Kliff Kingsbury Impressed with How Eagles Have Built Around Jalen Hurts
PHILADELPHIA - Arizona coach Kliff Kingsbury has a lot in common with his counterpart on Sunday, Eagles’ mentor Nick Sirianni.
Both Kingsbury, 43, and Sirianni, 41, are part of the new breed of NFL offensive coaches and they both have burgeoning stars at the quarterback position who started out as high-school standouts in Texas before becoming collegiate stars under Lincoln Riley at the University of Oklahoma but only after transferring in (Kyler Murray from Texas A&M) and Jalen Hurts from Alabama).
"I remember Riley hit me up about him,” Murray said of Hurts. “I never really had any experience with him, never met him, but when he got to campus, we ended up meeting, talking about the offense and all this stuff.
"He was just speaking about Riley and all the things that he was doing on the offense. He asked me a couple questions but no he never hit me up about the decision to go to OU. I think it was more of a low-key type of thing."
READ MORE: Countdown to Kickoff: Eagles at Cardinals - Sports Illustrated
Murray was a high-school star in the Dallas area while Hurts excelled in the Houston area, which is in South Texas.
“Since I was in high school, I always had a lot of respect for Kyler,” Hurts said. “Texas is a really big state, and it’s a football state. That’s what it is. I always remember him doing his thing in the DFW at Allen [High School].
"He won every game he played in in high school. That’s very impressive, and he was able to do great things at OU in his collegiate career, winning the Heisman, off to a great start in his career now, doing great things, so I have a lot of respect for him."
Kingsbury, meanwhile, got a bit of a head start on Sirianni as an NFL head coach, getting the Cardinals job in 2019, fresh off agreeing to become the new offensive coordinator at Southern Cal after a six-year stint as the head man at Texas Tech.
The goal was to couple Kingbury’s offensive approach to the No. 1 overall pick in the 2019 draft, Murray.
Things were clicking by the start of the 2021 season when Arizona was the 2022 Eagles, the last unbeaten team in the NFL.
A 7-0 start dissipated into an 11-6 finish and a one-and-done playoff rout at the hands of the eventual Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams.
Sirianni, of course, made an unlikely playoff run in his rookie season as a head coach with the Eagles finishing 9-8 with Hurts slowly developing as a first-time starter before their own playoff market correction in the form of Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Fast forward to Week 5 of the 2022 season and the Eagles (4-0) have taken off as a well-rounded team (No. 2 on offense and No. 3 on defense) with an MVP candidate in Hurts while the Cards (2-2) have struggled in the wake of injury, personnel losses, and a PED suspension to star receiver DeAndre Hopkins, all on the heels of giving Murray a five-year, $230.5 million contract extension.
READ MORE: A Closer Look at the Arizona Cardinals with 5 Questions and ...
Philadelphia will have to change some recent history to make sure its trajectory keeps pointing up and the Cardinals dip beneath .500, namely Kingsbury’s perfect 6-0 coaching record against NFC East teams and the fact that the Eagles have never won at State Farm Stadium (0-4).
“I hope that didn’t jinx us, but we haven’t won at home in a while so maybe that kind of cancels out,” Kingsbury joked when told about those numbers.
Kingsbury, though, is impressed with what Sirianni and offensive coordinator Shane Steichen have been able to do with Hurts, who is second in the NFL to Buffalo’s Josh Allen in total offense (1,325 yards) and has generated more explosive plays (35) than anyone else.
“It’s been tremendous," he said. "I think [Sirianni] and Shane Steichen building it around Jalen and bringing in great pieces obviously, but then the way they’ve adapted to his skill set and really maximized it.
"You have Shane Steichen who coached (Chargers QB Justin) Herbert when he had the monster year as rookie and then was with (Former QB) Phillip Rivers in completely different systems.
“To be able to come in, adapt to this, build, and continue to evolve with Jalen - it’s impressive to watch. The culture, you can tell those guys are having fun and they’re playing hard for him, so Nick’s done a great job there.”
-John McMullen contributes Eagles coverage for SI.com's Eagles Today and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Media. You can listen to John, alongside legendary sports-talk host Jody every morning from 8-10 on ‘Birds 365,” streaming live on YouTube. John is also the host of his own show "Extending the Play" on AM1490 in South Jersey. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen
