An Ode to Jalen Hurts
February 16, 2025
“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;”
– “If” by Rudyard Kipling
Hours after the Philadelphia Eagles decimated the upstart Washington Commanders in the NFC Championship Game, I, an elated longtime Birds fan, took an hour or so to fulfill my fatherly bedtime reading duties (Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix). I then excitedly settled in to watch the conclusion of the AFC Championship bout between the Buffalo Bills and two-time reigning champs, the Kansas City Chiefs. Like every other Eagles fan, I was anxious to find out who we would match up against in New Orleans, but as a football fan, I was also looking forward to the dramatic finish to a then-deadlocked game between two burgeoning rivals.
As I tuned in to find Buffalo leading 22 to 21 in the 4th quarter, I was greeted by the raspy, Patty and Selma-esque voice of former Cowboys QB, Tony Romo providing color commentary to an unfolding Chiefs go-ahead drive. Unfortunately, in the midst of this nail-biting classic of a finish, Romo spoke often of Patrick Mahomes’ “inevitability”. Seemingly before every big play it was “Watch this, Mahomes is going to make the play to win the game.” Then came further musings about inevitability, this time of the Chiefs’ destiny to capture a third straight title and whether it should be called the “Chief-Peat” or the “Three-Chief”. A great drama was unfolding with a yet-to-be-determined ending! But the voice in charge of live-chronicling the electric conclusion spoke as though it was preordained.
An Ode to Jalen Hurts – Philadelphia Eagles (Continued)
Something about this inevitability theme struck me as cynical and a bit soulless, but it also perfectly captured a distinct yet hard-to-sum-up vibe of the 2020s. Maybe Romo meant to contextualize the moment, perhaps by offering a nod to history. But it came at the cost of actual appreciation for the nuance and beauty of history, and of what was happening live. It felt more like he was trying to sum up the present moment—as well as moments yet to happen—with the same broad and careless brush. In some ways, it seems like Romo and countless other voices of the modern age can’t stand for the past, present, and future to be three distinct entities. It’s as if there is a collective compulsion to swirl all three together like some malfunctioning flux capacitor.
Why take this approach? Maybe it’s because the present in isolation can be downright uncomfortable. We’re left to stew in a pool of uncertainty, stuck with nothing but half-written stories. It’s safer to play the war-weary, know-it-all veteran of life to whom surprise is an impossibility.
An Ode to Jalen Hurts – Philadelphia Eagles (Continued)
Of course, in no way is this singularly a Tony Romo issue, but rather one endemic to the larger culture. Every morning, talking heads in the sports realm yell their opinions from their respective quadrant of the television screen, and they frequently circle back to the same stale topics: a second-by-second accounting of who is the G.O.A.T., who is no longer the G.O.A.T., and who might be the G.O.A.T. in ten years. Next year’s prospects are discussed primarily as to whether they have G.O.A.T. potential. Even actual goats are subject to intense rankings from barnyard animal-focused pundits…okay that’s not true. But it does feel like the jury is never out, but rather casting verdicts 24/7. Brady vs. Mahomes. Lebron vs. Jordan vs. Kobe. G.O.A.T., G.O.A.T., G.O.A.T., and oh yeah….G.O.A.T.!
Style KOs Substance
In 2025, this type of all-or-nothing, “locate the ’89 Upper Deck Griffey in the box and toss the other cards in the garbage” sentiment is hardly limited to sports. On Amazon, there are essentially only five-star and one-star reviews, with an ignorable minority of potentially more credible voices in between. It’s a world of ALL CAPS 1-star trashings, and 5-star reviews containing more exclamation points than words.
Gander around the rest of the modern culture, for instance, the work/finance arena, and you see extremes, shortcuts, and the two braided together in the form of the promise of a 4-hour workweek and endless pathways to instant wealth. Cryptocurrencies are invented out of thin air and outperform real, established companies with decades of actual earnings on the stock market. Not that style over substance-themed schemes haven’t always been part of the American ethos, but the 2020 version feels like it has its own unique flavor and voice; one that sounds like it just smoked a carton of Pall Malls and used to play for the Dallas Cowboys.
One may argue that style and flash have been crushing substance for some time now, but today, style/flash is whupping substance so badly, that as I type, Skip Bayless and Tim Hasselback are loudly and inarticulately debating whether style itself will one day be the G.O.A.T.
A Nostalgic Digression
As a kid of the ‘80s and ‘90s, I never experienced a wholly “innocent” time in sports. No one playing pro football in 1992 was spending the offseason selling concrete like in 1952. Many were millionaires, some were Prima donnas, and others were flat-out jerks. Sports talk, meanwhile, was mainly the purview of shabbily-dressed old white dudes smoking cigars on Sunday afternoons in what appeared to be the backroom of the Sopranos deli or, perhaps, a blank void in another dimension where offtrack track betting is the only sanctioned activity. Yet, as I look back with the benefit of hindsight, I do appreciate the meandering pace of these shows, the lack of graphics, the absence of solid topics with defined argumentative roles, and the organic, sometimes gruff and unpolished weaving in of the very history of sports that I was eager to learn into conversations about the day’s games.
Did the sports discourse of this time period feel different because the 24-hour news cycle was still in its infancy? Was it because fantasy sports (which I love, of course) didn’t exist yet so there was less of an appetite for endless conversations about future stats? Is it because the commercials during the games weren’t all for gambling apps? Probably a blend of all three reasons.
An Ode to Jalen Hurts – Philadelphia Eagles (Continued)
All of this curmudgeonly rambling finally brings us directly to Jalen Hurts, and I recognize the wider world doesn’t want to hear an Eagle fan gloating or acting like this particular sports championship is more important than any other city and team’s moment of glory – but this isn’t that, I promise. All I seek to do is offer a few observations about a man who happens to play football and why his approach to life and personal journey is worth celebrating for a moment—in particular, THIS moment in American life.
Reverting to my 12-Year-Old Self
Just a few short weeks ago, the Eagles narrowly escaped a late-game collapse in the Divisional Round against the Rams and were set to face a red-hot Washington team led by rookie sensation, Jayden Daniels. I felt a persistent anxiety in the pit of my stomach, and it went beyond mere fan nervousness for a big game against a tough divisional opponent.
Noticing that something was clearly bothering me, my wife kindly inquired as to what was wrong. I assumed she was speculating that I was worried about something tangible in our actual lives: finances, our kids’ health, and the ominous headlines from around the globe dancing 24/7 across my iPhone. You know, something real.
But no, I’m not that serious of a person—at least not when it comes to my sports teams. And as I began to say out loud what was going on internally, I honestly felt pretty embarrassed. The truth was that I was afraid that the quarterback of the football team I love, with his knee presumably busted up, was going to fail epically in front of the whole world. It wasn’t that my Eagles would lose to the Commanders, it was that my guy, who I’ve admired and defended for years, was going to be the reason we lost. Expected to play with a knee brace and be restricted in his mobility, I could picture the off-season’s talking points already “The Eagles need to move on from Jalen Hurts”, “Hurts can’t win”, “Is Hurts even a Top-20 QB?”.
An Ode to Jalen Hurts – Philadelphia Eagles (Continued)
The beasts inside the echo chamber of negativity were going to savor the incoming raw meat of a Hurts dud, injury or no injury. In Ghostbusters 2 terms, the pink ooze in the abandoned pneumatic subway was bubbling up to new highs, ready to burst into Sigourney Weaver’s bathtub. If that movie reference does nothing for you, it also felt like the scene in Gladiator where Maximus is intentionally wounded as a prelude to being publicly slaughtered by River Phoenix’s diabolical Emperor Commodus.
Topics in the sports-talk-a-verse had two main themes that week: 1) Jayden Daniels was the Rookie GOAT and a potential long-term threat to Mahomes/Brady as the full-on GOAT. GOAT, GOAT, GOAT, GOAT, and oh yeah….GOAT!!! 2) Can Jalen Hurts carry the Eagles (Conclusion: Nope!).
*Note Jayden Daniels is awesome with an insanely bright future; zero knock on him intended.
What Jalen Hurts Has in Common with a 19th-Century Poem
There is a reason that Jalen Alexander Hurts was taking up such a big piece of my soul these past few weeks, and it’s not just because I am a giant sports nerd who, like millions of others, takes the fate of his team’s way too seriously. Nor is it solely because I am a ridiculously sentimental person who at age 43 possesses a boy-like wonder and attachment to a 26-year-old athlete whom he has never met.
So, what was it?
Let’s go back to the quote from Rudyard Kipling’s classic “If,” which has long been my favorite poem and words of wisdom that I’ve turned to in tough times throughout my adult life.
“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;”
Jalen Hurts—and I sincerely don’t think this is fanboy hyperbole—is nothing short of the embodiment of “If”. He is as much the personification of the poem as if the 130-year-old words of a possibly racist English poet gelled together into human form, T-1000-style. In my five years of following Jalen, he has displayed remarkable, almost superhuman, consistency in how he approaches the game, treats others, and deals publicly with both positive and negative moments. On his best days and worst days, Jalen seems to be the exact same person.
By literally all accounts, he is a man with an exceptional work ethic and a willingness to grind on a daily basis to address areas of weakness—something none of us enjoy doing. I see someone who is consistent in his messaging that he aims not to get too low or too high through life’s turbulent journey, and that statistical/personal achievements are secondary to “the main thing” a.k.a. winning.
An Ode to Jalen Hurts – Philadelphia Eagles (Continued)
Back in 2018, the maturity a 19-year-old Jalen showed after being benched in the middle of a National Championship game at Alabama came straight out of a fable. You know the story by now. Left to stand awkwardly on the sidelines to cheer on his teammate, Tua Tagovailoa, Hurts watched as his replacement achieved the ultimate glory, authoring a comeback win over Georgia and taking over Jalen’s starting spot for the foreseeable future.
One year later in the SEC Championship, it was Hurts who had to replace Tua and author a comeback victory of his own against the Georgia Bulldogs. This improbable sequence represents the very best of athletics. Being a good teammate in your own personal darkest moment, working your ass off, and then answering the bell in spectacular fashion when your name is called. Frankly, it sounds more like a plotline in Friday Night Lights than something from real life.
Seven years after the infamous benching, in February of 2023, Hurts, now a second-round pick with hordes of doubters, leads his team to a 10-point halftime lead in Super Bowl LVII. Yet, after a series of brutal defensive breakdowns and trademark Mahomes/Reid magic, the red and yellow confetti fell after a 38-35 loss in which Jalen was nearly perfect. This one hurt deeply as a fan, but at least there was consolation in knowing that no one would ever question again whether Jalen Hurts could win a Super Bowl. At least we had achieved that.
An Ode to Jalen Hurts – Philadelphia Eagles (Continued)
Fast forward to five minutes later, and it turns out I was sorely mistaken.
When things go wrong, people in the public eye see their strengths immediately reinterpreted as weaknesses. The funhouse mirror of negativity warps what was once seen as stoicism as being aloof, what seemed like humility as having poor leadership qualities.
What wasn’t known at the time, but is hardly a surprise to those who have followed him closely, is that Jalen made the picture of him walking off the field covered in Chiefs-themed confetti the lock screen image on his phone. The Eagles QB used that image of one of his darkest moments as fuel to climb back to the Super Bowl in two short years, something the last 17 men who lost their debut Super Bowl failed to do. That alone was such an achievement, and so, so very Jalen.
“A Trap for Fools”
“If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:”
– “If” by Rudyard Kipling
From Kipling to Hurts being interviewed minutes after winning the Super Bowl:
“I’m that same kid that went to the national championship and lost and went back and got benched and had to transfer…That kid always kept the main thing the main thing and always was true to his vision of what he saw.”
An Ode to Jalen Hurts – Philadelphia Eagles (Continued)
Talk about a dude who can meet victory and defeat and treat those two imposters just the same, who can take mountains of criticism and endure, who can suffer brutal losses and rebuild himself each time through sheer grit and determination.
In the days following his Super Bowl victory and MVP, the narrative seems to have completely shifted. The 12-year-old part of my soul has been nothing but smiles for a week; likewise with my 43-year-old self. The talking heads have issued their mea culpas on the Jalen hate and swiftly moved on to questioning other talented NFL quarterbacks who have yet to win a title. As you might have guessed, Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen will NEVER do it!!! Neither will Jared Goff, Joe Burrow, Brock Purdy, etc.
I hope that moving forward, we don’t need to wait until a guy wins a championship to say that he “could” one day win a championship. To quote Hurts again, “Just because we don’t, doesn’t mean we can’t.”
Maybe, just maybe, we could substitute a few of the daily GOAT debates by diving deeper into the as-yet-unwritten stories of other players, taking a moment to admire the traits that have brought them to the precipice of greatness. Many of them have incredible journeys, and part of the unknown drama that lies ahead is whether they will get to touch the sky the way Jalen did last week. As a football fan, I hope they do.
Filling the Unforgiven Moment
Sports is full of stories and journeys, sentiment and nostalgia, connections to family, and life’s heightened moments. One such moment was sitting with my son and daughter, watching Jalen Hurts embrace his father on the field for an extended hug. It gave me chills. The 40-second moment between father and son felt like the end of a great TV series where the slow-cooked, well-developed protagonist has his cathartic moment in the end, one that is nothing shy of fully earned.
My attention shifted from the TV screen to my own son and daughter, and I reflected on the qualities I am trying to instill in them: hard work, finishing better than you start, resilience, fighting through criticism, not letting people tell you what you can’t do (because they always will), and trusting your gut and vision. Further, you’ve got to move through that journey with honesty, integrity, and unselfishness. Not to mention the immense challenge of holding on to your individuality and belief in yourself as you navigate the perilous and unpredictable journey that is life.
An Ode to Jalen Hurts – Philadelphia Eagles (Continued)
Statistically, neither my son nor daughter are likely going to be professional athletes or any type of public figure whose every move will be judged by the world. The wider world won’t criticize them, but people will. The wider world also won’t write odes to them when they do things the right way, but that doesn’t make who they become as people any less significant. For Jalen Hurts, I’m so deeply happy that he accomplished what he did on February 9th, but I’m even more taken by the character of the man.
I think of Jalen Hurts and smile. I think of my own children and dream. I think of Kipling’s stirring words at the conclusion of “If”:
“If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!”
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Author’s Note: As someone who writes books and blogs about the college admissions process, I was half-tempted to spin this article in some way like “What Jalen Hurts Can Teach Colleges About Selecting Applications” or “How College Applicants Can Emulate Jalen Hurts”, but those narrow lenses ultimately felt insufficient and a bit too “2025” themselves. Think every New York Times article entitled “I’m a (Job Title) and I think we need to (Directive Within Area of Expertise)”. Thus, in its place, this rambling and somewhat unfocused tribute to Jalen Hurts was born. I sincerely thank you for reading.
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