In a recent radio interview, former Philadelphia Eagles head coach Doug Pederson said drafting Jalen Hurts wasn’t intended to try and distract Carson Wentz.
Remember when the Philadelphia Eagles used a 2020 second-round pick on former Oklahoma quarterback Jalen Hurts? Of course you do. As soon as that happened, folks all over Philly were wondering if Carson Wentz was on borrowed time.
As it turns out, Wentz was, as Hurts replaced him as the starter and the former is now in the AFC South with the Indianapolis Colts. If you ask Doug Pederson, though, that was never the plan. Per Pederson, the Eagles never drafted Hurts with the thought that he’d step in and take the job from Wentz.
Doug Pederson made it clear he always had strong belief in Carson Wentz
“You go into drafts and you go into each year looking for quarterbacks,” Pederson said via Pro Football Talk. “And we continued to look for quarterbacks, and that’s always something that will never change. We won a Super Bowl with our backup quarterback (Nick Foles) and we’ve had to play with our backups a couple of times in Philadelphia. So, we did that a year ago and brought in Jalen Hurts — not to undermine Carson Wentz, not to do anything to take away his job or anything because Carson was our starter.
“He was the franchise and all that moving forward. But (we wanted) someone that could come in and could be the backup and learn how to play the NFL game — bring his talent to the Philadelphia Eagles.”
While Pederson was hopeful that Wentz could get the team back to the Super Bowl, that obviously never happened. Now, Pederson and Wentz are both out of town. Pederson is currently out of coaching after the Eagles fired him. He said he’d like to get back on the sidelines down the road, but it’s up in the air when that will happen.
For Hurts, he’s getting ready to enter his first season as the Eagles’ full-time starter. Come 2021, he’ll hope to remind folks of how athletic he can be, while also reminding everyone why he was a second-round selection.