Jalen Hurts vs. Carson Wentz: It’s a competition after Eagles’ 37-17 loss to Cowboys | Marcus Hayes
Wentz #Wentz
Jalen Hurts’ third start will be best remembered for the red-zone interception he threw with 6 minutes, 33 seconds to play, or the red-zone “fumble” that wasn’t really a fumble, but whatever. Hurts had two chances late in the game Sunday to burnish his legend and bury Carson Wentz.
Now? The Wentz Wagon just got a lot more valuable. Maybe now Wentz might deign to return next season — ideally with some brotherly love in his heart.
Hurts threw for 342 yards and completed 21 of 39 passes, and he ran for 69 yards on nine carries, but he had those two giveaways, plus another late pick. That interception was irrelevant.
The pass that sealed this season’s fate — rolling left, into double coverage, with a down yet to burn and other, less dangerous targets to target — was unwise and unnecessary. It reminded you a lot of, well, Carson Wentz.
For 2¾ games Hurts had provided hope to a franchise whose franchise quarterback, Wentz, sabotaged the season through the first 12 games. When Hurts took over, everything changed. The plays began to work. The run game mattered. Even the defense played better.
Of course, one man can do only so much. Hurts can’t play offensive line, or cornerback, or defensive tackle. Then again, neither can many of the Eagles who tried Sunday.
The host Cowboys won less because Hurts struggled than because the Eagles’ defensive backfield and offensive line played to their sad pedigrees.
They lost because the neck of tackle Fletcher Cox, their best defensive player, stiffened, but not in a good way. Cox entered the game compromised from the shoulders up, and left in the first quarter, and that was pretty much that. The Eagles led, 14-3, when Cox left. The Cowboys scored 27 points in the next 24 minutes.
The loss stung more since Washington lost to Carolina, because an Eagles win in Arlington would have framed a winner-take-all matchup in Philly on Sunday when Washington visits. Instead, an Eagles win Sunday means nothing to Philadelphia.
Painfully, a win over Washington on Sunday might hand the division to Dallas.
Did it matter? Really?
The only value a playoff spot might have carried lay in the experience it would have given Hurts, left tackle Jordan Mailata, and receiver Jalen Reagor. When you start Matt Pryor at right tackle and Michael Jacquet at right cornerback, you’re going to wind up right back at home.
Jacquet got benched in the second half, but the line corps lacked the depth to sit Pryor.
Now, the only benefit 2020 can deliver is a more complete examination of Hurts’ abilities and value. Nothing will serve as a valid referendum; three or, if he starts Sunday, four games, against largely inferior competition, cannot completely predict whether Hurts can carry a franchise for a decade.
He’s a rookie, after all. He does rookie things. There were the picks, and the fumble, and other stuff. For instance, Hurts kept the ball and ran late in the third quarter when he should have dumped a short pass to his running back, then failed to reassemble the team quickly enough for a fourth-down try on the subsequent play.
At that point, Hurts’ magic seemed to completely fade. Not even the most unusual of breaks could recall it.
Darius “Big Play” Slay finally surfaced with an interception, his first since the Eagles invested $50 million and two draft picks in him. This returned the ball to the Eagles at the Cowboys’ 28, down 13, with almost 16 minutes to play.
That didn’t matter.
Incompletion; penalty, holding; penalty, false start; batted ball; another penalty, false start; then, eventually, on fourth-and-15, the season effectively in the balance … a 5-yard throw to the worst yards-after-the-catch catcher, Zach Ertz, who gained just 3 yards more.
Bad calls. Bad decisions. Bad turnovers. Bad discipline: 11 penalties for 110 yards.
A bad team. A four-win team. A team that will not play a postseason game for the first time in four years.
A team that cannot know who its quarterback will be come September.