Jalen Hurts was unable to guide the Philadelphia Eagles past a depleted San Francisco 49ers team earlier this year in the playoffs.
Losing in the Wild Card Round to a 49ers team that was then blown out by the Seattle Seahawks the following week will certainly have stung Nick Sirianni.
The game in Philadelphia was certainly affected by the weather conditions in January, with wind gusts up to 28 mph.
Hurts felt the effect of the elements as he was only able to complete 20 of his 35 attempted passes, which translated into a mere 168 yards.
On the night, Tom Brady explained how quarterbacks would experience issues if they threw the ball with a certain technique.
It would now appear that Hurts has suffered from this very issue as stats have been shared highlighting his issues in windy conditions.
What Tom Brady said that highlights Jalen Hurts’ issues in the wind
The game in January against the 49ers was one Hurts will want to put behind him, but there may be some valuable lessons to be learned.
Hurts was only able to throw for one touchdown during the windy evening in Philly, with Brady’s analysis ringing true.
“Looking at it from this angle, this is kind of like a neutral plane, and this is when the point is slightly down. When you’re throwing into the wind, it has to be neutral; if the point of the ball is up, any wind friction is going to push that ball up over the top,” Brady said during Fox’s coverage of the game.
“As a quarterback, you don’t really like throwing underneath because, naturally, that’s going to point the tip of the ball up. You’d like more of a C, or an inverse/reverse C – that’s how you control the point of the ball, and then you can kind of just snap it off as you throw it.
“In these windy conditions, you can’t be underneath the ball. There’s too much wind surface of the ball to knock it off its path.”
An Eagles analyst has now looked into how well Hurts performs when the wind speeds pick up, and the evidence is damning.
During games when the wind speed is at a maximum of 5 mph, Hurts produces an EPA (Expected Points Added) per pass of 0.630.
When the wind speed is between 6-10 mph, Hurts’ EPA slightly decreases to 0.628.
However, with wind speeds in excess of 11 mph, Hurts struggles significantly, with his EPA per pass dropping all the way down to 0.256.
‘Turns out Tom Brady may be onto something,’ said the Eagles analyst who shared his findings on X.
Sirianni will be fully expecting his team to improve on last season’s frustrating ending, but the January conditions in Philadelphia may prove an issue for Hurts if he does not work on their technique.
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