Rex Ryan Is Clueless When Talking About Jalen Hurts
Rex Ryan obviously knows a lot more about Football than most of us. You don’t have a long coaching career like him without knowing Football. But knowing Football does not mean you know everything about every player on every team. And Rex Ryan proved this week he knows very little about Jalen Hurts or the Eagles.
Rex Ryan went on air and made the bold and dumb claim that the Eagles are not good enough to win with Jalen Hurts throwing from the pocket.
The Facts That Rex Ryans Ignores About Jalen Hurts
If you just looked at the plain stats, you might agree with Rex and think the Eagles have trouble passing the ball. He is 20th in passing yards and 20th in passing TDs. What the people who bring up those stats conveniently ignore though is the fact he is 22nd in passing attempts and that he is 4th in yards per attempt.
But let’s look deeper at Rex Ryan’s claim. Because he specifically said he cant throw out of the pocket.
Lucky for us, PFF tracks stats out of the pocket. I think PFF’s grades are useless, but they do track some pretty useful stats. And if Rex Ryan had spent 10 minutes looking into those stats before talking, he might have spared himself some embarrassment.
Here are some of his stats when in a clean pocket:
- Completion Rate: 78.9% (2nd)
- Yards Per Attempt: 9.4 (2nd)
- Intercpetions: 3 (Tied For 6th fewest)
- Adjusted Completion Rate: 85.5% (1st)
- Passer Rating: 116.8% (3rd)
And this is not new. In 2022 these were his pocket stats
- Yards Per Attempt: 8.5 (2nd)
- TDs : 21 (10th)
- Completion Rate: 73.2 (6th)
- Passer Rating: 111.5 (3rd)
Even in 2023, a down season, he still put up decent pocket numbers
- Yards Per Attempt: 7.6 (11th)
- Big Time Throw %: 4.9% (9th)
- Passer Rating: 98 (15th)
In two of the 3 seasons, he has been an elite pocket passer. In his one down year, he was average. But the point is, there is literally nothing there to back up Rex Ryan’s claim.
Something he would know if he watched more Eagles game. But as a National Expert, he is expected to be able to talk about all 32 teams, making it hard to focus on any one team. That does not however mean you should just make up something like Rex did, and blurt it out on TV. Plently of national talking heads manage to speak without lying. Rex is still figuring it out.
Does Jalen Hurts have his flaws? Of course. All players do. He is not perfect or above criticism. He has had games this season where he was bad, like against the Panthers. For a decent stretch this season he was too passive, not taking enough risks. Last season and early this season he made too many turnovers.
But Pocket Passing is not something anyone who wants to be taken seriously should knock him for. The facts don’t lie. He is a very good pocket passer. He is also a very good deep ball passer. Since the bye week he has protected the Football better than nearly anyone. His counting stats might be lower, but that is only because they throw it less than other teams. We saw against the Steelers they can beat teams through the air when they need to though.
But for some reason, all Rex Ryan sees when he looks at Hurts is a mobile QB. It is a lazy take by someone who has not watched enough of the Eagles to be weighing in.
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