Jalen Hurts "Trending in Right Direction"

Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni said there are positive signs that could allow the QB to play against the Giants after missing the previous two games with a shoulder injury

PHILADELPHIA – Jalen Hurts’ chances of playing on Sunday increased exponentially when Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni said his MVP-candidate quarterback is “trending in the right direction.”

Sirianni wanted to see how Friday’s practice goes and how well Hurts does in his post-practice rehab goes before making the final call on whether the QB will be behind center Jason Kelce when the New York Giants visit Lincoln Financial Field on Sunday (4:25 p.m/CBS).

“We feel good about it,” said the coach on Friday morning. “We’re still thinking through everything…there are circumstances that could still happen and the way he could feel (Friday), so all those different things.”

It’s not a matter of being cleared for contact with Hurts and his sprained throwing shoulder, but a matter of being cleared by the doctors.

“If he’s ready to play we’ll play him,” said Sirianni. “It’s really as simple as that…the contact, the hits, the throwing, everything is obviously taken into account. We don’t segment anything. He’s ready to play or he’s not ready to play.”

What has changed in the quarterback’s potential availability between last week, when he was listed as doubtful to play vs. the Saints before eventually being ruled out of a second straight game, and this week?

“Obviously he’s done more this week,” said Sirianni. “I thought he threw the ball well last week but you’re talking about the healing that’s going on. There are things you can’t see. It’s things that are going on (in the shoulder) and it’s healed one further week out than from when it happened.”

If Hurts plays, the coach said the quarterback and the coaches will have to be smart about putting him at risk, though Sirianni added that another benchmark Hurts will have to pass is for doctors to determine that he can’t do any further damage to the shoulder.

“He’s savvy about how he goes down,” said Sirianni. “It’s going to be more so some different things of how we talk to him about that and tell him, ‘Hey we don’t want you to take this hit here or there,’ but he’s going to want to go out and do everything he can do, but he also has to understand regardless of with the shoulder or without the shoulder he has to be smart of when he takes hit and when he doesn’t take hits.

“And we have to be smart ourselves how we call that as well.”

Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Fan Nation Eagles Today and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglesmaven.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.