Eagles QB Jalen Hurts (Post-Game Transcript)
On what’s going through Eagles QB Jalen Hurts’ mind:
“Just thinking about ways we could have been better. Thinking about ways we could have been better, been more efficient. Just really taking advantage of our opportunities, you know, that’s the goal. That’s what we strive for. Strive to take advantage of everyone. You know, credit to them and the way they played and hung in there. Great credit to them.”
On what could have been done better on the 1st-and-20 sequence:
“Yeah, I don’t think we executed it well enough, the situation as is. So I have to watch the film and kind of assess it after doing that.”
On finding a rhythm with such low time of possession:
“Yeah, that’s the name of the game and you look at some of the games that we’ve lost, especially in the past, where they ran the ball really well. And they kind of kept the ball out of our hands, too. So it’s very important for us to take advantage of all of our opportunities. And you know, we just didn’t do that.”
On how the team stays together through the end of the season:
“Focusing on the things you can control, focusing on the things you can control. Purely that. Putting the focus on you doing your job, challenging yourself, committing yourself to bring the best out of yourself. And leaving it at that, you know, trusting in that process.”
On if there’s more urgency to throw when he finally got the ball:
“No, I just think there’s an urgency and mentality and that mentality is regardless of what else is going on. You definitely want to take advantage of every opportunity. Now these games go a ton of different ways, ton of different times, you know, but we get all the eleven in all three phases, executing at a high level and in doing that, you know, good things happen.
On how to regroup in the second half:
“It just comes down to executing and taking advantage of the opportunities.”
On executing play calls:
“Yeah, it’s about making it happen. It’s my job, to execute that and do that.”
On whether they need to be more aggressive in that situation:
“I would like to do whatever works. I think again it is result based. We live and die on whatever we go out there and do. That particular opportunity, it didn’t get us where we want it in the end, but it’s tough to be in that situation. You get the holding call. I don’t remember the sequence, but you get the holding call and you kind of go backwards and they get enough yardage in those first two downs to put ourselves in a good situation. So you know, they give us the ball inside of the 50 and we just have to handle and execute and manage that situation a lot better.”
On what has been missing the last couple of games when they are normally a good team of finishing and closing games:
“I don’t think we’ve done that all year. I think a lot of the games we’ve lost have been because of the lack of finishing in those situations and so it’s another learning opportunity for us and we still have everything in front of us to do what we want to do. We still got to clean things up. There’s still a sense of urgency to do that. You know, in the end, it’s about us having all hands on deck to do so.”
On whether he gets a sense of where the confidence level is before a play and whether he finds a trend:
“No, it’s just a matter of executing. That’s my job. That’s what I put my energy towards and making it work.”
On whether he thought they did anything unique defensively because of Head Coach Jonathan Gannon’s background:
“Absolutely. He sat there in those meetings with us. He’s been in those meetings. He’s heard kind of what we’re thinking in certain situations and we practiced against them every day for the last two years. So you know, they played a great game. They showed great effort. And they made plays when they needed to make them.”
On finishing drives in the first half and not finishing in the second half and whether negative plays contributed to that:
“It is just a lack of execution. You can credit that to whatever you want. But I think regardless, you know, the motive is just to execute. You do that at a high level. When you’re supposed to win, you should win. You know, if you don’t do that, if you’re not winning, then maybe you’re not executing at a high enough level. It’s just a moment of reflection, you know, a moment of reflection. We still have everything in front of us to learn from everything that’s going on as a team and put the right energy towards it and towards the things that we can control and being the best team we can be. It is something we have to grow from.”