Why isn’t Jalen Hurts a Tier 1 quarterback?

https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/article/why-isnt-jalen-hurts-a-tier-1-quarterback-115129968.html

Here’s a good sports-bar game for you and your crew during a commercial break. List the top quarterbacks in the NFL … and see how long it takes you to get to Jalen Hurts. Six QBs? Seven? Ten? Now name the active quarterbacks with the most Super Bowl appearances, and see how many you have to list before you get to Hurts. (Spoiler: Just one.)

Entering the 2025 season, Hurts is the reigning Super Bowl champion and Super Bowl MVP, the leader of the odds-on favorite in the NFC, the centerpiece of the most effective (and controversial) play in the NFL. So why doesn’t he get the Tier 1 respect of quarterbacks like Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson? Why is he buried deep on most preseason top-player lists?

We have theories that veer deeply toward the subjective. Before we get there, though, let’s lay out some objective facts about Hurts.

[Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Football league for the 2025 NFL season]

If you subscribe to the idea of team wins being an essential component of a quarterback’s star power, Hurts is there. He’s been to more Super Bowls than any active quarterback besides Mahomes, tied with Russell Wilson at two. He’s led Philadelphia to the playoffs each of the four years he’s been a full-time starter, winning two NFC East titles along the way.

But maybe you’re not part of the “QB Wins” crowd. That’s a reasonable approach. Joe Flacco is not a more valuable quarterback than Dan Marino or Jim Kelly, despite the fact that Flacco has won more Super Bowls than both combined. (Sorry, Joe. But you know it’s true.)

Hurts’ on-field productivity puts him right at the head of 2025’s quarterbacks. He holds the record for most rushing touchdowns in a season (15, tied with Josh Allen). He also ranks second on that list (14, tied with Cam Newton) and third (13, all by himself). He also holds NFL records for the most rushing touchdowns by a quarterback in the postseason (10) and most rushing touchdowns in a Super Bowl (3). He ranks both first and second on the list of most rushing yards by a quarterback in the Super Bowl with 72 and 70.

(Davis Long/Yahoo Sports illustration)

Hurts has had at least 15 touchdown passes and 10 rushing touchdowns for four straight years. Impressive, right? Now consider that no one in the entire history of the league has done that more than twice; only Allen and Newton have hit that mark.

Plus, Hurts is the heart of the most devastatingly effective play in football: the Tush Push, where the Eagles shove him through a brick wall again and again with massive success. This works because Philly has one of the largest and strongest offensive lines in the game, but it also works because Hurts himself is a beast with a 600-pound squat. It ain’t pretty, but it works almost every time.

And maybe that right there is why Hurts isn’t on that marquee tier. He does the hard work of a quarterback, but doesn’t indulge in the more photogenic and glory-drenched aspects of the job. His 2,903 passing yards last year ranked 20th in the league and his 18 passing touchdowns ranked 21st, behind Bo Nix, Kyler Murray and Caleb Williams, to name a few. He hasn’t had a completion of over 68 yards in the last three years, and his QB rating puts him at 10th in the league … which is about where everyone slots him.

Plus, although this is purely a matter of aesthetics, Hurts doesn’t possess the dynamic alpha-dog personality we generally expect out of our quarterbacks. He doesn’t appear on runways, he doesn’t make a show of his pregame fits. He puts in the work, then he drops a few cliches in the postgame presser and he’s gone into the night. It works for him, and it clearly works for Philadelphia, too.

You can tie the spirit of Hurts’ game — it ain’t pretty but it gets the job done — to Philly as a whole, if you like. Philadelphia generally isn’t a town of glittery stars, but it does seem to draw, and inspire, a certain kind of player like Hurts, where the end result is far more important than looking good along the way.

Sure, a little more respect for Hurts might be nice. But you know what’s better than respect? Wins. And he’s delivering those by the armload.

https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/article/why-isnt-jalen-hurts-a-tier-1-quarterback-115129968.html