Philadelphia Eagles: Imagining the perfect offense for Jalen Hurts

This is all conjecture, Philadelphia Eagles fans.

A lot has been written as of late about Carson Wentz‘s relationship to the Philadelphia Eagles‘ offense, and believe you me, very little of it is very good.

With anonymous sources, as passed on by Joe Santoliquito to Bradon Lee Gowton via Bleeding Green Nation, claiming everything from Wentz routinely audibling out of called plays in order to run his own offense, Peyton Manning-style – a claim largely confirmed by watching the game film back – to Doug Pederson and the coaching staff growing tired of their decisions being disregarded by said fifth-year quarterback, it’s hard to find much hope in regards to one of the league’s biggest underachievers through the first two games of the season.

But I’m not going to go there.

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No, instead of wasting my and your valuable time fretting about the (allegedly) increasingly unhappy Wentz-Pederson marriage, Zach Ertz contract situation, and whether or not the Birds will be picking number one in the 2021 NFL Draft, I’d like to instead query into something rather exciting that may or may not come to fruition at some point down the line: What would a Jalen Hurts offense look like?

Now before you hit the comments section guns-a-blazing over the very idea of inserting Hurts into the Eagles offense I want to preface that this is a thought experiment. My opinions on who the Eagles should start, how each player should be utilized, and whether the two can co-exist are irrelevant to this conversation, instead, I’d like to think big picture, outside of the realm of salary cap constraints, inner-locker room politics, and the massive ego required to be a starting quarterback in the NFL.

Cool? Cool.

Anyway, whether at Alabama or Oklahoma, Hurts has made a name for himself as a leader of men willing to run pretty much any offensive scheme he’s been tasked with leading. Initially at Alabama, Nick Saban utilized a collection of easy reads for Hurts to cycle through before taking off running for a first down. As Hurts became more comfortable in the pocket, gradually his responsibilities grew as well, but the former four-star recruit was still at his best when he could rip off a highlight reel run utilizing his 4.59 speed and running back agility.

Sure, Hurts was eventually unseated by eventual fifth overall pick Tua Tagovailoa, the consummate pro still found ways to impact the offense – picking up 183 all-purpose yards as a rusher and receiver for the Crimson Tide in 2018.

2019, by contrast, was a completely different beast for the two-time national champion.

Tasked with running the air raid offense that made Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray household names – and consecutive first overall picks in the NFL draft – Hurts threw for 3,851 on 340 attempts – amassing an impressive 32-8 touchdown-to-interception ratio while picking up an additional 1,298 on the ground as Oklahoma’s leading rusher.

All in all, Hurts accounted for 68 percent of the Sooners’ offense 2019 but that was far from the most exciting aspect of his senior season.

Despite being labeled a system, dual-threat quarterback by many detractors, Hurts actually looked leaps and bounds better than the fresh-faced freshman quarterback who quite literally ran the show for Alabama in 2016. His down-field vision was much improved, his yards-per-attempt average peaked at 11.3, and most importantly of all, the ball started flying out of his hands.

Granted, it’s not like Hurts had a collection of scrubs to throw to but he went from a borderline NFL player to a legit quarterback destined to test his mettle at the game’s highest level.

But how, you may ask, could a team like the Philadelphia Eagles with a generally highly regarded play-designer like Doug Pederson build a system to optimize Jalen Hurts’ scheme talents and minimize his weaknesses?

I’m glad you asked.

Well, from the top, it’s not all that difficult to imagine such a system because it would presumably look a lot like the one utilized by Pederson when Wentz went down in 2017 to cater to the talents of eventual Super Bowl MVP Nick Foles. An ideal scheme for Hurts would feature a lot of quick, timing-based passes that can evolve down the field from one play to another. While Hurts is still somewhat of a work in progress as a defensive dissector, Pederson could easily craft reads with designated zone and man beaters built right in, with the option to run the ball if nothing is there.

To piggyback off that idea, any 2020 offense with a mobile quarterback has to run at least a little read-option, either in the traditional sense popularized by Chip Kelly, or the evolved RPO looks Pederson helped to popularize in 2017 and 2018. Pairing Hurts up with running backs like Miles Sanders and Boston Scott could make his elusiveness all the more unguardable and open up more one-on-one looks down the field.

Frankly, it’s a shame we didn’t get to see how Hurts looked during the preseason throwing to everyone from Jalen Reagor to John Hightower, Quez Watkins, and even Deontay Burnett, and I imagine Pederson would have presented a few subtle allusions to what a system featuring the former OklaBama quarterback would look like.

Much like Murray in Arizona, Hurts has the athleticism to make would-be tacklers miss in the open field, but to truly optimize his set of skills, the Eagles would be wise to utilize their new and improved ‘track team’ collection of wideouts to spread the field with four or even five-receiver looks. Such position groupings would virtually guarantee a lighter box and give Hurts the wiggle room to extend plays behind the line of scrimmage while looking for an open man downfield.

Russell Wilson has made an art out of this ‘run-to-pass’ philosophy and the last time I checked, he’s the odds-on favorite to win League MVP in 2020.

While Wentz has made waves both good and bad for his eagerness to read a defense pre-snap and switch plays to an audible of his choosing, Hurts reads more like the kind of quarterback who’d take what he’s given and make the most out of what he’s given, even if that means picking up two yards on a swing pass to running back if all of his receivers are covered.

Would swapping out a gunslinger for a glorified point guard-style distributor make the current Eagles’ offense better? Again, not the point of this article; nice try, my friend.

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Whether you like Jalen Hurts, hate Jalen Hurts, think the Philadelphia Eagles should have used their second-round pick on someone else, or believe he should be starting in Week 3 is on you. I’m not going to judge – at least not in such a public forum – and I can see compelling arguments for either side. With that in mind, the idea of watching Hurts run the ‘Nick Foles offense’ with a few more designed runs and a heavier reliance on the Air Raid, multi-receiver looks the likes of which made Lincoln Riley a collegiate hero is downright exciting. Want to know what I find even more exciting? The idea of fielding an offense where a quarterback, his head coach, and its remaining cogs run in perfect harmony, as opposed to fighting against each other, is titillating considering our current situation.

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