‘Everything’s personal to him:’ Jalen Hurts’ return to Tampa evokes memories of 2021 turning point

Jalen Hurts doesn’t forget.

The Eagles quarterback has said it himself: Whether it’s past failure or the external skepticism that it invites, Hurts has a tendency to find meaning from adverse moments and motivation from the doubters who emerge.

The role those doubters play for him is complicated to read, made harder by his steely demeanor, but those who are close to him know better than to think he lets things go.

“He doesn’t want to show it,” Eagles left tackle Jordan Mailata said. “But you know that he takes that [stuff] personal and he wants to get better. He loves it. He loves the naysayers.”

Said Hurts midway through last season, “I carry my scars with me everywhere I go. I don’t forget. ... Everybody and their opinion don’t deposit at the bank.”

One of those things stored in Hurts’ memory bank going into Monday night’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Raymond James Stadium will be Hurts’ lackluster playoff debut there two seasons ago. Another will be the words said on the opposite sideline there during the blustery wild-card round loss that wasn’t as close as the 31-15 score would suggest. A few days after the game, an NFL Films clip showed Bucs cornerbacks coach Kevin Ross telling players that Hurts “can’t read” a defense.

When asked if that clip would be on his mind in the lead-up to the game, Hurts hinted it would give him some added motivation.

“I’m wired to give my best and play to my standard,” Hurts said. “But a little extra inspiration never hurts.”

In Ross’ defense, Hurts’ performance that day nearly two years ago didn’t provide much of a rebuttal. Facing the Tom Brady-led Bucs in his first season as a full-time starter and his first playoff game, Hurts looked disoriented against Todd Bowles’ defensive system and threw two interceptions while completing just 53% of his passes.

Hurts’ leap in just about every game since then is well-documented. He remained in place as the starter after some offseason uncertainty and took significant strides as a passer to become one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL and the MVP runner-up. He put up historic numbers in the Super Bowl and earned a $255 million contract extension in April that goes through the 2028 season.

That performance against the Bucs, and perhaps Ross’ comments that followed, helped fuel that leap.

“Everything’s personal to him,” Mailata said. “Especially those types of losses. The offense wasn’t really putting up as many points as we wanted to. He takes that personal and then next year he comes back and takes us to the Super Bowl. He doesn’t need to listen to the critics, he knows his weaknesses and he went on to improve them. He’s come such a long way in reading the defenses and making the right plays and putting people in the right areas.”

During last year’s postseason run, Eagles wide receiver DeVonta Smith revealed that Hurts called him a few weeks after the loss to the Bucs to tell him they could make it to the Super Bowl the following year.

When asked if the loss to the Bucs was a “turning point” for the team, Smith said the playoff berth in general helped them see the potential of the group.

“That season, we saw flashes and we knew what we could do,” Smith said. “It was one thing that we were missing. That year, we were good running the ball; we just needed to get our passing game going.”

Hurts and the Eagles offense are hoping this trip to Tampa can be a turning point as well. Through two games, Hurts looks somewhere between the overmatched quarterback who lost in Tampa two seasons ago and the unstoppable force who put up 374 yards of total offense in the Super Bowl in February. Hurts’ yards per attempt are down from 8 to 6.5 and his sack percentage has risen from 7.6% to 11.1% this season.

Defenses are playing Hurts differently. In the opener, the Patriots muddied up the picture in the middle of the field with zone coverages while matching the outside receivers with one-on-one matchups. The Vikings ran an unconventional front with light boxes and oscillated between all-out pressure and dropping eight defenders into coverage, trying to limit explosive plays with unpredictability.

Hurts made the Vikings pay with long completions to Smith, but his ability to sustain drives through the air has waned against the new looks. Hurts’ 33% success rate, which measures what percentage of passing plays keeps an offense on track to convert a first down on a given down, ranks last in the league.

Because of the short turnaround, the Eagles went through the corrections from the Patriots game more quickly than usual before starting preparation for the Vikings. The day before the Vikings game, Hurts told the coaching staff he felt as if he didn’t spend the necessary time learning from the Week 1 struggles and asked to go through it again.

“I’m definitely a sponge in soaking in everything that I see,” Hurts said. “So if you get me once, the plan is for you to not get me again.”

The challenge to right the ship against the Buccaneers will be a difficult one. Bowles comes from a different coaching tree than Bill Belichick and his former assistant Brian Flores, but the former Temple star and assistant coach has as good a history against Hurts as anyone. The Buccaneers have the third-highest blitz rate in the league this season and have talent on all three levels to run a wide variety of looks.

“I think their scheme and the way that Todd does things makes it incredibly difficult,” Eagles center Jason Kelce said. “They’re a multiple defense, they don’t just line up the same way. They’re going to throw you off, they’re going to build a lot of men on the line to take away double teams if they can, they blitz. He’ll do a lot of different things and he has the savviness to know when to implement all of it.

“I think at this point in the league, most defenses have these different things. It’s really having the savviness to know when to utilize it and the players that he has. That’s why it’s tough to play against really, really good coordinators.”

While the Eagles’ offensive ceiling will be defined by the passing game’s ability to fix things over the long run, Hurts insists he doesn’t care how things look if the results are there.

The Eagles rushed for 259 yards against the Vikings, in part thanks to D’Andre Swift’s dynamic running and in part thanks to new offensive coordinator Brian Johnson’s willingness to try inside zone runs until the Vikings responded with a different look.

» READ MORE: The Eagles didn’t sign Jalen Hurts to be a bystander. Nick Sirianni and Brian Johnson must get him going.

It would be reductive to suggest defenses are “taking away” the passing game and opening themselves up to the run — defenses always try to contain the best players on the opposing offenses with varying success — but Hurts is fine with leaning on the running game when it makes sense.

“It’s not about me, it’s about us,” Hurts said. “If they are doing something there for me, we’ve got 250 yards rushing to do that. There are multiple ways to win, and the thing that I want to make clear is: When did winning not become the main thing? I always say, ‘Keep the main thing the main thing’ where winning is the only thing that truly matters.

“Obviously you have important things, you have priorities, I think you have 1A and 1B, 1A is winning, 1B is playing the standard. Now, you can win and not play to the standard and you’re still unfulfilled, you can play to the standard and not win and you’re still unfulfilled, so what matters?”

By that logic, it’s safe to assume Hurts would feel vindication leaving Tampa with a win regardless of the stat line or what anyone on the other sideline thinks about it.

“I’ve never really reported to the themes of others, the expectations of others, or the standards of others,” he said. “I’m not about to start now.”

The Eagles visit the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday night. Join Eagles beat reporters Olivia Reiner and EJ Smith as they dissect the hottest story lines surrounding the team on Gameday Central, live from Tampa, Fla.