While we love the passion that exists in the Philadelphia Eagles' fan base, the term 'Negadelphia' exists for a reason. Here's the rule though. Outsiders aren't allowed to discuss disagreements that occur within the family. Civil wars among Birds fans will be handled internally.
Check our resume. Inside The Iggles has been around longer than most of you have been fans. No one loves the team more than us, so we're pulling rank here.
We have something we'd like to say about these Jalen Hurts narratives. How did this discussion begin about him being a bad leader?
Reuben Frank perfectly annihilates all theories that an issue exists with Jalen Hurts leadership style.
Something has been on our mind for a while. Those of you who read the content on our platform daily have heard this more than once, but it's time to end the discussions about Jalen Hurts being some sort of bad leader.
Ron Jaworski, as much as we love him, stated recently that he didn't believe Jalen enjoyed being the Eagles' QB1 in 2023, but Jalen has stated he loves it in Philly. So, what gives?
Why is it that we all praised Jalen for his stoic nature and now, so many criticize him for it? NBC Sports Philadelphia's Reuben Frank, as he often does, provided some proper feedback recently.
"Leadership isn’t the problem with Jalen Hurts. Nobody was complaining about leadership when he won five of his last six starts in 2021 or when he went 14-1 with a couple postseason wins in 2022 or when he had the Eagles 10-1 going into December last year. Then the whole thing fell apart and now all of a sudden Hurts isn’t a very good leader. Hurts was a good enough leader to go 29-3 from the middle of 2021 through the middle of 2023. Hurts played lousy down the stretch last year, just like almost everybody else on the team."
That's a direct quote from one of the more recent editions of Roob's Observations. We totally agree with what Frank is saying here.
So, what was Jalen's issue if it wasn't cracks in his leadership style. Cue Roob. He hits the nail on the head again here.
"The problem wasn’t leadership. It was turnovers. If Hurts didn’t commit six turnovers in the Eagles’ last five games they probably would have gone 13-4 and won the division and we wouldn’t be having these conversations."
Much of the reason why these discussions have surfaced and have transpired as of late is because QB1 took a few shots for how he answered a recent question about Nick Sirianni and his fingerprints on the Eagles offense. 94 WIP-FM talked about this in great detail. They, like others who have followed with comments of their own, believe Jalen may have irritated members of the Birds' leadership structure.
Perhaps Roob puts it best.
"Could Hurts have given a better answer to the question about Nick Sirianni and the offense? Of course. One thing we’ve seen with Hurts since he got here is that he likes to raise more questions than he answers in interviews. He likes being vague, and he likes leaving people guessing. That’s just his personality, and it doesn’t win or lose football games. As long as his teammates respect him – which they clearly do – leadership is not an issue. But Hurts finished last year with 19 turnovers, third-most among all NFL quarterbacks last year, seven more than he had in 2022 and most by any Eagles QB since Randall Cunningham had 19 in 1992. Solve that issue and the other issue doesn’t exist."
Well said Roob. Now, can we finally put this to bed? Here's our bold prediction.
These conversations will continue during a slow news cycle. Philly will return for training camp. You may even hear some talk about this there, but the Birds will jump out of the starting blocks on fire during the regular season.
That will silenece the doubters, and the discussion will turn to questions like the following. 'How did we ever arrive at theories like this in the first place'?
