Everyone has bad days, and Sunday was Jalen Hurts’. Jalen Hurts, who had been the runner-up in last year’s MVP voting, recorded his worst personal performance in his career during Sunday night’s match. His performance played a significant role in the Philadelphia Eagles’ 20-14 defeat to the New York Jets. It was a tough loss for the Eagles, especially considering that San Francisco had lost earlier in the day, officially ending Philadelphia’s status as the last unbeaten team in the 2023 NFL season.

While numerous analysts including three-time Super Bowl winner Shannon Sharpe jumped at the opportunity to criticize the quarterback, NFL’s Eagles Insider, John McMullen stood by him, defending his on-field abilities during an exclusive conversation with JAKIB Sports. 

“Everybody has bad games”: McMullen defends Hurts 

John McMullen is on Jalen Hurts’ side. Following the Eagles’ defeat, he remained appreciative of the team’s franchise quarterback, drawing parallels between him and other legendary NFL quarterbacks including Peyton Manning, Joe Montana, and Tom Brady. “Everybody has bad games. Peyton Manning, Joe Montana, Tom Brady, whoever you want to name has had poor games. We haven’t seen it with Jalen Hurts, really poor games recently. It was gonna happen, it happened today,” opined McMullen. 

The Eagles maintained a fragile 14-12 lead up until with a mere 2 minutes remaining when Hurts made a crucial mistake. He fixated on tight end Dallas Goedert, who was executing a curl route and tried to thread a pass between two defenders. Tony Adams intercepted the pass and carried it back 44 yards, setting the stage for Breece Hall to secure the game-winning touchdown on the following play. A very bad day and game for Hurts indeed. However, as McMullen, even the best have had bad, or maybe worse days. Take the retired NFL legend Tom Brady for example. 

Tom Brady’s worst career game 

The Week 14 match-up between Tampa Bay Buccaneers and San Francisco 49ers in the 2022 NFL season will go down as one of the most challenging in the illustrious 23-year career of the seven-time Super Bowl champion. Throughout the first half, he struggled to lead his team to score a single point, and faired even worse than that in the third quarter, with two consecutive interceptions on offensive series that effectively eradicated the Bucs’ chances.

The match was so bad that Fox, the network that was nationally broadcasting the game and had already enlisted Brady as the lead analyst for his post-retirement career, switched to broadcasting the Carolina Panthers vs. Seattle Seahawks matchup instead.

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Brady’s bad reference is only to allow Hurts to look on the brighter side of things. He too, as opposed to the doubters, can surely overcome his bad games and re-establish his legendary status. 

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