Would you rather build around Tua Tagovailoa in Miami or Jalen Hurts in Philadelphia? | You Pod to Win the Game

Senior NFL Reporter Charles Robinson is joined by Jori Epstein and Charles McDonald, the newest additions to the Yahoo Sports’ NFL family. Our NFL trio discusses the hot starts by the Miami Dolphins and Philadelphia Eagles, with their young quarterbacks Tua Tagovailoa and Jalen Hurts are leading the way. Which team and young QB do you think is in the better position to succeed moving forward? Hear the full conversation on the You Pod to Win the Game podcast. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen.

Video transcript

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CHARLES ROBINSON: Everybody's talking about Tua, OK? Everybody's talking about Jalen Hurts. Everybody's super excited about Miami and Philly. What I think is really interesting to me is that, you look at these two teams, and going into training camp, one of the-- the conversation I had when I went to Philly was like, hey, you guys are in a good position here. If this doesn't work out with Jalen Hurts, you've got draft picks to make noise.

This to me, would be the really hot, trendy place. If for some reason, a veteran quarterback suddenly wants to leave his team, as we've seen in recent years happen the last couple offseasons, this is the place players should want to come. A quarterback should want to come here. If you want to be the next Russ, where you're going to push your way out, I would push my way out to Philly.

So you have the potential of a veteran coming in here. You can use your draft picks to go and get one of the plethora of quarterbacks that are supposed to be first round picks. But no, I mean, Jalen Hurts has checked off every box that I think they wanted him to check off up until this point. It's a lot of season left. And I think that Miami is in this boat. Obviously, lost one of the first round draft picks that they had because of the tampering scandal.

But these are two franchises that to me, given the amount of resources that were going to have to be marshaled to potentially fix the quarterback position, all of a sudden, if you have two quarterbacks in position in Miami and Philly, both franchises, the future looks exponentially brighter. Because now you're sitting there staring at resources where you're like, oh, no. Actually, we don't have to screw with the resources. We have resources now to build around these two players, and we love it moving forward. But which of these two franchises are you taking building around their particular quarterback and moving forward?

JORI EPSTEIN: Hmm, yeah, that's a good one. Because I think what's interesting is that the biggest question I would say of Jalen Hurts before this season is really what kind of development and ceiling he had in the passing game. And he's really got that. I mean, it's like his yards per game is up 100 yards per game.

CHARLES ROBINSON: Yeah, it's crazy.

JORI EPSTEIN: It's like-- it's just like massively skyrocketing. His yards per attempt, his yards per catch. Like, on every metric, he's showing that this area of his game that wasn't as strong is now super strong. Now again, it's been three weeks. I think from what we've seen as of now, I would take Tua. But I think that by the end of the season, I could easily be convinced for Jalen. I think that like Jalen, it's almost like if you're looking at that graph, Jalen's slope is steeper in terms of what he's proven in this season so far, in my opinion, but Tua is at a higher point right now.

CHARLES MCDONALD: Yeah, that's a tough question because I think, kind of, what is exciting about Jalen Hurts is he's kind of an incomplete as a passer. I mean, the fact that the Eagles have been able to build this passing offense and they aren't even really throwing to the middle of the field that much. I don't know, maybe it makes you think, hey, if he can get to a spot where you're attempting some of these passes over the middle of the field a bit more and you're connecting on them, then is that a situation where we're looking like, holy crap, like, we just drafted a top eight quarterback with a second round pick.

Like, that-- that little unknown upside to me, just like that area from being a passer is, kind of, curious. But at the same time, with Tua, like, right now, you're showing at least that you can, with the help of Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle, you can really be a team that throws down the field and generates explosive plays at will. I mean, even against the Bills this past week, and they didn't run [? that ?] many plays, but I'm pretty sure Tua averaged like over 10 yards an attempt. And we all saw what happened in the fourth quarter of that Baltimore game. It's an interesting question.

But I think I might-- I might go with Jalen Hurts because I tend to like the quarterbacks who can really run. And I think what makes Jalen special so far and what's really made him special since he was-- going all the way back to Alabama is he's the quarterback that can run like a running back. When it's time to set up blocks and run between the tackles and make guys miss at the second level, he's someone that does that at a really high level. And now, you're really starting to see some of the accuracy issues fix over time with him. So if he can just be a guy that's going to take more chances over middle of the field and maybe see the field a little bit faster, that to me, is like really, really exciting and upside for the Eagles.

CHARLES ROBINSON: One of the things that I think is-- it's interesting that everybody's making a lot about who the undefeated teams [? that. ?] Obviously, you have Philly and Miami. But we looked at like-- and I feel like most people are still holding out on Tua. And yet, I feel like a ton of people are buying in on Jalen. Everyone's talking about Jalen, MVP numbers, and you know, oh, Tua had this big game, but let's wait and see in the long run.

And then the thing is though, look at the wins. Like, it's crazy to me that people are sitting there. Philly's beaten the Lions, the Vikings, and the Commanders, OK? Look at who Tua and the Miami Dolphins have beaten. You beat the Patriots, you beat the Ravens, and you beat the Bills. What the hell? It's not even remotely close. Literally, Miami has beaten three teams that are probably all better than every single team that Philly has beaten.