Eagles news: Jalen Hurts knee, overreactions to the passing game and referees

There are only four teams who are alive in the NFL right now and the Philadelphia Eagles are one of them. They have a three-match coming in the NFC Championship game against their divisional rival Washington Commanders. As we inch closer to that game, there’s news trickling out about Jalen Hurts’ health, the officials, of course, there are more opinions on the passing game. Let’s get into it.

NFC Championship referee assignment

You can’t change what you can’t change. You can’t change the team you play, you can’t change the weather, and you can’t change which referee crew the NFL assigns for games. That’s the facts.

That being said if the NFL wants to assign a referee crew that has been favorable to the Eagles in the past … well … sure. That’s cool. 

It was announced on Monday that Shawn Hochuli, the significantly smaller-armed son of Ed Hochuli, is going to be the head referee in the NFC Championship game. The Eagles’ record in Shawn Hochuli games is 6-1, going back to 2018.

That’s obviously weird on the surface, but if you look deeper, 6-1 is just a coincidental record. (These numbers are all from NFLPenalties.com)

In five of those seven games, the Eagles were called for fewer penalties than their season average, but it wasn’t far off. For example in 2021 the Eagles averaged 6.17 penalties per game, and in Week 5 they were called for six penalties. 

The other thing is that only two of the teams the Eagles beat in Shawn Hochuli games had winning records in their seasons (2022 Jaguars and 2023 Bills) and the Eagles made it to the postseason in each of these years, so this isn’t a ‘refs help the Eagles’ thing and it’s more of a ‘the Eagles are just a good franchise’ thing.

Now, this is a divisional game and it’s the de facto NFC East Championship game. This game is going to be talked about for a long time, and when that’s the case officiating is always going to end up being part of the conversation. 

So I did a deep dive into what Ole’ puny-armed Shawn and his crew have been up to this season and how they’ve been calling games.

Keep in mind with all of this, there are 17 officiating crews and not all of them have officiated the same number of games this season. So the most accurate way to say these numbers is by using their average number of called penalties per game rather than their total. I also put in the average number of times that penalty is called per game.

So, Shawn and the gang are sticklers. They’re above average on six of these ten penalties, and the ones they call a lot of, they call a WHOLE lot of. Now that we know this, we have to see how all of that compares to the Eagles and the Commanders' season-long tendencies.

The crazy one that stands out here is that the Commanders’ 20 DPIs are more than double the NFL’s average of 9.72. The problem there is that Scrawny Shawny calls the 12th fewest DPIs. There’s going to be a frustrating no-call and it’s going to be awful.

Also, the Commanders have only had three unnecessary roughness calls against them. This is a team with Frankie Luvu who has highlights like these:

He’s a dirty player who’s out there looking to take people out by turning their brains into baby food. Somehow the guy hasn’t had a single call against him. Whatever.

It’s also worth noting that the Eagles have committed 57 offensive penalties (20th), 34 defensive penalties (22nd), and 113 total penalties called against them (14th). Their opponents have committed 49 offensive penalties (27th), 33 defensive penalties (27th), and 96 total penalties (30th). The Eagles have the best defense in the league, and they are getting the sixth-fewest penalties called against them. That’s just as unbelievable as it is rage-inducing.

The Commanders have committed 57 offensive penalties (20th), 49 defensive penalties (5th), and 120 total penalties (8th). Their opponents have committed 52 offensive penalties (24th), 46 defensive penalties (5th), and 117 total penalties (14th).

The Commanders have a good offense, but they are a big-time beneficiary of defensive penalties. Just keep that in mind when you’re thinking about how they’ll match up against the Eagles defense.

(Over)reactions to the passing game

On Sunday the Eagles had 128 passing yards, but there were 65 sack yards so they only netted 63 passing yards in the game. That’s not good.

The Eagles’ passing game has been under a lot of criticism this season. Some of those criticisms are more fair than others. Does Jalen Hurts stink as a passer? No. Is the lack of creativity in the scheme hurting? Yes. Can the Eagles win a Super Bowl with the passing offense as it is? It sure seems like it. 

ESPN’s Dan Graziano wrote about potential overreactions from the divisional round. For the Eagles, he titled his section, “Overreaction? The Eagles need a lot more from their passing game to beat Washington.”

Graziano writes, “Not an overreaction! Yes, I watched the game. I know the second half was played in a blizzard and no one could do much… But they weren't getting much through the air early in the game when the weather was less intense, and the Rams threw the ball fine in the fourth quarter.”

That’s a good point Dan, the Rams had 144 passing yards in the fourth quarter… but, they threw the ball 25 times. That’s a lot of times. The Eagles (the team who had the lead for the entirety of the fourth quarter) only threw the ball four times in the fourth quarter. 

You have to imagine that the Rams probably didn’t want to throw the ball that much in the fourth quarter, but if they wanted to win that game and keep their season going, they had no other choice. 

A.J. Brown shared this same sentiment. After the game, he was asked about the passing game and he said, “...you've got to give this game a pass. It was just tough. The conditions were tough… We couldn't even see out there, so imagine throwing the ball and catching the ball, even though they were doing it at the end. The game's on the line, they didn't have a choice. I don't think that would've been their first choice.” (19:09 in the video below)

You have to give the Rams their props. When their season was hanging by a thread, Matt Stafford and his receivers did just about everything they could to stay alive. The Eagles simply have not been in a postseason situation where they’ve had no choice but to throw the ball.

In his piece, Graziano continued, “...the Eagles probably will need to win a shootout next week against Jayden Daniels and the Commanders, who scored 36 points against them in a Week 16 victory. I'm not sure how confident we can be in the Eagles' ability to do that.”

You have to imagine that they’ll do that with a dominant run game. The 36 points that the Commanders put up were the most any team has put on the Eagles' defense all season. Based on what we’ve seen from the defense over the past five months, that game was an anomaly.

Not to mention, Jalen Hurts was knocked out of that game in the first quarter. Even though Kenny Pickett played most of the game, the Eagles were still just one wildly improbable DeVonta Smith drop away from winning that game. It’s not like the Commanders put up 36 points and the Eagles offense did nothing. 

They’ll run the ball until Frankie Luvu quits, and then they’ll run it some more. They’ll throw for 145 yards and everyone will say they can’t win a Super Bowl with 145 passing yards. Saying the Eagles can win running the ball is a tired premise. Would it be cool if they threw for 300 yards? Sure. Will they? No, because they don’t need to. 

Pro Football Doc on Jalen Hurts

When Jalen Hurts was in concussion protocol it felt like it was just a waiting game. We’ve seen players like Tua Tagovailoa and Trevor Lawrence get really gnarly concussions that have sent them to the IR. When Jalen’s head hit the ground, he stood back up and was able to walk. Based purely on that, it didn’t look nearly as bad as we’ve seen this season. 

Now with this leg thing he’s dealing with? Woo buddy. That’s a whole different beast. 

Jalen’s a tough dude and there’s absolutely no doubt that he’s going to play in the NFC Championship game, but now the questions are, ‘What exactly happened?’ and ‘How will Jalen look?’

We’ll probably never actually know the specifics, but luckily there are much smarter people than us out there who can look and make much better guesses than we can. If you haven’t heard of him, he’s David J. Chao MD. He was the Chargers’ head physician for 17 years, and he goes by Pro Football Doc. His whole thing is that he sees what we see, and then uses his doctor brain to assess what probably happened.

On Sports Injury Central’s injury recap he talked about Jalen Hurts. Chao said, “...He clearly had something on his knee. It didn’t look like, to me, that it was a brace with metal stays. It more was some sort of wrap or compression, still waiting to see if there’s any more video on that…”

That’s a good point by Dr. Football Doc. Jalen didn’t have one of those gnarly braces on his knee. It was something that they were able to fit under the pants and under the sock without a whole lot of encumbrance.

For what it’s worth, this is what his chonky knee brace looked like in 2023:

Chao continued, “...He banged his left knee on the ground. He was hyperflexed. I don’t see structural damage. I don’t see a PCL… Could he have a small meniscus tear the way hyperflexed? He could. I guarantee if the MRI shows one, we won’t hear about it until the Eagles are eliminated…”

First of all, it’s ‘Once they win the Super Bowl.’ Regardless, the worst-case scenario at this point would be a meniscus thing. If you’ve ever torn your meniscus, you know that it sucks a whole lot, but it’s still something you can deal with. 

“Is Jalen Hurts playing? 100%... He’s going to be able to move. Is he going to be as dynamic? No. Can he still Tush Push? Yes, they were Tush Pushing with him late in the game… So he can still run, he can still do it, but he did seem to be less fluid, less mobile. Part of it is poor footing… I think Jalen Hurts is playing. I don’t think it’s structural damage, but is he 100%? No.” (22:43 in the video below)

That lack of dynamic playmaking is going to be a major kick in the nuts, especially since we saw how much of a game-changer he can be when he uses his legs. His 44-yard rushing touchdown on the first drive was spectacular. It’s gonna be bad if he’s not able to power through tackles like that.

He’s definitely going to be listed as a limited participant on the practice reports this week. Hell, he might even be a DNP on one or two. 

The important thing is that Jalen’s going to play. There’s no reason to stress-puke thinking about a Kenny Pickett NFC Championship Game.