If you think Jalen Hurts is the 17th-best QB in the NFL you're an idiot

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Roob breaks down Jalen Hurts' ranking, Dontayvion Wicks' outlook and why Saquon Barkley is primed for a strong 2026.

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Roob's Observations revisits the Jalen Hurts debate while examining Wicks' opportunity and Barkley's future.

By Reuben Frank • Published July 19, 2026 • Updated on July 18, 2026 at 2:17 pm

Why is Jalen Hurts always listed so low in this idiotic quarterback rankings? Can we really be sure Dontayvion Wicks can thrive as WR3? And reason to be optimistic about Saquon Barkley’s 2026 season.

We’re now just 10 days from training camp, and while I’ll start the day with my traditional Day 1 drive to the old practice fields at Lehigh, everyone else will be at the Jefferson Health Complex, which will host camp for the 14th straight year.

So two more Sunday editions of Roob’s Offseason Observations and then we’re back in the thick of things! And before you know it the Eagles will be playing meaningful football!

FREAKING RANK THIS: I don’t want to go too deep into all these ridiculous quarterback rankings that keep popping up, but what I’d like to know is what criteria people are using to judge quarterbacks. Because the only categories Jalen Hurts isn’t among the best in the league are passing yards and passing touchdowns, although it will surprise a lot of people that he does rank 10th in passing yards since becoming a full-time starter in 2021 and his percentage of touchdown passes – one every 18 attempts – was 5th-highest in the NFL last year. But people need to start understanding that passing yards and TDs might be important in fantasy football, but that’s not how we should be evaluating quarterbacks. It’s about making plays any way you can make them. It’s about taking advantage of what the defense gives you. It’s about leading in the locker room and inspiring on the practice field. It’s about making big plays at big moments. It’s about freaking winning, and the only NFL quarterbacks who’ve won more games than Hurts since 2021 are Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen, and Allen hasn’t even reached a Super Bowl. Hurts and Allen are the only QBs who’ve reached the postseason each of the last five years. And Hurts has done all of this with a rotating cast of play callers and offensive coordinators, adjusting to a new system just about every year. What are we doing here? Let’s start evaluating quarterbacks by what’s really important. No quarterback is remembered for how many passing yards he had. They’re remembered for postseason performance and Super Bowls, and Hurts is one of only eight QBs ever to reach two Super Bowls in his first five seasons. The others are Hall of Famers (John Elway, Troy Aikman, Kurt Warner), future Hall of Famers (Tom Brady, Mahomes) or likely Hall of Famers (Ben Roethlisberger, Russell Wilson). Only two QBs – Roethlisberger and Mahomes – won more playoff games before their 27th birthday. I often wonder why Hurts is disrespected like this year after year. Part of it is probably that he wasn’t a 1st-round pick, and people just look at 1st-round QBs differently. Part of it is that he isn’t a classic drop-back passer. He looks different and plays differently than a lot of other quarterbacks. I think a lot of analysts want quarterbacks to play the game the in a specific anachronistic way and Jalen just doesn’t fit that mold. In their world, passing touchdowns hold more value than rushing touchdowns, and you’ll never hear any of them point out that Hurts’ 164 total touchdowns since 2021 are 3rd-most in the league, two fewer than Mahomes. If those rushing TDs were passing TDs Hurts is viewed differently. But they all count six points, so why are we valueing them any less? It’s all stupid and ridiculous and unfair, but it’s never going to change. No matter how Super Bowls Hurts takes the Eagles to.

WHAT DO WE REALLY KNOW ABOUT DONTAYVION WICKS? We’re all kind of assuming Dontayvion Wicks will slip right into that third receiver role behind DeVonta Smith and Makai Lemon. And while that’s certainly possible, you never know how these things are going to go. Wicks over the last two years is averaging 6.1 yards per target, which ranks 118th out of 138 wide receivers who were targetted at least 100 times during that span. He had five or more targets in 17 games with the Packers and had fewer than 50 yards in 12 of those games. His 55.5 catch percentage since 2024 ranks 128th out of 138 WRs with at least 100 targets. His 11.1 yards per catch ranked 81st out of those 138 receivers and his success rate ranked 100th. The Eagles are counting on Wicks blossoming as he plays more, and that could sure happen. He did have a big rookie season with 581 yards and 14.9 yards per catch. So there’s clearly something there. But that was 2023, and this is 2026. The Eagles also have Hollywood Brown and Elijah Moore as potential third WRs and I think Darius Cooper has a chance to be pretty good. But the Eagles are counting on Wicks to be the third guy, and maybe that happens but it’s certainly not a lock.

JALEN HURTS STAT OF THE WEEK: Jalen Hurts is the only quarterback in NFL history to throw over 100 touchdowns and fewer than 45 interceptions in his first 82 career starts. 

TIMMY BROWN MAKES HISTORY: For the first 73 years of the Eagles’ existence, only one player had 100 yards both rushing and receiving in the same game. That was the great Timmy Brown, who turned in one of the greatest performances in Eagles history in a 21-7 win over the Steelers at Franklin Field in 1964. Brown had just 18 touches but netted 226 yards, with 16-for-116 rushing and 2-for-110 receiving with TD catches of 23 and 87 yards from Norm Snead. It wasn’t until Brian Westbrook against in Tampa in 2006 and the Lions in 2007 that another Eagle had 100 yards both rushing and receiving in the same game. To this day, Brown is one of only eight players in NFL history with 100 and 100 on 18 or fewer total touches. More than half a century later, his 226 scrimmage yards in that game are 9th-most in Eagles history. 

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GETTING TO KNOW ELIJAH MITCHELL? In 2021, Elijah Mitchell of the 49ers was one of only four NFL running backs to rush for over 900 yards and average at least 4.7 yards per carry. The others were Nick Chubb, Jonathan Taylor and Dalvin Cook. Pretty good company. Knee injuries limited Mitchell to five games in 2022, but he still averaged 6.2 yards per carry on 45 rushes. In 2023, he dropped to 3.7 and 281 yards. He missed all of 2024 and spent last year with the Chiefs and Patriots with no carries. Went totally under the radar when the Eagles signed Mitchell last month, but this is a typical Howie Roseman under-the-radar move. A guy who was once pretty good but hasn’t done much lately, a move with nothing to lose and although it’s a long shot, everything to gain. The Eagles’ running back room is crowded, with Tank Bigsby locked in as Saquon Barkley’s backup, 2024 4thround pick Will Shipley and former Texan Dameon Pierce along with Mitchell. But these are fun moves. Mitchell is 28 and running out of chances. You don’t see a ton of running backs this age who haven’t produced in four years make NFL rosters. But he was once really, really good, and you just never know. If he has a good camp and can stay healthy, anything can happen. Sometimes these hungry veterans who are running out of opportunities can really stand out at training camp, where they’re going up against young, inexperienced defenders. Mitchell is an extreme longshot, but a pretty interesting longshot.

ROAD SWEET ROAD: The Eagles are an NFL-best 30-13 on the road under Nick Sirianni, a .698 winning percentage. The Seahawks and 49ers, both 27-16 for .628, are next-best over the last five years. The Eagles and Bills are the only NFL teams who have been over .500 on the road in each of the last five seasons. This is the Eagles’ 2nd-best five-year road stretch ever. From 2000 through 2004, they were 30-9 (.769) on the road under Andy Reid. 

IT WASN’T SAQUON: When you look at the drop in Saquon Barkley’s performance from 2024 to 2025, it’s natural to wonder if it had more to do with age and wear and tear on Barkley’s body after 482 touches in 2024 or if it was just a product of an injured offensive line and an overmatched play caller. Here’s why I’m confident it’s the latter: Once Barkley got through the line of scrimmage, he looked just like the 2024 version. Fast, strong and powerful. He actually had five plays of 40 yards last year and only Jahmyr Gibbs (seven) and Bijan Robinson (six) had more. So the problem was finding somewhere to run. Once he broke through the line of scrimmage, he was still as dangerous as anybody in the league. It didn’t happen as often as 2024, when he had seven plays of at least 40 yards, but it happened enough to give me confidence he’s still the same guy and with a healthy o-line and an upgraded play caller his 2026 season will more closely resemble 2024 than 2025. 

ALL THAT ON TWO CARRIES?  On Oct. 1, 2001, Brian Mitchell became the first NFL player since 1939 to rush for 100 yards on just two carries. In the late stages of a 38-10 blowout of the Falcons at the Vet, Andy Reid gave Duce Staley the rest of the game off and let Mitchell – the Eagles’ punt returner play a little running back. On his first carry, he ran 20 yards to set up a Donovan McNabb TD pass to Charles Johnson and on the second he ran 85 yards for a TD. Those were his only carries of the game, and to this day he’s one of only two players ever to rush for 100 yards on just two carries. The other was Andy Uram of the Packers, who ran twice for 108 yards in a win over the Cardinals at Wisconsin State Fair Park in West Allis, Wisc., in 1939. B-Mitch also had three catches for 35 yards in that win over the Falcons for 140 scrimmage yards on five touches. That’s the most scrimmage yards by any NFL player on five or fewer touches in the last 60 years. He also had an 89-yard kickoff return touchdown in the fourth quarter, making him the only player in NFL history with two TDs of 85 or more yards in a fourth quarter.

TEN OUT OF 29: Jeff Stoutland has been on the sideline for more than a third of the postseason wins in Eagles history – 10 of 29 for 34 percent. The last time the Eagles won a playoff game without Stout was 2008.

SNEAKING INTO THE VET: I was always amazed at the creativity people used back in the day to get into the Vet for Eagles games when they didn’t have tickets. This is a lost art, thanks to digital ticket technology and the layout of the Linc. But if you remember the way the Vet was set up, the ramps leading to the upper decks were open air and right along the outside wall of the stadium. So people with tickets would go inside and then lower their tickets in a basket on a rope to their friends outside the stadium, and then they would go ahead and use the tickets. I mean, they didn’t tear them in half or anything back then. People also used the rope system to get beer inside. You would see people set up these fancy pully systems and raise a case or two of Schaefer up from the sidewalk outside the stadium onto the ramp inside the stadium. It’s a shame technology killed these wonderful traditions.

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