By Wes Long | Published | No Comments
While some have speculated as to whether the Eagles should shut down Hurts for the foreseeable future until he is 100% healthy, the Eagles appear to have other ideas. While the Eagles starting quarterback did briefly exit this past Sunday’s game against the Niners with a head injury, he passed the NFL’s concussion protocol, and retuned back to the game late in the third quarter.
The Eagles find themselves now in a tight race for the NFC’s top seed, in front of the San Francisco 49ers, but just by one game. The Eagles no longer own a tie breaker over the Niners, so they will need to stay in front by at least a full game in the standings if they wish to receive a bye in the first round of the playoffs, as they did last season.
The Eagles cannot just look to protecting their top seed position in the NFC, they have a huge game this Sunday against their division rivals the Dallas Cowboys. This Sunday’s game will go a long way in determining just who will win the NFC East. The Eagles are just a game in front of the Cowboys, but do own a win over Dallas back in their first meeting – in week nine. That means that if the Eagles win Sunday, they would move in front of Dallas by two full games in the loss column, and would own a tie breaker over Dallas should but teams have the same record at the end of the season.
Hurts has been involved in all practices as a full participant this week and any comments that the starter should sit out a game or two, as he nurses a shoulder injury, seems to be flying by the waist side, Hurts sat out several games towards the end of last season, before returning just in time for the start of the playoffs – leading his team all the way to the Super Bowl.
Last season the Eagles had a comfortable cushion in terms of earning the top seed. This year that is not the case.
No team has repeated as back-to-back division champions in the NFC East since the early 2000’s when the Eagles won four straight NFC East titles from 2001-2004.
