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What’s the Point of Having Jalen Hurts Out There if You’re Not Using One of his Best Weapons?
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Sean Mannion was asked a series of questions about Jalen Hurts’ running, or lack thereof:
Q. Would you like to see QB Jalen Hurts run more? (Reuben Frank)
Sean Mannion: I think we’re always looking for ways to integrate him into the run game. Some of it’s dependent on the opponent and the fronts they’re giving us, the looks you’re getting. But like I’ve said in here before, it’s a unique trait that he has that makes him dangerous. Some of them are designed, some of them are kind of the off-schedule plays. I think he’s had a good feel for that in terms of when to take off and run. He had some big plays early in the year, first few weeks, of using his legs in the pass game, kind of those off-schedule scrambles. So, there’s a place for both of them. I think he’s found a nice balance of that.
Q. Was there something about this game where it wasn’t a bigger part of the plan? (Dave Zangaro)
Sean Mannion: No, I think each week presents a different challenge and we’re going to do whatever we can each week to go and win the game. We felt like this week we were a little bit more pass-oriented. Some of that is intentional. Some of it’s just how the game plays out and the adjustments you’re making in-game. We want to be an offense that is balanced and can attack you in the run game and the pass game. Then, within the game, within the week, the opponent that you’re facing, your personnel, there can be little tweaks along the way that lead to a different end result in terms of your run-pass balance.
Q. Did QB Jalen Hurts’ calf injury limit that? (Jeff McLane)
Sean Mannion: I didn’t think so. No. I thought he was ready to play and performed well.
I asked the A.I. attached to our database for some information on designed Hurts runs in 2026.
It says the Eagles have called nine of these plays, which includes three tush pushes. If you remove those plays, the log shows six carries for eight yards and one first down:
To confirm, I went back and looked up these six plays:
- The Washington run was a screen fake in which Hurts looked left before running right. Dallas Goedert whiffed on a block.
- The Titans runs were both from the read-and-pull tree and they weren’t blocked very well.
- The first Rams play was a QB power with pulling linemen.
- The second was another QB power with a swing pass look off.
- The final play was actually the botched handoff in which Cam Jurgens knocked the ball out of Hurts’ hands. That technically is logged as a QB run in the box stats even though an improvisational bootleg was not called in from the sidelines.
Upon review, it’s five designed quarterback runs if we remove the tush pushes and the goal line error.
Regardless, they’re barely using his legs. This is the same Hurts who had 122 designed runs in 2022, 111 in 2023, 112 in 2024, and just 66 last season. That includes RPO, zone read, and tush push, and amounts to almost seven designed runs per game over a 17-game season. If you look back at this 2026 table and add the tush push back in, Hurts only has eight designed runs in five games, which is 1.6 designed runs per game extrapolating to 27.2 over a full season.
It’s almost negligible, and it begs the question –
What’s the point of having Jalen Hurts out there if you’re not using one of his best weapons? Playing Hurts at quarterback without dialing up those empty set A-gap runs or zone reads or QB powers is like buying a really nice car and then only driving it back and forth to ACME. You’re not using everything that QB1 has available in his toolkit. It’s obvious he can still scoot, based on these off-schedule scrambles he’s pulled off through five games. And if he secretly told somebody he doesn’t want to run the ball as much as he used to, then that’s a problem. But we have no information on that one.
Although, maybe we should have seen this coming. Dual-threat quarterbacks typically see their rushing attempts decline by year 5 or 6. Lamar Jackson doesn’t tote the rock with the frequency that he used to, though injuries have played a role in that. Russell Wilson followed a similar trajectory. And look at Donovan McNabb. He wasn’t a dual-threat QB necessarily, but he was mobile, and his rushing attempts really declined right around 2004. He still played some high level football after that, but it’s fair to wonder if Jalen has it in him. Hurts can sling the ball around when he’s on his game, but no one is going to ever confuse Jalen for Matt Stafford in the pocket.
They have to use QB1 in the run game. He’s been too good for too long in this area.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com