“In 2023, Jalen Hurts wasn’t the same as in 2022. However, how much of that change was due to him, and how much was influenced by external factors?”

It’s important to get that out of the way first, because there is a segment of his fanbase that will read anything critical of Hurts as character assassination rather than an attempt to take an objective look at the player the team signed to a massive $250+ million contract last off-season. Hurts played very well at times in 2023 and, given better coaching and an offensive scheme that made sense, likely would have taken this team deeper into the postseason.

Hurts was let down by his coaching staff. Nick Sirianni and offensive coordinator Brian Johnson had no answers for what opposing defenses were throwing at them, especially late in the season and against the blitz, and based on Joe Santoliquito’s outstanding report published here on Bleeding Green Nation, issues with Sirianni and his new OC were present going back to training camp and festered all season long.

Even before the season, omens were springing early something was wrong. Sirianni was far more vocal in training camp than he was the previous year, doing more correcting than coaching, and spending time coaching the coaches, plugging up myriad mistakes as to the right personnel on the field and what Hurts should be recognizing.

It’s difficult to imagine any quarterback having much success in that environment.By now we’re all familiar with the finger-pointing that took place through the media in the days leading up to the Eagles’ humiliating loss in Tampa — one side said Sirianni meddled in Johnson’s game plans and sowed confusion in the process, another side Johnson was a poor play-caller and stunted the offense, and still a third said Hurts played outside the structure of the offense too often and butted heads with Johnson at times as well.

It’s likely there is some semblance of truth to all of it and, in my eyes, it’s clear Jalen Hurts did not enter the 2023 campaign the same way he entered 2022.

Right from the start, he looked different. He looked indecisive. He didn’t see the field as well. He missed wide open receivers. He seemingly locked in on A.J. Brown to the detriment of the offense and his other teammates and, perhaps most alarmingly, he ceased being a playmaker when running the football.

So the question that the Eagles, and Jalen Hurts himself, must figure out this off-season is whether 2023 was merely a challenging season for Hurts, or whether the regression we witnessed this year will ling