‘Built for this journey’: How Jalen Hurts’ path to the Eagles’ Super Bowl rematch was fueled by fire

NEW ORLEANS — Jalen Hurts’ father compares his son’s competitive nature to a flame.

It was stoked from an early age and burned brightly well before he reached the NFL, in races up the stairs with his big brother, backyard football games against the older kids, and eventually the heat of the moment on a high school football field.

It’s the fiery side that the ever-stoic Eagles quarterback does not often show publicly, but one Averion Hurts Sr. can trace back to the sidelines in southeast Texas during his time coaching his son at Channelview High School a decade ago.

“A kid did something, Jalen clinched the game, and we ran the clock out,” Hurts’ father said of an angry opponent after a Channelview win. “The kid, being kind of a sore loser I guess, if you want to say, he was mad.”

“[Jalen] told him there wasn’t no b— in his blood. I was like, ‘Oh!’ As a dad, all you can really say is, ‘Hmm.’ You want to say, ‘That’s my boy,’ but I wasn’t expecting that. But it gave me an insight into more of his mindset. He’s built for this journey.”

That journey and the fire behind it will reach another inflection point this Sunday, as the Eagles take on the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX. Two years ago, the signature performance of Jalen Hurts’ pro career came up just short in a 38-35 loss to the same opponent.

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The result and the adversity that followed throughout the next two seasons are the types of moments Hurts’ father said his son carries with him leading into his second Super Bowl in three years. In stops at Alabama and Oklahoma en route to emerging as the Eagles’ starter, Hurts also used the low moments along the way to fan the flame.

“To put it bluntly, he’s been through [stuff] before,” Averion Hurts said. “A lot of times in life, I think that a lot of our past situations, pains, or whatever experiences, you can’t forget them. Like they say, you can forgive certain things, but you can’t forget. You can move on, but you can’t forget them.

“There was no set plan. You can’t plan this,” he added with a chuckle. “I’ve always told him and always believed, ‘God doesn’t put more on you than you can handle.’ And he can handle it.”

The lasting image of Jalen Hurts leaving the field at State Farm Stadium with red and yellow confetti swirling around him two years ago eventually gave way to the sobering declaration that could define most of his football career to this point.

“You either win or you learn.”

From Hurts’ public benching at Alabama to watching Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes orchestrate a go-ahead drive late in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LVII, the Eagle’s father has had a singular vantage point for those lessons. His two roles for his son, coach and dad, have always been blurred — the titles practically were interchangeable by the time Jalen graduated from Channelview, where Averion has been head coach for nearly two decades.

Hurts’ father conceded that he likely couldn’t strike the balance even if he tried. Sometimes, it was even intentional. He wanted to push his sons in the sport and was aware that even the perception of favorable treatment might cause dissent from skeptical onlookers. Other times, it was instinctual.

Before he could find the line, as his son prepared for his freshman season at Alabama in 2016, Jalen asked him to stop trying to separate Dad from Coach anyway.

“He made me promise to stay the same,” Averion said. “I’ve never been able to honestly figure out how to separate coach and dad, and I’m not going to say that as if it’s a good thing. I’ve enjoyed it. I coached his older brother [Averion Jr.], and I didn’t get to enjoy it as much because I didn’t know what to expect and dealt with people thinking of favoritism and things like that. I had a bunch of coaches that have coached their kids, and they kept telling me and telling me, so I tried to enjoy his more.”

The byproduct often is an anxious father watching Eagles games intensely, in person, like he will be Sunday, or on television. Averion Jr. said his father usually will have a “whoosah” moment after the final whistle, but often upholds the promise he made with honest evaluations reminiscent of their shared time at Channelview.

So what did Averion Sr. think, watching Jalen account for 374 total yards and four touchdowns against the Chiefs two years ago? Even beyond the numbers, Hurts had gone toe-to-toe with Mahomes in a way few quarterbacks have managed on the biggest stage, delivering timely plays with his arm and legs and trading scoring drives in the game’s final moments.

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“I wasn’t shocked. Big stages don’t make him falter or anything,” Averion Sr. said. “I hated it that they lost, because I know how hard that team worked. It’s just a blessing that two years later, they had to go through some stuff to get to where they are now, and they’re back.”

Averion Jr. added of his brother: “He said they would be back. He said all these things, so to see them come to fruition, it’s really not a surprise. These are things that he’s articulated.”

Amid the frenzy of Super Bowl media night, Eagles quarterbacks coach Doug Nussmeier’s raspy voice rose above the low drone of a dozen nearby conversations with a simple answer to a complicated question.

How do you measure Hurts’ 2024 season? Many of his stats were the lowest they’d been since he became a full-time starter in 2021. The Eagles had morphed into a run-first offense with Hurts becoming secondary in a way. He took fewer shots downfield, dropped back less, and instead alluded to his prioritization of avoiding turnovers in a system focused on Saquon Barkley.

When asked how he’d quantify Hurts’ play, Nussmeier needed just one word.

“Win.”

The Eagles have done plenty of it with Hurts under center since a transformative early-season bye week corrected course from a 2-2 start, largely because of Hurts reversing his tendency for turnovers. He threw four interceptions and lost three fumbles in the Eagles’ first four games but has committed just three turnovers since then — and none in the playoffs.

The difference came during the team’s Week 5 bye, when Eagles passing game coordinator Kevin Patullo said Hurts made a point of staying around the NovaCare Complex for lengthy meetings that included Eagles coach Nick Sirianni, offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, Nussmeier.

“He was heavily involved,” Patullo said. “He really didn’t take a bye week. None of us really did. We spent a lot of time watching tape, going through things, and trying to figure out what we wanted to do going forward and the identity.”

Those meetings, a few days after Hurts’ public comments about Sirianni left room for speculation about the dynamic between him and the coach, featured “honest conversations” to get them on the same page about the offensive approach.

“It was a big week for us,” Patullo said. “We were there a lot during the bye week. I remember, morning through dinner, being there. And most bye weeks, you’re not there very long. And it was good. It wasn’t like a pointing-finger session. It was just an open, honest conversation.

“I think it was just them being able to communicate on a different level. They know each other so well, and they can talk to each other differently, which is great. They have a willingness and ability to just talk. It’s just different. When you know somebody and you know you’re both invested in that, you can say things. I think that’s really what it came down to. We can say what we need to, feel good about it, and know we’re both working toward this.”

Hurts has said several times since the shift toward featuring Barkley more heavily that his individual production comes secondary to the end result, another lesson that traces back to the fire.

“I think you guys [in the media] need to understand that I don’t play the game for anything other than to win,” Hurts said last month. “My role in each game will be different, and the approach in each game is different. You just want to go out there and do your job and take advantage of opportunities, obviously. I think some things are magnified a little bit more because there’s less opportunity in certain areas, but, ultimately, it’s about winning the game.”

There have been times when the two were not mutually exclusive. The Eagles haven’t often needed Hurts to dig them out of deficits or steady the offense, but the quarterback delivered a handful of key moments in the NFC championship game win against the Washington Commanders, providing the balance that hasn’t always been apparent to an offense now revolving around Barkley’s dominance.

Perhaps Sunday might require Hurts to author a performance akin to the one two years before, but Patullo said the bye-week conversations led to the staff, along with Hurts, feeling more comfortable with the offense taking on whatever complexion was necessary each week.

“It’s allowed to be different and look a different way,” Patullo said. “It can be whatever it needs to that week to get the job done. I think that’s kind of one unique thing that we’ve all learned especially, obviously with him, too, each year it’s not going to be the same.”

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Averion Hurts Jr. remembers when his kid brother would make an effort to finish his dinner first just to say he’d won.

Whether it was games of pool to see who could hit a ball closest to the cushion without actually hitting it, sprinting up the stairs, or the times Jalen would end up playing football with the older kids, the lessons about competing instilled by their father were apparent early on.

It could be grating at times, but Averion Jr. said it proved to be instructive.

“Jalen has always been that guy,” he said. “Me and my brother’s relationship has evolved over the years. When we were younger, man, we used to bicker and argue so much, it’s crazy. But it was because he was so naturally competitive. He would walk by and say something to just get under my skin, and it would irk me, it would irk my soul so much, but he was just trying to get into your mind and win. Whatever advantage he can give himself, that’s what he was trying to figure out. That’s who Jalen is.”

Eagles players see that side of Hurts plenty. From playing pool in the recreation room attached to the NovaCare Complex locker room to shooting contests on the mini hoop in the weight room, Hurts’ tendency to take on a challenge has become part of his reputation.

Eagles safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson can spark Hurts as well. They seldom face off in practice, but during a situational period that pitted the starting units against each other the week before the Eagles’ divisional-round win over the Rams, Gardner-Johnson said he finally got a fiery response to his steady stream of trash talk.

“He beat us on a third down in the stadium,” Gardner-Johnson said. “He was like, ‘How you like that, b—?’ … You don’t expect Jalen to say [stuff].”

In a way, Hurts can even be competitive about losses. Whether it’s the skepticism they can generate — perceived or otherwise — or their tendency to stoke the flame.

After the Eagles' NFC championship win over the Commanders, Hurts alluded to the past roadblocks as a reason for his embracing a lesser role in the offense this season.

“By losing,” Hurts said. “It’s losing. Failure has to be used as a source of pain to go take that next step. And there’s always learning opportunities in everything. It’s human nature to be ignited by the shortcomings.”

Now, going into the Super Bowl rematch with the Chiefs, even though Hurts hasn’t attributed any added motivation to the chance at reversing the result from two years ago, his father knows it will be front of mind come Sunday along with the rest of the biggest losses of his career.

“They all fuel his fire,” Averion Sr. said.

The Eagles play in Super Bowl LIX against the Kansas City Chiefs. Join Eagles beat reporters Olivia Reiner and EJ Smith as they dissect the hottest storylines surrounding the team on Gameday Central, live from the Caesars Superdome.