The 2014 regular season has been over for the Philadelphia Eagles for the past few weeks. In between, those few weeks, there has been change within the front office, most notably Chip Kelly being named the de facto general manager handling player personnel and not Howie Roseman.
With Kelly now at the controls, many questions are being raised especially when it comes to the NFL Draft. What will Kelly do with the Eagles first round pick? Will he trade for his guy Marcus Mariota or will he select UCLA quarterback Brett Hundley with the 20th pick?
The latter of the two seems the most reasonable to happen but weirder things have happened in the draft. This season, the Eagles quarterback situation was average as best as both Mark Sanchez and Nick Foles were turnover machines, which drives the speculation of the birds drafting a quarterback.
Unlike last year’s quarterback draft class, this year’s is not that strong but it does not mean you cannot find a quarterback to fit your system. For the type of offense that the Eagles run, there are many quarterbacks that fit the mold such as Mariota, Hundley, who I mentioned earlier and also Bryce Petty from Baylor.
Throughout, the offseason until the draft, I will be taking a look at many quarterback prospects that could possibly fit in Kelly’s scheme. First up is Petty. Petty is an intriguing player as when I watched his film, I like his skills more than Hundley when it comes to the Eagles offense.
Petty is a 6-foot-3, 230 lb, redshirt senior quarterback who played in a spread offense at Baylor. Another quarterback, who played in the spread offense under Art Briles at Baylor was Robert Griffin III. But, obviously Griffin III and Petty are two different types of quarterbacks.
In terms of Petty and the Eagles, he is a mobile quarterback for his size which spells good news for Chip Kelly because we saw in the 2013 season with Michael Vick under the helm what a mobile quarterback can do to cause problems for the defense.
Another good quality of Petty’s game is he has a good touch on throws outside the hash marks. At Baylor, they ran a lot of go and seam routes and just imagine if the Eagles had a deep threat to stretch the field they can do the same thing. Finally, the last two good qualities of Petty’s game are his footwork and has a strong arm. Petty’s footwork is pretty solid for a 6-foot-3 quarterback as every time he makes a throw, he sets his feet and delivers the ball.
Petty’s strong arm is seen more often on the shorter routes when hitting his receivers in stride, where they can pick up yards after the catch. The Eagles have playmakers in Jeremy Maclin, Jordan Matthews, and Zach Ertz to get yards after catch against their particular matchups. With his strong arm, he completed 63.1 percent of his passes for 3,855 yards, 29 touchdowns, and 7 interceptions.
Lastly, there are not many negatives that I saw in Petty’s game but the ones I did see alarmed me and reminded me of the Eagles quarterback play this season. One the negatives in Petty’s game is he focuses on one read, that happens a lot in college football as these quarterbacks are taught this running the spread offense.
In the NFL, Petty must learn to go through all his progressions because if not his passes will be intercepted. Finally, the last negative I saw from his game is he does not have good pocket awareness meaning he does not feel when pressure is coming. This season, especially with Nick Foles we saw a lot of times, he did not get rid of the ball in time which led to a sack.
Anytime you encounter negative plays on offense it changes the game plan. Overall, I believe Petty would be a solid pick for the Eagles in the second or third round if they go with a defensive player in the first. He has the tools that can work in Kelly’s system but would have to sit a year to pick up the tempo.
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