Spend Your Morning with Nick Sirianni and Aaron Rodgers!

This is the second installment of a multi-part Week 5 NFL mailbag. There will be a third installment on Friday. You can find Part 1 here.

Some Pro Football Hall of Fame Questions

Assuming Aaron Rodgers and the Steelers don't go on some wild tear during the postseason and win a Super Bowl, is Rodgers going to make it into the Hall of Fame? The resume is there (enough for a first-ballot enshrinement, I would say), but I wonder if the off-field stuff has dinged him. 

I know you have mentioned in previous HoF posts that the committee largely overlooks non-football incidents (e.g. Ben Roethlisberger is expected to get in with no qualms), but at this point, Rodgers seems to have an entire off-field persona that could turn members away. Or is this Ghost community just an echo chamber, and everyone out there still likes him? – Mike Schobazaford

 The only things that could keep Aaron Rodgers out of the Pro Football Hall of Fame at this point would be:

• A major he-bet-against-himself-for-decades gambling scandal; or
• Rodgers stabbing Mike McCarthy on the sideline during a game and then laughing maniacally over the coach’s fallen body.

I don’t think Rodgers gambles.

Rodgers is a platinum-plated douchebag. Folks of my political persuasion like to get on our high horses about his anti-vaccination opinions. But, like, at least 30% of the population agrees with Rodgers. Including many powerful lawmakers. There’s no law in the United States against being loudly and dangerously stupider than a box of lugnuts. And there are certainly no such restrictions to entering the Pro Football Hall of Fame. 

The Rodgers Hall of Fame question generated a surprising amount of debate in the comments: many readers seem to think Rodgers’ candidacy is in some sort of jeopardy. So I re-interrogated his case to see if there’s any chance that he gets the Terrell Owens treatment. 

To clarify: selectors are FORBIDDEN from considering off-field incidents, even criminal activities. If they kept douchebags out of the Hall of Fame, Warren Sapp would not be allowed within 20 miles of the city of Canton. But Rodgers could theoretically get dinged for his behind-the-scenes behavior with the Packers, and maybe the Jets, just as T.O. was forced to wait two years for being a malcontent for the Eagles and in other late-career spots. Misconduct in the locker room, or showing up to training camp with a list of grievances, is fair game. 

I don’t see Rodgers being forced to wait, for multiple reasons:

• Making T.O. wait was immensely unpopular. The Hall of Fame Board of Directors has become very sensitive to unpopular decisions. 
• Many of the (small) cabal of selectors who made T.O. wait are no longer on the committee.
• As a quarterback, Rodgers’ feuds with Packers leadership are easier to frame as “power struggles” than “insubordination.”
• The Jets situation was similar. A bad organization went out of its way to please a superstar quarterback. Why blame the superstar quarterback?
• T.O. was doing his thing in driveways. Rodgers usually undermines authority through back channels. 
• There may be implicit racial bias at work in the last three bullet points. Don’t shoot the messenger.
• It’s hard to keep Rodgers out of the Hall of Fame for getting McCarthy fired after the two patched things up and worked together again, sort-of.

The Bill Belichick “snub” may have reinforced the public perception that the selection committee is some catty coffee klatch. Belichick was not “snubbed.” The PFHoF changed the rules in a way that made enshrinement harder; selectors who thought Eh, BB is a shoo-in, so I will vote for my hometown guy became an inadvertent coalition of protest voters. 

The committee – what’s left of it, anyway – works very hard to not play politics. The same cannot be said for the Hall’s Board of Directors.

That's a good question for former math teacher Mike: If there are 25 members on the Hall of Fame committee, and Rodgers snaps half of all people at random into nothingness, what are the odds that at least 80% of the 25 remain to vote him into the Hall? – Scott de Brestian

Rodgers isn’t the one Thanos-snapping PFHoF voters into oblivion. That’s Jim Porter. 

Rodgers could end up getting snubbed if the Board of Directors comes up with another set of brilliant enshrinement barriers. The Committee shall consist of 25 voters. A player, coach or contributor needs 35 votes to get in.

What active running backs do you think will end up in the Hall of Fame? Who do you think falls just short? – Ken Raining

Derrick Henry: in. 

Christian McCaffrey probably gets in. I would place his odds at 75%. His career is patchier than you might think. Warrick Dunn, Tiki Barber and Fred Taylor headline a group of similar players who are not in the Hall of Fame.

Dunn was a major contributor to playoff teams and was immensely popular/beloved. Barber was an asshole, but gosh, he was a phenomenal two-way player for several years, and he helped the Giants reach a Super Bowl. (Barber might be a Hall of Famer if the Giants didn’t suddenly improve the moment he left and started bad-mouthing the team in the media.) Taylor is trapped in semifinalist purgatory. 

McCaffrey’s path to the Hall of Fame may depend on which current 49ers superstars retire in which year. McCaffrey, George Kittle, Trent Williams, Fred Warner and Nick Bosa could end up logjamming one another as they work their way through the ever-changing and forever-constipated process. 

Saquon Barkley is trending toward coming up just short. That opinion may be unpopular, even on one of my own podcasts. 

For a Barkley comparison, consider Jamal Lewis, who was the featured running back for a Super Bowl winner and also produced a 2,000-yard season. Lewis finished his career with 10,607 rushing yards but was never considered a serious Hall of Fame candidate.

Shaun Alexander is another broad comp for Barkley: he had a historic 2005 season for a team that (being nice here) played well enough to win Super Bowl XL. Alexander had a five-year run as one of the best running backs in football. His legacy is tarnished by his quick decline after signing a huge contract, and by the fact that the Seahawks line of his era featured Walter Jones and Steve Hutchinson. Replace Jones and Hutch with Lane Johnson and the Eagles line, and the comp becomes even clearer.

Of course, Barkley could bounce back and have three more great years. But that doesn’t appear likely right now. 

That’s as smooth a transition to talking about the damn Eagles as we are gonna get. 

Damn Sirianni. Damn Eagles.

How can the Eagles offense be fixed? They clearly have talent, but always seem to get tripped up. Hopefully, this isn’t a prelude to tankwatch. – Nicholas

As readers pointed out in the Mailbag comment thread, the Eagles were without many key starters in Week 4. Saquon Barkley is now week-to-week with an injury. Lane Johnson retired on a Tuesday in October, as one does when things are just ever-so-hunky-dory in team headquarters. So it’s hard to get a read on the true state of the offense. 

That said, the Eagles offense didn’t look like the Greatest Show on Turf against the Commanders and Titans when nearly everyone was healthy. The offensive line, a strength for many years, is an obvious problem. But there are others. 

I don’t think Jalen Hurts or anyone else is comfortable in Sean Mannion’s Packers-flavored offense. I also have no reason to trust Mannion. He was a third-string quarterback four years ago. He spent two years getting mentored by a coach whose offense reaches the red zone, then takes a wrong turn at Albuquerque. The Eagles may have settled for a coordinator that Sirianni didn’t consider a threat to his authority. And I have no interest in being “patient” with an offense, as an analyst or as a fan, when the whole point behind the coordinator change was to get a veteran-heavy offense back into Super Bowl contention ASAP.

Here’s a related thought which has bugged me since the preseason. Many teams have switched to under-center formations, and the various tactics that go with them, in the latest effort to imitate the McVay-Shanny family of offenses. Well, many NFL quarterbacks never played primarily under center in prep, college or the NFL. Many linemen rarely blocked for a quarterback taking seven-step drops from under center. Many running backs rarely lined up behind a quarterback and read blocking patterns under such situations. How many NFL players are now being asked to do things they didn’t do very often before because some former QB3 who worked for a guy who once worked for a Shanahan decided it was cool? The Rams and 49ers have been using such tactics for years and can at least draft with their under-center scheme in mind.

If you were Howie Roseman and the rest of the season goes as you expect it to based on what you know today, what do you do in the offseason? – Robbie B.

I would strongly advise Jeffrey Lurie to fire Nick Sirianni and completely restructure the coaching staff, particularly on offense. Then I would draft offensive linemen in bundles.

The Eagles have one of the NFL’s youngest rosters and $43 million in paper cap space for 2027. The defense showed that it can still be excellent when not on the field all afternoon in Week 4 against the Rams. The Eagles need new ideas and a new mentality more than they need new guys. 

Bonus non-Eagles quick-fire question, are the Vikings just a less mature version of last year's Texans? – Robbie B.

Either that or a purple version of last year’s Seahawks: outstanding defense, outstanding special teams, puttering offense, led by a reclamation project, that relies on one superstar wide receiver.

Bonus ragebait question: when do we as a society say enough is enough on this Herbert/Chargers nonsense? – Robbie B.

We’ve trained AI to protect Justin Herbert. The human race will die out, yet the Brainiac computer that rockets off to conquer other worlds will be hardwired to believe that Herbert was a messianic figure who suffered for the sins of the unjust.

Since Sunday I started to have this wish-casty idle thought: “The last time the Eagles were 2-2 and wanted to fire Siranni they ended up winning the Super Bowl.” Rationally, I know this is a fantasy. But what if I am wrong? What does the rest of the season look like? – Tom Burton

Another reader chimes in:

The problem is their offensive line starters are falling to pieces. I also wonder whether former line coach Jeff Stoutland being gone is an issue for the new guys. But it’s hard to separate that from the mostly bland playcalling. – Joekipedia

That 2-2 start in the Super Bowl season is the hopium gift that keeps on giving! It’s a non-falsifiable argument, in the same category as Josh Allen sucked for two years, so our sucky third-year quarterback must be Josh Allen and They laughed at Einstein and they are laughing at me, therefore I am Einstein. A closer look at the Eagles’ wins and losses (particularly the Bears loss) tells a story that isn’t reflected in the standings.