The word "disrespect" has been thrown around quite a bit this spring and summer, especially when it comes to Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts and where the national media and NFL pundits have ranked him among the game's best at his position.
The perception of Hurts outside the Delaware Valley is much blurrier than inside, where the Super Bowl MVP might be the most popular local athlete and, according to a very large – or just very loud – faction of the base, one of the very best quarterbacks currently playing the sport.
A lot of local sports chatter lately has centered on why Hurts is not only considered outside the upper crust of the NFL's quarterback fraternity, but not even among the top five.
In our recent "Jalen Hurts snub tracker," four prominent sports media outlets kept Hurts outside their top five. His highest ranking, seventh overall, came from NBC's Chris Simms – which is ironic because Eagles fans commonly criticize Simms as biased (his dad played for the Giants), unfair, and stubborn, given that it's become an annual rite of spring for Simms to rank Hurts lower than several other lesser quarterbacks.
ESPN's annual ranking, which some see as more credible because it involves surveying scores of league executives, coaches and scouts, placed Hurts as the NFL's ninth-best quarterback.
So, which is it?
Is it that most major media outlets and people involved in the game are all simply biased against the Eagles and Hurts, or are the hometown diehards who believe Hurts is a top-five QB perhaps guilty of their own leans?
The truth, as usual, is probably somewhere in between. The reality is that, for a variety of reasons, Hurts is a difficult comparison to his contemporaries.
But for all the gray area that makes Hurts difficult to measure against other QBs, the biggest reason that he's become such a debate topic is crystal clear: People who played the game, are employed in the game, and study the game clearly have an archetype of what they believe an elite quarterback is – and a major component of that archetype is someone who throws the ball more often than Hurts does and produces more passing yards and touchdown passes than Hurts does.
On average, Hurts doesn't throw the ball nearly as much as many other NFL quarterbacks, a fact that is clearly held against him in the court of national punditry. Not once in his four full seasons as a starter has Hurts finished in the top 10 in pass attempts, and last year there were 21 quarterbacks who attempted more passes than Hurts, 16 of whom attempted 100 or more passes than Hurts.
It's fair to question if Hurts' impressive 69% completion rate and 1.4% interception rate in 2024 would stick if he had passed the ball as much as those who threw the ball 100 more times than he did.
In 2023, when Hurts threw a career-high 538 passes, his completion percentage (65.4) ranked 11th among QBs with more than 400 passes, and his interception rate (2.8) was the third-worst among QBs who threw more than 400 passes.
Like it or not, pass volume and success within that volume are typically taken into account when measuring QBs against each other.
In an era of 4,000-yard, 40-touchdown passers – there were three in 2024 – Hurts last year posted a career-low 2,903 passing yards and just 18 passing touchdowns. He became the first quarterback in nearly 20 years who started at least 12 games to win a Super Bowl and throw for less than 3,000 yards and 18 or fewer touchdowns.
The last quarterback to win a Super Bowl with those pedestrian passing stats was Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger in 2005, his second season as a pro.After the 2005 season, ESPN did its ranking of top NFL quarterbacks,and Roethlisberger finished 10th.
But using one season to measure Hurts against other quarterbacks probably isn't fair, and it can't just be ignored that the Eagles featured Saquon Barkley and the NFL's second-ranked rushing attack, which was a reason they didn't lean more heavily on Hurts' right arm.
So let's widen the lens using a three-year average. Over the past three seasons, Hurts has averaged 3,487 passing yards and 452 pass attempts per season.Here's a list of quarterbacks since 2000 in the past 25 years who've started at least 12 games in a season and thrown for 3,487 yards or fewer on 452 or fewer attempts and won a Super Bowl that year:
Year
Russell Wilson 2013
Ben Roethlisberger 2005
Brad Johnson 2002
Tom Brady 2001
None of these quarterbacks at that time were considered top-five at their position and each were considered an important part – but not the centerpiece – of an altogether elite team. Wilson went back to the Super Bowl the next year and lost, but still wasn't viewed then as superior to Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees or even ring-less Philip Rivers.
The common thread between Hurts and those four QBs is that, at the time, their organizations were built around strong an imposing rushing attacks and stingy defenses. Opportunities for high-volume passing weren't available, because they weren't necessary.
Whether Hurts' opportunities to throw at a higher volume are limited because the coaching staff doesn't trust him over a longer period, or because it's just simply a better weapon for them to run, is the question at the heart of the issue of these subjective rankings.
Nobody can truly say for sure without jabbing Nick Sirianni with a truth serum syringe.
Also, as Roethlisberger and Brady showed, just because you're not a top-5 quarterback when your team is built around the run game and defense doesn't mean you can't eventually get there.
Roethlisbergerwent to four straight Pro Bowls from 2014-2017, giving him six for his career, and in 2018 went over the 5,000-yard passing mark. He's a lock for Canton.
We all know how Brady's career turned out.
If Hurts ever cracks the 4,000-yard plateau, and the Eagles are a playoff team, he'll surely get more credit as an elite passer than he's getting now. And history has shows that the Eagles won't always have the league's most fearsome run game taking opportunities away from the quarterback.
There's plenty of time for Hurts to showcase his growth as a high-volume passer, but for the moment, the reality is he has been limited compared to his colleagues.
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