Philadelphia Eagles: Of course Jalen Hurts is a Houston fan, why wouldn’t he be?

Jalen Hurts is already learning what it means to play QB for the Philadelphia Eagles.

*logs into Twitter to check for any Philadelphia Eagles news* Me: Oh no, not this again.

We are collectively less than a week into the “Jalen Hurts-era” of Philadelphia Eagles football and the promising second round pick out of Oklahoma/Alabama has already been hit with his first major scandal.

* spoiler alert* it’s really dumb.

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While addressing the media on Wednesday in the lead up to his first professional start against the New Orleans Saints, Hurts took questions wearing an Astros hat in addition to another Houston shirt under his jacket. When asked about the offending outfit, Hurts laughed it off and said that he does own Philly gear but likes to shake it up. To him, Houston is home, and even with his immediate future directly tied to the City of Brotherly Love, he doesn’t want to forget his roots.

That, my friends, is a good answer; a fine answer. If that was, in fact, the end of things, this wouldn’t really be a story, but 94 WIP’s Howard Eskin opted to take Hurts’ comments to Twitter one day later and slam the 21-year-old quarterback’s fashion decisions, suggesting that player should know better than to wear other teams gear unless it’s from their current market city.

But hey, don’t feel too bad for Hurts, as the elder Eskin did give him a pass this time but not again; a consideration I’m sure he appreciates oh so much.

Had this been the end of it, a single tweet from a media member known for causing a little bit of controversy on occasion, again, this probably wouldn’t be news, but then a fractured fanbase already mixed on the decision to bench Carson Wentz for Hurts chimed in, and things got ugly.

My favorite of the bunch? “What are the salary cap ramifications, if the Eagles release Jalen Hurts for his brazen support of the Houston Astros?”

You can’t make these things up if you tried.

Now granted, this isn’t a new discussion. Mike Scott got some flack for his Washington Football Team fandom, Joel Embiid gets trolled any time he talks about the Green Bay Packers, and both Corey Clement and Will Parks received their fair share of backlash for liking the Dallas Cowboys growing up.

While it’s nice when a player like Ben Simmons comes to a new city and immediately adopts its sports teams like they’re his own, for a lot of people, fandom runs deep, sometimes generations. Until he signed his contract with the Eagles, Hurts had basically no connections to this part of the country, as he played his college football in the SEC and Big 12 and grew up in Texas – if anything, he’s probably a Cowboys fan too, considering the Texans didn’t come into existence until 2002

Honestly, it would be kind of weird if Hurts was an organic fan of any other Philly teams, unless of course he grew up loving Allen Iverson like scores of youngsters did in the early 2000s.

With the Philadelphia Eagles’ season hanging on by a thread and the franchise on the verge of a near-total rebuild less than half a decade removed from winning the Super Bowl, it’s understandable that some fans may feel justifiably frustrated. If you’re a diehard Carson Wentz fan, those feeling may be magnified. But taking that frustration out on Jalen Hurts for choosing to wear a hat and hoodie is pretty darn bush league in this writer’s humble opinion. Remember, he’s your quarterback too and we should collectively be rooting for his success, not tearing him down.