Seattle (AP) – Jalen Hurts performed better for the majority of the evening than he appeared or perhaps felt given his illness.
Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles will be devastated by the fourth quarter’s lost chance to reclaim the NFC East and preserve home-field advantage heading into the postseason.
Hurts witnessed the Seattle Seahawks, led by Drew Lock, come back in the closing minutes to defeat the Philadelphia Eagles 20–17 on Monday night, so handing Philadelphia (10–4) their third consecutive defeat.
Hurts had a forgettable fourth quarter. With 8:08 remaining, he attempted to connect Quez Watkins on a deep pass that would have increased Philadelphia’s lead to 17-13, but instead he threw an interception in the end zone. With just over two minutes left, he failed to convert a third-and-7 at midfield, which probably meant Seattle never got the ball back.
Hurts attempted to hit A.J. Brown down the sideline in the waning seconds of the quarter, but Julian Love intercepted him again in a desperate attempt.
“I was attempting to be combative at the time. Throughout the game, we had numerous chances to expand it, but we chose not to. That is not what I did. I didn’t carry out
Most of the blame the past couple of weeks has been placed on Philadelphia´s defense after blowout losses to San Francisco and Dallas. But Hurts and the Eagles’ offense is far from blameless, especially after failing to score an offensive touchdown last week in Dallas.
A trip to Seattle and playing the leaky Seahawks defense was supposed to be the elixir. And it looked that way early on after the Eagles jumped to a 10-0 lead with a pair of long scoring drives in the first half.
But that lead was gone early in the third quarter and failed to be extended after Philadelphia retook a 17-10 lead on Hurts´ second touchdown run midway through the third quarter.
“Really wanted to be able to get up two scores on them and we weren´t able to,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said. “I thought the defense was hanging in there and doing some really nice things. We just needed to pull away in that game and we didn´t.”
Hurts finished 17 of 31 passing for 143 yards and added another 82 yards rushing on 13 carries. He didn´t want his illness to be an excuse, but Hurts missed practice on Saturday and flew separately to Seattle a day later to stay away from his teammates because of how he was feeling.
If Hurts was affected by his illness, it may have been the fourth quarter when it showed up. He was 2 of 6 passing for 25 yards and two interceptions on Philadelphia´s final three possessions.
“He´s a warrior. He´s a competitor. Obviously the game didn´t go our way, but he made some outstanding plays for us for sure,” center Jason Kelce said.
Philadelphia is riding a tenuous line. They´ve already clinched a playoff spot, but the defending NFC champs have looked anything but Super Bowl ready the past few weeks. Their point differential of plus-18 is tied for the third-worst of any team with at least 10 wins through the first 14 games of a season.
They have time to get it corrected and the schedule over the final three weeks is favorable with two games against the lowly New York Giants sandwiched around a visit from even worse Arizona. The Eagles should have every chance to finish with 13 wins, but it may not be enough to even win their own division.
“We still have our goals ahead of us. We know we clinched playoffs this week. We´re not really looking at that. We know what we want to do,” Sirianni said. “We want to win this division, but that´s the last time you´ll hear me say that. We got to go win a game this upcoming week.”
