Eagles' Jalen Hurts questionable for Monday night vs Seahawks because of illness: AP source
ARLINGTON, TX - DECEMBER 10: Jalen Hurts #1 of the Philadelphia Eagles warms up prior to an NFL football game against the Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium on December 10, 2023 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images)
PHILADELPHIA - Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts is questionable for Monday night’s game at Seattle because of an illness, a person familiar with his status told The Associated Press on Sunday.
Hurts traveled to Seattle separately from the rest of the team over the weekend.
The Eagles (10-3) have lost two straight games but would secure the NFC East title if they beat the Seahawks (6-7) and win their final three games.
Seattle has equal uncertainty about its starting quarterback in the midst of a four-game losing streak.
Geno Smith, who missed last week with a groin injury, was limited in practice and is also questionable and that could lead to a second straight start for Drew Lock.
Whether it’s Hurts or backup Marcus Mariota under center Monday, the Eagles are going through an offensive slump with just two offensive touchdowns in the past eight quarters, both coming in the second half of their blowout loss to San Francisco two weeks ago. Over the past four games, Hurts is completing just 61% of his passes and has a passer rating of 84.3.
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Last week against Dallas seemed to be the tipping point from slight worry to actual concern for the Eagles when they failed to score an offensive touchdown in the loss. But Hurts sees it as the kinds of challenges faced in every season.
"That’s usually what is supposed to happen. You don’t get anywhere without any challenges. You don’t grow," Hurts said. "It’s not natural to develop the right type of character and develop into a team, truly, if you don’t go through anything together."
Part of the problems last week against the Cowboys was a lack of distribution. All 27 of Hurts’ pass attempts last week were directed at A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith or Dallas Goedert. While the Eagles want their best players getting the ball, they also need to make sure the likes of D’Andre Swift are getting involved in the offense.
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Swift has 19 total touches in the past two games.
"I think you just got to continue to try to get him the ball in different ways, whether that’s in the pass game or the jet sweep game or just handing him some direct runs that don’t have read elements to them," Philadelphia offensive coordinator Brian Johnson said.
Facing the Seahawks might be a perfect opponent for Philadelphia to find a fix. Last week, Seattle gave up 9.94 yards per play last week against San Francisco, the second most of any team this season. Take out kneel-downs, and San Francisco averaged more than 10 yards per snap on its way to rolling up 527 yards, the most allowed by the Seahawks in a non-overtime game since 2015.
It was just the eighth time since 2000 a team has allowed 9.9 yards per play in a game. Denver allowed 10.23 yards per play earlier this season when it gave up 70 points to Miami.
In the past three weeks, Seattle allowed 24 first-half points in a loss to the 49ers; gave up 41 points in a loss to the Cowboys; and last week failed to slow down the 49ers again.
Clearly the problems being felt about the Eagles offense are being similarly discussed about what’s going on with Seattle’s defense.
"We understand that we have a lot of potential on this team. We know we have a lot of players who can play really well and a lot of the stuff that we need to correct is ourselves," Seattle edge rusher Boye Mafe said. "There’s things that we know, there’s plays that were made that we know that we can handle and things that we need to adjust in our defense in just how we as players got to take accountability for that."