Eagles QB Jalen Hurts Unaltered by New Deal: 'Money's Not Changing Him'
PHILADELPHIA – Nothing changes in the handling of Jalen Hurts. And Philadelphia Eagles general manager Howie Roseman and head coach Nick Sirianni don’t expect anything to change with their franchise quarterback, either, now that he has lined his pockets with a four-year contract that can be worth $255 million.
“When Jalen was on a rookie contract, I wasn't sitting here saying we’re going to be reckless and do whatever we want with him,” said Sirianni during a Thursday afternoon news conference at the team facility.
“We were very careful. He got injured, he’s gotten injured, but we didn’t pay him more to do less. I’ll say that.”
The implication is that Hurts will continue to run when he’s supposed and scramble out of the pocket when he must.
It won't matter that the quarterback has missed games the last two seasons with injuries and the Eagles went 1-3 in those games with Gardner Minshew as the backup.
Marcus Mariota is the new backup and, if history holds, he will be needed.
“Will we still think about how to protect (Hurts)? Yeah, because that’s our job to protect our quarterback, but Jalen does a lot of things really well and we want to utilize his skills that he has so he can continue to play at a high level,” said Sirianni. “We’ll continue to go about our business the same way we went about our business (but) we’ll always think about protecting him first.”
Hurts has yet to address his new contract, but he will probably do so in the days leading up to the NFL Draft, after the Eagles open their offseason workout and conditioning program on April 24.
Maybe by then, he will tool into the parking lot driving a new Lamborghini or some other exotic type of automobile.
Roseman doesn’t think so.
“The one thing you know about Jalen is that the money’s not going to change him,” said the GM. “The money’s not going to affect him. My first conversation with him after he signed that contract, he was just telling me how determined he was, and I know how hard he’s working in the offseason.
“I know how much football matters, I know how much improving in football matters to him, I know how much he wants to be coached, I know how important it is to try to deliver a championship to this city. Obviously, all of us were disappointed we fell short this year.
“I don’t have any doubt in my mind that giving Jalen this contract will not change the person that Jalen is.”
Roseman and Sirianni then made jokes about getting a new automobile that went like this:
Sirianni: “We’ve been with the guy for three years, and you go by his daily habits and everything like that. You know the guy.
Roseman (laughing): "He’ll come in in a Ferrari convertible on Monday. He’ll drive in."
Sirianni: “He should.”
Roseman: “Jalen, if you’re listening to this, rent (the Ferrari).”
Kidding aside, Roseman was able to get Hurts’ deal done with salary cap hits that will continue to give the Eagles flexibility to build other parts of the roster.
The cap hits, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter should look like this:
This season: $6.15 million
2024: $13.56M
2025: $21.77M
2026: $31.77M
After that, maybe even before 2026, a restructuring will likely take place.
“By doing it at the time we did, and by being able to work together to do things that were important to them and important to us, and for us it’s about flexibility around him,” said Roseman.
“This is the ultimate team game and he needs to have talented people around him, and Jalen recognized that, Nicole (Lynn, Hurts’ agent) recognized that, so to be able to do this in a way that gives us an opportunity to get good players.”
Ed Kracz covers the Philadelphia Eagles for SI's EaglesToday.
Please follow him and our Eagles coverage on Twitter at @kracze.
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