did a good job. So the coaches have to do a better job in game. This is where Sirianni has got to say, hey, I know Manu might be in the booth, but say, hey, Sean, we need to look at Carson Steele here. Tell Jamal Singleton, hey, we need to get something going here. We need some help. That's your job, especially when you're not calling plays and you don't have a SOA, Senior Offensive Assistant. Be helpful. Remind these guys, we have other players who can do it. Right. You know, this will be a big challenge for the entire offensive staff, because ordinarily, we would say, listen, you got to back up in. Even if you like to back up, you got to protect them in this situation. And we do that usually by trying to run the ball more, get better, more manageable down and distance scenarios, take fewer risks. But unfortunately, the Eagles, I mean, they've been trying to run the ball better, even with Jalen Hurts as their quarterback, and have been unable to do that. Now, they have to still try. They have to come up with a way to give themselves a far more respectable run game than they showed against the Jaguars. I'm not expecting it to be dynamic and explosive like it was. I mean, we already, the ship has been sailing on that, but you cannot average 1.3 yards for carry and expect that you are protecting Tanner McKee. Now, maybe that means you come out peppering the field with quick passes to start. I mean, you do have McKay Lemon, you do have Wicks, you do have Cooper, we talked about this, right? Real quick, real quick, just on that, the quick games, this is what Ron Jaruski told me. Either A, when you have a struggling quarterback, you play the quick game, build his confidence, get him in a rhythm, get him accurate, you do the same thing with a struggling quarterback. Jaws said he could not tell you how many times when he was, you know, he had a couple of rough games, whoever the play caller was, was like, this ball's getting out of his hands, we're not gonna let him think. We want him to feel good about it. So on your point that you just made, that's exactly what they should do. Quick game, on your point about Mikhail Lemon, that's his deal. Short area, he's not an outside receiver, can't do it, not at this level. Right. Get it out of his hands, he's super strong, tough. Cooper, got her for goodness sake, okay? Got her. And whenever Hurts is in, by the way, he's out of elevation, so we'll see if they send him to the practice squad. And we'll see about the other two tight ends who are returning from entry in terms of practice. But yeah, you make a good point. I just wanted to, before I forget, put that in there, because that's how you build confidence. And boy, McKee's confidence looks, any of us who wants to train a kid, look, his body language is not great. He look lost sometimes. He's just not the gunslinger. He just did not look like the gunslinger that he once was. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, you know what? Fred Johnson, it helps me now, stick him out there as an extra offensive tackle. Get bigger on the O-line, put him next to Mark Hill Bell, except this time at tackle instead of guard, and let him work his thing and try to run to the right. There's got to be, you just can't line up and play your game and say, hey, we gave it our best. We tried to play our game. We doubled down on the things that we believe in. No, you can't double down when you have half the roster. All right. You've got to be creative. You got to figure things out. And of course, Adam, the defense, this is even more urgent on them to really hold it up together from start to finish, not have lapses, not have implosions, not allow big plays, because unfortunately, it's not fair, but it falls on them to keep this thing within striking distance for the Eagles as they try to figure it out offensively. Yeah. I would say, I would say in the past game, how it might be different. They've been inconsistent with play action. They needed, I know they did a little bit more last week, but McKee's a drop back quarterback. Like he's, there was a mobility that has improved since he was a rookie. He was an absolute statue. This guy can't play in the league, can't move. He worked on it clearly. He made progress in OTAs in the second year. But he's not a runner. He's not a scrambler. He could roll out certain things on the move he can do. But I would like to see him under center play action. I want to see it, be consistent with it. It's West Coast. I don't know why we're not seeing more of this. I'm not saying 50 percent, come on. I'm not saying that. But they should be a consistent play action team, and they can deal with McKee. Like he's a drop back quarterback. Because people want to know what's the difference. Well, they're trying to have Jalen do some of it, and as he would get more comfortable, unfortunately, he's going to be sidelined a bit. McKee can do it. He can do both, shotgun and under center, but they didn't really do much under center last year, so they could do that with him. It would be something else just to see him turn it loose, get his confidence back. He's worked with Cooper plenty because they're backup, so it's not like he doesn't know Darius Cooper. Wicks, I don't know how much work he's had with him, being that Wicks is a starter. I'm very curious and they're facing a defense that's not very good. That's without both starting corners. I'm really curious and the weather is going to be sublime. It's going to be beautiful. Nice fall day. You don't have to worry about weather in this game. Right. Nice and chilly. I like it. Yeah, I know. It's finally a fall day, this 80 degree stuff, but I'm very interested to see if he could turn it loose because he hadn't done it in a while, folks. We rarely saw it. He looked like he lost his confidence. So I don't know what they could try with him to move this along here, but I don't know what to expect from him because he has not shown it. Hey, Philly fans, game day is stressful enough. Parking, traffic, long lines. We've all been there, but when it comes to your cannabis, Camden Apothecary makes it easy. This is the dispensary for sports fans, just minutes outside of Philly with plenty of free parking. You'll be in and out fast, no hassle, no waiting. They don't just care about convenience. Camden Apothecary is all about the guest experience. Their staff makes sure you feel taken care of every time you walk in. 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And D, oh my gosh, we're only six weeks in and Dak Prescott right now is the only NFC East quarterback who's going to have started every single game for his team after this Sunday, which is like unbelievable the way it happened. Yeah, that's it's it's it just goes to show you if you don't have good depth, you can't compete. Yep. It's the Eagles. The Surrogacy first five years, it's mostly incredible when it comes to injuries. My God, it's like the injury guys, uh, uh, uh, we're going to get you. Yeah. It's insane. Feels like a comeuppance, doesn't it? Like, you know, an undeserved one. It's not like the Eagles did anything wrong. They, they, they, they, they, they, they've been with Archie Dinota, coming from University of Pennsylvania and bringing back Tom Hunkley and really straightened this injury thing out, how he did a really good job. And you have to clear, you have to give Julian Lurie credit. He's very involved with the cash spend. Yeah. We've outlined for three years and obviously Jeffrey to be willing to spend more on health and, and not the well-being, well-being obviously, but rehabs and all that. But man, I don't know. This is, this has been very strange. Very strange and a big challenge ahead for the Eagles. We will have a lot more on this game covered Friday. Of course, Saturday, this week, going into the weekend Saturday, we'll have the Inside the Birds pregame show out. So we'll be really interested to hear Greg Cosell's take on what the Eagles can do, what he thinks of the Panthers defense and where they might be vulnerable. Birds Weekly fellows will have their preview as well. Inside the data, all DiCecco dailies and all the great coverage that we have here on Inside the Birds. That's going to do it for this emergency podcast. And for Adam Caplan, I'm Geoff Mosher. You have been watching Inside the Birds. As we always say, thanks for flying with us on Inside the Birds.