Jalen Hurts and Nick Sirianni are seeing Sunday’s finish against the Jacksonville Jaguars through different eyes, even if the Eagles coach is still making it clear where the responsibility sits.
Philadelphia’s 34-31 loss in London came down to the final seconds. The Eagles led by two with eight seconds left before Jacksonville turned the kick return into field position for the game-winning field goal. Sirianni said after the game that he was to blame for the late play calling, and Hurts later hinted he wondered whether he should have pushed back sooner when he disagreed with a call on the Eagles’ drive with 34 seconds remaining.
Hurts said he stayed within the structure in the moment, even if the decision has lingered with him afterward.
“It’s not my place, and we’re prepared-I’m prepared as a quarterback to not worry about those things,” Hurts said after Sunday's game. “So I’m honoring a play call, honoring the things that are coming in the game.
When I’m up at night, yeah, I think about, ‘Man, should I have said something, or should I have took a step back and said, "Wait"?’ But ultimately, there’s a commitment to that and going out there and executing.
And so this was one where it did not work in our favor.”
A day later, Sirianni pushed back on that line of thinking. He said the quarterback’s job is to run the play, not second-guess the call on the field.
“Jalen’s playing,” Sirianni said. “We’re coaching and calling the plays, and Jalen’s got to go execute what we call in that moment, 100 percent.
We’re not asking him to make play calls in that scenario. He’s already got enough to worry about to go out and execute.
That’s where we were there in that situation.”
For now, the message from Sirianni is straightforward: he owns the late-game decision. Hurts executed what was called, even if he had reservations about it, and the coach is not asking his quarterback to carry any of that blame.
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