Eagles Jalen Hurts Continues To Get Better, And He's Not Done Improving

PHILADELPHIA – The critics will be up in arms over Jalen Hurts’ season-opening performance on Thursday night. He threw for how many yards? How many touchdowns did he throw for? How many times did he throw to his two top receivers?

Answers: 152, 0, and 4.

You see, he’s not a top five quarterback they will say. Some, like Cam Newtown and so many others, have an axe to grind against the Eagles’ quarterback. Nothing will ever be good enough for them.

Not the two touchdowns he scrambled for, covering four yards on third-and-goal and eight yards on second-and-goal. Both touchdowns tied the game, coming on the drives after Dallas forged ahead 7-0, then 14-7.

They won’t care about the game-high 62 yards he ran for or the 4.4 yards per carry average. Hurts was efficient, no matter what the critics think or say. He took what the Cowboys’ defense gave him and made it work. He was patient and he was smart in leading the Eagles to a 24-20 win over the Cowboys, improving his opening day record as a starter to 5-0.

“It is just finding a way to win and advance the ball,” he said. “It's about efficiency, it's about finding a way to win and that's my mentality with the game.”

Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts | Ed Kracz/Eagles on SI

It feels like Hurts is really coming into his own. He's playing the position smarter than most in the league. Some never figure it out, but Hurts, in his fifth year as the starter, has. He's gotten better and he's not done getting better.

Perhaps his most shining moment came on a third-and-three run that went for four yards. The run picked up the first down the Eagles needed in the final two minutes to be able to kneel it out from there to secure the win.

Hurts said afterward that it wasn’t a designed draw. He saw something he liked and he took off, making all the moves necessary to pick up the game-sealing first down with 1:29 remaining.

“I think Jalen played a really efficient game,” said head coach Nick Sirianni. “He made a lot of plays with his feet when things weren't particularly there. That's such an advantage that - Jalen, there was a third-down, they took away his first read, he resituated his feet and put the ball to Dallas. To say I know exactly how he played yet would be hard because I want to watch the tape.

“I thought he played really efficient and I thought he played really well, and he's a big reason why we won that football game, the game that he played. Again, I know that it'll say that we threw for 152 yards. 'What's going on? Why didn't we throw (more)?' But, Jalen played really efficiently and really (well) from what I saw and made plays with his legs, his mind, and with his arm.”

Hurts threw 23 times, completing 19 of those attempts. Three of those were throwaways to not take a sack and the other incompletion hit Saquon Barkley in the hands from about three yards away, but Barkley dropped it.

DeVonta Smith had just three targets, which he caught, but for just 16 yards. A.J. Brown was targeted only once, but it came late in the game when the Eagles needed that final first down to put away the win. It went for eight yards. Brown wasn’t upset in the least.

“That’s something I can’t control,” he said. “The only thing I can control is what I do when the ball (comes my way). We won the game, so obviously (Hurts) did pretty good. That’s something we gotta watch (on film). I’m sure he’ll be more critical than I will. Whenever he felt like he needed to run, he did. He made them pay for it.”

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