[Dam8610]

Originally Posted by IndyNorm

Stating that the jury it still out on Hurts is by far one of the dumbest statements ever posted on this board. In his 2nd season of starting he has his team in the Super Bowl and came in 2nd in the MVP voting, but yeah the jury is definitely still out on him.

The only QB who it could be even argued had a more talented receiver room backing him up than Hurts is Tua Tagovailoa, and while WR1 and WR2 are a dead heat between those teams, I'd take the Eagles 3-5 on the strength of Zach Pascal alone. Then they had an elite when healthy RB and TE who for the first or second time in their careers were healthy for most if not all of the season. I'm not confident all those factors align again for Hurts, and without them, I'd expect him to regress back to 2021 form.

Originally Posted by IndyNorm

It's probably an even dumber statement than you still claiming that the Jagoffs drafting Trevor Lawrence was some giant mistake.

If the Colts play this offseason right, they will put Lawrence and the Jaguars in the rearview for the next decade and expose Lawrence for the fraud he is. He's getting by on athleticism right now, but he still can't make a full field read, or an anticipation throw. Even an offensive genius like Doug Pederson can't hide that forever, and smart teams will always exploit it. I'll believe Lawrence will be anything more than an NFL footnote when I see him consistently make full field reads. The invented criticism of Stroud that he only does well in the structure of the offense applies in reverse to Lawrence. Trevor Lawrence does his best work when the play breaks down and he's playing backyard scramble drill football. He can't operate within the structure of the offense currently, unless the structure of the offense is incredibly simplified for an NFL offense.

Originally Posted by IndyNorm

Mayfield and Murray are going to struggle in the NFL b/c of their size (which is why most of us don't want the Colts to draft Young), especially Murray.

Ah, so your criticism of Caleb Williams will be his lack of height, since he's 6'1" same as Mayfield. Fair enough.

Originally Posted by IndyNorm

And to be fair to Mayfield, he's had more success than either of Ryan Day's QBs in the NFL, who are Haskins and Fields.

You should look at Fields's 2022 again, especially if you truly believe Jalen Hurts is an elite MVP caliber QB rather than a lucky fluke. Also bear in mind, 2022 Fields didn't have a tenth of the supporting cast that 2021 Hurts did, let alone 2022 Hurts.

And as for Haskins, nobody but the Commanders thought Haskins would be a quality NFL starter, and they deluded themselves into it as badly as the Vikings deluded themselves into believing Christian Ponder could be the guy.

Originally Posted by IndyNorm

Joe Burrow isn't a Ryan Day QB. He spent 1 season as a backup with Day as his OC. If we're handing out NFL success kudos to QBs college coaches then credit for Burrow needs to go to Ed Orgeron and Steve Ensminger.

That was mostly tongue in cheek, I think Ryan Day's developmental ability for QBs should primarily be judged by the success of Fields and Stroud over the next 5 years.

Originally Posted by ChaosTheory

Devil's advocate:

Colin Kaepernick was also in his 2nd season starting, 3rd season overall when he led a loaded 49ers team to 12-4 and a trip to the Super Bowl. He got figured out and was 11-24 after that.

Not saying Hurts will follow suit, but interesting.

Kaepernick is actually a very intriguing comparison for Hurts, and a great illustration of what I was trying to say.

Originally Posted by nate505

No kidding. At that point I'd rather just see them draft Levis or Anthony Richardson. Not that I prefer those two over Stroud or Young, but I would prefer either of them over giving up the farm for Stroud or Young.

Why? I gave a very detailed explanation of why I chose Taylor and Leonard, and I honestly believe it to be savvy roster building, divesting of large investments in assets at non-premium positions, keeping all future draft capital in house, and allowing for roster and cap flexibility moving forward. An example of this would be that trading Leonard would give the Colts the cap room to retain Bobby Okereke, who is otherwise almost certain to walk in free agency. Okereke would give you about 80% of Leonard's production at about 50% of the price. In comparison to Matt Miller's trade, it's a lot of value to give up, but in comparison to even Brett Kollman's trade, it's a better value for the Colts.

Originally Posted by IndyNorm

That's a reasonable hypothetical to throw out there. I don't think it will happen to Hurts, but players do regress and/or sometimes unable to adjust when the league adapts to them like Kaepernick.

Which is exactly what I was saying, making it odd that you agreed with that poster, but disagreed with me.

Originally Posted by IndyNorm

But that's not what Dam is saying. Dam is saying that Hurts really isn't any good and the only reason why he's having any success is b/c of the talent around him. The thing is though for QBs to succeed in the NFL they have to have talent around them, especially early on. Using Dam's logic the only reason why Burrow has been so successful is b/c the Bungles are absolutely loaded at receiver, and I can go on and on w/ the examples of this included Peyton.

You clearly misunderstood my point. I don't think Hurts is a bad QB, I think he's about league average, and that with normal injury luck instead of the incredible, statistics defying injury luck the Eagles had this year, would put him in that tier instead of the elite tier people want to ascribe to him.

There's also a key difference in Burrow and Manning vs. Hurts in terms of the talent around them, especially at WR. Manning made his WRs. Marvin Harrison was talented before Manning, but never would've reached the elite heights he did without Manning. Reggie Wayne looked like a bust in his first two seasons, Manning worked with him and turned him into a Hall of famer. For Burrow, I'd make a similar argument. Ja'Marr Chase and Burrow came into their own together at LSU before being reunited in the NFL. Tee Higgins was a rookie in the same year as Burrow, and they've developed together. Tyler Boyd was good before Burrow, and has still had success in a diminished role due to the emergence of Chase and Higgins.

Hurts, on the other hand, had little to nothing to do with the development of A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. A.J. Brown was traded for in this year's draft and has lived up to the $100 million contract extension he received to this point. DeVonta Smith won the Heisman as a WR because he was so good and was drafted 6th overall in his draft. He came in and was productive from Day 1, and he and Hurts never worked together until they were in the NFL.