Trey Sermon took Jalen Hurts’ advice to heart and responded with a touchdown

Trey Sermon needed to impress. On the bubble of a crowded Eagles running back room, he needed a big night on Thursday against the Cleveland Browns to make his case for staying on the 53-man roster.

It started badly.

Sermon had one rushing touchdown in the Eagles’ first preseason game against the Baltimore Ravens, finishing the night with 21 yards on nine carries. But he was still on the outside looking in entering Thursday’s tilt with the Browns. With the Eagles likely to carry four running backs and two of those spots surely spoken for by Kenneth Gainwell and D’Andre Swift, Sermon has an uphill battle up the depth chart past Boston Scott and Rashaad Penny.

In the second quarter, Sermon caught a short pass from Marcus Mariota and dashed off for a 14-yard gain. He had already picked up the first down before the ball was punched out of his grasp and recovered by Browns cornerback Cameron Mitchell.

“He fumbled the ball on the screen,” Nick Sirianni said. “The guy made a good play on it, but we weren’t quite tight enough with our ball security right there.”

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It was a costly fumble, and not just because every snap counts for a player vying for a roster spot. The Brown’s ensuing drive resulted in a field goal that put them up, 8-3.

Sermon certainly wasn’t the only Eagle to make a mistake on Thursday. It had been a rough first half for the offense as a whole, starting with Cleveland recording a safety on the Eagles’ first possession, and continuing with Mariota being sacked three times and throwing a pick.

Jalen Hurts, while sitting out the game, could tell the fumble bothered Sermon. The pair go way back to their college days — they first played together at Oklahoma in 2019, Sermon’s senior year and Hurts’ grad transfer year. He went up to Sermon on the sideline and told him he needed to “have a short-term memory” about the play.

“I have a great relationship with Jalen,” Sermon said. “We’re pretty familiar with each other. He was just telling me that, again, I’m a great player. So just forget about the fumble, and just focus on the next play and make up for it.”

The message stuck.

On the Eagles’ first drive of the third quarter, Tanner McKee stepped in at quarterback to replace Mariota. McKee handed off the ball to Sermon, who slipped through traffic up the middle and cut to the outside to break away for the Eagles’ first touchdown of the game. It was a 33-yard rush that put the Eagles in front, 10-8.

“I’d seen the flow of the defense,” Sermon said. “I really just tried to get downhill as fast as I can. And then I’d just kind of seen the flow, some guys over-pursuing, and then I had a receiver come in to crack down. So once I slipped outside of him, I’d just seen the end zone.”

“I was really happy with Trey,” Sirianni said. “He played the next play. The worst thing you can do is put your head down and sulk in the play that you didn’t make. All you can do is really play the next one.”

Sermon finished with a team-high 54 rushing yards on five carries, for an average of 10.8 per carry. His 33-yard touchdown run was his longest run of the night.

“That was a great lesson for him, and a great lesson for our team, just to keep going,” Sirianni said. “That was a couple of really nice runs that he had. That’s good momentum for Trey. Obviously, he’d want to have the fumble back, but good momentum for him to finish up this preseason.”

The Eagles claimed Sermon off waivers from the 49ers last September. He only played in two games last season, recording 19 yards on two carries, both of those coming in Week 4 against the Jacksonville Jaguars. The 53-man roster deadline is Aug. 29.

Running back Kennedy Brooks, another of Sermon and Hurts’ Oklahoma teammates, is also vying for reps this preseason. Brooks had 26 rushing yards on seven attempts on Thursday.

“My mindset is just to kind of work and just get better every single day,” Sermon said. “I know it’s a pretty deep running back room, and we’re all very talented. I still try to pick up little things from from each of them, and just kind of put it into my own game as well. But like I said, it’s a very talented group, and I’m just excited to be a part of it.”

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