Churn Has Gotten Comfortable For Eagles' Jalen Hurts

It’s daunting. 

If you rewind to the beginning of Jalen Hurts’ college career, the star quarterback has had 12 different play-callers over nine seasons, including three in-season changes at Alabama and one with the Eagles when Nick Sirianni handed the baton to Shane Steichen in 2021.

Kevin Patullo will be lucky No. 13 for Hurts through his time with the Crimson Tide, Oklahoma, and the Eagles. 

The only constant throughout Hurts' career has been success, something that seems to have tipped the scales for Hurts when discussing the latest changes.

“I'm better at it,” the Super Bowl LIX MVP said when asked about his own handling of these kins of transitions. “It's been every year so I think it's just been a progression over time in a way of evolution. You bank information.”

Sustained success almost guarantees change in the NFL, and at high-level college programs like Alabama and Oklahoma, something GM Howie Roseman noted is part of the business last year.

The expectations are often so great that if an organization reaches them, attrition comes from outside entities trying to break off a piece of the success by hiring coaches, and if a team with a lofty reputation underachieves, mentors are often the scapegoats.

Continuity is always better, but often unrealistic at the coordinator level, something Hurts seems to have embraced after previously longing for more consistency, perhaps a nod to winning the Super Bowl with a new OC (Kellen Moore) and quarterbacks coach (Doug Nussmeier) last season.

After the Super Bowl LIX win, Moore got the head-coaching job in New Orleans after, and took his long-time consigliere with him as the OC with the Saints.

The shift this year for the Eagles is Patullo as the OC after being elevated from passing game coordinator and associate head coach, and former Bowling Green head coach Scot Loeffler as the new QB coach.

And now, it’s just business as usual for Hurts with little angst over the musical chairs around him.

“You take in stuff and you're really just learning from your mistakes,” the QB1 said. “You're leaning from your successes as well. You're learning from all your experiences, so there really isn't anything I can't lean on that I've experienced one way or another when it comes to change or a system or approach. 

“And I think Kevin has a unique way of looking at that so I'm excited to see what we can do."