Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts has been dealing with an illness ahead of Monday night’s big game against the Seattle Seahawks in the Pacific Northwest.
Hurts was downgraded to questionable over the weekend and flew to Seattle separate from the rest of his team in preparation for Monday Night Football. His conditioned seemingly worsened in the past couple days, leading to questions about the MVP candidate’s ability to go.
“Eagles are downgrading QB Jalen Hurts to questionable for Monday night’s game in Seattle after his sickness worsened overnight,” ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported on Sunday. “Hurts still is harboring hopes of playing Monday, and is traveling to Seattle separately from the team to try not to get anyone else sick.”
Well, the intrigue is over. Hurts will start Monday night against Seattle and give it a go. Whether he’s anywhere near 100% remains to be seen.
This is a huge game for an Eagles team that sits at 10-3 and has lost consecutive outings in blowout fashion to the conference-rival San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys. Philadelphia currently finds itself as the No. 2 seed in the NFC. A win over Seattle would have the team one game up of Dallas in the NFC East.
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Jalen Hurts stats (2023): 66.5% completion, 3,192 passing yards, 31 total TD, 10 INT
Hurts has been held to just one passing touchdown over the past two games. He needs to perform at a higher level if the Eagles are going to get out of their current funk.
The good news is that Hurts and his Eagles are going up against a Seahawks team that has lost four consecutive games. This span has seen Seattle’s defense yield an average of nearly 30 points per game.
The question here is whether Hurts’ mysterious illness will impact his ability to play at a high level. We saw several players from the Cowboys come down with a bug ahead of their game against the Buffalo Bills on Sunday. The end result for the ‘Boys was an ugly 31-10 loss to Buffalo after winning five consecutive.