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PHILADELPHIA — When the railing near the visiting tunnel at FedEx Field collapsed earlier this month, sending about eight fans crashing to the ground in front of Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, the first thought Andrew Collins had was: “I just blew out my franchise quarterback’s ACL.” Collins, a 26-year-old Eagles fan from Brooklawn, New Jersey, went hurtling toward the unsuspecting Hurts and was sure he had landed on him.
But Hurts calmly shuffled his feet, turned and narrowed himself against the burgundy wall in one motion, just in time to dodge the avalanche of bodies. Then he went about the business of lifting people up, dusting them off and pulling them together for an embrace — and a photo or two — before quietly exiting stage right. That led to Collins’ second thought.
“This guy is as cool as the other side of the pillow,” he said, borrowing a line from the late, great ESPN anchor Stuart Scott.
Hurts, who will be making his playoff debut against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday (1 p.m. ET, Fox), is wired differently. That’s the refrain from those who have been around him: from former coaches who watched him do drill work as a 7-year-old on the Channelview High School football fields in East Texas to former teammates who saw him take command of a college locker room at 17 and become the first true freshman quarterback to start at Alabama under Nick Saban to those who witnessed him take over the starting job from Carson Wentz in Philly last year as a rookie. And they say they knew it was coming.
Hurts can come off as enigmatic. The 23-year-old wears a stone-faced expression in public that rarely changes, no matter whether he’s taking questions from the media, being reamed out by his coach on the sideline or coming off the field after a big touchdown or back-breaking interception. He speaks just above a whisper in the same, steady tone. All of this makes it nearly impossible to know what is going on underneath the surface. His teammate…
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Source : espn
