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Jalen Hurts has Broken the NFL Media
By Sean Barnard
Published:
As the famous American philosopher Herm Edwards once stated, “You play to win the game.”
This has been the purpose of sport from its first creation. From the first days of Little League (yes, put those participation trophies away), to what we judge professional athletes on, winning isn’t everything; it is the only thing. While it’s a fair critique to note that the pendulum may have swung a tad too far in this ring culture era, at the end of the day, they play the games for a reason.
Jalen Hurts continues to win at one of the greatest rates of any athlete. The Philadelphia Eagles are 46-20 in games that Hurts has started in his career, including 37-10 over the past three season. He also is 6-3 in the playoffs with two Super Bowl appearances and most recently carved up the Chiefs for 293 combined passing and rushing yards with three total touchdowns on the biggest NFL stage. This was all while Hurts took an early seat on the bench en route to the 40-22 Super Bowl blowout, to which the star QB was less than pleased about:
What do Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, and Lamar Jackson all have in common? They each were handed a loss from Jalen Hurts and company last year as the Eagles cruised to a 14-3 record and were eventually crowned Super Bowl Champions.
The latest media click-farming tactic is to keep Hurts down on each of the quarterback rankings and continue doubling down on prior skepticism. It’s as if every quarterback in the NFL is better than Jalen Hurts, until it is time to actually be better than Jalen Hurts. The reigning Super Bowl MVP is not a perfect quarterback and he likely would be the first to tell you so. But there has to come a point where his resume and accomplishments have to matter more than the nitpicked weaknesses:
People getting fired up about these lists (guilty) is essentially the point of them in the first place. But it’s tough to justify a player like Jayden Daniels skyrocketing to the fifth-best quarterback after just one year in the league. Sure, Daniels had about as great of a rookie year as you can ask for. But a lot of players have looked impressive in their first trip through the league and hit the famous sophomore slump. It was this time last year when C.J. Stroud was being shoved into potential top five conversations after his impressive rookie season. Stroud also sees his name ranked higher than Hurts on most of these lists despite the Eagles’ star posting a better completion percentage, touchdown percentage, interception rate, QB Rating, and total touchdowns while leading his team to more overall success. Justin Herbert also consistently ranked above Jalen Hurts in so many of these rankings. While Herbert may look cool in social media clips throwing go routes with no defense, the 27-year-old has not won a meaningful football game in his life and is freshly off his second stunning playoff flameout. After blowing a 27-0 lead against the Jaguars in his first playoff appearance, the third largest blown lead in NFL playoff history, Herbert one-upped his standards of playoff disasters this year by throwing four interceptions against the Texans and posting a whopping 12.8 QBR as the Texans eliminated the Chargers 32-12 in the opening round. Once again, there comes a certain point when the actual results must matter.
“Just replace Hurts with another quarterback and the Eagles are even better!”
Besides the fact that teams should obviously cater to their quarterback’s skillset, and Philadelphia has 10+ rushing touchdowns from Hurts over each of the past four seasons to show for this, how much better could the Eagles really get? Once again they are 37-10 over the past three seasons with two Super Bowl appearances and a championship in which Hurts was the Super Bowl MVP! It also is not coincidental that A.J. Brown has had the best seasons of his career since coming to Philadelphia and Saquon Barkley broke the single-season rushing record with a high-level quarterback sharing the backfield with him. Is it really fair to dig the heels in and say if Joe Burrow were the Eagles quarterback they would have beaten the Chiefs by 25+ points in the Super Bowl rather than the comfortable 18 cushion the game ended with?
“Any quarterback could succeed in Jalen Hurts’ situation.”
There is no way around acknowledging that the Eagles roster was absolutely loaded last year. Howie Roseman once again proved why he is the most valuable man in all of Philadelphia sports and continues to be three steps ahead of the rest of the NFL. But I would challenge you to find a single quarterback that has won the Super Bowl without a good roster around him. It is easy to forget after one of the most dominant Super Bowl victories in history, but the Chiefs were 1.5-point favorites entering the gameand so much of the conversation leading up to the matchup was about how no one can prevent Patrick Mahomes from adding to his collection of Super Bowl victories.
It also should be made clear that Hurts did not walk into the win-now roster in the way it is often talked about. Rather, it was assembled around him. He was a part of the rebuild into the potential dynasty the organization aspires to be. During his first season as a regular starter in 2021, Quez Watkins and Jalen Reagor ranked third and fourth on the team in receiving yards while the defense ranked 18th in opponent points allowed. By the way, the Eagles went 9-8 that season and still made the playoffs.
The Eagles roster is great, but finding a franchise quarterback in the second round was a part of this being possible. Both on the field and on the cap sheet, Hurts has been just as much of a cause of the strong roster as he has been a beneficiary.
Perhaps the funniest part of all the Jalen Hurts discourse is he is likely the guy who cares the least. The Eagles’ franchise quarterback will continue to echo how he had a purpose before anyone had an opinion as he is smoking cigars in Greece with Michael Jordan. He has kept the main thing the main thing as well as one possibly can and there may not be another player in football history to accomplish all of what Hurts has at age 26 across college and the NFL.
Maybe at some point the conversation will steer back to winning being viewed in the highest light in the way it should. But for the time being keep all the receipts as media members continue to doubt the guy who has given every reason for why you shouldn’t.
Sean Barnard has covered the Philadelphia 76ers and general Philly Sports for over six years in a variety of roles and for multiple outlets. Currently works as a Content Writer for DraftKings Network, Sixers/NBA Insider for Philadelphia's Fox Sports the Gambler, and co-host of Sixers & Phillies Digest on Youtube. Forever Trusting the Process.