It was last August 7 that Jalen Hurts took a seat at training camp in South Philadelphia before a sweaty media gathering and began the questioning himself – of the writers.
Hurts wanted to know the context of an ESPN report that day indicating his relationship with head coach Nick Sirianni might be breaking down. Calm as usual, Hurts asked who wrote it, then had a brief question for that writer. In his response, Hurts added, “Sometimes people don’t know what they don’t know. But in that regard, I think wherever you are, you have reports and you have other things, then you have reality. We’re in reality right now.”
That was more than five months ago, and actually, reality is right now. Reality in the form of Sirianni, Hurts and the Eagles heading for their second Super Bowl in three years.
No one is talking about a rift between head coach and starting quarterback any longer, probably because the Eagles have won 15 of their last 16 football games to get to this point. Buried by Tampa on Sept. 29, they fell to 2-2 entering the bye. After that, their only loss came in Washington, in a game in which Hurts left early with a concussion.
If anything, that only fired them up for an NFC Championship game against the upstart Commanders Sunday, with Hurts playing one of his best games of the season in a 55-23 victory at the loving Linc. Hugs and joy abounded on the sidelines and in the locker room, with Sirianni publicly praising Hurts from a makeshift stage set up for the network cameras after the game. It seemingly left that Aug. 7 piece of “reality” all but completely forgotten.
“There’s a lot that goes into what we do every day, and thank God for the opportunity,” Hurts sort of said in the glow of victory about his relationship with Sirianni Sunday. “Thank you for giving me focus, and resilience, steadfast within it all. I think it’s been a great group effort for us to be able to do what we’ve been able to do over the years, but in terms of a big reflection, I don’t know if the time is to do that right now.”
That would be because there’s one more game to play, and it’s against the same team that might have ignited the intrigue in this amazing stretch of Eagles history that has played out over the last 24 months.
In that article that Hurts blew off rather poetically in that birthday press conference, there was an unattributed quote saying that despite the Eagles getting off to a 10-1 start, there was still a sting from losing the previous Super Bowl to the Kansas City Chiefs that behind the scenes might have contributed to what happened after that 10-1 start.
That would be five losses in the final six regular season games, followed by a blowout wild card loss to those same Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Eagles appeared to be a team in disarray after that. In the offseason, both their offensive and defensive coordinators were replaced, and there was at least some speculation that the head coach might be changed, too.
Instead, Sirianni would stay but with a tweak to his job – new OC Kellen Moore would call the plays, as he did in Dallas and with the Chargers before then. It would take a while for both Moore and new DC Vic Fangio to get their sides untracked, but after that shuffling four-game start and yet another slap in the face by the Bucs, something began to click with the Eagles.
Yes, they entered a stretch of games against some NFL lesser light teams. That helped. But so did Moore and Fangio, and so did Sirianni, who embraced his head coaching role change and focused on doing what he does best – communicating with players.
That includes the outwardly quiet quarterback.
“The guy has been clutch, he’s won a ton of football games,” Sirianni said of Hurts, who completed 20 of 28 pass attempts for 246 yards and a touchdown, and ran 10 times for 16 yards … including three plunges into the end zone.
“(You hear), ‘But you ran for this many yards.’ We don’t care how we win. We don’t care,” Sirianni added. “If we rush for 300 and pass for one and we win, great. If we rush for one and pass for 300, great. Who cares? We’ve just continued to win. He’s just continued to win. I think the criticism (of Hurts) is … yeah, whatever. He just wins. I said what I said after the game and that’s kind of how I feel. … We’ve been through a lot together, right? A lot of wins, some down times. That’s what kind of forges relationships.”
Yes, winning does that. Considering the way things went a year ago, that Eagles loss in Tampa in Week 4 could have turned things the other way again. Instead, in games he finished the rest of the way, Hurts hasn’t lost since. Nor has he lost a fiber of his dry sense of humor, which he seemed to aim at the same head coach that had gone to great lengths to praise him just minutes before during post-game interviews on Sunday.
Asked then what it was like working with Sirianni, Hurts said, “He’s done a great job. He’s done a great job. I guess he let me out of my straight jacket a little bit today.”
Well, that might make for another big story. Save it for another day.
Before then, those oh, so elusive Chiefs are back, and once again, back on the biggest stage. There probably would be no better chance for both Sirianni and Hurts to erase the memory of the bad times and instead make history together. It might even keep the straight-jacket off for a little longer.
“It’s a journey, and there’s no point where you will arrive in that journey,” Hurts philosophized. “I think for us and how we attack people, it’s just a matter of being on the same page with that. And going out there and playing clean football.”
Source: Berkshire mont
Be First to Comment