Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts guided his team to victory in Week 1’s matchup against the Green Bay Packers on Friday. Not even poor weather conditions could slow Hurts and the Eagles from squeezing out a 34-29 win in the first football game ever played in Brazil.
Still, while highlighting Hurts’ thrown interception, Super Bowl champion and former Eagles defensive end Chris Long says Hurts has to play better via his podcast, Green Light with Chris Long.
“I’m about to give him the medicine here, but he did do some good things. Jalen Hurts has to play better. You know it, I know it. The pick was so bad in the end zone I had to hit the porch,” Long said. “I was stressing over that, just like you at home if you’re an Eagles fan, because there’s all this, hey, you know you guys did it, you Philly aggregators, you Philly reporters, I love you all, but you got to own this one.”
Long says the ongoing pressure from local media surrounding Hurts’ zero interceptions in Eagles training camp got to his head. Seeing him earn two turnovers in Friday’s win was no surprise.
“It’s all your fault; the pick in the red zone’s your fault. You know, ignoring safety during the game is your fault because you were keeping track of how many f****** throws he had in camp without an interception he had in camp,” Long added. “That’s like sitting in the dugout and being like you got a no-no, you don’t do that.”
Chris Long says Jalen Hurts needs to play better for Eagles
For Chris Long, Jalen Hurts not participating in any preseason games also contributed to his throwing two interceptions. He’ll have to shake the rust off for Week 2.
“He has to play better because this team can win with him perfect QB play,” Long added. “You just saw it, and there are things he did well; I’m not going to ignore those things, but I just want to get that out of the way to level set because people are always like, “Oh, you took it easy [on him]” or “What about the bad throws?” he stunk it up for a couple of sequences. It’s almost like he just snaps into and snaps out of it. You can’t have that.
“There was a lot of waiting to see what he looked like in this offense, and I thought he looked pretty good most of the game, 90% of the game, but that 10%, the floor of that 10%, is low,” Long concluded.
The Eagles will face the New Orleans Saints in Week 2 on September 22.
