There’s a reason why, even after the Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl, the conversation around Jalen Hurts building a dynasty in Philly never fully took off. That hesitation started to make more sense during the 2025 season. The offense regressed, locker room tension became noticeable, especially with A.J. Brown, and there was growing noise around the then-offensive coordinator, Kevin Patullo, not having the unit on track.

Now, putting all of that on Hurts wouldn’t be fair. But recent reporting from ESPN suggests he was a central figure in the offensive struggles. The passing game, in particular, has stalled over the past few seasons with Hurts leading the offense. That shift has forced the Eagles to lean heavily on the ground game, led by Saquon Barkley.

Even that approach hasn’t come without friction. Brown has publicly voiced frustration, pointing out that the team has been relying more on its defense to close out games.

“The pass game wasn’t always properly tied to the run, and there’s a level of predictability that allows opposing defenses to get a bead on what’s coming,” Tim McManus and Jeremy Fowler wrote in their report. “Though there is plenty of blame to spread, Hurts has had a hand in the offense becoming calcified, according to several team sources who spoke to ESPN on condition of anonymity.”

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The drop-off shows up clearly in the numbers. Under Kellen Moore, the Eagles ranked 8th in total offense with 6,242 yards in 2024. Under Patullo, that number fell to 24th at 5,291 yards just a year later.

Hurts’ individual numbers followed a similar trend. He finished 16th in passing yards with 3,224, 27th in yards per attempt at 7.1, which marked a career low, and 34th in completion percentage at 65%.

Still, according to ESPN, the issue goes beyond production. It points to structure and decision-making. As McManus and Fowler noted:

“He (Hurts) has pushed back on changes that would diversify the scheme, sources said, including when it comes to him going under center more. He has shown a reluctance to let it rip at times, particularly against zone coverage. He diverts from the game plan and changes playcalls to what some feel is an excessive degree.

“His strong preferences, coupled with the coaches’ efforts to play to his strengths, which include his deep-ball accuracy and throws to the perimeter, limit the breadth to which the offense can expand—or at least that’s the way it has gone in the past.”

A snapshot of that showed up in the wild-card round against the San Francisco 49ers. With 43 seconds left and the Eagles trying to respond, Patullo checked in with Hurts and Nick Sirianni on the next call. The play was “four verts,” the same concept they had just run in the previous play.

Reports suggest Hurts pushed for it. The 49ers read it easily, collapsing three defenders on Dallas Goedert over the middle, and the play went nowhere. The Eagles lost, their season ended, and frustration around the offense only grew.

Now, heading into the offseason, those issues have carried over. Patullo is out after a disappointing run, and the Eagles have brought in Sean Mannion.

The passing game remains a major question. And while that’s been the primary focus, Lane Johnson recently pointed out why the ground game, which once looked like the team’s foundation, took a step back in 2025 despite its success the year before.

Lane Johnson addresses why the Eagles’ ground game struggled in 2025

Heading into this offseason, fixing the ground game has become one of the bigger priorities for the Eagles, which naturally brings up a simple question. How did it get here, especially after how dominant they were on the ground in 2024? Lane Johnson shed some light on that a couple of weeks ago.

“I think when it goes down to it, if you look at it, loading the box up, there are miscommunication issues,” Johnson said on Jon Gruden’s Barstool podcast. “Whether it’s old linemen or if it’s at running back, not hearing it, I feel like we had a lot of inefficient runs and so people unaccounted for, which is unacceptable. It’s like coaches can coach all they want, but at a certain point, people know what football is.

“And that’s something we’ve got to fix as a line. So, it was definitely frustrating going from what seemed like every play was a roller coaster to—it was gritty. Those yards came hard for shape.”

That explanation lines up with what showed up on tape. Miscommunication played a real role in the drop-off. In 2024, the Eagles rushed for 3,048 yards. In 2025, that number fell sharply to 1,908.

Individually, Saquon Barkley crossed the 2000 mark in 2024. And while he still produced last season, finishing with 1,140 yards, the efficiency dipped. His yards per carry dropped from 4.91 to 4.1. The overall volume also took a hit, with total rushing attempts falling from 621 to 459. And explosive runs of 10-plus yards declined by more than 30 percent.

At the same time, Jalen Hurts’ impact on the ground wasn’t the same. After being a key part of the run game in 2024, when he scored over 600 rushing yards, he managed just 421 rushing yards and eight touchdowns in 2025, removing a layer that defenses previously had to account for.

So when you put it all together, the regression makes more sense. The efficiency dropped, the volume dropped, and the unpredictability that once defined their run game faded. And in the bigger picture, that offensive dip in 2025 is a big reason why the Eagles haven’t quite been viewed as a team ready to build a dynasty, with Jalen Hurts often sitting at the center of that conversation.