National Championship - Oregon v Ohio State

ARLINGTON, TX - JANUARY 12: Quarterback Marcus Mariota #8 of the Oregon Ducks passes out of his endzone in the fourth quarter against the Ohio State Buckeyes during the College Football Playoff National Championship Game at AT&T Stadium on January 12, 2015 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)

(Tom Pennington)

Until he is on stage holding the jersey of another team, the debate in Philadelphia will go on and on — should the Eagles do whatever it takes to land Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota?

To NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock, there isn't much of a debate.

"If the Eagles think he's the guy and that they can win a Super Bowl with Marcus Mariota, given people around him and a good defense," Mayock said during a recent interview on 97.5 The Fanatic (via Birds 24/7), "then I think they have to try and go get him."

Mayock's belief that the Eagles should move up for Mariota comes from, you guessed it, the quarterback's ties to head coach Chip Kelly.

Kelly coached Mariota for just one season at Oregon, but has spoken very highly of the Heisman winning quarterback. During his three year stint at Oregon, Mariota finished with 105 passing touchdowns, 29 rushing touchdowns and just 14 interceptions.

In addition to Kelly's ties to Mariota, Mayock also pointed out that the team's current quarterback, Nick Foles, doesn't seem to have what it takes to be an elite player.

"If you take the assumption that you can't win a Super Bowl without a 'franchise quarterback' and in modern football history, who has won Super Bowls without one? Maybe Baltimore with [Trent] Dilfer and maybe Tampa Bay with Brad Johnson? And you could say maybe Nick Foles is like one of those two guys," Mayock said. "But those two guys had two of the best defenses in the history of the NFL.

"So if you can't win a Super Bowl without a franchise quarterback, and there's only 10 or 11 franchise quarterbacks at most in our league today, then you better beg, borrow or steal and figure out a way to get one if you don't think you have one."

Where Mariota will go in the draft, and what the Eagles might have to give up to get him, is anyone's guess. Some mock drafts have the quarterback going No. 1 overall to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, while others have him dropping to the New York Jets at No. 6.

Why might Mariota fall? Here is a breakdown of what Mayock said he liked and didn't like about the quarterback.

Pocket Awareness

The second piece is the pocket awareness piece. I think he's inconsistent. There's some full-field reads. I think he tucks the ball down and runs early, and the problem is right there. You can't kill a kid for using his legs to win games. That's what he's supposed to do, that's what he's coached to do. So you can't kill him for it because he's doing all the right things. But it does become a projection as to whether he can do what his coach in the NFL's gonna tell him to do.

Off the Field

First guy in the building everyday, all those kinds of things. No problems off the field. I want to buy into Marcus Mariota. He's clean, there's no off-the-field issues. I love all the individual components.



Physically

From a physical trait perspective, he has everything you want. He's big, he's athletic, he's got great feet, and he's got a live arm. So on the surface, the individual components all work. The problem is he's a projection coming to the next level because of the pocket awareness, the progressions and the reads.

Eliot Shorr-Parks may be reached at eshorrpa@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @EliotShorrParks. Find NJ.com Sports on Facebook.