Doug Pederson was a little muted in his praise for Jalen Hurts following Sunday night’s win.

He was twice asked about his rookie quarterback’s performance and twice downplayed the topic, instead giving credit to the entire football team.

That’s fine, and coaches typically do that, but it seemed a little odd at the time since he was specifically asked about his quarterback, and not the rest of the team.

Here’s the first question/answer:

What did you think of QB Jalen Hurts’ overall performance and why do you think he was able to get the whole team, start to finish, to play better and are you ready to commit to him for next week yet? 

COACH DOUG PEDERSON: “We went into this week – a lot of stuff has been piled on this football team all season, negatively, positively, a lot of injuries, different things have really piled up. Sometimes you look for an opportunity to just sort of jumpstart things, right? Kind of almost reset a little bit. You do things — and obviously Jalen got the start this afternoon, and I thought overall, there were some good things and really, kind of gave us a spark as a team that I was looking for, and I think we were looking for as a team. But you know, this win today is not about one guy. This win is about this team and how resilient this team is. We went through it again today, injuries piled up a little bit in the second half. Guys stayed strong. He obviously was a part of the win, but my hat’s off to a lot of guys in this football game. Defense I thought played outstanding with the two takeaways. Sweat, Hargrave, guys are battling their tails off, and offensive line against — this is the No. 1 defense in the National Football League. They did a nice job. They did a really nice job against that front. My hat’s off to really every member of this team.”

That’s a pretty sanitized answer. Certainly you don’t want to go overboard with praise after one game, nor do you want to slight Carson Wentz by talking about how good his backup was. He’s just trying to manage the locker room and massage personalities and keep the rocking ship as stable as possible.

Second question and answer:

Your comments about Jalen Hurts seem kind of tempered considering the performance. Is that because you have to take into account Carson Wentz? 

COACH DOUG PEDERSON: “I have to take into consideration the entire football team. Jalen played well. Obviously, we won the game. But there’s a lot of good performances out there tonight, and again, as I said, defense stepped up, offensive line, some of our young receivers and obviously Jalen. It’s a start and we’re excited to get the win.”

Doug is typically short with reporters after the game anyway, so this line of questions and answers shouldn’t surprise anybody. A lot of times he’s just ready to move on to the film study and doesn’t have a ton to say.

But when he gets to the Monday morning interview with Angelo Cataldi, after sleeping on the game, he has more to say, and delivered this regarding Jalen Hurts:

“Going back and watching it this morning, there were some really, really good plays. He played well. He managed the team, he did everything we asked him to do. He played smart, he played physical, with the run. Some of it was designed runs, some of it was just him being him and what he can do. It’s going to be a really good film for him to look at and learn from and get better, but I thought he did a really nice job.”

…

“In some regards, I was thinking more about the entire football team, too, because there were some really good performances on the defensive side of the ball. My hat is off to coach Schwartz and the defensive staff and players, too. Praise one guy for having a good game and you can praise a lot of guys. I think about the guys up front and the offensive line, I think about Josh Sweat and the game he had yesterday and the defense having two takeaways yesterday. And Javon Hargrave had some big TFL’s (tackles for loss) and a couple of sacks. So there was a lot of praise to go around and that’s why I was a little more tempered probably last night until I saw the tape and could make comments today.”

No problem. Hurts played well. He played within himself and took what the defense gave him. It was a steady, low-risk performance that was complemented by a good night of Doug Pederson play calling. They’ve got a chance against the Cardinals if they can replicate what they did this week.

Here’s the full Cataldi interview: