Eagles QB Jalen Hurts (Post-Game Transcript)

On leaving the game with a head injury but later returning after being evaluated:

“Obviously it was an assessment in that moment. Everybody was doing their jobs and doing their roles. I was able to come back when everybody felt that I was ready to.”

On whether it was important for him to return to the game and demonstrate that he was okay after being injured:

“It wasn’t about showing anybody anything. It was more so that the game was not over. We were just trying to keep fighting.”

On how disappointed he was to score field goals instead of touchdowns in the first quarter:

“When you think about, you know, how important it is to start fast, and I feel like we started with good rhythm. Good tempo. Good execution for the most part. We just kind of weren’t able to connect and execute like we wanted to in the red zone. When you’re playing a good team like that, every little thing matters. That’s a credit to them and the way they played today and how they executed. I think for us we just have to do a better job – a better job of controlling things we can and play cleaner. They played well and took advantage of their opportunities. That’s a really good football team. Really great players. They did a great job today.”

On how he feels after the game and how he feels moving forward:

“Win. You know, find ways to win. That’s always the mentality. That’s always the approach. I think this is a moment where you go back and you reflect on it. You learn from it like every win. You know you treat them all the same. When you win or when you lose. It’s about, ‘What can I learn from this?’ So you know the process remains the same in terms of how we respond and how we approach it. Just have to be self-critical, as we always are. Analyze everything as it’s supposed to be and respond.”

On whether the loss adds clarity to what the team needs to fix:

“It’s not a matter of winning or losing. This is about playing to the standard and we didn’t play to the standard. When you play to the standard, you win. I don’t think we played to the standard and won yet. You know, we didn’t play to the standard and today we lost. It’s a great team we played and we have to go back and reflect on it. Learn from it and watch the film and grow.”

On how difficult it is to come back in from behind in the second half:

“It’s about execution, it’s about execution. Regardless of the situation in the game, whatever it is, it’s about executing, when we do that at a high level, when we get that rhythm going, or [we’re] complimenting each other defensively, offensively, [Eagles WR Britain Covey] is doing a great job in the punt return game, the gunners striking down their own punts, when we’re playing complimentary football we’re pretty darn good and we just have to do that, we have to do more of that, and so that just takes preparation, that takes, you know, being eager and having a growth mindset and wanting to learn and everybody is going to want to do that – everybody needs to want to do that.”

On if he was involved in the decision to punt on fourth-and-2:

“I don’t know that I was, I don’t think I was. I don’t know if we, you know, knew how far away we were from it (the first down), but, you know, in a game like that you definitely want to be aggressive and we have been aggressive in the past but, you know, we always support whatever call is made in that situation, we just have to execute – I don’t think we should have even been in that situation to be honest. So, you know, we learn from it and grow from it.”

On if he feels the deficit in all moments of the game:

“You know, you have momentum in the game, there’s always momentum swings, and I think, whether there’s momentum or not it’s just about how we execute that’s what I lean on and that’s what this team leans on, and when you execute at a high level good things happen. So, I’m eager to watch the film and learn from it and assess it – and we have the opportunity to assess ourselves on that and learn from it as a football team.”

On the team cohesion with a tough stretch of games upcoming:

“Nothing is changing in that process. Keep the main thing the main thing. Staying true to who we are and learning from it. Win, lose, or draw, it’s always a deep, deep, dive into what we can be better at. Looking ourselves in the mirror and responding to the mistakes that we made and also to the successes that we had, and so it’s no difference here. It’s about how we respond, how we are approaching it, and how bad we want to grow? How bad do we want to better ourselves? So, that’s the mentality moving forward, and obviously, that has to be done together as a unit.”

On if there was a play or sequence that bothered him in the game:

“I mean, it’s just execution. In the first half we preached trying to score in the red zone and we’ve done a pretty good job of doing that in the past few games, and we’ve made a big jump there. Today we didn’t. We weren’t able to, and it always helps scoring touchdowns, and we didn’t do that enough.”

On the adjustments he had to make after slipping and getting sacked:

“I just slipped. Just slipped, I was trying to make a play, extend the play, had an opportunity there, but that’s kind of what it is. Some things happen, we’ll watch the film, I can’t really speak on that much now, but when we watch the film we’ll look at it and learn from it. Definitely take it with a growth mindset approach.”