Jalen Hurts said Wednesday he’s playing Sunday.
Well, he didn’t exactly say it. He nodded his head.
“It’s fine,” Hurts said of his ankle sprain. “I’ll be ready to go.”
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Philadelphia sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
Asked if he's playing Sunday, he nodded his head.
Asked how the injury might affect him, he said simply, “It won’t.”
And asked what the injury does to his style of play, he said, “It does nothing.”
Hurts participated in walkthrough Wednesday morning, just three days after getting hurt in the fourth quarter of the 13-7 loss to the Giants at MetLife Stadium. The Eagles return to MetLife this weekend to face the Jets.
NFL
“Got stepped on,” he said. “You guys obviously know I’m dealing with a little something but business as usual. My preparation for the Jets, same old thing. The Giants game has been flushed. We’ve moved on. Continue to deal with it and move forward with it and get ready for this week’s game."
Hurts is among 15 NFL quarterbacks who have started all their team’s games this year. Gardner Minshew played 14 snaps at the end of the 44-6 win over the Lions and threw two passes, but other than that Hurts has played every offensive snap this year - 766 of them.
“He’s tough,” head coach Nick Sirianni said earlier Wednesday. “He’s as tough as they get. Obviously you want that out of your quarterback, so in his mind and in my mind, we’re both saying, ‘Yeah, he’s going.
“We’re hopeful, we’re feeling good, he’s feeling better every day. We’re excited that we’ll have him out there at walkthrough today, so really hopeful for him.”
Sirianni said he wasn’t sure yet whether Minshew will get 1st-team reps at any point this week. That will depend on how Hurts progresses over the next couple days.
Minshew was 7-13 for the Jaguars in 2019 and 2020 and has a 93.1 career passer rating, which is 20th-highest in NFL history among QBs who’ve thrown at least 750 passes.
“That’s something that we monitor throughout the week and we plan accordingly as we continue to go on,” he said. “There are a lot of scenarios that we have to play ourselves through. We don’t live in hypotheticals, but this is a real thing we have to handle if he can’t go or if he can’t go 100 percent or whatever it is, so we have to be here a little bit later making sure everybody’s in the right spot to make plays.
“Every week you have a contingency, every week you have a backup plan. You don’t want to think about those scenarios but you have to. That’s something we talk about each week at every position. What happens if this guy goes down, what happens if that guy goes down. Will Jalen take every rep this week? I don’t know how that will play itself out yet, but when he’s not in there Gardner will be in there.”
The Eagles’ bye week is coming up after the Jets game, so if Hurts sits out Sunday he would have two weeks off to rest the ankle. But Sirianni said that’s not a factor in determining who plays Sunday.
If Hurts is healthy enough to go, he’ll go.
“What we’re trying to do is focus on how we’re winning this football game,” he said. “You look forward to the bye week because we’re late in the season now so you look forward to the bye week not just for Jalen but for all the guys who have bumps and bruises and (that’s) pretty much everybody on the team.”
Sirianni seemed optimistic about Miles Sanders (ankle), Jordan Howard (knee) and Jason Kelce (knee).
“Miles, he’s continuing to progress,” he said. “Jordan, we’ve got to find a little more out as the day goes on. We’ll get more on him (Thursday). He’s limited today. We’re hopeful. Kelce, I believe he’s out (of practice) today, but he’s doing good and he’s progressing.”
Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Spotify | Stitcher | Art19 | Watch on YouTube