Eagles not worried about rust as Jalen Hurts returns to his banged-up star receivers
Nick Sirianni also confirmed Friday that wide receiver A.J. Brown is on track to play Sunday.
The Eagles aren’t worried about any rust with the three main drivers of their passing game despite the trio not going through a full practice together in three weeks.
The good news for the Eagles is that Jalen Hurts is back. The quarterback is through the concussion protocol and will play in Sunday’s playoff opener against the Green Bay Packers. But while Hurts worked his way through the protocol this week — practicing in a limited capacity Wednesday, a full capacity Thursday, and being cleared by an independent neurologist — the availability of his two star receivers, A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith, has been spotty.
Brown was held out of practice Thursday due to a lingering knee injury and in order to rest before returning to the field Friday. Smith, meanwhile, experienced back tightness prior to Friday’s workout and was held out of practice in an effort to not have his back get tighter in the cold weather. Both players are expected to be available Sunday.
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The on-and-off nature of their availability means that the quarterback and his top two targets haven’t had a full practice together since they prepared for their Week 16 road game vs. the Washington Commanders, a game Hurts played just five minutes in before being concussed on a designed run.
“They’ve got a lot of reps together prior to this last couple weeks,” Nick Sirianni said. “A lot, a lot of reps together. So that’s not a concern of mine.”
Brown later agreed that he wasn’t worried about the time away from each other.
“We did a good job this week, a good job today,” he said. “This is three years of experience with him and I don’t think two days is going to take away from that.”
Hurts, who said this concussion was his first, said he was happy to be back in a normal routine this week and said he feels “ready to go.”
“You go through a routine every day and being out of that is challenging,” Hurts said. “Obviously dealing with different symptoms ain’t fun either.”
Sirianni said the Eagles will continue to try to protect Hurts as much as possible in the running game and encourage him to protect himself when he’s scrambling. The Eagles offense obviously works at its best when there’s the threat of Hurts running.
“We’re always careful with him,” Sirianni said. “He’s our quarterback so we always want to be careful with him. We always think about his health first and foremost because you never want him not to be on the field. You always want Jalen Hurts on the field.”
After three weeks, the Eagles have him back. And unless anything drastic happens, the Eagles will have their full complement of offensive players. They have only played three games this season with Brown, Smith, and tight end Dallas Goedert all healthy at the same time, and Brown was asked if there’s another gear to the passing game.
“Everything has another gear,” he said. “It just comes down to executing and hopefully we can put it all together. It’s going to be a tough game. Nothing easy is going to happen. We got to go out and fight for it, play hard, and make plays. Hopefully we can.”
Hurts hasn’t played a full game since the Eagles beat the Steelers in Week 15 in a game that marked the revival of a passing offense that had come under scrutiny. “I think that’s a good note to leave on and we just want to build on where we left,” Hurts said.
The Packers offer a challenging defense to do that against, though they are much better against the run than the pass, especially with star cornerback Jaire Alexander out with a knee injury.
The Eagles should have plenty of advantages on the outside with Brown and Smith, assuming neither is held back by their ailments.
Brown has been dealing with the knee injury since after the Steelers game. He did not practice at all last week while the Eagles rested a handful of starters. But Brown on Wednesday left practice after only a few minutes, saying on Friday that it was just a “miscommunication” and he wasn’t supposed to be practicing.
Brown said he did extra cardio and was present during all walkthroughs, but the scaling back in his practice week was to “try to take stress off myself.”
When asked if he was close to 100%, he said: “That doesn’t matter. We’re going.”
Brown was injured in the Eagles’ regular season finale last year and did not play in their playoff loss to Tampa.
“You live for these types of games. It’s only going to get bigger. The good thing about all of this is that we’ve been there before and we’ve got something to fall back on and push through.
“I know I’m banged up. But everybody is. I got to be out there, give it my all playing for my teammates and the city. I felt miserable last year just to let it go like that and I couldn’t put my hand on it. This time it has to be different.”