The collapse was swift, and the blame game was even swifter for the Philadelphia Eagles. They are now out after a Wild Card loss to the San Francisco 49ers. Soon after that disappointing end, some blamed Nick Sirianni and Kevin Patullo (already fired), and for others, it’s Jalen Hurts. Now, that debate pulled in a heavy voice.

Super Bowl XXXIV winner Kurt Warner stepped in with his own read on Hurts.

“I don’t think he’s the greatest processor in terms of getting from one to two to three and working through his progressions quickly,” Kurt said on The Rich Eisen Show. “But he’s also not rare in the league in terms of not everybody is a great processor when he knows where he wants to go with the football. He’s a tremendous thrower of the football. And we’ve seen that, and it’s why he’s been so good in those big moments.”

Warner praised the arm but clearly questioned the processing speed. In the last wild-card game, once the 49ers started applying pressure, Jalen Hurts was forced to throw the ball away multiple times just to avoid sacks. Short passes to Saquon Barkley and DeVonta Smith didn’t create much either, leaving the offense stuck in place. As had been true all season, big plays were missing, especially through the air, with Hurts failing to complete a single pass that traveled more than 20 yards.

So, the numbers matter here. When Hurts worked from the pocket, his passer rating dipped by 6.1, while his completion rate slid by nearly six percent. Still, touchdowns jumped from 14 to 20, even as yards per attempt fell. Hurts threw 90 fewer passes in 2024, with 361 compared to 454 the year after, which changes how clean those gains really look.

Meanwhile, his performance outside the pocket told a calmer story. Hurts completed about five percent more passes on the move. Yet overall results stayed flat. He held the same plus-three touchdown-to-interception margin. His passer rating and yards per attempt barely moved. Because of that, the talk about him escaping too early does not fully hold up across the full season.

Still, many circle back to coaching chaos. Hurts will now be heading toward working with his fifth offensive coordinator since 2021. Shane Steichen remains the only one who stayed for consecutive seasons. Kurt sees that churn is a factor. However, he also pointed out that the core style never really changed, which means Hurts already knew the assignments.

“They’ve been simple for years, good, bad, or indifferent. They’ve had great success with the simplicity of that offense because they’ve been built around [it],” he said. “And the bottom line is they didn’t execute and play very well this year. And it started up front. They didn’t run the football well. They didn’t have success.”

And the drop-off proves it. The Birds went from scoring 27.2 points per game to just 22.3. Offensive efficiency crashed from fourth to 19th. Even worse, the ground game fell from a dominant 179 yards per week to a middle-of-the-pack 116.9.

In the end, this makes the 49ers’ loss sting more. Philadelphia carries the league’s most expensive offense. With Saquon Barkley, A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, and Hurts, the talent screams elite. Yet against the 49ers, the Eagles managed only 19 points. For a simple offense built to dominate, that performance was unacceptable.

Eagles stick to ‘simplistic’ offensive play because of Jalen Hurts?

According to former Eagles back LeSean McCoy, the coaching staff has been forced into a box. As McCoy explained, the offense stays basic because Hurts allegedly struggles with more layered concepts, which limits what the Birds can even put on tape.

“I did a lot of digging, and I won’t throw them under the bus here, but I know some people, and the problem is we can’t do different exotic looks, different formations, different motions because I’m hearing that [Jalen Hurts] can’t really do it,” McCoy said when he spoke after the playoff loss to the Niners.

Then, while appearing on The Rich Eisen Show, Kurt Warner endorsed the simplistic offense narrative.

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“They’ve been simple for years, good, bad, or indifferent,” he said, before laying out what he believes the plan has always been. “We don’t have to be complex on the outside because we’ve got the weapons, and we can go and win one-on-one, and we can have success. And so that’s how they were built coming into the year.”

However, unlike McCoy, Kurt Warner doesn’t see Hurts as the problem.

“You’re going to tell me that Jalen Hurts couldn’t call those plays and, put it, give them a wristband… To me seems like the most ludicrous part of it is that the Jalen couldn’t handle more on his plate.”

Still, the recent box score did Hurts no favors. In the 23-19 loss to San Francisco, he finished 20 of 35 for just 168 yards and one score. Even more alarming, Jauan Jennings had more completions over 15 air yards than Hurts. That raised eyebrows across Philly and added fuel to the simple offense debate.

Yet, Kurt continues to zoom out. He sees a bigger picture problem. Injuries wrecked the front. Lane Johnson missed seven games, Landon Dickerson and Cam Jurgens never looked right. For Warner, that breakdown up front mattered just as much as any play call. And for Bird Gang, that may be the hardest truth to swallow.