Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts smiles on the podium after a win over the Kansas City Chiefs during the NFL Super Bowl 59 football game, Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Keeping the main thing as the main thing has kept Jalen Hurts one step ahead of his critics.
By Chris Murray
For the Philadelphia Sunday SUN
NEW ORLEANS— Throughout his football career, Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts has faced more than his share of doubt.
From being benched by University of Alabama coach Nick Saban in the 2017 national championship, to transferring to the University of Oklahoma, to the near-constant doubt that he could ever be an NFL franchise quarterback, Hurts has had naysayers throughout his career.
And he’s always proven them wrong.
Hurts has a 52-23 as a starting quarterback in the NFL including regular season and postseason despite the constant noise that often criticizes him because he doesn’t put up the 300-yard games like Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow or Patrick Mahomes.
“Jalen’s special and the criticism just blows my mind because I think he’s so special, and he’s won so many games and works his butt off,” said Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni. “He just continues to get better and can block out everything, focus on the task at hand of getting better, and put himself in the position to win each week.”
Two years removed from that heartbreaking loss to the Kansas Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII and one year removed from the Eagles’ devastating late-season collapse after a 10-1 start, Hurts, for all the world to see, showed why his will to succeed often leads to wins for Philadelphia.
“I took great pride in never backing down from a challenge, always turning my negatives into positives, my weaknesses into strengths,” Hurts said in his post-Super Bowl press conference.
In the Eagles’ 40-22 win over two-time defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs, Hurts took home the Pete Rozelle Trophy as the Most Valuable Player of Super Bowl LIX. In a game where the Kansas City defense held running back Saquon Barkley to a playoff-low 57-yard rushing, Hurts, like a good point guard, put the game in his hands and found a way to win.
“It’s been a long journey,” he said. “It’s a journey of ups and downs and highs and lows. I’ve always stayed true to myself and have this vision of being the best that I can be, and that evolved, over time, into this desire to win.”
Hurts beat the Chiefs with his arm and his legs. He completed 17-of 22 passes (77. 3 percent) for 221 yards and two touchdowns with a 119. 7 quarterback rating. He also broke his own Super Bowl rushing record for a quarterback by gaining 72 yards on the ground and became the first quarterback in the history of the Super Bowl to run for at least 50 yards and pass for 200 in two Super Bowls.
Coming into this game, there was the assumption that if the Chiefs stopped Barkley and the Birds’ running game, Hurts would crack under the pressure of the blitzes Kansas City defensive coordinator Steve Spagnola would throw at him.
When Spagnola did dial up some blitzes, especially coming up the middle or off the corner, Hurts made big plays with both his arm and his legs. According to Pro Football Focus.com, the Chiefs generated pressure on Hurts three times on 12 blitzes.
And none of them had the desired effect.
“Hurts was poised the whole game, he was in control, he made checks, and he threw dimes. He just gave us opportunities, and when we were covered a little bit, he took off running – he used his legs,” wide receiver A.J. Brown, a vocal critic of the passing game at times during the regular season, said.
If you’re still not convinced that Hurts is one of the better quarterbacks in the league, in the last two years, he has wins over Mahomes (two-time NFL MVP, three-time Super Bowl MVP), Allen (2024 MVP), Lamar Jackson (two-time NFL MVP), and Joe Burrow. In his last three, including last Sunday’s Super Bowl, he has outplayed Mahomes, arguably the greatest quarterback of his generation, three times and is 2-1 against him.
And now, he has a Super Bowl Ring and a Super Bowl MVP—something that Jackson, Allen and Burrow don’t have right now.
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