There’s a host of reasons to have a problem with the Jalen Hurts pick, and thus far there’s no single good argument for it. But any discussion shouldn’t get past the “we need a backup QB, we’ve already seen how valuable that is.”
I completely agree! Backup quarterback is totally worth using a higher to mid-round pick on given the Eagles situation. And that’s my problem—Jalen Hurts isn’t good enough at football to be a backup quarterback. That’s all there is to it.
No team had a starting-grade on him, and only a few pegged him as a backup. The majority of the league likely graded him as a QB3 prospect, and some likely had a UFA-grade (undrafted free agent).
To not understand why that’s the case would require having paid little to no attention to the conversation surrounding Hurts leading up to the draft. Otherwise you would have encountered the scout or college analyst who snickered at the idea of Hurts being more than a fifth-round prospect. Some will exclaim with a sense of utter confusion, “this guy is like a fifth, sixth round pick, what the hell are we even doing talking about this guy.”
Eagles fans will get a few looks at the mess of a passer that is Jalen Hurts during the preseason, and they’ll likely come away with the conclusion that this guy shouldn’t be allowed near a football—the same conclusion that Nick Saban came to at ‘Bama, and the same decision Lincoln Riley nearly made when he considered who to give the starting job to before the 2019 season.
Here’s a bit from the Associated Press after Hurts initially won the job (quotes from head coach Lincoln Riley in bold):
Hurts barely won the job over redshirt freshman Tanner Mordecai and true freshman Spencer Rattler. Hurts didn’t clinch the job until Riley reviewed a recent scrimmage. Riley spent two years as Oklahoma’s offensive coordinator and is entering his third as the Sooners’ head coach, yet this might have been his toughest call.
“I just thought he was just slightly better here as it went on, and it was slightly,” Riley said. “Probably the closest one (quarterback race) that we’ve had since I’ve been at Oklahoma.”
Neither of the quarterbacks he beat out, Tanner Mordecai (RS Fr.) and Spencer Rattler (true Fr.), are particularly talented. But let me be clear, any one of them was poised to post staggering numbers as the quarterback at OU, if for some reason you think that needs to be elaborated on then your just making a fool of yourself—though I’m sure that won’t keep you from sharing your opinion.
I’m also hearing the painful, “if Wentz throws two bad balls, the Foles-people will be calling for Hurts.”
I can unequivocally say that won’t happen. I understand the argument—Wentz throws two bad balls and the “Foles people” start chirping for Hurts. But Jalen Hurts is bad at football. There’s nothing more to it.
I’m also hearing some of the corny platitudes that I’ve always heard about Hurts: “he’s just such a good guy,” “what a high character individual,” “Idk man, I like the guy.” If you like the guy take him to lunch, but don’t ask him to be Wentz’s backup quarterback.
There’s even the, “Hurts is a high-character guy like Wentz.” That very well may be the case! But the reason Carson is ELITE is because he’s a 6’5” athlete with a howitzer for an arm and a high football IQ—that’s what makes him great, not because he’s a lovely guy.
Jalen Hurts is a 6’2” dipshit of a mental processor whose arm is below average in every metric imaginable. Red-flag processing issues aside, he’s not accurate, his ball doesn’t have a life, and it doesn’t come out all that fast.
You know the whole ‘find the open man and throw the football to his numbers’ thing that we ask our quarterbacks to do? Hurts doesn’t do that well.
I’ve even seen people compare his overall skillset to Dak Prescott, and that’s just ridiculous. It’s completely ignorant to what Prescott was on the college football field—say what you will about Dak as a pro—he balled out at Mississippi St., and had been making NFL level throws for years (not to mention he was easily a more nimble between the tackles runner).
Truthfully, Jalen Hurts stock being as high as it was is a case study in groupthink. One lazy writer looks up the college stats—already knowing who Hurts is because of his being at ‘Bama and OU, two high profile schools—and then lazily throws him in the mid rounds of a mock draft, or mentions him in an off-hand piece about QBs in the draft class. Then the next guy does a little research, stumbles upon that nugget, then redistributes that information to more people without ever doing homework on the player separate from the stats—film, reading scouting reports, etc…—and thus the cycle repeats itself.
Jalen Hurts isn’t a mid-round QB prospect, and like I said earlier, it’s very likely that some teams had an “undrafted” grade on his name. We’ll surely find out if that’s the case.
Defending the Jalen Hurts pick is shameful for so many reasons. There’s no good reason to like this pick. At the risk of oversimplifying things, Jalen Hurts is just plain bad at playing the sport of football. Please, miss me with that Oklahoma bullshit, he was a disaster at Alabama, and he’ll be a disaster in Philly from day one through the end of his career in the NFL.