PHILADELPHIA − Perhaps we needed a reminder that quarterback Jalen Hurts is essential to the Eagles‘ success.
It wasn’t so much with Hurts’ passing or running as it was in Saquon Barkley’s running.
For weeks, Eagles coach Nick Sirianni had tried to make the case that Hurts was having an MVP-caliber season even though he had thrown for less than 200 yards in three straight games before throwing for 290 yards last week against the Steelers.
The collective response was akin to “Sure, Nick.”
And then Hurts suffered a concussion midway through the first quarter Sunday on a 13-yard run to the Commanders‘ 21-yard line when he was hit in the helmet by Washington’s Frankie Luvu. Hurts initially went back into the huddle as the referee told him to get checked for a concussion.
Kenny Pickett replaced him, and the Eagles weren’t the same as they coughed up a 14-point lead and lost 36-33 to the Commanders.
All you had to do was see Barkley struggle through the final three quarters to see how a season headed for the Super Bowl could quickly unravel without Hurts.
For the record, Hurts should eventually recover from the concussion before the playoffs begin the weekend of Jan. 11-13, if not sooner. Sirianni said he didn’t have an update on Hurts’ condition after the game.
“Anything that has to do with the head is out of our hands,” Sirianni said.
Let’s get back to Barkley.
Barkley is a much more viable MVP candidate than Hurts after rushing for 150 yards Sunday. Barkley has 1,838 yards rushing after 15 games, needing 268 yards over the final two games to surpass Eric Dickerson’s NFL single-season rushing record of 2,105 yards set in 1984.
“The dynamic of Jalen being able to run the ball, a lot of our stuff is built on that,” Barkley said. “When you lose a guy like that, it definitely hurts.”
Look at it this way: Barkley had 109 yards rushing on his first seven carries, culminating with his 68-yard TD run with 2:18 left in the first quarter, as the Eagles scored 21 points on three touchdowns. He had 41 yards on 22 carries after that. The Eagles didn’t score any more touchdowns, settling for four field goals.
STUNNING LOSS:Eagles lose Jalen Hurts, big lead in stunning last-second loss to Commanders
LOSING HIS COOL:Eagles CJ Gardner-Johnson ejected, then gives Commanders fans double finger salute
It should be noted that Barkley’s long TD run came when Pickett was in the game. Soon after, the Commanders loaded up to stop Barkley, daring Pickett to beat them with the pass. He couldn’t, going 14-for-24 for 143 yards with a touchdown and interception.
Hurts could beat them with the pass as he showed last Sunday when the Steelers loaded up to stop Barkley, holding him to 65 yards rushing on 19 carries.
Sure, there were other factors involved in the Eagles’ stunning defeat on Jayden Daniels’ 10-yard touchdown pass to Jamison Crowder with 6 seconds left. You could start with DeVonta Smith’s brutal drop over the middle inside Washington’s 15-yard line with 2:02 left, the Eagles holding a 2-point lead.
Had Smith held onto the ball, the Eagles would have had a first down and could have run out the clock.
“I dropped the ball,” Smith said. “I mean, I ain’t going to beat myself up over it. It’s life, part of the game. … It (cost) us the game. Ain’t nobody else’s fault but mine.”
There was more. The Eagles committed 10 penalties for 91 yards, including two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties on safety CJ Gardner-Johnson, the second of which led to his ejection in the third quarter. It’s a big reason why the Eagles lost despite forcing five turnovers.
“Just sloppy,” Eagles coach Sirianni said. “Sloppy with penalties, sloppy with too many men on the field, sloppy with our fundamentals.”
And the Eagles couldn’t make Washington pay because they didn’t have Hurts to make Barkley pay.
“They were trying to stop the run,” wide receiver A.J. Brown said. “Saquon got going really, really early. They started loading the box and forced us to throw the ball and win our 1-on-1s on the outside.
“That’s no shade on Kenny. (He and Hurts) got two different games. Kenny did a great job. It’s just a little different. As you saw, me and Kenny missed a few times. Kenny don’t practice like me and Jalen do. I had thousands of reps with Jalen. I’ve been with him for three years now.
“We just came in and rolled the dice with Kenny.”
And it came up snake-eyes.
Brown has a point. He and Hurts have been close friends for nearly a decade and teammates through nearly three full seasons. As the starter, Hurts gets practically every first-team rep as Pickett works with the scout team.
So Brown was talking to Pickett on the sidelines, in the huddle, about how they could adapt faster.
“We were talking after every series, honestly,” Pickett said. “We were coming up with some things on the fly, some things (Brown and DeVonta Smith) had done with Jalen that I wasn’t aware of, trying to play catch up in certain parts of the game.”
But there’s no catching up with what Hurts can do with Barkley, whether it’s throwing, serving as a plus-one in the running game, and even prolonging drives with the tush push.
“Everything that we do and what he’s able to do is the reason why he’s been super successful,” Barkley said about Hurts. “At the end of the day, Kenny came in and did a really good job. We just didn’t get the job done.”
Keep that in mind the next time Hurts throws for 120 or so yards, but the Eagles win anyway because Barkley is freed up to run wild, and the Eagles can run out the final several minutes of a close game.
Contact Martin Frank at [email protected]. Follow on X @Mfranknfl.
