Entering Super Bowl LIX on Sunday, the three previous rematches between quarterbacks in the Super Bowl had been sweeps.
Terry Bradshaw beat Roger Staubach again. Troy Aikman beat Jim Kelly again. Eli Manning beat Tom Brady again.
But Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts is more about making history than repeating it, so in Super Bowl LIX, Hurts won his rematch with Patrick Mahomes. Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs beat Hurts and the Eagles 38-35 in Super Bowl LVII to cap the 2022 season. On Sunday, Hurts and Philadelphia downed Mahomes and Kansas City 40-22 at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans to win the NFL championship for the 2024 season.
“The one thing that I’ve always respected about Jalen is that he’s a winner,” Mahomes said. “And I know that sounds, some people take that as like it’s not a good thing. But you have to find ways to win with your football team that you have around you, and that’s what I’ve learned in my entire career and that’s what he’s came into the NFL and done his entire career is that if he needs to run the ball, he will run it; if he needs to throw the ball, he will throw it, and if he needs to make a big play, he will make the big play. And so that’s stuff that not everybody has. …
“After the first Super Bowl we played against him, I said, ‘He’ll be back.’ And he was, and he got the better of me today. I’m sure we’ll face again at some point in our careers in a big game like this.”
Hurts became the third starting quarterback to win in his second Super Bowl appearance after losing in his first. It hadn’t happened since Bob Griese led the Miami Dolphins to victory in Super Bowl VII 51 years ago.
Hurts won the Pete Rozelle Trophy as the game’s Most Valuable Player as he completed 17-of-22 passes for 221 yards with two touchdowns and one interception and ran for 72 yards and one touchdown on 11 carries.
“He just keeps getting better,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said. “He knows how to win. He does a great job of being able to block out all the outside noise. I find it funny when it’s like, ‘Well, Jalen is good because he’s got a good team around him.’ Like, that’s football. You cannot be great without the greatness of others. …
“Jalen’s special, and the criticism just blows my mind because I think he’s so special and won so many games and works his butt off and just continues to get better. He can block out everything and just focus on the task at hand of getting better, putting yourself in position to win each week, and he does a great job of that.
“He had an unbelievable game today when we needed him to because when you sell out to stop one thing, another thing opens. Jalen was able to take advantage of that today. Him and this team are world champs, forever.”
Philadelphia running back running back Saquon Barkley became the ninth player in NFL history to run for 2,000 yards in a season in 2024, but Kansas City limited him to 57 yards on 25 rushing attempts on Sunday.
Hurts had five completions to five different receivers that gained at least 20 yards on Sunday.
“It was just something that kind of came,” Hurts said of the deep passes. “We were able to execute. I think the main thing I would point to is being able to find ways to win in multiple ways. We’ve been able to be dominant on the ground, we’ve been able to be efficient in the pass game and do what needs to be done when it needs to be done.”
Hurts extended his NFL career quarterback record with his 10th postseason rushing touchdown on a 1-yard sneak for the first points in Sunday’s game. He had a 12-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver AJ Brown as Philadelphia took a 24-0 lead with 1:35 left in the first half and a 46-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver DeVonta Smith as the Eagles went in front 34-0 with 2:40 remaining in the third quarter.
In his first Super Bowl appearance, Hurts had 304 passing yards, one touchdown pass, 70 rushing yards and three rushing touchdowns – the first player in NFL history to reach those numbers in a single game. But the performance didn’t pay off in a victory.
“I’ve been able to use every experience and learn from it,” Hurts said. “The good, the bad, all of it – using it as fuel to pursue my own greatness, and I think I couldn’t do any of these things without the guys around me. We got a special group this year. We were able to learn from the past and get some nice new pieces and get over that hump.”
As a freshman at Alabama, Hurts led the Crimson Tide to the CFP national-championship game for the 2016 season, but Alabama lost to Clemson 35-31. Hurts led Alabama back to the CFP national-championship game the next season, but he was benched at halftime as Tua Tagovailoa came on to rally the Tide to a 26-23 overtime victory against Georgia. Alabama went back to the CFP national-championship game for the third season in a row in 2018, but Tagovailoa was the quarterback and the Tide lost to Clemson again 44-16 before Hurts transferred to Oklahoma for his final college season.
Then came the loss to Kansas City in his first Super Bowl trip in his second season as an NFL starter.
“It’s not normal,” Hurts said. “It’s been a very unprecedented journey, and a journey, it’s always the beginning until it’s the end. It means a lot, quantifying all that work over the years, embracing everything, taking every challenge head-on and taking every joy and moment of achievement and success head-on as well and processing them all as one. …
“I’m that same kid that went to the national championship and lost and went back and got benched and had to transfer – had to go through this just unprecedented journey. That kid always kept the main thing the main thing and was always true to his vision to what he saw.”
