Eagles’ Sirianni talks Jalen Hurts’ perfect summer

Like most of his teammates, Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts had his struggles in 2023. After an MVP-caliber season in 2022, during which he put up big numbers and limited turnovers, Hurts was a turnover machine in 2023. 

He was one of the league leaders in turnovers with 20, including a career-high 15 interceptions.

Following the season, the Eagles changed offensive coordinators, firing Brian Johnson and bringing in Kellen Moore. This move seems to be paying dividends. To this point, Hurts, who has not played in the preseason, has not thrown an interception in practice.

On Saturday, Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni discussed Hurts’ “perfect summer.”

“Yeah, what I’ve seen is like that can go a couple different ways, right?” Sirianni said. “That can go where he’s not taking risks, but I don’t see it that way. I see him pushing the ball down the field and taking the plays that are there, and when the play he wants is not there, he’s checking it down. So, he’s playing really good football, and so, that’s a product of him. He’s taking what the defense is giving him. That’s good quarterback play, right? Good quarterback play, the quarterback play I get so excited about is, ‘Hey, we have this shot on or we have this intermediate chunk on and they didn’t give it to you and then we take a checkdown for 10 yards.’ That’s awesome football.

Last season, the Eagles lost the turnover battle as they were -11, which is one of the reasons they floundered in 2023. Sirianni explained how important it is to win the turnover battle.

“We put so much emphasis on winning the turnover battle,” he said. “I don’t know if you guys know, I went over this with the team the other day, but in the past three years – 2021, 2022, 2023 – when we’ve won the turnover battle, we’re 20-1. We were 6-1 in ’21; we were 10-0 in ’22; and I believe we were 4-0 last year, which that — ours are even higher than the league average as far as just the turnover battle, and so, we put so much emphasis on that, but you put so much emphasis on that without trying to — explosive plays are important as well. Jalen has just done a really nice job of delivering the football where it needs to go and making great decisions with the football.

“Man, I couldn’t be more happy with where he is right now, and look forward to him having another good day tomorrow.”

I’m not really sure how much Hurts’ perfection matters right now, but hey, it’s a good start, and hopefully, it will continue into the regular season.