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Jalen Hurts leads NFL's No. 1 offense as Eagles QB believes 'God is everything'

By Joshua Doering Sep 20, 2022
Jalen Hurts carries the ball against the Minnesota Vikings on Sept. 19, 2022. (AP Photo/Matt Patterson)

Jalen Hurts voluntarily brought up his only previous appearance on Monday Night Football in the aftermath of the Philadelphia Eagles’ 24-7 win over the Minnesota Vikings. It was a 20-point loss to the Dallas Cowboys last season, and Hurts was not about to let a similar story unfold this time.

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He completed 11 consecutive passes to start the game as the Eagles scored touchdowns on two of their first three drives to take an early 14-0 lead. Hurts finished off the first scoring drive with a three-yard rush and connected with Quez Watkins on a 53-yard pass for the second.

“It was very efficient tonight,” he said after the game. “That’s the type of football we want to play … We want to be that way consistently.”

Hurts finished 26-of-31 for 333 yards and added another 57 yards on the ground, including a 26-yard scramble for Philadelphia’s third and final touchdown. His completion percentage of 83.9% was the highest of his career for a game where he attempted more than one pass.

The win gave the Eagles their first 2-0 start since 2016, and they are tied atop the NFC East with the New York Giants. No team in the NFL has produced more yards of total offense through the first two weeks of the season than Philadelphia (941). Hurts is seventh in passing yards with 576 and leads the league the league in yards per pass attempt at 9.1.

The 24-year-old — whose banner image on Twitter says “Be who God called you to be” — has been able to keep the individual and team success in perspective by viewing everything through his relationship with God.

“I’ve just matured and realized that God is everything,” Hurts said in a recent interview with CBS Sports, “and He’s worthy of praise. You have to put Him at the center of everything that you do. That’s what I believe. All my spiritual wisdom — all of my wisdom as a whole — comes from Him, in some way, shape or form, whether that be passed down from my father, my mother, my grandmother. I just think, in all the things that we experience in life — good, bad or indifferent — you have to keep Him in the center.”

During the interview with CBS’ Cody Benjamin, Hurts also talked about the impact he wants to make through the wide variety of community outreach efforts he’s involved with both in Philadelphia and his hometown of Houston. He said he sees himself in some kind of leadership role when his career ends, whether that’s as a coach, in a front office or working with youth in some other capacity.

 

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For now, though, he is the quarterback of a team with Super Bowl aspirations approaching a pivotal point in his young career. The Eagles have not committed to him long term and may explore different quarterback options this offseason, but Hurts isn’t going to let speculation about his future prevent him from being himself.

And he’s putting everything in God’s hands.

“God only made me one way,” he told CBS Sports. “That’s to be me. That’s to be Jalen Hurts. I think, being in this city, being the quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles, and just having the opportunity to play the game I love most, in the best city of football, I just go out there every day and I am who I am, and I keep God in the center, I give Him all the praise, I lean on Him all the time, and I know that everything unfolds the way it’s supposed to.”

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