We Don’t Need to Re-Litigate the Jalen Hurts Draft Pick

I’m gonna use Kendall’s tweet to frame this column. Not picking on him, just need this to set up a counter-argument:

Howie Roseman got absolutely killed for drafting Jalen Hurts.

Now it’s turning out to be his greatest draft pick ever.

The apology needs to be as loud as the disrespect was. pic.twitter.com/fVfxv02kJz

— Kendall Beck (@KBeckEagles) January 30, 2023

Disagree.

You can’t do revisionist draft history because Eagles fans were not anti-Jalen Hurts, they were anti-second round quarterback due to the circumstances surrounding that particular draft.

Remember, the Eagles were coming off a 9-7 season that saw Carson Wentz exit in the wild card round with a concussion. They had also just signed him to a four-year deal worth $128 million, and while fans agreed that we desperately needed a solid backup quarterback again, they didn’t think using a high draft pick made sense at the time, not while guys like Logan Wilson (now starting for Cincy) were on the board.

Everyone knows what happened from there. The Birds had a disastrous 2020 season. Wentz played like shit, Jalen Reagor was a bust, and Jalen Hurts was running corny Taysom Hill stuff. They tried to get him involved but his offensive package was limited to a handful of college-style option plays. Doug eventually got fired and Howie Roseman had to eat the largest dead cap in NFL history to dig himself out after mismanaging the years following the Super Bowl win. And, at the time, the drafting of Hurts opened up a whole can of QB controversy worms after Wentz had, we thought, finally escaped the shadow of Nick Foles.

That doesn’t mean Howie shouldn’t get credit for drafting Hurts, who is now an MVP candidate and heading to the Super Bowl, but they really stumbled their way through 2020 and only with a combination of luck and GM skill was he able to escape. The Eagles had to fire their title-winning coach and move their franchise quarterback. Roseman was able to parlay the Houdini move into two excellent drafts, the Birds got the Nick Sirianni hire correct, and then made a bunch of great free agent moves with the benefit of having a starting QB on a rookie contract.

Alas, there was an intense dog shit period there. Never forget! Howie has done a fantastic job of correcting his own mistakes and getting the Eagles back to the Super Bowl, but there’s no point in re-litigating the Jalen Hurts draft pick because of the circumstances that existed back in 2020.

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