Drew Brees was making the media rounds today because he was named on the long list of Hall of Fame candidates and called the Eagles offense boring. Since he will likely be enshrined this year, it seems like a great time to compare his career, and the careers of other all-time great QBs, to Jalen Hurts up to this point. Do you know how many Super Bowl era QBs are in the Hall? Only 22.1 There are probably 10 more who are not yet eligible but will likely make it as well including Brees.2 Hurts is already one of them. Let’s see how Jalen stacks up to the others after only 5 years in the league.
Jalen Hurts
The common misconception of the average non-Eagles fan and blowhards like Nick Wright of Fox Sports is that Jalen Hurts stepped into a Super Bowl ready roster. The reality was that the team was in shambles thanks to the mental adolescence of QB Carson Wentz and years of poor drafting. The Eagles had the veteran presence of the core 4 of Jason Kelce, Brandon Graham, Lane Johnson, and Fletcher Cox, but the team was devoid of any young talent. No need to go too into what Hurts did from there because you already know, but after 5 seasons in the NFL in which he didn’t become the starter until the final 4 games of his rookie year, he has a 46-20 record, has been to 2 Super Bowls, has 1 ring, and a runner up MVP finish. His playoff record is 6-3. For some reason, this isn’t enough for the masses consumed with bringing negativity to his sterling record. Unfortunately for them, it hasn’t sunk in yet that Jalen is still only at the beginning of his career, as he is basically entering his prime at age 27.
For statistical comparison, through 5 years he has 85 passing TDs, another 55 rushing TDs, and only 39 INTs. That’s 140 TDs in his first 66 games!!!
Drew Brees
It wasn’t until his 4th season that Brees ended up doing anything good in the NFL. Until that point, he was an ok, non-franchise QB with a Chargers team that traded up to draft his replacement, Phillip Rivers. After 5 seasons, he was 30-28 as a starter with 80 TDs to 53 INTs. The only award he ever won was Comeback Player of the Year. What was he coming back from? Not being any good (he was not injured). Before you give some kind of excuse about young talent on the roster, Brees was drafted behind Ladanian Tomlinson and also had David Boston, Reche Caldwell, and Antonio Gates on the team. Phillip Rivers led the team to a 14-2 record the year after he left. As for the playoffs, Brees only made the postseason in 2004 when the 12-4 Chargers lost at home to the 10-6 NY Jets.
Of course, he is a Super Bowl MVP and clear first ballot Hall of Famer after that time. What he said wasn’t wrong, the offense has been boring. But it has also been successful with it’s 3-0 record and 3 completely different gameplans. I suspect he is just part of the NFLs ongoing quest to ban the Tush Push. Just because Jalen Hurts isn’t winning the way Brees would like, doesn’t mean it isn’t effective. Brees isn’t known for understanding things he disagrees with either. He made that clear during his career.
Matt Ryan
Will Matt Ryan make the Hall of Fame? He was Rookie of the Year and won an MVP at age 31. Other than that, he has the worst collapse in Super Bowl history on his belt and a career 4-6 playoff record. He led the league in completion percentage and rating 1 time each. By the end of his 5th season he had a 127:60 TD/INT ratio and had been to the postseason 4 times including finishing with the #1 seed in the NFC twice. He won 1 playoff game. If you think Matt Ryan is a great QB who deserves to be in the Hall, well I’m sure you will have no problem giving Jalen that same courtesy.
Russell Wilson
Wilson came on to the NFL scene out of nowhere and was immediately a top shelf QB in everyone’s mind. In his first 5 seasons, he never missed a game and threw for 127 TDs and only 45 INTs (he ran for 13 more). He also won a Super Bowl in his 2nd season and went back the following year. The league was in love with him. He hasn’t been back since and hasn’t been particularly close. He’s even become kind of a joke over his last few seasons. He is still getting into the Hall of Fame without much argument from anyone. So, his numbers are about the same as Jalen and both are 1-1 in the Super Bowl. Basically, even if nothing went right for Hurts from here on out, he would have the same resume as Wilson.
Matthew Stafford
I like Stafford and thought he was basically in football jail in Detroit before being liberated by the Rams. That proved true when he won the Super Bowl and changed his entire reputation. In Detroit, he would just air the ball out and they would lose. He would routinely go over 4000 yards while the team finished over .500 only 4 times. He never won a playoff game with the Lions. In fact, through 5 years he had never really done anything in the NFL to stand out other than lose. In the end, the Detroit part of his career will just be seen for stat padding and the losses will be ignored because he eventually won. At 37 though, he is probably almost done. Unless he wins another SB this year or next (and the Rams are very good), his resume will never be as good as that of Hurts.
Ben Roethlisberger
The Berger joined a pretty loaded Steelers team and was seen as a solid QB in charge of a running team his first few seasons. Sound familiar? Through 5 years, he was the Rookie of the Year and went 51-20 with 2 Super Bowl wins, going 8-2 in the playoffs overall. The only thing he led the league in those first 5 years was INTs in Year 3. It wasn’t until much later in his career that he was hucking it at a record pace and leading the league in yards (and INTs again). It was almost like he was doing everything he needed to do for his team to win. Wait, that sounds familiar too. I don’t think there is any doubt he is getting into the HOF next season.
Steve Young
Young famously started in the USFL, then went #1 overall in the supplemental draft to Tampa who gave up on him after 2 years. The 49ers traded for him to backup Joe Montana. While that was good for winning 2 Super Bowls, Young only got to start 10 games with SF by the end of his 5th season. Young was 31 years old by the time he was given the keys to the 49ers offense full time, winning 2 MVPs and a Super Bowl. The first 5 years saw his record slum to 10-18 with 32 TDs to 27 INTs while splitting time between football heaven and hell. When looking at Young, people tend to extend his 7 years of success over his 15-year career despite the back of his trading card. However, up until the age Hurts is now, he had done nothing.
Troy Aikman
Other than the short career, Aikman is my favorite Hurts comparison. The Cowboys drafted him #1 overall in the 1989 draft and he was thrown right into the fire, going 0-11 his rookie year. The team already had Michael Irvin and some starters on the lines, but then picked Daryl Johnston, Emmit Smith, and Alvin Harper to fill out the skill positions. Aikman went 14-15 in his 2nd and 3rd years, followed by the 1992 coming out party that led to 3 Super Bowl wins in 4 years. The only thing Aikman ever led the league in statistically was completion percentage, 1 time. Otherwise, the Cowboys handed the ball off to Smith and Aikman won the games when he needed to. The highest he ever finished was 5th in MVP voting in his 5th year, the same year he won his first and only Super Bowl MVP award, the same year as Hurts. By their 6th season, both were 27-year-old champions with the best roster in the league only Aikman didn’t get nearly as much shit as Jalen does (except from Skip Bayless).3 Of course, Aikman kept winning. We will see if Hurts can do the same.
Overall
This was a rambling way of saying two things. First, the criticism Hurts gets for being one of the greatest winners in league history over his first 5 seasons is insane. Most QBs do not blossom until they are several years in the league, Brees especially. Roethlisberger and Aikman are his statistical and success equals through 5 years, yet you never hear criticism for their play and their role on elite teams. To just give the blanket claim that he doesn’t have the stats is also plain wrong. Through their first 5 years, Hurts beats Roethlisberger, Ryan, Brees, Wilson, and so many others. When people make these claims, they are not real arguments.
Second, in the end, just know that Hurts is going to make it to the Hall of Fame. He is already on a better course than all of his contemporaries save Mahomes.4 He has the statistics and the most important thing, Super Bowls. Of the 22 QBs in the Hall of Fame plus the 10 I have short listed, do you know how many have Super Bowl wins? 25. As for the 7 who didn’t win it, only Warren Moon and Sonny Jurgensen never made it to the big game. Hurts has already been twice. He is getting in.
- Troy Aikman, Terry Bradshaw, Len Dawson, John Elway, Brett Favre, Dan Fouts, Bob Griese, Sonny Jurgensen, Jim Kelly, Peyton Manning, Dan Marino, Joe Montana, Warren Moon, Joe Namath, Ken Stabler, Bart Starr, Roger Staubach, Fran Tarkenton, Johnny Unitas, Kurt Warner, and Steve Young ↩︎
- Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Patrick Mahomes, and Ben Roethlisberger with strong cases to be made for Matt Ryan, Russell Wilson, Eli Manning, Matt Stafford, and, yes, Jalen Hurts. Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, and Josh Allen do not have the ring to cement themselves yet even though they are all statistically on the right track. ↩︎
- For some reason I could not think of his name while writing this, so I googled “worst sports reporters and I saw this as the first result: Skip Bayless and the 25 Most Annoying People in Sports Media ↩︎
- I am not arguing that Hurts is an inner circle Hall of Famer like Mahomes and Brady. I have opinions about Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers, but those are for another day. ↩︎
Philly Front Office 
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