Eagles’ Jalen Hurts refutes Fox Sports report about Dom DiSandro and Brandon Graham meeting him earlier this season

For a second week in a row, Jalen Hurts addressed outside scrutiny about the inner workings of the Eagles’ locker room.

Speaking after Wednesday’s practice, the Eagles quarterback refuted a FOX Sports report that suggested veteran defensive end Brandon Graham and Eagles do-it-all security czar Dom DiSandro met with him at his home earlier this season to encourage Hurts to connect with teammates better.

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“It wasn’t true,” Hurts said.

Graham also seemingly refuted the report, which surfaced Tuesday and notably casts Hurts’ leadership approach in a favorable light, by calling it “lies” through a comment on social media.

Hurts’ rebuttal came one week after his relationship with star wide receiver A.J. Brown came under scrutiny, ironically brought on by comments made by Graham during a radio appearance on 94.1 WIP. The two said Graham misspoke, and the veteran defensive end walked back his comments in an interview with ESPN a few hours after they surfaced.

Asked about the sentiment of the report and whether he has changed his leadership style, Hurts said: “I’ve always kept the main thing, the main thing, and tried to be the best leader I can be. I’ve always been in that.”

That changes each year, though. As reported by The Inquirer’s Jeff McLane in January, there have been instances when key figures in the Eagles organization believed Hurts could have been more open to teammates during the team’s late-season collapse last year.

At the start of the offseason, Hurts acknowledged that each team required something different from him as one of the prominent leaders of the group.

On Wednesday, Hurts said the Eagles’ leadership nucleus shifting this season with Jason Kelce and Fletcher Cox retiring and the team skewing younger has led to him adjusting his approach with his teammates.

“You go through phases and you go through seasons and the team changes,” Hurts said. “This is a totally different team than [the one] I walked into, and that’s just the way it goes. ... You’re trying to earn the respect of your peers. I think that’s one thing you have to be cognizant of. I was coming in, earning the respect of my peers, that was the whole main thing, you had guys that had won championships, you had veterans that had done those things. Now we’re younger, but it’s still required that you do that, but you have to understand as a leader that the way you do it is going to be different. Because everyone is different.”

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“That’s something you have to navigate as times go on,” Hurts added. “[You] definitely ... adapt and change with the times, but also stay true and real to who you are.”

For a second week in a row, Hurts came to the podium with a wrap around his broken left ring finger. He was once again listed as a full participant on the injury report, suggesting he hasn’t suffered any setbacks with the injury coming out of Sunday’s 27-13 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Hurts conceded that the broken finger, which he characterized as “shattered” after the game, was a contributing factor to his first-quarter fumble against Pittsburgh because he didn’t feel comfortable carrying the ball in his left hand as he ran toward the left sideline.

“It’s an adjustment,” Hurts said. “I know on the run, for sure, I wouldn’t have my ball in the inside arm, I’d have it on the outside arm if I felt comfortable doing it. I just wasn’t and not at that state, it’s a game of adjustments and finding a way, and I’ve got to be better knowing my circumstance.”

When asked if the finger was improving, Hurts said: “It’s on the up. Breaks don’t heal in a day.”