Philly Front Office

For reasons that don’t make any sense to me, Jalen Hurts has been trashed in the media this week. Maybe I’m naive, but I really thought the negativity would go away after last year’s Super Bowl MVP performance. It should have. There is a certain validation that comes with winning that award. It’s a graduation to an upper echelon of all-time greats. It’s an exclusive club that current players like Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, and Lamar Jackson wish they belonged. Don’t believe me? Try to think back to any all-time greats that didn’t win the Super Bowl, let alone take home the hardware. Dan Marino, sure. Phillip Rivers? Jim Kelly? See? If you don’t win, you aren’t remembered for the most part. Time to start looking at Jalen Hurts’ real contemporaries: winners.

Sunday, November 23, 2025 – Eagles at Dallas Cowboys

4:25pm on Fox at Jerry World, Arlington, TX

This brings us to this week’s matchup with the Cowboys and their legendary QB, Troy Aikman. Aikman won 3 Super Bowls during his 12-year career with the Cowboys. His only major award was Super Bowl MVP in 1992, his 4th season in the league. He finished 5th in MVP voting the following year, but that was the only season he received votes. Let’s take a look at how he stacks up with Jalen Hurts.

As a rookie, Aikman went 0-11 on a young Cowboys team.¹ It was right around this time that the famous Herschel Walker trade started to bear fruit, stocking the Cowboys roster with elite talent for years to come. They already had Michael Irvin, Nate Newton, and Ken Norton Jr, but over the next few years they would add Daryl Johnston, Emmit Smith, Larry Brown, Leon Lett, Russell Maryland, Alvin Harper, Darren Woodson, and Larry Allen through the draft plus Charles Haley, Jay Novacek, and others I’m sure I am forgetting. That’s 3 HOFs and an incredible amount of All-Pro and Pro Bowl nominations aside from Aikman.

If Not the Eagles, Then Who?

That sure was a lot of talent on those Cowboys teams, huh? Strangely, you never hear anything about Troy Aikman not deserving credit for his Super Bowl wins unlike the common refrain with Jalen Hurts and the Eagles “Super Team.” It is almost as if great teams have more than just a QB. This same Super Team argument is never used with Steve Young and his 49ers of the same time period or even now with Patrick Mahomes and the current Chiefs dynasty. Both were loaded with award winners and all-time greats. At the very least, it can’t be disputed that Troy Aikman didn’t have help.

That being said, Aikman was the steady presence on all 3 of his championship teams. His great skills were not getting rattled and protecting the football. This was especially evident in the playoffs. In the 3 Super Bowl years he had a total of 4 picks and no fumbles (3 of those INTs were in 1993) with 17 TDs. He was a machine.

See what I’m getting at? So far this season, Hurts has 3 turnovers compared to 22 TDs. In his two Super Bowl runs, Hurts has 3 turnovers compared to 18 total TDs. After early turnover trouble in his career, he has more or less eliminated that negative from his bio. For all the negativity surrounding the throws Hurts supposedly can’t make, protecting the ball and being efficient are what wins this team football games. Also, as anyone who has watched him play can see, those throws are in there when he needs them. The Rams and Bucs games this year, both Super Bowls, and so many others. It’s there when he needs it.

Throwing for gaudy numbers is often a biproduct of losing. There’s a reason why the opposing QB against the Eagles throws for more yards, that guy is usually playing from behind and trying to catch up. This isn’t unlike those Cowboys teams. From 1992-1995, Troy Aikman went 46-14. Over his last 4 seasons, Jalen Hurts is 45-12. Both leaned on the running game blessed with All Pros and Hall of Fame level RBs. That’s what good teams do when they get the lead, they don’t throw down the field.

By the time the Cowboys run was over, Aikman was 30 years old. He was 26 when that first Super Bowl victory happened and the Cowboys dynasty was off and running. When it was over though, it was over. He would only make the playoffs twice more and didn’t win a game either time. Jalen Hurts was 24 for his first Super Bowl, a loss where he outplayed the greatest QB of his generation and was a weak call away from getting a first crack at immortality. He finished 2nd in MVP voting that year and would have won the award had it not been for a late season sack on a frozen Soldier Field. By 26, he won that first Super Bowl same as Aikman. Now his team is set up to win another one this year and to contend for years to come. If Hurts pulls an Aaron Rodgers and doesn’t win another, it would be a surprise and a disappointment.

Eagles vs Cowboys: Dallas Actually Traded Micah Parsons

Let’s not forget the bullshit. Aikman came into the league not unlike Hurts even though he was taken #1 overall. People forget that Jimmie Johnson wasn’t hired as coach until AFTER Aikman was drafted. This led to the Cowboys selecting University of Miami QB Steve Walsh in the first round of the supplemental draft. Aikman had to beat Walsh for the job not unlike Hurts dealing with incumbent Carson Wentz. Both losers were shipped out in favor of their clear superior.

Back in 1994, after just winning back to back Super Bowls, Troy Aikman had to deal with an attention seeking Skip Bayless. A Dallas reporter at the time, Bayless wrote a book about the Cowboys called Hell-Bent in which he didn’t exactly trash Aikman, but gave oxygen to several rumors about the QB, including that he was gay, had called one of his teammates the N-word, and had taken a dive in game.² The accusations were framed in such a way where Bayless could claim innocence while selling books and getting attention. Sound familiar? WIP and Derrick Gunn used similar tactics this week to trash Hurts as a teammate. The craziest part about the Bayless book was that the rumors were actually started by Aikman’s former head coach Barry Switzer. As @MostlyEagles regularly points out, there’s always a Jalen Hurts hit piece in the news whenever the coaching staff gets criticized. Kevin Petullo criticism has somehow taken a back seat to Jalen Hurts criticism this week. Very convenient!

Is Hurts on Aikman’s level yet as a first ballot Hall of Famer? No. It is a lot closer than you think though. At 26, Hurts resume is at least a peg higher than Aikman’s thanks to Super Bowl 57. If the Eagles repeat this year, then nothing Hurts does the rest of his career will matter, his legacy would be set. These next 5 years could make these petty arguments in the media seem even more ridiculous than they do now.

All statistics courtesy of pro-football-reference.com

1. It never gets talked about that the Cowboys actually forfeited the #1 pick in the next draft to select Steve Walsh. Can you imagine Cortez Kennedy or Junior Seau on this defense? ↩︎
2. I’m not reading a book by Skip Bayless, but Bryan Curtis did. ↩︎