The Philadelphia Eagles franchise showed their star player Jalen Hurts some love on Monday, April 17 with a five-year, $255 million contract extension. Quarterback Hurts’s deal includes $179.304 million guaranteed. To mark a first in Eagles history, the 24-year-old’s contract also includes a no-trade clause.
Hurts’s hefty payout follows an incredible Super Bowl-bound season for the Eagles. Jalen Hurts led the Eagles to success as the starting QB, throwing for 3,701 yards and 22 touchdowns as well as rushing for 760 yards and thirteen scores, just in the regular season.
Hurts earned the recognition of being a MVP finalist this year. He garnered a quarterback rating of 66.4, which is the fourth-best in the league. He also had an impressive pass-completion percentage of 66.5%, putting him at eleventh in the league. Hurts secured 43 total touchdowns, including postseason, which is the most ever for a single season in Eagles’s history. He also made history for the most rushing touchdowns in a single season with eighteen.
Most impressively, Hurts shined in Super Bowl LVII with a total of 374 yards thrown and four touchdowns. His fifteen rushes, 70 rushing yards, and three rushing touchdowns all broke Super Bowl records. Hurts’s achievements crowned him second-team All-Pro honors, a Pro Bowl nod, and serious contention for MVP of the league.
Jalen Hurts’s rise to the top certainly has not been smooth. Hurts began his collegiate career at the University of Alabama as Coach Nick Saban’s first starting freshman quarterback; however, he was benched his sophomore year in the national championship behind Tua Tagovailoa. Hurts decided to transfer to the University of Oklahoma for his senior year and had a stellar season, finishing second to Joe Burrow for the Heisman Trophy.
Hurts was a second-round pick for the Eagles in the 2020 draft as Carson Wentz’s backup. He earned the full-time starting position for the 2021 season after Wentz was traded to the Indianapolis Colts. His outstanding 2022-2023 NFL season only marked the youngster’s second season as a full-time starter.
Hurts’s contract is no small deal. With a $51 million average annual value, his contract is the largest in league history. Hurts is officially the highest-paid player in the NFL. This average annual value puts him ahead of stars like Aaron Rodgers ($50.3 million), Russell Wilson ($49 million), and Patrick Mahomes ($45 million). The total value is almost double what the Eagles signed Carson Wentz in 2019 (a four year deal, $129 million).
Hurts is projected to make $64 million in the 2024 season, which includes a $23 million signing bonus.
The Eagles obviously see a bright future for Jalen Hurts. Back in February, general manager Howie Roseman told ESPN: “You’ve got to look at the individual player, and that’s not to be critical to anyone we’ve given a contract to that hasn’t worked out. But I think when we talk about Jalen, we’re talking about a guy we have tremendous confidence in, a guy that we want to be here for a long time.”
Eagles CEO Jeffery Lurie told ESPN, “It’s so helpful to have a dynamic quarterback who is a great leader, a special person and someone that is so hungry, and not just to win [the Super Bowl] once but to win it multiple times … and obsessed.”
Eagles’s coach Nick Siranni similarly has a lot of faith in young Hurts. “The thing with Jalen that I’m so optimistic about is he’s just got this incredible … passion for being phenomenal. You see that in the great ones.”
This contract extension signifies the prospect of a long, record-breaking career for Jalen Hurts and hopefully another Super Bowl appearance for the Eagles in the near future.
