PHILADELPHIA — Perhaps my greatest regret as a sportswriter is expecting too much too soon from Donovan McNabb. Now, I find myself doing the same with Jalen Hurts.
As my father used to say: Wise men make mistakes. Fools repeat them.
We should try not to repeat the mistakes we made with McNabb.
Hurts is a third-year, second-round pick who has started just 21 NFL games. He has a passable arm, remarkable speed and elusiveness, and a fine football mind. He is limited. He is developing. This is the first time since high school that he’s had the same offensive coaches in consecutive years.
We live in an era that emphasizes what an athlete might become more than it appreciates what an athlete actually is. Hurts is exciting. Professional.
Is he a traditional “franchise quarterback”? No. Not yet.
The Eagles won the season opener at Detroit last week not because Hurts dissected the Lions’ defense with a surgical passing game, but rather because Hurts ran for 90 yards and a touchdown, and new, $100 million receiver A.J. Brown caught 10 passes for 155 yards.
Franchise QB? Who knows? And, for the moment, who cares?
The template
Almost as soon as McNabb became a full-time starter, the Philadelphia media, myself especially, began evaluating him performance-by-performance as if he were Brett Favre circa 1996.
It wasn’t all our fault. Andy Reid was part of the brain trust that drafted McNabb, and Reid had been a Green Bay assistant during Favre’s prime. Certainly, there were comparisons as far as their defining skills, though McNabb was far more mobile and Favre had a stronger arm. Both came from second-tier programs; Favre starred at Southern Miss, while McNabb shivered in Syracuse.
Expecting McNabb to be anything more than an exciting long-term project was simply unrealistic. It was unfair.
The team that surrounded Donovan complicated things. It was a good, talented, veteran bunch that out-achieved its quarterback and magnified his abilities; he went to his first Pro Bowl in his second season, which was his first as a full-time starter. When McNabb developed, he took the Birds to the Super Bowl.
He developed exactly as he should have, warts and all. He refused to throw receivers open, he fled the pocket too quickly, he seldom led his receivers enough, and he never developed the touch or mechanics necessary to best run a West Coast offense. He sounds a lot like Jalen Hurts at the same stage.
McNabb also went to five consecutive Pro Bowls, and six overall. He thrived no matter how sparse his receiver corps was. He ended his 10-year run here as a full-time starter with 90-45-1 record in the regular season, 9-7 in the playoffs. No matter what the analytic crowd tells you, wins are the most important QB stat, since QBs have more control over wins and losses than any other athlete in team sports.
He was, without argument, the best quarterback in franchise history. But to this day, in Philadelphia, the discussion of his decade of brilliance centers more around what he wasn’t than what he was — a generational talent who was the most impactful player the Eagles ever had.
As a result, we diminish what McNabb was. McNabb harbors resentment for our lack of appreciation.
Let’s avoid that cycle this time.
Be realistic
So, then, in this moment, how should we evaluate Hurts? Fairly.
First, we cannot grade him on a curve against his peers, simply because — with all due respect to John Elway, Joe Montana, Dan Marino, and Jim Kelly — this is the most talent-saturated era of quarterbacks in NFL history. We’re getting the tail end of Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers, the primes of Russell Wilson, Patrick Mahomes, Matthew Stafford, and Deshaun Watson, and the ascensions of Lamar Jackson, Justin Herbert, Josh Allen, and Joe Burrow (and maybe Trevor Lawrence, too). With a bumper crop of first-round QB talent in next year’s draft, Hurts’ ceiling might never land him among the top 10 passers in the league.
That’s fine. Plenty of quarterbacks have won Super Bowls with modest skill sets, and, at 24, we have no idea what Hurts’ skill set will turn out to be.
“You give players a three-year window for every position,” said 10-year veteran tackle Lane Johnson. “Jalen’s a dynamic player. But the comparison game takes everything away. Every guy has his traits that make them them.”
So, what about today? What should Hurts’ benchmarks be?
1. Don’t lose games. No turnovers. That means protecting the ball when he runs and not telegraphing passes by locking on to a single receiver.
2. When the primary targets are covered, make the simple outlet throws to running backs or released tight ends. He’s getting better.
3. Stay healthy. The most promising aspect of Hurts’ game-winning performance at the opener in Detroit last week was that he’s learned to fight another day. He’s become an excellent slider, and he’s become comfortable aborting a play by throwing the ball away.
That’s it, for this season.
The numbers
So what should that look like, statistically, in 2022? Assume Hurts plays 15 games, because everybody gets injured.
How about 3,500 passing yards and 22 touchdowns? He had 3,144 yards and 16 TDs last last season, but that was before the Eagles landed A.J. Brown and got rid of Jalen Reagor.
How about a 65% completion rate? That would be a 4-point jump. Sixty-five percent would’ve placed him just inside the top 20 in 2021, and would indicate improved mechanics and better decision making.
How about eight interceptions and four lost fumbles; a total of 12 turnovers. He had nine picks and six lost fumbles last year, and three fewer turnovers could mean two more wins. He’s going to continue to run, so he’s going continue to throw off-balance and he’s going to continue to get hit and cough up the ball. At this point, that’s just who he is.
How about 600 rushing yards? He ran for 784 yards last season, but did so on 139 rushes, or 9.2 runs per game, which is far too many for any quarterback to survive. He didn’t quite survive, you’ll recall; he needed postseason ankle surgery. Let’s get those runs down to about seven per game, which will mean one more throwaway and one fewer called QB run or run-pass option. That’s still 105 runs per season.
These aren’t Pro Bowl numbers, but Hurts isn’t a runner like Lamar Jackson, or as accurate as Joe Burrow, and he lacks the arm talent of Josh Allen.
He’s not even Donovan McNabb.
He is what he is.
Let’s see what that is.
