How Jalen Hurts’ deeper understanding of the Eagles offense has earned him trust

Shane Steichen often can find himself at the mercy of Jalen Hurts’ preparation.

In the seconds leading into each play, when the Eagles offensive coordinator can no longer communicate through the headset and the defense starts hinting at what’s to come, he’s hoping his quarterback is finding the answers on his own.

Luckily for Steichen, Hurts’ process has been quite good during the Eagles’ 3-0 start to the season.

Two of Hurts’ touchdown passes in the team’s 24-8 win over Washington on Sunday required pre-snap checks at the line of scrimmage; one was a play call for DeVonta Smith summoned by Hurts with time expiring in the first half, and the other was a route adjustment to free up A.J. Brown for a score.

When Hurts started gesturing to his teammates pre-snap at FedEx Field, Steichen said the energy from the coaching staff was palpable.

“You get fired up when you see it,” he said. “When you know what he is checking to, and it’s the preparation part of it and it’s within the scheme of what he’s doing, it’s fun to see. When I saw him give the check, I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, perfect.’ Everyone knew it. It was like, this is perfect, it’s going to score. It was a hell of a job by him.”

Hurts, 24, has shown significant progress as a passer this season. He was named NFC offensive player of the month on Thursday and leads the league with 9.4 yards per attempt. He’s second in the NFL in total offense behind only Josh Allen and is completing 67.3% of his passes, which is an impressive 3.7% higher than the expectation according to Next Gen Stats.

Now in his second year running coach Nick Sirianni’s offense, Hurts has a noticeably deeper understanding of the Eagles scheme and how to exploit different defensive looks. That has resulted in the coaching staff giving him more options at the line of scrimmage.

“They give Jalen a lot of trust,” backup quarterback Gardner Minshew said. “As they should. He makes great decisions putting us in the right play. I think within the framework of the offense, it gives you a lot of options.”

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It’s not unusual for coaches to give quarterbacks two plays in the huddle and allow them to “kill” to the second one depending on the defensive alignment. It can be a way to make sure a run play isn’t called into a crowded box or to capitalize on an advantageous look.

Tight end Dallas Goedert said Hurts is getting more of those two-play options this season as his command of the offense grows.

“It has definitely evolved,” Goedert said. “Partially on what the play calls are and partially just because the development that he’s made as a quarterback. Because we’re gaining more and more trust with him, we tend to send two plays to the line more often.”

Hurts’ command of the offense has extended to protection adjustments as well. Center Jason Kelce said he has progressively ceded responsibility for pre-snap protection adjustments to Hurts over each of the last two years and noted his comfort level in the offense extends past blitz pickups.

Hurts spent most of training camp helping rookie center Cam Jurgens get up to speed on setting the front while Kelce recovered from elbow surgery.

“As he’s getting older and understanding things more, he’s making more and more decisions,” Kelce said. “He’s getting more and more leeway with things from the coaches and all that.

“Not even just blitzes. He’s just making quicker decisions, he’s more confident in where he wants to go with the ball. He’s absolutely seeing things better and more accelerated.”

Hurts went into this season with a chance to cement himself as the Eagles’ long-term starter. He played well enough last season to earn another year at the helm, but needed to show improvement going into next offseason, when he’ll be eligible for a contract extension. The Eagles explored other quarterback options last summer and have two first-round picks in next year’s draft, leaving them flexible to make a move if needed.

» READ MORE: A Jalen Hurts contract extension from the Eagles is more a question of when than if after his big leap

So far, Hurts has given the Eagles reason to use those assets to build around him rather than replace him. He has been one of the most productive quarterbacks in the league and has shown marked improvements in the two areas Sirianni values most: accuracy and decision-making.

“He’s identifying what’s coming; he’s knowing where to go with the football,” Sirianni said. “His accuracy has been really outstanding. I think his numbers speak for itself, where we are at this point in the season. He’s been on it. It’s that development that you always want out of every quarterback. To see it faster, to get the ball to the guys that the ball is supposed to go to in the coverage they’re playing, and that it’s an accurate ball. He’s continued to improve on those things.”

The numbers support the eye test: Hurts is getting the ball out quicker this season. His average time to throw is 2.84 seconds, which is longer than average but still a significant improvement from last season, when he averaged a league-leading 3.12 seconds. Hurts’ running ability and the Eagles’ penchant to hunt explosive plays will inflate his time to throw slightly.

The strides Hurts has made as a passer this year offer a stark contrast to the performance he finished last season with. His first year as a full-time starter ended with an ugly playoff loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in which he completed just 53% of his passes and threw two interceptions. During the game, the NFL Network telecast caught a Bucs assistant coach telling players that Hurts “can’t read” the defense and would be prone to turn the ball over.

There will be further tests against more creative defensive coaches, but Hurts was successful against a man coverage-heavy Detroit defense that blitzed often and a two-high-safety Minnesota scheme that tried to limit explosive plays.

Hurts expected to benefit from having two years under the same play-caller and in the same offensive system for the first time since he was in high school, and it seems to have paid off early this year.

“I think it comes with time,” Hurts said. “I’ve been preaching the importance of everybody being on the same page, everybody having an understanding of what I’m thinking and me having an understanding of what the coaches are thinking, and able to operate in an efficient manner. I think that definitely is something that comes with time and we’ve been able to do it successfully sometimes this year.”

The time to throw, the accuracy, and the command at the line of scrimmage aside, Steichen said the most impressive thing he has seen from Hurts is the way he has handled himself this year.

The offensive coordinator said Hurts stopped by his office in the days leading up to the Washington game around 8 p.m. Steichen asked him if he was headed home to get some rest, but the former Alabama and Oklahoma star told him he was headed to the team’s weight room instead to ride the stationary bicycle.

A few days later, Steichen said Hurts was one of the last players at the facility, lifting weights after Friday’s practice when most guys were long gone.

“He’s relentless in everything he does,” Steichen said. “And it’s showing up. When you work like that, good things are going to happen.

“His DNA and how he goes about his business, it’s so impressive. It’s second to none. It really is. If he continues on this trend, it’s going to be special.”

Inquirer Eagles beat reporters EJ Smith and Josh Tolentino preview the team’s Week 4 game against the Jacksonville Jaguars and Doug Pederson. Watch at Inquirer.com/EaglesGameday