Jalen Hurts hits all the right notes in his do-over comments on Eagles coach Nick Sirianni

Were you one of those people who spent the last couple of months insisting that Jalen Hurts’ minicamp comments about his head coach were no big deal?

Well, now you have a chance to hear what “no big deal” actually sounds like.

On Wednesday, in his first media availability since that now-infamous June news conference, Hurts sat behind a microphone and delivered 10 minutes of the purest, least adulterated, most textbook banality you’ve ever heard from an NFL quarterback. I mean that sincerely. It was brilliant. Vintage Hurts. The cliches. The earnestness. The vaguely understandable aphorisms.

Talent will take you very far, but it don’t last.

If I made it happen, I can make it happen.

Some people don’t know what they don’t know. And I’m OK with that.

» READ MORE: Eagles practice observations: Jalen Hurts a plus-one factor in run game; Cam Jurgens in space; conditioning at the forefront

He’s back rambling, baby!

Hurts talked about hunger. He talked about juices flowing and journeys being taken. He did not talk about the main thing being the main thing, but that’s OK. You can’t play all the greatest hits.

The important thing is that Hurts’ brooding, experimental phase appears to be over. History’s box offices are littered with the ashes of artists who tried to be too clever. Hurts needed to learn that lesson after his performance in June.

I’ve said from the beginning that it would be unfair to read too deeply into his vague, halting response to a question that essentially asked him to say some nice things about his head coach. In any relationship, there is a wide range of potential realities that exists between perpetual bliss and irreparable structural fracture. Any one of them could explain why, in a brief moment in time, Person A was not in the mood to speak glowingly about Person B. Think about all of the people you love. Then think about all of the instances — phases, even — when you would have been ill-served by a mic in your face.

Is it possible Hurts harbored some bitterness over the Eagles’ decision to fire close friend Brian Johnson as offensive coordinator? Was that a betrayal of loyalty, a violation of the all-for-one, one-for-all, take-responsibility ethos that Sirianni preaches? Did Hurts hold Sirianni at fault for the dysfunction that derailed their season? Was he tired of the sideline antics, the amateur rah-rah, the rock-paper-scissors? Had he entered the offseason hoping for a head coach who would act more like the adult in the room?

Sure. It’s possible. It’s also possible that Sirianni cut Hurts in the lunch line and took the last Buffalo chicken cheesesteak. Maybe, on the way out of the cafeteria, he looked Hurts in the face and yelled, “See yaaaaaaa!”

» READ MORE: Nick Sirianni is in a tough spot. He needs his quarterback firmly on his side.

Even if any or all of these things are true, only Sirianni and Hurts can know whether they’ve caused irreparable harm to the relationship. Therein lies the significance of Hurts’ latest press conference.

The most important thing he said, he said at the beginning.

“I truly trust Mr. [Jeffrey] Lurie, I trust Howie [Roseman], I trust Coach Sirianni to lead us in [the] right direction,” the quarterback said.

» READ MORE: Jalen Hurts: Nick Sirianni, Eagles QB are ‘in a great place’ after not always being on the same page last year

Trust is a heavy word. By invoking it three times, Hurts displayed some impressive maturity. Trust is the bond that holds an NFL locker room together. It is the bond that holds the whole organization together. Like all bonds, one small crack can make the whole thing fail. A rotten tree starts with a broken branch. You can find plenty of instances throughout sports history of star players who did not see eye-to-eye with their coach or manager. The most important relationships in an NFL locker room are those between the starting quarterback and his offensive teammates. Behind that is the relationship between the quarterback and his play-caller. But there needs to be some basic level of trust and acceptance between the quarterback and the head coach.

The us-against-the-world mentality that permeates an NFL organization only works if the Us remains intact. The head coach creates the Us. He nurtures it, maintains it, polices it. Doing so requires the consent of the governed. If the starting quarterback sets the tone in the locker room, then, yeah, you better believe there is consequence in the tone he uses when talking about the head coach.

That was always the issue with Hurts’ comments in June. His tone. It was a point often missed during the six weeks of debate that raged between the end of minicamp and the first day of training camp. The big question wasn’t whether there was friction between Hurts and Sirianni. The big question was why Hurts was allowing it to be asked.

It is not a high bar. Which is why it was so notable that Hurts failed to clear it. He prides himself on his polish and premeditation. He acknowledged this explicitly on Wednesday.

“You only see what I allow you to see,” he said.

This time around, he allowed us to see a quarterback who clearly understood the importance of setting the correct tone. He didn’t need to extoll Sirianni’s brilliance or label him his ride-or-die coach. It’s entirely possible to convey a sense of normalcy while also withholding your endorsement for the Presidential Medal of Freedom. You can say the right things without saying much of anything at all.

“I think we’re in a great place,” Hurts said of his relationship with Sirianni. “I think any time you have any frustration, any time you have any adversity you have to overcome, it’s supposed to test you,” Hurts said. “I think it’s a matter of being on the same page. If you’re on the same page, we maybe would have accomplished the things we would have. We didn’t, but that’s a learning experience.

“I think it’s as simple as if I made it happen, I can make it happen. This team has made it happen before. There’s no doubt that we can make it happen again, but it takes what it takes. It takes being together.”

See. That wasn’t so hard, was it?