‘Brains and preparation’: How Kellen Moore’s teaching talent can galvanize Jalen Hurts and the Eagles

When Dan Orlovsky signed with the Detroit Lions in 2014 as their backup quarterback for a second go-around, he needed no introduction to his new teammate Kellen Moore. He already knew the lore of the 2012 undrafted free agent out of Boise State whose collegiate success transcended his 6-foot, 197-pound frame.

Size be damned, Moore led the Broncos to a 50-3 record over four seasons as the winningest quarterback in college football history. The native of Prosser, Wash., collected 142 career touchdown passes and 14,667 passing yards, good for second and fifth places in the NCAA record books.

“He’s just very unassuming and not even a remotely physically intimidating human,” Orlovsky said. “And you’re like, ‘You were the greatest passer in the history of college football?’”

For what Moore lacked in stature, he possessed in smarts. According to former Lions offensive coordinator Scott Linehan, Moore spent time in film study catching details that the typical player wouldn’t see, particularly pre-snap hints by defensive personnel that would expose the coverage. Linehan could try to teach that sense of recognition to others, but he said that for Moore, it was just instinctive.

During training camp in 2015, the quarterbacks gathered in the meeting room every day and watched tape from around the league and the college game. Orlovsky recalled that Moore would talk through potential tweaks to the formations and personnel of each play, looking for “maniacal ways to go after defenses.”

“That was certainly one of those moments when you’re like, ‘Yeah, you’re going to coach and you’ll be really good at it at some point,’” Orlovsky said.

Less than 10 years since that summer in Detroit, Moore has parlayed his football IQ into three offensive coordinator jobs, first with the Dallas Cowboys, then with the Los Angeles Chargers, and now with the Eagles. Moore, 38, joins a team in search of an infusion of creativity after a late-season collapse in 2023. In January, Nick Sirianni conceded that the offense had grown “a little bit stale” by the end of the season.

Now, Moore is tasked with pioneering the refresh. The experiences he has accumulated throughout his playing and coaching careers have prepared him for his latest undertaking, according to former colleagues and teammates.

“He has a very unflappable personality,” Linehan said. “There’s not a lot of BS that goes along with Kellen. He’s all business and spends a lot of time in his preparation for the game. That’s a big reason why you can’t really measure a person’s ability just in their tangible qualities — their height, weight, and arm strength, all that stuff.

“Kellen, he made up for what he didn’t have with brains and his preparation. That’s really why he’s been so successful at such a young age as a coach.”

Jason Garrett saw a little bit of his younger self in a 29-year-old Moore, who was on the cusp of a career pivot in 2018.

Like Moore, the longtime Cowboys head coach was a coach’s son. Moore and Garrett had successful collegiate careers before entering the NFL as undrafted free-agent quarterbacks. At the end of his 12 NFL seasons, Garrett made an “unorthodox” transition from quarterback to quarterbacks coach with the Miami Dolphins in 2004.

Moore sought to take that same jump with the Cowboys upon his retirement after three seasons in a depth role. With the perspective of experience, Garrett said he knew that the rapid transition from NFL player to NFL coach could present challenges.

“When you’re a backup quarterback, you sit in meetings and you have a lot of ideas,” Garrett said. “You’ve seen different offenses. You say, ‘Hey, why don’t we try this? Why don’t we try that? What do you think about this?’

“When you flip it around, and now you’re in front of the meeting and you have the chalk in your hand and you’re running the [meeting], it’s a different dynamic than sitting in the back and being an idea guy.”

But Moore quickly showed Garrett that he had a knack for coming up with wrinkles that were complementary to their version of the Air Coryell scheme while presenting those ideas “in a way where you trusted him.”

Garrett valued his voice and his perspective so much that the following season, he turned to Moore as his offensive coordinator, a post he held for four seasons.

Moore’s talent as a teacher has made an impression on the Eagles players, too. Left tackle Jordan Mailata said his new offensive coordinator would “make a great head coach one day,” likening his teaching ability to that of Jeff Stoutland, the Eagles offensive line coach for the last 12 years.

Britain Covey has had plenty of smart coaches over the years, but there’s a difference between being smart and being able to “teach smart,” he said. With training camp and the preseason in the books, the third-year Eagles receiver has concluded that Moore can do the latter, too.

Moore excels at keeping the elements of the offense “simple without being simplistic,” Covey explained. In the big picture, the plays are still intricate, but Moore boils the read progression down to something of a hypothesis. If the defense is showing a particular coverage or pressure look, then the offense narrows in on its precise answer and eliminates other options.

“It’s like letting [quarterback] Jalen [Hurts] have an easy pattern of thought, easier reads, still complicated plays and stuff, but you simplify the read progression,” Covey said. “If they do this thing, you cancel out every other thought, because you know exactly what we’re going to do.

“Even as a receiver, you have a read progression. ‘OK, if I see this guy here, I know exactly what they’re doing. If he’s not, then this.’”

Moore has labeled each play with the read progression. This helps the receivers with their timing and allows them to understand where the ball is likely going depending on the coverage.

By doing this, Covey said Moore is putting an emphasis on ensuring that the quarterback and the receivers are on the same page, more so than they have been in the past. His ability to break it all down in an easy-to-digest manner is the key, according to Covey.

“I think that’s why Jalen is going to be great in this offense,” Covey said. “I think that’s why the whole offense will be on the same page. It might take a little bit of time, as it always does. But teaching it is a skill, and I think he has that.”

While the Eagles showed vanilla snippets of the new offense throughout the preseason, the exact vision and how it will look with the starters executing it remain a mystery until the season gets underway.

Still, since his first public remarks as Eagles offensive coordinator, Moore has emphasized that he has picked up various influences as a play-caller from coaches he encountered along his journey, from high school to college to the NFL.

“You take different examples from each and every one of those guys,” Moore said. “You continue to evolve as a coach just like our systems continue to evolve.”

For example, his long-standing penchant for pre-snap motion originates from his time growing up around the game with his dad, Tom, at Prosser High School and at Boise State, where head coach Chris Petersen used it. Motion was a prominent feature of his Cowboys and Chargers schemes, and Covey said its incorporation into the Eagles schemes is the biggest departure from last season’s offense.

Pre-snap motion serves two purposes — information and intent, according to Orlovsky. From an intent standpoint, it can create leverage advantages for receivers. It also can provide the quarterback clues of the coverage that the defense is in or who is blitzing.

The Eagles have made it clear that Hurts will be picking up more of the blitz identification in the wake of center Jason Kelce’s retirement. Darius Slay, the veteran cornerback who was Moore’s teammate in Detroit, has already noticed growth in that area from Hurts in camp.

“Now, they trust Hurts to make plays on his own without just using his feet,” Slay said. “Using his mind and beating the defense himself. That’s why I see an improvement in Hurts, is the fact that Kellen’s got him picking up blitzes real nice.”

Regardless of what worked for the Cowboys or Chargers offenses, Garrett said Moore excels at understanding his personnel and tailoring the scheme to those players, particularly to the strengths of the quarterback. Moore has acknowledged, for example, that Hurts’ talent in the quarterback run game is “a really advantageous thing” that the team will utilize.

Those instincts and ideas that once served Moore as a backup quarterback now influence his approach as an offensive coordinator, molding the 2024 Eagles offense to his influences while highlighting the strengths of the personnel. While Moore’s teams have changed over the years, Garrett pointed out a few characteristics that remain the same about his former offensive coordinator.

“He loves the game,” Garrett said. “He wants to help players. He wants to put players in a situation where they can be their best. It’s not really about him or his ego or anything like that.

“He wants to bring out the best in guys, and he’s done that up to his point in his career, and I’m excited to see him do it in Philly.”