Jalen Hurts is definitely playing his best football of the season. He’s doing a much better job of keeping his eyes down field, before he scrambles and when he scrambles. This past week against the Broncos, he made a big throw moving to his left, while in the pocket. In previous games, Hurts would have taken off with the football on a scramble, but in Denver, he stood in the pocket despite there being plenty of empty grass ahead of him.
Hurts remained in the pocket and made a great throw to tight end Dallas Goedert on a crossing route and they gained 24 yards on the play for a first down that eventually led to a score for the Birds. He’s making it a point of keeping his eyes downfield during plays. The second year signal caller is giving pass plays a chance, by giving the receivers an opportunity to run their routes. He continues to scramble when he doesn’t have an option, but keeping his head downfield is something that he knows makes him a better passing quarterback.
On one of the plays against the Broncos, Hurts rolled to his right, and looked for Eagles number one draft pick wide receiver DeVonta Smith. Hurts rolled to his right and Smith wasn’t open on the out route, so he continued to roll but he kept his eyes downfield. Just before giving up on the play and deciding to throw the ball away or run out of bounds, he spotted Quez Watkins, who was open near the sideline on a stop route. Hurts delivered a strike to him and that was an 18-yard gain, that wound up putting the Eagles in position to score.
Hurts is really focusing on keeping his eyes downfield and he’s also emphasizing his footwork. On the throw to Goedert, Hurts quickly reset his feet after escaping the pressure up the middle, which forced him to move to his left. Resetting his feet helped him to deliver an accurate strike to Goedert. The accuracy of the quarterback’s throws and the position of his lower body are connected. Hurts is doing a better job of setting his feet properly before he throws the football.
The last couple games he’s been very accurate with his throws and he’s getting better and better. You add all that to the fact that the Eagles have now found a consistent running game and the offense has taken some tremendous step forwards.
It’s a good thing to see and who knows what’s going to happen the rest of the year. The Eagles don’t have a very strong schedule, so they’re capable of winning all of their remaining games, but capability doesn’t mean victory. In addition, they face the Dallas Cowboys in final game of the season. Chances are that in the last game of the season against the Cowboys they’re going to be playing against backups because chances are that Dallas will have already wrapped up the NFC East division by that time.
