National Football League

Jalen Hurts' first impression this season was fine, but fine isn't good enough

Updated Sep. 12, 2024 5:37 p.m. ET

Jalen Hurts was a summer sensation. The reviews of his practices were raving. He famously didn't throw an interception until the last day of camp. For a quarterback coming off a disappointing season, learning a new offense, with some key new teammates, things couldn't have gone much better.

And then came Opening Night.

It's not that Hurts was bad in the Philadelphia Eagles' 34-29 win over the Green Bay Packers in Brazil. In fact, overall, he was good. It's just that he was just shaky enough at times — especially at the beginning — to bring up some old questions and open some old wounds.

His first four snaps, for example, were particularly worrisome. They included an incompletion, an interception, a 1-yard pass and a fumble. Things got better from there — much better, in fact — but after what happened last season, his first impression of 2024 was tough to take.

"(I'm) not concerned," Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said. "He made a lot of good plays in this game. … Listen, we all have a lot of things to clean up. But, again, he made a lot of big-time plays in that game that helped put that game in our favor."

Hurts ended up completing 20 of 34 passes for 278 yards and two touchdowns, which is pretty good, especially for Week 1 in a foreign country on an embarrassingly bad field. He also helped the Eagles to 410 yards of offense and 34 points against a Packers defense that ranked 10th in scoring last season.

There are probably about 25 other teams in the NFL that would have gladly taken the performance that Hurts gave. But in the context of the struggles he had late last season, when the Eagles collapsed and won just one of their final seven games, Hurts' performance was at least somewhat concerning.

For example, he didn't look completely comfortable in the new offense — a big potential issue for those who thought he never looked comfortable in Brian Johnson's offense last season. His runs were ineffective (he ran 13 times for 33 yards), just like they were last season during the Eagles' season-ending 1-6 stretch. He ran for just 200 yards on 44 carries in those games, though 82 of the yards (on 13 carries) came in one game at Seattle.

In the game against the Packers, even on the plays that were designed runs, he didn't get very far.

"The running last season was the tell for me," said one NFC scout. "Most of them seemed to be panic runs — not designed and not with any sense of where to go. Maybe that was because of his injury (he played through a badly bruised knee most of last year) but he used to run with more of a purpose. He'd get outside of the pocket with the intention of making something happen.

I didn't see that last year. And I didn't see it on Friday night."

What the world did see was more turnovers — the biggest issue carrying over from 2023 for Hurts. Last season he threw 15 interceptions and lost five fumbles. Six of those turnovers (five interceptions, one lost fumble) came during those last seven games when he threw only six touchdown passes.

When he turned the ball over twice in the first eight minutes of this season, it was hard to tell if it was just a blip or a case of first-game jitters, or if it was the continuation of a very bad trend.

"Yeah, obviously we're hyper-focused on the football," Sirianni said. "We talk about the football a lot. Jalen touches the ball every down. Obviously, you never want turnovers. He's trying to make a play. But we have to take care of the football. He's going to want those plays back."

To those who are worried, though, the early turnovers were a disturbing reminder of how uncomfortable he often look running former offensive coordinator Brian Johnson's scheme last year. That's why Sirianni fired Johnson and hired Kellen Moore to be his offensive coordinator and vowed to stay out of his way. Moore earned his reputation in the NFL by helping turn Dak Prescott into an elite quarterback in Dallas, transforming him from a quarterback who liked to run in college (he ran 536 times for 2,521 yards and 41 touchdowns in his four years at Mississippi State) into one who looks as comfortable in the pocket as any quarterback in the league.

Hurts doesn't look that comfortable yet. He is a dynamic, two-way weapon. Moore has vowed to use that, to let him run and create plays outside the pocket as much as he can. But the heart of his offensive scheme is the pocket, where he needs Hurts to thrive. He needs him to be able to make good decisions under pressure, to make smarter choices about when to run and when to stay and let the play develop.

Hurts actually did well under pressure last Friday night. He was 6 of 7 for 91 yards and a touchdown against the blitz — giving him a perfect passer rating of 158.3, the highest Week 1 total in the league. But that left him just 14 of 27 for 187 yards when he wasn't being blitzed, when he had more time to read the defense and make his decisions.

It was in those situations where he made questionable choices and some ugly throws.

Moore blamed himself, saying his play-calling was "a little aggressive." That's not something that should have bothered Hurts, but Moore insisted he's still "not overly concerned."

"(The bad decisions) are outliers in many cases," he said. "I think as we all have seen Jalen in those circumstances, so we feel optimistic we'll be just fine moving forward and we'll be able to adjust."

He's probably right. Again, Hurts' performance was good overall and good compared to most quarterbacks around the league.

Then again, Hurts isn't most quarterbacks. He was the runner-up in the MVP voting in 2022. He was a legitimate MVP candidate as late as early December last season when the Eagles were 10-1. He is the ninth-highest-paid quarterback in the league, in the second year of a five-year, $255 million contract.

So while "good" is fine, and might even be enough to keep the Eagles in contention all season long, the truth is that the expectations for Hurts are a little bit higher than that. To get everyone to stop worrying about a carryover from last season, he's simply going to have to do more.

Ralph Vacchiano is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He spent the previous six years covering the Giants and Jets for SNY TV in New York, and before that, 16 years covering the Giants and the NFL for the New York Daily News. Follow him Twitter at @RalphVacchiano.