Did the Eagles’ Jalen Hurts have a message of revenge against the Bengals’ Joe Burrow?

CINCINNATI — Want to know what makes Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts tick?

Pride.

We got a glimpse of this last week when Hurts briefly answered questions about Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow. “We crossed paths in college,” Hurts said when asked how far he and Burrow went.

Of course, their paths crossed when Hurts lost to Burrow for the Heisman Trophy in 2019. And again when Hurts and his Oklahoma teammates lost to Burrow and LSU 63-28 in the College Football Playoff semifinals. Burrow threw for nearly 500 yards and 7 touchdowns that day, and Hurts… didn’t.

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And in a metaphorical sense, their paths crossed in the 2020 draft. Burrow finished first overall. Hurts was drafted by the Eagles 52 times later as Carson Wentz’s backup, primarily as a gadget QB until Wentz self-destructed.

Well, look at Hurts now after he led the Eagles in a 37-17 rout of Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday.

Hurts was asked how it felt to surpass Burrow.

“This is the league,” Hurts said. – This is the league. I also have standards for myself.”

None of this is to say that Burrow has been gobbling up Hurts for the past five years, waiting to get even with Burrow in the NFL. After all, both QBs led their teams to the Super Bowl and both signed contract extensions totaling more than half a billion dollars.

But it gives a sense of what makes Hurts so great. He may not have been the number one pick, but he clearly believes he should have been.

Hurts let everyone see this Sunday. He completed 16 of 20 passes for 236 yards and a touchdown. His passer rating was 132.5, the third game in a row that he had a passer rating above 119.

Hurts also scored three touchdowns, and most impressively, Hurts didn’t turn the ball over for the third straight game. Needless to say, the Eagles won all three games, averaging 28.3 points per game.

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a better performance in Hurts’ three games following the 2022 Super Bowl season.

It was a far cry from the start of the season, when Hurts threw 4 interceptions and lost 3 fumbles as the Eagles started 2-2.

“Jalen works hard,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said. “For Jalen Hurts, it’s something that’s not talked about enough – how much he loves football and how much time he devotes to the game.

“And so we were able to look at some things that we weren’t good at (during the bye week), some things that we were good at, and, you know, he just put so much work into it.”

It’s been a tumultuous offseason for Hurts and Sirianni. Following last season’s 1-6 loss, there were rumors that Sirianni could be fired amid lukewarm support from Hurts. Regardless, Sirianni ceded control of the offense to Kellen Moore.

And then Hurts struggled with the losses.

“You’re definitely going to turn the ball over and stuff like that when you don’t execute,” receiver DeVonta Smith said when asked about Hurts’ success. “When you work at a high level, it takes a lot of energy.”

So we see the full potential of the Eagles offense now that Hurts isn’t playing his heroic game.

“I’ve seen it before,” Hurts said. “I saw it in training camp. I saw this with all the work we did and all the time we put in. It’s just a matter of going out there and doing it.”

So Hurts did it.

Hurts hit AJ Brown for 17 yards on 3rd-and-16 on the game-winning drive just before halftime that tied the game 10-10. He hit Smith for a 45-yard touchdown on a beautiful throw down the middle of the field to give the Eagles a 24-17 lead.

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He had running back Saquon Barkley in the second half, when Barkley gained most of his 108 yards, including a bruise that led to the Eagles’ final touchdown in the fourth quarter.

Burrow, meanwhile, completed 11 of his first 12 passes on the Bengals’ opening drive, which lasted 10 minutes, 4 seconds. But Burrow threw for only 65 yards in the second half as the Eagles outscored the Bengals 27-7 as the defense forced two turnovers, matching their total in the previous six games.

Perhaps it’s because Hurts has been playing more under center the last few games.

“I think it makes a big difference,” Hurts said. “I think we can be pushy. I think that says a lot about who you are on offense…I think that’s the mentality that we’re trying to develop and promote. It’s about what we do, not what we do. what someone else is doing.”

Maybe it’s Barkley. Finally, Lane Johnson was asked how the number of shutouts this season differs from last year.

“Well, we have Saquon back there,” Johnson said.

Or maybe it’s the shoes. Hurts had to change one of them for a game when he lost his shoe and couldn’t put it back on because it was double-knotted too tightly.

“I had to go to Jalen Two Shoes there for a while,” he said with a laugh.

Or maybe it was Burrow in some kind of revenge plot from Hurts that spanned five years of losses in the Heisman voting, in the College Football Playoff, in the draft, in salary.

And wouldn’t it be great if this rivalry was rekindled in the near future at the Super Bowl?

Hurts, of course, won’t reveal what motivated his turn other than that it happened.

“Jalen is about the same, even if he’s not playing very well or playing well,” Brown said. “He’s very stoic. He’s like this all the time.”

Contact Martin Frank at [email protected]. Follow on X @Mfranknfl, Threads and Instagram @martinfrank1.

Did the Eagles’ Jalen Hurts have a message of revenge against the Bengals’ Joe Burrow?

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