May 31, 2016
The last time he spoke to the media at the NFL owners' meetings in March, Jeffrey Lurie made it crystal clear that the Eagles were highly likely to select a quarterback in the 2016 NFL Draft.
"We’re still looking for a third quarterback, somewhere in the draft, like we used to do," said Lurie at the time. "We would always, each year, or every other year, try to draft a quarterback. At some point that’ll probably continue as long as there’s quality throughout the draft, and you can identify how you want to develop a quarterback over time. It’s not somebody who has to step in (immediately), then hopefully we can find somebody throughout the draft."
After the owners' meetings concluded, Lurie accompanied Doug Pederson and Howie Roseman on a cross-country tour, working out many of the draft's top quarterbacks, including Carson Wentz. That was not a smokescreen, as we learned when the Eagles traded up from the eighth-overall pick to the second-overall pick to draft Wentz.
For the first time since that move, Lurie spoke publicly, to Jenny Vrentas of the MMQB, when he spoke about the Eagles' quarterback situation.
“We see it differently than I guess some other people may,” Lurie said at the league meetings. “We see Sam [Bradford] as absolutely the right guy to quarterback the team. We are so rarely able to draft in the Top 5 in the draft. It’s only been twice in about 15-20 years. So we saw the opportunity, and we liked two quarterbacks. We had to make the move to secure having a potential franchise quarterback for many, many years. Having a lot of assets at the most important position in the NFL is a good strategic move for now. And it can only benefit us. Because in the NFL, it’s the one position you can’t just go get. And so when you have an opportunity, you’ve gotta take your shot, and you’ve gotta be bold. Otherwise, if you say to yourself, you know, it is probably a 50-50 shot that maybe the quarterback will be really good, you can't let that deter you. So that’s how I look at it: You either have a really good QB and you compete for the Super Bowl, or you don’t and you are probably not competing for the Super Bowl. And that’s simple.”
Personally, I buy all of what Lurie is selling above, with just one of his sentences in need of fixing:
“We see Sam [Bradford] as absolutely the right guy to quarterback the team in 2016." There.
