Brett Hundley explains why he's a good fit for the Eagles

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INDIANAPOLIS – Brett Hundley was asked Thursday what NFL offense is closest to what he ran at UCLA.

He paused for about half a second.

“I guess the Eagles are a close offense with us,” he said.

Hundley, the consensus next-best quarterback prospect in the draft after Marcus Mariota and Jameis Winston, could be a good fit for the Eagles, who are unsettled at quarterback with the draft a couple months off.

Running a fast-paced system with zone-read concepts, Hundley completed 67 percent of his passes with 75 touchdowns and 25 interceptions in three seasons at UCLA and ran for nearly 2,000 yards and 30 more touchdowns.

“There are [other] offenses that have similar things in their systems,” Hundley said at the NFL Scouting Combine. “But the way they [Eagles] sort of have the same sort of schemes, zone reads, they do a lot more of it.

“It’s not exactly what we do, but there are instances where they have the zone read, there are instances with some pass concepts that match up like ours, just simple stuff like that.”

The Eagles have only Nick Foles and Matt Barkley under contract, and head coach Chip Kelly hasn’t said anything to indicate that either one is in the team’s plans moving forward.

Hundley said he’d be at an advantage if he did come to Philly because of his familiarity with the scheme. 

“It is an advantage, but at the same time there’s always a learning curve everywhere you go,” he said. “So transitioning to the Eagles offense or any other offense that I may go to, there’s always going to be a learning curve.”

Kelly recruited Hundley out of high school in Arizona, and Hundley spoke very highly of Kelly, even though he opted for UCLA instead of Oregon.

“He’s great,” Hundley said. “Great individual, great man, love him to death.

“I got to spend some time coming out of high school, one of my former teammates, Dion Jordan, went to Oregon, so I knew a good amount about that school coming out. …

“But UCLA had it all. They had academics, everything, they weren’t so far away, my family could drive there. I fell in love when I went there. You fall into 72 degrees and an ocean breeze, it’s hard to beat.”

Hundley’s Eagles connections don’t end there.

He said Donovan McNabb, the Eagles’ six-time Pro Bowl quarterback, has served as a mentor to him dating back to when Hundley was playing at Chandler High School outside Phoenix, where McNabb lives.

“I love Donovan to death,” Hundley said. “I talk to him, even to this day, and he’s helped me out through this journey and this process. 

"He’s a smooth quarterback, and he’s unique at what he does, and I think that’s the same thing I can bring, and I bring while playing football. I guess the ‘It’ factor. He has it.”

The big knock on Hundley is that he tended to take off and run too quickly instead of going through his progression and finding secondary receivers.

But Hundley said that was more a product of the offense UCLA was running than any limitation on his skill set.

“If the time needs to be where I need to sit in the pocket and make all the throws, then I will do that,” he said. “Sometimes in our offense, the situation dictated where if I didn’t see something, I’m taking off running.

“But if that’s the offense and that’s what I need to do, and you can watch the tape, there’s times where I sat in the pocket, and I made throws and I feel like I did that consistently throughout college, but there are times in our offense where if something’s not there, you’ve got to take off running, so it’s just working in the offense.”

Hundley also disputed the notion that he’s the third-best QB in the draft and relegated to the second round.

He said his goal is to go No. 1. Not the first round. The first pick.

“No. 1 overall,” he said. “My goal is to be No. 1. [Mariota and Winston] are great quarterbacks. Mariota is very athletic, Jameis is a great quarterback, they both have Heisman under their names and Mariota got to the championship, Jameis won it, they’re both good with the offenses they ran.

“But we all have our unique abilities and I think that’s where you separate each and every quarterback.”

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