Jalen Hurts has looked nothing short of superhuman through the first two weeks of the season, and he would be the first to admit that his performances against the Patriots and Vikings were not up to his standard.
That said, Hurts is about the last guy on Earth I’m worried about. And when I hear people say it was a fluke last year or that teams came up on him or my favorite – are we starting to see another regression like we did with Carson? i’m just laughing
Jalen will be fine.
I remember 2003 when the Eagles were making their second straight NFC Championship Game and Donovan McNabb had three interceptions and no touchdowns in two games of the season, his passer rating was the worst in the NFL at 41.4, he was fired. 11 times the Eagles were 0-2 and it looked like the end of the world.
All the Eagles did was win 12 of their next 14 games to reach another NFC Championship game and McNabb went to another Pro Bowl.
It happened. We’ve seen it across the league in the first two weeks of the season. Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs’ potent offense are averaging 18 points per game. Josh Allen threw three picks against the Jets. Joe Burrow and Matt Stafford — who faced off in the Super Bowl 18 months ago — have the two lowest passer ratings in the league.
Hurts faced the best defensive coach in history to date, who had five months to prepare for him, and then a Vikings team with a new defensive coordinator on a short week. And he did it with a new offensive coordinator who is clearly still finding his way in his new role.
And while he didn’t look as sharp as last year, it’s not like he was terrible. He doesn’t seem to see the field the way he usually does, hasn’t used the best judgment when going for a run, and has committed one bad turnover every play.
But he’s made enough plays in big moments to get the Eagles 2-0 for just the seventh time since 1993, has the highest completion percentage by an Eagles QB after two games since Randall Cunningham in 1992, and has made several such signings. the spectacular games we have become so accustomed to.
For the Patriots, when things looked bleak in the fourth quarter, he completed six straight passes — four to AJ Brown — to set up Jake Elliott’s crucial field goal. And that’s not including a beautiful 48-yard back-shoulder pass that Brown wobbled a bit as he stepped off the board, rendering a perfect pass incomplete after a replay call. Another penalty — a holding on the line for Landon Dickerson — negated a 25-yard TD to Brown.
In the Vikings game, the passing game wasn’t what anyone would have liked, but Hurts found a way to complete two 50-yard passes for the first time in his career — the first a 54-yarder off his back foot to DeVonta Smith. quarter that set up a field goal and a 63-yard TD in the third quarter—3rd– longest TD pass of his career. And rush for two more touchdowns.
Thursday night there was one game that was vintage Hurts.
The Eagles had 3rd-and-5 at their own 41-yard line with 5:14 left in the game. The Vikings scored 14 straight to cut a 20-point lead to six and had all the momentum. The Eagles were fighting and the crowd in Linz was terrified. It really looked like if the Eagles couldn’t convert and had to punt, they weren’t going to win the game.
A huge game. Pivotal game.
Hurts ran through a tight window between linebacker DJ Wonnum and cornerback Akayleb Evans to Brown for a first down. On the next play, D’Andre Swift ran 43 yards. Two plays later, Swift scored to give the Eagles the lead with 4 ½ minutes left. Ball game.
In the box score, it was just a 12-yard completion. In fact, it was a spectacular play by Hurts in an incredibly high leverage situation with the game on the line on national television.
We could talk about numbers all day, but we should all know by now that some of the things Hurts does to help the Eagles win games can’t be measured in stats.
He will find a way. And I understand that some people get mad when you start talking about wins as a quarterback, but there’s no one person who affects what happens on the field more than the quarterback, and Hurts finds ways week in and week out to move this team. winning even when he’s not at his sharpest or things are falling apart around him.
And that can take many forms. Whether it’s calming Brown down when he’s not getting the ball, cheering on a young teammate on the sideline who’s missed an assignment, or running through traffic around the posts to convert a big third down. He will find a way.
The Eagles are 24-8 under Nick Sirianni when Hurts starts, 22-3 from the roots of the rising underground and 19-1 in Hurts’ last 20 starts.
This is not an accident. It is not a coincidence.
Whether his stats are nice or not, Hurts does what he needs to do to help the Eagles win football games, and when you get down to it, that’s all that matters.
