Philadelphia Eagles: Jalen Hurts proves patience pays off

Patience: the ability to endure difficult circumstances.

In this age of ultra-speedy hot takes and what-have-you-done-for-me-latelys, patience has rapidly dissolved from the sports media lexicon, with some jumping from doom to gloom to boom within a single week, game, or quarter.

But patience goes both ways. Sure, it’s fun to watch Stephen A. Smith and company duke it out over whether Odell Beckham Jr. is a bad dude or a wash, depending on how he performs in his debut with the Los Angeles Rams – so far, he has two catches for 18 yards on three targets – with teams increasingly firing head coaches after only one season and the New York Jets sort of turning on Zach Wilson after only six games in favor of a mid-season quarterback competition.

Would the Philadelphia Eagles allow Jalen Hurts to finish out the year at quarterback? Would Nick Sirianni survive to coach another season? And what about Jonathan Gannon? Even if Sirianni is back, he surely needs to be paired up with a better defensive coordinator, right? One who doesn’t allow opposing quarterbacks to set records on a weekly basis?

Well, as the season has progressed and everyone has become more comfortable with one another, with Hurts going so far as to lobby owner Jeffery Lurie for a unique uniform combination, the Philadelphia Eagles have started to put it all together and, in a fortunate turn of events, Nick Sirianni’s garden is starting to bloom; all it took was a little, in the worlds of Axel Rose, patience.

The game is slowing down for Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles.

When young quarterbacks make the leap from the NCAA to the NFL, the majority who are thrust into action early in their careers comment on the speed of the game.

The players are faster, the plays come in quick, and before you even have a chance to dissect the pre-snap defense and try to audible into the best look, there are literally seconds left on the play clock.

For some, this can be overwhelming and ultimately prove an insurmountable challenge, but when the games start to slow down for a young quarterback, that’s when they can really play offense instead of reacting to what the defense gives them.

Earlier this season, Jalen Hurts looked like the game was going a thousand miles a minute. He’d get the ball, usually via a shotgun snap from Jason Kelce, quickly examine the field, and then take off running if his primary target wasn’t open. Hurts played scared. He didn’t want to throw interceptions, genuinely looked like he wanted to stay in the pocket and deliver a perfect pass, but too often, he would feel a rush coming – real or not so much – and take off running to try to make something out of nothing. This led to throws that weren’t on time, deep balls that either sailed or were well underthrown, and more than a few good plays left on the table for one reason or another.

But over the past three Philadelphia Eagles games, Hurts has looked far more composed than in contests past.

Versus Denver specifically, Hurts stood firm in the pocket and delivered some very nice balls, even as the Broncos’ Von Miller-less rush collapsed around him. Sure, Nick Sirianni took some of the pressure off of Hurts with his play-calling, as a steady dose of run plays and some crafty use of play-action kept the rush’s light on a blinking yellow instead of green, but there were more than a few throws that the former OklaBama quarterback just wouldn’t have attempted even a month prior, as he’d have already been out of the pocket and on his way to a short-yardage gain.

Hurts has accepted that sometimes, you need to let a play play out and that with patience and trust in both his head coach and his teammates, good things can happen.

Speaking of his head coach, Sirianni, too, deserves a ton of credit for basically throwing away his preseason playbook and building a new offense built around a steady dose of running the ball, some play-action, and a few deep throws when the box gets loaded. He’s put the breaks on throwing the ball 50 times a game, accepted that clock management is a vital part of winning a game, and turned the Eagles’ offense into one of the better units in the NFL over the past three weeks.

Don’t believe me? Look at the stats; it’s actually true.

Had the Eagles opted to give Gardner Minshew an extended look after the Bucs game or have Shane Steichen start calling plays, we may have never seen Hurts’ improvements as a passer or Sirianni adjust his gameplan to better fit his personnel. We may not have seen the big blowout win over the Lions, a tight contest versus the Chargers, or even the commanding win over the Denver Broncos, all of which happened without Miles Sanders, no less.

The Philadelphia Eagles are a young team where it counts. They have a 23-year-old starting quarterback, a rookie head coach, and one of the youngest coaching staffs in the NFL, even with Jeff Stoutland bringing up the mean by a few years. While it would have been incredible to see the team fly out of the gates and win the division like Washington in 2020, that was a very different situation. No, as it turns out, the Eagles needed roughly half a season to figure out who they are and how they can consistently put in competitive efforts week-in and week-out. Their collective patience has paid off, and they’re starting to see the game slow down as a result.