Well-rested Philly, Hurts rally for win
PHILADELPHIA — Nick Sirianni yelled at Jalen Hurts on the sideline for being careless with the ball and losing a fumble. Then the Philadelphia Eagles coach saw his starting quarterback hold on tight to carry the team on his shoulders.
Hurts ran for two touchdowns and threw for a third, helping the Eagles come back from an early deficit to beat Washington 27-17 on Tuesday in a crucial showdown with NFC playoff implications.
In his first game back from an ankle injury, Hurts twice scored on 1-yard QB sneaks to set the single-season franchise record for rushing touchdowns by a quarterback with 10. He also connected with Greg Ward on a 19-yard TD pass.
“He played a great football game — one of the best I’ve seen him play,” Sirianni said of Hurts. “Jalen is able to take tough coaching. He responded great and played a great game.”
Hurts was 20-for-26 passing for 296 yards with the TD and a bad-luck interception when Dallas Goedert dropped a pass and the ball bounced off his right foot and into the hands of Washington’s Landon Collins.
That was a bad bounce for Philadelphia that helped stake Washington (6-8) to a 10-point lead after the first quarter. Behind a dominant effort from their offensive line, it was all Eagles (7-7) from there: They outgained Washington 435-136 the rest of the way and shut down an opponent missing a handful of starters because of COVID-19 protocol.
“I told the guys we had to go in with the mentality of not being denied,” Hurts said. “We had so many things go wrong early in the game, but we overcame it.”
Miles Sanders exploited the holes in Washington’s defense left by those absences and additional injuries, carrying the ball 18 times for 131 yards.
“Credit to the offensive line,” said Sanders, who became the first Eagles player with back-toback 100-yard rushing games since LeSean McCoy in 2014. “They’re making it very easy on the running backs to run behind them.”
Well-rested coming off its bye week, Philadelphia finished with 238 yards rushing, becoming the first team with 175-plus yards on the ground in seven consecutive games since the 1985 Chicago Bears. That’s also a first in Eagles franchise history.
“It was unacceptable how they were running around,” Washington defensive end Montez Sweat said. Goedert made up for his early blunder and a later drop by catching seven passes for 135 yards, including a 45-yard completion.
Despite the game getting pushed back 54 hours because of Washington’s coronavirus outbreak, the delay did not allow starting quarterback Taylor Heinicke or backup Kyle Allen to clear protocol in time to play. Garrett Gilbert, who signed Friday, completed nine of his first 13 passes and finished 20 of 31 for 194 yards.