This Pro Bowler has come to Jalen Hurts’ defense as a vital part of the Eagles’ offense.
While the Philadelphia Eagles have been generally accepted as a top-2 team in the NFC, with some preferring the Detroit Lions to Nick Sirianni’s team or vice versa, one player who hasn’t earned nearly as much love is Jalen Hurts, the team’s Pro Bowl quarterback in his third season as a full-time starter.
After throwing the ball a ton to start out the year, averaging more than 30 attempts per game before the bye, Hurts has become a certified game manager for Philadelphia, making good decisions with the ball, correctly reading the RPO with All-World rusher Saquon Barkley, and ultimately running for additional yardage and first downs when there’s nothing going on down the field.
Is Hurts being propped up by a passing offense that allows him to defeat a Super Bowl contender like the Baltimore Ravens while only completing 11 passes? Potentially so, but does he deserve to be called nothing more than a handoff machine like some have claimed online? In three-time Pro Bowler Keyshawn Johnson on his FS1 show First Things First, the answer to that question is a resounding no, as QB1 is contributing to the Eagles’ winning ways just like the rest of the offense.
“He doesn’t get respect. It feels like he gets constantly disrespected,” Johnson declared by NJ.com. “Let’s start off by saying the guy as a full-time starter has gone to the playoffs every single year. He’s gotten to the Super Bowl, he finished second in the MVP voting, and they cashed him out a year ago and told him, ‘You’re our guy moving forward.’”
You know, while Johnson may not be the most popular man in Philadelphia due to his run with the Cowboys, this assertion will make him just a little bit more popular.
Nick Sirianni breaks down how Jalen Hurts has cut down on turnovers
Speaking of Hurts’ change of attitude under center since the bye, Sirianni was asked about how his QB1 has stopped turning the ball over as often over the past few weeks.
While Sirianni admitted that threading the needle between being safe and pursuing explosive plays is tough to execute, in the end, Hurts has figured out how to do it, and the Eagles are winning as a result.
“I think the thing is, he’s cut down his interceptions and he is still being explosive as a player. That’s a very tricky thing. Hey, we want to win the double positive. What do we talk about double positive? Again, win the explosive play battle, offensively and defensively, and win the turnover battle. You have to take risks at times to create explosive plays. Not risks, but you’ve got to make some great throws with some great reads and all those different things,” Sirianni told reporters.
“So he’s just playing really good football right now. He continues to play really good football. There is a reason that we’re winning, and a big reason is [QB] Jalen Hurts. I think what he’s doing so well is that he’s reading the defense, he’s taking what they’re giving him. And when it’s not there, he throws it away or he creates an explosive play with his legs.That’s something so unique to Jalen. Again, he’s just doing all the little things, all the minute, boring details that a quarterback needs to do to have his team be successful.
“Again, when your team is successful, your quarterback has got to be doing good things. And he really is. There are things that aren’t obvious to the eye of everybody, things he’s doing to help us win. Whether that’s checks, whether that’s throwing it away when he needs to throw it away, whether that’s scrambling when he needs to scramble. We all see the highlight plays that he’s made, but he’s just playing really clean football and doing a great job leading this football team.”
Will Hurts eventually have to throw the ball 40 times to win a game when it matters? Potentially so, but hopefully, these last eight weeks have taught Hurts some valuable lessons for when that day eventually comes, as if so, the Eagles will have just another way to win in their bag.