Fingers will be pointed everywhere in Philly Tuesday morning after watching the Philadelphia Eagles implode on national television, 27-7, to the Chicago Bears to close out Week 3. Still, none of them better be directly at Jalen Hurts.
To close out the game, Hurts completed 16 of 25 passes for 153 yards and one interception. He also added 25 yards on four carries and one touchdown in the loss.
It was a rough night for many Eagles players, including Hurts, who could have played better. If anyone thinks he deserves most of the blame for the loss, they're sorely wrong.
Why can't Jalen Hurts take the majority of the blame for the Eagles' Week 3 loss?
Let's face it: the evidence shows that if Hurts never came back from the concussion protocol he was on, this Eagles team would have been shut out in the Windy City. Instead, he's the one who carries that team down the field on the final drive of the first half, with multiple great completions and a smart decision to Tush Push it with one second on the clock to make it 10-7 going into halftime.
Starting with the negatives from Hurts, yes, his third-quarter interception was not good: he was looking downfield to DeVonta Smith for the second straight week, resulting in a pick; this time, it was former Eagle T.J. Edwards. The offense scoring zero points and gaining 52 total yards in the second half is a bad look since, once again, they completely disappear as a unit when it matters the most.
Also, there were a couple of times when Hurts had someone open down the field and missed it. The Smith deep-ball completion on the final first of the first half left Dontayvion Wicks wide open. On the Hurts interception, Makai Lemon was open on the quick hitch route that could have been completed.
So many other people need to be blamed long before Hurts does, starting with his backup, Andy Dalton. Why is Dalton throwing it into such tough coverage on third-and-goal inside the five-yard line when Bears rookie safety Dillon Thieneman is clearly in front of the receiver? Why not throw it away and live to fight another down?
How about Sean Mannion's play-calling on that same sequence with Dalton at quarterback? Mannion doesn't run the Tush Push on first and goal at the one-yard line and instead runs it twice to Saquon Barkley when everyone and their mothers know it's going to be called. But to throw it with Dalton on third and goal and have Tank Bigsby on the field for Barkley after fumbling it in the first quarter is insane.
Sticking with that sequence of plays, let's place some blame on Nick Sirianni for how he handled the situation. Why wouldn't Sirianni call a timeout on third-and-goal to check Hurts' status and try to get him back on the field?
After the Dalton disaster in the first half, Mannion keeps insisting the Eagles can run a screen pass to Lemon, even though it still isn't working. Philly still hasn't gained a single yard from that play. How is Hurts supposed to be successful with that?
Also, when a team is averaging 5.6 yards per carry, they should probably keep running the ball. Not Mannion, though, as the Eagles finished with 19 rushes in a game where they ran the ball well, with some second-half inconsistencies.
Sirianni's decision-making left a lot to be desired as well, with the fourth-and-one call at their own 49-yard line in the second half, when he chose the delay-of-game penalty instead of going for it. As great as he has been over the years, that has become a recurring problem since last year, when Sirianni doesn't make the right call on fourth down.
It also doesn't help that the offensive line didn't protect Hurts well, and he ran all over the place in the second half. Philly's line allowed eight pressures and two sacks.
There's so much that happened that Hurts can't control and can't get support on. Two of the three turnovers were out of his control, and the defense's poor execution against third-string quarterback, 38-year-old Case Keenum, is nothing he can do about.
Read more: 2 winners (and 6 losers) from Eagles' embarrassing loss to Bears in Week 3
Hurts does deserve some of the blame, but it would be more like 15-20%. The Eagles' coaching staff deserves the majority of the blame for failing the players on the field. This Philly has a lot of work to do, but of course, Hurts will somehow get all the blame for this.
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