Hurts has stomach infection, trip to hospital shows originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
Eagles starting quarterback Jalen Hurts missed Thursday night’s preseason game with a stomach infection that was discovered during a trip to the hospital, head coach Nick Sirianni said.
Hurts, 23, went through pregame warmups before the Eagles’ 35-0 preseason loss to the Patriots, but didn’t play. Instead, he reported pain in his abdomen and the Eagles sent him to a local hospital for an evaluation.
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Doctors at the hospital diagnosed Hurts with a stomach infection that was causing pressure in his stomach area. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported Hurts has been ordered to stay at home for at least two days to rest.
It’s unclear when Hurts will be ready to return to action in practice but Sirianni said Hurts is “fine.”
“He wasn’t feeling great when he came in,” Sirianni said. “So we put him through pregame warmups. He wanted to go out there and go through pregame warmups. He came back in, he still wasn’t feeling good. We evaluated him and we just decided it wasn’t in his best interest to play with what he was feeling. We evaluated him, he’s fine now, he’s doing OK now but that’s why we held him out.”
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In Hurts’ place, veteran Joe Flacco started on Thursday night. He found out very late that he was going to start and didn’t have a great showing. Because Hurts was out, the Eagles started just 2/5ths of their first-string offensive line.
Would Hurts have played on Thursday night if this was a regular season game?
“He really wanted to play,” Sirianni said. “We decided that just wasn’t in the best interest of the team and of him. I think that’s a hypothetical. That’s hard to say. He was fighting me to play tonight. I know he would have wanted to.”
The Eagles return to practice on Sunday at the Linc and then have two joint practices with the Jets on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week.
Hurts played just 10 snaps in the preseason opener against the Steelers last week and Sirianni wouldn’t commit to Hurts’ playing in the preseason finale next Friday.
“Again, we’ll evaluate how he’s feeling these next couple days,” Sirianni said. “But again, we get two practices against the Jets. Those are like games.”
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