Joe Banner: Eagles picking Jalen Hurts isn’t crazy, but ‘it’s not the path I would have chosen’

For the last year, former Eagles president Joe Banner has been doing periodic Q&As with The Inquirer’s Paul Domowitch.

In their latest one, Banner discusses a myriad of topics, including the Eagles’ draft and whether there will be an NFL season this year and what it might look like:

Domo: Many people felt the NFL should have pushed back the draft because of the pandemic. But it got great ratings and provided a diversion for fans. You felt from the beginning that the league shouldn’t delay either free agency or the draft. Glad the league didn’t consider pushing the draft back?

Banner: This is one of those rare times where hindsight is pretty easy. It’s obvious they made the right decision, for two reasons. One is I think people underestimated the psychological harm, even for those of us lucky enough to have stayed healthy, caused by going through this and being confined and not really knowing how it’s going to end or how our loved ones are going to be in a week or a month. So I think something that at least from a football-fan perspective was distracting and positive and interesting and well done was a positive thing.

I also think the league needs to stay on schedule so that if the health situation allows them to play the season, they’re not scrambling to catch back up and do things like free agency and the draft. So far, everything’s in place other than the health questions. They can go forward if the opportunity presents itself.

Domo: A lot of the 11th-hour scouting work that NFL teams do leading up to the draft – the pro day workouts, the top-30 visits, the individual workouts – were scrubbed because of the pandemic. The draft already is a crapshoot. Was it an even bigger one this year? Will there ultimately be a lot more mistakes?

Banner: We always read about some guy that’s falling down the board because of a bad workout. Philly fans remember how Mike Mamula climbed up boards because of his predraft workouts.

I think the actual order of the draft was changed by the fact that we didn’t have much of this additional information. But I’m not convinced, on a net basis, that it’s really going to change the batting averages of the teams making the picks.

There still was a lot of information available. And it made the teams focus on film, which is really what should be driving 90-plus percent of the evaluation anyway as opposed to getting distracted by all kinds of other issues. Maybe the film guiding us this year will be a good reminder and will neutralize or even enhance the disadvantages of lack of information.

Domo: That’s a good segue into the Eagles draft. Howie Roseman has not exactly been getting rave reviews for many of his selections. It’s been suggested that he didn’t let the film guide him and was too reliant on analytics, particularly with respect to the wide receivers he chose. What did you think?

Banner: I’ve been a longtime believer in analytics. But I’m not a huge fan of analytics when it comes to player evaluation. I think it has a role. I think it can help. But I think it’s pretty small.

I actually think analytics, when you’re talking about the game and the strategy and team-building, it really provides a huge advantage to teams that know how to use it. But as far as player evaluations, scouts are pretty good at evaluating the talent of an athlete. They’re not nearly as good at evaluating the intangibles, like how driven a player is and how bad he wants to be great and how bad he wants to win and how hard he’s going to work in the weight room.

Frankly, analytics doesn’t help you with that at all. And most of the mistakes you make are made because you’ve missed those things. I’m not talking about some deeply flawed player. I’m talking about somebody who’s less driven versus somebody who’s more driven. That makes a big difference when you get to the NFL.

I’m not there on the cause and effect of it being about analytics. But I always worry when anybody comes up with a reason that can alter the objectivity of the evaluations. So, deciding speed is important, I actually think is right and good, and winning teams are doing that.

But driving everything off of speed increases the risk of error. And you have to be really, really careful that you’re being really disciplined and not forcing somebody into the pick because they’re fast over somebody that may be better.

And that’s really hard discipline. We’re all human. We all have biases that we’re not even in touch with. So I would be worried if they focused on a couple of qualities over that kind of collective evaluation. I’m not convinced they did that. I think time will tell. But listening to the conversation and looking at the picks, there’s certainly a risk of that.

Domo: No Eagles pick has created a bigger firestorm than their selection of quarterback Jalen Hurts in the second round. What did you think of it?

Banner: First of all, let me be clear about something. If I had been the decision-maker, this is not the path I would have chosen. But some people are making it seem like a completely irrational decision. I don’t see that at all.

If, considering the history of Wentz’s health, if Hurts turns out to be a quality backup for the next four years and a player who, in the red zone on third down and in a couple of other situations really makes a difference on offense -- even if it’s a limited number of plays, but they end up being key plays because it helps keep the ball in your hands -- I don’t think that’s a bad use of a second-round pick.

I mean, if they took a nickel corner or a slot wide receiver or a second-string running back who was really great at what they did in the second round, we would think that was a great pick. So I don’t think the Eagles are crazy or don’t have a plan on how they intend to use this guy that is commensurate with being the second-round pick.

Now, whether he turns out to be good enough, that’s a whole separate question. Because if they got the evaluation wrong, no matter what the philosophy was, then they made a mistake. But I think the worst-case scenario is he’ll contribute some on offense and should give them a quality backup for the next four years.

I just think that where they’re situated, with the availability of backup quarterbacks out there on the free-agent market, that (a second-round pick was) too valuable an asset to use the way they did. But I don’t think it was a crazy, irrational decision that I can’t come up with some ways they can use him that make sense.

Domo: Some people seem to think drafting Hurts is just going to totally mess up Carson Wentz, -- that he’s going to be looking over his shoulder and his confidence is going to go to hell. When you were with the Eagles in 2007, the organization selected Kevin Kolb with the 36th overall pick in the draft. Donovan McNabb was 30 at the time, just three years older than Wentz is right now. That year, McNabb had the fourth-highest passer rating and best interception percentage of his career. Do you think bringing in Hurts is going to mess with Wentz’s psyche?

Banner: With Donovan, people underestimated his mental strength. Same thing with Wentz. Could he be a little annoyed? Possibly, who knows? But I don’t think he’s lacking any confidence that he’s going to be the starting quarterback, and short of injury, that he’s going to be that for a long time to come.

But I do think that the Eagles did this with at least the possibility that if Wentz in fact continues to not be able to stay healthy -- remember this is a franchise trying to win a Super Bowl. There are some teams just trying to get into the playoffs. That’s not the Eagles. They’re trying to win a Super Bowl.

So, if what continues to block them from doing that is that he continues to not make it through a season, there’s nothing wrong with having somebody in-house that you think could be the next guy. Now, I’m sure Wentz, if he thinks about it that way, isn’t going to be happy. But it’s not going to change at all what he does or how he does it. He’s going to be as committed and as determined and as effective as he can possibly be. He’s still going to be the strong leader in the locker room that everybody is going to follow.

Domo: The Eagles appear to be reshaping their offense. Doug Pederson acknowledged the other day that he and his coaches have spent a lot of time this offseason discussing scheme evaluation. He brought in Kyle Shanahan’s former quarterbacks coach, Rich Scangarello, as a senior offensive coach, and it appears the Eagles will be implementing several things from the Shanahan offense. Doug brought back Marty Mornhinweg, who was the Ravens’ offensive coordinator in 2018 during Lamar Jackson’s rookie year, as a senior offensive consultant. Do you like what they’re doing?

Banner: If you’re bringing in people that have first-hand knowledge of systems that are working really well, I think it’s a smart move. I’m a huge believer in what Kyle Shanahan does. I hired him in Cleveland (as offensive coordinator) and was part of the search team in Atlanta when they hired him there.

It can’t be anything but a positive bringing in Scangarello. And don’t underestimate Marty’s presence. You saw what he did with Lamar, and then the Eagles pick a guy that has the ability to do some of those same kinds of things. I’m not saying Hurts is the same guy as Lamar or that he’s going to be replacing Wentz. I’m just saying [Marty] also has the ability to bring in some things that we’ve seen work in other places.

If you look at two teams right now that look like they might be progressive or ahead of their time, it’s what Baltimore has done with Lamar and what Kyle has done with his offense in four different places. The Eagles just brought in two coaches who are familiar with what they did and how they do it.

Doug will have to decide how much of it to integrate, how much weight to put on it, how to balance it all. But I don’t see how that can be anything but very smart. That’s how you sustain winning instead of being stuck doing what you started doing and what you were taught to do and sticking with that.

Domo: Before I bid you adieu, let’s get back to the league and what’s going to happen going forward. They are expected to release their schedule on May 9. But they also are making contingency plans in the event the pandemic lingers, including possibly moving the season back five weeks, shortening the season, and playing the Super Bowl as late as Feb. 28. Your thoughts?

Banner: I think you’re going to see a relatively large number of decisions made late. I think the league is going to prepare as if everything is going to be fine and training camps are going to be able to start on time. And then they’re going to decide as they go whether that’s actually realistic.

I’m sure they’ve had meetings and have decided what’s the absolute minimum amount of training-camp time they could have at the start of the season. What’s the minimum number of games they could have in a season and still call it legitimate? Are there ways to stagger the playoffs and move the Super Bowl?

That last one is going to be very dependent on the city the Super Bowl is in [Tampa] and their ability to have rooms available and transportation available and all those kinds of things. It’s not as simple as saying, ‘Oh, let’s move it back three weeks.’ It’s a huge, huge change logistically.

So I think they’re going to continue to prepare as if everything’s fine, but then actually review the latest possible medical information and safety issues when they get close and make decisions relatively late in the process.

Domo: Could they play the season without fans?

Banner: They could. It obviously would be disappointing and not nearly as interesting to watch and follow. But I think all of us would agree that if the choices were playing without fans or not playing at all, we would choose to play without fans. Hopefully, it won’t come to that. But I definitely think that’s on the table.