PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Jalen Hurts hopes an extra week off will help his sore right shoulder.
The Pro Bowl quarterback returned Sunday to lead the Philadelphia Eagles (14-3) to a victory over the New York Giants after sitting out the previous two weeks with a sprained right shoulder.
The victory clinched the Eagles first place in the NFC, home advantage in the postseason, and a bye week.
The Eagles implemented a conservative game plan for Hurts and didn’t ask too much of the dynamic quarterback so as not to put him at risk of taking a hard blow to the shoulder.
“We’re lucky we have two weeks until the next game,” coach Nick Sirianni said Tuesday. “He’s going to be a little bit healthier than he obviously was the other day.”
Sirianni confirmed that Hurts “came away sore, as expected.”
The 24-year-old quarterback — who is 17-1 in his last 18 regular-season starts — finished with 3,701 passing yards and 22 touchdowns, as well as 760 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns in his second season as a starter.
The Eagles decided to start Hurts after losing two straight games without him, because a loss could have cost them the NFC East title and first place in the conference.
“We didn’t feel like we were putting him more at risk of injury, but we knew it was going to hurt too much, I knew it was going to hurt too much,” Sirianni said. “He is the type of player that he is, he is the type of teammate that he is. He fought the pain because it’s important for him to be there. He knew how important it was for him and his teammates to be out there.”
The Eagles will play the weekend of January 21-22 against the lowest seed to come out of the divisional round between Tampa Bay, Dallas, New York and Seattle.