Philadelphia Eagles: Jalen Hurts might be right for team, but wrong for fans

With their surprise selection of Jalen Hurts in the second round of the NFL Draft, the Philadelphia Eagles caused an uproar among fans and media. But should that even matter?

Your guess is as good as mine when it comes to how the Philadelphia Eagles play to deploy new backup quarterback/possible versatile weapon Jalen Hurts. But that doesn’t mean the pick was without merit, as it was a product of careful consideration.

Or maybe someone just hacked the NFL Draft server. Who knows?

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But, assuming that the Eagles did intend to pick Hurts, that indicates to me that they have a specific idea about how they intend to use him, and that Carson Wentz himself was on board with the thinking behind it. I mean, he had to be, right? Howie Roseman and company must have run this by him as a possibility.

Perhaps I’m putting too much faith in the Eagles on that point, but maybe others aren’t trusting them enough. Whether the thinking behind the selection of Hurts is aimed at revolutionizing the game of football, getting ahead of the game for a predicted style shift, or merely to provide a fail safe option in the event of a Wentz injury, the Eagles wouldn’t have done it if they didn’t see the value in it.

Others will argue that there were players still available at pick #53 who could have filled an immediate need. And those people are right. But they also aren’t inside the Eagles’ heads to know the totality of their plan. So the pundits can go ahead and put the Eagles at the bottom of their draft report card. And the fans can angrily call WIP for weeks, if not months. But the team can’t let that faze them. Simply put, sometimes the right move is going to be an extremely unpopular one with the media and the people who pay to watch your product.

I’m not saying that Hurts was the right move at all. It’ll be a long time before we know for sure. But I’m at least willing to give the Eagles credit for being bold at a time when it would invite more scrutiny than ever. The NFL Draft will always get a boatload of coverage, in this town and everywhere. But it’s become even more magnified this year because sports fans have literally nothing else to do. The Eagles knew what the blowback would be, and they leaned into it anyway. This is why fans can’t run teams, as much as we might want to.

Let’s also keep in mind that the coming NFL season is likely to be very different. If the Eagles are going to experiment, this would be the time to do it. That’s probably cold comfort for fans who think that the 2020 season will be business as usual, but it’s the reality.

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At the very least, can’t we at least find some solace in the Eagles giving us something to talk passionately about, a cathartic way of letting out our pent-up sports energy? No, we can’t? We’re just gonna be insanely angry for the foreseeable future? Cool, at least sports are back.

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