Nick Sirianni faces $255 million Jalen Hurts decision as Eagles aim to avoid repeat of 2023

The pressure is on Jalen Hurts to play better.

Hurts coughed it up five times on Monday Night Football against the Los Angeles Chargers, including a costly interception in overtime that handed the Eagles their third consecutive defeat.

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The game was at SoFi Stadium, but even on the opposite coast, Eagles fans showed up in force and made themselves heard throughout each of Hurts’ five turnovers.

The boos were just as loud in the Black Friday loss to the Chicago Bears, and frustration like that never takes long to turn into calls for a quarterback change.

Could Nick Sirianni really pull the plug and bench his $255 million Super Bowl MVP quarterback?

No, of course not. That’s absurd, and the head coach made that clear this week.

“I think that’s ridiculous… I know every time I go out in that field with Jalen Hurts as our quarterback, we have a chance to win the game,” Sirianni said on WIP.

“That’s something that’s been proven. We’ve won a lot, a lot of football games.”

Sirianni is right. The Eagles will go as Hurts go. Tanner McKee or Sam Howell are not the answers to Philadelphia’s current problems.

That not even a year has passed since Hurts toppled Patrick Mahomes in the Super Bowl and earned MVP honors only underscores how rough this season has been in the City of Brotherly Love.

Given how things have gone, Sirianni’s response is predictable, yet the question could resurface if the Eagles can’t halt their slide before an early playoff exit or, worse, missing the postseason entirely.

Philadelphia is 8-5 with four games left on the schedule against the Raiders, the Commanders twice, and the Bills.

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There are wins to be had in the next four weeks, especially with the lowly Raiders and Commanders, but the way that Philadelphia has been playing, there are no guarantees.

However, they had better hope to rack up a few more wins, as the Cowboys are right behind them at 6-6-1.

Trip up and they may see Dallas overtake them and steal the NFC East at the midnight hour.

If that were to happen, good luck to the city of Philadelphia. Fans would be out in full force, demanding heads to roll, whether it’s Sirianni or Hurts.

After all, Doug Pederson led the franchise to its first Super Bowl in February 2018, and less than three years later, he was gone.

No one is suggesting that Sirianni’s job is at risk or that Hurts’ role as starting quarterback is in jeopardy. Far from it.

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It’s just a reminder that coaching and playing in Philadelphia is the epitome of a pressure cooker, where winning is the only option. The Eagles need to figure things out sooner rather than later, because time is running out.

They’d better hope it’s not a repeat of 2023, when the Eagles, despite a 10–1 start for the second consecutive season, lost five of their final six games and were quickly eliminated in the Wild Card round.

At the moment, things are shaping up for a similar ending on the horizon.

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