What can the Steelers learn from Jalen Hurts about championship quarterback play?
Since the Steelers’ last playoff home game, Jalen Hurts has taken the Eagles to two Super Bowls and won one. He is a two-time Pro Bowler with 85 passing touchdowns and 55 rushing touchdowns. While he has over 3,000 rushing yards, he is also approaching 15,000 passing yards, completing 64.4 percent of his pass attempts.
In nine career postseason games, he is 171-of-256 for 1,813 yards, 10 touchdowns, and 3 interceptions. He has 381 career postseason rushing yards and 10 more touchdowns. For his efforts on Sunday, he was named the Super Bowl MVP. So the question is, what can the Steelers and other teams learn from Jalen Hurts about championship quarterback play?
Basically, does the Eagles’ success show us a different path to a championship or are we simply disregarding a franchise quarterback? The Steelers would be one of dozens of teams lining up to trade for Jalen Hurts.
But he isn’t Patrick Mahomes or Tom Brady; he isn’t Payton Manning or Ben Roethlisberger or Eli Manning. One can argue, though perhaps not wholly successfully, that he is the first “modern” quarterback with whom a team has won a Super Bowl. Jalen Hurts is probably the most dual-threat quarterback to win, but even the Steelers’ Russell Wilson was a mobile quarterback in his day. In his first three seasons, Wilson rushed for 1,877 yards and 11 touchdowns.
Yet here is the complete list of quarterbacks who have won a Super Bowl in a season in which they rushed for 500-plus yards: Russell Wilson and Jalen Hurts. That’s it. That’s the list. Hurts led the first offense to win a Super Bowl with more rushing attempts than pass attempts since the 1975 Steelers.
And yet the NFL Offensive Player of the Year, the Eagles’ Saquon Barkley, couldn’t run against the Chiefs’ defense. It was up to Hurts to make things happen offensively, but Philadelphia’s defense also shut down Patrick Mahomes. No one quarterback can ever single-handedly win a team a Super Bowl. But for the Steelers and all the other teams trying to win one, does Jalen Hurts’ success tell us anything we didn’t know? Does it point to an alternative way of winning, and one another team could reasonably pursue?
The Steelers’ 2024 season has come to its predictably inauspicious end, with yet another one-and-done postseason for HC Mike Tomlin. The offense faltered, and the defense matched it blow for blow, leading to a 21-0 first-half deficit.
Just like last year, the biggest question hanging over the Steelers is the quarterback question. Do they still believe in Russell Wilson, and/or Justin Fields, or do they want another solution? There are other major decisions to make, as well, such as what to do with George Pickens. Do you sign him to an extension, try to trade him, or let him play out his rookie contract?
The Steelers started the 2024 season 10-3, with Mike Tomlin in the Coach of the Year conversation. Wash, rinse, and repeat, and we have another late-season collapse. This may be the worst yet, a four-game losing streak presaging a one-and-done playoff “run”. Welcome to Steelers football.
