Mike Mayock Talks Eagles, Giants, Bears, Chiefs, TNF & More

Mike Mayock watched the whole Eagles tape, offense and defense, and came away with a verdict any Philadelphian will recognize. Promising, and a big work in progress.

The former Raiders general manager, now an NFL analyst with SumerSports, joined fellow Philadelphian Colleen on The Rich Eisen Show and went deep on the Eagles, the Giants under John Harbaugh, Caleb Williams in Chicago, Thursday night's Lions and Bills game, and what Kenneth Walker III means for Patrick Mahomes. He opened with a pitch for the guest host: her own video walk-on, with "the ability to choose your own music."

Start with the Eagles, and the new identity under offensive coordinator Sean Mannion with A.J. Brown gone. Mayock evaluated Mannion as a quarterback coming out of Oregon State, and noted he arrives with no play-calling experience but a strong background in the Sean McVay and San Francisco infrastructure. "He's got all the right ingredients for what the hot offense in the NFL is today."

The big question was Jalen Hurts, under center more than he has ever been. Mayock liked what he saw. Hurts "played a really solid game, threw the ball well, especially the deep ball," and won the game with his legs, even without a single planned quarterback run. On third and 18, Hurts picked up 23, setting up the final touchdown, a 40-plus yard throw to Dallas Goedert.

The caveat is everything around him. "I'm not sure they really are today where they want to be," Mayock said. The offensive line played poorly, and the receivers, even while playing well individually, had spacing problems. "After Week 1, it's a big work in progress for the entire offense."

The line is where he is most worried. He likes tackles Jordan Mailata and Lane Johnson as fits for the outside zone scheme, but the question is whether Johnson holds up physically at his age. Mayock called himself "the defender of the faith" for departed line coach Jeff Stoutland, "one of the best offensive line coaches in the history of the NFL," and said the new scheme simply was not Stoutland's cup of tea. Landon Dickerson, now on IR, did not play well last year and on this year's tape, Mayock said, 330-pound linemen were "crossing his face" and his lateral quickness was nonexistent. Drew Kendall, a longtime center at Boston College, makes his first start at guard. Add two holding penalties on center Cam Jurgens and a right guard, Tyler Steen, he called "average at best," and the injuries worry him most. Saquon Barkley, for his part, averaged over five yards a carry, and tripped over his own blockers on two outside zone runs Mayock thought were headed for big gains.

The Giants did not surprise him at all, and he has a personal reason for that. Mayock and Harbaugh lived in the same neighborhood back when Harbaugh coached special teams for the Eagles. Mayock helped get him an interview for the Boston College head job. Harbaugh "knocked it out of the park, and they didn't hire him." He went to Andy Reid, moved to defensive backs coach, and a year later was the Ravens head coach.

"Toughness, physicality, culture. I know who he is, and those things still matter," Mayock said. So 37 carries for 165 yards against Dallas made sense to him. What he loved was the second half. With the Giants up 14-7, they had just three possessions: 12 snaps for 70 yards and a touchdown, 13 snaps for 70 and a touchdown, then a 12-play, 37-yard drive to run out the clock. Dallas got two possessions all half and scored on both, "and it didn't matter."

That is the path to January for New York. "If he can keep that quarterback healthy, if that kid doesn't get too beat up in the run game, they've got a chance, I think, with a good defense, to compete for a playoff spot." Against the Rams next, he thinks the key is Jackson Dart throwing off play action. He also warned against overreacting to the Rams loss in Australia, and made a point of praising general manager Les Snead, who keeps the Rams competing every season despite trading away all those first-round picks. Colleen's response: "more Les love."

On Dallas, Mayock was not ready to bury anyone after Week 1, but said the defense under Christian Parker looked "just about as bad as it was a year ago."

The Bears segment came down to one sentence. "I'm a little bit prejudiced, but coaching still matters."

He told a story about a scout friend of 25 years who insisted talent, not coaching, wins games, until he landed on a team with a better coach and called Mayock to say, "This coaching really does matter."

Mayock had big grades on both Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels coming out, and year one made them "polar opposites." Then Chicago brought in Ben Johnson, who "demanded that Caleb do things his way. Footwork, eye, vision, where you're going with the football, progressions." They had to break him down a little to build him back up.

The Week 1 tape reminded him of the Bears' game against the Eagles the day after Thanksgiving last year, which he called. Chicago ran it 39 times for 291 yards, with six explosive plays of 28 yards or more. Four were runs, three went for touchdowns: Kyle Monangai for 61, Williams on a 29-yard scramble, D'Andre Swift for 28. "When you're running the ball like that and have a quarterback as dynamic as that, no wonder you score 59 points."

For Thursday night in Buffalo, Mayock pointed to explosive plays as the key. The Bills had five plays of 30-plus yards in Houston, and three of them went to tight end Dalton Kincaid. That puts a beat up Detroit secondary, with both safeties hurt, in a tough spot. "The big challenge for Detroit's defense is to limit explosive plays. And that's hard to do against Buffalo."

He called Josh Allen "probably the best quarterback in football right now" and loves the DJ Moore acquisition, giving Buffalo "a legitimate inside outside threat that can play at all three levels" alongside Khalil Shakir. On the other side, "maybe my favorite guy in football might be that Detroit tailback, Jahmyr Gibbs." His only concern is the workload, and running backs who push past 400 touches. His prediction: lots of offense, because "the two offenses are outstanding and right now the two defenses are not."

Then Kansas City, and a little Philly history. Mayock used to tease Andy Reid that he could not help himself, that he would never run the ball. Bringing back Eric Bieniemy as offensive coordinator was a big deal. As the son of an offensive line coach, Mayock believes throwing too much can make a line passive, backpedaling all day. You need a line that can "stick their hand in the dirt" and move people off the ball, he said, and Bieniemy demands that.

Walker, he said, "fits them like a glove." What stood out was "his patience and vision," something Mayock thinks is somewhat innate. Walker took his time, read the blocks, let the linebacker commit and made his cut. "I think all of that is going to make Patrick, coming back off an ACL, have to do a little bit less." Add a Travis Kelce who looked on the verge of another good year and a defense he trusts Steve Spagnuolo to figure out, and Mayock had a warning. "All the people that think Kansas City's going to be a non-playoff team, watch out."

He closed by explaining SumerSports, which counts NFL and college teams as clients and has now opened a consumer product. Mayock, a self-described old-school guy, said analytics opened his eyes during his time as Raiders GM, and he walked through how a fan could track a single receiver and cornerback matchup snap by snap during a game. Colleen admitted he was making her a believer.