The Philadelphia Eagles won the NFC East Division title in the 2025 NFL season and reached the NFC Wild Card game, where the Eagles and quarterback Jalen Hurts lost to the San Francisco 49ers 23-19. After the loss, there have been some people looking at the Eagles’ overall season and wondering what didn’t click like last season.
Of course, last season, the Eagles went all the way to win the Super Bowl. This season, though, things between Hurts, Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni, and Hurts’ Eagles teammates weren’t always on good footing.
Jalen Hurts’ Attitude Didn’t Sit Well With Eagles
It appears, according to an article from Michael Silver of The Athletic, that Hurts sees himself in a different light from his teammates. Hurts apparently sees himself in comparison to NBA legend Michael Jordan.
“Hurts, who has an endorsement deal with Michael Jordan’s brand within the Nike subdivision, fashions himself as the NFL’s ‘MJ’ — witness his hallway pose with a cigar and the Lombardi Trophy last February — and some in the organization take that personally,” Silver wrote.
“Jordan, at times, could be abrasive and biting while relentlessly prodding his teammates to push themselves to excellence,” according to Silver. “He was also, in the opinion of many, the greatest basketball player of all time, as well as the dude you absolutely wanted with the ball in his hands and everything on the line.
“Hurts had that chance last Sunday, and his performance wasn’t exactly Jordanesque,” Silver wrote. “And although that single failure doesn’t disqualify him from being able to lead, some of his other qualities — obsessive perfectionism, hyper-focus that can come off as aloofness, a tendency to go his own way — aren’t always serving him well in tense moments such as this one.”
Against the 49ers, and in front of the hometown fans at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, Hurts was 20-of-35 passing for 168 yards, one touchdown, and no interceptions.
According to the PFSN NFL QB Impact metrics, which measures data through the regular season, Hurts had an impact score of 78.3 and graded out to a C+. That’s not some Super Bowl-challenging metrics for Hurts at all.
Compare that, though, to what 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy did in his team’s victory. Purdy was 18-of-31 passing for 262 yards, two touchdowns, and two interceptions. The Eagles led 16-10 entering the fourth quarter, but the 49ers posted 13 fourth-quarter points and held the Eagles’ offense to just one field goal.
Purdy, according to the PFSN NFL QB Impact metrics, finished the regular season with an impact score of 92.1 and graded out to an A-. Even his backup, Mac Jones, graded higher than Hurts did. For Jones, his impact score was 80.2 and graded out to a B-.
Dallas Goedert scored one Eagles touchdown on a 1-yard run, and he caught a 9-yard pass from Hurts — and those were the only touchdowns Philadelphia scored. The rest of their points came through kicker Jake Elliott, who kicked 41- and 33-yard field goals. But Elliott also missed a PAT after Goedert’s first touchdown.
Hurts, with the 49ers up 23-19, had the ball in his hands for a potential go-ahead touchdown with less than three minutes in the fourth quarter. After moving the Philadelphia offense down into 49ers’ territory, Hurts had the ball at the 49ers’ 20-yard line. He was sacked on first down, then threw three straight incompletions.
That gave the 49ers the ball back at their 21-yard line with 40 seconds left on the clock. Purdy took the ball and knelt down three times to finish the game. That was not the way that Hurts and the Eagles wanted to finish their season, but it did.
Hurts’ attitude and his approach to playing, along with his relationship with his teammates, is now getting attention. It will be interesting to see if Sirianni talks with Hurts about it and if anything changes before next season.
