Jalen Hurts has looked less than superhuman through the first two weeks of the season, and he’ll be the first to admit his performances against the Patriots and Vikings weren’t up to his standards.
That being said, Hurts is the last person on Earth I care about. And when I hear people say that last year was a fluke or the teams figured him out or my favorite – are we starting to see another change like we did with Carson? I just laughed.
Jalen will be fine.
I think back in 2003, when the Eagles were coming off their second consecutive NFC Championship Game, and two games into the season Donovan McNabb threw three interceptions and no touchdowns, his passer rating was an NFL -worst 41.4, he was fired. 11 times, the Eagles were 0-2 and it seemed like the end of the world.
All the Eagles did was win 12 of their next 14 games and reach another NFC Championship Game, and McNabb went to another Pro Bowl.
It will happen. We’ve seen it all over the league in the first two weeks of the season. Patrick Mahomes and the powerful offense of the Chiefs averaged 18 points per game. Josh Allen threw three picks against the Jets. Joe Burrow and Matt Stafford – who competed in a Super Bowl 18 months ago – have two of the lowest passer ratings in the league.
Hurts faced the best defensive coach in history, who had five months to prepare for him, and then a Vikings team with a new defensive coordinator in 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’s not as sharp as last year, it’s not like he’s terrible. He didn’t seem to see the field the way he used to, didn’t use the best judgment when he was taken off the run and committed one bad turnover on every play.
But he made enough plays in big moments to get the Eagles to 2-0 for just the seventh time since 1993, he had the highest completion percentage by an Eagles QB after two games ever by Randall Cunningham in 1992, and he made some of these signatures. amazing games that we are so used to.
In the Patriots game, when things were going badly in the fourth quarter, he completed six straight passes — four to AJ Brown — to set up a crucial Jake Elliott field goal. And that doesn’t include a beautiful 48-yard back-shoulder pass that Brown bobbled as he went out of bounds, making a perfect pass incomplete after a replay challenge. Another penalty – a borderline holding on Landon Dickerson – denied a 25-yard TD to Brown.
In the Vikings game, the passing game wasn’t what anyone wanted, but Hurts found a way to complete two 50-yard passes for the first time in his career – a 54-yarder off his back foot to DeVonta Smith in the first. quarter that set up a field goal and a 63-yard TD in the third quarter – the 3street-longest TD pass of his career. And rush for two more touchdowns.
There is a game on Thursday night that vintage Hurts.
The Eagles have 3street-and-5 at their own 41-yard line with 5:14 left in the game. The Vikings scored 14 straight points to cut a 20-point lead to six, and they had all the momentum. The Eagles were reeling, and the crowd at the Linc was freaking out. It really felt like if the Eagles couldn’t convert and had to punt, they weren’t going to win the game.
Great game. Pivotal game.
Hurts put a pass in a tight window between linebacker DJ Wonnum and cornerback Akayleb Evans to Brown for a first down. Next play, D’Andre Swift ran 43 yards. Two plays later Swift scored and the Eagles had a two-possession lead with 4 ½ minutes remaining. Ball game.
In the box score, only 12 yards were completed. In fact, it was a rare game by Hurts in a rare high-leverage situation with the game on the line on national TV.
We can talk about numbers all day, but we should all know by now that some of the things Hurts did to help the Eagles win games can’t be measured by statistics.
He was looking for a way. And I know some people get mad when you start talking about wins being a quarterback stat, but there’s no one person who affects what happens on the field more than the quarterback, and the Hurts every week thinks of ways to lead this team to a win even when he’s not at his best or things are falling apart around him.
And that can take many forms. Whether it’s calming Brown down when he doesn’t get the ball or encouraging a young teammate on the sideline with no assignment or willing himself to get through traffic to convert a big third. He was looking for a way.
The Eagles are 24-8 under Nick Sirianni when Hurts starts, 22-3 as roots grow underground and 19-1 in Hurts’ last 20 starts.
That is no accident. That’s not a fluke.
Whether his stats are great or not, Hurts is doing what he needs to do for the Eagles to win football games, and when you get down to it, that’s all that matters.