The Philadelphia Eagles might have thought they were about to get the NFL version of the NBA’s Michael Jordan flu game.

Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts had been designated as questionable for Monday night’s game against the Seattle Seahawks because he was sick – ill enough that the NFL team flew its quarterback to the West Coast apart from his teammates.

But Hurts started the game’s opening series with a 13-yard run, ended it with a 3-yard touchdown carry and completed 5-of-5 passes for 39 yards in between.

In the rest of the game, Hurts completed 12-of-26 passes for 104 yards and had two long throws intercepted in the fourth quarter.

That left the door open for Seattle to win 20-17 when rookie wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba caught a 29-yard touchdown pass from backup quarterback Drew Lock with 28 seconds remaining.

“He really fought hard,” Philadelphia coach Nick Sirianni said about Hurts. “He was not feeling well at all. …

“He fought through it. Being sick like that is no fun, and having to play in the rain and the cold, so he fought through, and I appreciate his effort tonight to fight through some tough times.”

However, Hurts declined to blame his illness for the loss.

“All of that is really irrelevant at this point,” Hurts said after the game. “We didn’t play good enough. I didn’t play good enough. …

“We had multiple opportunities in the game to open it up, and we didn’t do that. I didn’t do that. I didn’t do my job good enough.”

For the first time since the opening month of Hurts’ first season as the No. 1 quarterback, Philadelphia has a three-game losing streak with the former Alabama standout as its starting QB. Between the pair of three-game slides, the Eagles compiled a 31-6 record in regular-season games started by Hurts.

“I hate losing,” Hurts said. “But when you play like you deserve to lose, it’s hard to beat that.”

Hurts ran for a season-high 82 yards on 13 carries against Seattle, and he also scored on a 1-yard quarterback sneak that gave Philadelphia a 17-10 lead with 4:43 left in the third quarter and moved him into a tie for the most rushing touchdowns by a quarterback in one season in NFL history. Hurts matched the 14 touchdown runs of the Carolina Panthers’ Cam Newton in 2011.

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But a 20-yard run by Hurts was Philadelphia’s longest play from scrimmage of the game. The quarterback’s longest completion gained 18 yards.

The Eagles already have a spot waiting in the NFC playoff field, and at 10-4, they’re in contention for a conference’s No. 1 seed and bye in the first round of the postseason. They’re also in danger of winding up behind the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC East standings and having to open the playoffs on the road after adding the loss to Seattle to a 42-19 defeat by the San Francisco 49ers on Dec. 3 and a 33-13 setback against the Cowboys on Dec. 10.

“We have to make like an internal change in how we attack things, how we come to work every day,” Hurts said. “It starts with the little things, how committed we are to doing what we’re going. And that all starts with me, the quarterback. It’s a challenge that I’m embracing – I have embraced.

“As tough as these times are, I still see light at the end of the tunnel. It’s just a matter of believing. This one hurts. It hurts bad. It hurts bad just knowing the opportunities we had out there. But ‘So what? Now what?’ How do we attack the future? How do we attack what’s in front of us. We still have an opportunity to do something special. We got to clean a lot of things up, though, to do what we want to do.”

Philadelphia hosts the New York Giants at 3:30 p.m. CST Monday, then has a home game against the Arizona Cardinals on Dec. 31 before completing their regular-season schedule on the road against the Giants on Jan. 7.

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1