EMERGENCY ROUNDTABLE: Reacting to the Eagles drafting Jalen Hurts in the second round

The Eagles stunningly, bizarrely, maddeningly drafted QB/theoretical utility player Jalen Hurts with the 53rd pick. You had thoughts, and we did too, and ours are also uncensored.

DAVE MANGELS

I half-jokingly tweeted before the Eagles were on the clock that the Eagles could take just about any position and it would make sense.

What they did makes no fucking sense.

Unless Carson Wentz hurt himself and they haven’t told anyone, which oh boy would we have a situation on our hands, there’s no justification for taking a QB there. Spare me the Taysom fucking Hill comparisons. This is more like when the Dolphins used a 2nd on Pat White to be a wildcat QB now and possible QB down the road, that worked so well he got cut the next year. Hurts is a much better QB prospect than White, but he’s the same misuse of resources. And there’s already a guy on the roster who can catch and throw a little, Greg Ward. Also, spare me the “we develop QBs” bullshit. That’s not really a thing anymore, and the whole point of that is to use a late pick on a QB you can trade for a mid round pick. The Eagles history in the Doug Pederson era with developing backups has been a 3rd round comp pick for Nick Foles (and really all they did there was rehab him, he was older than Wentz is now when he came back) and nothing for Clayton Thorson. But yeah go use a 2nd rounder on one.

Did they not see the reaction to the Packers taking one to backup their 36 year old QB? Yeah, let’s do that but with a 27 year old. Fuck. Having a quality backup is a good thing. Doing it this way is dumb.

Even Slackbot got in on the action.

BEN NATAN

Hurts is a good player and someone who could start sooner than later.

Yet that still doesn’t validate this head scratching pick. A second round pick on a backup quarterback? A second round pick on a gadget player who has never played a position besides QB? You’re gonna take your 100 million dollar off the field for a 2-QB system?

If the ultimate reasoning is worries about Wentz’ longevity, than there is a much bigger problem the team needs to address and answer for.

LEE SIFFORD

Okay. I love Jalen Hurts as a QB prospect and I was excited to draft him in all of my dynasty leagues as a high-upside future starter. With that said, WHAT THE FUCK HOWIE. Mims was the pick. I also could have settled for a LB, a S, or a CB. I think in the long run, we will be okay with this pick, but for now, I’m broken. I’m angry. I’m hurt. I’m lost. Thanks, Eagles.

BRANDON LEE GOWTON

Heading into this draft, I felt like I was higher on Jalen Hurts than most. Perhaps irrationally! I just felt like I didn’t dislike him as much as others seemingly do.

With that said, I really just don’t get this pick. Especially in the context of the end of the 2019 season. Carson Wentz put the Eagles on his back down the stretch and really made it clear that this is his team. And now the Eagles are undermining him by selecting Hurts. Not to mention using an asset that doesn’t help him at all. That’s pretty frustrating in the context of how the Eagles have failed to adequately support him in the past (see: the Eagles having the worst wide receiver corps in the NFL in two out of his four seasons).

I don’t want to hear about Wentz’s injury concerns. He just started 17 games in 2019. The Eagles could’ve signed a veteran backup. There are options like Cam Newton, Joe Flacco, Jameis Winston and even John McCown on the market.

Prior to tonight, I wasn’t really feeling amazing about this offseason. Now I have even less confidence in Howie Roseman.

Maybe our collective freakout will look silly when Hurts is a good backup and they trade him for a first- or second-round pick in the future. I guess that’s what the Eagles are hoping for. But Roseman said hope is not a strategy… and yet it really seems to be here.

TYLER JACKSON

They cucked their starting QB. Setting Hurts aside for the time being, they had to anticipate he’d likely be available in this slot. Knowing that they couldn’t get a deal done to move up and draft CeeDee Lamb, someone who’s been considering the best WR prospect in the last few years? They couldn’t do that because drafting a QB was more important? Returning to Hurts, what sort of message does this send to the team? You let Malcolm Jenkins walk, anticipating this would be Wentz’s team, only to undermine him by wasting valuable draft capital. There was almost no way to screw this pick up, but somehow they did. I have to ask, what’s the blueprint this team is trying to follow? I don’t hate Hurt personally. As boomerish as it sounds, he seems to have a great attitude and handles adversity well. It just doesn’t make sense.

ALEXIS CHASSEN

But, wait. My brain must still be in denial because it’s refusing to let the Eagles taking Jalen Hurts at 53 sink in. I mean, WHAT THE FUCK!?

Howie said that the organization develops quarterbacks, they think he holds more future value than where they drafted him ... yadda, yadda, yadda, blehhhhhh. If they need someone to take Nate Sudfeld’s spot as the backup NEXT YEAR, I really don’t see why they would use a second round pick. I could name at least 5 more positions of need than “incredible teammate”, potentially third-string, could do trick stuff quarterback.

I like Jalen Hurts. He doesn’t bother me as an addition to the team. But not in the second round. Not instead of, like, ANY OTHER POSITION.

JOHN STOLNIS

Boy, I’m sure glad the Eagles didn’t trade their second round pick to move up to grab CeeDee Lamb last night. Had to get a gadget QB with that one.

Look, this is a horrible pick and it seriously has me questioning Howie Roseman’s ability to do his job. It’s picks like this where you really do wish you could put yourself inside a general manager’s head for five minutes, wander around for a bit and understand what the heck he’s thinking. Because there was no logical reason for drafting Jalen Hurts here. None. It simply cannot be defended. If the Eagles’ goal here is truly to draft a gadget QB/back-up to Carson Wentz, you spend a second round pick to do that if you’ve already got a stacked Super Bowl team. Only then can you afford to throw away a second rounder on a novelty, not when you have real issues at cornerback, linebacker, safety and edge rusher.

And now Carson Wentz has another QB controversy on his hands. Hurts probably isn’t going to take his job anytime soon, but it’s a clear signal that the team may not have the utmost confidence in the franchise QB they JUST SIGNED TO A $128 MILLION CONTRACT. I mean, is it really so hard to just give Carson Wentz a talented team, give him weapons on offense, strengthen the defense, go sign a back-up QB in free agency and let him go to work? Especially after the season he had last year? All this does is create more questions surrounding Wentz’ future, questions that should have been answered after he got the big contract and had the season he did last year. This can’t help Wentz’ stature in the locker room either. It has to put doubt into the minds of teammates if he’s really the guy.

This also can’t help players feel confident about the decision makers in the front office. This pick was so galactically stupid on every level... need, value, locker room confusion... that it’s almost impossible to put into words. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it and I have lost all confidence in Roseman as this team’s general manager and head of the draft moving forward.

BENJAMIN SOLAK

Howie Roseman filled a ton of air during the presser patting the Eagles’ back for staying at 53 and drafting a player who they thought would go earlier. This, of course, is only half the battle of the draft. You need a player to not only be positive transactional value, but have utility to your team.

There’s three universes in which Hurts is valuable to the Eagles. In one, he fills in for an injured Carson Wentz in the same capacity that Nick Foles did: by winning playoff games. We know this is extremely unlikely to happen, because when Foles did it in Philly, it was a statue-worthy story.

In another, Hurts develops well enough in limited playing time/camp to be traded for a pick better than the one he was selected at: 53. In this one, the Eagles team is *maybe* helped (depending on the pick at least three years in the future, which is not an appropriate approach for a team with holes at multiple starting positions.

In a final one, Hurts sees snaps with Wentz in 2 QB sets. This is extremely difficult to do without disrupting the flow of your starting QB, and even if it is achieve, as the Saints have done with Taysom Hill in New Orleans, the gadget plays are not worthy of the 53rd overall pick.

It is extremely unlikely that Hurts ends up providing value to the Eagles, no matter how impressed with their own ability to develop QBs this team is. And even if he provides value, relative to pick 53 and the other players that could have been selected there, it’s almost impossible to imagine this as a positive pick for the Eagles in both the short- and long-term, as the Eagles are fruitlessly trying to market this.

SHAMUS CLANCY

I need NyQuil