The Eagles already made the gamble and quickly decided they'd rather go with DTR and a 5th round pick. I'd rather have the 5th round pick, too.
I don't get this part. Eagles didn't "gamble" on Pickett. They have Hurts and brought in someone on the cheap to be a backup. Depending on who else gets added, this would be the same move. That's not "gambling" on him. It's filling a roster spot with a guy that has starter experience. It feels like yesterday when we went into the season with DTR and the XFL guy as our backups.
They gave the Steelers a 3rd rounder (and a couple 7th rounders which don't have a ton of value) for Pickett and a 4th. The difference in value between pick 98 and pick 120 is about the value of pick 120 (a mid 4th rounder.) (
NFL Trade Value Chart Link) They thought maybe he'd be better than he looked in Pittsburgh. He really wasn't. Same limitations showed up.
A 5th round pick for a guy you never want to see play and will be gone after the year, seems like a waste of a pick, to me. People keep saying he's better, but his tools are suspect. He's better at what? Getting unwarranted opportunities? Getting carried?
Adding him without the pick(s) wouldn't be a gamble, and wouldn't bother me so much. Spending a pick when a guy has already shown you who he is (and it's not great) and is only under contract for a year (unless you want to pick up the giant 5th year option), seems like a bad bet. Why get a guy who more or less sucks when you could instead use the pick to get a player that might be good. The 49ers found Purdy with the last pick in the draft. Why not give yourself a chance to get lucky?
Do you really believe Pickett is suddenly going to get better on a new team, learning a new offense, where that team is also likely trying to develop a rookie, and hopefully has a better starter?
I get the idea of getting a cheap backup. I don't get why they went with Pickett. They could have gotten Flacco for about the same amount of money (spotrac market value has him at $3.2M) without giving up a pick and he's actually functioned well in NFL offenses, even ours. He doesn't have to learn the offense from scratch. He has game reps in it. He won games. With us.
The idea of what Berry and Stefanski say makes sense, but when it actually comes to executing those things I'm starting to wonder if they're just awful at the part that actually matters. Good plans? Okay. Actually making the plans work? Not so far.
