The Rodney Dangerfield of NFL Quarterbacks, Eagles Jalen Hurts Gets No Respect

PHILADELPHIA – The Rodney Dangerfield of NFL quarterbacks, Jalen Hurts, should finally get the respect he deserves. Should. Probably not, and it’s astounding. Perhaps one of the greatest mysteries of our time.

OK, perhaps that’s an overstatement, but a quarterback who does nothing but win, no matter how it looks, continues to get disrespected by national pundits for not being good enough. Some of them are has-been quarterbacks and never-was types like Chase Daniel and Chris Simms, but those two have plenty of company.

Hurts is good enough and when Super Bowl LIX kicks off on Feb. 9 in New Orleans, he will become the first quarterback in Eagles history to start two Super Bowls. To do that, Hurts accounted for four touchdowns – three rushing, one passing – in the Eagles 55-23 blowout of the Washington Commanders in Sunday’s NFC Championship Game.

Hurts threw for 246 yards, completed 71 percent of his throws (20-for-28), had a passer rating of 110.1, and for a ninth straight game did not throw an interception.

Perhaps his signature moment from Sunday’s win was a fourth-and-five dime he threw to A.J. Brown, who had the slightest step on Marshon Lattimore. The play put the Eagles at the Commanders’ 14, from where the QB would finish things up with a 1-yard, tush-push touchdown with 1:44 to play in the half.

Hurts played with a brace on his sprained left knee but won’t get credit for doing what he did in spite of that. Meanwhile, Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen is 0-4 against the Kansas City Chiefs and can’t get his team to a Super Bowl, but all the excuses about the Bills’ porous defense in those four games will be thrown out there to explain it away.

“He deals with so much criticism which just blows my mind,” said Nick Sirianni.

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The Eagles head coach wonders why Hurts continually gets the Dangerfield treatment – “No respect, no respect at all."

“I'm sure it’ll be the same thing - ‘Oh, he's got great players around him,’” said Sirianni. “Well, you tell me a quarterback that's won like this that has (bleep) around him.”

Joe Montana had Jerry Rice. Tom Brady had Julian Edelman and Rob Gronkowski and, in Tampa, Mike Evans.

“Sometimes I feel like it's a negative on (Hurts),” said Sirianni. “It kind of blows your mind. He wins. He's a winner. I don't want anyone else leading us other than Jalen Hurts. I'm proud of the way he went out there and battled (Sunday) and played.”

In the last three years, here’s what Hurts has accomplished.

-Two-time NFC champion.

-Two-time Pro Bowler.

-First-time All-Pro.

-121 total touchdowns.

-51 rushing touchdowns (most by any player).

-42 wins, second among QBs.

-The first quarterback in 33 years to reach a Super Bowl after losing in their first one.

Hurts stimply shrugs off the disrespect.

“It's not about me,” he said. “I don't even play the game for any statistical measure. Nothing more than just winning. You play the game to win. I play the game to win. In a sense, this game chose me in this position. Chose me knowing to be able to come this far and have opportunities in front of us.

“You just want to take advantage of them, but I've never been motivated by achieving the personal things, the personal goals. All of those things come when you put the work in, out of the right mentality. Embrace what the group's mission is, and the mission is to win.”

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