In the space of four days, the Eagles will have hosted four private Quarterback workouts with three of them being projected first round and in some cases even top-10 picks. The more interesting story however is that Eagles owner Jeffery Lurie is attending these workouts.
Lurie (reportedly) going on these visits, with Goff, Wentz, Lynch, shows #Eagles are very, very open to taking a QB at 8. #PoorSam
— Eliot Shorr-Parks (@EliotShorrParks) March 30, 2016
But just because Lurie is attending the workouts, it doesn’t mean that the Eagles are going to take a Quarterback in the first round. It’s widely known that now the birds own a top 10 pick, they’re taking every precaution possible to ensure they draft the right guy. It’s a draft in which they cannot afford to miss with their first round pick for many reasons..but with no second rounder, the Eagles simply have to strike gold with their first round pick.
Because of this, it makes sense that Jeffery Lurie attends the private workouts. It would hardly be surprising to see the Eagles work out the likes of Ezekiel Elliott and Vernon Hargreaves at some stage too. It’s top-10 talent that the Eagles are evaluating and if Pederson sees something that Lurie doesn’t agree with, it’s better to have that discussion now as opposed to when the player signs a five-year contract.
When Pederson worked out Nick Foles privately in 2012, Jeffery Lurie wasn’t present. With “accountability” taking such a priority going forward, it’s easy to understand why Lurie wants to attend these workouts.
The first-round Quarterbacks being worked out (Wentz, Lynch and Goff so far) have vastly different skill sets and come at different stages of development. We will have a unique scouting tool in place very shortly so I can emphasise exactly what I mean here (article coming later today) but with three different styles of Quarterback, the Eagles need to make sure their basis of comparison is someone who prototypically fits what they’re looking for…they meaning the organization as opposed to one man (cough, Chip Kelly last year, cough).
You get the sense that this is a much more communal effort following Chip’s failures. Lurie appears to be much more heavily involved than previously thought and that’s by no means a bad thing. Regardless of whether the Eagles are looking to draft a Quarterback in the first round or not, Lurie’s presence simply shows that everybody in the organization is on the same page and that when it comes to top-10 talent, he feels the urgency to find a franchise guy just as much as anybody else.
Could it mean that the Eagles are looking to take a Quarterback in the first round? Potentially..but I think Lurie’s presence is far more representative of the importance of “accountability” he spoke of just weeks ago.
