The biggest storyline for the Philadelphia Eagles this season has been, and will continue to be, the maturation process of Jalen Hurts.
Six games into the season, the jury is still out on Hurts and his ability to become a franchise quarterback. One thing that’s been working against him tremendously is the offensive play calling.
Nick Sirianni just doesn’t seem to have a grasp on what his quarterback is good at. Hurts has accounted for 85% of the team’s offense this year when you combine his passing and rushing. Hurts has play making ability, but by no means is he electric enough to carry the load of an offense like this.
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Even Lamar Jackson, the best duel threat signal caller in the game, accounts for 81% of his team’s offense output, four percentage points less than Hurts.
With a more balanced attack, Hurts would more than likely have a higher success rate. Nevertheless, his numbers through six weeks aren’t terrible.
His accuracy numbers are up across the board this season compared to 2020. His bad throw percentage has dropped from 26.7% to 13.3%. His on target percentage has increased from 60.7% to 76.4%. And his completion percentage has jumped up from 52% to 62.5%.
But it obviously hasn’t been all sunshines and rainbows for Hurts this season. His arm strength has come into question throughout the year and for good reason. His deep ball just doesn’t look natural. He appears to putting his whole body into some of these throws, and his accuracy suffers because of it.
Hurts has also made a handful of bone headed mistakes throughout the year. He routinely holds onto the ball too long, and he insists on throwing the ball into coverage when a throwaway would’ve been the right decision.
Truthfully, assessing Hurts this season has been more difficult than expected. He has plays where you sit back and marvel at the ability, he also has moments where he looks overmatched. And of course, the offense he’s operating doesn’t favor his skill set.
Until his play caller is more consistent, making a determination on Hurts is difficult. There’s still some growth Hurts can showcase the rest of the year even without a good head coach, most notably the decision making. The arm strength and accuracy stuff is impossible to fix in-season.
We as Eagles fans just have to hope Sirianni attempts to curate the offense to what Hurts does best. Until that happens, we’ll never find out what the ceiling for Hurts truly is.