Jalen Hurts’ first major snaps came in Green Bay five years ago. Here’s what those who were there recall.

A tree fell at Lambeau Field in 2020, and while no one was in the stadium to hear it, its sound reverberated through television sets and radio broadcasts in Philadelphia.

The transfer of Eagles quarterbacking power from Carson Wentz to Jalen Hurts on Dec. 6, 2020, was born out of desperation in the second half of a game against the Packers. The Eagles were already down, 20-3, to a Super Bowl-favorite Green Bay team led by Aaron Rodgers, who went on to win league MVP that season, when Hurts took over for Wentz.

“We were getting our [butt] beat,” Jordan Mailata explained Friday.

No pressure, kid. And no energy from spectators to feed off, either, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Well, no one was there,” Hurts recalled Thursday when asked for his lasting memories of his first NFL action.

Hurts was the spark. He quickly made an effort to chip away at the Packers’ lead, whether he was picking up first downs with his legs or throwing his first-career touchdown pass to Greg Ward on fourth-and-18 to cut the deficit to 13 points. A late third-quarter holding call on Isaac Seumalo and a fourth-quarter Hurts interception ruined the Eagles’ attempt at a comeback.

The Eagles went on to lose, 30-16. But the 22-year-old Hurts won the starting job for the long haul, marking the beginning of his tenure as the Eagles’ franchise quarterback and reversing the team’s fortunes. Since 2021, Hurts’ first season as the full-time starter, the Eagles have gone 54-22 in the regular season and 6-3 in the playoffs.

Hurts will return to Lambeau Field on Monday night for the first time since that game, this time with reigning Super Bowl MVP honors and just a few more faces in the crowd. While he said the trip back could be a “little nostalgic,” he didn’t prove anything to himself in that 2020 game.

Long before he trotted onto the field that afternoon in Green Bay, Hurts said he knew that he could play at the NFL level.

“I knew that from practice,” Hurts said. “But I think just really putting the work in and staying patient for when my opportunity came and it came. When you get an opportunity like that, you don’t want to look back.”

Like Hurts, Mailata was practically a rookie himself in that 2020 Green Bay game. Drafted in the seventh round in 2018, the Australia native was sidelined by various injuries throughout the first two years of his career.

So, the then-23-year-old tackle said he was far more concerned with himself, starting in place of the injured Jason Peters in just his 12th NFL game, than he was with Hurts. After all, Hurts was a veteran in the eyes of Mailata. Hurts had played on the football’s biggest collegiate stages, particularly at Alabama, while Mailata hadn’t stepped on a football field until he came to the United States at age 21.

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Coming out of halftime, Mailata had ample confidence in the relatively seasoned Hurts to take over for Wentz.

“I think from what I saw from Jalen was just how hard he worked in the gym and the time we spent off the field,” Mailata said. “I think that’s what gave me the confidence. The best proof of evidence is seeing the work someone puts in. For me, it was just that, seeing Jalen work.”

That work in practice came against the Eagles’ starting defense. Dallas Goedert recalled that Hurts was generally “doing really good” every day while facing off against Jim Schwartz’s top unit, which was headlined by Brandon Graham, Darius Slay, and Rodney McLeod.

“When he would do his zone reads, running, he looked super good,” Goedert said. “Throwing the ball. He was fitting it in tight windows. He was just making it really hard on our defense. It was cool to see. Obviously, it was a little bit different with COVID that year, not being here watching film as a team as much. But he was definitely doing his thing out there.”

Hurts’ preparation carried over to the game, especially when he orchestrated the Eagles’ first touchdown drive of the afternoon in the fourth quarter on the pass to Ward. The duo were well-acquainted. Hurts had already developed a bond with Ward, a fellow Houston native whom he described after the game as “one of my good friends.”

An offensive pass interference call on Alshon Jeffrey had backed the Eagles up to fourth-and-18 at the Packers’ 32-yard line halfway through the fourth quarter. Goedert touted Hurts’ established trust with Ward as the key to helping the ensuing touchdown pass come to fruition.

“I’m pretty sure [Hurts] was asking Doug [Pederson] for [that play] on the sideline,” Goedert said. “Doug called it and he rolled and made it work to G. Ward. So that was cool, just seeing him being a backup and stepping in and knowing what he wants, knowing what he sees, and executing it.”

It wasn’t just Hurts’ performance in practice that gave players like Marcus Epps confidence that he was ready to take on the starting job. It was the mentality, too, that the rookie brought to everything he did. A safety, Epps said that Hurts has always had a “certain type of laser focus,” staying ready for his moment even though he served as the backup to Wentz for most of the season.

Graham wasn’t as close to Hurts then as he is now. He said he didn’t pick a side between Wentz or Hurts as the starting quarterback succession commenced. He claimed that he rooted for “whoever got the job done.”

Still, the veteran defensive end was watching Hurts closely from afar throughout his rookie year. From his vantage point on the opposite side of the ball, Graham said Hurts always possessed the confidence of a starter.

“Just acting like he was playing,” Graham said. “That’s the biggest thing is not getting frustrated from you not playing to when your name does get called, then it’s like you’re prepared for it. You were ready for it. So I’d just seen him step into what he was already ready for.”

Hurts returns to Lambeau with new Super Bowl hardware and the lucrative contract extension he signed in 2023. But even though Hurts isn’t the backup anymore, Mailata said he’s still the same person, even if that person isn’t always on display to the public.

Mailata sees the more personal side of Hurts, the one that likes to crack jokes behind the scenes. The public, Mailata explained, sees the “brand.” Fans hear Hurts’ “philosophizing,” his poignant one-liners at the podium that would make fortune cookie manufacturers jealous. Hurts’ latest on Wednesday — “You live life forward, but you learn it backwards” — got a rise out of Mailata.

“That [stuff] is [freaking] hilarious,” Mailata said. “Like, how does one think of that? His quote [on Wednesday]. That [stuff] is, like, golden. Like, how does he do this? How does he do it, man?

“Consistency. The consistency is what blows my mind.”

Hurts keeps it consistent on the field, too, especially in terms of his attitude. Seldom does Mailata see an emotional Hurts on the gridiron or on the sideline.

“It doesn’t matter how big of a game it is,” Mailata said. “Even though he will let out spurts of emotion, where you guys see it. Those are the mic’d up moments where he’s like, ‘Come on, that’s what the [bleep] I’m talking about.’ His ability to just, bam, leave that on the field and come back on the sideline and be even-keeled.

“That’s tough, honestly, especially when you have a team like ours. We have a bunch of psychos on our team who just have high energy all the time, and he’s just like, ‘Hey, I’m going to stay here.’ It would be really easy to just jump in and celebrate and show emotion. But for him, win, lose, draw, it’s just ride the waves.”

Mailata did some self-described “philosophizing” of his own when opining on Hurts’ even-keeled nature at the helm of the team.

“He’s the baseline, and we come back,” Mailata said. “He’s the lighthouse. We can see the lighthouse at night. We just know we’ve got to come back to him. For me, at least, it’s the baseline of, ‘OK, where are my emotions right now?’ It keeps me in check.”

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While Hurts may be the same person to his teammates, he isn’t the same turnover-prone player he was as a younger quarterback. Nine months removed from the Super Bowl, Hurts has 15 passing touchdowns, one interception, and a 114.4 passer rating this season. According to Next Gen Stats, his passer rating is the second highest of any quarterback in a season after he won the Super Bowl, trailing Aaron Rodgers’ 122.5 in 2011.

But the biggest strides that Hurts has made at the position can’t be quantified, Goedert says.

“He just continues to pick up the little things that the great quarterbacks do,” Goedert said. “Changing protections, checking plays, getting through his reads faster, things like that. He just continues to develop each year and it’s been cool to see.”

Most importantly, Graham said, Hurts hasn’t lost the “chip on his shoulder” that fueled him while he waited for his opportunity behind Wentz.

“I think that now that he’s the guy, he wants to continue to keep making sure that he’s the guy by how he prepares,” Graham said. “Because some people can lose that. When they get the job, you feel like you forget that other people [are] waiting patiently, just like how you [were]. I don’t see that with him.

“That’s what you’re most excited for, because people that typically get the job aren’t afraid to lose it. Especially after getting paid. But as you can see, with Carson Wentz, he got paid and then it’s only so many times you can do bad and then somebody else gets a try.”

This time around, Hurts will have another try to defeat the Packers in their home stadium, a feat the Eagles haven’t achieved since 2019. While the 2020 loss still lingers, perhaps more so than warm-and-fuzzy nostalgic feelings, Hurts acknowledged its significance in his journey as the Eagles’ franchise quarterback.

“I think that is a key point just for my career as it’s gone,” Hurts said. “But I’m appreciative of that and the opportunity Coach Doug and that staff gave me to go out there and kind of start a new era.”