Wink Wink: Giants pawn screwed Jalen Hurts and Eagles postseason on accident

On top of his elite level of physical and mental tools, Jalen Hurts is resourceful. Things went historically and horribly wrong for the Philadelphia Eagles in the back stretch of the 2023 season, so Jalen did something kind of wild: he called a rival team’s defensive coordinator for insight. 

On Wednesday, August 7, Jalen said that he called Don “Wink” Martindale, the former defensive coordinator of the New York Giants to "see what he saw in us."

The call clearly didn't help the Eagles, but instead, it might've actually hurt them.

Jalen Hurts called Wink Martindale for outside help before the playoffs

Timing is key here. The Giants’ season ended after the Week 18 game on Sunday, January 7, 2024. Wink and the Giants “mutually agreed to part ways” on Wednesday, January 10th, 2024. 

There’s been a little bit of controversy over the mutuality of the agreement there. Martindale was a little bit peeved that the Giants got rid of a few of the coaches on his staff, so even though it was technically mutual, it’d be reasonable to think he was pretty unhappy with the franchise.

It's not like Jalen called a happily employed DC, but he called a guy who might be a disgruntled ex-employee.

That means Jalen reached out to Wink somewhere between Wednesday the 10th and Monday the 15th, the day of their Wild Card game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. 

On a surface level, this is a pretty good idea: call the person who just whomped you the previous week. The Giants won that Week 18 game 27-10 and it wasn’t a situation where the Eagles played their backups the whole game (they did play their backups, but it was because the starters were getting humiliated). 

If you reach out to an untapped resource, you might be able to learn something before a do-or-die playoff game. What’s the worst that can happen? You’re already in the climax of a brutal teamwide collapse, are you going to collapse even more? That’s not possible. 

So hats off to Jalen for getting some information from an outside resource. Wink told him that he noticed the Eagles didn’t commit to running the ball and they called too many early down passes. It’s not the most useful information since that’s what everyone saw, but still, it’s good the Hurts did something proactive.

The problem is when you delve deeper. The fact that Jalen felt he had to do this means he wasn’t getting help in-house. 

Jalen Hurts didn't trust the Eagles' staff to solve their problems

One huge story this offseason (and it’ll definitely be a story during the season) is the potentially fractured relationship between Hurts and his head coach, Nick Sirianni. This adds some fuel to the thought that their relationship is/was fractured.

A huge issue with the Eagles offense last year was dealing with the blitz. Wink Martindale calls blitzes at a truly unheard-of rate. A blitz directly affects a quarterback’s ability to perform, and more importantly, stay healthy.

If Jalen is reaching out to the guy who blitzed him effectively, that means he’s unhappy, or at best, uncomfortable, with his team’s protection plans. When that’s the situation a reasonable person to blame is the head coach.

This is especially true in this circumstance because Sirianni was overwhelmingly vehement that the Eagles' offense was his baby. When a child acts up, you have to blame the parent. If it’s true that Jalen isn’t (or wasn’t) Sirianni’s biggest fan, it’s incredibly understandable. 

Maybe this affected the Eagles playoff game or maybe it didn’t. The team’s performance down the stretch was disgraceful, disappointing, and downright detestable. Maybe a conversation with another team’s coach was never going to be effective, especially if that conversation happened less than a week before the next game. 

Or maybe this was a curse. Maybe Jalen had his phone call and brought that information to Sirianni where it was met with either a sense of betrayal or apathy. 

Whatever the case, the Eagles got absolutely boat-raced by the Buccaneers in the playoffs; it was a mercy killing of the Eagles' 2023 season. 

The one thing we know is that Hurts never could have come to his own defensive coordinator for help, because that would mean he assumed Matt Patricia had any sense of what was happening on any football field anywhere. That’s certainly not true.