Dallas Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones had an interesting admission while speaking to reporters about the club’s acquisition of Trey Lance.
On Friday, the Cowboys acquired the No. 3 selection of the 2021 NFL Draft from the San Francisco 49ers in exchange for the surprisingly low price of a fourth-round pick. Lance became expendable after Sam Darnold won the QB2 job behind Brock Purdy.
While speaking to reporters on the Lance trade, Jones revealed that Dallas would have liked to have selected current Philadelphia Eagles’ starter Jalen Hurts in the 2020 NFL Draft if he had fallen to them (via Frankie Taddeo of Sports Illustrated):
“I think had we been able to draft him (Lance) with next year’s four, the kind of talent he was in this draft, like I just told you, two years ago, we were looking at Philadelphia quarterback (Jalen Hurts).
“But looking at him, had he fallen to us there we would have drafted him. It is our plan when we can but it very seldom happens to have someone of high enough quality to be there at the right place with our draft pick. And this one worked (Lance) and so we’re excited about it.”
Philadelphia drafted Hurts in the second round (53rd overall) in 2020. As hard as it is to believe now, many criticized the pick at the time since Philly seemingly had its franchise quarterback in place with Carson Wentz.
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Of course, Wentz wound up being benched late in the year after a disastrous 2020 campaign, and Hurts finished the year as Philly’s starter. Fast forward two years later, and Hurts is coming off a career year in which he finished second in MVP voting and helped the Eagles to a Super Bowl 57 appearance.
Hurts was awarded with a five-year contract extension worth $255 earlier this offseason. His Eagles will open the 2023 regular season with a road game against the New England Patriots on Sept. 10.
