Eagles Star Jalen Hurts Suffered 'Very Unique' Injury in Loss to Rams

Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts suffered a "very unique" calf injury in Week 4 against the Los Angeles Rams. 

Hurts was listed as fully participating in Friday’s practice before last week's game against the Jacksonville Jaguars with a calf injury. He had no injury designation for Sunday’s game in London and he was never downgraded to questionable or doubtful.

When the question came up during his midweek press conference, here’s what Hurts said: “It was a very unique experience, to say the least. I don’t want to get into the details of kind of leading up to the game and whatnot, but got nicked up in the Rams game.”

Hurts was listed as a full participant in Wednesday’s practice, so he will play this Sunday against the Carolina Panthers. 

The Eagles started the season 2-0. They beat the Washington Commanders in Week 1 and barely beat the Tennessee Titans in Week 2.

Since then, Philadelphia has lost to the Chicago Bears, Rams and Jaguars. 

The Eagles sought to implement an offense that, in part, utilizes play-action passes over the middle to match a potent running game. But that's not working as intended. The offense ranks in the bottom third in play-action usage. It ranks 31st in total offense.

The Eagles should have defeated the Jaguars in London. However, head coach Nick Sirianni made a costly mistake. 

Philadelphia went up 17-16 with eight seconds left in regulation thanks to a 48-yard Jake Elliott field goal, but on the ensuing kickoff, the Eagles kicked the ball to Ameer Abdullah, keeping it in play instead of trying for the touchback.

Abdullah returned it 53 yards to set up a game-winning 57-yard Cam Little field goal as time expired, dropping Philadelphia to 2-3.

"I didn't make the right decision, and I lost us that game, and that's what I said to our guys," Sirianni said. "What hurts there is the guys fought so hard, and then I don't make the decision that I should make at the end of the game and I cost us that game, and I put that one on me."

This is the first game (regular season or playoffs) to feature two go-ahead field goals in the final 10 seconds of regulation in the Super Bowl era (since 1966).

The moments leading up to Elliott's kick came under scrutiny as well. The Eagles attempted passes on first and second downs with under 30 seconds to play, stopping the clock. They ran it on third down, and the Jaguars called their final timeout with 12 seconds remaining.

Sirianni indicated he didn't want to have Hurts burn the clock on third down by running around before taking a knee because such plays typically result in negative yards, and in this case, it could have pushed the Eagles out of field goal range.

"Honestly, there was so little time for me to kind of gather myself between [the field goal and the kickoff], I just went out and did what I was told and wish it obviously turned out better," Elliott said. "It sucks. You come all this way and you think you're in the driver's seat to win a big game, and now we're feeling pretty down."

The Eagles host the Carolina Panthers in Week 6. If Philadelphia loses that home game, the Lincoln Financial Field crowd will heavily boo the team and Sirianni could get fired. 

After winning Super Bowl LIX against the Kansas City Chiefs, the Eagles have been up and down. While they went 11-6 last season and won the NFC East again, Philadelphia lost to the San Francisco 49ers in the wild-card round and A.J. Brown had a heated moment with Sirianni on the sideline. 

The Eagles traded Brown to the New England Patriots in the offseason, hoping that getting rid of that huge distraction would fix the offense's struggles. Narrator: It didn't. 

Hurts and Co. are averaging just 18.4 points per game. That's 29th in the NFL.

Hurts has 933 passing yards, eight passing touchdowns and three interceptions this season. He's completing only 57.8% of his passes.