May 13, 2021
A large portion of the very fanbase that makes Howie Roseman go for the darkest tint at the car dealership or calls for the unemployment of the Eagles GM at every opportunity — be it a chant at a Phillies game or the comments section of altruistic Autism pieces on the team's website — is also somehow convinced that Jalen Hurts is the answer at quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles.
Because get this... Roseman says so, at least publicly.
It’s a weird dynamic, but emotion always has a leg up on logic and there's always a chance that Hurts is the next superstar at the game's most important position.
For all the talk about the ceiling of the top signal callers in the 2021 draft, it's almost a foregone conclusion that there will be busts among Trevor Lawrence, Zach Wilson, Trey Lance, and Justin Fields.
Unless you want to go back to Otto Graham and Johnny Unitas, most modern discussion over the greatest QB of all-time boils down to Joe Montana, once a third-round pick out of Notre Dame, and Tom Brady, No. 199 overall in 2000 from Michigan.
Hurts' pedigree as a star at Alabama and Oklahoma actually trumps Brady's by a mile and Montana's as well.
The Eagles' second-year starter was the 53rd-overall selection in the 2020 draft and the Heisman Trophy runner-up with the Sooners. Anything is possible, and when you factor in Hurts' work ethic and natural leadership skills it's not exactly hard to Ted Lasso yourself up and “believe.”
Personally, I took a lot of heat for being the messenger this week on the air on BIRDS 365, mentioning that of the 15 personnel evaluators I talked with pre-draft, not even one assessed Hurts' ceiling as a prospect anywhere near the potential of Lance or Fields.
Lawrence and Wilson were purposefully left out of that query because Philadelphia never had a reasonable shot at either throughout the process. So was Mac Jones because the belief here is that the Eagles were never interested in that route.
To take it a step further, Lance was also probably eliminated in South Philadelphia for political purposes in that it would have been an almost untenable path to go the North Dakota State route again so soon after the Carson Wentz debacle — no matter how unfair and disjointed that thinking is to Lance.
For the Eagles it was likely a welcome respite that San Francisco took Lance at No. 3 overall, leaving the latest NDSU star signal caller far from the Philadelphia equation even if Roseman never went down from No. 6 originally.
That eliminates everyone as a potential option for Philadelphia but Fields, who unexpectedly fell past Denver at No. 9 as the Broncos shifted their focus toward the unhappy Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay.
While the Eagles were intent on jumping ahead of the New York Giants to draft DeVonta Smith, Chicago, sitting at No. 20 and in the shadow of its own disaster at QB in the form of Mitchell Trubisky, was also hellbent on moving up to get the former Ohio State star and started making phone calls to Carolina at No. 8 through 12 and the Eagles. All had similar deals on the table, including a 2022 first-round pick.
Once the Eagles jumped Dave Gettleman for Smith, the Giants GM was comfortable falling back for the significant haul so the Bears could go get Fields at No. 11.
The dominoes are easy to see for the Eagles. If Roseman doesn't jump ahead the Giants take Smith, leaving Fields for the Eagles or the ability to trade down to 20 where players like Kwity Paye, Caleb Farley, Greg Newsome, Rashod Bateman, and Kadarius Toney were available at positions of need — plus yet another first-round pick in 2022, potentially giving the Roseman four if Wentz carries his own water in Indianapolis.
For a GM famous for understanding value, Roseman didn't take that path.
There's nothing wrong with that.
The Eagles aren't the Process Sixers, and you have to take players at a certain point instead of just accumulating assets. More so, Smith is a very good player, a far better prospect than anything that would have been available at No. 20 with the exception of perhaps Farley, who lost some steam around the league due to medical concerns and may have been removed from the Eagles' board on Day 1.
If Smith turns into a superstar and Chicago does what it always does to QBs, none of this will matter. However, if Fields turns into the Bears' best QB since Sid Luckman there is nothing Smith could do to justify his selection. That's how valuable the QB position is in relation to WR.
In case of a Fields' emergence, the only breaking glass that could save Roseman is Hurts turning a one-year tryout into a 10-year career as the starter in Philadelphia or the future QB1 (Spencer Rattler? Sam Howell? Deshaun Watson?) brought in to erase the one-and-done memory of a franchise that got conservative at the most important position of all in the wake of an ugly divorce clicking on all cylinders.
“For better or worse, we are quarterback developers," Roseman once said. "We want to be a quarterback factory."
The factory is presumably still in business. It's just been reimagined from the high-end product peddled to the one percent to the mass-produced more affordable version.
And sometimes you can find really good bargains at Target.
John McMullen is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Media, and the co-host of ‘Birds 365’ on PhillyVoice.com. He’s also the host of “Extending the Play” on AM1490 in South Jersey and contributes Eagles and NFL coverage for SI.com. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com.
Follow John on Twitter: @JFMcMullen
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