Eagles Jalen Hurts Could Echo Words of Bills QB Josh Allen: ‘It Sounds Crazy!’
Josh Allen came to the realization that he can’t run the ball as much as he has in the past.
The Buffalo Bills quarterback is 27. He has been in the NFL for five seasons now.
"It sounds crazy, but I'm getting older," Allen said Tuesday. “I know I can't continue to do this. I know when I'm using my youth, I feel like I can, but over the course of my career I'm going to have to learn to adapt and change."
Fast-forward three years and you can see Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts saying the same thing.
Hurts’ ability to be the plus-one in the backfield makes the Eagles’ offense difficult to defend. He’s still just 24, so a hefty workload may not be of too much concern now, but in three years his game will likely need to evolve.
For now, though, it’s all-systems-go for the current highest-paid player in the NFL.
“Part of what makes Jalen special is everything that he can do,” said Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni at the NFL owners’ meetings last month. “And so, we’ll do what we have to do to win football games. No matter what that is. And Jalen does a lot of things special.
“And we’ll try to showcase all the things that he does special. We’ll try to recap the things that we did last year with him, and then try to add some new wrinkles with different things that we do. We’ll do what we need to do to win games. And we have a special quarterback, and we’ll use his special abilities.”
Comparing Hurts and Allen in the run game, you will see that Hurts has run more in his first two seasons as a starting quarterback than Allen did. If he continues to do so until he is 27, he will surpass Allen's career numbers so far.
Allen:
Year 1: 89 carries, 631 yards, eight touchdowns
Year 2: 109 carries, 510 yards, nine touchdowns
Career: 77 games, 546 carries, 3,087 yards, 38 touchdowns
Hurts: (not counting his four-game starting stint as a rookie)
Year 1: 139 carries, 784 yards, 10 touchdowns
Year 2: 165 carries, 760 yards, 13 touchdowns
Career: 45 games, 367 carries, 1,898 yards, 26 touchdowns
Granted both men are big and strong - Allen at 6-5, 235; Hurts at 6-1, 220 - but both battled injuries last year.
Hurts missed two games after having his right shoulder driven into the frozen turf in Chicago, and Allen suffered an injury on Nov. 6, but he was able to keep playing in the ensuing weeks, though not always without pain.
"There were some times last year where I'm in the open field, I don't need an extra two yards," Allen said. "Get down, slide, and live to fight another down. Again, it's worked up to this point, but I understand that there's going to be a point in time where it's not going to work so well."
It’s not hard to hear Hurts saying something similar as his NFL career continues to advance.
Ed Kracz covers the Philadelphia Eagles for SI's EaglesToday.
Please follow him and our Eagles coverage on Twitter at @kracze.
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