Jalen Hurts Out for the Season After Tests Find Blood Clots in Both Lungs

TL;DR: The Eagles announced on Monday, October 19, that further testing gave Jalen Hurts a new diagnosis of deep vein thrombosis and bilateral pulmonary emboli, clots in both lungs. He is stable, has no significant functional limitations, and the team expects a full recovery with no long-term effects. Because his treatment involves blood thinners, during which he cannot take part in contact activities, Hurts will miss the rest of the season. Tanner McKee started Sunday’s 25-14 loss to Carolina and continues as the starter. This article was updated on October 23; the original October 17 version covered the injured-reserve move, when the known problem was a superficial calf clot and a Week 11 return was still being discussed.

The Philadelphia Eagles cleared Jalen Hurts to play a football game in London on October 11, put him on injured reserve six days later, and then watched the diagnosis get worse again. On Monday, October 19, the team announced that further testing had found deep vein thrombosis and bilateral pulmonary emboli, clots in both lungs. The season is over. The treatment is blood thinners, and blood thinners and contact football do not mix.

What did the tests find?

A new diagnosis that replaced the old one. When the Eagles placed Hurts on injured reserve on October 17, the known problem was a clot in his left calf that had moved after a follow-up ultrasound. Monday’s testing found the clots had reached both lungs, and the diagnosis now carries the name bilateral pulmonary emboli. The team’s statement, reported by Reuters via Field Level Media, said Hurts is stable and has no significant functional limitations. His agent, Nicole Lynn, said the same in her own statement and added that the prognosis is good, with a full recovery expected and no long-term effects. The club anticipates he will have the opportunity to resume contact football when he is off the blood thinners.

Why does the treatment end the season?

Because blood thinners do their job by making blood less likely to clot, which is precisely what makes them incompatible with a contact sport. The Eagles’ statement said Hurts is unable to participate in contact activities while on them, and no team will accept the bleeding risk of putting a quarterback on thinners through NFL hits. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported the season is over, matching the announcement coverage from USA TODAY. NBC Sports worded its report more cautiously, as likely out for the season, because the statement itself sets no return date. Either way, there is no path back this year that fits the treatment. Hurts finishes the season with 933 passing yards, eight touchdowns and three interceptions in five starts.

What changed between London and the October 17 move?

One word in a scan report, then a second scan that made the first one look optimistic. Hurts was cleated in the calf against the Los Angeles Rams on October 4, flagged it to the medical staff after practice on October 8, and had an ultrasound in London on October 10 that found a superficial blood clot, the Eagles said in their Thursday statement. Their staff and the London doctors decided activity and mobility were important and that he could safely play, and he played without limitation against Jacksonville, in the game this desk covered for the two ejections on its opening kickoff. The follow-up ultrasound the doctors had recommended came on Wednesday night, and it revealed movement in the small clot. That single finding ruled him out of the Carolina game on Thursday and, by Saturday, put him on injured reserve.

Did the Eagles reverse themselves in public?

Yes, within the same news cycle. Saturday’s first reports, from ESPN’s Adam Schefter and NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, said Philadelphia had no plans to use injured reserve, a position that kept open a return inside four games, Eagles Wire reports. Consultations with numerous doctors and experts continued into Saturday, and the club then announced it was placing Hurts on injured reserve after all. Reversals like this usually read as chaos. This one reads as a club waiting for a medical answer it did not have in the morning, then acting on the answer rather than the plan. The cost of acting was fixed and known: four games minimum, whatever the treatment turned out to be. The October 19 announcement then made the four-game minimum academic.

Who takes over, and what does the roster look like?

Tanner McKee takes over, and the room behind him was rebuilt on Friday. McKee, a 2023 sixth-round pick, made his third career start against Carolina on Sunday, going 26 of 45 for 215 yards and a touchdown in the 25-14 loss that dropped Philadelphia to 2-4, its fourth straight defeat, per USA TODAY. Rookie Cole Payton backs him up, and the Eagles signed Joe Milton III off the Cowboys’ practice squad on Friday, before the injured reserve decision landed. What a team asks of its starter changes completely in this spot, and the quarterback position explainer sets out how much of the offence runs through the role McKee now holds for the rest of the year.

Why does this case feel different from a normal injury absence?

Because the Eagles published their reasoning, and the reasoning changed. Most injured reserve moves arrive as a transaction line. This one came with a dated paper trail: the cleating, the first ultrasound, the decision that playing was safe, the follow-up scan, the movement, then Monday’s deeper diagnosis. That trail is why the London decision will be argued about. The club followed the recommendation attached to the first scan, which was to re-scan within 72 hours of the game and the flight home, and the second scan caught what the first one could not rule out. Philadelphia also said it stayed in contact with the league office throughout. The desk’s recent NFL pages have covered the league policing its own officials, in the suspensions of Jeff Seeman and Adrian Hill, and a franchise volunteering its medical timeline in this much detail is the same instinct from the other side: get the record out before the argument starts.

What happens next for Philadelphia?

Four games of treading water, then the rest of the season. The Eagles are 2-4 after four straight defeats, and the stretch Hurts would have missed under the original injured reserve framing was the softest-looking and most divisional part of their schedule: Carolina first, then three straight NFC East opponents, including a Washington team that let a winnable overtime game run out on the clock this month. The front office now plans around McKee and a 2-4 record, in a division that will not wait. The wider question of whether an elite quarterback is required for a perfect season, covered in do you need an elite quarterback to go 17-0, has been replaced by a plainer one in Philadelphia: how much of this season can be salvaged, and what the roster needs if Hurts’ recovery runs into next spring. Blood clots have ended careers before, a history this site has covered in NBA players diagnosed with life-threatening diseases, which is why the exact prognosis wording from the team and his agent matters more than any outside timeline guess. The next update that matters will not come from a press conference. It will come from the treatment working.

Update note (October 23, 2026): This article originally reported the October 17 injured reserve move, when the known problem was a superficial calf clot and Week 11 was discussed as the earliest possible return. It has been updated with the Eagles’ October 19 announcement of the new diagnosis (deep vein thrombosis and bilateral pulmonary emboli), the blood thinner treatment, and the end of Hurts’ season.