INDIANAPOLIS – This is a common thought process and goal for every NFL team, and that’s why the period we’re in right now, with free agency starting within two weeks and the NFL Draft opening on April 27 is the most exciting and risky of the offseason.
How do you find a quarterback, and not just any quarterback, but a “great quarterback who plays at a high level,” as Executive Vice President/General Manager Howie Roseman puts it? There is a reason teams are expected to jump over each other and vault into the top 10, the top 5, probably even the very top, of this year’s NFL Draft. And why just about any quarterback who is available on the streets right now – that’s you, Derek Carr – is meeting with every team looking to solve its hole at the position. What happens if Aaron Rodgers says he wants to play in 2023 and the Packers make it known the future Hall of Famer is available? That is going to be interesting to watch.
Anyway, the importance of having an outstanding quarterback cannot be overstated, and having one, as the Eagles do in Jalen Hurts means, well, what does it mean?
“It’s the key to your success, right?” Roseman said at the 2023 NFL Scouting Combine. “Head coach, quarterback – huge keys to your success. I mean, you can’t win without those two pieces. Obviously, we have a lot of confidence in those guys and I think a lot of the building of last year, it was really intentional to make sure that he (Hurts) had really good players around him so his talents could shine.
“We don’t want to lose that.”
The goal is to have sustained success, and to have that teams generally must have that same picture at the game’s most important position. The Eagles had it through the 2000s with Donovan McNabb at quarterback and Andy Reid at head coach, and the two combined for five NFC Championship Games and one Super Bowl appearance.
For just a flash in 2010, Michael Vick showed that he might have the same kind of magic, but he was unable to sustain his Pro Bowl level of play. Carson Wentz, the team’s first-round draft pick and No. 2 overall selection in the 2016 NFL Draft, played at that level until suffering his devastating knee injury in 2017. Nick Foles, a solid veteran but not a long-term option, had superstar performances in the NFC Championship Game to beat Minnesota and then in Super Bowl LII to turn away New England, and the Eagles earned a Lombardi Trophy.
Uncertainty at the position paralleled uneven team performance in 2018 and 2019 and then it just…
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