Jalen Hurts’ Passing Numbers Collapse in Wind, Data Shows — And Tom Brady Predicted Why

Jalen Hurts has a wind problem, and the numbers now back it up.

Back in January, the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback struggled through a Wild Card Round loss to the San Francisco 49ers, a game played into gusts as high as 28 mph at Lincoln Financial Field. Hurts finished 20 of 35 for just 168 yards and a single touchdown in that 23-19 defeat. San Francisco went on to get blown out by the Seattle Seahawks the following week, a result that likely made Philadelphia’s exit sting even more for head coach Nick Sirianni.

During Fox’s broadcast that night, Tom Brady offered a technical explanation for why certain quarterbacks fall apart in heavy wind. He broke down how the angle of a quarterback’s release affects the ball’s flight path when air resistance gets involved.

“Looking at it from this angle, this is kind of like a neutral plane, and this is when the point is slightly down. When you’re throwing into the wind, it has to be neutral; if the point of the ball is up, any wind friction is going to push that ball up over the top,” Brady said, according to the broadcast.

He continued by explaining that a release coming from below the ball tends to point its nose upward, and that in strong wind, extra surface area on the ball gets exposed to resistance, throwing off its path.

The stats behind Brady’s theory

An Eagles-focused analyst who posts under the handle Eagles Eric dug into that theory this week, breaking down Hurts’ release mechanics on tape and cross-referencing them against wind conditions across his starts.

Eagles Eric posted on X: “I analyzed a lot of Hurts throws & he often uses the U-shaped release. So I investigated if it hurts him in the wind… turns out Tom Brady may be…” —

Tom Brady talked about how a U-shaped release can leave the nose of the football too high, making it harder to cut through wind.

I analyzed a lot of Hurts throws & he often uses the U-shaped release.

So I investigated if it hurts him in the wind… turns out Tom Brady may be… https://t.co/tPju2xoSmC pic.twitter.com/LOKSbiyVSF

— Eagles Eric (@EaglesXsandOs) August 13, 2026

The numbers he shared line up with what Brady described. Hurts’ Expected Points Added (EPA) per pass — a metric that measures how much a given play moves a team’s odds of scoring relative to expectation — holds steady in calm conditions and drops off sharply once the wind climbs into double digits.

That last figure is the one that stands out. Hurts’ efficiency per pass in windy conditions works out to less than half of what he produces on a calm day, according to the numbers shared by Eagles Eric. “Turns out Tom Brady may be onto something,” the analyst wrote in the same post.

Why the mechanics matter

The explanation Brady gave comes down to basic aerodynamics. A football thrown with the nose tilted up presents more of its surface to oncoming air, and in gusty conditions that extra resistance can push the ball off its intended line before it ever reaches a receiver. A tighter, more neutral spiral cuts through that resistance instead of fighting it.

Hurts’ release, according to Eagles Eric’s film review, tends to come from a lower arm slot that produces exactly the kind of upward-tilted release point Brady described. It’s a mechanical quirk that may not show up much on a still afternoon, but becomes a real liability once wind gusts start pushing 20 mph or more — conditions Philadelphia will likely see again at some point deep in a playoff run, given how often postseason football in the Northeast runs into late-season weather.

None of this means Hurts can’t be effective in the wind going forward. Mechanical tendencies like this one are the kind of thing quarterbacks and their position coaches can work on in the offseason. But if Sirianni and the Eagles’ coaching staff want to avoid a repeat of that Wild Card performance, Hurts’ release angle in bad weather looks like a real place to start.