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Be Honest With Yourself and Admit that You’d Call This a Clean Hit if an Eagle Delivered it
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I’m probably gonna killed for this, but I don’t care. The discussion about the Jalen Hurts hit is so painfully binary. The overwhelming majority of Eagles fans called this a late hit or a dirty hit and went apoplectic on social:
This is 2nd and 4. The hit takes place right at the 1st down marker. D’Marco Jackson doesn’t exactly launch himself. His feet are set and he lowers a shoulder, turns his head, and makes most of the contact to Hurts’ left shoulder. People keep freeze-framing this clip to try to prove that Hurts was on the white by the time he received the hit, but I’m sorry, this is the definition of a bang-bang play. This is as borderline as it gets. You cannot create a play that is more “bang-bang” than this one. The refs decided to throw the flag, which resulted in offsetting penalties because Lane Johnson was whistled for a hold (stupid rule, but that’s a separate post entirely).
Here’s the thing –
If this was Zack Baun coming in and laying the exact same hit on Case Keenum, or Patrick Mahomes, or Josh Allen, or anyone, we’d all be complaining about the flag. “Clean hit!” That’s what we would be saying, because most of us are incapable of critical thinking that extends beyond “when our guy receives the hit, it’s dirty, but when our guy delivers the hit, it’s clean.” It’s embarrassingly basic and fanboyish.
Late hit or not, the bigger problem is that the NFL adding quarterback protections has made this one of the worst sequences in football.
Do you remember last year, when Jihaad Campbell was trying to shepherd Jaxson Dart out of play, and Dart simply put his head down and launched himself forward, leading with the crown? It was bullshit. We all found it completely ridiculous, because what is our guy supposed to do in that situation? If he hits the quarterback, he risks a 15-yard penalty. If he doesn’t hit him, he risks being speared in the chest and giving up a first down. The league now puts defenders in no-win situations where they’re moving full speed towards the boundary and asked to make impossible decisions in a split second. There is never enough time to react to what a quarterback decides to do, whether it’s stepping out, giving himself up, or turning up field to lower a shoulder and fight for the extra yard.
The NFL created this problem, yes, but we can look at it with some logical thought, instead of falling back on rudimentary, emotional, kneejerk reaction.
“He hit our guy! It’s dirty! It’s cheap! Kick him out of the game!”
Just be honest with yourself. We’d call it a clean hit if it came from an Eagle.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com