Eagles’ Jalen Hurts: How Record Deal is Also Team-Friendly

Proactive is always the way to go when it comes to the NFL and big-money contracts, something the Philadelphia Eagles gave to quarterback Jalen Hurts on Monday.

PHILADELPHIA - Welcome to the cost of doing business at the quarterback position in the 2023 NFL where the largest contract of all-time will soon be described as team-friendly.

It was always when and not if when it came to an extension with Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles with the betting-pool winner choosing April 17 and the numbers ending at $255 million over a five-year extension with $110M of that fully guaranteed at signing and $179.304M guaranteed against injury.

From an average-annual-value standpoint, Hurts passes Aaron Rodgers at $49M per season on the extension as the first $50M player in league history at a $51M AAV.

The MVP runner-up won’t be the last $50M player, however, and this deal will act as a floor for the upcoming extensions for Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow and the LA Chargers’ Justin Herbert.

If you’re asking how the biggest deal in NFL history (by some metrics) can be described as team-friendly, consider that Hurts is now under contract through 2028, and the salary cap is expected to balloon from its current $224.8M to well over $300M, a spike tied to the league’s escalating televisions rights fees for the most part.

During the COVID era when the cap went in reverse for the first time, OvertheCap.com speculated on both locked and unlocked caps moving forward, the latter trying to spread out the pain of the pandemic shortfall and the latter just spiking as normal with increased revenue.

The cap should be well north of $300M by 2027 never mind 2028 barring another pandemic or greater societal economic collapse where we would all have far more to worry about than an NFL QB’s money,

Using the very conservative $300M figure by 2028, that's a 33.45% increase meaning Hurts’ $51M AAV should be $68.059M when measured in the projected 2028 NFL world. If you go to $320M, which is probably closer to the bullseye, those numbers move to a 42.35% increase and $72.6M for a Hurts-level QB.

There surely will be more twists and turns to Hurts’ deal in the coming years with restructures to help with cap relief and perhaps more years tacked on if Hurts continues to perform at the level he did in 2022-23.

The Eagles under Jeffrey Lurie have shown no problem paying the going rate to star players but they also understand getting ahead of the market is the prudent way to do business because Hurts would have only cost more if the Bengals, Chargers, or even Lamar Jackson went against type and started acting proactive.

Only those beholden to the moment are awed by Hurts’ deal. The savvy around the NFL just put another feather in the caps of GM Howie Roseman and VP of football administration Jake Rosenberg.

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-John McMullen contributes Eagles coverage for SI.com's Eagles Today and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Media. You can listen to John, alongside legendary sports-talk host Jody McDonald every morning from 8-10 on ‘Birds 365,” streaming live on YouTube. John is also the host of his own show "Football 24/7 and a daily contributor to ESPN South Jersey. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen