The Eagles Have A Jalen Hurts Problem
The Philadelphia Eagles are 2-2 heading into their Week 5 bye week. The season hasn’t gone how the team and their fans expected after having such high expectations coming into 2024. Early-season injuries have derailed the Eagles’ game plan from week to week. They’ve been without star wide receiver A.J. Brown the previous three games as he makes his way back from a hamstring injury. Star receiver DeVonta Smith and All-Pro right tackle Lane Johnson missed Philadelphia’s Week 4 matchup against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with concussions.
The Eagles should get back on track coming out of the bye week. The team will be healthy and well-rested moving forward. Their first four games after the bye are favorable facing off against the 1-3 Cleveland Browns, 1-3 New York Giants, 1-3 Cincinnati Bengals, and the 0-4 Jacksonville Jaguars. Nick Sirianni’s team is too talented not to win those games.
The biggest concern with this Eagles team might be quarterback Jalen Hurts’ ball security. Hurts is in the midst of a five-year, $255 million contract. His level of play through four games doesn’t resemble a player deserving of such a contract. The 26-year-old has four touchdowns to go along with four interceptions to start the year.
He has an 85.7 passer rating, the lowest of his five-year career other than his rookie season in 2020 when he started only four games. Hurts has yet to put together a dominant performance this season. A player who is making $255 million should be leading his team to victories and putting up better numbers than Hurts is right now.
Hurts isn’t just turning the ball over in the air throwing interceptions, he’s also fumbling the ball too often. He already fumbled the football five times this season and lost three of those fumbles. He has a turnover in every game this season, including a two-turnover game in Week 3 and a three-turnover game in Week 1.
The Eagles have lost the turnover battle each week so far. It’s hard to win games in the National Football League when the offense is constantly turning the ball over. It puts the defense in tough situations and kills any momentum a team has at the time.
Hurts has thrown 38 career interceptions. He threw 19 combined interceptions through the first three seasons of his career. He has 19 interceptions since 2023. Hurts also lost six fumbles from 2020 through 2022. He’s lost eight fumbles in the last two years. It’s alarming that a player of his caliber has turned the ball over 27 times in a 21-game span. That’s not a winning formula.
Another aspect of Hurts’ game that might get Eagles fans riled up is the number of sacks he has taken so far this season. Hurts is the type of quarterback who can extend plays because of his mobility. Extending plays means that he holds the ball longer which is often leading to sacks or short gains.
He’s been sacked 13 times already this season for an average of 3.25 per game. Opposing defenses sacked Hurts an average of 1.73 times per game in 2021, 2.53 per game in 2022. and 2.12 per game in 2023. Hurts needs to do a better job of getting the ball out quicker and progressing through his reads. The negative plays are setting up the Eagles’ offense for failure.
The Eagles are a much better team than how they’ve started the season. They’ll have a lot to fix over the bye week to live up to their potential. This should be a team with Super Bowl aspirations, but it’s been an average team at best through four games. Philadelphia can only go as far as Hurts can take them. He needs to protect the ball better and return to his MVP-type form.
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