Nick Sirianni is in a tough spot. He needs his quarterback firmly on his side.

I don’t know the last time Jalen Hurts said something normal about Nick Sirianni, but it sure wasn’t yesterday.

I try to be careful about judging athletes on their public comments. Mostly because, well, they are athletes. They are trained to throw footballs and avoid tackles, not provide clear and intentional public messages.

It takes a considerable amount of skill to answer a question in a manner that successfully communicates the main idea that one wishes to convey. This is doubly true in a news conference setting, where one is essentially required to give a series of extemporaneous speeches to a crowd that has all the vibes of a disciplinary inquisition.

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So, any number of things could have been going through Hurts’ mind when, on Thursday afternoon, towards the end of his last media availability before training camp, a reporter essentially asked him to say something nice about his head coach, specifically Sirianni’s willingness to surrender control of the Eagles offense to first-year coordinator Kellen Moore.

The exact wording of the question:

What have you noticed about Nick being open-minded to change up the offense like he has? What does that say about him?

The exact wording of the answer:

“Um, I mean, that’s a great question,” Hurts said haltingly. “I don’t know that I know the answer to it.”

Undeterred, albeit slightly confused, the reporter followed up.

Well, what have you seen from him as far as doing that?

Hurts answered slowly, as if searching for the words to say.

“Um, I think he’s been great in the messages he’s delivering to the team,” the quarterback said. “Trying to be very intentional in what he’s saying. Yeah.”

And that was that.

My first reaction was to deduct a couple of wins from my season prediction and cash out my over bets.

The last official practice before training camp and your starting quarterback is still speaking in the lukewarmest of tones about his head coach? After five months of offseason and a week of minicamp and a series of dramatic changes to the coaching staff and scheme? After a tumultuous end to the 2023 season that included a critical ESPN report citing sources close to Hurts and Hurts’ own reluctance to publicly go to bat for his coach?

I have since reconsidered. I don’t know whether Hurts’ comments — or lack thereof — are a warning sign. I don’t know whether they even rise to the level of curiosity. What I do know is that they were a missed opportunity, one that Hurts would be wise to use to his team’s advantage next time.

Sirianni is a coach who desperately needs all of the political capital he can accrue between now and when the regular season begins in Brazil. The public perception is that he is currently living out a deleted scene from Office Space. The Eagles coaching staff consists of Kellen Moore, Vic Fangio, Jeff Stoutland, Michael Clay, and the guy on the megaphone who keeps popping his head into random meetings.

The perception is not a fair one, as I’ve argued before. But perceptions matter, especially to leaders who are fighting for buy-in from 53-plus players and a fleet of coaches and staffers, all of whom are as vulnerable to public opinion as any human being.

» READ MORE: Eagles add to Dom DiSandro’s job description with a ‘game-day coaching operations’ title

As good as an offseason as the Eagles have had — the hirings of Fangio and Moore, the drafting of Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean, the signings of Saquon Barkley and Bryce Huff, the forward-thinking contract extensions awarded A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith — there are two existential questions that have the potential to undermine the talent of this team:

1. Is Hurts the quarterback we all thought he was in 2023?

2. Does Sirianni have the full faith and credit of his bosses and team?

The first question matters above all. If Hurts plays like he did in the Super Bowl, the Eagles won’t need a head coach who can help them weather adversity, because there will not be any adversity. But take a look at the schedule and tell me if the following scenario feels realistic.

The Eagles come out of the bye week at 4-0 or 3-1 and get throttled by a fearsome Browns defense. After beating the Giants, Joe Burrow shreds them in Cincinnati to start a six-game stretch that includes the Jaguars at home and three road games against playoff teams.

Suppose they lose in Dallas in Week 10, in Los Angeles in Week 12, and in Baltimore in Week 13.

Suppose they are then 6-4 or 5-5 or 4-6?

Championship teams weather stretches like these all the time. Few of them have the mental residue the Eagles will carry. Three losses in four games. Four or five in six. At what point do the questions begin to arise? When they do, self-fulfilling prophecy becomes a very quick slide.

On any team with the Eagles’ aspirations, the one person who can eliminate those questions is a quarterback like the one Hurts believes himself to be. Philadelphia is a difficult place to control narratives, and it will be even moreso in the wake of last season’s collapse from 10-1 to 11-6. The quarterback has the capital and platform to fortify any weakness.

Sirianni can do only so much himself. His public comments have been convincing enough to believe that this thing can and will work, that he won’t suffer the fate of so many other head coaches whose organizations have forced them to enter a season in a limping waddle. All was well on Thursday when somebody asked him about maintaining a relationship with Hurts in less of a hands-on role.

“It’s got to be intentional,” Sirianni said. “If connecting is the first core value, I say — that one is a little more important than everything. It’s the same way you do it with everybody. You find the common ground that you have. Jalen and I both deeply want to win football games. We both deeply care about the culture of this football team.

“I can tell you those are a lot of the conversations that we have is about the culture, how we lead the culture because we know that the guys are looking to us to do so. We still have the same common bonds, even though I’m not in the quarterback room all the time. It’s just being intentional about it on both ends, and that’s how you do that.”

» READ MORE: Eagles practice observations: Kellen Moore in charge as Jalen Hurts adjusts to a new offense

Sirianni has always been intentional with his praise of Hurts, never more so than the summer before the Eagles’ Super Bowl season. At the time, there was plenty of reason to wonder about the organization’s commitment to Hurts. The offseason had been filled with rumors about Deshaun Watson and Russell Wilson. Hurts was coming off a poor performance in a playoff loss to the Bucs.

Every time he talked, Sirianni went out of his way to endorse his quarterback, to publicly proclaim his faith in Hurts’ ability.

Did it give Hurts some breathing room? I don’t know. He didn’t need it.

Sirianni? He needs all that he can get this time around.