[IndyNorm]

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.

One can easily argue the Bungles WR room is just as good. Chase is an absolute stud and one of the top WRs in the league. He'd be doing well no matter where he was. Higgins is a top WR2 and more like a 1B, and Boyd is one of the top WR3s in the league. The Bungles also have a very good RB room and have had a decent pass catching TE these past 2 years.

I'm not trying to say that Hurts is better than Burrow. We all know Burrow is better. Just trying to point out that you can make the talent around them argument about a lot of QBs in the league.

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.

I wish you were right about Lawrence, but you're just not. He threw for 66%, 4,100 yds, and 25/8 td/int ratio. He also ran for 330 yds and 2 TDs. He's obviously doing a lot right and not this colossal bust that you seem to think he is (and probably the only person on the planet who does). Who do you think the Jagoffs should have taken instead of Lawrence? I seem to remember you liked Zach Wilson a lot. Now that would have been a huge mistake we all would have loved the Jagoffs to have made.

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

Maybe. Williams is certainly more athletic and from what I've seen has a better arm than Mayfield. So I don't think his size will be as much of a problem, but it could be. I didn't mention it before, but Mayfield is a head case (as is Murray). So that probably has just as much to do w/ his lack of success as his height.

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.

Fields stats for '22: 60%, 2,242 yds, 17/11 td/ints. He also ran for 420 yds and 2 TDs. Thank god we don't have to play against him twice a year and get to play against that turd Lawrence instead!!

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.

If you're going to debit Caleb Williams b/c of guys like Murray and Mayfield then you need to debit Stroud for Haskins.

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.

This is fair. TBH I don't think you should count a player's college or HC against him at any rate, which is the point I was trying to originally make.

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

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

Maybe that's what you were trying to say, but it's not what you said. You lumped in Hurts w/ a bunch of underachieving QBs and a guy who will probably end up as an UDFA. Then said that (paraphrasing) all of Hurts' success is due to the talent around him and the jury is still out on him. Also, I didn't actually agree with Chaos Theory; in fact I said that I don't think that would happen to Hurts.

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.

You certainly make it sound like you think he's a bad QB, and that he has so much talent around him that anyone would have success in Philly. I obviously disagree with that. For the record I don't think Hurts among the ultra elite QBs in the league, but I do think he's definitely top 10 and maybe as high as 5th when you consider what he can do with his legs.

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.

Burrow and Manning are better QBs than Hurts, but make no mistake they have/had a lot of talent around them. The point I was trying to make is that any successful QB will have to have talent around them, especially early on. Again, you make it seem like the Eagles could plug in anyone at QB and they'd perform at an MVP level, and that's not the case.