Eagles’ Jalen Hurts addresses a report that he asked a rival coach for advice

Jalen Hurts said Wednesday that he called former Giants defensive coordinator Don “Wink” Martindale last season, before the Eagles went to Tampa, Fla., to play their playoff game, because he “was just trying to pick his brain, see what he saw in us, and get some tips on things.”

Asked Wednesday if he had called an opposing defensive coach before, Hurts said he has “always tried to use my resources to the best of my ability.”

The timing of Hurts’ call to Martindale, a longtime defensive coach now at the University of Michigan, was interesting. The Eagles offense was sputtering as the team limped into the playoffs, and Martindale had just blitzed Hurts more than he ever had been in two games over three weeks to close the regular season. So Hurts wanted to know what he saw.

Asked what key advice Martindale gave him, Hurts responded by asking where the line of questioning was coming from.

An ESPN report Wednesday detailed the phone call in a story that described the relationship between Hurts and coach Nick Sirianni as “fractured.”

“So long ago, why is that relevant now?” Hurts asked.

It’s relevant because so much of the past explains the present. Calling an opposing coach for tips could speak to a disconnect between a player and the person leading the offense, in this case, Sirianni.

The Hurts-Sirianni dynamic so far is the story of this Eagles training camp: It informs what went wrong and offers an explanation of why Sirianni ceded control of the offense to new coordinator Kellen Moore. It will, most likely, be the reason they win the Super Bowl or do not. It is the topic that won’t go away because it can’t go away until the Eagles can prove their failures and fractures are in the past, which means the topic has some leash because the real football still is a month away.

Wednesday wasn’t the first time this training camp that the topic of the relationship — arguably the most important player-coach relationship in sports — came up. It may not be the last.

» READ MORE: Jalen Hurts hits all the right notes in his do-over comments on Eagles coach Nick Sirianni

Sirianni was asked Wednesday what steps he took after the season to get on the same page with Hurts.

“Go through all the same processes that we go through after each year,” Sirianni said. “Jalen and I are in a really good place. Every relationship that you have needs work, with everybody, and we’ve always continued to try to work at that.”

Sirianni’s new role as chief executive officer of sorts started with a team meeting in the spring, during which he stood in front of the Eagles and took accountability for the failures of last season.

“The only way to get better is to really look through the things you felt like you messed up and get better at them,” Sirianni said Wednesday when asked why he did that. “But it starts with the humility to say, ‘I messed this up. I need to be better at this.’

“If I want [his daughter, Taylor] to be accountable, and she sees me blaming things on other people at all times, I’m raising a child that’s not going to be accountable. It’s the same thing with a team. If I’m not accountable to the [expletive] I mess up, how am I going to expect them to be accountable to what they mess up?”

An area the Eagles messed up most last season was an area that Martindale — and later, the Buccaneers — exploited: their inability to pick up and beat blitzes.

Did Martindale give Hurts tips to beat the blitz?

“I think it’s more so for me trying to continue to pour into my cup in terms of knowledge,” Hurts said. “I’ve had a lot of respect for what he’s done, and we’ve had a lot of success vs. him and I think that was a point where we were definitely trying to make a run and make a push.”

That, of course, didn’t happen. The Bucs blitzed Hurts on 69.2% of his dropbacks in that playoff pummeling, more than Martindale did in those two matchups with the Giants.

» READ MORE: Jalen Hurts: Nick Sirianni, Eagles QB are ‘in a great place’ after not always being on the same page last year

Beating the blitz has been an emphasis so far during camp in Moore’s offense. Hurts said he has different answers for the blitz compared to what he had last season.

“I think the essence of what we’re doing and what we’re trying to accomplish is create a foundation that is strong enough to withstand anything that comes,” Hurts said.

Maybe that foundation will be strong enough to avoid calling an opponent for advice. When Hurts asked about the relevancy of the Martindale call, one of the ESPN reporters who wrote the story said it provides context for the present.

“I appreciate what you guys do and everything you guys bring, the attention,” Hurts said. “Sometimes, I think people are only able to know what they understand. Sometimes people don’t know what they don’t know.

“You have reports and you have rumors, and then you have reality. We’re in reality right now. We’ve got different people doing different things and have different responsibilities in that natural nature and we’re just taking it day by day.”

Hurts didn’t use the words, but he went back to his old “rat poison” motto for handling topics like Wednesday’s.

“My natural nature is to block out the external factors because I think it comes a point where sometimes you question so much, and the negativity becomes redundant,” he said.