4-Down Territory: Mike McCarthy/Kliff Kingsbury, Jalen Hurts, and going all-in on the Bills

Each week in “4-Down Territory, Touchdown Wire’s Doug Farrar, and Luke Easterling of Bucs Wire and Draft Wire, take on the NFL’s (and occasionally the NCAA’s) most pressing topics. In this week’s video, Doug and Luke discuss the professional mortality of Mike McCarthy and Kliff Kingsbury, whether the Eagles should bank on Jalen Hurts as their franchise quarterback or make a bigger splash with their three first-round draft picks, and whether anyone can beat a Bills team that just took Bill Belichick’s Patriots apart as no opponent ever has.

You can watch the video right here:

Mike McCarthy: What would you say you do here?

(Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports)

Now that the Cowboys have been eliminated from the postseason in rather embarrassing fashion, everyone’s looking at whether Jerry Jones should fire Mike McCarthy and start over. There’s compelling evidence that Dallas would be better off with a new head coach, but if you’re Jerry Jones, what do you do here?

Doug: At his opening press conference after Dallas hired him, McCarthy intimated that he lied about watching every Cowboys play from the previous season, saying that you “do what you have to do” to get a job. Were I Jerry Jones, I would have fired McCarthy right there, for cause, and dared him to come after the money. I don’t see any reason at all to keep McCarthy on board. Kellen Moore runs the offense, Dan Quinn runs the defense. McCarthy is responsible for in-game management, and he’s been the NFL’s worst coach with it over the last two seasons, and certainly in 2021. It’s not just the draw play and the subsequent clock debacle.

When you have a head coach who is a massive liability regarding in-game decisions, and he brings nothing of note to the table in other areas… if I’m Jerry Jones, the only reason I’m keeping McCarthy is because I don’t want to admit how wrong I was, and there are times when you just have to bite down on the bit and move on.

Luke: You literally said, word for word, that McCarthy was the biggest reason why you couldn’t buy the Cowboys as legit contenders this season, right? Something of that sort. They have so much talent on both sides of the ball, and great coordinators handling each side of the ball. He’s clearly more of a liability than an asset. Will Jerry have the guts to admit his mistake after just one season, though? I’ll believe it when I see it.

Has Kliff Kingsbury's time run out in Arizona?

(Michael Chow-Arizona Republic)

Another head coach who experienced a lot of pain in the wild-card round was Arizona’s Kliff Kingsbury, who saw his Cardinals get blown out by the Rams. The Cards finished 11-7 after an 8-1 start, and in 2020, they finished 8-8 and out of the playoffs after starting 5-2. If you go back to Kingsbury’s time at Texas Tech, bad finishes after great starts is kind of a thing with him. Team owner Michael Bidwill made it clear after the 2020 season that the goal was to get better this time around. Has Kingsbury done enough to keep his job in 2022?

Doug: Including that blowout, Kingsbury has a 24-25-1 record after three full seasons, and I’m not sure there’s enough to ensure his continued employment. This season, it wasn’t just the offense that fell apart, dropping from third in DVOA in the first half of the season to 22nd in the second half – the defense flipped from 2rd to 19th. If Kingsbury wants to get past his own tendencies, he’ll have to be more adaptive as an offensive play-caller, and he’ll have to be more mindful of the use of his top draft picks – neither Isaiah Simmons nor Zaven Collins had much of an impact this season, and this defense is supposed to be all about versatile defenders, as general manager Steve Keim has loved those types of players for years. If Kingsbury was booted, it wouldn’t be a complete surprise.

Luke: It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the Cards went in another direction here. There are some fantastic candidates in this year’s hiring cycle, and I think Arizona could do better than a guy who was fired from his own alma mater, and is repeating some of the same patterns at the next level. Kyler Murray’s regression should be a huge concern for that franchise, and I have my doubts that Kingsbury is the right guy to help him maximize his potential.

Is Jalen Hurts the future at quarterback for the Eagles?

(Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports)

The Eagles go into the offseason with the 15th, 16th, and 19th picks in the 2021 draft. So, if they want to get themselves a new franchise quarterback, no team is in a better position to do so except for the Giants and the Jets, who each have two top-10 picks each, and the Jets aren’t switching quarterbacks yet.. After what you’ve seen from Jalen Hurts this season, do you move forward with Hurts and hope for continued progression, or have you seen enough?

Doug: When I evaluate quarterbacks, I look at two things: What’s easy to fix, and what isn’t. Among the things that aren’t easy to fix are field-reading, pocket awareness, and that quick sense of who’s open, and who isn’t. You have to be able to isolate and anticipate. I like Hurts as a developmental guy, but he has a massive, potentially unfixable flaw in his quiver – he bails from the pocket even when he has protection, and this limits his reads and forces him into bad situations. Hurts rolled to his left too soon on at least two plays in the Eagles’ loss to the Buccaneers. One throw resulted in a near-interception by Jamel Dean, and one resulted in an actual interception by Mike Edwards.

On the Dean near-pick, Hurts had receiver Quez Watkins wide open over the middle against 2-Man coverage, and he didn’t see it. He had time, but he didn’t see it. Hurts has now started 20 NFL games, and outside of the Eagles’ RPO stuff, there isn’t much to hang your hat on yet. I’d want more from my quarterback at this point in his development, so I’m probably looking to add at the position with an impact.

Luke: I’m not ready to give up on Hurts as the franchise quarterback in Philly just yet, and this is also a terrible year to need a quarterback at the top of the draft. I’m not sure I’d spend a first-round pick on any of this year’s top prospects at the position, to be honest. There are 5-6 guys who have some intriguing traits, but I think the Eagles would be much better off giving Hurts at least another year, and using those three first-rounders to give him a better supporting cast to work with on both sides of the ball. If it doesn’t work out this year, next year’s quarterback class might actually have some talent worthy of spending premium resources.

After they thrashed the Patriots, are we all in on the Bills to win the Super Bowl?

(Mark Konezny-USA TODAY Sports)

What the Bills did to the Patriots on Saturday night with that 47-17 wild-card beatdown was historic in a lot of ways. Buffalo became the first team ever to get through a game with no punts, no turnovers, and no field goals. Not just in the playoffs, but ever. No team had ever scored seven straight touchdowns against a Bill Belichick Patriots defense, and that 47 points were the most ever scored against a New England team with Belichick at the helm. Josh Allen became one of five quarterbacks in pro football history to throw more touchdown passes than incompletions in a playoff game. With all this in mind, and given the Bills’ notoriously streaky streaks this season, are we buying into Buffalo as the team to beat no matter what, or do we still need to see what they’ll do against the Chiefs in the divisional round?

Doug: Well, Mac Jones is no Patrick Mahomes, so the Bills will be dealing with some things they didn’t have to against the Patriots. And New England’s secondary was pretty banged up. Why Belichick didn’t go for more zone defense in that game is a mystery. Belichick is obviously the greatest coach ever, but he’s not going to want that game’s play sheet in Canton.

That said, this Bills team as it took the field against the Patriots looks very, very tough to beat. Josh Allen has basically become Kurt Warner as a passer and Cam Newton as a runner, and I don’t know how you defend that. The offensive line and run game have upticked to good enough, which is all they need to be, and that defense is looking very sharp from front to back. They especially have the safeties, and the coverage concepts, to foil both Mahomes and Aaron Rodgers, and I don’t think Tom Brady would appreciate them, either. So yeah, I’m in. I was in when I picked them to win the Super Bowl before the season started, so why stop now?

Luke: I would love to say yes, but I definitely need to see what they do in Kansas City next week. That’s where they were weighed, measured, and found wanting in the playoffs last year, so that’s the test again this time around. One of the most hostile road environments in the league, against a Chiefs team that looked just as impressive against the Steelers in the first round. I hope we’re in for an epic shootout in this one either way, but perhaps the Bills can make a believer out of me by avenging last year’s loss.

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