The Philadelphia Eagles walked out of Week 5 with a loss they’ll sit on for a while, and Jalen Hurts was right at the center of it. Against the Jacksonville Jaguars, he showed exactly why he earns trust - and exactly why this one slipped away.
Hurts completed 21 of 40 passes for 220 yards and a touchdown, and he added two rushing yards on two carries in the Eagles’ 19-17 defeat. That line doesn’t scream disaster, and the game itself wasn’t his worst. But it also wasn’t enough to push Philadelphia over the line.
The clearest flash of what Hurts can do came on the 62-yard touchdown to Darius Cooper in the first half. Hurts dropped in a perfect deep ball, Cooper took it the rest of the way, and the Jaguars’ defender missed the chance to stop the long score.
Then there was the closing stretch, where Hurts kept the Eagles alive. On the final drive, he went 4-for-7 for 40 yards and delivered when it mattered, including a sharp 17-yard connection to Dallas Goedert. He also hit Dontayvion Wicks on back-to-back 16-yard completions, the kind of throws that showed real poise under pressure.
Still, the rough patches were there too. Hurts wasn’t consistently precise, including a second-half throw that sailed high and behind Wicks for an incompletion. Late in the third quarter, he missed on a deep ball to a wide-open Wicks after Jacksonville brought an all-out blitz and forced him off his spot.
His running game also never really showed up. Hurts carried the ball only twice, which could be tied to the calf injury he suffered in practice this week. Even so, that’s a major part of his game and one of the reasons the Eagles can function the way they want on offense.
Taken as a whole, it was a strong enough effort considering what Hurts had around him. He did plenty to keep Philadelphia in it, especially late. But the offense again went quiet in the second half outside of that final possession, and that has become too familiar.
The Eagles have scored only three second-half points over their last three games, a stretch that makes the problem impossible to ignore. That can’t all be pinned on the offensive coordinator anymore. Hurts has to own part of it and help find a fix.
Quarterbacks of the highest level, the Tom Brady types, find ways to win even when pieces are missing. Hurts is close to that standard, but not there yet.
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