Would Terry McLaurin have succeeded in the 2019 Eagles’ offense?

Would the Eagles have used Terry McLaurin enough to make him a star?

JJ Arcega-Whiteside and D.K. Metcalf will forever be linked in the eyes of many Philadelphia Eagles fans.

And why wouldn’t they? By passing on Metcalf for the 6-foot-2, 225-pound Stanford product, the Eagles effectively hand-delivered him to their frequent playoff rivals, the Seattle Seahawks, and gave Russell Wilson a matchup piece tailor-made for his ‘scramble around with his eyes downfield’-style of play.

But one player Eagles fans have seldom connected JJAW to, but probably should, is Terry McLaurin, the 76th overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft.

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Selected 19 spots after JJAW by those dastardly Washington Redskins, McLaurin quickly rekindled his connection with college quarterback Dwayne Haskins from the jump and put up one of the best rookie seasons we’ve seen a receiver put up in recent memory – the fifth-best season of any wide receiver in the NFL if you believe our friends over at PFF.

McLaurin’s 919 yards and seven touchdowns on 58 catches was far and away the best mark of any player on Jay Gruden/Bill Callahan’s offense and gave fans in our nation’s capital – and Mike Scott – a reason to be a little optimistic about their preferred team’s offensive output.

So needless to say, the Eagles doubly messed up by selecting JJAW in the second round, right?

Not necessarily.

Contextually speaking, McLaurin was far from a sure-thing prospect coming out of college. Sure, he ran a 4.35 40 at the combine, which is nice, but no one expected McLaurin to develop into a team’s top receiver as a rookie, if ever. While JJAW has his flaws, many scouts loved his style of play coming out of college and had high hopes that he would eventually become an Alshon Jeffery-style 50-50 ball threat on the perimeter.

Fun fact: McLaurin had almost three times as many yards as the team’s second-leading receiver Chris Thompson, who plays running back for goodness sake. That would be almost funny if the Eagles’ leading receiver only hauled in 43 passes for 490 yards and ranked fourth on the team in total yards behind Zach Ertz, Dallas Goedert, and another running back, Miles Sanders.

If given that volume, maybe McLaurin would have put up similar numbers in the Eagles’ offensive scheme – potentially even better numbers due to the obvious upgrade of swapping out Haskins for Carson Wentz – but that, my friends, is the problem: Doug Pederson likes to spread the ball around.

In 2019, McLaurin was targeted 93 times in 14 games of action, or 6.64 times a game. Over the same timeframe, the Eagles’ top receiver, Jeffery, was targeted an average of 6.27 times a game. Seems pretty similar, right? Numerically it is, but in the context of either team’s offense, a bit less so.

You see, McLaurin’s 93 targets counted for roughly 20 percent of Washington’s total, his 919 yards accounted for 28.7 percent of the team’s total receiving yards, and 15 percent of their total offensive yards from scrimmage. By contrast, Jeffery’s total catches only accounted for 12 percent of the Eagles’ total targets, 12 percent of the team’s receiving yards, and a little over eight percent of the team’s total yards from scrimmage.

Even if you swap out Jeffery for Ertz, the team’s top offensive option, McLaurin’s massive workload still holds up pretty darn well versus the best the Eagles have to offer, accounting for roughly the same usage rate across the board as the three-time Pro Bowl tight end.

Unfortunately, if history is of any indication, Pederson probably wouldn’t have used McLaurin in a way to optimize his big playability.

If reports are to be believed, the Eagles were reluctant to cross-train JJAW at multiple receiver positions across their offensive scheme, instead, sticking him at the ‘X’ position behind Jeffery. Despite having an incredibly light-receiving corps at various times throughout the season, Arcega-Whiteside was only targeted four or more times twice despite appearing in all 16 games, with a one catch performance in a losing encounter against the Atlanta Falcons in Week 2, and a career-high two catch performance in Week 11 in their first of two losing efforts against the Seattle Seahawks. He also suffered through eight games without a catch.

When players like Robert Davis and Deontay Burnett are stealing away catches from a rookie second-round pick, you know something is seriously wrong.

Can you honestly imagine McLaurin being moved all over the field to exploit mismatches or create offense as a speedy coverage bender? My guess is the Eagles would have used McLaurin as a one-for-one backup to DeSean Jackson, which still would have been helpful, but also would have severely limited the dynamic athlete’s ability to make plays in space or punk DBs in coverage.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the Eagles’ 2019 offensive issues were really based on Mike Groh’s inability to field a competent offense due to a slew of injury-replacement receivers. Maybe by just raising the team’s base level of talent with players like Jalen Reagor, Marquise Goodwin, and John Hightower, the Eagles’ offense would have been exponentially better. However, the team’s rigid offensive structure, when coupled with a rather predictable offensive game plan for much of the 2019 season makes one wonder if any receiver would have succeeded in a showcased role, whether that be D.K. Metcalf, Michael Thomas, or even Washington’s new favorite son, ‘Scary’ Terry McLaurin.