Eagles

The Eagles Aren’t Going to Win Many Games if Jalen Hurts Doesn’t Run the Ball, Can’t Run the Ball, or is Unwilling to Run the Ball

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Dec 1st, 2025 · 10:33 AM EST

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This section from Jimmy Kempski’s weekend Eagles/Bears recap popped:

3) The ‘Gone’ Award: The Eagles’ run game

The Eagles had one of the best rushing attacks in league history last season. That’s gone. Saquon Barkley simply isn’t the same runner he was a year ago, and he’s not being helped by Hurts, who I’m told does not love having a lot of designed QB runs in the gameplan.

Is this new? Have we heard elsewhere that Jalen Hurts doesn’t like having designed QB runs in the game plan?

Not sure, but presumably a signal caller would rather sling the rock and hand it off, especially as you get a little bit older and the hits start to pile up.

Like it or not, Jalen’s legs are still a big part of the Eagles’ offensive identity, or should be. He ran the ball 150 times last season for 630 yards and 14 touchdowns, which of course includes the tush push. At 10 attempts per game, it was the second-highest number of his career. Those regular season numbers were followed up with a four-game playoff sweep in which he ran the ball 34 times for 194 yards and five touchdowns, averaging 5.7 YPC on 8.5 attempts per game.

In fact, there’s been no season, since becoming a starter, in which he’s run for fewer than 600 yards. Those are regular season totals of 784, 760, 605, and 630. Twice in those four years did the Eagles go to the Super Bowl and both times resulted in 150+ regular season carries for QB1.

This year, Hurts’ running numbers are showing career lows across the board. He’s only running the ball seven times per game for 3.9 yards per average, which is tied for second-lowest YPC with the dreaded 2023 season. He’s averaging 27.4 rush yards per game (career low) and his 54.8% success rate is the lowest it’s ever been.

There’s an identifiable connection between winning and running when looking through Hurts’ game logs, for context:

• In the regular season, the Eagles are 13-0 when Hurts carries the ball 14 times or more.
•  In the postseason, the Eagles are 3-1 when Hurts has run the ball at least 10 times.
•  In both the regular season and postseason, the Eagles are 9-5 when Hurts reaches 70+ ground yards. This includes both Super Bowls.
•  The Eagles are 1-8 in games when Jalen has had to throw the ball 39 times or more. That includes the hideous playoff loss in Tampa.

So on and so forth. This season, in the Denver and New York losses, Hurts ran the ball 9 times for 16 yards and a tush push touchdown. In the losses against Dallas and Chicago, he ran the ball 11 times for 64 yards and two scores, one tush push in Dallas and then a five-wide QB draw in 13 personnel. In the first four games, when the Birds started 4-0, he ran the ball 41 times for 179 yards and four touchdowns, and has only logged 10+ carries once in the eight games since, which was the Detroit win.

Bottom line is that the Birds’ designed run game is still effective. You can take the tush push and just put it off to the side for a moment – when Jalen scrambles, or they go empty set and run him through the A gap, they’re picking up good yardage on those plays. Those two sequences, plus the zone read and RPO, were key to their success early in Jalen’s career. But according to the Sportradar data, the Eagles’ 12.8% RPO rate is the lowest it’s been during the Hurts era, while the combined RPO + play action percentage is 23.2% and also the lowest number going back five seasons now. Furthermore, Hurts is under center for 12.6% of plays this year and that number was 16.6% last year, so take from that what you will.

Finally, at the risk of burying the lede, the offensive line just hasn’t been as good as it was in 2024, which you can see with your own two eyes.

Bottom line, if the QB doesn’t run, can’t run, or is unwilling to run, Nick Sirianni’s offense isn’t very good.