With great contract comes great power.
And Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, thanks to his great contract, has great power. As the team’s offense continues to struggle, more and more indications are emerging that the root of the issue may be Hurts’s exercising that power.
Derrick Gunn, who has covered the Eagles for years, recently peeled back a curtain that the team has generally managed to keep pulled shut.
Here’s what Gunn said on The Seth Joyner Show, via BleedingGreenNation.com:
“Those things that [get] dissected on film [and] during practice, those things that are talked about among the quarterback coach, the offensive coordinator, the head coach, it has been constantly discussed all season long. Yet, when they transition to the field on a football game, [Hurts] plays his game. Not the game the coaches want him to play. He plays his game. I don’t think you can get out of that mode at this particular point. I think it’s what we’re going to have to watch all season long, is him playing his game.”
As Gunn explains it, “his game” consists of Hurts not making throws that are there to be made.
“You look at a lot of quarterbacks, they’re going to sling it,” Gunn said. “They’re going to trying to throw it through the eye of the needle. Sometimes you just have to take that chance. That’s not his game. That’s why he stands back there, a lot of the time he’s patting the ball, patting the ball, and it throws the timing of the offense off. The rhythm is thrown off. . . . They can’t get him out of it.
“It’s frustrating in a lot of ways, to the coaching staff. And to the players. Extremely frustrating to the players. Because when they look at the film, the next day or a few days later, they see what’s available out there and what should’ve happened, and it didn’t happen, it’s frustrating to them as well. . . . I’m just basically telling you there’s a lot of people in that organization that are frustrated with the quarterback situation right now. But the quarterback understands he has them over a barrel. This is almost Carson Wentz part two. They’re not going to eat this kind of money yet.”
The contract Hurts signed after the 2022 season was designed to be tradable after one year, if the team decided to make a move. Following the team’s epic collapse of 2023, there was enough general consternation about the franchise’s performance to justify making that point. (Hurts has a “no trade” clause; any quarterback with that kind of contract necessarily has one, however. No non-dysfunctional franchise will trade for a starting quarterback who doesn’t want to play for that team.)
But that low-cap-hit ship has sailed, thanks to prorated option bonuses of $38.875 million in 2024 and $41.33 million in 2025. (It’s part of G.M. Howie Roseman’s cash-over-cap strategy to keep Hurts’s current-year cap numbers low.) Trading Hurts before June 1 would result in cap hits of $9.316 million (from his original signing bonus) and $23.325 million (from his 2024 option bonus) and $33.064 million (from his 2025 option bonus).
That adds up to a whopping $65.705 million cap charge if he’s traded before June 1. (After June 1, the cap charges would be split between 2026 and 2027, with $20.699 million hitting the cap in 2026 and $44.376 million applying in 2027.)
So, basically, the Eagles are stuck. And Hurts likely knows it. He can listen to coaching, agree with everything said, and then when it’s time to play he can go play “his game.” Without any real consequence.
The only thing the Eagles can do is try to make the best of the situation. Circle the wagons. Put out the periodic brushfires, whether internal (from A.J. Brown) or external. Conceal the deeper issues that may exist between Hurts and Brown.
Regardless, it’s going to become harder to prevent the internal backlash. Brown’s decision to speak out, which could be easily viewed as selfish, was actually selfless. He put the interests of the team over the easy perception that he’s just another diva receiver, whining about not getting the ball.
As the Eagles continue to sail toward another division title and perhaps the No. 1 seed, the issue won’t go away unless and until Hurts stops playing “his game” and starts playing the game that the coaching staff and the team wants him to play.
