‘He was throwing lasers:' An encouraging day for Jalen Hurts

Thursday was a little scary.

Jalen Hurts didn’t throw. And when the quarterback doesn’t throw four days before a playoff game? Yeah. That’s definitely scary.

Then Friday came along, Jalen Hurts zipped the ball all over the practice field and the entire Eagles franchise breathed a collective sigh of relief.

“For not throwing yesterday, we were all pretty concerned,” receiver and returner Britain Covey said Friday. “I think everyone was concerned. And then for him to go out there today and do it the way he did it, it was kind of a sigh of relief from everyone. Including himself I think.”

Hurts was listed as a limited participant at practice on Thursday, but he was a full participant Friday. 

Although only 30 minutes of warmups and individual drills were open to the media, by all accounts Hurts threw the ball just fine five days after suffering an ugly injury to the middle finger on his right (throwing) hand in the loss to the Giants.

The Eagles face the Buccaneers on Monday night at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa.

“He wasn’t just throwing, he was throwing deep balls, he was throwing lasers,” Covey said. “I don’t think it will be something that affects him. I haven’t asked him, but just seeing him in person doing it, it was a sigh of relief for all of us.”

How hard is it throwing a football with a damaged throwing hand?

In 2018, Marcus Mariota – then with the Titans - suffered an ulnar nerve injury on opening day in Miami and that led to numbness in his throwing hand. He missed two starts.

“It kind of trickled all the way down so I couldn’t feel these two fingers – the pinky and ring finger,” he said. “Nike actually made me a glove where I was able to cover these fingers and it kind of helped. You just kind of manage it. … Just like Jalen does, you just kind of find a way. 

“Any time you’ve got anything with your hand, it’s tough for a quarterback. But Jalen did a great job. He looked really good today. I was very impressed with how he threw.

“That guy’s so mentally strong nothing like that’s going to bother him and he’ll be ready to go.”

Hurts has dealt with injuries throughout his career – the ankle in 2021, the shoulder last year, the knee this year – but this was the first time since he became a starter he hasn’t missed a game. He joined Randall Cunningham, Donovan McNabb and Carson Wentz as the fourth Eagles quarterback to start every game in a season over the last 40 years.

There’s a bit of irony in a return trip to Tampa, where his ankle clearly bothered him during the 31-15 wild-card loss to the Bucs (it was 31-0 early in the fourth quarter). He underwent surgery soon after the game.

Now here we are with another injury and another wild-card game in Tampa.

“Jalen's a resilient dude and whatever he wants, he's going to go get, regardless,” Jack Stoll said. “Nothing surprises me with Jalen. I think to him, I'm not even sure an injury is really a roadblock. It’s just something you just fight through as part of the game. It's cool having a guy like that that you know is going to go out there and fight. 

“He’s a tough dude and he’s not going to be out there bitching and moaning. That’s one reason everybody respects him. He just goes out there and plays regardless of what’s going on and you won’t hear him complain.”

Anybody who saw that closeup of his finger Sunday at MetLife Stadium has to be stunned to hear how he was spinning it Friday.

If he can do that Monday night, he should at least give the Eagles a chance to win.

“Guys like him and A.J. (Brown), once you get to this level of athletes – and I don’t consider myself to be that, I just work hard and I try to be smart – they can just do things that other people can’t do,” Covey said.

“They can heal a hamstring in a week. They can eat McDonald’s every day and have 5 percent body fat. It just doesn’t make sense what some of these guys can do. I’m sure Jalen’s healing properties are incredible.”