Dominant defense vs. commanding QB: Jaguars relish challenge of stopping Eagles' Jalen Hurts

The Jacksonville Jaguars aren't the only team in the league with an ascending young quarterback.

Though he wasn't nearly as popular as Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence when entering the NFL Draft, Philadelphia Eagles QB Jalen Hurts was once thought to be one of the more electric players in college football.

Hurts finished second in voting for the 2019 season Heisman Trophy, ahead of former Ohio State QB Justin Fields and DE Chase Young. The winner was former LSU Tigers QB Joe Burrow, now with the Cincinnati Bengals.

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Now, after a full season as the Eagles (3-0) starting QB in 2021, Hurts has taken his talents to the next level through the first month of the season this year. His ascension is just getting started, but some of the flashes seen during his collegiate career at both Alabama and Oklahoma are making their way to the NFL.

This week, the Jaguars (2-1) will have an opportunity to face off against him, a player Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson knows all too well as the head coach of the Eagles in 2020, the year the franchise selected Hurts in the second round of the NFL Draft.

'Haven't seen his ceiling yet'

Though he was with him for just one season, Pederson has seen the progress from afar, watching from home last year and as an adversary this season with the Jaguars.

Hurts' progress, Pederson said Wednesday, is everything the Eagles saw when they opted to take him with the No. 53 pick in the 2020 NFL Draft.

"This guy is an extremely hard worker, he’s dedicated, he’s a proven winner," Pederson said. "Everything has been thrown at him adversity-wise, and he’s overcome it. You’re seeing it in the way he plays and the guys rally around him and support him, and it’s, I think for him, it’s again, having stability."

The importance of stability has been stated plenty of times throughout the year in Jacksonville. With Lawrence and the Jaguars, the team wants the second-year QB to have as much stability as he can, given he's on his third play-caller in three years.

Hurts has now been with Eagles offensive coordinator Shane Steichen for two years.

After posting a modest 3,144 yards, 16 touchdowns and nine interceptions, to go along with his 784 rushing yards and 10 TDs on the ground in 2021, Hurts has taken his game to new heights.

This year, Hurts has completed 67.3 percent of his throws for 916 yards, four passing touchdowns, one interception and a QBR of 74.7.

He's added 167 yards and three more touchdowns on the ground, too.

He's making history in multiple categories for the Eagles, including total offense through three games in franchise history (1,057). He also became the first player in NFL history to average 300 passing yards per game and 50 rushing yards per game through the first three games of a season.

Hurts leads the NFL in yards per attempt with 9.3 and is second in the NFL in total yards with 1,083 behind only Buffalo Bills QB Josh Allen (1,127).

He just won the NFC's Offensive Player of the Month. The accolades and stats go on and on.

Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni echoed Pederson's comments, noting too, that Hurts has developed his game in the cerebral department, making better decisions, reading a defense and making accurate passes.

“I think that’s what you’re seeing, and that’s what he’s worked really hard at. That’s what you’re seeing through the first three weeks," Sirianni told Jaguars reporters Wednesday. "We understand it’s a long season. We got a long ways to go still. You haven’t seen his ceiling yet."

Jaguars must be ready for elusiveness

A former collegiate teammate of Hurts, Jaguars left tackle Cam Robinson remembers playing with Hurts in 2016 when he was a junior, ready to declare for the NFL Draft when Hurts was just a freshman. That year, Hurts did something that is incredibly rare in college football, or at least used to be — he started Week 1 for Nick Saban's Alabama Crimson Tide.

"The one thing I remember (about Hurts), that stuck out immediately was just his poise," Robinson said in the locker room Wednesday.

"I think you can never really get him rattled. And that was saying a lot because my last year he was a true freshman and he was a quarterback at that. So nothing can really shake him and nothing really rattle him, he was so poised and he was so mature for where he was in his career."

To Robinson and the rest of his teammates, they knew Hurts would be legitimate after his first few games.

Hurts completed 6 of 11 passes for 118 yards, two touchdowns and one interception against USC in Week 1 of that year. In Week 2, his first game as a full-time starter, he put up an outstanding performance against Western Kentucky, completing 23 of 36 passes for 287 yards and two touchdowns.

"He just kind of took off from there," Robinson said.

As noted previously, Hurts is an incredible athlete, able to slip in and out of tackles with ease.

"To contain him, that takes everybody," Jaguars rookie linebacker Devin Lloyd said Wednesday. "Everybody's got to be alert, and understand that he's very dangerous with the ball in his hands, whether he's throwing it over running it. So, we just have to make sure that we account for him in every defense."

The Jaguars must stay in control and disciplined Sunday, making sure to get their arms around him, remain in their rush lanes and bring him down whenever possible. Otherwise, they could be in trouble.

Hurts isn't out there by himself, either. The Eagles are loaded with talent at the receiver position starting with second-year receiver DeVonta Smith and star receiver A.J. Brown, whom the Jaguars ought to be used to considering he was a member of the Tennessee Titans prior to being traded to Philly during the first round of the draft this year.

That's allowed Hurts to excel beyond what many have expected, but the threat he poses to opposing defenses is perhaps the toughest challenge of the year thus far for the Jaguars.

Demetrius Harvey is the Jacksonville Jaguars reporter for the Florida Times-Union. You can follow him on Twitter at @Demetrius82.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Eagles QB Jalen Hurts will provide Jaguars with biggest test yet in 2022