The Eagles have put together a roster that should be very competitive in 2022, but they’ll go as far as young quarterback Jalen Hurts will take them.
Merrill Reese isn’t concerned.
The longtime play-by-play announcer was a guest on the most recent Eagle Eye podcast and explained his reasons for optimism about the team’s 23-year-old starting quarterback.
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“I am optimistic about the biggest controversy of the team and the most central character and that’s Jalen Hurts,” Reese said. “I like him. I think he’s got what it takes. I think he’s just going to get better and better. I think he’s got the drive, the desire, I think he has the talent. When people start criticizing him about reading defenses and the decisions that he makes, I say wait a minute.”
Reese, who is entering his 46th year on the job, pointed out cases of several highly successful quarterbacks who didn’t find that success immediately.
He brought up Aaron Rodgers’ wait to be the guy in Green Bay. He brought up Drew Brees’s not-so-overnight ascension to elite level. He brought up the shaky start to Josh Allen’s NFL career.
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Now, none of these situations are the same. But Reese’s point was really that we don’t know yet how good Hurts can be.
“So I’m looking at a kid who’s started 20 games and there are already people who are saying the Eagles need to go find a quarterback or he’s not the quarterback of the future,” Hurts said. “He did some remarkable things last year. Yeah, he didn’t have a very good playoff game but neither did the whole team. I just think he’s going to continue to grow.”
Hurts had some promising moments in his first full year as a starter but it wasn’t good enough overall. He ended up completing 61.3% of his passes for 3,144 yards with 16 touchdowns and 9 interceptions in 15 games. But he also rushed for 784 yards and a team-high 10 touchdowns.
Those rushing numbers are nice and they absolutely matter but the biggest criticism surrounding Hurts is his ability as a passer. The Eagles had the 25th-ranked passing offense in the league last year.
But Reese doesn’t think a lack fo talent is holding Hurts back.
“He can throw. I talked to (former Eagles head coach) Doug Pederson about this in the offseason,” Reese said. “He can throw every pass that you have to throw and you can throw it with zip.”
Reese gave two examples from the 2021 season of Hurts’ arm strength.
“What I saw when he rolled to his right in Carolina on a 2-point conversion, and keep in mind that a football field is 53 1/3 yards wide, and he threw a bullet to the other corner to DeVonta Smith. I mean, it was a laser,” he said. “When he threw that ball into coverage, into the smallest of windows to Greg Ward in that second Washington game, he did everything he could to show you that he could throw that ball with a lot of velocity. I think he’s going to be fine.”
The good news for Hurts is that he has a great offensive line in front of him and an offense that includes several key skill players. In addition to DeVonta Smith, Dallas Goedert, Quez Watkins and Miles Sanders, the Eagles’ biggest addition on that side of the ball this offseason was the trade for A.J. Brown.
The Eagles used the No. 18 overall pick to acquire Brown from the Titans and then handed him a four-year, $100 million extension.
What was Reese’s reaction when that trade went down?
“Shocking. I was really shocked,” he said. “I didn’t see that coming. It came out of left field. There were some receivers out there that I thought they might go to early in free agency and right on down the line they missed this one, they missed that one. But I never expected that A.J. Brown as going to end up here. I just jumped off my seat. I couldn’t believe it. It’s a brilliant move.”
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