Saturday morning arrived with an ESPN report from its two top insiders that the Eagles had no plans to place quarterback Jalen Hurts on IR. According to the article by Adam Schefter and Ian Rapoport (who have moved in recent months from Batman and the Joker to Batman and Robin), the Eagles have “not even discussed the possibility of injured reserve.”
Then came 4 p.m. ET and the deadline to lock down the roster for Week 6. Hurts was placed on injured reserve.
It is not clear what happened between Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon. A more than plausible explanation is that the Eagles and Hurts were given more medical information, and a possibility that wasn’t even on the radar screen suddenly became the obviously correct destination. Saturday morning’s report, however, highlights a possible divide within the organization over how the Hurts situation should be handled.
Beyond the strange notion that the Eagles hadn’t even considered the possibility of placing a player taking blood thinners to resolve a blood clot on IR, the original article implied that the Eagles and Hurts weren’t on the same page.
“The final decision on whether Hurts returns to play will come from his medical team, and the Eagles are prepared to follow his lead,” explained the Saturday morning ESPN report. The article also suggested that “some members of the team might consider Hurts on a week-to-week basis,” hours before Hurts was set to be sidelined for at least four weeks.
Perhaps the team was still tiptoeing into recognizing the seriousness of the situation, given that it allowed him to play last Sunday in London with a blood clot in his leg — and in light of even the slightest revelation to the public about Hurts’ true condition. Indeed, it is fair to ask whether the Eagles (and the league) allowed Hurts to play with a blood clot in order to avoid the public relations mess that would have occurred if a player who had fully participated in practice all week, had no injury designation for the game, and had never been downgraded to questionable status once the clot was discovered had suddenly been removed from the active roster.
Regardless, ESPN’s Saturday morning report conflicts so strongly with the Saturday afternoon roster change that it invites outsiders to conclude that the team wants everyone to know that the decision not to play Hurts was made by Hurts and his doctors and not the team.
Regardless, Hurts is out for at least the next four games. And maybe longer. The extent of the absence depends on the time it takes for the clot to be cleared by anticoagulants and the possibility of the situation deteriorating further.
The overarching point is that Hurts has a potentially serious health issue. He was nevertheless allowed to play an entire match with it a week ago. Most recently, the team (per the ESPN report) hadn’t even considered the idea of giving him four games to heal.
Whether intentional or not, the reporting and subsequent about-face will leave some thinking that the Eagles and Hurts had different ideas about how best to proceed.
Gn headline
