Philadelphia Eagles QB Jalen Hurts Continues to Find Ways to Win Ugly

For Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, Monday night's win over the Kansas City Chiefs was about perseverance and nobody has won more than him in the last 28 games

Jalen Hurts threw for 150 yards, a season-low.

The Philadelphia Eagles quarterback didn’t throw a touchdown pass for the first time all season and, for the first time in three games, his completion percentage did not top 73 percent.

Those are the things he didn’t do.

What he did, which is something far more important than not reaching any of those numbers, was find a way to win, making enough plays with his arm and scoring two touchdowns with his legs to knock off one of the best teams in the AFC, the Kansas City Chiefs, 21-17 on Monday night in front of a hostile crowd at Arrowhead Stadium.

The sky could be falling, and Hurts’ body language wouldn’t change. He would look up and find a way to sidestep it or stand tall and try to hold it up before it crashed to the ground. Either way, he stays his same, stoic self.

So it was that he stayed cool and collected through a first half in which he was sacked five times and was the captain of an offense that was taking on massive amounts of water from the rain that fell from Kansas City sky all game long, an offense that picked up 78 yards on 23 plays in the opening two quarters.

“There is a calmness there,” said Hurts about not letting the first-half woes become even bigger in the second half. “You have to truly remain in control. I try to never get too high or too low. Obviously, a standard is a standard and you want to play to a high standard all the time, but things happen.

“Turnovers happen, the negative plays happen, sacks happen, giving up big plays defensively happens but it’s about never getting too high or too low.”

Jalen Hurts talks after Philadelphia Eagles beat Kansas City Chiefs, 21-17, in Week 11 / USA Today

Winning is something Hurts has found a way to do no matter how it looks.

If the Eagles go on to win a Super Bowl, nobody will look back and say, ‘Well, there were just too many ugly wins, you don’t deserve to raise the Lombardi Trophy.’

A quarterback is judged on wins. At least he should be, and Hurts has filled a shopping cart with them.

He has won 26 of his last 28 regular-season starts, including 15-1 since Week 11 of 2022. His winning percentage of .775 (31-9) since 2021 leads all quarterbacks. It doesn’t matter where he plays, either – home or away – he is 13-1 in his last 14 road games.

Perhaps even more impressive from a numbers standpoint is that he has won 13 straight games against teams with winning records, breaking a tie with Peyton Manning (12, 2008-10) and Vinny Testaverde (12, 1998-2000) for the longest streak by an NFL QB since 1950.

“I think the thing that you can’t quantify is the resilience that a team has and the ability to preserve and see through things and overcome things,” said Hurts. “This team has that. We have yet to put up a performance to our standard, but we’re continuing to find ways to win. 

"When you win games like we’ve won games, it builds a ton of character. We’re in character development mode with the games we’ve played and how we’ve won, and it will only serve us great things in the future.” 

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