January 20, 2022   3 MIN READ

“Not Good Enough”

Q&A: Hurts Need Major Leap In Year 3

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The Eagles’ season ended after their 31-15 loss to Tom Brady and the reigning Super Bowl champions.

While the season was an overwhelming success, the playoff loss exposed the weaknesses of the team and areas needed to be improved for next season.

Former Eagles safety Quintin Mikell and former Eagles wide receiver Jason Avant discussed quarterback Jalen Hurts and his overall performance, along with the Eagles’ desperate need for another wide receiver.

“Sixteen touchdowns and nine interceptions is nothing to write home about,” Avant said on the latest “Q&A” on Inside the Birds. “A 60-percent completion percentage in a league where everything is dink and dunk is also not great. His completion percentage should be higher because of the way defenses play him.

“Sixteen touchdowns and nine picks just isn’t good enough in the NFL. It’s just not, especially when the quarterback on the other side just threw for 43 touchdowns. Now, that’s Tom Brady – so let’s go somewhere in the middle. Can we get 28 touchdowns? Unfortunately, you can’t have that stat line, that’s backup quarterback stuff.”


Mikell agreed.

“It’s tough because during that late stretch he was starting to show a lot of progress,” Mikell added. “You try not to base everything off this one game, against a really good team with a really good defense. How much did we really expect to come out of this game?

“With that being said, it looked like he [regressed] from three weeks ago. I’m a big proponent of competition. I could see the Eagles drafting a quarterback, maybe not in the first round. It’ll be good to get some competition there. I haven’t written him off, I’ll put it that way. I do think there needs to be some competition at that position for next year.”

Nick Sirianni, Jalen Hurts

Getty Images: Nick Sirianni and Jalen Hurts will try to make the Eagles’ pass game more dynamic in 2022

Also discussed: The team’s sparse receiver talent outside of Devonta Smith and tight end Dallas Goedert, and why the Eagles should focus on getting more weapons. 

“Devonta Smith is being force-fed right now,” Avant said, “and I really like Devonta Smith. But we need a guy that is so dynamic that he doesn’t need this many targets. 

“Devonta Smith is a really good player, and I think he can do more. But we need a guy that scares the hell out of people. We need a dude that doesn’t need 10 catches to affect the game. I want someone that can affect the game with three or four catches. That’s the guy I want on the team.”

Mikell noted that “teams that won this [Wild Card] weekend, all of them have two guys that are studs at receiver.”

“Yep from Odell [Beckham] and Cooper Kupp, to Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins,” Avant added. “You know what Kansas City is out there playing with, it’s no joke. There’s a lot of talent out there. And our talent just isn’t that close, it’s not. So we need that kind of player.”

– Geoff Mosher (@geoffmoshernfl) is co-host of the “Inside the Birds” podcast and staff writer for InsideTheBirds.com.

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