Stability Key To Jalen Hurts' Success - Offensive Coordinators Aside

Much is made about offensive coordinators that walk in and out of Jalen Hurts’ career almost most every year. What isn’t talked about enough is the stability that surrounds him elsewhere.

When Hurts arrived in 2020 as the 53rd overall pick, his offensive line was ready-made, with tackles Lane Johnson and Jordan Mailata in place, and future Pro Football Hall of Famer Jason Kelce was his center. Dallas Goedert was entrenched as the tight end.

A pair of former teammates at Alabama would join Hurts a year later when DeVonta Smith and Landon Dickerson were the Eagles’ first two picks, making the upcoming season five years they will have played together.

A.J. Brown came two years after Hurts, so this will be season number four that the QB and receiver have been together.

Sure, the running back has been a cast of a few, but Saquon Barkley is here long-term, or as Hurts referred to him earlier in the week - 2-6.

Then there is Nick Sirianni. The head coach has given his QB the stability needed to allow Hurts to grow and flourish. Have there been bumps in the road? Yes, but they smoothed them over, and together they have been to the playoffs in all four of their seasons, won a Super Bowl, gone to another, and recorded 48 wins, with six more in the playoffs.

“Everything that he’s been able to accomplish and achieve, he’s earned,” said Hurts. “Just to see his evolution and his growth from my perspective of playing quarterback for him, his whole entire tenure here, it’s been a great experience, it’s been a great ride. There has been a lot of learning for the both of us. And hopefully, we’re just getting started.”

Sirianni and Hurts are probably about halfway through a relationship that should carry through the end of the decade, at least, with Hurts signed through 2028. The length of Sirianni’s recent contract extension isn’t known, nor is the money that he will make on his new deal.

It’s the kind of stability between coach and quarterback the franchise hasn’t had since the days of Andy Reid and Donovan McNabb, who won 99 games with Reid, who won 130 overall in 14 years with the Eagles. The pair never won the big one, though.

Hurts came onto the scene when Doug Pederson was still the Eagles' coach and Carson Wentz was the starting quarterback. Both were gone before Hurts’ second season, which has been the final change to two of the more important positions in the organization.

Trevor Lawrence hasn’t had a stable situation in Jacksonville. He is already on this third head coach, cycling through the disaster that was Urban Meyer, Pederson, and now Liam Coen. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why the Clemson product hasn’t fulfilled the potential expected of him when he was taken first overall in 2021.

The quarterbacks drafted in the same draft class as Hurts, first rounders Joe Burrow (first overall), Tua Tagovailoa, and Justin Herbert, are also on their second head coaches and have experienced regular-season success similar to Hurts, though they don’t have the same postseason resume as the Eagles quarterback.

Even as Hurts continues to adapt each year to new OC’s, the stability around him has mattered a lot.