McMullen: Are Eagles Making It Easier On Defenses By Playing Copycat (And Harder For Jalen Hurts)

PHILADELPHIA — Welcome to the NFL's “disrespect season,” that dead period between minicamps and training camp where “content creators” drop declarative statements based on limited information.

It’s the kind cheap engagement that reliably triggers fans when their favorite gets ranked “too low” on the next list.

All lists aren’t created equal, of course, and there are valuable efforts each year from reporters with real access.

Mike Sando’s quarterback tiers at The Athletic and Jeremy Fowler’s positional rankings at ESPN stand out because they’re built on direct feedback from executives, coaches, and scouts across the league.

In Philadelphia, those lists are always nuclear. Jalen Hurts has kept winning, yet the league’s respect for the QB1 never seems to quite match the resume. In 2024, Hurts posted a subpar passing season by traditional metrics — then went out and delivered a Super Bowl LIX MVP performance during a championship run.

The football world responded with… Tier 2.

Sando’s poll slotted Hurts 10th overall; Fowler and his sources had the Eagles’ QB1 at No. 9.

In Philly, that was treated as heresy, and trust me, it’s only going to get worse this year after another subpar passing season by the veteran signal-caller.

Early in the 2025 season, while the Eagles were still dismissing opponents with regularity, a team executive and I had a back-and-forth on why Hurts was “undervalued.”

My thesis: most organizations simply don’t think about the quarterback position the same way. They value conventional dropback passers and weren't interested in replicating Philadelphia’s unique, run-heavy, option-infused system.

“Your offense is very unique,” I said, “and most teams don’t want to play that style. It takes years of commitment and the kind of discipline and patience that’s in short supply around the league.”

The exec, who was not from the football side of the organization, shot back: “Maybe they should.”

What Happened?

Jun 10, 2026; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts (1) passes the ball during minicamp at Jefferson Health Training Complex. M | Bill Streicher-Imagn Images

Turns out the Eagles’ own coaching staff disagrees with that.

After engineering the most successful stretch in modern franchise history with their distinctive scheme, it has decided the rest of the NFL has caught up. So instead of doubling down on what made them different and chasing better execution, the Eagles are pivoting to a more conventional Shanahan/McVay-style offense.

It’s an astonishingly ordinary move for an organization that prides itself as forward-thinking and ahead of the curve.

By chasing the copycat trend, the Eagles aren’t just behind that curve — they’re so far back they can’t even see the pace car.

As SI’s Conor Orr put it perfectly: “If your strategy is to simply copy off the smartest kids in class, you’re in for a rude awakening in 2026.”

Right now, half the league will try to run last year’s version of what Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay were doing, likely chasing 13-personnel packages or other bigger formations and outside zone concepts that will no longer be catching defenses off guard.

The real innovators are already moving on to the next thing.

The irony is obvious.

On defense, the Eagles employ Vic Fangio — the godfather of modern NFL defensive thought — whose concepts get copied league-wide as everyone else plays catch-up. Yet on offense, the Eagles have now voluntarily enrolled themselves in the remedial class while betting on a trickle-down effect in a system that doesn’t suit their quarterback on paper.

After years of blazing their own trail, the Eagles have chosen to become just another team running the same scheme as everyone else.

The question shouldn’t be whether it will work. It’s whether it will make life dramatically easier for the defenses they’re about to face.

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