PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Jalen Hurts has been around the Eagles' facility and could still be a resource for new No. 1 quarterback Tanner McKee or any other teammate who wants to talk to him.
He's just not likely taking any more snaps this season — and the Eagles face a tough road to the playoffs without him.
Philadelphia can at least move on to Monday night's game against Dallas without Hurts' playing status serving as a lingering question mark.
Hurts is on injured reserve and expected to miss the rest of the season after a blood clot in his left calf traveled to his lungs. The Eagles and agent Nicole Lynn said Monday that Hurts has deep vein thrombosis and bilateral pulmonary emboli.
His treatment involves blood thinners, and Hurts will not be allowed to participate in any football activities until he is off them.
Hurts was six games into his fifth season as Philadelphia’s starting quarterback. He was Super Bowl MVP when the Eagles won it all two years ago. Hurts was injured when he took a cleat to his calf area on Oct. 4 in a game against the Los Angeles Rams.
Commissioner Roger Goodell said this week the NFL welcomed an investigation into the Eagles’ handling of Hurts’ blood clots after the players’ union asked for one.
Eagles coach Nick Sirianni declined on Thursday to answer questions about a potential investigation.
So where does that leave the Eagles?
Philadelphia (2-4) has lost four consecutive games for the first time since 2020. They play in one of the worst divisions in the NFL and have three straight NFC East games ahead that could determine their fate. The Giants are just 3-2-1 and are in first place, easily catchable with enough time left in the season to earn the automatic playoff spot that comes with winning a division — no matter how bad a record.
The path starts now.
Sirianni said after Sunday's loss to Carolina that “everything's on the table” when it comes to trying to fix the offense.
Well, everything but finding a new offensive coordinator.
Sirianni said beleaguered offensive coordinator Sean Mannion was still the play-caller. He otherwise offered few specifics on what could change against Dallas.
“Without getting too much into scheme, I’m saying to you, obviously it hasn’t looked the way we wanted it to look and we’re not scoring enough points,” Sirianni said. “So, everything is on the table. Again, I’ll do everything we can do. Our coaches will do everything we can do to help us win football games.”
Mannion was hired away from Green Bay in January and is the Eagles’ fifth offensive coordinator in five seasons.
The Eagles have scored only 58 points during their four-game losing streak and have not hit 300 yards of total offense since Week 2.
“We haven’t yielded the results that we want or expect as an offense thus far, but our mindset in terms of looking for every advantage that we can bring to ourselves, in terms of what we’re studying from our opponent, from what’s happening around the league, and trying to bring as many good ideas, fresh ideas to the table, put our guys in the best position possible,” Mannion said this week.
McKee has had a bit of an odd season starting from training camp when the Eagles brought in veteran Andy Dalton to challenge for the backup job.
McKee was seemingly slow to adjust to Mannion's new system and lost his grip on the backup job to Dalton. Dalton threw one pass — an interception — in a loss at Chicago and was eventually cut.
McKee also only had two days of first-team reps headed into the Carolina game and has now had a full week to prepare headed into Monday night. McKee finished 26 of 45 for 215 yards and a touchdown against the Panthers in the first meaningful start of his four-year career.
McKee didn’t turn the ball over in a game where the Eagles had only one running back attempt carries.
Mannion said McKee was a good fit for the offense.
“I think he’s really sharp mentally; he’s accurate, he gets the ball out of his hands quickly,” Mannion said. “I think he does all the things that you ask of a quarterback in terms of his pre-snap operation, and being able to use his cadence (and) being able to handle things at the line of scrimmage if you need adjustments. I think he’s strong in a lot of those areas, and I think it opens up some things for us offensively."
Mannion said Hurts has “been around” but everyone's priority is his recovery from the clots and his long-term health. Sirianni said Thursday that was no pressure on Hurts to stay around the team during his recovery.
“I think that’s fluid, and we’ll see where that is as we continue on through this,” he said.
In the building or through a mobile device, Hurts has remained a valuable asset for McKee and the Eagles.
“I talked to him very frequently; I texted him last night,” McKee said. “We have a really good relationship. He's been an incredible role model, teammate, example, leader. Even in this situation that he's in; he's continued to be that for me.”
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Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts (1) stands on the field during an NFL football game against Jacksonville Jaguars in London, Sunday, Oct. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A first-of-its-kind cancer vaccine is significantly reducing the chances that melanoma patients’ tumors come back, according to results of a major study released Thursday by drugmakers Moderna and Merck.
The vaccine was custom-brewed for each patient to match their tumor. Adding it to a standard post-surgery treatment reduced by 42% the risk of melanoma returning two years after surgery, according to the most advanced study to date of this new strategy for fighting cancer.
“The field has been looking for a win and I think this one is a big one,” said Dr. Hussein Tawbi of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, one of the researchers in the international study.
The vaccine, called intismeran, is made with the same Nobel Prize-winning mRNA technology that was behind COVID-19 vaccines. Experimental personalized cancer vaccines made with mRNA and some other approaches also are being tested against other types of cancer including lung, kidney and pancreatic.
Experts not involved with the new study say its success bolsters the field.
“This is a new frontier,” said Karen Knudsen, CEO of the Parker Institute, which helps fund cancer immunotherapy research.
“It’s a big step forward for science, for oncology, because this vaccine will apply to many different cancers,” said Dr. Michael Atkins, deputy director of Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Moderna and Merck had announced in August that the late-stage trial of intismeran was successful but the detailed results were set to be released Saturday at a meeting of the European Society of Medical Oncology in Madrid. Some of the data was leaked publicly late Thursday, prompting a full release ahead of the weekend's scientific presentation.
Most people think of vaccines as preventing an infection, like measles or whooping cough. There are already two cancer-preventing vaccines, the HPV and hepatitis B shots that block infection from those tumor-causing viruses. And research is underway to prevent some types of inherited cancer such as Lynch syndrome-caused colorectal cancer.
But a personalized vaccine designed to block surgically-removed cancer from returning is very different. For the intismeran study, scientists hunted gene mutations unique to each patient’s tumor, mutations that create proteins which shouldn’t be in the body unless those cancer cells start to grow again. The custom vaccine — nine doses given three weeks apart — teaches the patient’s immune system to watch out for and attack those so-called neoantigens.
How did it work? The study included more than 1,100 people with high-risk melanoma that was surgically removed. Everyone was given the standard follow-up therapy: Merck’s immunotherapy named Keytruda. The participants were randomly assigned to also receive custom-brewed vaccine doses or a placebo.
Two years later, 82% of the people in the vaccine group were still living without a recurrence of their cancer compared to 70% who had gotten standard Keytruda alone. The trial is continuing to track participants’ longer-term outcomes.
In 2024, Tony Hout joined the vaccine trial at MD Anderson after seeking care for a spot on his ear that had been bleeding intermittently and wouldn’t fully heal. Doctors recognized melanoma and during surgery discovered it had started to spread.
“I want to make sure I’m doing everything I can to be here for my family,” said Hout, 62, who has since moved to Cayuga, Indiana, and travels back to Houston every few months for a study check-up. Scans this week showed he’s still cancer-free.
The vaccine’s side effects were mainly the sore arm, fatigue and other reactions typical of mRNA coronavirus vaccination, MD Anderson's Tawbi said.
Moderna and Merck are talking with regulatory authorities about next steps for seeking approval of the vaccine.
Customized medicines generally are very expensive. The drugmakers aren’t discussing what such a cancer vaccine might cost.
But Moderna President Stephen Hoge said the company’s special cancer vaccine manufacturing facility in Massachusetts is providing doses for thousands of people enrolled in multiple studies underway internationally.
Hoge said it takes a few days to brew the vaccine but the whole process, starting with analyzing the tumor genetics to come up with what is essentially a recipe for each patient, can take roughly six weeks, sometimes more. Meanwhile, the melanoma patients had already started their standard Keytruda, a different kind of immunotherapy.
Moderna shares dropped 18% Thursday after the study’s full results were made public, but they remained more than 200% higher than they were in late August before investors were first told of the initial results.
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In this image made from video, Tony Hout, right, walks with his wife Kim, at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Monday, Oct. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Lekan Oyekanmi)
In this image made from video, Tony Hout is examined by Dr. Hussein Tawbi at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Monday, Oct. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Lekan Oyekanmi)
In this image made from video, Tony Hout, left, talks with Dr. Hussein Tawbi at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Monday, Oct. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Lekan Oyekanmi)
