How much of the Eagles' offense is a Jalen Hurts problem?

There’s no single problem with the Philadelphia Eagles’ offense. Is Kevin Patullo calling bad plays? Definitely. Is Kevin Patullo calling predictable plays? It sure seems like it. Is Kevin Patullo bad at sequencing plays? You betcha. Are the Eagles’ route combinations the defaults from Madden 2004’s create-a-play mode? Yes. 

But also, is the offensive line not playing like demi-gods we’re used to? Definitely. Have injuries played a part in that? It sure seems like it. Should the best wide receiver on the team be giving his full effort even though he’s rightfully mad? You betcha. Is the quarterback not playing his best and having his own problems? Yes.

The question is: How much falls on Jalen Hurts’ shoulders? Short answer: It’s hard to say. 

The long answer for what's ailing the Eagles

This whole thing is convoluted. This isn’t a situation like in San Francisco, where if the offensive scheme is bad (which will probably never happen), you can just say, ‘That’s Kyle Shanahan’s fault.’

With the Eagles, Kevin Patullo is the offensive coordinator, but it’s roughly the same offense that we’ve seen over the past two or three years. He’s also Nick Sirianni’s guy, so it’s probably safe to say that this is definitely not purely a Patullo offense… but he is the one calling plays. 

On top of that, last week, Hurts was asked about why the offense keeps feeling like it needs to get on the same page, even though most of them have been together for so long. He said, “It’s like having all the same ingredients, but having a different chef in the kitchen… You can have the same ingredients, and somebody can make the same dish, and it tastes different…”

The change (the new chef) is Kevin Patullo… probably, right? There haven’t been any other massive changes. 90% of the offensive personnel are the same, Jeff Stoutland is still the run game coordinator, and Nick Sirianni is still the CEO head coach.

Now, there has been a quote that’s been falsely attributed to Jalen Hurts, where he supposedly said, ‘The offense is going to look how Jalen Hurts wants it to look.’ Some people take that and assume that it means this is Jalen Hurts’ offense. 

The real quote is from a mid-week media availability from  December 11, 2024… the week after the Panthers’ game and a couple of days after Brandon Graham said that Hurts and A.J. Brown had a falling out. 

Hurts was asked, “You’ve had other difficult patches in your career. I’m not saying this is because obviously you guys are winning, but you did mention a couple of things about how the offense has changed and how it affects you. How have you found it best for you to get out of that and get back to playing the way you play when you’re at your best?”

The changes that the question is referring to are about the offense moving to the mega-run-heavy style they switched to after the 2024 Week 5 bye.

He answered, “I’ve submitted myself to whatever it takes to win, and so, you look at the course of the years and we’ve had different conversations for who the most valuable player is, and the recognition, and whatever. It’s all about the team at the end of the day, but you see different areas shining in different years. It’s about the team. I don’t care how it looks, it’s kind of my game, and I think that’s something that people have to accept. You know, it’s going to look how Jalen Hurts wants it to look, but he’s going to win.” (8:29 in the video below)

Hurts answers the question perfectly. He says that he knows the best way for that 2024 team to win was to run the ball, and he’s totally fine with that because he doesn’t care about MVPs or that kind of thing. When he says, “It’s going to look how Jalen Hurts wants it to look,” he’s not talking about the offense. He’s talking about his playstyle and how it meshes with the offense.

Now, after this quote, he would go on to win a Super Bowl and be the Super Bowl MVP… So it would make sense if Howie Roseman, Nick Sirianni, and Kevin Patullo gave him some ownership in the offensive scheme. 

However, based on what Hurts said about the whole chef thing, it certainly sounds like he’s not the one regularly calling plays. Then you take into account what we’ve seen and heard... 

This is all speculation: The offense has been bad, which means the good things that happen are mostly out of the ordinary. Look at the reactions of the players when something good happens.

It sure would be cool if a play that got Saquon Barkley the ball in open space was something Kevin Patullo could do, and not something the quarterback and the running back had to draw up in the dirt.

Jalen Hurts doesn’t emotionally respond like that. Again, pure speculation, but that looks like a dude getting past the frustration of the calls from the first 30 minutes of the Rams game.

Keep in mind, this is his reaction to throwing “The Dagger,” which sealed a Super Bowl win.

The bottom line is that there is real evidence and assumed evidence that Jalen Hurts is not on the hook for the scheme of the offense; that’s a Kevin Patullo problem.

As far as actually playing football goes? Yeah. Jalen Hurts needs to be better. 

The glaring issue is that he’s missing on deep shots, which has been his calling card in the past. In the past two weeks, the Eagles haven’t been able to connect on two deep shots; one to A.J. Brown (that he didn’t really help on), and one to DeVonte Smith. 

One could argue that missing Smith on a surefire touchdown pass where he has seven yards of separation is an example of not being clutch… I would argue that they’re just non-characteristic misses, but when he’s only getting a few opportunities to make those plays, he has to make those plays. 

There’s also been some issues with him having trouble reading the defense, both pre-snap and post-snap. When he has trouble pre-snap, those problems show with him calling the wrong protection. That’s not a good thing, but even if he calls the wrong protection, he knows what the protection is, which means if there is pressure, he knows where it’s coming from. It’s a problem, but it’s not the absolute worst problem.

When he has trouble reading post-snap, it’s more of a processing thing, and it looks like him not hitting guys at the top of his drop. I’ve said it before: the Eagles' offensive scheme is bad, but there are open receivers, albeit just for a second. If Hurts can play in perfect (or near-perfect) rhythm and throw the ball at the top of his drop, he’ll be able to hit those guys.

In addition to that, you can look at his Week 6 interception (Read: Only interception he’s thrown this season), he had A.J. Brown open in the end zone. Now, we don’t know what his progression was on this play or what he’s supposed to read, but Brown is wide open for a touchdown on that play.

There have been a few other examples of Hurts not looking at/throwing to open guys this season, and that is definitely a problem. If he’s being coached to do the right thing and he’s doing the wrong thing, then that is absolutely a problem… But we don’t know what we don’t know, and we don’t know what the coaching points are. 

The bottom line is that yes, Jalen Hurts is part of the Eagles' offensive problem, and that’s because he plays the most important position in professional sports. Every quarterback has their struggles, and it just so happens that Hurts is having some trouble while the structure of his offense is failing him and the team…

But there’s more than enough reason to believe that the structure of the offense isn’t something that he made himself. Above all else, he wants to win football games, and he has to know that this structure is not going to make that easy or sustainable.

It’s easy to blame the new offensive coordinator for a Super Bowl-caliber offense having huge problems, but that’s just the reality of the situation. The fact of the matter is that there are five or six bigger problems with the Eagles’ offense before you can blame Jalen Hurts for what’s happening.

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