The biggest question the Eagles face today is one that they cannot answer honestly.
Should they stay with Jalen Hurts or cast a quarterback?
The franchise’s immediate future depends on them doing it right. And the most frightening thing is that there is no way for them to know.
There is simply no way for Howie Roseman, Nick Sirianni and the rest of the Eagles’ brains to sit in the NovaCare Complex and decide with any degree of certainty what they have in Hurts.
After 3 and a half games? Playing behind the offensive line and those receivers? In an attack where the running game was virtually non-existent?
No one can evaluate It hurts more than that: there were times when he looked very, very good and times when he looked very, very bad.
Like every young quarterback.
It is not enough to continue.
Ty Detmer, Kevin Kolb and Bobby Hoying were an 8-3-1 combined with 18 TDs and 9 TDs in their first four career matches. They had 15-32-1 with 61 DTs and 68 DTs for the rest of their careers.
On the other hand, Randall Cunningham and Donovan McNabb were a combined 2-6 with 6 TDs and 10 INTs in their first four games. But we all know what your career was like after that.
Nobody knows after four games.
But, literally, any team that has a choice in the top ten and does not have an established defender will consider choosing one. You have to. That’s where you meet guys like Peyton Manning, Josh Allen or Pat Mahomes.
There are always exceptions. Drew Brees was a second round pick. Russell Wilson was a 3. We all know that Tom Brady was a 6.
But your best chance of getting a QB franchise is in the first round. Discharged in the first round.
58 Pro Bowl QBs have been selected since 2000. Almost half (28) were chosen from the first 12 choices. Three were chosen later in the 1st round, six in the 2nd round, four in the 3rd round, four in the 4th round and 13 in various locations in the 5th round and beyond or not selected.
The second round is the second most likely place to find an elite QB, and the first 12 choices are almost five times more likely.
And the Eagles are in sixth place.
And this is only the third time in the past 20 years that they have had a choice between the top six and only the sixth time in 45 years. And we know that they consider themselves to be a quarterback factory.
Therefore, these chances do not appear very often.
That is what makes this decision so difficult.
If you take a receiver, a corner or anything at No. 6 and go with the Hurts, you might win a Super Bowl at some point, but remember, Brees, Brett Favre and Ken Stabler are the only ones chosen at 2nd round to win a Super Bowl.
And if Hurts is not that guy, who knows when his next opportunity to get this high will come? The Eagles were not selected for the top 10 between Corey Simon in 2000 and Lane Johnson in 2013.
Maybe the Hurts are terrible and you go back there in 2022 and choose your quarterback. Maybe he’s an elite and you don’t have to worry about that for a decade.
It is the huge middle ground that is so worrying. He’s good enough to keep you competitive, but he’s not good enough to win anything.
So you’re stuck out of the top 10 without a franchise QB.
Now, drawing a guy in the first few choices is also a risk. Nobody knows if Justin Fields or Zach Wilson or Trey Lance will be the guy too. No one needs to be reminded of Ryan Leaf, Heath Shuler or Akili Smith.
But choose at the beginning of the first round and you will have the story on your side.
Eagles really put themselves in a ridiculous position last April. Drafting Hurts started a series of events that launched the team’s most important position into chaos.
And all you can do now is to guess what they have and what they need. They cannot afford to be wrong.
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