It's Safe To Say Jalen Hurts Is The Franchise Quarterback Now That He's The Highest Paid Player In NFL History
Think about where we were 12 months ago. Last year at this time Eagles fans wanted to trade every draft pick under the sun for Russell Wilson. If the Eagles couldn't get Russell Wilson, they wanted to draft another quarterback just in case Jalen didn't work out. They wanted to give Jalen Hurts the 2022 season just to prove if he could be a starter in the NFL or not. And if he proved he wasn't up for the role, then Eagles fans wanted some options on where to go from there.
We literally spent an entire summer arguing about if Jalen Hurts was the guy or not.
Then the 2022 season happened. Jalen Hurts was an MVP finalist, had one of the greatest seasons in Philadelphia Eagles history, led the team to the Super Bowl, played one of the truly great games we've ever seen while dueling against Patrick Mahomes. And had it not been for an unfortunate fumble and some dog shit field conditions, there's a chance we could be talking about Super Bowl MVP and champion Jalen Hurts right now.
Now he is the highest paid player in NFL history, and just locked up the first ever no-trade clause in Eagles history. He's not just the franchise quarterback anymore. He is the franchise. 5-years, $255 million, $179 million guaranteed. That is a BAG. And this sick bastard has earned every penny of it.
Naturally there will be some people who immediately scream about an overpayment every single time a contract gets signed. Would it have been nice if Jalen Hurts took a "hometown discount"? Sure. Obviously that would have been awesome. But a few quick things here on that. 1) Jalen Hurts is only the highest paid player in NFL history until the next quarterback signs his next contract. That's how this always works. 2) Jalen Hurts owes it to the rest of the quarterbacks in the league to take the best offer he can get to make sure he doesn't fuck any of them over when it comes to negotiating. 3) How many of you idiots would agree to take less money when you have the option to make way more? That's what I thought. And 4) it's not your money, so shut up.
At the end of the day there are only a select few ways you can win a Super Bowl. The easiest way is to have Patrick Mahomes as your quarterback. The next best way is to have a quarterback on a rookie deal who is good enough to go toe-to-toe with Patrick Mahomes, and your team still has the cap flexibility to assemble a wagon of a roster around him. And finally, the last way is to have a quarterback who is going enough to go toe-to-toe with Patrick Mahomes and just hope that you're able to still have enough talent around him to get the job done. In any scenario, you need a great quarterback. The Eagles have found their great quarterback, and he's only going to continue to get better. You pay a dude like that and you worry about the rest of it later. No offense to the Ravens or anything.
P.S. -- I'll never call it an overpayment, but it's definitely a massive contract that miiiiiight just make Howie stay away from paying a running back $4M with the 10th overall pick.
Go Birds.