Consider the following list:
2016: Lane Kiffin
2017: Brian Daboll
2018: Mike Locksley
2019: Lincoln Riley
2020: Doug Pederson, Press Taylor
2021: Nick Sirianni, Shane Steichen, Brian Johnson
2022: Sirianni, Steichen, Johnson
2023: Sirianni, Johnson
No, that’s not a ranking of football offensive innovators, although it could be. No, it’s not a list of top candidates to run either major college football programs or NFL teams, although it could be that, too. From the above list, only Taylor and Johnson have not been a head coach—and both should be soon.
The list, instead, features the primary play-caller in each of Jalen Hurts’s four college years and the start of his NFL career. It’s not a coincidence that his largest statistical jumps came in 2019, under Riley at Oklahoma, running a high-flying offense, and last season, when Hurts played for the same play-caller for the first time since high school, where he called the man who held the laminated play-call sheet Dad.
Of all the deeply mined reasons for Hurts’s sudden (but not to him) and higher than expected (but not to him) NFL rise, this concept is perhaps the most significant. And yet, it’s also often the most overlooked aspect of his turn toward dominance last season. Yes, Hurts throws passes to A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith, two of the best receivers in pro football, plus an elite tight end in Dallas Goedert, behind one of the most stout offensive lines in the NFL while surrounded by role players who share the same trait—speed. But to dismiss or ignore the role that continuity played in his improvement is the same as ignoring reality.
Last season, Hurts improved his completion percentage from 61.3% to 66.5% (despite ranking among league leaders in deep passes and accuracy on them), threw for 557 more yards than in 2021 (despite missing two games at the Eagles’ offensive peak due to injury) and tossed as many touchdowns (22) as in his first two seasons combined. That doesn’t happen just by adding Brown in a draft-day trade.
Mark J. Rebilas/USA TODAY Sports
In an interview in Philadelphia earlier this spring, Hurts described continuity in coaching as “maybe the most important” element of his 2022 success. He pointed to the same trio of coaches that arrived in ’21 and stayed for last season—Sirianni (head coach), Steichen (offensive coordinator) and Johnson (quarterbacks coach). And, while Steichen left to become the Colts’ coach this offseason, the other two remain. The offense, Hurts said back in May, “will definitely be different, will have Brian’s imprint on it,” meaning Johnson, who was elevated to OC. But the presence of Sirianni and Johnson, who has longer and deeper ties to Hurts than might be obvious, means continuity still reigns.
Which means (sorry, NFL defenses) that if Hurts simply continues on the same upward trajectory, he'll be better, and an offense as dangerous as any in pro football should continue to put up video game statistics, leading to video game scores. The Eagles’ quarterback, who finished second last season in MVP voting, will not cop to projecting. He’s not dreaming of how the Eagles will get back to the Super Bowl—and, this time, win—beyond the day ahead. He’s not wondering whether a particularly torrid stretch last season—40 points against the Packers, 35 against the Titans, 48 against Daboll and the Giants—is sustainable for four months. He simply unleashes that Hurts-ian half-smirk, near-smile, then adds, “We’ll see.”
Continuity beats the alternative, regardless. Hurts thrived in college—at Alabama and Oklahoma—despite the perpetual coach swaps, The Benching and his transfer. Heck, he’s a major reason why coaches like Kiffin, Daboll, Locksley and even Riley left those jobs for even more prolific ones.
Before his second NFL season, it was more of the same. The Eagles ushered Pederson out and brought in one of the league’s young, innovative, beautiful-offensive-mind types in Sirianni, the Colts’ coordinator. Yet another coach. Would it ever end?
Hurts didn’t ask himself such questions, their nature antithetical to his bearing. Instead, he focused on speeding up his processing speed. At 6'1", he wasn’t short but also wasn’t tall like Justin Herbert, Josh Allen or Joe Burrow, all of whom are at least 6'4". The faster he recognized coverages, the easier it would be to manipulate defenders. Potential fell somewhere in the neighborhood of a Drew Brees, or, better yet, a Steve Young, who could run, throw and manipulate through both. Game reps helped, but Hurts also intensified his studies, focusing on recognition and reaction, hoping that, by improving both, he would find more consistency. He did that while learning (yet another) new offense.
He also speed-dated yet another coach. He met with Sirianni all the time, at all hours, whether at team headquarters or nearby restaurants. Hurts came to know Sirianni’s wife and three children. And, over time, coach and quarterback discovered they saw football through the same lens, as sons of coaches obsessed with daily improvement.
A familiar face from the Hurts family football tree also helped. Sirianni brought Brian Johnson with him to Philly in 2021, then made Johnson the quarterback developer. Funny enough, Averion Sr. (the MVP runner-up’s dad) had coached Johnson at Baytown Lee High. After Johnson graduated, the elder Hurts welcomed him back for summer workouts, hoping his presence would lift everyone else in attendance. Johnson would star at Utah, setting a record for most wins (26) in program history and gracing the cover of EA’s NCAA Football in ’10.
Senior even played high school football against Johnson’s father. Johnson first met Hurts when Jalen was only 4. Coach Brian, Jalen called him, and long before they landed in the same place.
Johnson, now 36, did become a coach. He tried to land Hurts while an assistant at Mississippi State, the season after Dak Prescott graduated. Instead, they reunited in Philly, which meant Hurts learned from three of the NFL’s brightest young offensive minds. Coach Brian, still, as Senior sees it, can speak honestly to his middle child, because he knows Jalen, understands the Hurts’s roots and possesses a comfort level with a quarterback who can be reserved and slow to trust.
As all three relationships grew, Hurts began joining the Tuesday and Friday morning game-plan meetings for Eagles offensive coaches. Midway through 2021, he started suggesting plays for certain situations, many of which, Sirianni says, were used. Hurts declines to cite an example but will discuss how this fits into his evolution. He didn’t want to overstep initially. But as he played more—and played better, upping his completion percentage, passing yards and every advanced statistic imaginable—his comfort level heightened. With that, he expanded his role, and not just with coaches but within a locker room filled with mostly older players.
Same as his rookie season, Hurts improved precisely in the areas he targeted. He did process faster. He was more consistent. His impact did widen. He attributes all gains to an authenticity, the who in Hurts that cannot be faked, let alone changed. “I don’t like disingenuous stuff,” he says. “I want to be organic, with everything.” What strikes you as disingenuous? “I don’t want to be a hypocrite.”
The Eagles stood at 6–7 late into the 2021 season. Hurts led them to a trio of victories and into the playoffs. But his completion percentage ranked 26th among 29 qualifying quarterbacks. His touchdown total ranked 23rd, his passer rating 22nd. Yes, he became the first player in NFL history to eclipse 4,000 passing yards and 1,000 rushing yards in his first 20 starts. But beyond his track record, and beyond what his improvement projected, there was little to indicate the season yet to come.
What outsiders didn’t know mattered, says Averion Hurts Jr., Jalen’s older brother. “It’s not that Brian took Jalen under his wing [in high school],” Junior says. “But Jalen respected him, looked up to him.” Which meant he listened to him, learned from him. Hence why Jalen, at 4 (!), called Johnson what he was not yet—coach.
Those who best understand the dynamic between NFL quarterbacks and those who develop them, those who call plays for them, those who put them in situations that birth success, they believe. That continuity will lead to further improvement. Johnson, Sirianni and Hurts have a lot more they will show. Donovan McNabb, speaking before Super Bowl LVII, said that when he studied the Eagles, he saw a team that was “one or two” years away from a championship. They almost won the Lombardi Trophy early, at least according to his prediction, which was based, in part, on “Jalen having the same coaches—for once.”
“I mean, other people might be surprised he’s doing these things,” Senior said before the title game. “But a lot of people just know the basics of his story. They know the narratives that were created. Like: He can’t throw. People, do you really think Nick Saban would take somebody who can’t throw?”
At that point, Senior said, “I’m just happy that everyone gets to see it now.”
Sirianni, in his initial Eagles press conference—yeah, that one—praised Johnson for his interview, his mind, his play-calling as the OC with Florida. “Super sharp,” Sirianni said.
What’s next? Hard to say for sure. But continuity will play a large role and receive little credit in return. As long as the trajectory continues to point upward, though, it won’t matter. Championships will.
