Jalen Hurts’ Non-Answer On Eagles’ Nick Sirianni Reveals A Real One. It’s Not A Disconnect

PHILADELPHIA − There is always a purpose to everything Jalen Hurts does and says.

To the media, that means sharing as little as possible. That goes back to Hurts’ days at Alabama when head coach Nick Saban actually held classes on how to avoid saying anything of substance to the media.

So last week, for example, there was this exchange last week between Hurts and a reporter about the Eagles’ six-week break from the end of mandatory minicamp and the start of training camp in late July:

Hurts was asked if he had sets aside time to have fun during the break: “I do,” he replied.

The follow-up question was essentially, “such as?” Hurts replied: “Not football stuff.”

Saban would be so proud.

Sometimes, however, that can get Hurts into trouble, or make him seem like he doesn’t support someone or something. That happened later in the press conference when a reporter asked him a rather innocuous question about what his impressions of head coach Nick Sirianni’s willingness to cede control of the offense to new coordinator Kellen Moore.

It was an easy chance for Hurts to support his head coach with some platitude like “he’s doing a great job with it,” or “I’m impressed with how he’s handling everything,” or “he still has a major role in the offense.”

Instead, Hurts said this: “I mean, that’s a great question, I don’t know that I know the answer to 

The reporter followed up by asking Hurts what he’s seeing from Sirianni this spring. Again, any type of non-descript answer would have sufficed in showing Hurts’ support for Sirianni.

Instead, Hurts said this: “I think he’s just been great in the messages he’s delivering to the team. He’s trying to be very intentional with what he’s saying. Yeah.”

It’s not the first time this has happened, either.

Back in January, after the Eagles’ season ended with a 32-9 loss to Tampa Bay in the wild card round of the playoffs, completing a 1-6 collapse, there was speculation that Sirianni’s job was in question.

Naturally, Hurts was asked that very question.

“I didn’t know he was going anywhere,” Hurts replied.

Hurts was then told that there was speculation that Sirianni’s job was in jeopardy.

“I didn’t know that,” Hurts said.

Then Hurts was asked if he had confidence in Sirianni to fix the Eagles’ problems.

“I have a ton of confidence in everyone in this building,” he replied.

It took two more days, during Hurts’ end of season press conference, before Hurts sort of answered the question about whether he wants Sirianni to return.

“Owners own, coaches coach, and players play,” he said … “I had no idea (the speculation) was a thing, so I don’t see why that would be the case. We plan on fixing everything that we’ve done and growing together − Coach Sirianni, (offensive coordinator) Brian (Johnson), everyone.”

Well, not Johnson. He was fired.

So was defensive coordinator Sean Desai and his late-season replacement Matt Patricia. Sirianni then went outside his sphere of influence to hire Moore, whose offensive philosophy is vastly different from Sirianni’s.

This is where Hurts gave perhaps his most telling answer to date, one that would have Saban fuming.

“Right now, it’s been a lot of new inventory in, the majority of it, probably 95% of it, being new,” Hurts said.

That 95-to-5 ratio is essentially the equivalent of Sirianni keeping the famed “tush push,” with Moore scrapping just about everything else.

That was quite a departure from what Sirianni said at the NFL scouting combine at the end of February, when he described the new offense as “meshing what (Moore) has done really well together with the things

Yet based on what Hurts said, the only “meshing” going on is the clothing the coaches wear during games.

For Sirianni’s part, he said he relishes his new “CEO coach” role. Sirianni can spend more (as in greater than none) time in defensive meetings, and not as much time (as in less than every minute) with Hurts.

Sirianni called this “the 30,000-foot view.”

“I’m able to give little coaching points to a defensive back of something that I see,” Sirianni said. “Or to a running back who doesn’t have the ball in the correct arm, or anything that has to do with the detail or the overall thing of the play.

“To be able to do things and see it from a broad view, I love doing that … There’s nothing more I like than getting up in front of the team and being able to correct the tape at the end of the day − offense, defense and special teams.”

Does Hurts like the new offense? Does he like Moore’s philosophy?

It doesn’t matter. Hurts has a new offense to learn. And that, really, is nothing new for Hurts, who is on his fourth different coordinator in five seasons with the Eagles.

“I think the goal coming in was to learn Kellen’s offense and master it, and I think that’s been a process,” Hurts said. “And I think by the end of it, I want it to be mine and have it in my own way … And it being a thing (in the past) where I’ve kind of had to take all of these new things and new voices, and still go out there and be successful and efficient. I think that’s exactly what’s going to happen again.”

As far as Hurts is concerned, worrying about anything else is, as Saban used to say, “rat poison.”

Martin Frank 

MSN