NFL Draft 2020: Eagles shock football world by selecting Jalen Hurts

Former Oklahoma and Alabama star Jalen Hurts is heading to a Philadelphia Eagles team who already has their franchise quarterback.

In perhaps the biggest surprise of the 2020 NFL Draft thus far, the Philadelphia Eagles selected former Alabama and Oklahoma quarterback Jalen Hurts with their second round selection.

Drafting Hurts is not what is surprising here. Hurts had a remarkable college career split between Alabama and Oklahoma.

As a true freshman in 2016, he led the Tide to a perfect regular season and to the National Championship game where they lost by three to Clemson.

In 2017, Hurts 2,081 passing yards, 17 passing touchdowns and just one interception to lead Alabama back to the title game. There, however, he struggled and was replaced by Tua Tagovailoa, who would lead the Tide to victory.

Hurts returned to Alabama in 2018, where the starting job went to Tagovailoa, but he still played in 13 games, including coming off the bench to replace an injured Tua and help the Tide beat Georgia in the 2018 SEC title game.

In 2019 Hurts transferred to Oklahoma for his senior season, where he finished as a Heisman finalist after throwing 3,851 yards and 32 touchdowns to lead the Sooners to the postseason.

Thus, seeing Hurts go round two is no surprise. It’s that he will be a Philadelphia Eagle shook the Football world to its core.

The Eagles have 27-year-old Carson Wentz, who the team selected out of North Dakota State with the second overall pick in the 2016 draft. He has led Philadelphia to the postseason three times but has dealt with his fair share of injuries.

In 2017, Wentz led the Eagles to an 11-2 start but tore his ACL in a December victory over the Los Angles Rams ending his season. The Eagles would still go onto win Super Bowl 52 and put a ring on Wentz’s finger.

Wentz again suffered a season-ending injury in 2018 after suffering a back injury. He finally stayed healthy in 2019 and led the Eagles to an NFC East championship but suffered a concussion in a Wild Card game loss to the Seattle Seahawks.

Despite the injury concerns, the Eagles signed Wentz to $128 million extension that keeps him in Philadelphia through the end of the 2024 season.

With that, it’s hard to understand why the Eagles would use a second-round pick on Hurts when they have their franchise quarterback lined up and glaring needs to fill if they want to win the NFC East again in 2020.

Grade: B

For Hurts, Philadelphia likely isn’t the fit he imagined either as he’ll clearly be a backup quarterback, but the second round selection will earn him more than if he stayed a third rounder as projected.