Eagles Legend Donovan McNabb steps up to defend Jalen Hurts

A new controversial defeat for the Philadelphia Eagles was confirmed this weekend in London. The loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars left plenty of unanswered questions, but franchise legend Donovan McNabb stepped up to defend Jalen Hurts, insisting that the quarterback did everything necessary to put his team in position to win.

The Eagles’ offense was far from perfect. Once again, the unit lost momentum in the second half and failed to capitalize on key opportunities.

However, when the game was on the line, Hurts delivered. With fewer than 10 seconds remaining on the clock, Philadelphia took the lead, and the quarterback left the field believing his team would close out the victory. Instead, the special teams failed to finish the job: Jacksonville returned the kickoff and secured the win with a game-winning field goal on the final play.

Donovan McNabb backs Jalen Hurts after loss to Jaguars

McNabb has never been one to hide his opinions when it comes to Eagles quarterbacks. This time, the former Philadelphia star praised Hurts’ performance and defended his execution in the final moments.

“It was a great drive orchestrated by our quarterback, Jalen. Jalen put us in position [to win],” McNabb said on 94WIP.

“I just think for our last drive, Jalen put us in position to win the game, hands down. No matter what else they want to nitpick with the eight seconds left on the clock, I’m just going to look at it from a former player’s perspective and now from an analyst standpoint: I did everything I needed to do for us to win the game. We kicked the field goal, we were up.”

Much of the criticism following the loss has been directed at Nick Sirianni, who admitted he could have made better decisions in the final moments. The choice to allow Jake Elliott to attempt a kick that could be returned was heavily questioned.

For McNabb, however, the issue was execution rather than the decision itself. The former quarterback believes Philadelphia needed to trust its special teams unit to finish the game.

“We allowed them to run it out, which was fine,” McNabb added. “We just have to cover. We didn’t cover. That was bad on our special teams.”

The Eagles fell 19-17 to Jacksonville in London and suffered their third consecutive loss, dropping their record to 2-3 on the season. Philadelphia will now look to bounce back next Sunday against the Carolina Panthers at home.