Is Jalen Hurts haunted by Eagles' collapse during 2023 season?

Quarterback Jalen Hurts and head coach Nick Sirianni couldn't prevent the 2023 Philadelphia Eagles from losing five of their final six regular-season games before the 11-6 side suffered an embarrassing 32-9 wild-card playoff defeat against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

With the Eagles at 5-2 heading into this coming Sunday's home game against the 2-6 Jacksonville Jaguars, Hurts insisted during a recent chat with Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk that he "absolutely" isn't haunted by what occurred last season. 

"We got a lot of opportunity in front of us," Hurts explained. "We got a new team, it’s a new year and we’re trying to build a new energy for ourselves and I think we’ve done that. And I think there are times where I’m not going to be naive and tell you that I don’t look back and say, 'I’m going to learn from this moment and maybe I felt this feeling once before, how do I navigate this?' And so that’s where we are and that’s where I am."

While rumors about the alleged "'fractured' and unhealthy" relationship between Hurts and Sirianni hovered over the Eagles throughout the summer, Hurts said before September he was "in a better place physically" after he dealt with a knee issue last fall. Hurts later suffered a nasty-looking injury to the middle finger of his throwing hand in Week 18. 

The Eagles entered Week 5 of the ongoing season at 2-2 before Hurts and Sirianni came together to work on fixes for some of the club's issues. Philadelphia then enjoyed a three-game winning streak capped off by this past Sunday's impressive 37-17 victory at the Cincinnati Bengals.

"A fool isn’t a fool because they made a mistake," Hurts added. "A fool is a fool because they refuse to learn from it, and I’m going to learn. I’ve always prided myself on learning from my mistakes, learning from my experiences, good bad or indifferent. And I think our season last year from my vantage point is something I’ve learned a ton from. And I think it’s benefited us now and I think we will continue to benefit from that." 

As of Wednesday morning, DraftKings Sportsbook listed the Eagles as 7.5-point favorites over the Jaguars. Despite that line, recent history shows Philadelphia probably can't afford to spend any portion of the next several days looking ahead to the Week 10 game at the rival Dallas Cowboys (3-4) on Nov. 10.