Jalen Hurts is likely to miss the rest of the season after an ultrasound revealed blood clots in his lungs. Thankfully, he’s now restricted from playing for the immediate future, meaning he won’t be risking serious complications – or even his life – as he did when he played in their Week 5 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars in London.

Hurts complained to the Eagles medical staff of calf pain on 8 October, according to ESPN. The Eagles say that Hurts flew to London with the rest of the team and, out of an “abundance of caution,” was given an ultrasound. The test found a superficial clot in his calf. Doing the ultrasound before the flight would’ve been the most prudent thing. The same for making him inactive after the clot was found. But instead, he played in the game on 11 October, as the medical staff and doctors in London agreed “that activity and mobility were important.” Hurts also practiced all last week before a follow-up ultrasound also found clots in his lungs.

Some have celebrated Hurts’s performance against the Jaguars as a feat of virility; to many it looks more like putting a player in real danger. His blood clots could have caused serious health issues during the flights or game (one sports medicine doctor told NJ.com that Hurts was “a walking risk”). If his condition was dire enough that doctors reportedly told him in the early hours of Sunday morning not to sleep before the Jaguars game, he shouldn’t have been playing. Hurts’s agent, Nicole Lynn, clarified that he did get some sleep before facing the Jaguars, but the question remains: Was the NFL’s London showcase so important that it was worth risking Hurts’s life?

Asked about his decision to play Hurts, Eagles coach Nick Sirianni told reporters that he relies on advice from medical staff. “I’m a football coach. I lean on our medical experts in every situation,” he said. “I have full trust and full faith in them. It’s not just me that has major care for our players. It’s them as well.”

The Super Bowl LIX MVP is on blood thinners and hopefully on the road to healing, and is expected to make a full recovery. But his ordeal is the latest example of how football players are put in danger season after season. One piece of research from 2017 found that a college player took hits to his head during a single game that were equivalent to multiple car crashes. A study published this year found that 215 of 235 brains of former NFL players donated for research showed signs of CTE, a degenerative brain disease that can only be diagnosed after death. The NFL has said that it “continuously strives to make the game of football safer, including by implementing ⁠strategies to reduce concussions and head impacts” but players keep on suffering concussions, and others like Hurts find themselves in a football culture where playing through injury is commonplace.

Last Wednesday, Hurts told reporters that his last week had been a “very unique experience” but declined to reveal the blood clot. No one has reported that he received any undue pressure from the Eagles or the league to play against the Jaguars. But it wouldn’t be shocking; this isn’t even the Eagles’ first controversial injury in London. In 2018, former Eagles tackle Lane Johnson was reportedly “berated” by general manager Howie Roseman for saying he was unsure about playing because of a high ankle sprain. After suiting up, Roseman reportedly told him, “Good, you have your mouthpiece in, now you can’t say anything stupid.” Neither man has commented on the matter, but it appears to offer a glimpse of life in the good ol’ NFL, where admitting you’re impaired is stupidity. Johnson aggravated the ankle injury and suffered a knee injury during the game.

Football culture demands that players “tough it out” and get on the field. As former NFL receiver Bernard Berrian has said, the tension “isn’t verbal” but is still “there” because, “as we say, you can’t make the team in the training room.” Former running back Clinton Portis echoed Berrian when he spoke about playing through 10 concussions in his career and rarely getting treatment: “You can’t make the club in the tub.” Portis said he was “really scared” of undergoing testing to assess his neurological health.

You can see how the culture of the NFL makes players behave this way. With only 61% of NFL contracts containing guarantees, and an average 56% year-to-year retention, the pressure to stay active and keep the checks coming in is rampant. Pretty much every job pressures its employees to perform in some capacity; only one entails 300-pound men running full speed to tackle you for 17 games a year. Players shouldn’t be made to feel like they need to be on the field, but the irrational “win now” pressure that they face trickles down and paints them in two colors: an asset or expendable. It’s inherently inhumane.

The NFL has attempted to address injuries, and the threat of concussion and CTE in particular, but those efforts don’t seem to be enough. The league has changed kickoff rules and introduced oversized Guardian Caps to mitigate concussions, but football’s physical risks persist. A 2018 study in the Brain Neurology Journal revealed that subconcussive hits also contribute to CTE. And a 2025 Wisconsin School of Medicine study concluded that Guardian Caps did not reduce concussion rates in a sample of high school players. It’s unclear what seismic changes could actually address football’s inherent brutality. And the NFL’s struggles to stop it shows they’re unsure – or don’t care enough – too.

Hurts’s case also raises the specter of medical racism. Multiple studies have shown that Black people and other minorities in the US are less likely to receive adequate medical care than white people. It’s impossible to say whether the staff who treated Hurts looked at a strapping Black athlete and believed he could play a brutal game while suffering from blood clots. But the incident nonetheless conjures historical patterns and lived experiences of Black people not receiving proper care.

Hopefully Hurts gets back on the field and has a long, healthy career. Regardless, the Eagles’ handling of his treatment should be a demarcation point for the league. From the top down, the league needs to stop treating their labor force like cattle on a farm, as if their sole worth is in putting their bodies at risk.