To blitz or not to blitz Jalen Hurts? Eagles coaches have the answer

Jalen Hurts has improved statistically in every passing category this season except for one: against the blitz.

The Eagles quarterback hasn’t necessarily been bad. In fact, his identification of a blitz pre-snap and subsequent audible led to perhaps the play of the game in the 20-17 win over the Cardinals on Sunday.

But Hurts and the offense have struggled to take advantage of the aggressiveness of the blitz, especially when compared to the numbers in his first two seasons. He is completing a slightly higher percentage of throws (57.7 vs. 55.9), but his touchdown-to-interception ratio (0 to 1 vs. 13 to 5) and his average yards per attempt (5.8 vs. 8.2) are down considerably, per Pro Football Focus.

The Eagles have played only five games, so the sample isn’t quite large enough to make sweeping generalizations. And handling the blitz isn’t solely on the quarterback, or the offensive line for that matter. It takes all 11 players, and just important, coaching and preparation.

But the Cardinals may have unlocked the door on how best to slow an offense that had been among the most explosive in the NFL. The Eagles entered last week’s game averaging 6.1 yards per play, but were held to a season-low 5 yards a pop in Arizona.

“Anything that teams have that is successful other teams are going to replicate and try and do,” Eagles center Jason Kelce said this week. “We got to do better with the blitz. It’s one of those things, especially when an offense is dynamic and is moving the ball effectively, defenses are going to do whatever they can to stop it.

“Blitzing can be very effective. It’s aggressive. But I certainly hope teams blitz because it opens up plays down the field.”

The Cowboys, Sunday’s opponent, don’t have a blitz-happy defense. But defensive coordinator Dan Quinn has sent four-plus pressures 24.2% of the time, which is just below last season’s league-wide average of 25.3, according to Sharp Football.

Hurts has been blitzed at a near identical rate (31.4) to 2020-21 (31.8), but the Cardinals sent extra rushers on half of the quarterback’s drops. He completed 13 of 18 passes for 118 yards, but he was also sacked twice on third down.

Vance Joseph, Arizona’s blitz-happy defensive coordinator, wasn’t exactly following a template for slowing the Eagles offense this season. But the Lions in Week 1 also blitzed Hurts on half his drops and had success — at least until the quarterback took matters into his own legs.

Perhaps a fear of his mobility is why the next three opponents blitzed him only 17.4% of the time.

“Arizona was doing a bunch of weird stuff, to be honest,” Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown said. “We really didn’t understand. Going into the game we knew on first and second down they changed a lot of coverages. They started blitzing and they were kind of doing everything.

“I think they had a call sheet of, like, which one we gonna pick now.”

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The Eagles knew Joseph liked to blitz on third down. They have built-in answers for any kind of pressure on any given play. But the solutions Nick Sirianni and his offensive assistants have given Hurts, certainly against the Cardinals, tended to be on the outside.

Some of Hurts’ reads to screen passes resulted in positive yards, but there were a few later ones in which Eagles receiver DeVonta Smith was outnumbered by Arizona defenders and was dropped well short of the marker.

Hurts had a number of pressures in Detroit in which he was responsible for the free man. In those situations, there should be an immediate “hot” read. The Eagles could have them designed in various ways, and it’s likely they have some inside answers, but so far many of them have been on the outside.

“There are definitely more outside,” tight end Dallas Goedert said. “And then just a lot of the plays we have are built in hot, whether it’s the back coming out of the backfield, or Kelce does a great job of pushing the point, knowing the backside D-end is going to drop when they bring it to this side so we can slide the whole protection to it and then we’re picked up.”

Sirianni and his staff have been cognizant of not being overly predictable on offense. It’s likely Hurts made reads vs. the blitz that weren’t where the answers were provided. But too many screens, on top of too many outside answers, seemingly allowed for the Cardinals to get a jump on passes in that direction.

“Sometimes it’s going to be an inside thing and sometimes it’s going to be an outside thing and sometimes it’s going to be a shot down the field and sometimes it’s going to be a screen like we had some last week,” Sirianni said. “It’s never the same against the blitzes that they bring, right?

“It’s always going to be a little different because when you’re the same, it’s the same thing we always talk about, you give tells to the defense.”

Hurts said he hasn’t found a consistent theme in how defenses have game planned for the Eagles. The offensive variety has made it difficult to lean on either zone or man coverage concepts. If opponents employ zone, the run-pass option game is open. If they go man, Hurts has receivers who either get separation or win in the air.

But the blitz, if utilized properly, and disguised well, can be an equalizer, as Kelce noted. The veteran center shoulders a lot of the burden on making the protection calls. But each player can discern pre-snap indicators and call them out, or at the least, help Hurts either by picking up blocks or adjusting routes.

Running back Kenneth Gainwell missed his blitz pickup assignment here, but Hurts didn’t have quick open outlet either.

“Obviously, if we see it early enough we can get to a check, get to a good play that everybody knows is coming, a pressure-beater,” Goedert said. “The ones that aren’t and you have the hot throws, the ones we get fooled and we don’t see it coming, we got to know who’s coming, where the soft spot is.”

But a lot of the responsibility falls on Hurts simply because he has the ball. He had a disastrous performance against the blitz in the Eagles’ playoff loss to the Buccaneers in January. Defensive coordinator Todd Bowles sent extra rushers 45.7% of the time and Hurts threw two interceptions and was sacked once.

Bowles’ pressures often forced the quarterback to his left, where he was reluctant to throw last season, and when he did he struggled. But that hasn’t been as much the case this season as Hurts is averaging 9.8 pass attempts to his left vs. last season’s 6.7.

And he’s been more efficient throwing to that side, as well, completing 38 of 49 throws (77.6%) vs. 58 of 107 (54.2%).

“I read something a player on the Cardinals said last week: every time he goes right he throws it, and every time he goes left, he runs it, but he could throw it. Well, I don’t think that’s true,” Sirianni said. “I’ve actually seen him growing there that he’s breaking out-of-the-pocket and he’s making plays with both his feet and his arm to the right or the left.”

» READ MORE: Jalen Hurts has been great and is unique. But he still isn’t locked in as the Eagles’ ‘franchise quarterback.’

But pre-snap recognition may be where he has grown the most. On a pivotal third-and-12 late in Arizona, the Cardinals showed six men on the line. The Eagles had a man-beating pass play called. Hurts, using pre-snap indicators based upon the formation and Arizona’s cross-alignment, audibled to a zone-beater.

The Cardinals dropped two from the line, but they blitzed the corner from the edge and Hurts found Goedert over the middle on a curl route. The tight end ran for a first down and the Eagles eventually kicked the go-ahead field goal.

“Now, did he run there? No. He stood in there, threw a bullet to Dallas for one of the biggest conversions we’ve had this year and the biggest play of that game,” Sirianni said. “The answer is, to me, he has more variety to his game in that.”

And the built-in answer was inside. The best quarterbacks see the blitz as an opportunity more than a detriment. They also know that beating it will stop teams from trying. So there can be a love-hate relationship vs. aggressive defenses.

Hurts is still developing, but he already understands that you can’t force the issue either way.

“I think there are opportunities to attack,” Hurts said of the risk-reward balance vs. the blitz, “and I think there are not.”

Inquirer Eagles beat reporters EJ Smith and Josh Tolentino preview the team’s Week 6 game against the Dallas Cowboys. Watch at Inquirer.com/EaglesGameday