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Jalen Hurts Ranked Ninth-Best QB in Poll of NFL Coaches, Executives, and Scouts
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ESPN is doing a summer series with a ranking of NFL players at various positions. This isn’t typical rage bait though, because the voters are league executives, coaches, and scouts. Those opinions carry a little more weight than your typical radio blowhard or YouTube streamer.
Jalen Hurts finished 9th among quarterbacks.
Here’s a portion of the blurb:
“He had a better year running the ball, and the way he played down the stretch when healthy was impressive,” said an AFC executive who voted Hurts in the top five. “Better throwing the ball in general this year and cut out the turnovers.”
When asked to be a high-volume thrower in 2023 (538 attempts), Hurts struggled taking care of the ball, resulting in 15 interceptions. To his credit, he cut that number down to five in 2024, though on far fewer attempts (361).
The question isn’t whether Hurts belongs in the top 10 — he undoubtedly does. It’s whether he has the ability from the pocket to vault into the top five eventually, as his Super Bowl pedigree would suggest he could.
More than a few voters see shades of a Russell Wilson career arc — Hurts has many traits that contribute to winning at a high level but needs a steady running game around him and wouldn’t necessarily thrive in a pass-heavy system.
The top eight was Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, Jayden Daniels, Matt Stafford, Justin Herbert, and Jared Goff.
You look through the quotes in the story and it’s very similar to the local discussions surrounding Hurts. There are people who view him as a dual-threat quarterback who benefited from having Saquon Barkley and the league’s best offensive line. And when he did have to throw it, they’ll argue that he had Pro Bowlers in A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. That’s fine, if you want to make the argument that other quarterbacks are capable of doing more with less, but the bottom line is that the Eagles did what was best for them en route to a dominating Super Bowl win, and within this offense Hurts did everything he was asked to do. He ran when he needed to run, threw the ball when he needed to throw, cut down on the turnovers and executed when it mattered.
It’s hard to argue that he’s better than Mahomes or Allen or Burrow or Jackson at this point, but the Daniels lovefest is sickening and the other three guys can’t do anything that Hurts does with his feet. It really depends how you view the quarterback position in 2025 and how much value you place on the running side. The story says that Hurts “wouldn’t necessarily thrive in a pass-heavy system,” but is that the criteria for QB rankings? Is it only about throwing the ball? Seems like that’s what voters are saying.
Of course, you’ve got all of these other qualities that can’t be defined, then packaged neatly into a ranking. How do you evaluate things like mettle, leadership, and mindset? You don’t. You can’t. But Hurts has them and other QBs don’t. This, we know.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com