It’s time to take inventory at the quarterback factory.
As the NFL offseason arrives, every question around the Eagles team-building starts and ends with the quarterback position. It has dominated talk on WIP from the minute the season ended. Is Jalen Hurts the guy? Can he be the guy? Should the Eagles give him another shot in 2022, or use big-time draft capital to go after a star?
Here’s why the Eagles should stick with Hurts, and why the decision really shouldn’t be hard for Howie Roseman and Jeff Lurie to make before the start of the new league year.
Hurts’ upside is higher and more real than many are willing to admit or acknowledge: Hurts just had a solid first year as a starter. He accounted for 26 touchdowns, threw only nine interceptions, led his team to a winning record and playoff berth, ranked in the top half of the NFL in yards per attempt, and yards per completion. Pro Football Focus ranked Hurts as the 11th best quarterback in the sport in 2021, a year after ranking him 40 out of 42 quarterbacks. If you didn’t see the significant leap in performance from his rookie year to 2021, you weren’t paying attention.
We’re talking about a 23-year-old quarterback who jumped nearly 10 completion percentage points in his first full year at the position, improved as the year went on in a new offense and comfortably sat among the top-20 players at the position based on almost any logical criteria that combined his passing and rushing ability. To just assume he’s done growing and can’t get better is silly. The chance for Hurts’ upside to lead to a top-10 player at the position exists.
Chemistry should matter: In early 2019, the Eagles ignored this and it came back to bite them. Now is a chance to reverse that mistake. Nick Foles wasn’t as “talented” as Carson Wentz, but his teammates loved him and played for him. The Eagles ignored what was in front of their eyes, moved on from Foles and paid Wentz. The team went 12-16-1 in 29 ugly Wentz starts from that point forward, which also included a once-tight team becoming fractured and in need of a true franchise reset. Hurts has won over his locker room, and the team rallies around him. The Eagles can’t ignore that again.
Howie Roseman has only built one great team, and that blueprint didn’t include a high-priced quarterback: I am baffled by anyone who willingly wants to give up the biggest advantage in the NFL: A productive quarterback on his rookie deal. Hurts’ contract will pay him $1.6M and $1.9M over the next two seasons, leaving Roseman with (literally) $200M to put a team around him. And while the Eagles general manager can finagle the cap with the best of them, names like Rusell Wilson, Deshaun Watson, Aaron Rodgers or Kyler Murray will all either want new deals in the $45M per year range soon, if not now. The calculus isn’t just those players vs. Hurts. It’s Hurts, plus cheap draft picks and up to eight additions in free agency vs. just those quarterbacks. The only great team Roseman has ever built (2017) came with a rookie quarterback taking up very little of the salary cap. All those veteran free agents that helped hoist a Lombardi couldn’t have been here if the Eagles were paying a ton of money to the quarterback position.
Looking (truly) long-term at the position might be a fool’s errand: The worry about Hurts’ future, being stuck with a mid-tier quarterback and hoping for simple, easy continuity at the position is more dream-world stuff than reality. How many teams in the modern NFL are truly “set” at quarterback? Fewer than you think, considering that up to two thirds of the league could be looking to upgrade at the position this offseason. Finding a player that will be at the spot for 10 years is rare. The worry that Hurts isn’t “the guy” for the next 10 is a silly reason to force a move for 2022.
This team isn’t ready for the big swing: Comparing the Eagles to the 2021 Rams is laughable. Los Angeles had averaged nearly 11 wins per year over a four year span (including a Super Bowl appearance) before swapping out Jared Goff for Matthew Stafford. The team and roster was loaded, and ready to win immediately with one of the NFL’s best coaches. Meanwhile the Eagles have two double-digit win seasons in the last seven years, and own a 13-20-1 record since the start of 2019. Teams have to understand their own win curve and readiness to go for a title when opportunity knocks, like the Sixers just did with James Harden. That’s not the current state of the Eagles, unless I’m missing the in-his-prime Hall of Fame defensive tackle, superstar cornerback or wide receiver poised to have the best year at the position since Jerry Rice.
Don’t look at this offseason as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: Quarterback is the new NBA superstar. Yearly movement of top-10 players at the position will become the norm, not the exception. Much like LeBron James paving the way for player empowerment in the NBA, Tom Brady (and Stafford) have set the new blueprint in the NFL: Change teams, go to a better situation and win right away. It may feel like the Eagles can’t pass up the opportunity to jump into a potential trade group that may include four current top-10 quarterbacks until you start to realize that we’re likely not far from the next wave doing the same thing.
This draft capital is too rare and too valuable to use this way: The Eagles are poised to become the first team since the 1991 Dallas Cowboys to have three picks in the top 20 of the NFL Draft. Dallas famously spurred along the building of a dynasty with that draft. I know, I know. This is Roseman making the picks, not Jimmy Johnson. But the opportunity to truly build a deep, budding roster is too valuable to pass up. If the Eagles do this the right way, they can add three legitimate young players to a nucleus that includes DeVonta Smith, Landon Dickerson, Milton Williams, Jordan Mailata, Josh Sweat, Dallas Goedert, Avonte Maddox, Kenny Gainwell, T.J. Edwards and Quez Watkins. That would be 14 young, rising players and the list doesn’t include Hurts. One year from now, we could be talking about a team with a 24-year-old quarterback off another leap in progression and a real roster foundation. And if that leap doesn’t come from Hurts, a nucleus is there to pluck a veteran quarterback or draft the next one that’ll be surrounded by talent, similar to how the 49ers have built a winning team.
All the potential big name upgrades come with red flags, and none are guaranteed to bring success: Rodgers hasn’t won anything in over a decade. Wilson is the NFC’s Ben Roethlisberger, blessed with an incredible supporting cast as a young quarterback but unable to come close to a ring when the franchise put the onus on him and his arm. Watson has two past ACL issues, is barely over .500 as an NFL starter and comes with so many off-the-field red flags that only a clueless team would make him the face of the franchise again. And Murray? Please. If you’re looking for a small, fragile, injury-prone quarterback with Jay Cutler-ish body language and a soon-to-be $45M per year price tag, he’s your guy!
The Eagles have a cheap, rising quarterback that’s shown the ability to win over the locker room and handle everything that comes with taking the arrows of being this team’s quarterback. Cashing out now on Hurts would be a combination of unwise and ignoring where this franchise is, how it has won before and where the NFL is headed. The debates are fun, but the ultimate decision is easier than many want to admit. Just stick with Hurts.