The NFL Draft is about finding great players and adding value to your respective organization.
Only the decision-makers within the Philadelphia Eagles organization can honestly assess what their value was on Jalen Hurts, who the team drafted in the second round on Friday night.
Howie Roseman deemed it a value pick, with Hurts bringing a ton the Eagles locker room as well as on the field. Eagles fans, analysts, and experts have been in an uproar about the selection, with a variety of opinions centered around Carson Wentz’s future in Philadelphia.
Wentz is set to play on the fifth-year option and with $66 million guaranteed upon signing his $128 million contract extension, it’s hard to envision the Eagles moving on from their franchise quarterback.
Hurts was brought in to solidify the Eagles backup quarterback for years to come and potentially bring value if other clubs start to like what they see.
With the Eagles now married to both players, here are three reasons why the duo will successfully coexist in the same quarterback room and make Howie Roseman look like a genius years down the road.
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1. Carson Wentz is just that damn GOOD
Wentz will say all the right things once he does hold a news conference and he truthfully has no reason to be worried. He’s one of the top-10 quarterbacks in football and if not for a dirty hit by Jadeveon Clowney, we probably aren’t even having this conversation. A high-character guy who has dealt with adversity going all the way back to North Dakota State, Wentz will allow this assumed slight to fuel him.
Wentz is coming off his best season as a pro after passing for 4,000+ yards, with 27 touchdowns and only seven interceptions.
Despite missing eight games the last two years Wentz already has the 9th-most TD passes in NFL history by a QB in his first four seasons. Wentz is top in Eagles team history with 96 touchdown passes and will Donovan McNabb in the next four years if he stays healthy.
Wentz only has 35 career interceptions.
Wentz is the only QB in NFL history to record 95+ passing touchdowns and 35-or-fewer interceptions in their first 54 career games.
Of the 10 quarterbacks currently ahead of him in touchdown passes over their first four seasons, only Russell Wilson has also thrown fewer than 44 interceptions in his first four years, and only Wilson and Dan Marino have a higher passer rating.
Wentz is the first quarterback in NFL history to record 30+ completions and 0 interceptions in 3 consecutive games.
Wentz joined a select group of quarterbacks in NFL history with three straight seasons of 20 plus touchdowns and 7 or fewer interceptions, joining Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Russell Wilson, Drew Brees, and Aaron Rodgers in that distinct club.
Wentz will likely hold every Eagle passing record and his 97 career touchdown passes are ninth-most in NFL history by a QB in his first four seasons. Of the 28 signal-callers with at least 80 TD passes in their first four seasons, none has a better interception ratio than Wentz.
Carson joins Aaron Rodgers and Dak Prescott as the only quarterbacks in history to average a touchdown at least every 20 attempts and an INT less than every 50 attempts in his career.
It was an insurance pick, but it shouldn’t even be a conversation.
2. Hurts has been through this process before
Jalen Hurts was the apple of Crimson Tide fan’s eyes when he was replaced by then-freshman Tua Tagovailoa in the second half of the team’s National Championship victory over Clemson.
The next season, in 2018 with the blessing of Nick Saban, Tua snatched the starting job from Hurts, who played in 13 games as a reserve and completed 51 of 70 passing for 765 yards, eight touchdowns.
A true professional, Hurts rescued Alabama when Tagovailoa was injured in the fourth quarter of the 2018 SEC Championship Game, leading the Tide to a comeback win (7 of 9, 82 yards, passing touchdown, rushing touchdown). Hurts decided to transfer from Alabama to Oklahoma as a graduate student for 2019 and replaced Kyler Murray.
He’s class personified, he knows what Wentz will be going through and his reputation as a man and a teammate is a major reason why the Eagles felt comfortable making this move.
Hurts is also the reason this will be successful.
3. Hurts isn’t ready to be an NFL starter
Had the Eagles pushed for a Jordan Love, or sought out a player like Jake Fromm who is considered pro-ready, then the pundits actually would have merit surrounding their assessment of the pick.
Even if another team chose to draft Hurts instead of the Eagles, there’s no guarantee that he’d be considered for the job and would likely take the same path toward learning how to play the position.
Hurts intangibles currently win him more games than his skills as a passer and that will have to change in the NFL in order for him to be totally successful. Hurts is a dual-threat quarterback who has made tremendous improvement with his deep-ball touch and intermediate accuracy.
That improvement is why the Eagles and so many teams valued him as a developmental talent who will keep getting better in the right scheme.
The Baltimore Ravens utilized a rookie Lamar Jackson on offense – like Saints currently do with Taysom Hill and that’s the route the Eagles should take with Hurts. In Baltimore as a rookie playing with Joe Flacco, Jackson averaged 9.6 snaps and 4.4 touches during his first nine games.
4. Eagles are being transparent
“We have shown how we feel about Carson by our actions,” Eagles general manager Howie Roseman said. “We showed it by the amount of [draft] picks we put into him, and we showed it by the contract extension, and we believe this is a guy to lead us to our next Super Bowl championship.”
Those were the words of Eagles brass after drafting Hurts. Even though the media-driven narrative will be to spin this into some type of coup for Wentz’s job, the facts are this isn’t a Tony Romo, Dak Prescott situation.
Wentz isn’t anywhere near retiring, and Hurts isn’t anywhere near the quarterback Wentz currently is.
The Eagles have always invested significantly in the quarterback position, going back to when they drafted Kevin Kolb in the second round with the great Donovan McNabb already on the roster. The Eagles then acquired Michael Vick when they had both McNabb and Kolb on the roster. The Eagles then signed Nick Foles and reworked his contract when they had Wentz.
With Marty Mornhinweg returning to the Eagles this offseason as a senior assistant and his experience as a Ravens’ offensive coordinator 2 seasons, the Eagles could have been discussing such a move for months now after reshuffling the coaching staff.
