The NFL Players Association wants a full investigation into the medical care Jalen Hurts received before his blood clot spread to his lungs. In a statement on Tuesday night, Oct. 20, the union said it knew of no league review of the case and that the NFL had already told it there would not be one.
The statement came a few hours after league officials used the first day of the owners’ fall meeting in New York to defend the Philadelphia Eagles’ doctors and call some of the reporting on the case “uninformed”. Earlier in the day, Jonathan Jones reported that the NFL would not punish the Eagles over how they handled the clot or over Hurts carrying no injury designation for the game in London.
The NFLPA’s full statement
“The NFLPA is not aware of any NFL investigation into the medical care provided to Jalen Hurts. In fact, the league previously informed the union that it did not plan to review the care he received. Before conclusions are drawn about how this situation was handled, there must be a full investigation into what occurred. Determining the facts is essential to ensuring players receive the highest level of care and protection going forward.”
NFL Players Association calling for a full investigation into the handling of the Jalen Hurts Situation
— Jeff Skversky (@JeffSkversky) October 21, 2026
#NFLPA statement on #JalenHurts
“The NFLPA is not aware of any NFL investigation into the medical care provided to Jalen Hurts. In fact, the league previously informed the union that it did not plan to review the care he received. Before conclusions are drawn about how this situation was handled, there must be a full investigation into what occurred. Determining the facts is essential to ensuring players receive the highest level of care and protection going forward.” pic.twitter.com/X0fgL21P3v
Tim McManus reported that the union was responding both to the comments from Allen Sills, the league’s chief medical officer, and to the reports that the Eagles would face no discipline.
What the league said on Tuesday
The NFL released its own statement earlier on Tuesday. “The league had been in contact throughout the process with the Eagles medical personnel, and the Cleveland Clinic in London where the tests were conducted,” it read. It said Sills arranges medical resources with leading providers in every international market “with approval from the NFL Players Association,” and that “medical care for players is provided by club medical staff in coordination with independent doctors.”
The league statement also disputed the reports that Hurts went about 36 hours without sleep before the game. “That was not true and no one told him not to sleep because of his situation,” it said, adding that the club had asked everyone in the traveling party to stay awake as long as they could on the Saturday because the team was flying home after the game. Jeff Miller, the league’s executive vice president for health and safety, said Hurts “returned to the hotel, slept for a period of time and went to the stadium,” and put that rest at about seven or eight hours.
Sills said he has “complete confidence” in the Eagles’ medical staff and called their work “very conservative, very patient-focused and appropriately guarded at every step.” He added: “I don’t think you can take that outcome and say there was something flawed about the process. Sometimes in medicine, we do all the right things and diseases progress and other things develop.”
How the case got here
Hurts’ clot is traced to a cleat to the left calf in the Eagles’ Week 4 loss to the Los Angeles Rams. Specialists in London found a superficial clot the night before the Oct. 11 game against Jacksonville, and he started anyway, carrying no game designation. Follow-up tests back in Philadelphia showed the clot had moved, and on Monday, Oct. 19, the Eagles and his agent, Nicole Lynn, said the diagnosis was now a deep vein thrombosis with clots in both lungs. He is on injured reserve, is being treated with blood thinners and is expected to miss the rest of the season, though the statement said he should make a full recovery.
Nick Sirianni said on Monday that he has “full trust” in the club’s medical staff. The Eagles, who are 2-4, host the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday with Hurts sidelined.
What comes next
The owners’ meeting ends on Wednesday, Oct. 21, and Roger Goodell normally holds a news conference when it closes, in the late afternoon New York time, which is late evening in Cairo. The union’s request and the league’s decision not to open a review are likely to be among the first questions he gets. The NFL had not publicly answered the NFLPA’s statement by early Wednesday.
No published comments yet. Start the conversation.