PHILADELPHIA — Jalen Hurts knows a hard worker when he sees one.
Tony Santiago is the Eagles’ locker room custodian. He’s worked 12 hours a day, six days a week — seven during training camp — for the last 19 years at the NovaCare Complex. But he’s toiled in relative obscurity until Hurts name-checked him two weeks ago following the season finale.
Santiago’s phone buzzed almost immediately after the All-Pro quarterback, whose locker stall he cleans daily, mentioned him by his first name when he was asked what it would take for the Eagles to win the Super Bowl.
“First, I got a text from my family saying, ‘Yo, is that you? He’s talking about you!’ ” Santiago said Wednesday. “And then my friend calls me, he asks me, ‘Yo, he gave you a shoutout. Is that you?’ I was like, ‘I guess.’
“I didn’t think there was anything behind it. I was just thinking he was giving me props.”
Hurts was doing just that, he later explained, but he said he was also acknowledging a kindred worker.
“I wanted to recognize him,” he said. “I talk to him. I talk to everybody. But he just comes in here and he doesn’t say nothing, just does his job, and then goes. I appreciate him.”
When Santiago clocks in at 6:30 a.m., Hurts often isn’t far behind. When he clocks out half the day later, the quarterback is sometimes still hours away from heading home. The janitor said he mostly keeps his head down, but can’t help but notice how the quarterback comports himself.
“I try not to get too into it because everybody is so busy. Jalen’s a real nice guy. Real cool. … But he’s business,” said Santiago, who lives in the Northeast section of Philadelphia. “He walks in and does his thing and then he goes back out and disappears and then comes back again.”
The stories about Hurts’ work ethic are endless, but the why behind his drive isn’t as easy to pin down. It seems most NFL quarterbacks are wired similarly. The best among them are competitive freaks of nature.
But the 24-year-old’s motivation is also very much his own.
“I think everybody’s motivation for doing this is different, and Jalen’s no different,” Eagles quarterbacks coach Brian Johnson said. “He’s uniquely motivated to be the best that he can be. The biggest thing for him is he understands opportunity and what’s at stake.”
The stakes are currently at their highest. The top-seeded Eagles host the New York Giants on Saturday in the divisional playoffs as Hurts and the team look to rebound — not only from last year’s first round exit — but also from a season-ending regression that coincided with Hurts’ right shoulder sprain.
He missed only two games because of the injury and played through pain in the finale that secured a first-round bye. Will he still be less than 100% 13 days later against the same opponent? The Eagles won’t say, but no one doubts he will be prepared.
When Nick Sirianni gave the team the day off after the Week 18 victory, Hurts refused and guilted the coach and some of his offensive assistants into coming in to watch film that Monday.
“I think Ms. Sirianni gave me a hard time about that one. And his kids,” Hurts said. “I told her we have business to attend to.”
Hurts has been holding back assistants from seeing their families dating back to his high school years at Channelview outside Houston. His coach was his father, Averion, and he demanded much of his son. He was also a product of his environment in college having played for the onerous Nick Saban at Alabama.
But Hurts’ diligence, many close to him have said, is mostly innate. He has interests outside football, like music and food, but his schedule often keeps him occupied, especially in-season.
“He’s a grinder. … He doesn’t leave the building; whether it’s 9 at night, 10 at night, he’s here. He doesn’t stop,” Eagles offensive coordinator Shane Steichen said. “I think when you’re obsessed with your craft, you’re going to be really good at what you do.”
But is there a danger in being too obsessed?
“The only question people might ask is, ‘Is he going to burn himself out? Is he having fun with it?’” Eagles reserve quarterback Ian Book said. “But that’s just his personality. He’s been doing this his whole life, acting like this. This is who he is.”
It’s hard to argue with the results, especially over the last year. Last offseason, the Eagles actually explored the possibility of trading for Russell Wilson or Deshaun Watson. But surely they’re glad they didn’t as Hurts delivered an MVP-worthy third season.
No matter how or when the season ends, the Eagles are likely to engage in contract extension negotiations with their quarterback. He could command as much as $50 million a year. The front office will ask difficult questions about his ultimate worth, most of them directed to his on-field performance.
But there’s also the unknown in how he will handle the potential distractions that come with age and money. Jason Kelce, for one, said the Eagles have nothing to worry about.
“Everything he wants to do is not motivated by money, is not motivated by fame, is not motivated by any outside source other than him just wanting to be the best in the world,” the veteran Eagles center said. “And the guys that end up being the best in the world very intrinsically want to be the best in the world and they have a competitiveness and a desire to make that happen.”
A progressive mindset
Hurts’ weekly process begins almost immediately after games. He’s jubilant following victories, of course. The captain took over the role of breaking the team down following Sirianni’s postgame messages this season, and while he has routinely harped on “left money on the table,” his parting missive to enjoy the wins is Hurts at his most exultant.
But the moment doesn’t normally last long. On flights home, while most players are celebrating or mingling in the back, Hurts will walk up to first class, iPad in hand, ready to review the film with Johnson and the other offensive coaches.
“I’ve seen him walk by me. I didn’t know that’s what he was doing up there, but I’m not surprised,” Book said. “He tells me that after games he has a lot on his mind that he wants to watch right after.”
If the Eagles are home, and they start in the afternoon, Johnson’s phone will ring later that evening sometime around 10 or 10:30 p.m. while he’s watching Sunday Night Football.
“And my wife’s like, ‘Who’s that?’ ” Johnson said. “ ‘It’s Jalen.’ ”
They’ll FaceTime and go over plays and decision-making that was successful, but Hurts wants to focus more on his errors. He said he can’t move on until he has evaluated what he did wrong and learned how to improve upon it.
“It’s in my mind, I guess,” he said. “To me, I always want to be in a progressive mindset of, ‘How can I make progress? How can I learn from mistakes? How can I learn from what I just did that will help me better the next time around?’ ”
On Mondays, there is a formal review with corrections at NovaCare. The entire team is in attendance, but while most players head home afterward, Hurts often sticks around. He’ll receive treatment or get a workout in.
Hurts has a setup at home which allows him to study film on a screen larger than his iPad, Book said. But on Tuesdays, the players’ day off, he’s back at the team facility and by the evening ready to digest the game plan for the next opponent coaches spent the day devising.
“He’s the one in here till all hours of the night,” Sirianni said. “He’s the one in here popping his head in the Tuesday night offensive coaches meeting and seeing if Brian Johnson is still in there so he can continue to go over the game plan when it’s 9 o’clock at night.”
It isn’t atypical for quarterbacks to come in on days off, or to get a jump on game plans, or stay later than other players. But it is uncommon to see one on the VersaClimber in the weight room, with midnight approaching, as Johnson described seeing Hurts one random Tuesday as he departed the building.
Hurts’ father raised him to powerlift and tales of his prodigious strength stretch back years. Kelce saw it firsthand while training alongside him at Eagles tackle Lane Johnson’s “Bro Barn” in Moorestown during the 2021 offseason.
But the center said Hurts has broken away from maxing out on lifts.
“Most quarterbacks aren’t workout warriors in the weight room,” Kelce said. “They’re different types of athletes. Sometimes I questioned it like, ‘Is it necessary for you to squat or deadlift what I’m doing?’ But I think in a lot of ways he’s grown away from that, as well.”
The instinctual ability
Hurts, coming off his first year with Sirianni’s staff, approached last offseason differently. Some of the suggestions came from the Eagles. Brian Johnson said Hurts was given a detailed plan on areas in which he needed to improve, with his timing — “finding your rhythm of understanding when the ball’s supposed to be out,” he said — at the top of the list.
There are myriad variables in how to achieve that. In March, Hurts went to 3DQB, the elite passing academy located in Huntington Beach, Calif., where NFL quarterbacks from Tom Brady to Lamar Jackson have worked on their throwing mechanics.
Carson Wentz first went there in 2017 following his rookie season with the Eagles. Some NFL coaches have trepidation about outside gurus turning their quarterbacks into robots, but 3DQB CEO Adam Dedeaux and his instructors are renowned and Johnson said Hurts needed repetitions to fine-tune the sequencing of his throwing motion.
Before heading out, he hit up Dallas Goedert, who has worked out at 3DQB every offseason. The Eagles tight end said he caught balls from Hurts every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday for about a month and that he got to see up close how a few minor tweaks improved his passing.
“The first couple throws — it felt different for him. So the throws weren’t perfect,” Goedert said. “Sometimes he would throw the ‘out’ and his shoulder would be here and it would be a little bit high. They wanted him to get that shoulder down so he could have more zip, more velocity, and be on a line.
“And he’s like, ‘OK, I feel what you’re saying.’ ”
Goedert said Hurts would have him run the same routes over and over as he worked on the various drops he may throw from, but more so the many different platforms and arm angles when he’s forced to improvise.
He said he observed how Hurts was often at his best when left to his own devices — almost as if he was playing backyard football — and that he increasingly didn’t want tips during drills, only after.
Hurts may be disciplined, but he isn’t regimented by outside voices, Kelce said. In the veteran’s opinion, the players who only follow the advice of others when it comes to eating, sleeping, lifting, etc. are often the ones who fail on the football field.
And the best quarterbacks follow their inner compass, he said, more than anything or anyone else.
“The beauty of his game, or Patrick Mahomes or Peyton Manning and Tom Brady — they aren’t robots,” Kelce said. “They can operate in this regimented mode, but they also have the instinctual ability to then make things happen that aren’t designed or concrete.
“Nobody’s going to be the best player in the world by listening to a bunch of people telling them what to do. You take that information and you make it whatever it is that works for you. Jalen puts in hard work, but he’s also creative and instinctual.”
But there’s plenty to be said for grinding. Once Hurts returned from Southern California, he organized passing days with various receivers. And when Eagles spring workouts ended in June, Goedert, receiver A.J. Brown and several others met him down in Miami for a players-only camp.
Hurts’ throwing workouts sometimes took place at odd hours. Backup quarterback Gardner Minshew lived in an old prison bus during the offseason and during OTAs the Eagles allowed him to park it at NovaCare.
“One night I was sneaking into the building to get a little snack at about 8 o’clock and freaking Jalen was in the indoor [bubble] throwing to somebody, you know, with the lights on,” Minshew said. “That guy is just committed to just getting better. It’s never an ego.”
On a mission
Hurts’ stall is tucked in the corner at the front of the Eagles’ locker room — the traditional spot for starting quarterbacks. Santiago has seen them all come and go — from Donovan McNabb to Michael Vick, from Nick Foles to Hurts, who he said keeps his space tidy.
“He’s pretty good at keeping it because that’s his mentality,” Santiago said.
Amid the usual clutter of Hurts’ shoes, clothes and equipment are some personal touches. There’s a scarf from his fraternity, Omega Psi Phi, hanging from a hook. A couple small decals — “‘Bama A Club” and “Women In Sports Social Club” — are stuck on one side. Taped to the back of the stall are letters and artwork from young fans.
But on one shelf is the centerpiece, a plate with Michael Jordan’s image and his quote: “Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, and others MAKE IT happen.”
Hurts may wander into the locker room at times during the three 45-minute periods allotted to reporters during the week. He’s normally either getting suited up for practice or breaking down afterward, but there have been a few occasions when he seems to be relaxing.
His speaker might be playing some slow jam, like Mint Condition’s “Breakin’ My Heart (Pretty Brown Eyes)” and he’ll welcome a question or two. Hurts’ musical tastes run the gamut, but his old-school leanings reflect what many close to him describe as an “old soul.”
He doesn’t frequent clubs, casinos or parties, his friends on the Eagles said.
“For him to be social, somebody got to cook,” Eagles receiver Quez Watkins said. “Usually it’s him and his crawfish. But somebody else might have a barbecue. And then we might go bowling, or do something simple like that.”
Crawfish boils are serious business in the Hurts family. During the offseason, Jalen walked Eagles executive chef James Sirles through his process. He has other outside interests aside from music and food, fashion being one.
Hurts gifted Eagles offensive linemen Louis Vuitton travel bags and his fellow quarterbacks vintage Air Jordan 11s for Christmas. His game day attire is often flashy, but his friends on the team said he’s just as comfortable in sweatsuits away from the spotlight.
Some teammates don’t get to see that side of Hurts away from the facility. Book said Hurts may banter with the quarterbacks about a subject outside of football “once or twice a week” for “about 10 minutes,” but he stops talking long before the others.
“If you didn’t know him you would be like, ‘Man, is he serious all the time? Does he ever have fun? Does he ever smile?’ ” Book said. “And then you realize that he just wants to be great. A lot of people say that, but you can tell he’s on a mission. … He’s not ready to smile yet. He’s ready to become the best and then smile.”
Hurts may be worth $200 million by the time he turns 25 on Aug. 7. Those around him said they don’t believe he’ll be distracted the more complicated his life becomes as the face of a franchise.
Hurts doesn’t seem to be looking that far ahead. He doesn’t have much interest in probing questions about his innermost motivations. Asked if he thinks much about the sacrifices he’s made in his social life or otherwise, he shook his head.
“Because I know what I desire,” Hurts said. “I know what I want. I know what my goals and my dreams are. And I just try to put forth the effort to do those things every day.”
Workers work. Santiago knows. He said he doesn’t mind when the players get messy.
“They’ll be apologetic about it. But, hey, those guys are busy,” Santiago said. “They’re doing their jobs. I just try to keep up.”
