Fox’ Bayless, Sharpe and Cowherd and ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith and Kellerman assess 2020 NFL Draft

Skip Bayless, Shannon Sharpe, Stephen A. Smith, Max Kellerman, Colin Cowherd sound off

Opinions are free and the national talk show hosts weighed in yesterday on the draft.

Skip Bayless (FOX Sports):

Bayless believes that the Philadelphia Eagles ‘set themselves back,’ by adding a quarterback in the draft, in Oklahoma’s Jalen Hurts. Skip feels that the Birds should have addressed other holes with their 53^rd pick. Bayless doesn’t see how Hurts will ever earn prominence in Philadelphia with Carson Wentz, the team’s 2016 draftee, in saddle.

Hurts will be subjected to a ‘slash or gadget role’ and be the ‘Taysom Hill’ of Philly, a utility player. Skip wonders if the Eagles drafted Hurts because they don’t trust starter Carson Wentz as a performer and as a durable QB. Bayless insists that Hurts has playmaking skills and leadership qualities to start in the NFL. He says that Hurts has what’s necessary to carry a team into the playoffs. The ex-Sooner “played in as many big games as almost any QB to come out of college football,” and finished with an impressive collegiate record of 38-4 (between his time at Alabama and Oklahoma).

The Eagles took a WR in Jalen Reagor of TCU in the first round and an athletic linebacker Davion Taylor in the third.

Skip added that Hurts should have landed somewhere like Jacksonville, where he would have had a shot to be a starting QB in a year or two.

Shannon Sharpe (FOX Sports):

• Sharpe contends that Tua Tagovailoa is the future of the Miami Dolphins. Considering that during the 2019 season, the talk in Miami was “Tank for Tua,” Sharpe believes that it was inevitable that the Dolphins would draft him. He added that because Tua recently overcame several injuries, Ryan Fitzpatrick’s play in 2020-21 will determine how many snaps Tua ultimately takes. Tua’s first year might be a “redshirt” year to fully recover.

• Sharpe believes that Aaron Rodgers is frustrated with how the Packers navigated the 2020 NFL Draft. While former Utah State QB Jordan Love is very talented, Sharpe thinks Love needs to develop for at least two years before he is ready to take the NFL field. Since the Packers were only one game away from making the Super Bowl in 2020, Sharpe supposes that Rodgers would have preferred a WR in the draft. In order to make a championship run in the next few seasons, Rodgers needs more WR targets other than Davante Adams.

Stephen A. Smith (ESPN):

• Aaron Rodgers should feel “disgusted and assaulted” that the Packers chose to trade up in the NFL Draft to take Jordan Love with the 26^th pick. Stephen A. claims that if he were Aaron Rodgers he would “ask to be traded.” Smith makes it clear that his own words are not a knock against Jordan Love. Since Aaron Rodgers was drafted in 2005, the Packers haven’t drafted another complementary offensive player, like a WR in the first round. This year, the Packers finally chose an offensive player, but it was a backup QB. Rodgers “carried the Green Bay franchise on his back for over a decade,” Smith opined and he deserves more of a supporting cast on offense to help him win.

Max Kellerman (ESPN):

• Max Kellerman and Stephen A. Smith disagree with ESPN football analyst, Mel Kiper, regarding the football culture in Cincinnati. Kiper believes that Joe Burrow is in the best position to succeed, out of all the QBs who were taken in this year’s draft.

• Since 2003, the Bengals have had six 10-game winning seasons, and their starting QBs have thrown for a combined 414 total TDs (ranked a respectable 13^th in the NFL). To Kiper’s point, the Bengals have had some good success at the QB position. Kellerman, on the other hand, considers Tua to be in the best position to succeed. The Dolphins finished the 2019-20 season going 5-4 after a disastrous 0-7 start. In Kellerman’s opinion, the Miami franchise is headed in the right direction and has the right coaching to continue to win.

Colin Cowherd (FOX Sports):

• Unlike Skip Bayless, Cowherd believes that it “made perfect sense for the Eagles to draft Jalen Hurts.” Carson Wentz is injury prone, and when a starting QB gets injured, the backup QB is suddenly the most important asset on the roster. Cowherd brings up an interesting point: The Eagles have played in six playoff games since Wentz was drafted in 2016. But the QB has been limited to just four passes in those games to injuries.

• Cowherd insists that “Jalen Hurts will play some time this year,” so it makes perfect sense that the Eagles chose him. Hurts will “adapt well to the Philadelphia offensive scheme because of his playing style and because of the way he moves around in the pocket.”

• In Cowherd’s opinion, Green Bay didn’t have a bad draft. The new head coach of the Packers, Matt LaFleur, is clearly “not building the team around Aaron Rodgers.” Other QBs in the league like Russell Wilson and Carson Wentz don’t have a Pro Bowl WR like Davante Adams to whom to throw the ball. LaFleur is building an offense that he believes can win a Super Bowl. This is why LaFleur elected to draft an explosive RB (A.J. Dillon), a blocking TE (Josiah Deguara), and several interior offensive linemen.