Eagles’ Jalen Hurts stresses importance of coaching continuity as he absorbs another offensive scheme
Hurts has experienced a revolving door of offensive coordinators throughout his career. Next up, he'll have to adapt to Kellen Moore's system.
Jalen Hurts wants to find his version of Jeff Stoutland.
The Eagles quarterback, once again embarking on an offseason that will include learning a new offensive system, spoke Wednesday for the first time since the team fired Brian Johnson as offensive coordinator and replaced him with Kellen Moore.
Change has been a constant for Hurts during his career, even dating back to college. He has gone consecutive seasons with the same play-caller and position coach just once since his high school career and partially attributed his success in an MVP-caliber 2022 season to having that level of continuity for the first time.
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Now that he’s back to learning another offensive system with Moore and new quarterbacks coach Doug Nussmeier, Hurts acknowledged he hopes to eventually find the level of continuity that the Eagles’ offensive line has with Stoutland, who is entering his 12th season with the team.
“As a player, I definitely yearn for the sustainability and the consistency there,” Hurts said. “As a coach, Stout serves for his offensive line room, as a quarterback, I yearn for those things in a play-caller and a quarterback coach because you kind of see how consistency in those areas can breed excellence. His track record kind of shows that. It’s definitely something that I desire.”
Hurts had the best year of his career with Shane Steichen calling plays and Johnson serving as his quarterbacks coach for consecutive seasons. He finished second in the MVP voting behind Patrick Mahomes after compiling 3,701 passing yards with a 66.5% completion rate, 22 passing touchdowns, and just six interceptions.
Hurts regressed in several key areas last year with Johnson replacing Steichen as the Eagles’ offensive coordinator and play-caller. He threw a career-high 15 interceptions, lost five fumbles, and saw slight drops in his yards per attempt and completion percentage as the Eagles’ spiraled to end the season.
It hasn’t always been an impediment for Hurts to switch systems so often, though. He showed steady progress with different play-callers each year at Alabama and took a significant leap after transferring to Oklahoma to play in an Air Raid system under Lincoln Riley. In the early stages of learning Moore’s system, Hurts said his experience the last few years is reminiscent of that college experience.
“I find myself in a situation very similar to college in terms of having a constantly revolving door in terms of coordinators and coaches,” Hurts said. “But I always managed to have success in it, that’s always been a good thing because you can learn from people and apply it and kind of take what applies to you. In the end, I think that is important, we are where we are, but some of those things are kind of surface level in terms of what we can accomplish. I definitely do desire that consistency, but when you go win, they’re probably going to leave. That’s just how it goes. I embrace all ends of it.”
» READ MORE: Eagles’ Nick Sirianni endorses his new-look coaching staff with coordinators Kellen Moore and Vic Fangio
Hurts credited Johnson, his former coach he has known for 20-plus years and developed a strong relationship with, for playing a major role in his growth the last few seasons. Johnson took a passing-game coordinator job with the Washington Commanders in February, a few weeks after the Eagles announced his firing.
“There’s been three years of being a starter, he’s been part of all of that,” Hurts said. “Going into the fourth year of that this year, it would be great, but I think he’s still more than capable of being a big-time head coach in this league and I think he’s on trajectory to do that still. I just think it wasn’t the right time for him, and that’s that.”
The Eagles are in the early portion of their voluntary offseason program, which includes meetings with coaches for the first time since the staff turnover. It’s worth noting Hurts knew Nussmeier previously; the former University of Florida assistant coach recruited Hurts coming out of high school.
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Just how much Moore’s new system differs from what the Eagles ran previously with Nick Sirianni taking ownership of the offense is yet to be determined, but Hurts acknowledged “there’s a lot to learn” when asked about the transition to Moore’s terminology and system.
“I know they’re finalizing some of the things, in terms of crossing their T’s and dotting their I’s,” Hurts said, “but I’m just all ears.”
“I’m just in sponge mode,” he added. “I’m letting them do what it is they’re going to do and then kind of adjusting from there.”