The Philadelphia Eagles suffered their third straight loss on Monday night in a 22-19 defeat to the Los Angeles Chargers. But as frustrating as the game was, the main source of anger may come from the performance of Jalen Hurts.
Hurts had a night for the ages and we don’t mean that in a good way. The Eagles’ quarterback had the first four interception game of his career including a game-clinching pick by Tony Jefferson that officially dropped Philadelphia to 8-5 on the season. Things got so bad that Hurts had two turnovers on the same play in the second quarter, throwing an interception to Da’Shawn Hand, recovering a fumble and then fumbling away the football himself to give the Chargers the ball at their own 43-yard line.
Put it all together and it’s probably a night that Eagles fans would like to forget. But it adds another layer of frustration considering it made Carson Wentz look like a future Hall of Famer.
Carson Wentz and His Mangled Shoulder Played Better than Jalen Hurts Did vs. the Chargers
Arif Hasan of the Wide Left Substack dove into Hurts’s performance on Monday night and noted that he posted an expected points added (EPA) per play of -0.41 and a total EPA of -19.7. Anyone who watched the game knows that’s bad but it gets even worse as Hasan compared it to Wentz’s performance against the Chargers on Oct. 23.
A member of the Minnesota Vikings, Wentz got the start in place of an injured J.J. McCarthy and posted an EPA per play of -0.29 and a total EPA of -9.5. While those numbers are similar to Hurts on the disaster scale, it also bruises the psyche of Eagles fans that may remember that Wentz was playing with a torn labrum, a fractured socket and a dislocation in his left (non-throwing) shoulder.
In fact, Wentz was in so much pain that he was in tears on the Vikings bench toward the end of the game and underwent season-ending surgery a few days later. While that sight had Kirk Herbstreit stopping short of asking “What’s your problem?” on the Amazon broadcast, it also was a better performance than the one that Hurts had on Monday night.
Hurts entered the game having a solid year, completing 66.1% of his passes for 2,514 yards with 19 touchdowns and two interceptions coming into Monday’s game. But aside from the overall angst toward Kevin Patullo’s offense, Hurts has also drawn criticism as the player that should be an extension of the coaching staff on the field.
Instead of stepping up to the challenge, he made the former Eagles quarterback that was run out of town look like Tom Brady. It’s enough to turn up the volume on the criticism over the Eagles offense and make fans wonder if there’s a bigger problem at play heading into the final four games of the season.