Eagles notebook: A role for Jalyx Hunt, ready for noise and more

After being inactive in Week 1, Eagles rookie Jalyx Hunt made his NFL debut in Week 2.

And it went well.

“He did an unbelievable job of going out there and playing at a high level,” special teams coordinator Michael Clay said. “Graded out well.”

While the Eagles lost a heartbreaker, 22-21, to the Falcons, the rookie from Houston Christian played 13 snaps and impressed his coaches.

Before Monday night’s game, the Eagles waived veteran outside linebacker Patrick Johnson to create a roster spot. That also created an opportunity for Hunt on special teams.

“Yeah, Jalyx performed, I thought, really well on short notice,” Clay said. “He did a great job. He's a ball of energy. He's got physicality to him. He caused that illegal block in the back on the kickoff that really helped us from the 24 to the 14, where Trot made a play.

“I think that's the cool thing about it. You see all these young cats out there, they don't blink, they don't flinch. They're out there trying to give the best ability they can, and they're really doing a good job. But we expect them to get better, and we're going to push them to get better, and I think they're accepting of the challenge.”

Here’s the second-quarter play Clay referenced. You see Hunt (third from the left) beat his man (No. 40) and force the penalty:

Johnson was such a huge contributor on special teams in the Nick Sirianni Era; nobody has played more special teams snaps than him. After Johnson was waived, the Giants claimed him. So now that responsibility belongs to Hunt. 

Hunt could eventually earn a role in the edge rusher rotation but for now his job is going to be special teams. He got off to a good start last week.

Ready for the noise

The Eagles have been working all week to prepare for the noise they expect to experience at the Superdome on Sunday afternoon.

“Yeah, a lot of it is going to be communication,” right tackle Lane Johnson said. “It’s going to be loud so making sure we get our calls, making sure we’re on the right cadence. Out of all the places, it’s probably one of the louder ones.”

Head coach Nick Sirianni said the Eagles did as much as they could to simulate the crowd noise all week. They’ve been pumping up the noise in practice.

Sirianni said they’ve also been playing crowd noise — not music — nonstop. During games, there are ups and downs with the noise but the Eagles wanted to keep it constant to make communication even tougher in practice.

“It’s been loud. Our ears are ringing from the crowd noise yesterday,” he said. “Sometimes, you try to even put it up a little bit louder. We have it up as loud as the speakers go, but to make it louder, sometimes you actually use — instead of music, you use the crowd noise. Which can become annoying, but that's what we've done.

“So communicating and being on the same page in the noise is one of our keys to win this game. That's really any time you're on the road, but especially in New Orleans.”

The risk of RPOs

Since Jalen Hurts has been the Eagles’ starting quarterback, they’ve gotten a lot of value out of using the Run-Pass Option. But with those RPOs comes the danger of taking Ineligible Downfield Pass penalties.

The Eagles were penalized three times for that on Monday night.

“Yeah, I think we had some really, really good discussions just because it's been a really successful component for us, so we don't want to lose that element of our offense,” offensive coordinator Kellen Moore said. “There's part technique, part scheme. There's really a combination of that.

“We've had some really good discussions. We don't want to lose that aspect of it. But the timing of everything and when to make those decisions and when to call those plays, I think all have critical moments. We had some really fun discussions about this that I think will help going forward.”

Basically, on those RPOs, the offensive line starts to run block but they can’t leak down the field. If they leave the neutral zone before the pass, it’s a penalty.

This is a problem that pre-dates Moore’s arrival in Philadelphia. Since Nick Sirianni became head coach (and Hurts became the starting QB), the Eagles have been penalized a league-high 15 times and have been called for it 22 times.

“It’s been a little different over the years,” Hurts said. “It seems like it’s been more aggressively called, especially in that game. So it’s something that we have to do a really good job of in how we execute it and how we prepare for those situations so we can take ourselves out of those positions.”

A lot of new on defense

The Eagles’ defense is coming off a really disappointing performance against the Falcons on Monday Night Football. During Vic Fangio’s Thursday press conference, there were plenty of questions about inexperience. Zack Baun hasn’t played much inside linebacker so he hasn’t dealt with cut blocks, Quinyon Mitchell is a rookie, Bryce Huff is playing a new role in Philly.

After all that, the veteran DC was asked if there’s too much inexperience on his side of the football to function at a high level.

“Yeah, I don't think it's as cut and dry as that,” Fangio said. “You can be young and still play well, mentally and physically. There's been a lot of guys that do that.

Are we still in the process of learning how to do everything? Probably. Doing it at a high level of proficiency, especially when the game is on the line. But yeah, I mean, maybe.”

Playing Spikeball

During Monday night’s game, Hurts had an uncharacteristic penalty called on him during the second quarter of the loss.

The Eagles were faced with a 4th-and-3 from the Atlanta 41-yard line when Hurts broke free and scrambled for a 23-yard game to get the Eagles into the red zone. As he rose to his feet, he emphatically spiked the football, which rolled away.

Hurts was penalized for a delay of game.

“I didn’t know I could get flagged for that,” Hurts said. “If I would have known that, I probably wouldn’t have done it.”

Still, it was notable that Hurts showed so much emotion in that moment — more emotion than we’re used to seeing from him. The Eagles were down three points at that moment in a game that ended up being extremely close.

“Honestly, I wanted the stadium to feel me,” Hurts said. “It was one of those games where we needed everyone. And when I mean everyone, we need all three phases and every seat that was filled in that stadium, in the Linc. I think it definitely got a good spike of energy but we came up short. We’ll have another opportunity to shake back from that.”

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