Philadelphia Eagles: 2019 Preseason Rookie grades through week two
Clayton Thorson, QB
Round 5, Pick 167
This year, the Eagles established themselves as a lock to take on a project quarterback through the draft. After developing Nate Sudfeld for the last two seasons, the Eagles figured they did all they could with the former Redskins draft pick out of Indiana. Now, it was time to move on and start developing another young guy. So this time, it became Northwestern’s, Clayton Thorson.
A puzzling pick for sure. As Thorson did have significant starting experience in college, he wasn’t all that productive with his handful of opportunities. As we kept our expectations in check, Thorson didn’t really do much in training camp to change the narrative about his game. He was pretty bad in practice, to put it bluntly. And in his first game, he showed just how terrible he has been.
Eagles coach Doug Pederson chalked up Thorson’s week one performance as having rookie jitters, but at the same time, he flashed those same jitters throughout training camp as well. The following week, Thorson got an opportunity to play pretty much the entire game against the Jaguars, and his performance was undoubtedly a comeback one.
Week one and two was like night and day for the rookie. It wasn’t flawless, but he now has us intrigued with his development moving forward. With one really bad performance followed by a decent one, Thorson grades out as average halfway through his first NFL preseason.