NFC Notes: Eagles, Giants, Washington

Eagles

Eagles GM Howie Roseman believes it is hard to judge Jalen Hurts off his four starts last season and is eager to see him in the starting role. 

“Certainly you’re judging him off of four NFL starts, in a tough situation with all the injuries that we had,” Roseman said, via SiriusXM NFL Radio. “We want to see him grab the job and kind of run with it, and see what you do over a period of time.”

Roseman said they want to see Hurts perform in a system “that really maximizes his ability.” 

“We want to be in a situation where we get as much information as possible, give him the best opportunity, build that offensive line, give him the right weapons, put him in a system that really maximizes his ability, and then go from there,” Roseman said.

Giants

Florida WRs coach Bobby Gonzales called Giants’ first-round WR Kadarius Toney a “super smart” player who can line up at either X, Y, or Z roles. 

“He’s super smart,” Gonzales said, via Zack Rosenblatt of NJ Advance Media. “And when I say he’s super smart: He’s a guy that I can play at any position and he can tell you what any receiver, X, Y, Z, he can tell you what the tailback is doing, he can tell you what the tight end’s doing.”

Gonzales mentioned that Jaguars HC Urban Meyer showed interest in Toney during his pro day in Florida. 

“I had a chance to talk to coach when he came down to Pro Day about Kadarius,” Gonzales said. “He was asking questions about what type of player he was.”

Gonzales believes Toney will “create mismatches” for the Giants’ offense and be able to beat press coverage at the line of scrimmage. 

“Especially with not being able to bump and run press all the way down the field and when the balls in the air, it’s a different rule than college,” Gonzales said. “He’s so quick off the line of scrimmage. So I’m excited to see how they put him in that position where he can have an opportunity to make guys miss and create mismatches. We did a lot of that stuff with him (at Florida): Put him in the backfield, direct snap, brought him in motion, jet sweeps, we single up as an outside receiver but we’d also seam him up as a slot.”

Washington

Washington HC Ron Rivera talked about how important it was for the team to not sacrifice filling holes in order to get a quarterback in the draft this offseason. Rivera adds that he didn’t want to force the issue and is aiming to create a situation where a young quarterback can flourish.

“That was probably the biggest part of the conversation—if we do this and this and this, then we’ve gotta give up this draft capital and that draft capital, and then we’re still looking to fill these needs,” Rivera said, via Albert Breer of SI. “That was always a part of the conversation, what we were going to do and how it would take away from our opportunity to fill those needs. Some of the early conversations we had on what people were looking for, what they wanted, we just didn’t want to give that up. The other thing too, this is the other thing to think about now, go back and look at who’s won the Super Bowl the last several years. How many of those guys are repeat quarterbacks other than Tom Brady. I mean, you see Nick Foles won a Super Bowl. Good for Nick, that’s outstanding. But let’s understand they had a good football team around him. If you have a good football team around the quarterback, what’s to say you have to have Brady? Now, it’d be great to have a Brady–type guy. But if it’s not out there, why are we gonna force it?”

Rivera was willing to admit that there were quarterback prospects that the team was interested in, yet they were likely unwilling to give up a future first-round pick despite giving it some thought.

“Oh yeah, we did,” Rivera said. “At one point, we started saying, ‘Wait a minute, this happened, guys, let’s take a look at this and start talking. If this guy’s at that point, would we go up and do something?’ We had that conversation, and we stayed with that conversation for quite some time.”

• Nicki Jhabvala reports that no decision has been made on the location of Washington’s 2021 training camp.