Jalen Hurts responds when ‘everybody's watching' in shutout win

There was something poetic about the way Sunday’s game unfolded.

The Eagles were never going to bench Jalen Hurts after his five-turnover performance in Los Angeles. But that didn’t stop the external debate — a conversation head coach Nick Sirianni called “ridiculous” during his weekly radio appearance on Wednesday.

Hurts, of course, was not benched on Sunday. But he did get to take off most of the fourth quarter as the Eagles built a huge lead and cruised to a 31-0 win over the Las Vegas Raiders to snap a three-game losing streak.

During the week, Hurts talked about responding. And that’s what he did.

“Everybody’s watching,” Hurts said. “It just comes with it and it hasn’t changed. I think everybody needs to remember where I come from and how I’m built. I just want to lead in the right way, set the right example. I’ve done the same thing since I went to University of Alabama and everything that has been in front of me, so it’s no different now.”

Other than that answer, Hurts wasn’t very chatty in his post-game media availability. He was mostly happy to let his play do the talking.

“We responded with a win,” Hurts said. “So we have to continue to stack those one week at a time, one day at a time.”

Hurts on Sunday completed 12 of 15 passes for 175 yards and 3 touchdowns for a passer rating of 154.9. He also had 7 rushes for 39 yards, including 4 runs to move the sticks on 3rd downs.

That passer rating of 154.9 is the second highest in his career after his maximum passer rating of 158.3 against the Vikings in Week 7. He’s the first QB in Eagles history to record multiple games with a 150+ passer rating and 80%+ completion percentage in the same season.

The Eagles worked to establish the run on Sunday and picked their spots to throw. Hurts worked at maximum efficiency less than a week after turning the ball over five times (four INTs) against the Chargers.

“He’s resilient,” head coach Nick Sirianni said. “Always has been resilient and thought he was really good running the offense, being in command out there, just making good decisions with the football, good runs. He had a good game.”

The first two Hurts touchdown passes on Sunday were short ones near the line of scrimmage. He hit Dallas Goedert on a 4-yard shovel pass in the first quarter and hit him for another 4-yarder on another beautiful design in the third. (Goedert also dropped a sure-thing touchdown on another first-half drive.)

But Hurts’ final play of the day was a 27-yard touchdown dagger to A.J. Brown on the first snap of the fourth quarter. After completing that TD pass, Hurts let out a ton of emotion with a double fist pump.

“It was just a natural reaction,” he said.

What did Jordan Mailata made of that show of emotion from his quarterback?

“We just haven’t been playing good ball,” Mailata said. “I’ll just call it how it is. We haven’t been. So you’ve got to celebrate the moments that we do execute third downs, touchdowns. Especially big ones like that. You’ve got to celebrate that. I’m glad he’s showing emotion now.”

That pass came after Hurts took quite a shot on a run at the end of the third quarter. But he was able to stay in the game as the field flipped for the fourth quarter. He delivered that exclamation point before Tanner McKee finished off the game.

During the week, Hurts’ message was about responding. After the win, Hurts was asked if that message was something he thought about on Sunday. Hurts had a one-word answer.

“Absolutely,” he said.

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