Eagles in store for changes, but Jalen Hurts is a mainstay
Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts walks off after a loss to Kansas City in Super Bowl LVII at State Farm Stadium on Sunday, Feb. 12, 2023, in Glendale, Arizona. Credit: TNS/Yong Kim
INDIANAPOLIS — Amid the general uncertainty of the early NFL offseason, this much is true: The Giants will see a different Eagles team in 2023.
Eagles general manager Howie Roseman acknowledged that at the NFL Combine.
“It’s not like we wake up the day after the Super Bowl and we say, ‘Oh, man, now we have to go figure out the team,’ ” Roseman said. “This is what we’ve been doing.”
Included in that thinking is extending the contract of Jalen Hurts, a second-round pick (53rd overall) in the 2020 draft who has become a franchise quarterback.
As recently as the Giants’ win over the Eagles at MetLife Stadium in November 2021, that seemed highly unlikely. Hurts was ineffective that day in the Giants’ 13-7 win.
Much, of course, has changed since then. Hurts has become one of the best young quarterbacks in the game and the Eagles — who went 3-0 against the Giants last season — almost certainly will extend his contract in a market-value deal that will keep him in Philadelphia for the foreseeable future.
“If you don’t have a quarterback, you’re searching for one, and you can’t win in this league without a great quarterback who plays at a high level,” Roseman said. “We saw how Jalen played in the Super Bowl, on the biggest stage, and that’s exciting for our team, for our fans, for all of us.”
Significantly, the Eagles’ pass rush, which generated 70 sacks in 2022, will undergo change. Brandon Graham and Fletcher Cox could be vulnerable.
“Are we going to get all the free agents back? We’re just not,” Roseman said. “We’re not capable of getting all those guys back, but we also understand we’re in a good situation in terms of [draft] picks that we have going forward. We have a lot of guys under contract, not only for this year but going forward. We’re not going to make excuses for the position we’re in.”
Kimberly Jones covers the Giants for Newsday, a beat she first worked in the early 2000s before joining the YES Network to cover the Yankees. She worked for the NFL Network for more than a decade and has been heard semi-regularly on WFAN.
