Jalen Hurts ran a play he's never ran before in an Eagles uniform during Wild Card win over Packers
Jalen Hurts played his 83rd career game for the Philadelphia Eagles Sunday afternoon. He's attempted 2,125 passes during his ongoing five-year career. Attempt No. 2,110 was unlike any that have come before. Hurts and the Eagles faced a Second-and-8 late in the first quarter against the Green Bay Packers. Hurts received the snap from under […]
Jalen Hurts played his 83rd career game for the Philadelphia Eagles Sunday afternoon. He's attempted 2,125 passes during his ongoing five-year career. Attempt No. 2,110 was unlike any that have come before.
Hurts and the Eagles faced a Second-and-8 late in the first quarter against the Green Bay Packers. Hurts received the snap from under center and instead of turning his head to either hand the ball off to running back Saquon Barkley or fake the handoff with play action, he took a five-step drop-back and fired a 10-yard completion to wide receiver Devonta Smith.
The five-second moment looked as normal as any you'd see on an NFL Sunday, but this was anything but normal for the Eagles' franchise QB.
According to Yahoo Sports' Nate Tice, this was the first time Hurts attempted a pass after dropping back from under center and not utilizing play action.
Talk about a tendency-breaker, eh?
Long gone are the days when quarterbacks would exclusively take straight drop-backs from under center. Every single NFL offense nowadays rarely passes the ball like this. The San Francisco 49ers ran it the most at a whopping 8% of their drop-backs.
The Eagles were one of four teams to never call this kind of play this season. 25% of their passes are out of the shotgun without play action, according to Ben Baldwin.
It's honestly astounding that the Eagles ran this play after basically never doing so before with Hurts at QB. Judging by Barkley opening up his arms after the snap, it's possible that it was meant to include a play fake to the All-Pro back, but Hurts looked very much confident in keeping his eyes downfield upon dropping back to pass.
Hurts finished the day completing 13 of his 21 passes for 131 yards and two touchdowns with only one completion to his book-loving WR1, A.J. Brown. It was his fifth consecutive playoff game without an interception and third consecutive without a turnover, a bright spot on a day when the defense lost one of its best players to a season-ending injury.
Will we see the Eagles have Hurts take a straight drop-back from under center again? The next time to find out is Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on NBC.
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