Without having all the facts at our disposal, the impression left by the fiasco surrounding Jalen Hurts’ blood clots, his ill-fated trip to London and the confusing and ever-changing circumstances surrounding it all certainly leads one to believe that the Eagles might have messed this whole thing up.
While the narrative around how much sleep Jalen Hurts received prior to taking the field in England is changing by the hour (he did not play the game on no sleep, but reportedly did get a few hours just
prior to the game), it still has the appearance of a less-than-ideal situation. Hurts was obviously not at his most rested, and in my mind, the decision to play him in that game remains a highly questionable one.
Also, these international games are awful. They need to stop. Playing football is dangerous and exhausting enough without having to force players to fly over an ocean for 5-6 hours, re-acclimate their body clocks, and then risk their health. If a player suffers an injury serious enough that requires a hospital stay, they have to do it in a foreign country where it may not be safe for them to make a trans-continental flight for a few days.
That’s probably what should have happened with Hurts, but that will be a matter for the league and the NFLPA to sort out.
Nevertheless, here we all are, six weeks into a disastrous 2026 season that is over. There will be no playoffs and, even if the Eagles somehow win the NFC East with a losing record, anothe title is out of the question. Fans are watching the remnants of a Super Bowl championship roster crumbling before their very eyes, and it feels as though we’re witnessing the end of an era.
The offensive line as we know it is gone. The wide receiving room is missing that game-breaking superstar, even with DeVonta Smith in the lineup. Saquon Barkley can’t run behind this line, and can’t stay healthy. They’re down to RB4. There is one tight end. The offensive coordinator looks overmatched. The defensive side of the ball is healthier, but not healthy. Vic Fangio is probably retiring after this season, and who could blame him? What becomes of the defense after he leaves?
It would be hard to imagine any head coach being able to sustain a winning record with all these injuries and an incomplete roster, and maybe that has bought Nick Sirianni some time. Or, maybe it will be an excuse for Howie Roseman and Jeffrey Lurie to tear it all down and hire a head coach that can also be the team’s offensive coordinator and play caller.
These are all fascinating questions that will be revealed in due course, but the biggest one of all is Jalen Hurts. And after this incident with the blood clots, it’s getting harder to see a future with him under center in 2027.
It’s not because Hurts is a bad quarterback, because he clearly isn’t. But even when things looked their most optimistic, there were questions about whether the Eagles would hitch their wagons to Hurts long term after this season. Hurts’ contract extension only guarantees him $22 million following the 2026 season, and serves as an off-ramp for the team to change directions at that position if they want to.
The 2026 season was supposed to determine whether Hurts would be able to play well enough to continue on in Sean Mannion’s offense. Unfortunately, we only saw five weeks of uneven play, with Hurts at times struggling to string together drives with an injury-plagued roster and a new offensive coordinator that is still getting his feet wet.
And, Hurts also played one of those games on four hours’ sleep in another country after spending the previous night in the hospital because of concerns about blood clots.
It’s virtually impossible to judge anything about Hurts’ future based on what’s happened on the field, so Roseman and Lurie will have to make a determination about Hurts’ future based on the circumstances the team is facing as well as the money involved.
With Tanner McKee under center the rest of the way, it’s likely the Eagles are going to finish with a top-10 pick. Roseman is likely to start selling veterans at the NFL trade deadline to pile up more picks. In a way, the Hurts situation will make Roseman’s decision at the trade deadline much easier than it otherwise would have been.
Saquon Barkley, Riq Woolen, Dallas Goedert, Landon Dickerson and Nolan Smith all should be dealt. The Eagles could pile up enough draft capital in this year’s and next year’s drafts to do whatever they want next April. It’s also perceived to be a solid draft class at quarterback.
The opportunity for Roseman to grab a cost-controlled signal caller that can function better in the type of offense the Eagles want to run may be too good an opportunity to pass up.
But first, the Eagles have to decide what they want to be. Do they want their offense to look like a Sean McVay/Kyle Shanahan type offense? If so, do they believe Mannion and Sirianni are a good combination to construct an offense like that? Is it too difficult to get someone to create and run an offense with Sirianni as the CEO head coach? That certainly seemed to be an issue last off-season as multiple experienced offensive coordinators turned down the Eagles’ job.
The simplest and cleanest way to get the Eagles back on track just may be to get rid of everyone, strip the coaching staff and the roster down, and retool. With a ton of draft picks, the Eagles could rebuild their lines and get a new QB pretty quickly. A new head coach/offensive coordinator would be able to identify the QB he believes would be best suited to run his offense and work on building a new program, starting in 2027.
Unfortunately, that would mean Jalen Hurts is traded this off-season. Make no mistake, Hurts is the best quarterback in franchise history. It would be very interesting to see how things would work out if Sirianni was gone and an offensive-minded head coach was brought in who would tailor an offense around Hurts’ strengths. But it would also require Hurts to run the ball more often than he has, and if he’s decided he’s not a running QB anymore, then Hurts’ value as a franchise player decreases tremendously.
One also has to wonder if Hurts has lost trust in the organization and how they handled things in London. Sirianni was left hanging out to dry by Roseman and Lurie in his Monday press conference, forced to dance around questions concerning the process that took place. It was bad PR and made Sirianni look like the team was hiding information, although one would assume the ambiguity was done to avoid making statements that could be used against the team in a potential lawsuit and also to protect Hurts’ rights to medical privacy.
So we’re left to speculate and guess, and it would appear from the outside that this was handled very badly. It has the appearance of the team prioritizing getting Hurts back on the field as opposed to being conservative and making his personal health the No. 1 priority.
Again, that is speculation, but that is the appearance. And if that is all true, does Hurts even want to be an Eagle moving forward?
There are so many decisions that will need to be made after these next 11 games are completed.
Do the Eagles get rid of all the coaches and start over with a coaching structure that makes more sense? Does Fangio return and, if not, what does that mean for the defense? Which players will be dealt at the trade deadline?
But the most important will be … is Jalen Hurts still the franchise quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles?
Right now, it’s getting harder to see how that will be the case in Week 1 of 2027.
