Hurts injury already sparking familiar ‘next man up’ refrain
PHILADELPHIA » Jalen Hurts was barely out of the MRI contraption, yet already the race to sound the all-clear had begun. The best player in football had a shoulder ache and likely would miss games, but somehow that was supposed to be OK.
There were the soothing tones that it could have been worse. There was the relief-sigh that it was, after all, only a sprain. There was the reminder, accurate as it was, that Gardner Minshew had No. 1 quarterback skills. And there surely was the classic suggestion that it was something of a blessing, for now Nick Sirianni could begin to loadmanage his better players to have them stronger for the playoffs.
“It’s only a distraction,” A.J. Brown would say afater practice Tuesday, “if you let it be.”
The rationalizations, all of them, were familiar carols, flowing from the brilliance of the same sports culture that spawned the popular verbal cure-all known as the next-man-up mentality.
“It’s unfortunate,” Brown said, “but you’ve always got to have the next-man-up mentality.”
See?
In defense of the Eagles, they would have nowhere else to turn upon hearing that Hurts was in enough discomfort that he could miss two games. What were they supposed to say, that they would try again next year? But that didn’t mean the public, and to some extent the enabling branch of the media, had to be so quick as to assume that the best team losing the best quarterback three weeks before the end of the season was little more than an inconvenience.
For one reason, the absence of Hurts is a problem, and a big one: It’s a disruption of something that needed anything but disrupting.
Not that the Eagles haven’t had good teams in the past and survived critical injuries — 2017 rings a bell — but no two outfits function exactly the same way. The No. 1 reason the Eagles are 13-1 is because of the nearperfection of everything Hurts attempts. It’s not that he hits holes, but that he hits them with such precise timing that defenses barely react to his unmatched instincts. And it’s not just that he is a good passer, but that he has had such a strong bond with Brown, in particular, that he has been able to thread completions into tight spots.
If anyone was right to have risen to the top of the Most Valuable Player wagering board, it was Hurts, for he has been exactly that, with the emphasis on valuable. It all begins with the way he can keep a defense befuddled. The running game rises from that. The Eagles defense benefits from the momentum. And then, it recycles, the defense making plays to benefit Hurts, who makes plays to benefit the other offensive players, who make plays to have spun the Eagles into a stunning winning rhythm.
By Tuesday, Sirianni was making it sound like Hurts could be available as soon as Saturday afternoon in Dallas. That was a predictable blast of gamesmanship designed to force the Cowboys to prepare for two quarterbacks. But if Sirianni jams Hurts into a game so soon after the shoulder injury, it is evidence that he, too, knows the risk of flipping the Eagles out of that winning spin.
“He’s in the MVP race because, in my opinion, he’s played better than anybody in the league so far this year,” Sirianni said. “And he’s in that MVP race because of his dual-threat ability, with his ability to not only do what he’s been doing passing the ball but also what he’s been doing running the football. That comes different ways.
“We’re always going to think abut his safety first. But he ran for 180 yards against Green Bay and didn’t get hurt in that one. There is going to be scrutiny, and I understand that. But we are who we are as an offense — explosively, scoring-wise, all those different things — because Jalen can do so many things, both running the football and passing the football.”
Legalized violence-spreaders get injured, and that’s why the ever-prepared Howie Roseman has Minshew on the payroll. The
Eagles can win with him, in Dallas or anywhere else. And from the Eagles’ perspective, the worst that will occur is that Hurts will miss two games. A sprained shoulder is not a season-threatening occurrence.
But barring a stunning recovery, there will be the Eagles this weekend, just a little different. And if just a little different means a loss in a tough, second-timearound-in-a-division spot, then something more than a game will have been lost.
The Eagles likely will still win the NFC East and the No. 1 seed in the NFC tournament. But there is just something about being on a roll that is its own value. As long as Jalen Hurts is on the injury report, that roll, and much more, is in peril.