For Black Eagles Fans, “Blood Clot” Is Not Just an Injury Update

By James Peterson

For every person who has ever rooted for Jalen Hurts, I hope you will root now for his full recovery. The Philadelphia Eagles and Hurts’ agent say he is clinically stable, has a very good prognosis, and is expected to recover fully. That is the first thing we should note. But it is not the only thing we are allowed to ask. While the NFL is “staunchly” defending the Eagles in this moment, the NFL Players Union is calling for a full investigation. No surprise here, but the Union is right.

For football fans, and for Eagles fans in particular, too many questions remain. How did the team decide Hurts could play in London after an ultrasound showed a clot in his calf? What did the doctors know about its location and risk? Why did they clear him to fly home after the game? Who was in the room when those decisions were made, and what did they understand about the danger? 

The public timeline is unsettling: Hurts reported calf pain after the October 4 game; the team says an ultrasound in London on October 10 found a superficial vein thrombosis; he played the next day; a follow-up scan on October 15 showed movement in the clot; later evaluations identified deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary emboli in both lungs.

The Eagles say their medical staff and doctors in London concluded Hurts could safely play because activity and mobility were important, and recommended another ultrasound within 72 hours after the game and return flight. That is the rationale the organization has offered. It does not answer the litany of questions about the risk assessment or the organization’s decision-making process. Head coach Nick Sirianni says he trusts the medical experts and is not a medical expert himself. But trust is not transparency.

A report surfaced that Hurts was awake for 36 hours before the game. His agent later clarified that he did get some sleep before taking the field. The exact amount of rest remains in question. Even if he slept, the larger question remains: How in the world did this man, this human being, wind up playing after a clot had been found? How was the decision made that it was safe for him to play, and then to fly across the Atlantic? 

The Eagles’ work-hard underdog identity has, in some ways, reflected this city. Philadelphia sees itself in the franchise: a grit-first football team, teeming with potential and power. I have rooted for this franchise because of this. But fanbase loyalty never requires silence. We trust this organization with our money, our time, and our hearts. When a player’s health is at stake, the team has to meet that trust with candor. No win-loss record or roster debate matters more than whether a human being’s health was put first.

We have to wonder what they comprehend when they hear the words “blood clot.” For many of us, we hear it with a Jamaican vernacular intonation, with the force of a curse on the spirit, an anathema to human health. We hear something life-threatening. We have seen it in our families and communities. That experience is not universal, and I will not pretend that white fans do not fear for Jalen. But the burden of venous blood clots is not evenly distributed, and that disparity shapes what the phrase means in the minds, hearts, and experiences of many Black people.

Venous thromboembolism, or VTE, includes deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE). DVT is a clot in a deep vein, often in the leg. A PE occurs when part of a clot travels to the lungs and blocks blood flow; it can be life-threatening. A 2019 review of U.S. research found VTE incidence rates roughly 30 to 100 percent higher among Black Americans than white Americans. In the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study, estimated lifetime risk from ages 45 to 85 was 11.5 percent for Black participants and 6.9 percent for white participants. Those are population estimates, not a prediction about any one person. And they are not a reason to mistake race for biology or to assume that every Black person faces the same risk.

The disparity is not only about who develops a clot. A New York City medical-examiner study of 578 people who died from PE outside a hospital found race-adjusted annual rates of 3.73 per 100,000 among Black residents, compared with 1.15 among white residents—more than three times as high. In that study, Black and Hispanic people who died of out-of-hospital PE were significantly younger than white people. This pattern is plain enough to make the phrase “blood clot” land differently in Black communities.

The root cause for these disparities is, as usual, complicated. Individual genetic variation may matter, but race is not a genetic explanation. Researchers point to the unequal distribution of chronic conditions and exposures, differences in income and access to timely care, and structural racism across health systems and daily life.  Still, we should be careful about reducing a complex disparity to a single cause. We should be just as careful not to explain it away.

Jalen Hurts is a world-class athlete with access to elite clinicians, rapid imaging, and specialists. That should help him. It does not make him immune to a condition that disproportionately harms Black people, or answer whether the medical risks were weighed correctly. He is not as exposed to some barriers as many Black patients are; he has the resources to access care on-demand. But money and fame cannot erase every disparity. Access can’t either. The point is not that Hurts’ case proves racial bias. It is that racial disparities make the stakes of this case resonate in a specific way for us — thereby making transparent answers all the more important.

Jeffrey Lurie and the Eagles should explain the safety process. Who participated in the decision to clear Hurts to play and travel? What standards apply when an NFL player has a clot? Is there an independent medical review available to all players that is competent about racial disparities in health outcomes? Will the team examine whether its protocols should change? Hurts does not owe fans his complete medical chart. The organization does owe its players and the public an honest account of its own decisions.

The Eagles must also DO something with the attention this moment has drawn. Jeffrey Lurie and his family, alongside the Eagles Autism Foundation, have contributed more than $100 million to autism research and care. That is an extraordinary commitment. A meaningful investment in research, prevention, public education, and timely diagnosis around blood clots, with a focus on the racial disparities that cost Black people their lives could help save lives, too. I am asking the Eagles to bring that same urgency and imagination to blood clots. Work with clinicians, researchers, and Black communities. Make the effort public. Share it across the NFL.

When the next football game is played, root for Jalen Hurts to recover fully. Root for him to have a life and a future bigger than football. And keep asking the questions. For many of us, “blood clot” is not an ordinary phrase in an injury report. It is a warning with history behind it, a fear we recognize in our bodies and our families. The Eagles can honor the trust of this city by telling us what they can, revisiting what needs review, and helping confront the disparities that make this story feel all too familiar to Black fans of the franchise.