Maybe Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts needs his own coaching tree.
The New Orleans Saints named Kellen Moore as their head coach on Tuesday. Moore worked as the offensive coordinator for the Eagles this season, which ended on Sunday with Philadelphia’s 40-22 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX.
Moore’s move to New Orleans means Hurts will have a new play-caller in the 2025 NFL season. The Eagles’ next offensive coordinator will be Hurts’ sixth play-caller in six NFL seasons.
But Hurts had the same experience in college: He kept losing play-callers, and usually for the same reason – Hurts’ teams excelled.
That hasn’t held true for two of the changes in Philadelphia. Hurts’ first coach, Doug Pederson, benched Carson Wentz, an established starter with a big-money contract, with four games left in Hurts’ first season to play the rookie. Pederson called the plays, but he couldn’t save his job as Philadelphia finished 4-11-1 in 2020.
In Hurts’ first season as the Eagles’ starter, new coach Nick Sirianni called the plays. But with Philadelphia at 3-6, he turned over that duty to offensive coordinator Shane Steichen. The Eagles won six of their next eight games and made the playoffs.
Steichen remained Philadelphia’s play-caller in 2022, when the Eagles went 14-3 in the regular season and reached the Super Bowl.
After that season, the Indianapolis Colts made Steichen their head coach.
In 2023, the Eagles had a 10-1 record before winning only one of their remaining seven games. Offensive coordinator Brian Johnson was a casualty of Philadelphia’s tailspin.
This season, the Eagles had a 14-3 regular-season record, then won four games in the playoffs to capture the NFL title for the 2024 campaign. With Moore calling the plays, Philadelphia scored an NFL-record 145 postseason points.
At Super Bowl Opening Night, Hurts was asked if he was prepared to have another offensive coordinator in 2025.
“Ask me a week or so from now,” Hurts said.
Hurts said Moore had introduced him to other ways of looking at the game.
“My whole vantage point has always been to learn as much as I can,” Hurts said. “I’ve had different coordinators, different voices almost every year of my career, so my whole approach has been just to learn as much as I can and take those different things in and apply them to my game and find ways to win. …
“(Moore) has learned a lot over the course of his career. He has a very unique way of seeing the game having played the quarterback position.”
In Hurts’ freshman season at Alabama, when he won the SEC Offensive Player of the Year Award, Lane Kiffin called the plays for the Crimson Tide, until he departed to become the head coach at Florida Atlantic.
Steve Sarkisian called the plays in the CFP national-championship game – a 35-31 loss to Clemson on Jan. 9, 2017.
Kiffin and Sarkisian are SEC head coaches now, with Kiffin at Ole Miss and Sarkisian at Texas.
Brian Daboll worked as Alabama’s offensive coordinator in 2017. The Tide defeated Georgia 26-23 in overtime in the CFP national-championship game, and Daboll departed to become the offensive coordinator of the Buffalo Bills. He’s now the coach of the New York Giants.
In 2018, Mike Locksley worked as Alabama’s offensive coordinator. He departed after the season to become the head coach at Maryland, and Hurts left, too. After losing the starting spot to Tua Tagovailoa, Hurts transferred to Oklahoma for the 2019 campaign.
With the Sooners, Hurts made his fourth straight trip to the College Football Playoff and finished as the runner-up for the Heisman Trophy with Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley calling the plays. Riley is now the coach at Southern Cal.
