NFL defends Eagles medical staff after Jalen Hurts played in London game with blood clot

By Hannah Keyser, CNN

New York City (CNN) — The NFL on Tuesday publicly and unequivocally defended how the Philadelphia Eagles managed the health of star quarterback Jalen Hurts after ultrasounds revealed blood clots had traveled to his lungs.

Hurts had been initially diagnosed with a superficial blood clot in his leg ahead of the Eagles’ game in London. He played every offensive snap of that game and flew back to Philadelphia, where he was subsequently diagnosed with bilateral pulmonary emboli and deep vein thrombosis and placed on blood thinners that will likely necessitate sitting out the remainder of the season.

On Monday, after the team and Hurts’ agent shared a joint statement detailing the diagnosis, critics questioned the decision to allow Hurts to play in the London game and take a transatlantic flight after a blood clot was discovered.

Throughout a 30-minute press conference on Tuesday at the NFL meetings in New York, Dr. Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer, repeatedly expressed his “tremendous confidence in the Philadelphia Eagles medical staff and all of our medical staff,” as well as the doctors at the Cleveland Clinic in London.

NFL executive vice president Jeff Miller rebuked what he called “considerable and uninformed speculation” which, on Monday, included reports that Hurts had not slept for 36 hours prior to the team’s game in London. The Eagles, like many teams playing abroad, had conversations with their players about the best way to handle the time difference between Philadelphia and London.

Sills pushed back on the implication that football factored into the medical care Hurts received while in London.

“Any idea or any suggestion that a team physician is ever being influenced by a coach, a general manager, a team owner, it just doesn’t happen,” he said.

However, several times he referenced the “shared decision-making” that doctors engage in with patients, seeming to imply that Hurts was an active participant of the process that led to him participating in the London game. He cited privacy concerns in declining to discuss Hurts’ situation specifically and resisted any sweeping hypothetical reviews of blood clot prognoses and procedures more broadly, citing the nuances of individual cases.

“We don’t have a protocol about this,” Sills said, contrasting it with established guidelines for issues like concussions.

The league does track blood clots and shares with the NFL Players Association.

“I don’t think you can take that outcome and say there was something flawed about the process,” Sills said. “Sometimes in medicine, we do all the right things and diseases progress and other things develop. I would look at the opposite side of that and say, in this case, everyone was incredibly conservative and incredibly vigilant and was very quick to make diagnoses of these conditions that might not have been diagnosed in a non-athlete.”

Asked specifically by CNN Sports whether the NFL conducted an investigation into exactly what did happen or whether they were simply confident that the Eagles’ staff did what should have, Miller said, “Both talking to the Eagles’ staff and making sure from people on the ground, tracking the case, talking to the independent hospital and doctors involved that we have, I think, a complete understanding of the course of events.”

On Tuesday night, however, the NFLPA put out a statement saying: “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.”

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