Eagles news: Everyone loves Kenny, Jalen Hurts is hot, and another story from the bye week

It’s fun to have fun, and it’s fun when the Philadelphia Eagles are winning like they are right now. When they beat up the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 15, the offense showed that it was a shark. There was one layer of teeth that could tear you apart with the running game, but then there was a second layer of teeth that could pulverize you with the passing game. It was awesome.

The vibes are astronomically high right now, and when that happens most of the news you’ll see is positive. Unfortunately, that means some of the news is negative. Luckily, the negative news this week is really far-fetched and downright bizarre. Let’s get into it.

Jalen Hurts continues to grow

The turning point in the Eagles’ season was the bye week in Week 5. The Eagles went into that after they were thoroughly dismantled by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 4. 

It feels like every few weeks we find out more and more things that changed during that week. There was the story about the offensive line talking to Nick Sirianni and saying they want to run the ball more, there’s the obvious addition of Cooper DeJean on defense, A.J. Brown got healthy, and now there’s a new twist.

NFL on Fox insider Jay Glazer went on the aptly named NFL on Fox Podcast and told a story about Jalen Hurts during the bye week:

“In the bye week, Brandon Graham actually, with Big Dom, went to [Jalen’s] house and said, ‘Hey man, we need to kind of connect more with everybody here.” As a quarterback, you kind of get lost in that. There’s so much other stuff you gotta do. And he went out of his way and met with the offensive line. Connected. He met with Sirianni like three times or several times. Connect with him. He went out of his way, with Graham, with everybody, connected with them more. Saying, “Okay, I understand that there’s more to a quarterback position than me just sitting here with the game plan and making sure I could throw here and throw there.” They all credit him with doing a great job for it, and it’s just not out there, how good of a job he’s done to connect with his teammates. Because, the quarterback position, it’s one part talent and one part dude-ism. You gotta be a dude with these guys.” (15:26 in the video below)

One really great thing about Jalen Hurts is that he takes every offseason to turn one of his weaknesses into one of his strengths. It turns out that’s not just limited to what happens on the field and the guy is just really good at receiving criticism.

He was told that he needed to be closer to his teammates, and in two weeks he made sure he went out and got closer to them. He understood the urgency and acted on it. That’s awesome. 

Now, the curious thing about this (and this is purely speculation and reading between the lines that we’ve been given) is that Jay specifically said that Jalen went and “connected” with the offensive line. 

It’d be interesting to see the timeline of when everything happened. Did Jalen “connect” with the offensive line BEFORE they went to Sirianni to talk about changing the offensive identity? If that was the case, you’d have to imagine that part of their conversations were about that change. 

Also, Jay’s use of the word “connect” is weird. He used it five times, and it’s ludicrously vague. What does that mean? Did Jalen show up to everyone’s house, play a game of boggle, have a cup of coffee, and chit-chat? Did he rent out an Applebee’s and throw a rager where everyone housed Bourbon Street Chicken and Shrimp plates and get blackout drunk on Blue Aloha Mana Margaritas? Did they buy ceremonial knives blessed by the spirit of the Greek God Agon (the God of Competition) and make blood oaths to each other? Or was it something else that we’ll never know about?

This is what happens, Jay. You used vague language and now everyone has to imagine what professional athletes with virtually unlimited amounts of money do to connect with each other.

Pundits are reaching for criticisms

Domonique Foxworth has a recurring segment on ESPN’s morning show Get Up called U-Nique Perspective where he gives his takes on things around the NFL. 

Some examples of his U-Nique perspectives: in 2020 he said the Commanders’ Super Bowl window was open. Last year he said Aaron Rodgers would continue to be a leader for the Jets even though he was hurt. On Tuesday, he said that Jalen Hurts has “Pretty Privilege.”

Pretty privilege is essentially a suggested principle that attractive people have better morals, get more opportunities, seem more trustworthy, and have an all-around better life because they’re hot. 

To be entirely fair, Jalen is an objectively good-looking dude. He carries himself with a crazy amount of confidence. He’s charismatic. He’s well dressed. He’s as cool as a cucumber mentally. He speaks in phrases that would make Marcus Aurelius weak in the knees. 

There are two ways that you can take Foxworth’s comment: He thinks Jalen benefits too much from his looks and personality OR he’s making a joke.

If he’s serious about this, then woof. That’s a bad take. Domonique said, “Man, you had one good week passing, and everyone forgets it when he starts batting his eyes.”

How are we still doing the ‘Jalen Hurts is a bad passer’ thing? Has he lit up the stats with huge passing numbers this season? No. Of course not. He hasn’t needed to. The Eagles haven’t been playing from behind late in games where they would need to throw the ball. 

Joe Burrow is the leading passer in the NFL and he’s averaging 37.6 passes a game. That team is almost ALWAYS playing from behind. Patrick Mahomes is averaging 35.8 passes and that’s because they’re constantly trying to win games with his arm at the last second. 

Jalen Hurts has an offense that’s been fueled by Saquon Barkley, the most dominant running back in the league. He doesn’t need to throw the ball, but when he did against a Steelers’ defense that was really good against the run, he was surgical with it. 

If Domonique’s take was that Jalen Hurts gets more credit for being a good passer because he’s super hot rather than because he’s actually really good at throwing the ball, then it’s not just a bad take, but it’s also a huge stretch.

Luckily, his video went semi-viral, and the internet’s best detectives latched onto it. Their question was, ‘Why would Domonique say that?’ It didn’t take these sleuths very long to find out why.

Domonique had his wife on his show, aptly named The Domonique Foxworth Show and it would seem that she is a VERY big fan of Jalen.

Ah. Okay. So this is just a, ‘My wife thinks you’re hot so I’m going to hold it against you’ thing. Well, if that’s what we’re doing, then Bradley Cooper also has pretty privilege. 

Kenny Gainwell is the glue guy

Kenny Gainwell has had a weird career. 2023 was his best year running the ball when he put up 364 yards. Prior to that, the 291 yards in his rookie season in 2021 was his best. He can do some damage catching the ball out of the backfield, but he’s not putting up crazy numbers that way either.

His best stretch of games was in the 2022 playoffs when he carried the ball 33 times for 181 yards. He was very instrumental there, and everyone hoped that he would carry that kind of production over to the 2023 season, but it ended up being relatively lackluster.

From a fan’s perspective, Kenny’s usage was frustrating in the past. In that 2022 season, the Eagles had A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith having the best-receiving years of their career, Dallas Goedert being dominant when he was healthy, and Jalen Hurts running the ball with lethal efficiency… but for whatever reason, it seemed like the Eagles would give the ball to Kenny on key third-downs. 

It was frustrating because when you have that many elite playmakers all over the field, why would you draw up a play to the sixth-best playmaker on the offense? From this side of things, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense. 

It turns out, the reason is that the team loves him and he’s earned it. Unfortunately, he’s in the last year of his rookie contract and we’re just now seeing why.

When Saquon left the Week 15 game against the Steelers, Kenny took over his workload and he did a great job showcasing what he has. When he carried the ball it wasn’t anything spectacular, but as that pass-catching back (as a check-down, a hot target, and a route runner) he was great.

That performance got attention which led to players and coaches getting asked about him. During Nick Sirianni’s media availability on Monday, he was prompted to “gush” about him. I’m going to put in the full quote because it’s cool to see a coach love a player this much. If you want to watch the response, the video is below.

“The guys make fun of him sometimes because they know he’s one of my favorites… They perceive that because I’m always talking to Kenny to reinforce what you want your culture to look like. ‘Hey guys it takes everybody. Watch this. And the two opportunities that Kenny got, watch what he does with it.’ Now he’s contributing on Special Teams and I don’t just mean returning, he’s making tackles on special teams. Every opportunity that he has, he takes advantage of…” 

Nick continued,  “...Kenny is extremely tough, extremely tough. What an unbelievable spin move he makes yesterday on third down to avoid that tackle. What I loved even more about that was two things: one, he lowers his shoulder at the end to gain four more yards… and then the excitement that his teammates have for him on the sideline when he does that. That happens because he’s such a great teammate. He’s tough. He works hard. He could be a guy that got opportunities elsewhere, but he gets limited opportunities and takes advantage of him. What’s there not to love about Kenny Gainwell? …I love having him on this football team. I love getting to know him more and more over the last four years… He’s a special special player, he’s a special special teammate. Really, he speaks so much as to what our culture is here. He may not have a ‘C’ on his chest, but he leads in his own way. He’s really taken advantage of all the opportunities that he’s gotten here, and that’s been consistent through the last four years here with the Eagles.” (11:06 in the video below)

That’s awesome. Nick will say some weird stuff when it comes to the issues the Eagles have, but when he has a chance to talk about a player that he likes, he goes off. 

It’s notable that Kenny and Nick came to the team in the same offseason. During the 2021 draft, two offensive skill players the Eagles drafted were DeVonta Smith in the first round and Kenny in the fifth round. DeVonta was drafted to be a star, and he has been. Kenny was drafted to be Miles Sanders’ backup and to be a pass protector, so it kind of makes sense that Nick fell in love with a player whose job is to be gritty.

Before the trade deadline, I wrote about Kenny Gainwell potential being a player the Eagles could trade away because he is at the end of his contract. That clearly could not have been more incorrect. He can run, he can catch, he can pass protect, and he can make guys miss. The team loves him and he is coming in clutch when he gets the opportunity.

Here’s a bonus video of him putting Micah Parsons on his back when they were in college.