MNF REVIEW: Hurts Could Be Special In Philly

By Rob Ward

There’s a curious thing amongst NFL fans when it comes to the quarterback position. If you’re not considered elite, a sizeable question mark hangs over you like the sword of Damocles. Every poor performance brings to the front of the sports media agenda the renewed challenge to your capabilities. A narrative about you grows. Lamar can’t throw. Dak can’t win big games. Tua can’t make big plays. Kyler can make big plays, but too often they’re on Minecraft. Once upon a time it was Favre throws too many picks and Peyton can’t win in the playoffs. The bar is set high when you’re the face of the franchise.

Matt Rourke / Associated Press

A receiving unit can be great whilst a running game can struggle. A secondary’s shortcomings can be masked by a strong pass rush. But with a quarterback if you ain’t great, there’s a debate. There’s nowhere to hide. Your strengths will give way to your perceived weaknesses. There could be twenty very good to great running backs in the league. Their place in the team isn’t relentlessly scrutinised, wherever they land on that scale. The same luxury just isn’t afforded the QB position.

The significance of the job clearly cannot be overstated. “Until you find your quarterback,” former Falcons General Manager Thomas Dimitroff once said, “the search for him consumes you”. But when you consider some of the Super Bowl winning quarterbacks of the past fifteen years, it isn’t a roll call of Hall of Fame talent. Eli Manning, Joe Flacco, Nick Foles and Matthew Stafford all have rings. Eli has two. Peyton Manning won in 2015 playing on Low Power mode with 20% left. Jimmy G was an overthrown deep ball to Emmanuel Sanders away from kissing the Lombardi. Rex Grossman nearly won it all FFS.

Yet we can never accept anything that isn’t packaged or perceived as outstanding. Is ‘very good’ ever good enough?

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Enter the two quarterbacks involved in this week’s MNF: the Eagles and Vikings. Both Jalen Hurts and Kirk Cousins were riding waves of optimism into the season. The Eagles, always strong in the trenches, made a blockbuster trade and brought one of the dominant alpha receivers of the league into their building. The Vikings parted ways with the Zimmersaurus and plucked the fruit from the Sean McVay coaching tree to sex up their offense. Can Hurts and Cousins take these NFC pretenders to the next level?

There’s no quarterback maligned with more relish than Kirk Cousins. The multi-million-dollar multi-contract man – the Hustler – lives under a cloud of scrutiny. Cousins can make the throws and put up the numbers. He has been top ten in passer rating for each of his four years in Minnesota, whilst playing behind a line PFF has consistently ranked bottom ten over that same period. Two of those years he was a top five rated passer.

The thing with Cousins is, it doesn’t matter how many nice stats you throw at people. It’s an emotional reaction with him. A feeling. A something. He’s the embarrassing dad in a 30-year old body. He’s the “YOU LIKE THAT” guy. He’s the dude who couldn’t throw a football into a bin once on TikTok. Ultimately, he comes across as a bit of a wet lettuce. Personality counts in the reckoning and Captain Kirk’s doesn’t work in his favour. A sense that, despite the numbers, you just wouldn’t take him into the trenches with you.

Eric Hartline / USA TODAY Sports

Hurts is an elite rusher of the football. Not since the last chapter of Michael Vick’s career have the Philly faithful seen their quarterback turn on the jets to such effect. He could easily have played running back if his talents had not extended to the top position in the game. But the question over him surrounds the accuracy of his passing. Hurts had a rating of 87.2 last year, 22nd amongst all eligible quarterbacks, and a completion percentage of a meagre 61.5%. Hurts sits in in a precarious position. A second-round draft pick brought to Philadelphia to sit behind an established passer by a previous Head Coach. Should the Eagles’ offense not soar this season, particularly with the addition of Brown, then Hurts will be in the firing line. “You had all the tools”, they’ll cry, “why couldn’t you make it work?”

Now, a slight confession. I’ve been one of Captain Kirk’s staunchest defenders over the years. I’ve always quite liked the odd chap. Always felt he was judged harsher than any other quarterback in the league. I started defending him – and saw how much scorn it brought out in others – and rather enjoyed that. So, I kept it up. In truth I’m not quite sure how much I believe it myself anymore, but I’ve always been the Cousins’ guy. Nights like last night, however, make my defence crumble under cross-reference.

The greatest critique of all was on display in Philly, naked and exposed. Turn on the bright lights and Cousins will fade. And so he did. For as much as truthers like me could argue that the Captain has won three of his last four Primetime matchups, this performance perfectly fits the Primetime Kirk stereotype. It was bad. Interception thrown stands at three. It could easily have been more.

Facing a blitz on 50% of his dropbacks, Cousins looked rattled all evening. He sent 12 targets Justin Jefferson’s way, only 50% of which were caught. One particularly ugly momemt came on the Vikings opening play of the third quarter. Cousins sent it Jefferson’s way in the endzone, but it wasn’t even close. Darius Slay was the grateful recipient. Jefferson took responsibility for the mix-up after the game. That won’t change anyone’s mind on who was to blame. The game effectively died there. The Eagles took their foot off the gas. A scoreless second half slowly faded away.

Credit where it’s due to Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon. Despite the reputation of the Eagles as a tough defense, there have been murmurings that Gannon should be getting more from this talented bunch. Being that this is Philly, they aren’t quiet murmurings either. He wasn’t afraid to throw the house at Cousins, frequently and effectively. They forced the Vikings off the field on four of their first five offensive drives. Big Play Slay was immense. The place was rocking. Doubtless Cousins’ primetime reputation factored into the blitzing gameplan, but this was a more aggressive Philly on defense. This is what the fans have been crying out for. They were also crying out for blood, Jalen Reagor’s to be precise, if the remarkable chorus of vigorous booing that greeted their former first round pick is anything to go by.

But the night belonged to Hurts, who backed up a solid week one with an excellent showing in the home opener. Dominant when running the ball and now benefiting from the return of a fully healthy Miles Sanders. The running game keeps a defense honest, opening up opportunities for big shots downfield, as displayed by the 53 yard TD strike to Quez Watkins to put the Eagles 14-0 up. Second year head coach Nick Sirianni is building his gameplan around Hurts’ qualities. Witness the success in Baltimore when John Harbaugh and Greg Roman rethought around Lamar Jackson. Hurts ended the first half passing with 17-of-20 passing for 251 yards and one touchdown. He had rushed for two other scores in that time. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to claim it was the best half of football he had played in his still young professional career.

It was the kind of performance that can make you reassess your confidence in a quarterback. The sort of display that can move them up the field, slide them up the scale from very good to great. By the end of 2022, will we ready to call the third-year product out of Oklahoma elite? If the opening to this season is anything to go by, Hurts has the potential to be exactly that.

Rob Ward

ROB WARD

NFL/Fantasy Football Enthusiast

ROB IS A LOVER OF ALL THINGS 49ERS AND HOST OF THE COLLAPSING POCKET PODCAST IN WHICH HE, SIMON CARROLL AND SAM AKROYD BUTT-FUMBLE THEIR WAY THROUGH THE WORLD OF THE NFL. AWAY FROM SPORT, ROB IS A PROFESSIONAL WRITER AND PERFORMER. HIT HIM UP ON TWITTER @ROBWARDRW!

5/5