Jalen Hurts is the Most Overrated QB in the NFL
Edition #176 || NFL Features #4
Intro:
I’ve had enough of this, especially as an Eagles fan.
Jalen Hurts is the most overrated quarterback in the NFL.
Last year, it was really easy to defend how bad he did because he was coming off a Super Bowl run. That’s tough, and at that point, many people understood me.
Now, this is just too much.
Let’s look into why I think he’s the most overrated QB in the NFL and fair warning his CPOE is not going to matter.
Hurts is the Most Overrated QB in the NFL
His one good game this season came in week 3 versus the Saints when he had 311 yards and 1 interception without A.J. Brown or Devonta Smith. His QB rating was 88.8 in that game and the Eagles won.
But, that’s 25% of the games this season. If you look at the other 75%, well, it’s bad. I don’t care if the Eagles’ defense is bad or if the Eagles’ offense has absolutely no one to contribute. Jalen has made some pretty bad mistakes. Let’s look at his Passing TD: INT ratio. He’s 4:4. Even if we ignore the TDs for a second, 4 INT in 4 games is quite a lot and there needs to be a fix.
The Red Zone has been the worst for Jalen Hurts this season with him having 25% of the NFL’s Red Zone turnovers this year. He has 2 interceptions and 1 fumble. More, than that, the Eagles have become one of the more easily predictable teams on 3rd down.
Jalen has regressed from the start of his career to the present day. Let’s check it out. Hurts’ first eight career starts: 89.7 passer rating, 503 rushing yards, 6.6 rushing average, 3-5 record. Hurts’ last eight career starts: a 79.4 passer rating, eight touchdown passes, nine interceptions, 314 rushing yards, a 4.6 rushing average, 3-5 record.
Wow. You can see that in 4 games through the season, Jalen Hurts already has 10% of the sacks in his career. 9% for fumbles. 11% for INTs.
He’s following the path of Carson Wentz, who the Eagles replaced for Jalen Hurts in 2020. This is what Wentz’s first 4 starts in 2020.
Completions/Attempts: 80/137
Passing Yards: 1,007
Touchdowns: 4
Interceptions: 5
Passer Rating: 70.9
Jalen Hurts’s 2024 is so close to that. He has 930 yards, 90/132, 4 TD, 4 INT, and a passer rating of 85.7
Hurts depends on AJ Brown. That’s for sure. In games without Brown, Hurts struggles mightily, with a passer rating of 94.4 with 7837 yards, 47 touchdowns, and 23 interceptions in 33 games with him and a passer rating of 85.2 with 4,699 yards, 23 touchdowns and 15 interceptions in 32 games without him.
Now, the losses here shouldn’t be just blamed on Hurts. This Eagles team is injured and Nick Sirriani is playing aggressively. There’s a reason for this too (something I talked to people in the NFL about).
Last year, when Dan Campbell made it through the playoffs, it was because he was aggressive, going for it on 4th and Long. The Eagles last year, tush pushed their way to the first down. They went for it on 4th down a lot. This year for the Eagles, the loss of Jason Kelce is evident. With a partially injured Jake Elliot, Sirianni has to go for it on 4th down. But, you know who else is hurt?
Basically the entire Eagles team.
From 2020-2023, Jalen Hurts at least had a recent Super Bowl appearance to show for his bad play. In 2024, that 2022 appearance is over. No one’s going to care who lost the 2022 Super Bowl in 10 years, but who won the Super Bowl (there are exceptions like the Falcons versus the Patriots).
Orlovsky from ESPN is absolutely right. Did anyone on the Eagles improve? Hurts didn’t. Sirianni didn’t.
This wouldn’t be a problem if Hurts wasn’t paid 55 million dollars yearly with a no-trade clause. No. We wouldn’t even be talking about this. But, he is, and there’s no other QB in the NFL worse than him.
Hope you like the analysis. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time.
"No QB worse" than Jalen Hurts? Come on. I understand that was probably a comedic sentence, but I can debate the merits of Deshaun Watson vs Jalen Hurts and I suspect I'll win. Even if you meant to say you were factoring in the contact, I still think I'll win. There's hyperbole, and then there's satire. I did laugh BTW. You got me.
You probably expected this (I feel like I was at least partially in your mind when you wrote the CPOE dismissal), but I entirely disagree with you. He does have seven turnovers in four starts. That's a lot, but it's not really up from last season, where he had 20 in 17 games, so if his turnover rate isn't up, perhaps his turnovers are especially costly? No. On a per play basis, Gardner Minshew, Patrick Mahomes, Daniel Jones, Derek Carr, Lamar Jackson, Kirk Cousins, Sam Darnold, Jordan Love, Jacoby Brissett, Anthony Richardson, and Will Levis have all had more costly turnovers than Jalen Hurts.
So if the turnover rate isn't up, and situationally, Jalen is nowhere near the top of the league as far as having his turnovers come at the wrong time, this leads me to believe that turnovers are not the problem, and I'm correct. They're not. When including turnovers, Jalen is 21st in EPA/Play right now. Entirely excluding turnovers, he only jumps to 18th, meaning turnovers are not the problem, so what is the problem?
You are correct about the sack rate comments. It is creeping up, but we are only four games into the season. If it continues by about week 10 or so, we can be concerned about it then, so what is the problem? Quite frankly, I don't know. This is not like Geno Smith, a player who is fantastic on first and second but horrendous on third and fourth downs. Jalen isn't particularly good any time results-wise. As far as 2024, I'd like to give it a little longer to play out, because he was fantastic last season dragging along a defence hellbent on destroying the season to double digit wins, in a carry job that nobody seems to want to talk about.
Jalen has been fantastic at avoiding negative plays for multiple seasons now (turnovers are not the only type of negative play), so I have no reason not to believe that won't continue if we give this all a few more weeks to play out. I say just give it a few weeks. If Jalen is still underperforming come week 11, we can revisit this issue, but for now, there's no way you can call this man the most overrated QB in an NFL that includes CJ Stroud, Lamar Jackson, Matthew Stafford, Aaron Rodgers, and Jordan Love in it. To me, it's a five man race for that crown, and Jalen is not one of the five.
By the way, his CPOE is 5.6. That's third in the NFL. For that reason, I just can't bring myself to class this as individual regression. Eagles offensive regression? Yes. Clearly, but I'm not comfortable putting all (or even most) of this on Jalen, at least not until I get more information.
Ever since that wild OT win against the Buffalo Bills last year, Hurts has never looked the same. The Eagles never looked like the team that dominated 2022-23 and the first 12 weeks of 2023-24. And I love it as a Washington Commanders fan.