Kevin wrote a post earlier citing five reasons why the Eagles selecting Jalen Hurts in the second round was moronic.

I won’t argue the premise– super-divisive selection what with a stated franchise quarterback and many other needs.

I won’t address every angle of the pick, because they are limitless, and we have four months of sports-less Angelo Cataldi to do that for us.

But I’d like to rebut one of The Machine’s (our Slack term for Kevin’s ability to write 600 posts in a day and do the dishes for his wife) points. This one:

No disrespect to Taysom Hill, but Jalen Hurts is 400x the player he was coming out of college. Throwing him on the field for a handful of running or gadget plays each game would make me die a little inside. He’s too good to be used that way.

Hurts is the real deal. Go look through his 2016 game log when Alabama played eight ranked teams before getting #4 Washington and #2 Clemson in the playoff. Go through the 2019 log, when he quarterbacked Oklahoma to a 12-1 record before running into the LSU buzz saw.

Hurts is simply too good to used in gimmicky bullshit formations. He’s a great player and stud athlete who is closer to Lamar Jackson than Taysom Hill on the spectrum of hybrid pass/run NFL quarterbacks.

It’s rare someone else makes your point for you so succinctly, but it seems we have it here.

I am not a college football aficionado and know little about Hurts, even less than other potential picks since there was no expectation for the Eagles to select him. And I am aware that Kevin’s opinion of his upside here is highly debated as well. But, if listing the reasons why a player was a bad selection, probably best to leave out comparisons to the reigning MVP.

Ultimately, this comes down to Carson Wentz. You don’t draft a quarterback in the second round without it having something to do with your starter– especially a prime-of-career-franchise-cuuuube.

Wentz gets hurt a lot, has at times struggled to execute the offense, and it seems has had some issues getting on the same page with his receivers.

There has to at least be a thought on the part of the Eagles that he won’t live up to expectations. He still may. Or he could have topped out in 2017. Or he could be a career-middler, a Matthew Stafford-Philip Rivers type who experiences longevity and success but ultimately falls a rung or two short of the elite of his generation.

The Eagles, perhaps more than any franchise ever, have experienced the fruits of a capable, or even stellar, backup.

Worth noting– their last three playoff runs have ended with their backup under center.

Josh McCown finished the season last year. Josh. McCown.

With a torn hamstring.

They finished the season with half of Josh McCown.

Arguing against quarterback depth in Philly is like arguing against the complementary nature of fresh bread, cheese, and chopped red meat.

Wentz is an injury liability, whether you like it or not.

Guys like Foles prove to be a valuable hedge, until they, too, experience success, and become too expensive and unpractical to keep around on the back half of their career.

But what if said backup was more affordable, younger, and with more upside? What, then, if that backup bails the starter out for the fourth consecutive year, experiences success, and shows himself to be the quarterback of the future?

Well, you have a new quarterback.

Also, he’s got some beautiful fucking thighs.