Jalen Hurts was finally heating up. A 17-yard scramble that was negated by a holding call. A 28-yard strike to A.J. Brown. Three straight completions to Dallas Goedert, including a 16-yarder into the red zone.<\/p>\n
The Chargers were on their heels. The Eagles were rolling. The end zone was in their sites.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s a ton of confidence in those moments in the game,\u201d Hurts said later. \u201cYou live for those opportunities. You live for those moments.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd everything was trending forward in terms of our execution and us taking advantage of our opportunities going down the field.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I was one play off.\u201d<\/p>\n
One play that turned the Eagles from the brink of an overtime win against the Chargers at SoFi Stadium Monday night into another shattering loss.<\/p>\n
Hurts\u2019 fourth interception of the game at the Chargers\u2019 1-yard-line gave the Chargers a 22-19 overtime win, handed the Eagles their third straight loss and made those 2023 comparisons grow even stronger.<\/p>\n
The worst game of Hurts\u2019 life came exactly when the Eagles needed him the most.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to find a way to win, and we all have to have that same mentality,\u201d Hurts said. \u201cIt starts with me. It’s that way when we have success, and it’s that way when we have these tough times. But at the end of the day, it’s all about how you respond to it.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it definitely, definitely stings, definitely stings. But how do you respond? And that’s the only way I know how to look at it. Again, you’re going to see what type of resolve does this team have, what type of resolve do we have within, what’s in us to respond the way we want to. So we just got to dig.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hurts has been in a slump for a few weeks now following one of the best stretches of his career.<\/p>\n
But this was a low point.<\/p>\n
He completed just 53 percent of his passes, 21-for-40 for 240 yards with no TDs, the four interceptions and a lost fumble on the same play as one of the INTs.<\/p>\n
He’s the first Eagles QB to throw four interceptions in a game since Michael Vick in the 2012 season opener in Cleveland, a 17-16 win in which Brandon Weeden also threw four INTs.<\/p>\n
He’s the first Eagles QB with four INTs and no touchdown passes in a game since Brad Goebel in a 13-6 loss to the Saints at the Vet in 1991 in his second and final career start.<\/p>\n
And get this: He\u2019s the first Eagles quarterback with five turnovers in a game in 28 years, since good, ol\u2019 Bobby Hoying had three INTs and two lost fumbles in a 31-21 loss to the Giants at the Vet in 1997.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis game is the ultimate team game, so it’s never just on one person,\u201d Nick Sirianni said. \u201cNow ultimately, he always has the ball in his hands, and I know he’ll wear a lot of that and own that and I\u2019ve got to do a better job of helping him in those scenarios. It’s always that we look at ourselves as coaches first. Did we help him be in position to succeed and then execute.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the Eagles\u2019 first nine games, Hurts completed 69 percent of his passes with 16 touchdown passes, one INT and a 112.0 passer rating.<\/p>\n
In the last four games, he\u2019s at 57 percent with three TD passes, five INTs and a 68.7 passer rating.<\/p>\n
It’s the worst four-game stretch by an Eagles quarterback since Carson Wentz just before he got benched for Hurts in 2020.<\/p>\n
Hurts\u2019 68.7 passer rating since Week 11 is 3rd-worst out of 27 quarterbacks who\u2019ve thrown 80 or more passes during that span, ahead of only Lamar Jackson and Baker Mayfield.<\/p>\n
Hurts wasn\u2019t the only problem with the offense Monday night. You can point your finger at the offensive line again, at A.J. Brown, who turned a catchable pass into an interception and as usual at the play calling.<\/p>\n
But as always Hurts didn\u2019t hesitate to take accountability.<\/p>\n
\u201cI look at myself first,\u201d Hurts said. \u201cI look at the man in the mirror first and say, \u2018How can I respond to all those things?\u2019 So the mentality is to execute everything that’s called and try and bring the strategy, you know, that we’re taking in that game to life as best as I can. And I just want to find ways to continue to improve that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like we had a lot of opportunities out there. I had a lot of opportunities to go out there and go up in the game, put points on the board, win the game. Ultimately, bearing everything that has happened or has unfolded throughout the game, it’s me asking myself, \u2018How do I respond from it? How do I respond to it? How do I improve? How do I work? How do I dig deeper and find a way to figure it out?\u2019 And that’s my mentality.\u201d<\/p>\n
Opportunities? How about this:<\/p>\n
The Eagles had drives to the Chargers\u2019 36, 30, 26, 23, 21, 17 and 12 yard lines that didn\u2019t lead to touchdowns. It\u2019s the first time since a 28-23 loss to the Giants in 2016 they\u2019ve had seven drives inside the opposing 40 that didn\u2019t lead to a touchdown.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn’t play well enough,\u201d Hurts said. \u201cToo many turnovers, lots of opportunities, especially when we get on the other side of the 50. And I wasn’t able to get us in the box.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve got to find ways to lead our team to victories. It’s not something that’s foreign to us. We’re just not able to do it at the moment. And it starts with me and how I play, how I lead and how I go out there and do my job.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo when I look at it at any point, it’s about how I respond to what’s going on. To test how I respond to it and what level of resilience and resolve I have to push forward and figure things out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jalen Hurts was finally heating up. A 17-yard scramble that was negated by a holding call. A 28-yard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[6107,6108,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-57887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-eagles-blog","tag-jalen-hurts","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}