Brett Favre and Peter King Chime in on Jalen Hurts' Sparkling First Game

Favre said the Eagles with Hurts reminded of the year the Eagles went to the Super Bowl; King said Hurts carved up New Orleans like he was back at Alabama mauling Vanderbilt

Feedback on the game Jalen Hurts played against the Saints is beginning to trickle in.

Brett Favre went on his weekly SiriusXM NFL Radio show and praised what Hurts did in toppling the New Orleans Saints and their league-best defense.

“As I watched that game, I couldn’t help but think, over and over again, this looks like a legitimate Philly team,” Favre said on his show, The SiriusXM Blitz with Brett Favre. “I was kind of taken back to the year they won the Super Bowl.”

Well, now that’s saying something.

There is still plenty of work to be done for Hurts and the Eagles if they want to take it to that level. Odds are, they won’t. Nor is Favre saying they will.

Here’s more of what he did say:

“They played a heck of a football game against a heck of a football team. They beat the Saints, and it wasn’t a fluke. They played their butts off. And you have to give credit where credit is due.

“Jalen Hurts played an excellent football game. He gave them a spark. And again, I’m not knocking Carson Wentz. I’ve said on the show that I was surprised that they didn’t go with Nick Foles, but that’s not a knock against Carson Wentz. What Carson can do well is certainly different from what Jalen does well. And we knew that Jalen could give them that element of scrambling, the threat of run, but it was even better than I thought it could have been. He played outstanding.”

It’s only one game, but it’s hard to ignore what Hurts did.

Take that final drive of the first half, for instance.

The Eagles got the ball at their own 23-yard line with 57 seconds left and one timeout left.

After a 13-yard completion to tight end Dallas Goedert and an incompletion, Hurts connect with Boston Scott for an 11-yard pickup. Hurts and his offensive teammates then hustled up to the line and spiked the ball to stop the clock at the 47.

From there, Hurts ran wild, collecting 24 yards around the left end then 16 up the middle. With nine seconds left, the Eagles called their final timeout and ran one more play. Hurts was roughed on the throw and the 15-yard penalty put them at the 4-yard line. It was then that Jake Elliott missed a 22-yard chip shot field goal.

Peter King, formerly of Sports Illustrated now with NBC Sports where he writes a column called Peter King’s Football in America said Hurts is “the right man for this time in Philadelphia” and “he has the perfect background for this gig.”

Indeed, Hurts went through his own trials and tribulations at Alabama, leading the Tide to a national title as a freshman then getting benched a year later with the arrival of Tua Tagovailoa then playing again when Tagovailao got hurt before ultimately transferring to Oklahoma, where he was the Heisman Trophy runner-up.

“He played confidently, with no fear,” wrote King. “It was amazing to see (Doug) Pederson go for it on fourth-and-two at the New Orleans 15-yard line early in the second quarter. Hurts threw a perfect back-shoulder-pass to Alshon Jeffery (he’s still on the team?) at the left pylon. Touchdown.

On that closing first-half drive, King wrote, Hurts was “weaving through a terrific defense like he was running ’Bama again and the Saints for a moment were Vanderbilt. … He was as in command as a first-time starter could be. At the very least, the Eagles learned the kid can take the heat and deliver under pressure.”

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