Influenced? Tested? Resilient? All of That; Just Like the City that He Plays Football In.
Jalen Hurts has been named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2025 — Worldwide. He certainly is that. Influential enough to lead the best group of Eagles in franchise history to the realization and all of its promise. Calm, cool, collected. Almost unshakable in his resolve, whose near tireless work ethic was praised even before he was drafted in 2020 by Nick Saban. But being influential doesn’t mean that you haven’t been tested. Most of the time — it means that to get to the pedestal where Jalen Hurts currently is — you have been tested.
This isn’t the story of Jalen Hurt‘s trials and tribulations.
It isn’t the story of how he was tested in the CFP Championship Game in 2018 — how he was replaced by Tua. It isn’t the story of how after the game he had to celebrate a championship that did not play out the way that he expected — or how he publically showed grace and class to his team — while suffering privately.
It isn’t the story of how he was drafted in a Covid-restricted class of 2020 — in round two after players like Joe Burrow — to a team that didn’t need a franchise quarterback. But rather to a team that already had one — or so we thought. NFL draft experts speculated that Hurts could be a change-of-pace option for the Eagles in Wentz’s offense — who could even play a little wildcat.
But Carson Wentz had seen a quarterback competition before.
Jalen Hurts wasn’t warmly welcomed by everyone at the Novacare Complex— and by the end of the season some were in the Wentz as quarterback camp. Some were in the Hurts as quarterback camp. Hell, some were even still in the Foles camp — who was long gone in favor of the Eagles franchise QB — who had signed a $128 million extension just one year earlier.
This isn’t the story of how Hurts replaced Wentz — and just like in 2019 ended the 2021 season on the bench — this time in favor of Nate Sudfeld against the Washington Commanders in a game that the Eagles surely would have won had Hurts finished the contest. It is even speculated that after the disastrous 2021 season — Doug Pederson wanted to move forward with Hurts’ at quarterback — prior to his dismissal as Head Coach.
And it’s not the tale of how Hurts punished himself after the Eagles 2023 Super Bowl LVII loss to the Chiefs — and how he had to overcome an implosion of the Eagles the following season and differences with his Head Coach and eventually also his star wide receiver.
And it’s not a prediction of how that 2028 Olympics Commercial of Hurts throwing a football to light the LA Coliseum’s Eternal Flame will probably be the easiest throw that he’ll make all year next season. That NFL defenses won’t just throw everything to stop him — that every NFL team will focus on nothing else. Each week — for a chance to be the best by beating the best.
Jalen Hurts isn’t just a Time Magazine celebrity. He’s not just a Super Bowl MVP. He’s not just a Super Bowl Champion. He’s not just the best quarterback in Philadelphia Eagles history. This isn’t just the story of any athlete.
It’s the story of our franchise quarterback. Who is all of those things. And much more.
A wildcat option for the Eagles? Come on — that was never an option, at all.
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