PHILADELPHIA – Jalen Hurts was unable to win this time, but he did make an important recovery from in-game concussion protocol, a key development ahead of upcoming road trips to Dallas and Seattle in the next two weeks.

The Philadelphia Eagles and Hurts must address their disturbing trend of halftime deficits, extending to five straight games. Despite leading the team back in four of those instances, Hurts failed to do so against the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday. A 14-6 halftime deficit turned into a 42-19 loss at Lincoln Financial Field.

Most of the blame for this lies on a defense that allowed six consecutive touchdowns after forcing two three-and-outs to commence the game.

The team has found themselves trailing at the end of the first half in five consecutive games now, with tough road trips to Dallas and Seattle ahead. The Dallas Cowboys have won 14 straight at home, and Philly hasn’t defeated the Seattle Seahawks since 2008, making the future matchups even harder to overcome.

It’s perplexing, this trend of falling behind early and hoping to rally.

The experienced Jason Kelce was unable to provide much of an answer to this recurring issue. He lamented the offense’s lack of an extra possession in the second half, as well as the team’s frustration over settling for two field goals in the red zone during the first half of the game.

When asked about it afterward, Hurts stuck to his usual execution-focused response.
“When we do that (execute) at a high level when we get that rhythm going, or (we’re) complementing each other defensively, offensively, (and special teams) when we’re playing complementary football, we’re pretty darn good and we just have to do that, we have to do more of that, and so that just takes preparation.”

At least the Eagles will have Hurts available for Sunday night’s primetime date against the Cowboys.

There was a time in the second half when that didn’t look like a possibility, after Hurts left the sidelines to be evaluated for a concussion, yielding to Marcus Mariota.

He had been crunched between San Francisco defenders Fred Warner and Oren Burks while trying in vain to scramble for a first down on third-and-eight with 3:11 to play in the third quarter.

The QB gained five yards but knew the desperation of the situation and chose not to slide, with his team trailing 28-13 at the time. Again, that’s typical Hurts, a magician doing everything he can to try to pull a win out of his helmet.

He did eventually return in the fourth quarter and went through the concussion evaluation process. “I didn’t want him to come back in,” said receiver A.J. Brown. “He took a big shot, and the game is pretty much over, and I didn’t want him to risk him getting banged up a little more, whatever the case may be. That kind of just shows you the player (he is). He doesn’t want to leave his teammates out. We understood.”

Added left tackle Jordan Mailata: “When I went over to pick him up, I was kind of concerned. I was like, ‘OK, maybe you should get checked out.’ They checked him out and yeah. He seemed OK.
“I just wanted to make sure. The docs were on the same page. They saw it. They wanted to double-check. Then he came back in, and I was like, ‘Hell yeah.’”

Hurts said he was fine to return, even though the game was basically out of reach at that point.”It wasn’t about showing anybody anything,” he said. “It was more so that the game was not over. We were just trying to keep fighting.”

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