Jalen Hurts needed no a part of it.
Whereas most opposing gamers — significantly quarterbacks — dutifully fall into differing states of genuflection when Tom Brady’s title is talked about, the 23-year-old Eagles quarterback had no time for fawning or reflection.
Hurts and the Eagles (9-8) will face Brady and the Buccaneers (13-4) on Sunday in a 1 p.m. NFC wild-card playoff sport at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla. When he was requested this week what his first reminiscence of watching the 44-year-old Brady play was, he supplied a terse, disinterested response.
“I don’t bear in mind,’’ Hurts mentioned, not providing a follow-up assertion.
OK, then.
Hurts was 6 years outdated when Brady led the Patriots to a 24-21 win over the Eagles, then quarterbacked by Donovan McNabb, on the finish of the 2004 season.
That was the third of Brady’s seven profession Tremendous Bowl titles. Sunday will mark Brady’s forty sixth profession postseason begin (he’s 34-11) and the primary for Hurts, who’s in his second season, however his first as a full-time starter.
Contemplate Hurts, who’ll be the youngest quarterback in Eagles historical past to start out in a playoff sport and is 21 years youthful than his quarterback counterpart, unfazed.
“We simply wish to proceed to do the issues that received us right here,” Hurts mentioned. “As an offense, we’ve revolutionized and advanced when it comes to who we're and our identification. I’ve mentioned various things to ignite the expansion. Early on, we had been looking for who we had been.”
Requested about his personal evolution, Hurts mentioned, “I’ve improved in each [aspect] of the sport.”
Hurts’ indifference to the Brady reference was not stunning contemplating his persona make-up, which could be described as stoic. His facial features not often tells the story about what’s happening on the sphere. You’d be hard-pressed to distinguish his temper after he has thrown a landing move or been intercepted.
Former Eagles coach Doug Pederson final season advised Cardinals coach Kliff Kingsbury of Hurts: “You’ve received to test his temperature generally to see if he’s received a pulse.’’
Eagles deal with Lane Johnson advised reporters after Philadelphia’s Week 17 win over Washington: “I nonetheless have by no means seen him comfortable, actually, so far as [being] enthusiastic.”
Hurts, the son of a highschool soccer coach (his highschool coach), isn't any stranger to large video games and large moments.
He was a 18-year-old freshman starter at Alabama for the 2016 season, and he led the Crimson Tide to the nationwide championship sport at Raymond James Stadium on Jan. 9, 2017, which they misplaced to Deshaun Watson and Clemson, 35-31.
Not surprisingly, Hurts declined to remark this week concerning the significance of returning to the identical stadium at which he performed that sport.
Hurts additionally isn't any stranger to adversity and disappointment.
He helped lead Alabama to a 26-2 report throughout his two seasons as a starter, however was benched in favor of Tua Tagovailoa within the 2018 nationwide championship sport towards Georgia. He performed yet another season at Alabama, backing up Tagovailoa, then transferred to Oklahoma in the hunt for a brand new begin.
After a profitable season with the Sooners, Hurts was drafted by the Eagles in 2020 and pushed Carson Wentz from the beginning job.
Hurts produced 26 TDs for the Eagles in 15 begins this season — 16 via the air and 10 speeding — finishing 61.3 p.c of his passes for 3,144 yards and speeding for 784 yards.
The Eagles misplaced to the Buccaneers, 28-22, on Oct. 14 to drop to 2-4 on the time. They misplaced the next week to the Raiders to fall to 2-5. They closed the season on a 7-3 run, although their 51-26 loss in season finale towards the Cowboys basically was a give-away sport, contemplating they rested their starters.
“They’re a totally completely different staff than what we noticed in Week 6,’’ Bucs defensive coordinator Todd Bowles mentioned. “[Hurts] has received an incredible pocket presence and he runs like a halfback, however he can throw the ball very effectively. Jalen type of drives the offense. You may see the maturity, you possibly can see the management of the offense and I feel he has accomplished a hell of a job.”
The Buccaneers, who returned all 22 starters from their Tremendous Bowl championship staff and adopted that by profitable the NFC South to earn the No. 2 NFC seed for the playoffs, are extra polished and skilled than the Eagles — significantly at quarterback with Brady, probably the most completed postseason participant in NFL historical past.
“A few of our guys have by no means been within the playoffs or who're rookies,’’ Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni mentioned. “However they’ve performed in nationwide championship video games, and people video games are big. They've the identical kind of hoopla that encompass them [as the NFL playoffs]. We've got winners on this soccer staff.”
Starting with Hurts.
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