Quarterback Jalen Hurts returned to the Philadelphia Eagles’ lineup on Sunday after a concussion had kept him sidelined for the previous two games. While the former Alabama signal-caller’s statistical contributions were modest in the NFC first-round playoff game against the Green Bay Packers, the result for the Eagles remained the same.
Philadelphia advanced from the Wild-Card Weekend to the Divisional Round with a 22-10 victory over Green Bay – the Eagles’ 11th consecutive win in games started and finished by Hurts. “I think it’s been an odd year,” Hurts said, “in the sense of how choppy it’s been, and, obviously, me kind of being on leave the last couple of weeks or so. And so being back and just getting into that rhythm and leaving it all out there right now, that’s what it’s about.”
Hurts completed 13-of-21 passes for 131 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions and ran for 36 yards on six carries (including 3 yards on fourth-and-1 on a fourth-quarter field-goal drive and minus-1 on a victory kneel-down).
Hurts threw an 11-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Jahan Dotson on the third snap of the game after the Packers fumbled on the opening kickoff return. His other touchdown pass came on a 24-yard connection with tight end Dallas Goedert as Philadelphia took a 16-3 lead with 3:20 left in the third quarter. “It’s all about winning, you know, and that’s the only thing,” Hurts said. “We’ve gotten to the point we are, so it’s about finding ways to win.”
Green Bay outgained Philadelphia by 12 yards and converted 7-of-13 third-down snaps while the Eagles went 2-of-11. “We struggled a little bit as an offense,” Philadelphia coach Nick Sirianni said. “And I don’t think we had the game that we wanted to have on offense. But Jalen, I think, did a lot of good things. First of all, Jalen is a winner. He wins. I mean, no one can argue that. Right?
And the other thing is we know when we take care of the football, good things happen when we take care of the football. And Jalen’s on this pace of, you know, the efficiency that he’s played with this year with his quarterback rating, with his yards per attempt and all those different things, to be able to do that while also taking care of football is huge. “Again, do we want plays back that happened today? Yeah. But one thing I loved about what happened on the offense is that it wasn’t going great — and this was the case for our entire team. Like (cornerback Quinyon Mitchell) gives up a P.I. on third down.
And then Q comes back and has a big third-down stop on a four-point play on third-and-nine from the 9. That’s dog mentality. Jake (Elliott) misses an extra point, and then Jake puts the game away with two huge field goals after that. That’s dog mentality. The offense isn’t going the way we want it to go. But somehow, some way, when they cut the lead to six, we find a way to put it back to two scores.”
Hurts hasn’t thrown an interception since being picked off in a 34-6 victory over the Dallas Cowboys on Nov. 10. Green Bay quarterback Jordan Love had played his past seven games without an interception, but the Eagles picked him off three times on Sunday. “I think that’s an important aspect of playoff ball — being able to be explosive, but also maintain the ball and win a turnover battle,” Hurts said.
“And I think our defense played lights out with that. (Linebacker) Zack Baun flying around. I owe Quinyon something for his first pick. So just when you’ve got a defense playing like that, that always helps. And ultimately, I think the goal is to create explosive plays and not turn it over, and so we just want to continue to progress in all of that.”
Sirianni said a hidden aspect of Hurts’ return occurred on the touchdown pass to Goedert. “I thought Jalen did a great job of getting to that play,” Sirianni said. “Jalen got to that play and made an unbelievable play and an unbelievable check that you’re going to know about because I’m telling you about it, but that’s not going to be seen to everybody that he was able to check out of a play and get to the right play and get a ball to Dallas where he could go out and make the play that he did.”
