ASHBURN — The Philadelphia Eagles were at a crossroads with Jalen Hurts. As much of a crossroads as there can be for a quarterback who had just completed his second season, anyway. This was at the end of the 2021 season when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had shut down Hurts and the Eagles in such a dominant fashion during the playoffs that it created legitimate questions about whether Philadelphia should look for an upgrade in the months ahead.
Back then, the Eagles were linked to possible trades for Russell Wilson and Deshaun Watson. Neither trade materialized, so the Eagles made a pertinent decision to stand pat. They were going to give Hurts another chance.
It turned out to be the best thing for them.
“There is a certain amount of patience that is required, truthfully,” Commanders defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio said, “and not everybody is willing to do that.”
This week, Commanders coach Ron Rivera has stressed that there’s a level of patience required for dealing with the growing pains of a young quarterback like starter Sam Howell — who is coming off a nine-sack, four-interception performance against the Buffalo Bills. But staying patient, history has shown, can be rewarding in the long run — with one of the better examples in today’s NFL existing with Hurts and the Eagles, the opponent Washington will look to knock off Sunday when they travel to Philadelphia for a 1 p.m. kickoff.
After that dismal playoff performance, Hurts responded with a season most failed to see coming: He finished second in MVP voting and his improved play helped lead the Eagles to the Super Bowl. In the offseason, Hurts temporarily became the league’s highest-paid quarterback by signing a five-year, $255 million contract. That deal has since been surpassed by other passers like Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson, but the Eagles wouldn’t have handed out the contract if not for Hurts’ massive improvement.
Howell, of course, is a stylistically different player than Hurts, and the second-year signal-caller may not ever reach the same heights. But for the Commanders, Hurts’ ascension provides a road map of how it can be worth trusting a quarterback through early struggles — and how important it can be to surround them in the right environment.
Rivera said he’s studied Hurts and other examples around the league.
“There’s a lot of good young quarterbacks that have come in and have done really well, and there’s been some that have struggled,” Rivera said. “But, you’ll never know unless you play ’em and that’s what we’re trying to do right now, see what kind of growth we’re going to get out of Sam. He had a tough week last week and we’ll see what he learned from it.”
Rivera noted how Hurts’ evolution started actually during that 2021 season. While Hurts played well at times in 2020 — well enough for the Eagles to ride with him over a struggling Carson Wentz — the Eagles started to tailor more of their offense to Hurts’ skill set the following year by embracing his threat as a runner. From there, Philadelphia incorporated more run-pass-option throws and play-action shots that helped Hurts out.
But the Eagles also did well to surround Hurts with enough talent to succeed. Though they didn’t trade for a quarterback in 2022, Philadelphia’s brass traded for star receiver A.J. Brown to give Hurts a reliable No. 1 option. The Eagles also arguably had the best offensive line in football, which benefitted Hurts further. Hurts took advantage of the talent around him — and still made a leap of his own. Hurts’ accuracy jumped from 61.3% to 66.5%. His interception rate of 1.3% was a career low, as well.
“They built a very solid team around him to where, ‘Hey, we can win games without Jalen being the best guy until he develops,’” Commanders wide receiver Terry McLaurin said. “And now, I would say he’s probably one of, if not their, best player. Now you see the culmination of it all putting it together of what your quarterback has learned and developed.
“He’s made those strides and he still has a strong supporting cast.”
The issues that have slowed Howell early in his career differ from the problems that Hurts had to address. If the main questions around Hurts involved his accuracy and ability to read a defense, then Howell’s issues are that he takes way too many sacks and can be prone to turning the ball over. Like Rivera, offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy has noted Howell’s inexperience by saying that Howell is seeing things at the NFL level for mostly the first time. Though this is Howell’s second season, the 2022 fifth-rounder sat all but one game as a rookie.
That provides no comfort to Howell. On Wednesday, the quarterback told reporters that his youth can’t be used as an excuse to justify his poor performance. The player he was against the Bills, he said, isn’t the player that he expects to be.
“I can’t go out there and make the excuse that I’m young because the teams we’re playing, they don’t care,” Howell said. “The scoreboard doesn’t care. So, I got to do my job at a higher level in order for this team to go where we want to go.”
That’s the right approach. Even if it takes some time for Howell to get them to that destination.
• Matthew Paras can be reached at mparas@washingtontimes.com.
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