Eagles new Coaching Staff Faces Challenge of Molding new Quarterback

Draft Day is upon us, and the move the Eagles have wanted to make for three seasons now will happen shortly after 8 p.m. on Thursday night when the NFL Draft opens.

With the second overall pick, a pick they acquired from the Cleveland Browns one week ago, the Eagles will get their quarterback of the future.

Though this move was pre-conceived in the Chip Kelly days, it is a move largely based on the ownership's need to start fresh with a new face for the franchise, but even more evident by the coaching hires the Eagles made three months ago at the end of January.

This is where Doug Pederson and his staff get to make an impact. Their challenge from now until this unnamed quarterback gets the chance to start — and potentially be a star in the NFL — is to do what they were brought here to do, lead the Eagles back to contention and use the skills they have from their own experiences to mold a quarterback prospect.

Doug Pederson knows this position all too well. After all, it was a second overall pick that eventually replaced him as Eagles starting quarterback in 1999.

Andy Reid, then a first-year head coach, drafted Donovan McNabb with the second overall pick that season, but Pederson was the Eagles starting quarterback in Week 1. By the end of the season, it was McNabb's team.

When the former quarterback turned coaching protege of Reid's was hired by the Eagles on Jan. 18, it marked a new era for the Eagles as a franchise. But that was only the beginning.

The Eagles way of moving up to a position to draft a quarterback wasn't as obvious as the efforts Kelly made last season — you all remember Mariota or bust, right? Instead, this was a methodical way of getting there, moving from the 13th overall pick to the eighth overall pick, parlaying draft picks acquired in deals that moved Byron Maxwell and DeMarco Murray into a move from eighth to second.

And in the middle of making those deals, they re-signed Sam Bradford, albeit to a short-term, two-year deal, and signed Chase Daniel to a three-year deal. Just when you thought they had come to terms with faded hopes to draft a quarterback, the move to the top of the Draft board was complete and either Carson Wentz or Jared Goff had a ticket into Philadelphia.

It seemed all too obvious that it was going to happen, not just because of the Eagles due diligence from ownership on down as an organization to observe, study and get to know each quarterback prospect in the Draft. But it was really obvious months ago, when the Eagles had an apparent need at quarterback and a new coaching staff, full of former quarterbacks, seemed ripe for molding the next in line for the Eagles.

Pederson was hired and immediately brought in Frank Reich as offensive coordinator and John DeFilippo as quarterback coach. Both have track records for being good with quarterbacks and are former quarterbacks themselves. Together, the three were going to hold the keys to making a successful quarterback from prospect to starter to potential star and face of the franchise.

What makes it all the more intriguing is that this year's Draft doesn't have an Andrew Luck or Cam Newton. It doesn't have a Marcus Mariota or Jameis Winston. There is no clear-cut, ready-to-start, instant success for the NFL waiting in the Draft. Much like the rest of their Philadelphia conglomerates, this would be a process, but one that really needed to be taken properly to put the franchise back on the right track.

At the time, late January, I said it was Carson Wentz who deserved the look, but in reality, the quarterback could have come from any round and been molded in some way. Low and behold, Carson Wentz will likely be the name called by commissioner Roger Goodell when the Eagles make the second overall selection.

There are plenty of reasons Wentz makes sense. At the time, the Eagles had no clear starting quarterback and in all fairness to Bradford and Daniel, the Eagles could have put Wentz on the field, raw with talent but not nearly as much understanding of the NFL's pace and level of talent, and the Eagles would have been doing what needed to be done and preparing for the future, rather than trying to win in the present with a team that had as good a chance to fail as it did to success.

But Wentz has been the quarterback that has flown under the radar for nearly his entire college career before suddenly emerging as the top quarterback prospect in the Draft. I'll say now what I said in January, slightly revised — if you're going to look at a quarterback, you might as well look at the one who turned heads for every NFL team at Senior Day and through the Combine.

Selecting Wentz sets a concrete plan in motion. Eventually, this will be his team. He has the leadership qualities, he has the skillset, though raw and in need of refining, but the tools are there. The execution can eventually be there too.

The Eagles spent the entire offseason trying to shore up each position for the long-term future, three, four, five years down the road. Except one: quarterback. They didn't look beyond two seasons with the starter they had. They wanted a prospect they could mold.

They are going to get him on Thursday night, and it is now the challenge of the new coaching staff to turn him into the face of the franchise that they hope he can be. 

Kevin Durso is managing editor for Eagledelphia. Follow him on Twitter @Kevin_Durso.