Hurts flashes ‘complete control’ early
ATLANTA – The overreactions will come because the Eagles’ win was so dominating, so convincing that it’s easy to recalibrate the previously low expectations about their chances this season.
Yet what quarterback Jalen Hurts showed Sunday in the 32-6 dismantling of the Falcons was a result of an offseason that head coach Nick Sirianni spent on developing Hurts’ unique set of skills as both a passer and a runner.
So Hurts, making just his fifth NFL start, was more than ready when he finally got his chance.
Hurts’ mantra this summer has long been “rent is due every day.” Yet Hurts is probably still living rent free in the heads of the Atlanta defenders with the way he manipulated them.
He completed 27 of 35 passes for 264 yards. He also ran for 62. And as Sirianni said, Hurts was “in complete control.”
“Taking what the defense gave him,” Sirianni said. “Methodically going down the field, making big throws when he needed to make big throws, create, checking it down when he needed to check it down, making a run when he needed to make a run.”
It was so different from last season. Carson Wentz was the franchise quarterback then and Hurts was the secondround pick whose presence ultimately damaged Wentz’s psyche to the point where the Eagles benched Wentz over the final 4 1⁄2 games. That led to an offseason in which head coach Doug Pederson was fired and Wentz was traded to Indianapolis.
It was little wonder that there were rumors all offseason saying that the Eagles would either draft a quarterback in the first round or that they would trade for Deshaun Watson – and that applied to next spring as well. That continued as recently as Aug. 29, when the Eagles traded for Gardner Minshew.
So where do the Eagles and Hurts go from here? The Eagles haven’t promised Hurts anything other than this season. If he flops, there’s still the potential three first-round picks they could use to either draft a franchise QB in the top five of the draft or trade for someone.
For one day, Hurts, who turned 23 last month, quieted all of that.
The 49ers and their star-studded defensive line are up next. They’ll see what the Falcons saw in their video review. No doubt, adjustments will be made.
Or, as wide receiver DeVonta Smith put it: “We’d been working hard to get to this point. We understand it was just Round 1. We got 16 more.”