Eagles’ Jalen returns from injury, beats Tom Brady, Peyton Manning

PHILADELPHIA — Jalen Hurts delivered another Houdini-esque buzzer-beater an hour later on Sunday as he led the Hawks to rally from a poor first half to hold on for a 37-34 victory in overtime. Defeated the Buffalo Bills.

Hurts was speechless, not knowing what to say.

“You know, I had a little reflective moment and I was thinking, ‘What do you (reporters) want me to say?'” Hurts said. “We just continue to find ways to win. We play together and show our resilience day in and day out. Game by game, game by game, we’re all challenged in a lot of different ways.

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“We always find a way, and that’s something you can’t really take for granted. It’s hard to quantify.”

In fact, it’s easy to quantify by the Eagles’ record: 10 wins and 1 loss, the best in the NFL. But it’s also easy to quantify in terms of damage. The Eagles have a 27-2 record in Hurts’ past 29 regular-season starts, a mark that only two quarterbacks have matched since 1950 — Tom Brady and Jim McMahon. flood.

Hurts is one of two quarterbacks since 1950 to start back-to-back 10-1 seasons. Peyton Manning is another.

Even more amazing is that with Hurts as the starting quarterback, the Eagles have won the last eight times after trailing by more than 10 points. According to CBSSports, not only has no other quarterback in NFL history done this, but no one has done it more than four times.

Hurts only win, and this affects the rest of the team as well.

So even if Hurts can’t find the words, his teammates will.

Let’s start with Eagles center Jason Kelce, who is entering his 13th season and has played alongside quarterbacks such as Michael Vick and (when he was good) Carson Wentz. And won a Super Bowl with Nick Foles.

“I think there’s not a lot of guys that I play with — probably no one that I’ve played with — that have been more critical during this time,” he said. “You look at two minutes, you look at the game, you look at the Super Bowl, and when things have to happen, he does a really good job in key situations.

“I think if you look at most of the best players, that’s a trait they have to have.”

Or defensive end Brandon Graham, who has been with the Eagles since 2010: “They always talk about Tom Brady at the end of games. I hope Jalen starts getting that name.”

Let’s back up for a minute.

The injuries were serious in the first half. He completed 4 of 11 passes for 33 yards and one interception. His passer rating is 7.0. The full score is 158.3. The Eagles went three-and-out on their first possession, and Hurts threw the ball away every time.

Of course, the Eagles suffered a major loss in the hours before the game, with star right tackle Lane Johnson sidelined with a groin injury Sunday morning. Meanwhile, the Bills were running up and down the field on the back of a stellar performance from Josh Allen.

The Bills defeated the Eagles 276-99 in the first half. They passed for 505 yards in the game, Allen passed for 339 yards and rushed for 81 yards. He threw for two touchdowns and ran for two more.

He still lost to Hurts. No, it’s not in the statistics. Hurts threw for just 200 yards and ran for 65 yards.

But Hurts finished with five touchdowns — three passing and two rushing. In fact, the Eagles only had to stop Allen twice — in the fourth quarter, when James Bradbury intercepted Allen at the Eagles’ 24 to set up the Eagles’ victory with 11:07 left in regulation. took the lead and held off the Allens again in overtime.

In that game, the Bills faced the No. 3 and No. 6 Eagles in the top 22. As Davis cut to the outside, Allen passed the ball to the inside shoulder of Gabe Davis. Without Hurts and the Eagles getting another chance, the touchdown would have won the game for Buffalo.

Instead, the Bills opted to shoot, which is exactly what Hurts and the Eagles needed. He capped the game with a 12-yard touchdown run on a quarterback draw with 2:37 left in overtime.

But let’s go back a minute.

Of course, as bad as Hurts was in the first half, he was outstanding in the second half and overtime. After halftime, he completed 14 of 20 passes for 167 yards and three touchdowns. His passer rating was 134.8.

But the Eagles wouldn’t have won the game if rookie defensive tackle Jalen Carter hadn’t reached out to block Tyler Bass’ 34-yard field goal attempt to the left in the first half. Or Olamide Zaccheaus didn’t see Hurts pointing toward the back of the end zone and Hurts crawled to his left.

Hurts stopped on the sideline and passed to Zacks on his back foot, who outran two Bills defenders in the end zone for a 29-yard touchdown on 3rd-and-15.

Of course, Jake Elliott’s 59-yard field goal tied the game and forced overtime with 20 seconds left in regulation.

All of this gave Hurts a chance, and Hurts came through.

No one is surprised.

That included DeVonta Smith, who had 106 yards receiving, including a 15-yard touchdown catch in the fourth quarter with the Eagles trailing by 10 points. Smith also saw Hurts do this when they were teammates at Alabama.

“I expected that to happen at this point,” Smith said.

Even though the Hawks played so poorly in the first half?

“It was more like, ‘Okay, here we go. He’s back,'” Smith said. “We just let Jaylen be Jaylen.”

Or as Carter said: “Hurts is one of a kind and a great player. He always steps up for us. I plan on being here a long time and seeing more of the crazy stuff he does. “

That’s it. There’s “more crazy stuff” to come. It’s also easy to quantify, even if Hurts can no longer find the words to describe it.

“I shake my head and really don’t know how to feel sometimes,” he said. “I just want to always hit the mark…that’s weird to me.”

For the Eagles, this is no surprise. this is normal.

Please contact Martin Frank at mfrank@delawareonline.com. Follow X @Mfranknfl.