Murphy: If he were another Andrew Luck, they should do it
The problem is, however much promise Mariota has shown so far, he hasn't shown himself to be anything close to what Luck showed when he was at Stanford.
This is really three separate questions:
1) Do the Eagles feel that Marcus Mariota is an elite, once-a-decade quarterback whose presence alone makes a team a Super Bowl contender (Luck, Rodgers, Brady, Brees, Manning, the latter four during their prime)?
2) Should they feel that way?
3) How much is too much to pay for a guy who is something less than an elite, once-a-decade quarterback but who you project as much better than average, perhaps in the second tier (Philip Rivers, Matt Ryan, etc.); i.e., what is all-in?
If the answer to question No.1 is yes, then the answer to No.3 is "no price is too high." The Colts flushed a future No.1 draft pick down the toilet that is Trent Richardson and they were still one win away from the Super Bowl. That's because a quarterback the caliber of Luck is worth a hell of a lot of first-rounders at other positions. In his 3years in the NFL, the Colts have combined to lose exactly one more game than they did in the one season before his arrival.
That being said, the answer to question No.2 would then be, "No," because Mariota has a lot of work to do before he even gets to a level of NFL readiness that Luck displayed as a redshirt freshman.
Long story short, this isn't a question that is going to be able to be answered until we find out whether Mariota falls out of the top five. All it's going to take is one team drafting ahead of the Eagles to value Mariota the way the Eagles do. In that case, it will be awfully tough for Chip Kelly to match whatever offer the other team can come up with, simply because the first-round pick, and perhaps the rest of the picks, will be higher this year. The equation could change if there is a market for Nick Foles. Foles plus this year's first-rounder and a first-rounder next year? Now we're talking, given the dead zone where those first-round picks would be located.
Is Foles and two Marcus Smiths really considered going all-in?