Jalen Hurts knows the Eagles' passing struggles fall on him: ‘It comes with it; I tend to thrive in moments like this’

Jalen Hurts knows what comes with the territory.

The Eagles quarterback had plenty to address during his weekly news conference Wednesday. One of his worst performances of the season gave way to frustration in the locker room after Sunday’s win over the Carolina Panthers and, the following day, speculation from Eagles veteran Brandon Graham about a strained relationship between him and wide receiver A.J. Brown.

Hurts didn’t shy away from rising scrutiny going into the season’s final stretch, repeating a phrase he has used so often that Jordan Brand apparently named a pair of his cleats after it.

“Heavy is the head, it comes with it,” Hurts said. “And it’s a privilege. I tend to thrive in moments like this.”

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The Eagles will need Hurts to thrive in these upcoming moments. The 26-year-old finished Sunday’s 22-16 win with just 108 passing yards, going 14-for-21 and getting sacked four times while looking tentative to pull the trigger on shots downfield or into tight windows underneath.

The result was Hurts finishing the game with a 3.47-second average time to throw, which is both his longest of the season and the longest of any quarterback in Week 14 by nearly a quarter of a second.

When asked where the passing game goes from here, Hurts said he needs to find a rhythm more effectively and pointed to areas where he can improve.

“There are moments where I can definitely get it out quicker,” Hurts said. “That’s something that I own, I’ll be better with it. In terms of all that with my role, I’ll figure it out.”

It’s fair to acknowledge, as Hurts did, that even as some of his efficiency numbers have steadily declined in the last month, the Eagles have still won nine straight games largely thanks to a dominant rushing attack ignited by Saquon Barkley.

The team’s shift coming out of the Week 5 bye to become a run-first offense has resulted in Hurts’ passing attempts — and Brown and DeVonta Smith’s targets by extension — dropping considerably. After averaging 39.5 dropbacks in the first four games of the year, Hurts is down to 27 per game in the last nine.

The decrease in dropbacks has also helped Hurts avoid the turnover problems that plagued the team early this season and throughout a 2023 campaign that featured a late-season collapse. He has had just two turnovers in the last nine games after committing seven in the first three weeks of the year, but it’s possible the coaching staff and Hurts’ emphasis on avoiding risk is contributing to him being overly averse to throwing downfield.

When asked about the potential that he may be overly cautious in his approach, Hurts mentioned the shift toward featuring Barkley more heavily and how it has enabled the team to succeed despite the dormant passing game.

“The dynamic of our team has changed,’ Hurts said. “We’ve had a great addition in Saquon Barkley — he’s been able to impact this team in a tremendous way. We’ve always been able to run the ball at a high level; he’s taken that to the next level. It hasn’t changed the main thing. Ultimately, we’re looking at a piece of our game that we need to be better at, being critical of ourselves, we need to be better at. But ultimately we’re still doing what we need to do. There’s always an ongoing challenge in that.”

“We want to come together and try to find the best common ground in trying to be successful for the team,” he added.

Hurts, who was listed as a full participant on the injury report Wednesday with a finger injury on his left hand, insisted he doesn’t care so much about the focal point of the offense so long as the team is winning.

Eagles coach Nick Sirianni implemented a similar shift toward a run-first approach in Hurts’ first full season as a starter in 2021 while previous iterations since then have been more reliant on the star power of Brown and Smith winning their matchups on the perimeter and Hurts finding them when they do.

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“I’ve submitted myself to whatever it takes to win,” Hurts said. “You look over the course of the years and we’ve had different conversations for who the most valuable player is and the recognition or whatever. It’s all about the team at the end of the day, but you see different areas shining in different years. So it’s about the team, I don’t care how it looks. It’s kind of my game, I think that’s something people have to accept. It’s going to look how Jalen Hurts wants it to look, but he’s going to win.”

At some point, though, the Eagles will likely need him to be the focal point.

It could be this weekend against a Pittsburgh Steelers defense that will come to Lincoln Financial Field ranked seventh in total yards allowed and sixth in rushing yards per attempt allowed. Or perhaps it will come later, with the Eagles still in contention for the No. 1 seed in the NFC with hopes of making a deep postseason run.

“I know there will be moments when that moment comes,” Hurts said. “It’s a matter of being equipped when that time comes, that’s what we’re building confidence for, that’s what we’re striving for. No one cares how you get it done when you get it done. That’s it.”