Meet the QB-turned-Eagles coach who’s sped up Jalen Hurts’ development — and his own career arc

PHOENIX — The backdrop varies.

There was the time Philadelphia Eagles backup quarterback Gardner Minshew was missing an off-platform, dump-off throw in practice. He needed to more firmly brace his core, quarterbacks coach Brian Johnson explained.

There was the time, too, when third-string quarterback Ian Book needed to prepare for a possible game-day activation after just two weeks in the building. Johnson called Book to his office, determined which 10 to 15 plays he was most comfortable with, and then distilled their nuances.

“If it’s two-high [safeties], let’s read this point here,” Book says Johnson relayed, “and if it’s one-high, let’s read this point here.”

A series of computational decisions that would otherwise have slowed his on-field processing suddenly dissipated.

And then there are the times when starting quarterback Jalen Hurts, in his breakout season, is reviewing the decision that awaits on a run-pass option. Johnson is intentional not just with what information he delivers but also how he delivers it.

“If you’re reading a player, for example, in a zone read, and I say, ‘If he can’t tackle you, pull it,’ that would elicit a different response than if I told you, ‘If he can’t tackle the back, give it,’” Johnson told Yahoo Sports. “How you frame stuff in their minds I think is really, really important to elicit the response that you want.”

The response that Johnson’s coaching has elicited in the Eagles’ Super Bowl season is clear: Hurts is playing more quickly, processing defenses more effectively, and elevating his offensive efficiency in part due to the quarterbacks coach guiding his fundamental development.

Because while the applications of Johnson’s coaching shift, his No. 1 goal doesn’t: Simplify the game.

The Eagles see the results.

“What you always want for coaches is to make this game that is complex, simple, because they’re making decisions in split seconds,” head coach Nick Sirianni said. “And it’s hard to play this game in your mind super complex. You have to make it simple so you play fast. And Brian does a great job of that, just putting himself in the shoes of a quarterback because he’s been there, and then simplifying the reads for them, simplifying the checks for them, simplifying the defense and chunking the information together.”

So it’s perhaps unsurprising that the same players for whom Johnson has simplified football are the players who see their 35-year-old position coach’s future quite simply. His path to NFL head-coaching isn’t a matter of if, they say, but when.

“He’s going to be a star,” Hurts said from Phoenix this week. “He’s going to be a big-time head coach, I have no doubt in my mind.”

‘You can’t … remain the same’

Before Johnson was coaching Hurts, the familial roles were reversed. Jalen Hurts’ father, Averion Hurts, was Johnson’s high school coach in the Texas city of Baytown, about 26 miles from Houston.

An understanding of Johnson’s eventual NFL tutelage began to form. Jalen’s demeanor resembles his father’s so eerily at times that Johnson has clipped the younger Hurts’ speeches and sent them to Averion.

“If this don’t sound just like you did,” he texted Averion recently, “I don’t know what does.”

Johnson’s credentials for his first NFL opportunity extend beyond the personal connection.

As a Utah quarterback from 2004-2008, Johnson won a school-record 26 career games. He threw for 7,853 yards and 57 touchdowns to 27 interceptions, rushing for another 848 yards and 12 touchdowns. Johnson’s coaches valued the mental grasp fueling his on-field performance so much that they hired him as quarterbacks coach within a year.

By 2012, when he was 24 years old, Johnson was promoted to offensive coordinator — the youngest FBS offensive coordinator at the time. Working alongside his own coaches, he hadn’t yet mastered the teaching and communication styles he now employs.

“Night and day,” Johnson said. “At that point, you just don’t know what you don’t know. I learned a lot of lessons [like] to just continue to find ways to evolve. The game is evolving, the game is constantly changing.

“One thing you can’t do, as a coach, is remain the same or remain stagnant. Just as we ask players to continue to get better, we’re no different: We’ve got to find ways to continually better ourselves as a coach.”

The Eagles would eventually hire Johnson as quarterbacks coach after stints at Mississippi State, Houston and Florida featured guidance over quarterbacks including Dallas Cowboys starter Dak Prescott and Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Kyle Trask.

Johnson aims to continually recalibrate his teaching methods and coaching emphases for the players currently under his watch, knowing his job as their position coach is to simultaneously coach the group and coach each of their individual strengths and learning styles. Now in their second season together with the Eagles, Johnson and Hurts aimed to improve the quarterback’s consistency. A key to that goal: treating each play independently rather than deriving assumptions based on a defense’s past response to a given play call.

“You can’t be the guy who sees the roulette table and is like, ‘Oh, 11 reds in a row? It’s got to be black,’” Johnson told Yahoo Sports. “I think he’s done a great job of building his bank of plays [which] accelerates your vision.”

Hurts improved his productivity this season, throwing touchdowns on 4.8% of his passes, up from 3.7% in 2021, while his completion rate rose from 61.3% to 66.5%. In concert, Hurts’ interception percentage dropped from 2.1% to 1.3% — up from 12th-best among league quarterbacks to fifth. The Eagles' offense ranked No. 3 in both yardage and scoring this season after finishing 14th and 12th last season, respectively. And now, they’ll compete in a Super Bowl on Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs.

Eagles offensive coordinator Shane Steichen credits Johnson, in part, for Hurts’ evolution.

“The way he goes about his business every single day to get Jalen ready to play speaks for itself,” Steichen told Yahoo Sports. “You see the product on the field, what he’s done with Jalen — it’s been awesome.”

Brian Johnson on track that often produces head coaches

Speaking from a high-top chair among Opening Night madness, and two days later from a round table at the team’s Phoenix-area hotel, Johnson focused less this week on long-term goals than he did on keys to a Super Bowl victory.

His mantra to always “leave something better than you found it” demands he fully prioritize the game plan at hand, ensuring Hurts — whose recovery from a shoulder sprain remains a question — is as prepared as possible to face the Chiefs.

And yet, Johnson’s performance this season has advanced him toward the eventual head-coaching goals he compartmentalizes. A 2022 NFL report on diversity and inclusion detailed occupational mobility trends, noting that across 20 years, 31.1% of first-time head coaches were hired immediately after a term as an offensive coordinator.

Offensive coordinators most frequently have matriculated from quarterbacks coach roles, including 19 of the 29 coordinators as of the report’s release.

Another trend was also stark among those QB coaches-turned-coordinators: Of 109 such coaches in 20 years, 90.8% were white. Johnson is Black.

In the first Super Bowl featuring two Black starting quarterbacks, the Eagles quarterbacks coach is also an outlier paving the way. All three of their impacts go beyond the jobs for which they were hired.

“Regardless of what field you’re in or what you aspire to be when you grow up, to see people who look like you at the top of that profession is something I think is really inspiring,” Johnson said. “It’s no different than when I was coming up and watched Warren Moon and watched Steve McNair play in Houston before they went to Tennessee. Made me want to play quarterback.

“To see that in the next generation is truly inspiring.”

Johnson continues to outline his vision for an eventual head-coaching opportunity, a document on his iPad housing his responses to potential scenarios he’d need to address. Johnson credits Sirianni for supporting him as he shapes that vision. Hurts basks in the time he gets learning from a player-turned-coach he’d long respected.

“Hopefully we can keep him here as long as we possibly can, but nonetheless I’m proud of him,” Hurts said. “It’s just the beginning for both of us.”

Follow Yahoo Sports’ Jori Epstein on Twitter @JoriEpstein