Jalen Hurts, Patrick Mahomes Symbolize Value in Thinking Outside the Box at Quarterback

The two QBs set to face off in Super Bowl LVII weren’t considered finished products coming out of college. But with time, they’ve both thrived.

Media access is done, and the players are in the bunker until Sunday. Here’s what we know …

• The quarterback matchup in Super Bowl LVII is incredibly significant for the most obvious reason—it’s the first time two Black signal-callers will square off on American sports’ biggest stage. But that’s not the only thing you can take away from the fact that Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts are the last two quarterbacks standing in 2022.

Both guys are examples of how the NFL has become more open-minded in how it evaluates kids coming out of college at its most important position.

It’s easy to forget that, back in 2017, Mahomes was a polarizing prospect. Yes, the Chiefs loved him, and the stories of Brett Veach lusting over the Texas Tech gunslinger for months and months are true. And the Chiefs weren’t the only team that loved him—had they not swung a trade to jump from 27 to 10 in the first round, Sean Payton’s Saints were prepared to take him at 11, as were Bruce Arians’s Cardinals at 13. But there was a flip side to it, too.

Going back in my notes, I found a quarterbacks coach who said then, “He has the best wrist of any of them [in his class], he flicks the ball, can put it where he wants it, and he’s plenty smart. In that system, they don’t do a ton, but he gets their system and can learn what he doesn’t know. Which is good because there’s going to be a major learning curve. It won’t be easy.” An exec added, “You can’t play him the first year, gotta develop him. He has a cannon, but his footwork and fundamentals are awesome. Talented as anyone but it’ll take two years.”

The evaluation of Hurts was even tougher. After he was benched at Alabama, teams had started to at least consider how he’d project as a running back—given his strong, sturdy build and ability with the ball in his hands—and the idea would’ve been prevalent had he declared for the 2019 draft after his junior year with the Tide. Instead, he transferred to Oklahoma, played for Lincoln Riley and started to change that narrative.

Still, plenty of teams had trouble seeing him as a starting quarterback in April 2020, and many thought the Eagles reached in taking him in the middle of the second round.

“He’s a tricky one,” said one prominent offensive coordinator back then. “It’s one of those deals where he’s best suited for a place that’ll use all his ability, and not try to put a square peg into a round hole. You have to consider using his legs as part of moving the ball. He’s not a very accurate passer on critical downs, third down could be a pain in the ass with him. … But he’s tough as s—t, he can move, he can run. He just has to get to a good spot.”

Jalen Hurts defied the critics who doubted he’d mature into an NFL caliber quarterback :: Bill Streicher/USA TODAY Sports

So the lessons the NFL took from some of those evaluations? I asked some guys around the league this week, and a couple of things came up. With Mahomes, and even Josh Allen the next year, it was to look at quarterback creativity and risk-tasking as something to be harnessed, rather than avoid. With Hurts, it’s that with the right makeup and work ethic, even at the highest level of the sport, a guy can improve in areas where it’s not easy to get better—Hurts has done so in throwing with accuracy and anticipation.

And, yes, both guys went to the right places, too, which sure didn’t hurt.

• While we’re there, one veteran evaluator I talked to about that raised how he’d been asked who Brock Purdy’s success as Mr. Irrelevant might help in this year’s draft. He had two answers to the question: TCU’s Max Duggan and Fresno State’s Jake Haener.

The reason why? Purdy’s success underscores the value of a quarterback who got a lot of reps in college. Purdy started 46 games at Iowa State. Duggan started 43 games at TCU. Haener spent five years at two schools, and started 29 games at Fresno State.

• We’ve had names like Jonathan Gannon, Shane Steichen, Eric Bieniemy and Brian Johnson in this space this week as assistant coaches who could be on the move post-Super Bowl (the first two potentially for head coaching jobs, the latter two for coordinator jobs). Conversely, there’s one important assistant who we know is staying put.

Philly line coach Jeff Stoutland recently signed an extension in Philly, spurning coordinator interest (one team pursuing was Carolina; Stoutland and Frank Reich worked two years together) to stay put for an 11th year with the Eagles. Stoutland didn’t want to address who came calling, or the contract that he accepted to remain with the team. But he was happy to explain why he’d passed up the chance for career advancement.

“Here’s what I'll say—in the business that we're in, it's hard to ever call some place home,” he said. “You move a lot. You move your family a lot. I can truly and honestly say to you that Philly is my home. That's a good feeling. That's a great feeling. And it's the organization, led by Mr. [Jeffery] Lurie, Howie [Roseman] and Nick [Sirianni], it's just so awesome. It'd be hard for anybody to walk away from this organization.

“It's family to me. And my family, this is our family. That's all I can say about that.”

Clearly, the Eagles value him too. Few assistant coaches survive firings. Stoutland has survived two, staying aboard through the switch from Chip Kelly to Doug Pederson, and then from Pederson to Sirianni. And if you look at the Eagles’ front, and how they’ve developed players from high picks like Lane Johnson to guys who never played football before like Jordan Mailata, it’s not hard to see why the Eagles have kept Stoutland around.

• Friday will be a big day for Mahomes. He’s said a few times this week that he plans to push his ankle further in Kansas City’s final full session of the week, and then again on Saturday, than he has in practice since injuring it three weeks ago. Despite the fact that the Chiefs won, and Mahomes played well against the Bengals, there were points in that game when it was pretty clear to teammates and coaches the quarterback was feeling the injury.

The Chiefs are optimistic he’ll be in a much better spot against the Eagles.

The Saints have emerged as the favorites to acquire longtime Raiders quarterback Derek Carr / Matt Pendleton-USA TODAY Sports

• The plan all along was for Derek Carr to come in on Wednesday to meet with the Saints over two days, leaving New Orleans on Thursday. And that the plan was followed is good news, of course, because it means Carr, his old coach Dennis Allen and a bunch of other people in the organization had plenty to talk about.

One informed party guessed that if a trade happens, it’d happen over the weekend. The Raiders and Saints have been talking about a Carr trade for over a week, with conversation on it having started in Mobile over Senior Bowl week. Again, this is now about the contract, and Carr’s no-trade clause. The parameters for a trade between the Saints and Raiders are in place (which was why Vegas gave New Orleans permission to talk to Carr).

• The Eagles have mostly stuck to their script in preparing for the Super Bowl, hence the walkthrough/practice/practice cadence of this Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. But they aren’t blind to the fact that there are differences on Super Bowl Sunday, and one I’m told they’ll be creatively preparing for on Friday is the longer halftime in this particular game.

And the one other tweak I was able to uncover that Sirianni pulled with his team was to put the whole game plan in back in Philly last week, but hold back some of the situational work (third down, red zone), so there’d be something “new” to give the players this week.

• How big a lift is taking a team to the Super Bowl? The Chiefs will have three charter planes flying in from Kansas City on Friday, carrying over 1,000 friends and family of team staff, coaches and players (and that’s not counting the friends and family already in town or coming from other parts of the country), and they’ll be staging two welcome parties for them Friday night.

In case you’re wondering, each player and coach from Kansas City and Philly is comped two tickets to the game, with the option to buy up to 14 more.

• It’s interesting to see the 49ers players talking on Radio Row this week about how they feel like their opportunity was “stolen” (that was Christian McCaffrey’s word), because of their quarterback situation in the NFC title game. Likewise, I can say that a lot of staff and coaches were pretty heartbroken over the loss, given the roster they have now.

And it makes me wonder exactly how the team is going to handle its quarterback situation. Are Purdy (who’ll be back for camp, at the earliest) and Trey Lance (coming off a serious injury) enough? Or do the Niners have another swing in them?

I like both young quarterbacks, to be clear. But you’re definitely projecting some with each of them, and San Francisco is very clearly, squarely in a championship window.

• The Cardinals and Colts dragging out their coaching decisions have continued to have fallout across the league, with coaches unsure which assistants they’ll have to replace, and a domino effect sure to unfold with whoever is hired in each spot. Say, for example, Arizona flips things and hires Gannon next week (and I’m not saying that’s likely). In that case, the Eagles would’ve missed their chance to try and convince Vic Fangio, who’s consulted for them this year, to stay on as defensive coordinator (Fangio’s agreed to terms in Miami).

The Bengals are dealing with similar uncertainty, with both their coordinators in the mix for jobs. The Rams are dealing with it on defense, with Raheem Morris still in the Colts’ mix, and the guy they’d have replaced him with, Ejiro Evero, is off to Carolina. Obviously, the two Super Bowl teams have similar complications.

And this is going to wind up being a problem for someone, with the combine just over two weeks away.