Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts can live with a bad throw or a stalled drive. Every quarterback has those. My biggest issue with Hurts after Sunday’s game has nothing to do with his play on the field. It’s what he said at the podium afterward, and it should bother every Eagles fan who expects their franchise quarterback to take control when the game is on the line.

Hurts was asked whether there was more he could do at the end of games. More specifically, could he have done more in the final 25 seconds to make sure Philadelphia got a field goal attempt? Hurts said after the game:

“It’s not my place, and we’re prepared,” Hurts said. “I’m prepared as a quarterback to not worry about those things. I’m honoring the play call, honoring the things that are coming in the game. When I’m up at night, yeah, I think, should I have said something? But ultimately there’s a commitment to that and going out there and executing.”

That is not what I want to hear from our quarterback.

Franchise quarterbacks have to step on some toes

Look, if we’re going to give Hurts all this credit, and we should, then the responsibility comes with it. You can’t be the franchise quarterback and only be a passenger in the biggest moments. He’s the man who gets paid to be the man. He has done incredible things in his career, and nobody is taking that away from him. But when you hold that title, you have to be willing to step on some toes.

That means being vocal. It means occasionally butting heads with your coaches and your teammates, then using that friction to make everybody better. When the clock is ticking down and the Eagles need points, Hurts has to be the one in the huddle or on the headset saying, hey, we need to do this, we need to win this game. Not afterward. Right then.

And notice what he admitted himself. He’s up at night wondering whether he should have said something. So the instinct is there, he knows. He just isn’t acting on it, and that’s the part that frustrates me most.

This isn’t the first time

Here’s the thing, everybody. We’ve seen this movie before. Think back to the end of last season, when Eagles coach Nick Sirianni and then-offensive coordinator Kevin Petullo were looking at each other cross-eyed, with no idea what to call while the season was on the line. Hurts could have spoken up there, too. He didn’t.

Keep in mind, there are moments when the quarterback has to override the coaching. If the people calling the plays aren’t getting it done in a critical spot, the guy under center has to be willing to take matters into his own hands. I’m not saying he blows up the play sheet every Sunday. I’m saying that when the sideline is frozen, somebody has to grab the wheel, and the franchise quarterback is the obvious candidate.

Will it always work? Probably not. Maybe Hurts speaks up and gets no response at all. Maybe nothing changes and the coaches stick with their call. That’s fine. At least he did his part, and at least nobody can say the quarterback sat back and waited for instructions with the game slipping away.

It absolutely is his place

So I don’t want to hear “it’s not my place.” It absolutely is his place.

Hurts has earned the right to have a voice in this building, through two Super Bowl trips, through all the winning, through everything he has given this franchise. Earning that voice and never using it in the clutch is a waste. Commitment to the play call is a nice sentiment, but commitment to winning has to come first.

This is his football team, and he needs to start acting like it when the clock is running out. Until he does, that answer from Sunday is going to be the thing I’m most disappointed with when it comes to Jalen Hurts.