Every pass Jalen Hurts threw in the first few days of training camp in Philadelphia looked quick and crisp. He ran the plays fast, didn’t hesitate to find his receivers, and almost every throw was right on target. New offensive coordinator Kellen Moore said his quarterback looked “smooth.”
“You can just tell he’s in command,” Moore said. “He’s in control.”
In other words, Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles are off to a good start, six months after an unimaginably bad ending. Last season, they watched a 10-1 start spiral into a 1-6 finish. And though Hurts was far from the only reason for the inexplicable collapse, it didn’t help that he often looked lost running an offense that suddenly just didn’t work.
That’s why former OC Brian Johnson was fired and Moore was given the task of finding Hurts’ comfort level again. Moore also was asked to cast off what Eagles coach Nick Sirianni lamented was the “staleness” of the old offense. Moore is the fourth different offensive coordinator Hurts has had in his five NFL seasons, and the QB said in June that the scheme is “probably 95 percent” new.
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But there are aspects of the offense that Hurts already seems to have embraced. He was given a new weapon in running back Saquon Barkley, who could add a whole new element to Philly’s run-pass option (RPO) attack and give Hurts another target out of the backfield. He’s been challenged to make incredibly quick decisions, with the Eagles borrowing the “2.3-second rule” from Moore’s time with the Dallas Cowboys to make sure their plays develop faster.
And then there’s the biggest change: Much more pre-snap motion than the Eagles have used in years. Last year, in fact, they used less motion than any other NFL team (just 10.9% of their plays according to ESPN Stats and Info). Moore’s offense, which he ran with the Los Angeles Chargers last season, used pre-snap motion 25.9% of the time.
That’s a huge change, though in some cases it may seem more subtle. In fact, some of the motion may be installed on familiar Eagles plays that Hurts has always liked to run.
“When there’s a comfort level with a certain concept or scheme, we want to make sure we emphasize that, continue to build off it,” Moore said. “‘OK, now if this is a core play that we feel really great about, how can we complement that play? How can we protect it with a different presentation, a different look?'”
The idea is to make the offense less predictable by keeping the defense guessing. And that could keep defenses from blitzing Hurts, which is when he seemed to struggle the most last season. He had just a 75.2 passer rating and threw eight of his career-high 15 interceptions against the blitz, according to TruMedia.
Some of that was because of Johnson’s scheme and playcalling, which never seemed to be a great fit and was clearly less comfortable for Hurts than what Shane Steichen ran during the Eagles’ Super Bowl season in 2022. Last year, Hurts, according to one Eagles team source, had way too many checks to make at the line of scrimmage before each play. He also did not have enough options — or a concrete plan — to make things happen when a play broke down. The result, even earlier in the season, was that plays seemed slow to develop. And the decisions Hurts made when plays broke down didn’t often work out.
That’s a big reason for the implementation of the “2.3-second rule,” which Moore learned from working with Mike McCarthy in Dallas. The idea is that every pass play is given 2.3 seconds to develop — about the average time it takes for a defense to disrupt it. And if the play goes beyond that, Moore, Hurts and the entire offense will have an actual plan of what to do next so there’s no hesitation or indecision.
“We spend all our time trying to draw up some beautiful play that will work perfectly and we all hope and have those dreams,” Moore said. “It doesn’t always happen that way in the NFL, and so there is a second component to every play where you can get into the off-schedule part of this thing and continue to emphasize that.
“That’s a huge strength for Jalen, his ability to run after that, and also still remain a passer. The O-line has to strain longer, they have to keep protecting. The skill guys have to find the open space. So, we’re continuing to try and build on those [things] moving forward.”
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How much will it help? Hurts didn’t exactly have a bad season last year. He threw for a career-high 3,858 yards and 23 touchdowns. He also ran for 605 yards and a career-high 15 touchdowns, too. And he did all that while dealing with a painful bone bruise in his left knee.
But in those final seven games, Hurts looked out of sync. He threw five interceptions in the last four regular-season games. More significantly, the once-powerful Eagles offense topped 20 points just twice in that stretch and was held under 10 in a humiliating 32-9 loss to Tampa Bay in the first round of the playoffs. That all led to Sirianni having a long meeting with owner Jeffrey Lurie, after which the head coach fired Johnson. Sirianni even decided to take a big step back from the offense himself, leaving Moore in almost total control.
The end-of-season slide led to what was reported to be a strained relationship between Sirianni and Hurts. Both of them denied it at the start of training camp last week, though Hurts at least admitted to “frustration” with how the season devolved.
“I think any time you have any frustration, any time you have any adversity you have to overcome, it’s supposed to test you,” Hurts said. “I think it’s a matter of being on the same page. If you’re on the same page, we maybe would have accomplished the things we would have. We didn’t, but that’s a learning experience.”
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Moore said Hurts has been “a huge part of this process” of building the new offense. The plan is to blend the things he does well — running out of the RPOs, off-schedule throws, his ability to make quick decisions — and add some elements to make it all seem smoother and more in sync.
Hurts has been coy about the changes, but he does seem to believe that they will help him and the offense be at least a little more effective, like during Philly’s Super Bowl run in 2022.
“I think it’s as simple as: If I made it happen, I can make it happen,” Hurts said. “This team has made it happen before. There’s no doubt that we can make it happen again.”
Ralph Vacchiano is the NFC East reporter for FOX Sports, covering the Washington Commanders, Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants. He spent the previous six years covering the Giants and Jets for SNY TV in New York, and before that, 16 years covering the Giants and the NFL for the New York Daily News. Follow him Twitter at @RalphVacchiano.
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