Eagles’ wide receiver Josh Huff could have a breakout year in his rookie season with the Birds. Credit: Getty Images
Chip Kelly knows rookie wideout Josh Huff pretty well. After all, he recruited him back at Oregon.
Eagles fans suspect they are getting an athletic and potent offensive weapon. But they might not know the speedster is as gifted a natural football player as anyone on the Eagles’ roster.
“Well, he was actually a quarterback,” Kelly said, referring to Huff back in high school. “He did play running back also, but he played some receiver. I just think the one thing that struck us was his versatility; that he could do a lot of different things and was just so productive with the ball in his hands and highly competitive kid.”
Much like his Birds’ teammate Darren Sproles, Huff can really hurt defenses in a number of ways. This could make it a pretty daunting task for the rest of the NFC East to figure out how to line up against him.
“I think it was how dynamic he was with the ball in his hands,” Kelly went on, highlighting more of Huff’s attributes. “He was also a really, really good returner but he had a skill set where there’s a physicality to Josh to go along with the ability to make people miss. So we just thought he would be a natural fit.”
Huff isn’t the only Eagles draft choice who played QB in high school, but not in college.
Should there be a catastrophic emergency wherein Nick Foles, Matt Barkley, Mark Sanchez and Josh Huff all get injured, just turn to first-rounder Marcus Smith (a pass rusher), who played quarterback in high school before attending Louisville.
“There’s a lot of guys that have gone on to be really successful at the collegiate level in the NFL that were high school quarterbacks and they moved to different positions,” Kelly said.
