Eagles head coach Doug Pederson’s decision to pull quarterback Jalen Hurts on Sunday in favor of backup Nate Sudfeld garnered a strong reaction across football.
Many saw Pederson’s move — a benching made with the Eagles down just three points — as brazenly tanking to both eliminate the NFC East rival New York Giants from playoff contention and land the already-eliminated Eagles a better draft selection.
In the days after the game, even Eagles players were critical of Hurts’ benching. Well, it also turned out that the Washington Football Team defense was pretty relieved.
At least that was what Chase Young and Montez Sweat told Hurts after the game.
— nfldovkleiman (@nfldov) January 7, 2021
NFL Films released mic’d-up video of Sweat and Young exchanging postgame pleasantries with Hurts. We could hear as Sweat told Hurts, “I don’t know what would’ve happened if you would’ve stayed in there, man.”
Hurts sort of laughed along with Sweat, but he did so in the awkward, I’m-only-smiling-on-the-outside kind of way. It was pretty clear the many on the Eagles were caught off guard by the benching.
But hey, Washington won’t complain. It helped lock up a spot in Saturday’s Wild Card round against Tom Brady and the Buccaneers.
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