Daily News | In Eagles win over Steelers, Jalen Hurts keeps proving how far he has come as a QB
There were 9 minutes, 24 seconds left in the Eagles’ 35-13 romp over the Steelers on Sunday when the clearest indication of how far Jalen Hurts has come as a quarterback revealed itself: He didn’t take the field. He lingered along the Eagles’ sideline, tossing a football in the air to himself, catching it with his right hand, his helmet off. Gardner Minshew, instead, trotted out to orchestrate the offense.
Had anyone suggested in August that Minshew would replace Hurts during a Week 8 game with a lopsided outcome, one might have thought that the Eagles’ season had already reached a crossroads. That Hurts’ performance had been so poor that coach Nick Sirianni had benched him. That the team would face a dreaded quarterback controversy in the near future and even harder questions about the position, with long-term ramifications for the franchise, once the offseason arrived.
After Sunday, though, after Hurts threw for 285 yards and four touchdowns, after he did what he could have and should have been expected to do against a lousy Pittsburgh pass defense, it’s becoming more difficult to remember those doubts about him.The Eagles didn’t need him to carry the ball himself to soften up the Steelers and set them back on their heels. He threw early. He threw a lot. And he threw deep. Each of his four touchdown passes — three of which were to A.J.