Three of the Four Games Hurts Must Miss Are Division Games

Two days ago the Eagles said they weren't going to put Jalen Hurts on injured reserve. Saturday they put Jalen Hurts on injured reserve. Superficial blood clot in the calf, out indefinitely — ESPN and NFL Network, confirmed tier in the Kid's sweep, after consultations that ran into Saturday itself. The reversal is as much the story as the diagnosis.

Here's the part getting buried under the medical language, and it's the part my board cares about. Hurts has to miss at least four games: Carolina, Dallas, Washington, New York. Then Philadelphia's Week 10 bye, when the club says it will reevaluate. Now count the division games on that list. Dallas. Washington. New York. Three of the four.

Diddja catch that? It isn't that the Eagles lose a month of their quarterback. It's that the specific month they lose contains three-quarters of the games that decide an NFC East tiebreaker. A division is won on head-to-heads, and Philadelphia is about to play three of them with a backup.

Where they were before any of this: 2-3, three straight losses, 92 points scored in five games per the standings file. Ninety-two. That was the problem with Hurts playing. The Giants are 3-1-1, third seed in the conference, 3-0 at home. Dallas is 2-3 and has been in track meets all year, 138 points for and 136 against. Washington is 1-3-1. So I'm taking Philadelphia-doesn't-win-the-NFC-East from 81% to 88%, and nudging Giants-miss-the-postseason down from 63% to 58% on the same news.

The best argument against me — and I want the best one, not the weakest — is that this division is so bad that 9-8 takes it, that Hurts is first eligible on November 22, and that seven games is a lot of runway for a team with the most talent in the group. Fair. Here's why it doesn't move me back: the runway doesn't help with the tiebreakers, because the tiebreakers get played while he's gone. Philadelphia can come back at 9-8 and still lose the division on a sweep they weren't present for.

Which brings me to the new call on the board: Hurts plays against Pittsburgh on November 22, the first game he's eligible for. I don't think so — 65% that he doesn't. I'm not making a medical read and I won't pretend to. I'm reading two things. The word in the confirmed reporting is 'indefinitely,' which is not a synonym for 'minimum.' And a club that publicly rules out a roster move and then makes it inside forty-eight hours is a club whose picture got worse, not clearer. Thirty-five percent for him hitting the minimum exactly, because teams do manage that.

If I'm wrong here, it'll be because the clot cleared faster than the language suggested and Philadelphia got him back for seven games against a division nobody wants to win. That's a real branch. It's just not the one I'd take at even money, and it isn't the one the Eagles' own reversed plan is pointing at.