Kyler Murray Outduels Jalen Hurts as Eagles fall, 33-26 to Arizona

The Eagles’ defense was in no shape for a game like this, not against an Arizona Cardinals offense with pass-catchers all over the place and a quarterback in Kyler Murray that orchestrated the entire thing to near maestro-levels on Sunday.

With their two starting cornerbacks sidelined by injury, and the leader of the back end, safety Rodney McLeod, the Eagles were ripe for an offensive onslaught.

Murray did not disappoint. The reigning offensive rookie of the year, he threw for a career-high 406 yards, including a 20-yard touchdown pass to DeAndre Hopkins with 7:17 to play in the fourth quarter that broke a tie score and sent Arizona to a 33-26 win on Sunday evening.

Hopkins was a handful just as he has been in every game this season against every team he has played, catching nine passes for 169 yards and the one TD.

“You knew coming into this game Kyler is going to force-feed him regardless of whether we had injuries at our cornerback position or not,” said Jalen Mills, who moved between safety and cornerback during the game. “He’s a top-three receiver in this league right now. You know he’s going to make some catches, some crazy catches, and he’s going to make some plays. You get up, make one clap for the bad guys and go to the next play.”

The loss likely ended the Eagles’ hopes of winning the NFC East and going to the playoffs. Now 4-9-1, they are in last place with two games to play. They will need a lot of help to make it to the postseason for a fourth straight year.

As strange as it may sound, the Eagles’ defense wasn’t entirely to blame, even though it gave up 526 yards of offense.

Special teams were abysmal. They gave a blocked punt that set up one touchdown drive at the Philadelphia 6-yard line. They allowed a fake punt to succeed when punter Andy Lee hit Ezekiel Elliott for a 26-yard gain. And the kickoff return team continually left the Eagles behind the normal starting point of the 25-yard line when the Cardinals opted to kick-off to Boston Scott five times.

Oh, and there was a botched PAT when long snapper Rick Lovato sent a low snap to emergency holder Zach Ertz that would have given the Eagles their first lead at 27-26 with 55 seconds left in the third quarter.

Ertz was holding because punter Cameron Johnston left early with a concussion. Jake Elliott punted twice in his place.

Jalen Hurts, making his second career start, played a monster game. He had the Eagles lined up at the 11-yard line in the final minutes of the fourth quarter but took two sacks, then a pair of throws into the end zone to Dallas Goedert misfired.

The Eagles got the ball back with about 90 seconds left at their own 22 without any timeouts and advanced to the Arizona 31 but two Hail Mary throws into the end zone fell incomplete.

“I thought he had great poise out there, great leadership.” said head coach Doug Pederson on Hurts. “Played obviously physically tough, mentally tough. Made some really good throws down the stretch, especially in the second half when we had to put a couple of drives together.

"Played well. Played really well, taking care of the football. Those are all things that we talk about, and he’s able to do that, plus lead the team into the end zone.”

Here are the highlights and lowlights from an Eagles perspective:

Offensive Hero: Hurts. Making his second career start, the quarterback threw three touchdowns, two to Greg Ward and one to Quez Watkins. He also ran for another from seven yards out that tied the score at 26-26 and completed a rally from an early 16-0 deficit.

He now has four career touchdown throws and three of them have come on fourth down, with Ward getting one on Sunday from three yards out.

Hurts completed 24 of 44 passes for 338 yards without any interceptions and a 102.9 passer rating. He also ran for 63 yards on 11 carries.

"I look back on this game and I think about it simply not being enough," said Hurts. "We're a good enough team where we should control our own destiny...I could care less to hear any of the young stuff, second-start stuff, rookie stuff. We have a standard we want to play to and I personally have a standard I want to play to.

"We just have to find a way to get it done. It's definitely a learning experience and something we can learn from."

Offensive Zero: Right tackle Matt Pryor is third-string for a reason, and he looked every bit of that, allowing four of the six sacks against Hurts.

Defensive Hero: Michael Jacquet. Filling in for the injured Darius Slay, the undrafted rookie is proving he belongs in this league. He had seven tackles, two pass deflections, and a half-sack that led to a forced fumble by Nickell Robey-Coleman that NRC ended up recovering. The turnover gave the offense the ball at the Cardinals 21 and led to Ward’s fourth-down TD catch that made the core 19-4 with 6:20 to play in the first half.

Runner up here goes to Robey-Coleman, who had 10 tackles and shared that sack with Jacquet.

Defensive Zero: Brandon Graham. The defensive end had just two tackles and didn’t get anywhere near Kyler Murray. What was once a forgone conclusion that he would have his first double0digit sack season, Graham has been stuck on seven since his last one on Nov. 1.

Play of the Game: Hurts’ scramble for 17 yards on a fourth-and-six at Arizona’s 49 kept alive the drive that tied the game. The nifty dash came on the play right after Hurts connected with Jalen Reagor for 23 yards on a third-and-29 throw.

Turning Point: The back-to-back sacks Hurts took that lost a combined 11 yards after a first-and-10 setup at the Arizona 11. A week after not getting sacked in the win over New Orleans, Hurts was sacked six times.

Key Stat: The Eagles offense still has not scored more than 30 points this season. They and the New York Jets are the only two teams not to top that number. It looked like it might happen when the offense hit 26 points in the third quarter, but they were shutout from there.

Other Stuff: Larry Fitzgerald made his first TD catch of the season despite good coverage by Robey-Coleman. It was the 12th TD for Fitzgerald against the Eagles in 12 career games…. Alex Singleton led the Eagles with 11 tackles…Marcus Epps’ end one interception was just the fifth of the season for the defense…The defense forced two red-zone turnovers from a Cardinals team that had not committed a single one of those all season…The Eagles were three-for-four on fourth down ad led time of possession with 32 minutes, 13 seconds to 27:47.

Injuries: Johnston’s concussion was devastating, with a trickle-down impact that was felt late in the game.

Up Next: The Eagles (4-9-1) will head to Dallas (5-9) next Sunday for a 4:25 p.m. game

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