Jalen Hurts Fine After Stomach Ailment, Unsure if He Will Play vs. Jets

In Florham Park, N.J., about an hour outside Manhattan, and with an Eagles backdrop behind him, quarterback Jalen Hurts wore a cut-off Alabama T-shirt when he spoke to the media after Tuesday’s practice against the New York Jets.

Hurts said it was just a shirt in his locker and he grabbed it.

It’s been a couple of years since he played for the Crimson Tide and coach Nick Saban, and Hurts is probably a better quarterback than he was then.

At least he is if he is adhering to Nick Sirianni’s mantra of getting one percent better every day.

“That’s the captain,” said WR Jalen Reagor, who had a touchdown catch from Hurts in red-zone work at the Jets' training facility. “He’s gonna lead us for sure. I feel he has a big chip on his shoulders, and the way he talks about it, he’s very intentional. Just on the bus ride over here, he’s like, ‘I’m in that mode.’ I really think he’s going to have a huge year and shock a lot of people.”

Hurts looked decent on Tuesday, just days after being sent to the hospital with stomach pain just before kickoff against the New England Patriots on Tuesday.

He hit Reagor with that touchdown pass, connected on some deep throws, one in particular to Zach Ertz, another to Travis Fulgham, but sailed a ball over DeVonta Smith’s head on a deep pass and made an inexplicable decision to try to flip the ball to Ertz while escaping the pocket, but Ertz had already turned his back to look for a block.

“It was a thing of precaution around issues that I was having,” said Hurts, about his stomach pain. “I’m blessed to be OK right now and practicing and talking to you guys.

“I was having some pain that day. As I said, we took some precautions around the issue. I didn’t know how long it would take. Thankfully, it was sooner rather than longer. So, I’m good now.”

Focus 🆙#FlyEaglesFly pic.twitter.com/6ViPXZLAmJ
— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) August 24, 2021

Hurts said he wouldn’t have mentioned the ailment had the game been one that counted.

“I was hurt, for sure,” he said. “I was hurting. Sometimes, I truthfully tell what the problem is if I have a problem. Sometimes I don’t. I was debating upon whether I was going to say something or not.

“I said something with the intention of still playing, but the signs were telling me, ‘Let’s be smart about this.’ I’m thankful for the staff and the decision that they made, and I’m here now, practicing against the Jets. I feel good.”

Good enough to play Friday night when the Eagles play the Jets in the preseason finale after one more day of practice against each other on Wednesday?

“I’m going to follow the coach’s lead,” he said.

If he doesn’t play, it will be an entire month since Hurts will have taken any game snaps, and even then, it was just 10 against the Pittsburgh Steelers in the preseason opener on Aug. 12.

And Wednesday would be the last day he would get snaps against someone who isn’t a teammate before the curtain rises on the regular season Sept. 12 in Atlanta. That is another lengthy span.

“I think it comes down to a mental approach,” said Hurts when asked about all that. “Am I attacking every day? Am I doing the things I need to do to grow? And am I learning from my mistakes?

“I think we’ve gotten different looks from the Patriots and (Tuesday) from the Jets. It’s been different things we talk about as an offense and as a team. Just learning from those things, regardless of how they come, regardless of what it is, it’s learning from it. So, I think the overall goal is just to take those steps every day. Rent is due every day. That’s what it is. That’s how we look at it.”

Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Eagle Maven and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglemaven.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.