Hit Jalen Hurts Like A RB? Commanders DC Says Something Dumb

The Commanders are going to treat Jalen Hurts like a RB. At least that is what Commanders Defensive Coordinator Joe Whitt Jr said they are going to do.

A basic rule going into any game, but especially an important game, is to avoid providing the other team any extra motivation. No bulletin board material. If you are going to say something, you better be someone who can back it up. Whitt broke that rule this week when he said this about Jalen Hurts.

That is a perfectly fine thing to say to your players in the locker room. I am sure Vic Fangio had a similar message for his team when talking about Jayden Daniels ability to run the ball. But what is not smart is saying it in front of a mic with a camera in your face and creating a viral moment.

There are a few problems with that.

1) You just gave the Eagles O-Line extra motivation. You don't think they are going to feel some kind of way about you talking about hitting their QB? Do you want this O-line even more amped up to protect their QB? Do you want Lane Johnson to take it out on Frankie Luvu?

2) Does he not realize his team has a running QB? Does he want the Eagles hitting Jayden Daniels like an RB? Jalen Carter heard what Whitt said too. Will the Commanders be happy if they treat Daniels the way Whitt says to treat Hurts?

3) The biggest problem is that Whitt is not someone who has to back this up. He is not a player. He is not the one who has to hit Hurts, or get hit by people protecting Hurts. It is like Garret Stubbs talking trash before the NLCS, but even worse because at least he had a chance to play. Whitt is a coach and saying this.

Compare it to what Vic Fangio said when asked about Jayden Daniels, and it is night and day.

First off, that is a great line. Who knew Vic Fangio was a poet? But also, that is how every coach should talk about opposing players. There is no need to say anything that can even tangentially be interpreted as a shot.

But Joe Whitt Jr didn't get that memo. He opened a can of worms and talked about how they are going to punish Hurts when his own QB is also a mobile QB.

Not very smart. Especially when you are already the underdog. The Eagles won't say it publicly, but the hit him like a RB thing will absolutely be something that goes around their locker room the rest of this week heading into Sunday's game. It is something both the Eagles O-Line, and the D-Line, will use for that extra chip on their shoulder.

It is also worth noting that the commanders have been very bad at stopping RBs this season. They give up the 2nd most yards per carry to RBs in the entire NFL. So maybe treating Hurts like a RB means letting him pick up huge yards. They let Saquon Barkley run for nearly 300 yards and 4 TDs this season, so, by all means, treat Jalen Hurts like you treated Barkley.

Once again the Eagles won, and once again that win has come with a lot of worrying. "They can't play like this next week," has been a popular thing to say in the wake of the Eagles' 28-22 win over the Rams. It has been a popular thing to say all season.

Related: Eagles Make Us Sweat But Advance To NFC Championship

Despite the fact they have lost 1 game since the start of October people continue to insist they won't keep winning. "You can't beat the Commanders like this..." Well, they did. "You can't beat the Ravens like this..." Well, they did. "You can't beat the Rams like this..." They did that twice. Turns out you can keep winning like this.

The only time this team lost in the last several months, was when Jalen Hurts was knocked out of the game with a concussion in the 1st quarter. Other than that they have rattled off 14 wins to that 1 loss. They now beat the Rams and the Packers in the playoffs by 18 combined points.

After the Lions lost, the Eagles are currently favorites to win it all. Their line this weekend, despite playing a red-hot Commanders team, opened at -4.5. The only people who don't feel good about the Eagles right now, are people who live in the Philadelphia market. Vegas is telling you they love the Eagles, which makes sense since we are talking about a 16-3 team.

But if you are one of those nervous people, who don't think they can keep this up, I am going to try to change your mind. Not only by showing you how good this team actually is but by showing you the teams they are facing the rest of the way all have problems of their own.

Turnover differential is a massive deciding force in games. Case in point, the teams that win that battle are 7-0 this postseason, with 3 games having no turnovers. The Texans are the only team to turn it over and still win, and they still won the turnover battle vs the Chargers in that game.

What does this have to do with the Eagles? Not only have they yet to turn it over in the playoffs, but they are taking the ball away at an increased clip of late. In the last 4 games where the Starters played they are +13 in turnover differential. They had 2 takeaways and no turnovers vs the Rams, and 4 takeaways and no turnovers vs the Packers.

Protecting the ball was especially impressive vs the Rams given the conditions. We saw the Rams were having a hard time holding onto it. We saw later in the night the Ravens struggle to protect the ball in the snow in their loss. But the Eagle she'd onto the ball. They never coughed it up. That made all the difference. The Eagles got 6 points off the Rams 2 fumbles and obviously went on to win by 6.

Since the bye week, the Eagles have just 7 turnovers and had zero turnovers in 11 of their 15 games. Two turnovers came in a game where Kenny Pickett was the QB.

The Eagles also forced a turnover in each of the last 7 games, forced at least 2 in 4 of them, and forced at least 4 in 3 of them. That can win you a game. Regardless of any other concerns, if they protect the ball, and force turnovers on the other side, you can win any game.

People are concerned by the Eagles' lack of passing yards. But what if I told the teams with the most passing yards are 3-7 in the playoffs? 5 of the 10 winning QBs failed to reach 200 yards. Stafford in his win over the Vikings had 205. 3 of the 4 winners this week failed to reach 200.

This week, the 4 losers outgained the 4 winners through the air 1125 to 731. Jalen Hurts, despite his meager stats had the 2nd most passing yards of the 4 winning QBs. While we sit here and worry about Hurts lack of passing yards, it has been a trend for all the winning teams except for Jayden Daniels. The Eagles are a running team, and Hurts contributes to that. It is working, it is working, and it is working for teams besides the Eagles.

He needs to be better in the passing game. That is not only on him though. It is also on Kellen Moore, and maybe AJ Brown needs to actually catch the ball. But people hyper-focus on the Eagles passing game and fail to notice the Eagles are not the only team winning despite low passing yards.

We knew Jalen Carter would be good. We knew he would be great. But even with our lofty expectations, we might have underestimated him. He dominated on Sunday vs the Rams. Two sacks, a forced fumble, a pass deflection, and 7 pressures.

He played 97% of the snaps and was double-teamed on most of them. And yet he still had the energy to get the sack on the game-ending drive, and then get a pressure that forced an incompletion on 4th down the next play. Apart from just being insanely good, his conditioning has been insane. He has hardly left the field all season. We saw him wane late in 2023, but that has not been the case this season, despite playing even more snaps and getting double-teamed more often. He deserves all the credit in the world for the work he did this offseason to make sure he doesn't hit a wall.

Carter is already a top 5 defensive player in the league. Thank you again to all the teams that let him fall to the Eagles.

Saquon Barkley can break a game wide open at literally any moment. Case in point, his two long runs vs the Rams. The first 1 came while down 7-6, and put the Eagles up 13-7. Later once the snow had completely blanketed the field, they were up only 1 score, and he did it again. It was a tension-relieving run. Things got close again, but in the moment it felt like a huge sigh of relief.

Saquon now has 8 60-yard runs, 9 40-yard runs, 12 30-yard runs, and 19 20-yard runs. He had a chance at another long one late vs the Packers, but instead, he went down to end the game.

That type of game-breaking ability is a big reason why the Eagles are where they are. And it is why despite the surface-level issues with the offense, the Eagles have scored at least 20 points in 14 straight games. The offense has issues, but as long as Saquon is running like this, you can never count them out. They can go from having a tough day to being in the end zone at literally any moment. Barkley is that explosive. You don't often think of a run game being explosive, but the Eagles offense is actually the most explosive offense in the league because of Saquon Barkley.

The defense had a few issues late vs the Rams as the snow really started to accumulate. Snow befits the offense. As it becomes harder and harder to get traction, the offense benefits because they know where they are going, and the defense has to react. So those 2 final drives were a bit ugly, though they got the stop anyway after giving up 60 quick yards on that final one. But before then they held the Rams to 272 total yards and 15 points on 10 drives.

That is nothing new. The Eagles' defense has been great pretty much all season long. In fact, this is only the 4th time since the bye week they allowed 20 points. One of those times was only 20 because of a defensive TD, so take that out and you have 3 out of 15 games where the defense allowed 20 points, and in one of those games it only got to 20 because of a last-second meaningless TD.

They have held the Ravens, Bengals, and Packers under 20. All 3 are top 10 in points per game. We already talked about how great they are at forcing turnovers, but they have also just been great at keeping the opposing team off the board.