How Jalen Hurts is trying to master Eagles' new offense (2024)

PHILADELPHIA — Jalen Hurts knelt on the sideline and observed the first-team offense. It was a pensive position for the franchise quarterback, the fifth-year player taking in the early work of his fifth play caller. He’d taken every snap with the first group during offseason workouts. On Thursday, the final day of mandatory minicamp for the Philadelphia Eagles, Hurts rested during the final seven-on-seven drill of the spring.

There was A.J. Brown. There was DeVonta Smith. There was Saquon Barkley. There were the defining pieces Hurts will wield within an overhauled offensive system, a fresh inventory of plays and progressions Hurts described as being “probably 95 percent” new.

Hurts is conditioned to being a quick study. His history has demanded it. He yearns for systemic stability, yet faces a systemic irony: if he thrives under new offensive coordinator Kellen Moore (who twice interviewed for head coaching vacancies this offseason), Hurts could very well be learning yet another system this time next year.

Such is the life of a quarterback playing under a CEO-style head coach. Nick Sirianni further loosened his grip on the offensive controls by hiring Moore, a decision Sirianni said he made to freshen the “staleness” his system suffered during the franchise’s collapse in 2023.

The fate of the Sirianni regime partly hinges on the success of this nuanced transition. Hurts is a two-time Pro Bowler whose resume would suggest continuity in his coaching. Moore is a three-time coordinator who must maximize Hurts while managing the quarterback’s desire for ownership of a long-term offensive identity.

Hurts said his goal this spring was to learn Moore’s offense, “master it,” and, by the end of that process, possess such a command of its inner workings that he essentially becomes the system. (“I want it to be mine and have it my own way,” Hurts said.) Of course, every quarterback wants to experience an empowered unison with his system. But this is an ever-elusive quality for Hurts, who’s seemingly resigned himself to the disruptive routine of manufacturing a new self with a new playbook with new coaches.

“It just comes with time,” Hurts said of the process. “You know, I think (making the system my own is) the overall goal in the end. Everybody in the building knows who the game runs through. The goal is to learn as much as I can and master and see how they look at these plays. ‘What’s your intentions behind this? What are we trying to do? What are you coaching me to do?’ Over time, it’ll naturally take care of itself.”

Moore has said it’s his primary goal to create a “clean operation” for Hurts. Moore wants to first establish concise communication from himself to Hurts, from Hurts to the offense. New quarterbacks coach Doug Nussmeier described it as filling a “toolbox” from which Hurts will make pre-snap checks on phases like pass protections. The parameters of those checks will be flexible. Former offensive coordinator Brian Johnson attempted to equip Hurts with a list of pre-snap checks, which yielded varied results. Nussmeier said the length of their list of checks will be shorter in some games, longer in others.

The Eagles will also use pre-snap motions at a substantially higher rate. They ranked last in pre-snap motion usage in 2023, according to ESPN. Moore’s offense with the Los Angeles Chargers ranked eighth. Smith and tight end Dallas Goedert both mentioned this week how their increased involvement in pre-snap motions will help Hurts and the offense identify tells from the defense. Those tells sometimes must also be communicated.

“At some point and time, you’ve got to get to where there’s communication and there’s a clear snap-point (and) we’ve got to make a decision on where we’re going,” Nussmeier said.

Hurts must also make quick decisions after the snap in Moore’s offense. Moore, a former quarterback, both played for and coached for the Dallas Cowboys under Mike McCarthy, who has long adhered to what he calls the “2.3-second rule.” Nussmeier, a McCarthy assistant for five seasons, referenced the time on Monday when describing the general threshold for passing plays before they tend to break down. Moore’s passing game also incorporates similar timing within what the Eagles call an “in phase” and a “scramble phase.”

The in-phase passing game is the quarterback’s standard progression. As Nussmeier says, it’s when the quarterback’s going “bang to bang to bang” and “hopefully” sees wideouts “getting wins” in “well-defined” routes and delivers passes that come “out on time.”

The scramble-phase passing game is anything beyond. “Defenses in this league are good,” Nussmeier said, “and they’re going to cover you sometimes.” So, Moore also infuses his passing game with options that account for these scenarios. Where will Hurts roll out? Where will the receivers break? How will the offensive line block?

“As it may look at times, there’s chaos,” Nussmeier said. “But hopefully we’re educating our guys and we’re playing with structured chaos above the 2.3.”

Dak Prescott thrived in those scenarios in the four seasons Moore was his offensive coordinator. He tied for the sixth-highest expected points added per dropback in that span on throws that took 2.4 seconds or longer, according to TruMedia. Justin Herbert tied for 16th last year under Moore. Hurts ranked 10th. He also ranked third among all quarterbacks in rushing yards (605) and set the league’s single-season quarterback record for rushing touchdowns (15) — mobility that Nussmeier says they’ll attempt to maximize in the passing game’s scramble phase.

“Well, I mean, we all know Jalen’s a very athletic quarterback,” Nussmeier said. “I think one of the things when you coach athletic quarterbacks is you never want to take away that natural athletic ability that they have. Some guys are built to stay in the pocket and be only pocket passers. Jalen has the ability to extend plays. You talk about the league and everybody’s always looking at, ‘How do we extend plays?’ And, ‘How can you get plays above the 2.3? When you can break the defense down.’ You never want to take that away. You want to coach to it.”

There are lingering similarities from the 2023 Eagles offense within Moore’s system, Sirianni said. The fourth-year head coach has often insisted that their new offense is a “blend” of his and Moore’s philosophies, not a full-on substitution. The passing game contains similar concepts, Sirianni said, but some of the quarterback’s reads within those concepts have changed. A route concept may be exactly the same by design but bears a different name. Even those small tweaks contribute to a learning curve Hurts must once again manage.

“I think he’s done a very nice job handling things that are similar,” Sirianni said. “But as his job has changed a little bit, (he’s) done a really nice job of really grinding away to be a master at the offense and all the things that come with it.”

(Top photo of Jalen Hurts: Bill Streicher / USA Today)

Brooks Kubena is a Staff Writer for The Athletic covering the Eagles. Brooks has covered the NFL since 2021, most recently as a reporter for the Houston Chronicle covering the Texans, and he previously reported on LSU football for The Advocate | Times-Picayune from 2018-2020. Brooks, a graduate of the University of Texas, has received APSE National Top 10 honors eight times for his reporting, which includes his beat writing coverage during the 2022 season. Follow Brooks on Twitter @BKubena