Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles offense had a Sunday to forget in a 13-7 loss to the New York Giants at MetLife Stadium.
And that’s putting it nicely.
First-year head coach Nick Sirianni slapped Hurts with a failing grade after the second-year quarterback completed just 45.2% of his passes for 129 yards with three turnovers.
“It’s never going to be an A, B, C, or D if you turn it over three times, right?,” Sirianni asked. “Obviously, he didn’t play good enough. And we didn’t coach good enough. And it’s all of us. It’s never just one guy.”
Sirianni certainly didn’t do Hurts any favors as he continued to stray away from an effective running game that posted 208 yards against the Giants — their fifth straight game in which they eclipsed the 175-rushing-yard mark.
“We’re going to look through that tape and we’re going to have to make those corrections from that tape, but when you turn the ball over three times — again, there are different things at play there — but not a winning performance,” Sirianni said. “Running the ball was good.”
That run game put the Eagles in advantageous positions multiple times, but Hurts’ decision-making with his arm proved costly.
Down 3-0 early, Hurts was picked off by Darnay Holmes at the Giants’ 5-yard-line before a two-minute drill to end the first half was cut short when his pass at the goal line was intercepted by linebacker Tae Crowder.
“I put us in a bad situation with those turnovers I had in the first half,” Hurts said. “It’s something that we’ll have to overcome. And we will. I never question this team’s fight. I never question this team’s want-to or effort. It simply was one of those days, and we’ll learn from it as we have before. ”
The Eagles were never out of Sunday’s game despite being shut out for the first three quarters, which featured Hurts’ third interception in that third quarter when a deep pass down the middle near midfield was snagged by Giants cornerback Xavier McKinney.
“There are things we have to be better on, and it starts with me,” Hurts said. “A game like this, everybody is going to try to take accountability for the things they didn’t do and that’s the mentality we have as a team, good, bad, or indifferent. Everybody is going to hold themselves accountable for the things that they did and the things that they didn’t do. I know, as the quarterback of this team and as who I am, I put this team in a bad situation in the first half.”
Hurts’ bad day throwing the ball, especially with the turnovers, was a strange change of pace. He had just five interceptions through the Eagles’ first 11 games.
Granted, Boston Scott dealt one of the worst blows to the Eagles’ winning chances on Sunday when he was stripped of the ball inside two minutes remaining and with Philadelphia driving to potentially win the game.
“It was a critical situation, a critical drive, and I just didn’t get it done,” Scott said. “I didn’t resort to my fundamentals and it resulted in a turnover. I don’t have any problem taking full responsibility. That was a critical mistake at a critical moment in the game. I take that. I take that right to the chin.”
