Jalen Hurts committed two turnovers on one play. That hadn’t happened in 48 NFL seasons.
It's hard for one player to turn the football over twice on a single play. A strange turn of events led to it happening to Hurts on Monday night.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — When Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts turned the ball over twice on the same play against the Los Angeles Chargers on Monday night, not even the fictional characters of Disney/Pixar’s Monsters, Inc. could keep up with one of the most bizarre sequences in recent NFL memory.
It also proved costly, giving away three valuable points in what would be a 22-19 overtime loss for the Eagles.
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Hurts didn’t see defensive tackle Da’Shawn Hand dropping back into coverage over the middle on third down midway through the second quarter and threw it right to the 300-pounder. Hand started running but was stripped from behind by Eagles running back Will Shipley, sending the ball bouncing into Hurts’ hands, only for Chargers defensive tackle Jamaree Caldwell to force another fumble which was recovered by linebacker Troy Dye.
“Now, I got to do some ball security drills, you know what I’m saying,” Hand joked. “But I love this team, and it was a fire win.”
According to Elias Sports Bureau, it was the first time one player committed two turnovers on one play since at least 1978, which is as far back as available play-by-play data goes.
“I mean, you get some crazy things on special teams, when you do down, try to catch a punt or, like, cover like a muffed punt or something, but nothing like that,” Dye said. “That’s probably one of the craziest sequences ever.”
Only one of the three turnovers was captured by ESPN’s alternate broadcast featuring computer generated characters from the 2001 kids’ movie and its 2013 prequel, Monsters University. Despite operating on a delay which allowed game footage to be replaced with animated likenesses, including subbing Hand for John Goodman’s fuzzy purple and blue monster James P. Sullivan, the rendering software seemingly didn’t know what to do after Hand put the ball on the ground. It remained at the virtual 25-yard line where Shipley stripped Hand and didn’t capture Hurts losing the ball for a second time.
The play also had implications in fantasy football, where Hurts was docked four points by at least two major scoring systems for giving the ball away twice.
But most importantly, it allowed the Chargers’ defense to offer support to quarterback Justin Herbert, who played one week after undergoing surgery on a broken bone in his non-throwing hand, and a battered offensive line which lost right tackle Trey Pipkins to an ankle injury in the second quarter.
The fumble led to a Chargers field goal and extended the Eagles’ deficit to 10-3 with 4 minutes, 55 seconds left in the first half.
Hurts ended up with a career-high five turnovers and four interceptions, the last coming in overtime at the Chargers 1-yard-line.
“I feel like it was just loose, and I feel like the back end played some good coverage, causing Hurts to throw some passes in some windows that wasn’t open,” Caldwell said. “And I feel like, also, the guys up front, [Teair] Tart and them, they did a good job of just being dominant up front, stopping the run and just making the quarterback have to make plays in the sky. And I feel like we just played as a unit.”
That togetherness led to six crucial points off turnovers for the Chargers, the fine margins that sent the Eagles to their third straight loss.
» READ MORE: Eagles grades: Jalen Hurts turns it over five times in yet another poor offensive display
“As frustrating as the night was, we had an opportunity to win the game in the end,” said Hurts, who came into the game having thrown two picks on 342 attempts all season. “Had the ball in my hands, driving down the field, having everything, you know, on our terms to a sense, and I didn’t bring it home, so that’s how I look at it.”