When the Philadelphia Eagles picked quarterback Jalen Hurts in the second round of the 2020 NFL Draft, general manager Howie Roseman took heat from the NFL team’s fans for the selection.

It sounds as though Dallas Cowboys owner/general manager Jerry Jones thought that was too early to choose Hurts, too. After all, Jones got the Cowboys’ current quarterback, Dak Prescott, in the fourth round of the 2016 NFL Draft.

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But this weekend, Jones intimated – without calling “any names” – Dallas would have drafted Hurts had he been available later.

The Cowboys had the opportunity to take Hurts. But two picks before Roseman grabbed the quarterback at No. 53, Dallas chose Hurts’ former Alabama teammate Trevon Diggs, who became an All-Pro cornerback in his second season.

Jones was talking in August about drafting quarterbacks after the Cowboys acquired QB Trey Lance from the San Francisco 49ers in exchange for a fourth-round pick.

The 49ers used the third choice of the 2021 NFL Draft on Lance. In two seasons, Lance played in eight games with four starts. With the emergence of Brock Purdy down the stretch last season and the addition of the No. 3 pick in the 2018 draft, Sam Darnold, San Francisco considered Lance expendable.

Jones said if Lance had been available as a fourth-round draft choice, the Cowboys would make that selection, so he had no qualms trading a fourth-round pick for the quarterback.

“I think had we been able to draft him with next year’s four, the kind of talent that he was in this draft,” Jones said. “Like I just told you, two years ago we were looking at the Philadelphia quarterback – I’m not going to call any names — but looking at him. Had he fallen to us there, we would have drafted him.

“It is our plan when we can, but it very seldom happens to have someone of enough quality to be there at the right place with our draft pick. This one worked, so I’m excited about it.”

Quarterback talent in the middle rounds is something he’s always seeking, Jones said.

“The idea of having what we had seen when he came through the draft and being able to work with it, again with our quarterback room, was just an opportunity that we have thought about many times, tried to get to,” Jones said. “If he had hung around long enough, we might have done this on the Philadelphia quarterback back two years ago on him.

“Again, my point is we view it as an opportunity, we view it as an additional part of this team that could pay dividends this year but certainly when we look to the future will pay dividends. …

“The facts are the decision to bring in as high a quality of talent as we could that’s evolving or a young talent that is basically gaining, improving, getting better that you would be as a young talent, that’s something that we’ve been trying to do, but it’s just never the opportunity seems to be there so often. But we’ve been trying to do what we did today with this trade almost every draft since I’ve been drafting.”

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The Eagles had an established quarterback on a big contract when they added Hurts. But with four games remaining in his rookie season, Hurts replaced Carson Wentz in Philadelphia’s starting lineup.

In one of Hurts’ rookie starts, the Cowboys defeated Philadelphia 37-17 on Dec. 27, 2020, even though Hurts threw for 342 yards and one touchdown.

In the buildup to that game, Dallas coach Mike McCarthy said of Hurts: “We talked about him a lot. We had a great virtual interview with him. Very impressive young man. Went back through his history both at Alabama and Oklahoma. We thought of him very highly in our building.”

The 2020 Cowboys went 6-10 with Prescott going down in the fifth game with a season-ending injury. Andy Dalton started the other games at quarterback, except a 23-9 loss to the Eagles on Nov. 1, when seventh-round rookie Ben DiNucci was under center.

Roseman’s reviled pick paid off big in 2022 when Hurts finished as the runner-up for the AP NFL Most Valuable Player Award and led Philadelphia to a franchise single-season record for victories as the Eagles played in Super Bowl LVII.

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.