Jalen Hurts the Vikings

Posted October 19th, 2025

Minnesota’s wild, aggressive defense shuts down QBs, but has been vulnerable to RBs. If the Eagles were going to win in Minny, the hero was likely to be Saquon Barkley. That message didn’t get to Jalen Hurts or his star receivers. They carved up the Vikings second-ranked pass defense all game long.

Hurts went 19-23-326. He had 3 TDs and no picks. Those stats led to a perfect passer rating of 158.3 and what might have been the best game of Hurts career. Go beyond the numbers. Hurts made some really impressive throws.

You might remember that Hurts missed a wide open DeVonta last week for what would have been an 89-yard TD. Hurts made a terrific throw this time and hit Smith in stride. Isaiah Rodgers had no chance on the play. Beautiful TD.

There were a couple of third down plays that were huge. There was a 3rd & 15 where Hurts moved around and ran left before hitting DeVonta for a first down. The best play of the game was a 3rd & 13 where Hurts again had to buy time. He rolled right and hit AJ on the sideline for another first down. Huge, huge plays in highly unfavorable situations.

It’s a good thing Hurts was at his best since the running game was once again non-existent. Give the Vikings some credit, but the blocking was bad. Again. Cam Jurgens hurt his knee and Brett Toth played most of the game at center. That’s not ideal.

Thankfully Hurts was able to pick up the slack and his receivers came up big as well. DeVonta had a career game, going 9-183-1. AJ "only” went 4-121-2. Those guys played like stars.

The Eagles defense had an odd game. They gave up 387 yards, 22 points and let Minnesota go 7 for 15 on third downs. That’s not ideal. The defense had 2 takeaways, 2 sacks, 8 QB hits and even scored a TD. They were excellent in the red zone, limiting the Vikings for 1 for 6. That proved to be the real difference in the game.

The pick-six came on the best play of Jalyx Hunt’s young career.

I thought Hunt played well. He had pressure on the play where Carson Wentz threw his other INT. He was credited with 2 QB hits and seemed to be disruptive. He just missed a sack on a play where Wentz got the ball out at the last second.

One of the best things about this game is that the Eagles made the key plays needed to win. That’s the opposite of the previous two games. The Eagles blew a 17-3 lead against Denver and then blew a 17-13 lead against the Giants. The Eagles were bad in the fourth quarter of those games. Not today. They came up big when needed and now sit at 5-2 on the season.

There are still plenty of issues with this team, but this was a big win and there is plenty to be happy about. The Eagles (5-2) have wins over the Bucs, Rams, Cowboys and Vikings. Those are teams the Eagles could be battling in regard to playoff position. This has been a challenging schedule.

Kevin Patullo and the Eagles offense will be a hot topic once again. Maybe they figured some things out in this game. They did make some schematic changes. We’ll talk more about that as the week goes along.

The big concern coming out of this game will be injuries. We need to find out what’s going on with Azeez Ojulari, Cam Jurgens, Adoree Jackson and Jeremiah Trotter Jr. That’s two starters and two key role players. Nothing is coming easy this season.

https://igglesblitz.com/2025/10/jalen-hurts-vikings/

Maybe this game will convince Patullo and Sirianni to turn Hurts, Brown, Smith, Dotson and Goedart loose......Change the "identity" off the offense for a while....Get Barkley and Shipley more involved in the passing game......

Take the load and the pressure off of Barkley. He'll end up producing a ton eventually. But this offense got a jolt yesterday and it needs to continue.

20 hours ago, birdman#12 said:

Maybe this game will convince Patullo and Sirianni to turn Hurts, Brown, Smith, Dotson and Goedart loose

Let’s hope so but I’m not sure how much credit we can give Patullo? He was still poor in play calling and the offense still didn’t look very good. A lot of our big plays came off script and was Hurts buying time.

25 minutes ago, UK_EaglesFan89 said:

Let’s hope so but I’m not sure how much credit we can give Patullo? He was still poor in play calling and the offense still didn’t look very good. A lot of our big plays came off script and was Hurts buying time.

I didn't read birdman's post as giving any kind of credit to Patullo.

10 hours ago, time2rock said:

I didn't read birdman's post as giving any kind of credit to Patullo.

Sorry I wasn’t trying to suggest he was. I just meant I can’t give him credit for that game as it very much felt like a lot came off the off script plays and that’s unsustainable.