Todd McShay says the Eagles would be comfortable taking either Carson Wentz or Jared Goff with the second overall pick in the NFL draft. (0:57)

PHILADELPHIA -- It all comes down to the quarterback. Get that right, and nothing else really matters.

The Philadelphia Eagles gave up five draft picks -- two first-rounders and a second-rounder among them -- to move up six spots to the No. 2 pick in the NFL draft. The team can now select a quarterback -- either Cal’s Jared Goff or North Dakota State’s Carson Wentz.

“You have to be very comfortable with both of those quarterbacks and believe they have a shot to be great, Pro Bowl-caliber,” Eagles executive vice president of football operations Howie Roseman said Wednesday. “It’s hard to be great if you don’t take some risks.”

The Eagles have spent quite a bit of time with the top quarterbacks in the 2016 draft class. Roseman, head coach Doug Pederson and owner Jeff Lurie spent time at the Senior Bowl and the scouting combine, then traveled around the country visiting quarterbacks. They have seen Goff throw, Wentz cut his steak and Paxton Lynch answer questions about dealing with the Tampa 2 defense.

This all feels very familiar. Lurie was the Eagles' owner in 1999, when the team held the second pick in the draft. Andy Reid was the coach and Tom Modrak was the director of football operations.

Pederson was the veteran backup quarterback whom Reid brought in to play until his rookie quarterback was ready. After stints as Reid’s assistant in Philadelphia and Kansas City, Pederson became coach of the Eagles in January.

This quarterback plan was part of the deal.

“The model for [Pederson] was that,” Roseman said.

While the local media lobbied for Heisman winner Ricky Williams back in '99, Reid and the Eagles set about evaluating a crop of quarterbacks: Donovan McNabb, Tim Couch, Daunte Culpepper, Akili Smith and Cade McNown.

Carson Wentz or Jared Goff may be starting their NFL career in Philadelphia. USA TODAY Sports

They were generally a more accomplished group of college players than the current crop. Couch went first overall to the expansion Cleveland Browns. The Eagles took McNabb. Cincinnati took Smith at No. 3. Culpepper went 11th to Minnesota and McNown went 12th to the Chicago Bears.

Culpepper was pretty good. Playing with Randy Moss and Cris Carter as his wide receivers, he went 11-5 as a starter in his second season. Although Culpepper had some good years -- he completed 69.2 percent of his passes for 4,717 yards in 2004 -- he never had a winning record again. He went 0-10 over his final two seasons in Detroit, his fourth NFL stop.

Couch, Smith and McNown were busts.

McNabb was the best quarterback in that draft. Because the Eagles took him, they went to five NFC Championship Games and a Super Bowl over the next decade. If they had gotten Couch or Smith, Reid likely would have been fired within a couple of years, as the coaches in Cleveland and Cincinnati were.

Get the quarterback right, and the price doesn’t matter.

“We look at it as investing in the quarterback position,” Roseman said. “When we were really successful, we invested in quarterbacks.”

Look at it this way: Let’s say the Eagles had traded up from the No. 8 spot in 1999 to the No. 2 spot. Let’s say they had surrendered the same assets they used in this trade.

They would have traded wide receiver David Boston (the No. 8 pick that year), guards Doug Brzezinski and John Welbourn, defensive tackle Corey Simon and linebacker Quinton Caver in order to get McNabb. Simon was the best player of that bunch, but if the Eagles could go back in time and make that trade, they would do it 100 times out of 100.

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That doesn’t mean the price isn’t significant. First off, remember that the Eagles already traded Byron Maxwell and Kiko Alonso to Miami to go from the 13th pick to No. 8. So they also would have to be added to the overall price of moving up to No. 2. And they sent DeMarco Murray to Tennessee for the fourth-round pick included in this trade.

That adds up to eight players being traded for one player, which is a lot. But if the one player turns out to be a franchise quarterback, equal to or better than McNabb, then the cost will seem more than reasonable.

The question, then, becomes whether Goff or Wentz has the potential to be that kind of quarterback. Here is where the evaluation process comes in.

Goff’s Cal teams had a record of 14-23 over his three seasons. Last season, Goff threw 43 touchdown passes and 13 interceptions, with a passer rating of 161.2. In his three years at Stanford, Andrew Luck’s record was 31-8. In his third season, he threw 37 touchdowns and 10 interceptions, with a passer rating of 169.7. Aaron Rodgers, like Goff, played at Cal. In two seasons, Rodgers’ record was 18-8. In his final season, his passer rating was 154.3 with 24 touchdowns and eight interceptions.

Wentz was the starting quarterback at North Dakota State for just two seasons, playing in a total of 23 games. He threw 42 touchdown passes and 17 interceptions in those two seasons, and missed half of his senior season with a wrist injury.

In evaluating quarterbacks, the Eagles take a lot of things into account. There’s size, arm strength and mental acuity. Those are obviously important factors. But this is not an exact science, as Couch, Smith and McNown proved in 1999, and as Johnny Manziel, JaMarcus Russell and Matt Leinart have proved more recently.

Pederson was a backup quarterback in the NFL for a decade, working with McNabb, Brett Favre and Dan Marino. His offensive coordinator, Frank Reich, was also an NFL backup QB. They give the Eagles a rare perspective when it comes to evaluating the position.

“You’re talking about somebody who has expertise in quarterbacks going out there and working all these guys out,” Roseman said. “It was a collaboration of a lot of coaches and scouts and analytics. But certainly we’re not making this decision without Doug saying, 'Let’s go.'"

That is the key to this whole thing. If they’re right about the quarterback, then no price is too high. If they’re wrong about the quarterback, then any price will wind up being too much.