Jalen Hurts leads Eagles to another dramatic victory over Bills, so why is he so conflicted?

Nobody is more conflicted after a game-winning touchdown run than Jalen Hurts. He rescued the Eagles from a double-digit deficit for the second time in six days and led them to their 10th win of the season when he sprinted for a 12-yard touchdown in overtime on Sunday against the Buffalo Bills, yet his response to the dramatics was more philosophical than celebratory. 

“I shake my head and I don’t really know how to feel sometimes, because I just want to play to the standard at all times,” Hurts said. “That’s why it’s kind of weird for me. …’Weird’ is just the standard. It’s a sense manipulative to myself, because winning is the only thing that matters, but the standard is pretty darn important, too.”

At this point, you might want to shake him and ask if he can just enjoy the victory. 

But with Hurts, there’s always the standard — the unreachable mark he sets for how he believes he and the team should play. And even though Sunday’s 37-34 win over the Buffalo Bills will join Monday’s Kansas City win as one of those unforgettable regular-season victories, Hurts also knows the Eagles were outplayed for most of the afternoon. The Eagles did not convert a third down in the first half. Hurts had fewer than 100 yards passing yards at the end of the third quarter. (He finished 18 of 31 for 200 and three touchdowns to go with 65 rushing yards and two scores.) 

This is becoming almost almost an early-game default for the Eagles, who don’t decimate opponents as much as they outlast them. Nobody will call the Eagles a juggernaut. But call them the best team in the NFL, with a 10-1 record and a high probability of the No. 1 seed. 

And it happens with Hurts, the frontrunner for MVP because he finds new ways to stand in the winner’s circle. On Sunday, that included leading the Eagles to points on five of their last six drives and accounting for all five touchdowns. 

The most significant was the touchdown run in overtime to cement the victory. After Buffalo was limited to a field goal on its opening drive, Hurts brought the Eagles to the Bills’ 12-yard line in eight plays. He stepped into the shotgun with the quarterback draw as an option. The Bills crowded the middle of the field before the snap ready to blitz, except there was a safety who would be a key on the play. Jordan Mailata was positioned at left tackle going through his pre-snap reads, and he saw the Bills start to move. When the safety left the box to follow D’Andre Swift’s motion, Mailata thought: “What’s happening?” This was exactly how the Eagles wanted it to look!

“I could not believe that they gave us that,” Mailata said. “I knew we executed that play so many times, and I couldn’t believe the look presented itself then and there. It was the perfect play call.”

By the time Hurts snapped the ball, he had an open path to the end zone. He ran unimpeded for the first 11 yards, when his momentum was too much for the Bills to stop. Game over. For the record, Hurts said he did not know the safety would clear and instead reacted. Privately, he told his offensive linemen that he knew the safety was going to clear. It was how the play was designed. It worked in a similar situation last week.

“I heard the play call come in. I was curious to see if they were gonna be glitching off the edge,” center Jason Kelce said. “And sure enough, (they did). it was not the easiest play to hit. You got to get to the edge quickly and try and make sure that there’s a hole there. But we’ve run that play well against that particular defensive call before. It really opened up pretty good for us.”

And though that Hurts run was the enduring highlight, it was hardly the only one. His 29-yard touchdown pass to Olamide Zaccheaus on a third-and-15 in the fourth quarter gave the Eagles a lead and was the type of throw that would lead an MVP candidacy if not for the game-winning touchdown minutes later. (It was the type of tight-window throw that his beloved Alabama used to win 24 hours earlier.) 

His touchdown pass to DeVonta Smith — also in the fourth quarter — was a high-level pass that could merit a story more than a footnote. The fact that these all happened in the same afternoon to help overcome a deficit shows why Hurts has a nine-digit contract. He’s beaten Dak Prescott, Patrick Mahomes, and Josh Allen in consecutive games, and each with the type of dramatics that help cement narratives that are becoming harder to dismiss.

There’s no definitive way to quantify “clutch,” but there is a 10-1 record and come-from-behind victories.

“There are not too many guys that I’ve played with who are more clutch down the stretch,” Kelce said. “Especially last year, two-minute situations, game on the line — the Super Bowl. He’s been so good in crucial situations when things have to happen. That’s a trait not to take lightly. You look at most of the best players, that’s a trait they have to have. It’s a big reason why we won the last three weeks.”

So then why is Hurts shaking his head after the game? Part of this is a persona — Hurts never wants you to think he’s satisfied, and he once said he’ll wait to smile until winning the last game — but it’s also reality. Hurts turned the ball over twice on Sunday and now has more interceptions than any season in his career. The Eagles were overmatched for most of the night, just as they were one week ago when they escaped against Kansas City. 

Resilience is admirable, and there’s no doubt that the Eagles take on the never-count-me-out attitude of their quarterback. But you know what’s better than coming back from double-digits? Not falling behind by double-digits. 

San Francisco visits next weekend. Then comes Dallas and Seattle on the road. And this does not even begin to mention elimination games in the postseason. The recipe of relying on heroics is not advisable, even if it’s become awfully entertaining.

“We always find a way, and that’s something that you can’t really take for granted,” Hurts said. “It’s hard to quantify. Obviously, I have had a ton to clean up and I have not executed to the level of my standard. What that is yet? It seems to be enough.”

And then a few sentences later, Hurts explained that “enough is never enough.” So even if the Eagles are winning, they’re not winning as he would like. The game-winning touchdown was enough to win, but not enough to be satisfied. A 10-1 record is enough to be the best team in the NFL, but not enough for the team to reach its standard. 

“It’s definitely been a unique journey, a very unprecedented journey,” Hurts said, “and that’s something not many people can relate or compare to.”

Welcome to the conflicted feelings of the league’s prospective MVP. It might seem like an agonizing way to celebrate a victory. Then again, the Eagles have won 27 of Hurts’ last 29 regular-season starts. So he shakes his head and doesn’t know what to think. Maybe that has something to do with why he keeps winning.