Behind the Scenes Of The Eagles' Soap Opera: Offensive Goals Are More Modest Than Advertised

Jalen Hurts has now officially lapped A.J. Brown in the latest chapter of the Eagles’ ongoing soap opera — and it’s understandable. The simmering questions about the QB1’s impact on Philadelphia’s stagnant passing game have finally boiled over.

For the sensitive Eagles fans in the public square, this is where you might want to put on the earmuffs.

Yes, Hurts really liked “four verts” in the season’s biggest moment. (Hot take: it’s not nearly as uncommon as you’ve been led to believe, and if executed properly, it might have even worked.) He also favors hitch routes and remains less comfortable under center, turning his back to the defense, or operating with extensive pre-snap motion.

Virtually the entire narrative surrounding Philadelphia’s offense — from Hurts to Nick Sirianni, and the coaching shift from Kevin Patullo to Sean Mannion — has centered on the passing game.

Ironically, multiple team sources tell Eagles On SI that the answers Sirianni has been seeking are more about the ground game.

“I would say it's more about the run game concepts,” one team source told Eagles On SI when asked about the move toward a Kyle Shanahan-style offense. “He likes the answers those kinds of offenses provide when things get muddy. The marrying of the run with the pass concepts follows that.”

Sirianni expressed a similar sentiment when speaking with beat reporters before the scouting combine.

“With the way the NFL is now, without getting too schematic, you see a lot of teams where they’re reading pure progressions and handling all the junk that’s being thrown at you by the defense [in the passing game],” the coach said. “Well, this version of the run game is kind of in that mix as well. It’s the run game version of it — where there’s a lot of run game junk being thrown at you, and this handles all of it.”

Run Game Junk

Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni played catch with his receivers as they warmed up for practice two days before the season opener. | Ed Kracz/Eagles on SI

The Eagles saw far too much of that run-game junk after Saquon Barkley’s historic 2024-25 season.

Barkley finished with 41 negative runs last season, second-most among all NFL running backs behind only Las Vegas rookie Ashton Jeanty (45), according to SumerSports. Breece Hall of the Jets ranked third with 33.

Way too many first-and-10s became second- and often third-and-longs, putting an already limited passing game in untenable situations, a common theme of Patullo and Sirianni when discussing the offensive struggles last season.

The goal moving forward is to get Hurts and the passing game — whatever it looks like schematically or from a personnel standpoint (A.J. Brown or not) — into far more manageable situations.

Sirianni offered another Easter egg when discussing what Mannion’s offense will look like.

“What I love about it is the way it meshes up and marries to the play-action world,” the coach said.

The objective here isn’t to turn Philadelphia into a reboot of “The Greatest Show on Turf.” It’s far more modest: run the ball effectively on first down, and let the rest fall into place.