Eagles' Jalen Hurts was never meant to be a routine quarterback

Every NFL quarterback is expected to make the routine throw. The Philadelphia Eagles star, Jalen Hurts, is no exception. We all know the rules. Take the open receiver. Stay on schedule. Execute the play as it’s designed.

That’s part of the job description. What separates the league’s best quarterbacks, however, is everything that happens after the routine part of the play is over. That’s where Jalen Hurts has built his reputation, and it’s why a recent Pro Football Focus study offers an interesting conversation rather than a troubling conclusion.
built their offense around Hurts’ unique skill set, and that shouldn’t change

PFF recently analyzed what it calls “zero-graded” throws. These are passes that neither help nor hurt a quarterback’s overall grade because they’re considered ‘routine’ plays. The study measured how efficiently quarterbacks executed those expected throws within the structure of an offense.

Hurts finished near the bottom of the rankings. Viewed without context, that might raise eyebrows. Viewed through the lens of how Philadelphia and Hurts operate offensively, it’s much easier to understand the grade and reasoning.

The Eagles have never asked Hurts to simply be another quarterback who distributes the football exactly as it’s drawn on the whiteboard. They expect him to execute the offense, but they also trust him to recognize when a play requires something more. That’s where Hurts has consistently separated himself.

Whether extending a play with his legs, escaping pressure, buying extra time for his receivers or forcing defenses to account for him as a runner, Hurts has repeatedly turned ordinary situations into explosive opportunities. Those who know him, guys like Darius Slay, for example, believe he’ll thrive under Sean Mannion’s coaching.

Knowing that, we know pressure-filled moments don’t always fit neatly into a study built around routine execution, but they’ve become one of the defining characteristics of his game. That doesn’t make PFF’s metric wrong. It simply measures one piece of quarterback play rather than the entire picture. The Eagles understand that better than anyone because they’ve intentionally built an offense around a quarterback capable of adding another dimension after the initial design begins to break down.

Routine football will always be part of playing quarterback in the NFL. Hurts knows that as well as anyone, but Philadelphia isn’t chasing routine from its franchise quarterback. The Eagles are chasing victories, and they’ve learned that many of their biggest plays arrive when Hurts combines sound decision-making with the instincts and playmaking ability that have never allowed him to be defined by the ordinary.