Of all the changes that have come to the Philadelphia Eagles' offense in 2025, one of the most surprising has been the declining frequency at which Jalen Hurts has called his own number and run the ball.
One of the more dominant rushing threats from the quarterback position the NFL has to offer, Hurts' rushing attempts and yards per attempt have gone down alongside his team's overall rushing struggles, dropping from 10 and 42 in 2024 to just 7.0 and 27.4 in 2025.
Asked if this has been a concerted effort by the Eagles, or if his quarterback has simply focused more on throwing the ball instead of liberally crossing the line of scrimmage in the pursuit of additional yards, Nick Sirianni told reporters on Monday that it isn't one factor, but instead a result of how the offense has been playing out.
“We're always thinking about how to protect Jalen and make sure that he is healthy for the long haul. Different plans have different reasons of why you run different things, and like I said, we will do everything we need to do to help this offense get rolling. Jalen's talented in running the football. He is talented in also holding the backside when he doesn't run the football, so a lot of different ways to do that. Again, always looking at everything and how we can improve,” Sirianni explained via John Clark.
“Again, you're always thinking first about what the players do well, especially with your quarterback, how do you make sure that you're keeping them safe on those? Even when you think about those, there are quarterback runs you can run that are a little [safer] than another quarterback run. But it's still football and you still [face] a risk at with every snap that you take, and that's on a drop back, too. But again, you look at the defenses, how you want to attack, you look at what you do well, how to protect the guys, and you're just looking for the best way to go about that. I don't think anybody wants to come out of a game with Jalen having 15 carries, design carries. But again, we're looking at everything, and we'll see how that looks going forward.”
While Hurts hasn't been running the ball as often in 2025 as he did in 2024 or in any season since he was a rookie, his sacks are down too, from 2.53 in 2024 to 2.25 on 4.5 more passing attempts per game. Sure, most fans would like to see the Eagles have more success on the ground, something Hurts' RPO has done exceptionally well over the years, but that is an encouraging development for a team that has long been asked to throw the ball more effectively. Get the two working together, and the Eagles might really be cooking once more.
