In Defense of Jalen Hurts
Lamar Jackson is the runaway favorite for MVP and I’m largely alright with that. What bothers me though is that another quarterback with roughly the same stats and record has been deemed a bust or a disappointment this year. Multiple highly-touted quarterbacks have been disappointing, but I’m talking about Jalen Hurts who I’ll argue has been reasonably solid.
Let me be clear up front, I have exactly one Jalen Hurts card that is worth about $2. I have zero interest in pumping him up (well maybe a $2 interest). I’m also one of the few remaining Washington fans so it pains me to write positive things about an Eagles player. If anything, I should be on the Jalen Hurts sucks bandwagon. Unfortunately, I just don’t get it. I’m just not sure why Jackson is being lauded where Hurts is being panned and I’m going on a quest for answers. I should note that the card market hasn’t been as harsh to Hurts as the media as his cards are only down 5% in the last year. Given the state of the market, that’s respectable.
Stats
Let’s start by looking at Jackson’s and Hurts’ stats. In a vacuum, I’d argue that Hurts has actually had a better statistical season than Jackson by a small margin as I prefer his larger overall touchdown total even with the frankly bad turnover numbers. Jackson’s turnovers are also bad but get overlooked completely for some reason. In fact, he’d be tied for the most turnovers ever for an MVP if the season ended today. I’d be willing to bet he’ll have that record all to himself by the end of the season. Looked at another way, Hurts has 1.46 TDs per turnover compared to Jackson’s 1.33 TDs per turnover. Even so, Hurts is the one constantly mentioned as having a turnover problem
Player Passing Yards Passing TDs INT Rushing Yards Rushing TDs Fumbles Lost QBR FF Position Rank
Hurts 3357 20 18 786 15 6 60.8 1
Jackson 3636 19 7 576 5 11 63 4
I included fantasy football position ranks as it normally correlates to hobby value. I actually think Hurts’s strong fantasy performance has kept his card prices from plummeting given his negative treatment in the media this year.
Expectations
One of the reasons I think Lamar gets a pass for pedestrian passing numbers is that he’s never been expected to put up huge throwing numbers. Hurts, on the other hand, had pretty high expectations on his shoulders this year. Throw in the fact that Hurts has superior weapons and the perceptions of Jackson and Hurts start to make more sense. This one is simple. Jackson has outperformed expectations and Hurts hasn’t.
Big Games
One of the main arguments in favor of Jackson is that he’s been huge in big games against contenders. While I’d argue that his impressive victory against the Niners is getting way overblown, this argument is solid overall. The thing is, Hurts has had a great deal of success against contenders as well. Over five weeks, he dispatched the Dolphins, Cowboys, Chiefs, and Bills with a win against the Commanders for good measure. I’m not sure any team had as tough of a stretch this year and hurts handled it brilliantly.
Jackson gets a lot of credit for winning big compared to Hurts who has had to scrape out wins. The real reason Jackson has big wins though is that the Ravens have the top defense in terms of points allowed compared to the 25th-ranked defense for the Eagles and Hurts. If anything, I’d argue that Hurts has had a much higher degree of difficulty this season. It seems odd to me to reward Jackson for having a stellar defense while punishing Hurts for having a crappy one, but here we are.
Recency Bias
Hurts hasn’t been good recently and recency bias plays a very large role in postseason awards. Jackson has been amazing recently so he gets the shiny trophy despite very similar overall numbers and success. The recency bias argument makes sense and I am sure it is partially to blame, but the Hurts haters were out in full force even before his recent downturn. Why were folks so quick to label hurts a disappointment even when he was winning? For that answer, look no further than one of the few things that truly unites America.
The Tush Push
The real culprit damaging Hurts’s popularity in my opinion though is America’s least favorite play, the tush push. It’s borderline unfair and resembles rugby more than football, but I also think it’s patently unfair to ding Hurts for it. Every time he’s scored on this play it means he’s driven his team down to the one-yard line or close to it, yet many treat these touchdowns as if they should have an asterisk by them. I’d argue that in a few years the writers and analysts will forget all about where those TDs came from and just look at the gaudy TD total.
Wrap Up
The point of this wasn’t to argue that Lamar Jackson doesn’t deserve the MVP. The point is that Hurts has been dogged all year due to the hatred of a single play while still putting up numbers that are at least comparable to the presumed MVP. The hobby is desperate for young quarterbacks that are producing and I’d argue that it is mistakenly ignoring Hurts.