Jalen Hurts has been under the microscope before, but Monday night gave critics another opening.
The former Alabama quarterback was already coming off an uneven 2025 campaign, and the Eagles’ 27-7 loss to a Chicago Bears team without Caleb Williams only turned up the heat. Hurts finished 16-for-25 for 153 yards with an interception, and after the game he drew attention for an awkward answer in the press conference room.
The sequence that fed the noise came earlier in the game, when Hurts took an illegal hit along the sideline from a Bears defender and had to be checked for a concussion. Andy Dalton came on briefly in relief and threw one pass, which was intercepted in the end zone.
Dalton later said he apologized to Hurts, but when reporters asked Hurts about that apology, his response was blunt: "It's just a part of the game. It's part of the game.
It's part of the game."
That was enough to set off a wave of criticism, with plenty of people taking issue with what they saw as arrogance and a refusal to own the turnover that came after Hurts left the game.
It also fit an old pattern. Hurts has been dogged before by questions about his demeanor, and that conversation has only gotten louder over time.
Last season, the tension between Hurts and wide receiver A.J. Brown became a major talking point, and it eventually led to Brown being traded back in June.
Brown was hardly blameless, but many still believed Hurts made things worse because of his perceived pompous conduct.
That’s where Hurts’ profile sits now: a quarterback who once helped deliver a Super Bowl win over the Kansas City Chiefs, but who still has people wondering how good he really is. And after the latest viral moment, those questions are only getting louder.
Hurts played three seasons at Alabama from 2016 to 2018, lost his job to Tua Tagovailoa, transferred to Oklahoma for his final college season, and finished second in Heisman Trophy voting.
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