MINNEAPOLIS — Though many of the elements that made the Philadelphia Eagles champions last season had been missing during this unsettling start, their confidence in themselves never lacked.
Even the external doubts had a rough day, with Jalen Hurts flashing his Super Bowl MVP form.
Hurts gave his lagging offense a jolt by throwing for 326 yards and three touchdowns, Jalyx Hunt returned an interception for a score, and the Eagles rebounded from back-to-back losses by hanging on to beat the Minnesota Vikings 28-22 on Sunday.
“It’s not a time to wish or hope for something to happen,” said Hurts, who went 19 for 23 for a perfect passer rating. “It’s a time to make it happen.”
Hurts sparked a highlight-reel revival of what had been a dormant passing attack for the Eagles (5-2), hitting A.J. Brown for two touchdowns and DeVonta Smith for a career-high 183 receiving yards that included a 79-yard score.
“It was only a matter of time,” Smith said. “There’s still some things we can grow in certain areas, still some things that we left out there.”
Facing third-and-9 from their 44 with 1:45 left and the Vikings (3-3) still holding two timeouts, Hurts dropped back and dropped a 45-yard rainbow into Brown’s arms to seal it after he beat former teammate Isaiah Rodgers with a slick double move up the sideline. Rodgers, in his first season with the Vikings, also got beat on Smith’s touchdown.
“You don’t have a game like that without the guys around,” Hurts said. “I give a lot of credit to the collective of everyone hanging in there.”
Carson Wentz went 26 for 42 for 313 yards on an erratic afternoon, getting picked off twice in his own territory and struggling on the other end while the Vikings had to settle for Will Reichard’s field goals on five of six possessions inside the 20.
Hunt gave the Eagles a 14-3 lead early in the second quarter by sitting in his zone and reading the hurried throw toward star Justin Jefferson, as Jalen Carter hit Wentz hard.
“Don’t throw it right to his chest. That would be great,” Wentz said. “But I think they had a good call. I’ve got to be better and just progress or quite frankly take the sack there.”
In the red
Wentz said during the week he’s too far removed from his time with Philadelphia to carry a grudge into this game, having made Minnesota his sixth stop in six seasons, but he didn’t give his original team his best performance — particularly in the red zone.
Backup center Blake Brandel struggled badly there, too. He had an errant third-down shotgun snap that sailed over Wentz’s head and cost the Vikings 22 yards in the first quarter and was run over by Moro Ojomo for a third-down sack in the fourth quarter from the 10.
Back on track, for now
Eagles offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo, who has taken plenty of heat over his first two months on the job, set Hurts up well with some well-timed calls.
The Eagles opened the game by going 75 yards in 12 plays while draining 8:01 off the clock, and Hurts converted two fourth downs along the way — a predictable tush push from their 45 to get Hurts past the chains, then later a 37-yard strike for a score to Brown behind impeccable pass protection.
“Every time we get a fourth down conversion, I look at him and I say, ‘Hey, I trust you in these scenarios. Thanks for making me right,’” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said.
Smith’s touchdown that put the Eagles up 21-9 in the third quarter came on second-and-5, when backup tackle Fred Johnson entered as a sixth offensive lineman to make the Vikings think run. Hurts, who spent more time under center than usual, executed a crisp play-action fake and found Smith streaking up the seam.
“We had the look the whole game,” Smith said. “We’d been telling them to call it, and they trusted us, what we’d seen.”
