Examining What a Jalen Hurts' Contract Extension Could Look Like
The arms race is on.
The Bengals’ Joe Burrow, the Rams’ Justin Herbert, and the Eagles’ Jalen Hurts are three quarterbacks who are in line for contract extensions this offseason.
Then there’s free agent Derek Carr.
What will his next deal look like?
The first domino to fall among Burrow, Herbert, and Hurts could set the tone for the other two quarterbacks, excluding Carr.
Eagles GM Howie Roseman said on Thursday that he wants to keep Hurts an Eagle for as long as he can. He also didn’t sound like he was in any terrible rush to get a deal done.
“I think we have a good sense of what we need to do here,” said Roseman. “We have a little bit of time here, too, to kind of figure it out and get away and discuss that. But at the end of the day, the most important thing is keeping our best players here. And Jalen's certainly one of our best players.”
Hurts is entering the final year of his rookie contract and is scheduled to make $4.304 million with a $4.78M salary cap number.
A contract extension would inflate the cap hit because the Eagles would likely tack on any signing bonuses and then spread the contract out over the course of its life.
Burrow and Herbert were first-round picks, compared to Hurts’ second-round status.
Herbert has yet to play in a Super Bowl.
Burrow went to the Super Bowl last year and played well, completing 22-of-33 passes for 263 yards and a TD in a loss to the Rams.
Hurts went this year and was better, accounting for 374 yards of total offense and four touchdowns – three rushing and one passing in a 38-35 loss to the Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII.
He was second in the MVP balloting, a runner-up to Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes.
Hurts won’t get the 10-year deal Mahomes got.
He will likely get a four-year deal and some, if not all, of his signing bonus will likely be tacked onto his cap hit in 2023. That number could rise to perhaps $15M.
The four years will likely be in the $46 to $50M range, and one thing owner Jeffrey Lurie would not want to do is guarantee all of it, like the Browns did with Deshaun Watson, giving him a fully-guaranteed, five-year, $230M contract to pry him loose from the Houston Texans last March.
Carson Wentz’s contract extension in 2019 was a then-NFL record $107.8M with $66M fully guaranteed at signing. With escalators involved, the deal was worth up to $144M.
Hurts isn’t Wentz, and Roseman said that negotiation won’t make him warier of what Hurts will ultimately receive.
Some recent contracts could be used as guides, such as Kyler Murray’s in Arizona and Josh Allen's in Buffalo.
Both QBs were first-round picks, and even though Hurts wasn’t after being picked in the second round as the 53rd player taken overall, he certainly will be paid like he was a top-10 pick.
Murray was the first overall pick in the 2019 draft.
Last July, he received a five-year, $230M extension with $160M in total guarantees, with $103.3M of that coming when he signed.
Allen, who was the seventh overall pick in the 2018 draft, got his new deal in the summer of 2021 when he signed a $258M, six-year contract extension with $150M guaranteed.
The belief in some NFL circles is those numbers will be the starting point for Hurts’ new deal.
Whatever the Eagles give Hurts, the expectation is it will come sooner rather than later, probably before the end of March, and will likely be the first domino to fall in an offseason where Roseman has a lot of decisions to make on how to reshape an Eagles roster that will look far different in 2023 than the one that went to the Super Bowl.
Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Fan Nation Eagles Today and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglestoday.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.
