
I'm probably gonna lose a lot of anarchist cred for this one, but I am a diehard Philadelphia Eagles fan. There I said it.
There are a lot of qualms I have with the league. I don't like that the league hasn't done away with tackles and moved to flag football. I don't like that Super Bowl halftime performers are expected to play for free. I don't like that the competition committee only invites the NFLPA union to rubber stamp their rule changes. (Good on the union for boycotting this year.) I don't like the league's general resistance to player political advocacy. The list goes on.
However, I still love the game. I love how much strategy is involved in gameplay, especially in the final minutes of each half. I love watching two countervailing strategies break down after each snap. I love seeing players from opposing teams help each other up after a play. And I love and hate the labor politics of the game, which brings me to the subject of this post.
Jalen Hurts Is a Fucking Scab
I was already sour on Jalen Hurts when I read that he effectively works off the clock working out and reviewing tape to an extent that not even his head coach Nick Sirianni can keep up with. Like I get that you are childless and have all the time in the world, but trying to rope your coach into working on your day off crosses a line.
Like kudos to you on having an all-female management team, but betraying your union brothers by single-handedly lengthening the working day is not cool.
In his latest scab move, Hurts has been playing through a knee injury for the past month, and it really showed this past Sunday when he was slow to get up from a tackle by Micah Parsons in the Eagles' win last Sunday. Thanks to his refusal to come out of the game, his team had to waste a timeout to give him a chance to recover after which he still had a slight limp.
This makes me so angry for a number of reasons. First of all, we have veteran QB Marcus Mariota to play backup, and you could see him itching to take the field after the play. Secondly, every snap he takes with his injured knee risks a more serious and potentially permanent injury. But third, and most importantly, this sets an ugly precedent for the rest of the players in the league to risk similarly serious injury by playing through injuries instead of taking the requisite rest to heal their bodies.
You Only Get One Body
You only get one body in your lifetime. And we have seen countless Eagles QBs run into the ground on knee injuries from Donovan McNabb to Carson Wentz. Both of those QBs were arguably at the top of the game before their injuries and were never the same since. The way things are going, Jalen Hurts looks like he will be joining that list of QBs.
The NFLPA has made great strides in recent years forcing the hand of the league to implement player safety rules from the concussion protocol, to new rules about spearing, horsecollar tackling, targeting, fair catch for kickoffs, helmet to helmet contact, any touching of a QB's head, defenseless player protections for punters, extending yardage for touchbacks, reduced overtime length, defensive tush pushes (offense is probably soon to follow much to the chagrin of my beloved Eagles), moving forward the position for kickoffs, and many more.
Jalen Hurts threatens to single-handedly undo all of that with his self-centered commitment to taking the field no matter what his body tells him. Jalen Hurts is a fucking scab, and I can't wait for him to take the bench.