Let me preface this by saying that I love Patrick Mahomes. What he’s done this year after losing his top target during the Chiefs’ years of dominance in Tyreek Hill has been very impressive, but not as impressive as what Jalen Hurts has done with my Eagles. We weren’t exactly a disaster when we drafted Hurts, coming off of back-to-back 9-7 seasons that included winning the NFC East the season before, but it had become increasingly clear that Carson Wentz wasn’t the guy, and in week 13 of a 2020 season that was very much a disaster, a decision was made that changed this franchise forever.
We were getting blown out by the Packers, 23-3. They were being led by that season’s eventual MVP in Aaron Rodgers. At that point, fans had been clamoring for weeks to see what the second round pick out of Oklahoma had, and as anyone familiar with the Ben Simmons saga knows, when a fanbase as loyal as this one abandons you, the question isn’t if you’ll go but when you’ll go. Wentz certainly did enough to warrant it, playing horribly in three straight losses going into the Packers game. Doug Pederson, who I’m sure knew he was a lame duck coach by then, gave this city one last gift by subbing in Hurts, who gave the offense just what it needed to make its loss to the Packers slightly less embarrassing than it would have been otherwise. He was named the starting quarterback against the Saints the next week, and we ended up winning while scoring our most points in seven weeks.
That 2020 team would go on to lose out as Hurts, still a rookie, struggled more with teams better prepared to face him, but we had something Wentz couldn’t give us: hope. The next season, Howie Roseman did another one of the his magic tricks by getting rid of Wentz’s awful contract (Thanks, Colts!) and allowing us to fully commit to Hurts. He had a good, but not spectacular season in 2021, getting us back to 9 wins and back into the playoffs where we lost to Tom Brady and the Buccaneers, and this year, that fateful decision made at around this time two years ago has paid off in a big way. We started 8-0 for the first time ever before losing to the Washington Whatevers and have won three straight since, including yesterday’s blowout win over one of the best teams in the AFC in the Tennessee Titans. Hurts has made the leap Eagles fans everywhere hoped he would make this year, improving from 19th in QBR last year to fourth this year while being top ten in passing yards and passing touchdowns as well as first in rushing touchdowns among quarterbacks.
MVP works in football the same way it works in most other sports. Usually it will go to the best player on the best team (unless your name is Joel Embiid). The Chiefs fell to 9-3 with their loss to the Bengals last night and the Eagles improved to 11-1 with their win. With just five weeks left in the season, there’s not a ton of time left for the Chiefs to make up ground, and they should frankly be more concerned about passing the Bills for the best record in the AFC than they should be about passing us, so I expect the Eagles to finish with the league’s best record. That combined with Hurts being a young, charismatic star in a huge market should be enough for him to lock up the MVP. With our remaining schedule, the only team we’ll likely be an underdog against is the Cowboys, but obviously, I’ll never pick the Cowboys to beat the Eagles, so I have us winning out. If we do that or even go 4-1 while Kansas City wins out, our 2022 NFL MVP will be Jalen Alexander Hurts, and if you’re the betting type, I would recommend putting money on Jalen before that plus sign in his odds turns into a minus.
Phil A. Phrenetic, out.
