The announcement that Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts will miss time to deal with a blood clot left PFT’s Mike Florio with many unanswered questions.
Last Friday, Hurts suddenly appeared on the Eagles’ injury report with a calf injury, but he fully participated in practice. He played in the team’s 19-17 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars in London on Sunday and, by all accounts, was expected to play this upcoming Sunday against the Carolina Panthers.
“It was a very unique experience, to say the least,” said Hurts in a mid-week press conference when asked about the injury. “I don’t want to get into the details of kind of leading up to the game and whatnot, but got nicked up in the Rams game.”
However, on Thursday, the team announced that Hurts would miss the Panthers game because of a blood clot in his leg. Per the statement, the quarterback visited the training room last Thursday, saying he was “cleated” during the previous Sunday’s game against the Los Angeles Rams. He received treatment, practiced Friday, flew with the team to London, and participated in Saturday’s walkthrough. After the walkthrough, the team said Hurts underwent an ultrasound “out of an abundance of caution,” which “revealed a superficial blood clot.”
Florio was openly curious about the injury before the team fully announced that it was a blood clot. He and Chris Simms questioned how the situation was being handled and its potential impact on bettors.
“The whole thing just seems odd to me,” said Florio on Thursday’s episode of PFT Live. “I hope somebody is trying to figure out more what happened.”
“It is odd,” added Simms. “I understand the approach by the Eagles and all of that. I get it. You know, we talk about that stuff all the time, the competitive advantages. You don’t want to do that. But yet, yes, it’s fishy.”
Simms then ranted on how the lack of information about Hurts’ injury may have impacted the way bettors approached the Eagles-Jaguars game, and how they might be due some kind of payback or voiding of bets because the Eagles and NFL were not upfront about the injury situation despite knowing before the game about Hurts’s condition.
The handling of Jalen Hurts’ calf injury is fishy, and there’s nothing to protect gamblers from not getting enough information about it. https://t.co/4kHbhBX9u3
— PFT Live (@PFT_Live) October 15, 2026
“We don’t know what would have happened if he was healthy,” continued Simms. “That’s where this has to start going with these injury reports and stuff. Bets void if we find out a week later. It’s void. We pay you back even though you lost the game because you weren’t given the right information, even though we told you you were and we made you bet your money.”
After Florio noted that some kind of regulation around sports gambling was likely to happen if Democrats take control of Congress, he brought it back to the issue at hand.
“As it relates to the NFL’s injury report, it is so bare-bones. There would be no suggestion that the Eagles failed to comply,” said Florio. “Now, my question is, should he have been downgraded to questionable at some point?”
Florio and Simms caught a lot of flak on social media for the perception that they put gamblers’ needs ahead of the health of NFL players like Hurts. On Friday’s show, Florio responded to those criticisms, calling out the NFL’s double standard: encouraging people to bet on its games while not providing the fullest picture possible.
The handling of Jalen Hurts’ blood clot raises plenty of questions that probably will never be answered. https://t.co/LGpz6FM3u4
— PFT Live (@PFT_Live) October 16, 2026
“Let me just be clear on this because apparently there are some folks out there on social media who took exception to the fact that Chris and I were making the case on behalf of people who wager their hard-earned money that they are kept in the dark,” said Florio. “That there is inside information out there, that it isn’t available in full and fairly transparent ways to the people who are expected to plunk down their money. And we didn’t know he had a blood clot at the time we said it, but I still believe what we said yesterday. And there are ways to be concerned about Jalen Hurts from a health standpoint and make the point that these injuries are hidden, that the information isn’t shared with the individuals who are out there deciding on the menu of many different wagers where they’re going to put their hard-earned money that they are likely to lose sooner or later.”
But you would think, when you read that statement, at some point over the weekend, aren’t you going to downgrade Jalen Hurts to questionable?”
On PFT, Florio brought the conversation back to the NFL and the Eagles’ decision not to be more transparent about what they knew the day before the Eagles-Jaguars game.
Given that the Eagles specifically said the team had “remained in communication with the league office,” we asked the league office whether it had anything to add — specifically as to the question of why Hurts’s status for the game wasn’t changed at any time to “questionable.”
… Given that, between Saturday and Tuesday, the blood clot moved (making Hurts unavailable for Week 6), it would have been appropriate for the public to know that there was a possibility that, between Saturday and the start of Sunday’s game, the blood clot could move, or Hurts’s condition could otherwise deteriorate.
And, yes, it’s possible to have genuine concern for the player’s health while also pointing out the flaws in the current rules that work to the disadvantage of the betting public. Every injury necessarily represents a negative impact on the player’s health. The question becomes whether or not there is sufficient transparency.
There is, understandably, something that feels crass about discussing the situation in gambling terms. But you could also argue that it’s crass to let people gamble on the outcome of NFL games where players put their bodies on the line in the first place. The NFL has made a decision to profit off of legalized gambling, as is their right. Florio’s and Simms’s questions, as off-putting as they may seem to some, are the kind of uncomfortable ones you’re often forced to ask when Pandora’s box gets opened.