Eagles 2025 most important list: Jalen Hurts

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5 days ago

Eagles 2025 most important list: Jalen Hurts originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
Over the next few weeks leading up to training camp, we'll be counting down the top 25 most important Eagles for the 2025 season.
1. Jalen Hurts
Sometimes the discourse around Jalen Hurts gets a little tiring. Ranking him among his peers, docking him points because he plays with stars, nitpicking despite how much he wins.
Sure, maybe that makes for a good way to kill some time during the offseason but none of it changes the fact that Hurts is the right quarterback for this team. He showed that last year and left New Orleans as the Super Bowl LIX MVP.
But what makes Hurts so special is what still drives him even after hoisting the Lombardi Trophy. He still thinks about his Super Bowl loss after the 2022 season.
'This whole year has been more magnifying to me in terms of my desire to win because I kind of learned how I processed everything after the game and where my heart was,' Hurts said during locker cleanout day a few days after the Super Bowl.
'It's like the joy of winning it still had no comparison to the pain of losing it. Those things are still going to continue to motivate me and drive me internally.'
Could we have put Saquon Barkley at No. 1 on this list? Sure. And after his Offensive Player of the Year season, he would have certainly been deserving. But let's not discount the role that Hurts played in that great season. It always seems like some are quick to point out how Hurts' surrounding cast helps him but not how he helps them.
That doesn't mean that Hurts is a perfect player. He still has his flaws. But as he enters Year 5 as the Eagles' full-time starting quarterback, Hurts knows who he is and he knows how he wants the Eagles' offense to look. Even with another offensive coordinator change going into 2025, Hurts is still one of the driving forces of the Eagles' offense, and that makes him pretty darn important.
Kevin Patullo will be the fourth different offensive coordinator under Nick Sirianni in five years and he'll also be Hurts' sixth different play caller. The good news for the Eagles is that Patullo has been around the last four years in a different role and it seems like he and Hurts already have a good relationship.
Hurts, 26, is going to continue to be assertive within the offense.
'I think the most important thing when you move forward, it's about trying to build that chemistry,' Hurts said after the 2024 season. 'I think for us as an offense, the more assertive I became throughout the year, the more in sync, the more complementary, the more rhythm we had.'
Hurts last season started 15 games in the regular season, completing a career-high 68.7% of his passes for 2,903 yards with 18 touchdowns and 5 interceptions. He also had 630 rushing yards and 14 touchdowns.
Hurts and the rest of the passing attack took a backseat for most of the season as Barkley rushed for 2,000 yards behind the best offensive line in football. Hurts threw four interceptions in the first three games of 2024 but threw just one the rest of the regular season; he really cleaned up that issue.
There were some serious questions about the passing game into December that Hurts answered in the NFC Championship Game and the Super Bowl. In those two games, Hurts completed 74% of his passes for 467 yards with 3 touchdowns and 1 interception — a passer rating of 114.3.
There were some good candidates for Super Bowl MVP, but Hurts deserved the honor. And when asked his favorite part about winning that MVP, his answer shouldn't surprise anyone
'It's the work. That's all I think about,' Hurts said. 'I think about what it took and what it takes and I know I'm behind in what's to come in the future. You play this long into the year, you have other people, other teams, other quarterbacks kind of have a head start of the next year. Just want to plan out my routine and plan out my offseason so I can put the appropriate work in with my teammates.'