MINNEAPOLIS — Jalen Hurts was rolling to his right, and he continued that way until the slice of available space for him to keep rolling got precariously thin. It was third-and-13 midway through the fourth quarter Sunday, the Eagles leading by two and one failed play away from handing the ball — and maybe the game — back to the Vikings. Two Minnesota defenders, tackle Javon Hargrave and linebacker Dallas Turner, were chasing Hurts, right at his heels, when he zipped a pass to A.J. Brown right at the marker. Thirteen yards. A first down. Just what the Eagles needed, just when they needed it.
That was Hurts all day, all throughout the Eagles’ 28-22 victory. Whatever they needed, he gave them. And they needed a lot.
They had lost their previous two games. One team leader, Lane Johnson, had called the offense predictable. Another, Brown, was pleading publicly for change, for improvement. Their offensive line is as leaky and damaged as the Titanic post-iceberg. Center Cam Jurgens, who already was playing through pain while still recovering from offseason back surgery, left Sunday’s game with a knee injury. Brett Toth replaced him, and the line, which was rarely opening holes for Saquon Barkley as it was, pretty much stopped generating push on any run plays. Those struggles have done more than just render Barkley mortal. They have made him practically a nonfactor. That ought to be impossible, and it certainly ought to be impossible for the Eagles to win when it happens.
But it did, and they won anyway. They won because Vic Fangio’s defense kept holding the Vikings to field goals in the red zone, and because Carson Wentz — as anyone who remembers his Eagles career knows — remains a maddeningly inconsistent quarterback: glorious individual plays one moment, inexplicable mistakes the next. He threw two interceptions, one of which edge rusher Jalyx Hunt (who played safety in college) returned for a touchdown.
Mostly, though, the Eagles won because their quarterback was as good as he’s ever been for them. Hurts was 19-of-23 for 326 yards, three touchdowns, and a perfect passer rating of 158.3. When has he been better? Perhaps in Super Bowl LIX. This one was a close second, though, at least. A championship wasn’t at stake Sunday, of course, but given the current state of this team, this was as meaningful as a regular-season game gets, and Hurts met the moment.
“Definitely, there was some fire there,” he said. “But within that fire, you have to be the calm.”
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He did it by feeding his two playmakers on the outside often. Brown and DeVonta Smith combined for 304 receiving yards and all three of those scores, the first of which came when Hurts and Brown improvised on a fourth-and-4 play on the Eagles’ first possession. Brown was supposed to go short. But when Hurts pointed downfield for Brown to go long, their old teammate Isaiah Rodgers, charged with covering Brown, never had a chance.
“He’s got so much swag, a swagginess to him,” tackle Jordan Mailata said. “When he’s in control, you can see the look in his eye … that sharpness to his eye.”
Offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo even broke from what had been par for his play-calling course over the season’s first six weeks by putting Hurts under center and having him throw, and throw deep, from that formation, including on Smith’s 79-yard TD catch in the third quarter. The play marked, according to the research firm Tru Media, the first passing yards that the Eagles had gained all season on a play-action pass in which Hurts had been under center.
“It frees up the passing game a lot more,” Mailata said. “You don’t know if it’s going to be a run. You don’t know if it’s going to be play-action. And you don’t know if it’s going to be a shot play. It gives us versatility.”
Hurts’ final completion again was to Brown — and just as vital as his previous one. Third-and-9 with 1 minute, 45 seconds to go, the sound rising inside U.S. Bank Stadium, the Eagles needing a first down to force the Vikings to burn their timeouts, and Hurts lofted a rainbow to Brown for 45 yards, for that all-important first down, for a chance to finish the Vikings off, finally.
“He’s always clutch in those moments,” coach Nick Sirianni said. “It’s why I have the confidence to go for it on the first drive, on a fourth-and-4, because you know the guys will make plays. Sometimes you watch a game, and it’s like, ‘Analytics say you should go for it here.’ Do you trust your players in those moments? That’s what you lean on.”
It’s maybe the most reliable aspect of Hurts’ game and career. He can be inconsistent. His passing numbers can be sickly. Yet he seems to save his best games for the biggest games. Stability restored, back-to-back losses now buried, he sauntered through the stadium back to the visiting locker room and said, loud enough to be heard but to no one in particular, “We ain’t [obscenity] losers no more.” The Eagles can thank him for that.
