Eagles will have to navigate week of uncertainty at QB position

As the Eagles look to rebound after a rare loss, they enter Cowboys week needing to navigate plenty of uncertainty about the quarterback position.

For starters, Jalen Hurts is in the NFL’s concussion protocol.

“When that happens, we just lean on the doctors to let us know on a daily basis of where he is,” head coach Nick Sirianni said on Monday.

Hurts suffered his concussion in the first quarter against the Commanders in Week 16 and was forced to leave the game. He was replaced by Kenny Pickett, who had an up-and-down outing in the Eagles’ 36-33 loss to the Commanders. Pickett was able to finish the game but did suffer an injury to his ribs that needed X-rays after the game and required more testing on Monday.

As of Monday afternoon, Sirianni had no update on Pickett’s injury. After the game, though, Pickett said he wasn’t concerned about his status going into this week.

The only other quarterback on the roster is third-stringer Tanner McKee, who had a solid training camp this summer but has never seen action in a regular season game. He was the emergency QB on Sunday and even began to warm up as Pickett got checked out.

But if Pickett is good to practice this week, he will be getting the first-team reps as Hurts tries to work his way through the NFL’s concussion protocol. The tricky thing is that if Hurts is able to get cleared, the Eagles likely won’t know until much later in the week.

Sirianni on Monday was asked if Hurts would need to practice this week in order to play on Sunday and he didn’t give a straight answer.

“Each and every week is a different scenario,” Sirianni said. “What I’ve seen is Jalen knows how to prepare, knows how to get himself ready. He is a true pro, who like I’ve said, I just can’t say enough good things about Jalen. Jalen the player, Jalen the leader, Jalen the person. Every week is a little bit different and I know Jalen does everything he can to get ready for each and every week regardless of the circumstances.”

While it has traditionally been tough for players to clear the NFL’s concussion protocol in a week, there are a few recent examples. Eagles safety Sydney Brown was able to do it last week, as were Commanders players Zach Ertz and Jeremy Chinn. 

The Eagles will hold out hope that Hurts can return to face the Cowboys but it’s worth noting that all three of those players listed above entered the weekend listed as questionable.

But if Pickett gets the reps all week and Hurts is still a possibility, how will the Eagles go about game-planning?

“There’s different approaches that we take with that,” Sirianni said. “It depends on skillsets of guys, the different skillsets. Sometimes, it’s to give the player the things that he operates well at. Sometimes it’s what you’re going against on defense. Just like you would when a wide receiver’s out of the game or a defensive back is out of the game, you adjust and this is no different. You adjust. 

“There’s a lot of similarities, there’s little differences. But there are differences. It’s just something that you adjust to and this is the unfortunate part of the NFL. We’ve had a lot of experience doing this with different positions and that includes the quarterback.”

It’s not like the Eagles’ entire playbook would change from Hurts to Pickett but it doesn’t seem quite as seamless as Sirianni tried to make it seem on Monday. Just look at the way the Commanders played the Eagles on Sunday after Hurts exited the game.

A look at how much Eagles missed Jalen Hurts vs. Commanders

There’s a reason the Commanders were able to shut down Saquon Barkley in the second half.

“What’s bigger or what’s smaller of an adjustment, you guys can debate that,” Sirianni said. “But what I’m saying is every position that you are without a guy that’s normally playing, there’s an adjustment to be made. And quarterback is no different. There will be an adjustment that we have to go through. I’m not going to sit here and say this is how much adjustment but every time that there’s a player out, there is an adjustment to be made.”

The good news is that if Pickett does have to start on Sunday, a week’s worth of first-team practice reps would probably help a lot. He doesn’t usually get to work with A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith and the rest of the starters all that often.

For the most part, all the first-team reps in practice go to Hurts, which is why the Eagles try to get Pickett and McKee some extra reps before and after practice during developmental drills. When the backup quarterbacks run scout team, they’re not running the Eagles’ offense so that extra work is a chance for them to run their own team’s plays.

That extra work for the backup quarterbacks began when the Eagles acquired Gardner Minshew in a trade just before the start of the 2021 season and they had to get him up to speed.

“We’ve tried to do the same thing with Kenny and Tanner,” Sirianni said, “getting meaningful reps as developmental periods so they have opportunities and chances to rep our plays, not just the scout team plays.”

The Eagles on Sunday will face a Cowboys team that has won four of its last five games with their own backup quarterback. Cooper Rush has been the starter for the last seven games since Dak Prescott went down for the season. In Week 10, Rush and the Cowboys lost 34-6 to the Eagles but that was Rush’s first start in this stretch and they have been much better in the last month.

With a win on Sunday, the Eagles would clinch the NFC East and at least the No. 2 seed in the conference. We just won’t know which quarterback will lead them into this game until later in the week.

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