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When the Eagles selected QB Jalen Hurts in the second round of this year’s draft, it surprised the whole league. At this point, Hurts will probably be the third-string quarterback for Philadelphia in 2020, especially with the virtual off-season activities due to COVID-19, which won’t allow him to get time on the field until training camp.
However, even with things going virtual, Eagles head coach Doug Pederson has been impressed by what he has seen from Hurts.
“With Jalen, it’s something — with young quarterbacks, you always have an idea or an understanding of where they are, not only at the beginning of your off-season but at the end. You take things slower with young players,” Pederson said on Tuesday. “You take things a little bit slower so that they can understand the terminology. They can call a play in a huddle and teach them everything else that goes along with it. The one thing we — as we’ve talked, even in this meeting here, is just not having them on the grass. But his growth from a mental standpoint from the beginning of the off-season to now has been very good.
“His ability to recall plays and recite plays and put them — one thing [Passing Game Coordinator/Quarterbacks Coach] Press Taylor has done is put him into a huddle situation where he’s calling plays and being able to just spit that back to him. He’s done that at a really good, high level, and now it’s just a matter of once we get him on the grass, he has to do it for real and go from there. But I’ve been really impressed with his progress this spring.”
Outside of maybe some gadget plays here or there, don’t expect much from Hurts in 2020. Barring something major, Nate Sudfeld will be the backup to Carson Wentz. But, even though Hurts has not hit the field, progress on any level is good.