Jalen Hurts’ first impression this season was fine, but fine isn’t good enough

Ralph Vacchiano

NFL Reporter

Jalen Hurts was a summer sensation. The reviews of his practices were raving. He famously didn’t throw an interception until the last day of camp. For a quarterback coming off a disappointing season, learning a new offense, with some key new teammates, things couldn’t have gone much better.

And then came Opening Night.

It’s not that Hurts was bad in the Philadelphia Eagles’ 34-29 win over the Green Bay Packers in Brazil. In fact, overall, he was good. It’s just that he was just shaky enough at times — especially at the beginning — to bring up some old questions and open some old wounds. 

His first four snaps, for example, were particularly worrisome. They included an incompletion, an interception, a 1-yard pass and a fumble. Things got better from there — much better, in fact — but after what happened last season, his first impression of 2024 was tough to take.

“(I’m) not concerned,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said. “He made a lot of good plays in this game. … Listen, we all have a lot of things to clean up. But, again, he made a lot of big-time plays in that game that helped put that game in our favor.”

Hurts ended up completing 20 of 34 passes for 278 yards and two touchdowns, which is pretty good, especially for Week 1 in a foreign country on an embarrassingly bad field. He also helped the Eagles to 410 yards of offense and 34 points against a Packers defense that ranked 10th in scoring last season. 

There are probably about 25 other teams in the NFL that would have gladly taken the performance that Hurts gave. But in the context of the struggles he had late last season, when the Eagles collapsed and won just one of their final seven games, Hurts’ performance was at least somewhat concerning.

For example, he didn’t look completely comfortable in the new offense — a big potential issue for those who thought he never looked comfortable in Brian Johnson’s offense last…

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Publish date : 2024-09-12 21:14:14

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