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Jalen Hurts Name Drops Jeff McLane and “Eliot Short-Whatever-His-Name-is” in GQ Interview
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This video clip is all over social. It’s from a Jalen Hurts sit down interview for GQ:
My first reaction was actually “why is Hurts mentioning Jeff McLane and Eliot Short-whatever-his-name in a GQ interview?” Looking through the YouTube video, which is about 45 minutes, this comes up when interviewer Zach Baron begins to end the session and Hurts actually keeps it going:
Transcribed:
Hurts: That’s it?
Baron: That’s it. You want more?
Hurts: What don’t you know?
Baron: What don’t I know?
Hurts: I mean, in terms of, not what don’t you know, but it’s very beat writer-esque.
Baron: That’s fair. That’s fair.
Hurts: Like, from a higher perspective, what intrigues you about the game? Because you gotta understand, not everybody’s gonna care about (the) Eagles. You know? Or know Eagles. So when I think of GQ I think of something that reaches something bigger, represents something bigger than Eagles. If I wanted to address Eagles, I would have talked to Jeff McLane, I would have called Eliot Short-whatever-his-name-is.
Baron: Eliot Shorr-Parks, yeah.
Hurts: I would have talked to those guys. So mentality, GQ style, tell me about your style.
Hurts is basically saying that a GQ interview is deeper than a typical session with beat writers. He was expecting more questions or deeper questions or non-football questions. That was my interpretation of this snippet without going back and sitting down and watching the prior 30 minutes (yet). But I’d assume Baron was just trying to be polite while not taking up too much of Jalen’s time, and Hurts seemingly thought it would go longer. Maybe he was underwhelmed.
But yes, this is funny. Jeff McLane gets a shout out along with “Eliot Short-whatever-his-name-is.” People will interpret this as Jalen dunking on ESP or maybe just honestly not knowing his name, which can be construed as disrespectful, but this is the easiest spin ever for 94 WIP. They can simply say that Eliot was name dropped by Jalen Hurts in an interview. Now McLane and ESP are the top beat writers, according to Hurts. Jalen DID say that he’d call one of those guys if he wanted to “address Eagles,” so that’s ammunition right there. Hurts didn’t mention Tim McManus or Dave Zangaro or Reuben Frank, right? So WIP can, and will, weaponize this. They probably already have, I just don’t listen anymore so I can’t confirm. I actually took WIP off my car presets and replaced it with Q102 because my daughters like pop music. But I do sometimes listen to DeCamara and the nights/weekends crew.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com