It was a rough night to say the least for Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, but he still found a way to help his team pick up a gritty 16-9 win over the Detroit Lions in Week 11.
Hurts finished the game with just 14 completions out of 28 for 135 yards and added 31 rushing yards and a touchdown on the ground. He struggled to hit his receivers with accuracy and was even stuffed on his Tush Push attempts. One receiver he found, though, was A.J. Brown.
Coming off a week of drama, Brown finished with team-highs in receptions (seven), targets (11), and yards (49). After the game, Hurts was asked about targeting Brown in the passing game 11 times.
"Just going with the flow of the game, and how it was called. Just going out there to try and execute."
The more interesting part was when a reporter followed up by asking if it was an effort to get the ball to Brown or not. Hurts surprisingly decided to take a different route with the response.
"That may be a KP question."
Eagles' offense did not look good in the win over Lions
Starting with Hurts, it was arguably his worst performance of the season. The one thing that has made him great all season was his accuracy, and he completed a season-low 50% of his passes in the game.
Yes, every Eagles fan can acknowledge that Hurts was actively forcing Brown to catch the ball. It was apparent from the first pass that went in Brown's direction.
Once again, this is a Kevin Patullo problem, which might make Hurts' non-answer telling, but some truth to it. Every time Brown complains publicly, Patullo goes overboard with calls to Brown, and they almost never result in a positive outcome. It has to be more of what Hurts said, "going with the flow of the game."
The Eagles are suffering for it in the worst way. They had the formula against the Minnesota Vikings and the second matchup against the New York Giants. It's like Patullo and company just forgot about those games just so that they can appease their disgruntled star receiver.
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Every Eagles fan agrees Brown should get the ball more, but not at the expense of the offense. The team has a lot of work to do to fix how they are handling the Brown situation, because this offensive unit is not good enough to repeat as Super Bowl champions.