FMIA Week 4: Hurts at Home in Philly, Players and Parents on Football Safety,
PHILADELPHIA – “Fifty-something degrees, wind’s blowing 20 or 30 miles an hour, raining sideways, down 14-nothing,” Jalen Hurts said an hour after the remnants of Hurricane Ian had played havoc with a football game here.
He could have continued this way: We’re 20 minutes into a game where we’re getting nothing done, I’ve thrown a pick-six, now it’s third-and-goal from the Jacksonville 16, and I scramble for 13 desperate yards, trying to get something going. Now it’s fourth down just inside the Jacksonville four-yard line.
The play here’s the gimme field goal. Get something on the board.
No. Coach Nick Sirianni chose to go for it. Offensive coordinator and play-caller Shane Steichen dialed up a pass. Hurts took a shotgun snap, looked fast at three covered targets, and took off around the 13-yard line. “Good quarterbacks bail you out when you don’t call the right play,” Sirianni said later. Around the three-, Hurts dove for the end zone and pinged violently off 235-pound rookie linebacker Devin Lloyd at the goal line, the ball bouncing out of Hurts’ hands when he was clearly over the line. Touchdown.
The collision … intense. “It happens, it happens. Football. You just do what you gotta do right there,” Hurts said.
Hurts, coach’s son, isn’t a celebrator, and he jogged to the sidelines. The Eagles were back in it on this miserable day. Sirianni found Hurts.
“You know why I went for it?” Sirianni told him. “I went for it because I trusted you.”
Eagles 29, Jaguars 21. The 4-0 Eagles, the NFL’s last unbeaten team. Now, in a hallway outside the Eagles’ locker room, Hurts looked like he was ready for a GQ cover shoot: Sky blue suit, white shirt with HURTS embroidered on each cuff, skinny navy tie, shiny blue pocket square, polished black dress shoes, gold watch. The playing conditions, a distant memory.
What wasn’t a distant memory?
“I went for it because I trusted you.”
Thinking about it, Hurts smiled slightly. “That’s something I really appreciate,” said Hurts, an unemotional sort.
Just five years ago, the Eagles were basking in the glow of their first Super Bowl win. Now, with almost an entirely new cast led by the 53rd pick in the 2020 draft, they might contend to win number two. Just as Doug Pederson trusted Nick Foles in 2017, Nick Sirianni trusts Jalen Hurts in 2022. Football’s a funny, and transient, game.
From A to Z, Adams (Davante) to Zappe (Bailey), with a lot of alphabetic trouble around the letters “UNC,” this was one crazy week in the league where they play for pay.
Davante Adams made some beautiful music in the Raiders’ first win of the year, catching nine balls for 101 yards and eliminating the dumb “Where’s Davante?” questions.
“Gross motor instability” will disqualify players from playing football in that game, per Mike Florio, which is wise.
Jack Jones, a totally unknown New England rookie corner, pick-sixed Aaron Rodgers and then had the nerve to diss him. Kids these days.
Pick-6 for the rookie Jack Jones! @presidentjacc
📺: #NEvsGB on CBS
📱: Stream on NFL+ https://t.co/YPHqeLC4zg pic.twitter.com/OJItBVOmYW— NFL (@NFL) October 2, 2022
Mahomes….
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