Money is nice. Championships are better.

The latter part of this famous quote from Jalen Hurts when he signed his five-year, $255 million contract two years ago paints the picture of the only statistic that matters to the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback.

When ESPN dropped their quarterback rankings this week, which was determined by a survey of league executives, coaches and scouts, Hurts ended up ninth on the list. The Super Bowl MVP was below the usual top quarterbacks — Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson — and that’s acceptable based on what those four have accomplished.

This is where it gets tricky. Hurts was ranked below Jayden Daniels, who came in at No. 5 despite playing just one year in the league. Matthew Stafford, Justin Herbert and Jared Goff were also ranked ahead of Hurts.

Do league executives, coaches and scouts really believe these quarterbacks are better than Hurts? Are they bitter they all dropped the ball on Hurts, the only quarterback on the top-10 list who wasn’t a top-10 pick in the draft? Draft status goes a long way in the league, and non first-round quarterbacks winning championships go against the grain.

Ask Tom Brady, who broke the system for years.

Hurts is in that mold. He doesn’t have the draft status of these quarterbacks, nor does he carry the hype of a lot of these signal-callers when it was their turn to enter the NFL. Remember, Hurts was the quarterback who got benched in the national championship game his sophomore year. That was a knock on him when it came time to evaluate him as a draft prospect (not how much he significantly improved as a passer since then).

That stain remained even when Hurts was winning early in his NFL career, taking the Eagles to heights the franchise hasn’t achieved since winning Super Bowl LII in the 2017 season. An MVP-caliber season in 2022 wasn’t enough to convince some, and neither was a historic Super Bowl performance against the Kansas City Chiefs dynasty; the Eagles scored 35 points, which was the most ever by a team in a Super Bowl loss.

Winning is how quarterbacks are ultimately judged — fair or not. Hurts reached the top of the mountain and won the Super Bowl this past season, yet it wasn’t enough to put him amongst the best of the best in a quarterback ranking containing league executives, coaches and scouts.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. Winning and championships are the statistics that matter to Hurts.

Jalen Hurts as the full-time starting QB (college and pro)

Hurts is a proven winner at both levels, having a national championship and Super Bowl title on his resume. He led Alabama to two national championship games (2016 and 2017) and the Eagles to two Super Bowls (2022 and 2024) — the only quarterback in franchise history to start in multiple Super Bowls.

Let’s put Alabama aside and focus on Hurts’ NFL success. He’s the only quarterback to lead the Eagles to multiple 14-plus win seasons and one of eight quarterbacks to start in two Super Bowls in his first five seasons. Hurts is the first quarterback since John Elway to lose his Super Bowl debut and go onto win the Super Bowl and the first quarterback since Jim Kelly to lose his Super Bowl debut and go back to the Super Bowl.

Hurts is just one of five quarterbacks with multiple Super Bowl starts before turning 27 years old. He’s the seventh-youngest quarterback to win Super Bowl MVP (26 years old), adding onto an already impressive resume when it comes to the big game.

This is what Hurts has accomplished in the Super Bowl alone:

• Most total touchdowns in a quarterback’s first two Super Bowl starts (seven)
• Sixth player all-time with 3-plus total touchdowns in multiple Super Bowls
• Second quarterback with a 70% completion rate and 3-plus total touchdowns in multiple Super Bowls (Tom Brady is the other)
• Most rushing yards by a quarterback in Super Bowl history (72), breaking his own record of 70 in Super Bowl LVII . Hurts has the two highest single-game rushing yardage totals by a quarterback in Super Bowl history.
• Fourth quarterback to win Super Bowl after losing first Super Bowl start (Len Dawson, Bob Griese, John Elway)
• Third quarterback to start and win a college football national championship and a Super Bowl (Joe Namath, Joe Montana)
• First quarterback to defeat Patrick Mahomes in the playoffs not named Joe Burrow or Tom Brady. Mahomes was previously 15-0 against quarterbacks not named Burrow or Brady.
• First quarterback to win Super Bowl drafted after Patrick Mahomes (2018 or later).

Hurts was also the first quarterback to win a Super Bowl rematch between opposing quarterbacks, as the other three quarterbacks who won the first meeting won the second one. The Eagles won the last 14 games Hurts started and finished, and he was also the quarterback of the team that had the most points in a conference championship and Super Bowl combined by any team in NFL history.

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Hurts also wins in the regular season. He has the seventh-best regular season record by a quarterback (46-20, .697 win percentage) in addition to his 6-3 playoff record. That’s more playoff victories than Stafford (five), Burrow (five), Goff (five), Jackson (three), and Daniels (two) — all quarterbacks ranked ahead of Hurts. Only Mahomes and Jackson have a higher regular-season win percentage than Hurts.

Football is the ultimate team game, and Hurts has had the privilege of being the quarterback of some impressive rosters. When asked to work with what’s around Hurts, he performs at the highest level and wins.

Jalen Hurts’ playcallers since 2016

Again, let’s focus on Hurts’ NFL success. During his six seasons with the Eagles, Hurts only has one season with a repeat playcaller. In his second season with Shane Steichen calling plays (2022), Hurts was runner-up for NFL MVP, showcasing how good the Eagles quarterback can be with a full offseason in an offensive system.

Even with having to learn a new system nearly every offseason, Hurts has won regardless. The Eagles have made the playoffs every year with Hurts as the starting quarterback, and he has upped his game in the postseason, completing 66.8% of his passes with 10 touchdowns to three interceptions with a 95.4 passer rating.

Hurts also has 10 rushing touchdowns in the postseason — an NFL record for a quarterback. Hurts is the only player in NFL history with 10 passing touchdowns and 10 rushing touchdowns in the postseason.

Hurts’ numbers weren’t fantasy football impressive in 2024, but they were statistics that determine winning. In the the 2024 postseason, Hurts completed 71.4% of his passes for 726 yards with five touchdowns to just one interception for a 108.6 passer rating. Hurts won Super Bowl LIX MVP after completing 77.3% of his passes for 221 yards with two touchdowns and an interception (119.7 rating) while rushing for 72 yards and a score.

The postseason was a masterclass, but so was Hurts in the clutch. Hurts was incredible in the fourth quarter of games since the Eagles bye week (Week 5), completing 37 of 45 passes (82.2%) for 471 yards with three touchdowns and zero interceptions for an NFL-leading 132.5 passer rating. He also had five rushing touchdowns in that stretch, racking up as many total touchdowns as incompletions (eight)

Hurts completed 85 of 117 passes (72.6%) in the second half of games since that bye week, throwing for 1,208 yards with seven touchdowns to zero interceptions for a league-leading 125.6 passer rating. Hurts also had 269 yards rushing and 10 rushing touchdowns in that stretch. His 17 total touchdowns to zero giveaways in the second half of games since the first week of October were as clutch as it gets.

Does it really matter if Hurts throws the ball 30-plus times a game? And by the way, Philadelphia is 22-11 when Hurts does throw 30-plus times — a .667 win percentage. When Hurts throws 35-plus times a game, the Eagles are 13-6 — a .684 win percentage.

Whether Hurts throws a lot or doesn’t, he wins games anyway.

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Why ranking Hurts is difficult

Hurts is a victim of his own success, a product of ever-changing playcallers because of his ability to win. As those playcallers continue to developed Hurts and won games in the process, teams have tried to replicate that formula with their own quarterback. Of Hurts’ 12 playcallers, seven have been promoted to head coaching jobs elsewhere.

That’s a testament to Hurts, along with the talent that he elevates around him.

Now, regarding the league executives, coaches and scouts that rank Hurts. Perhaps it’s their misevaluation of Hurts as a prospect as a reason why he’s below certain quarterbacks. Hurts was the only non top-10 pick that cracked the top-10 of the quarterback rankings and the lone non first-round pick.

Hurts was the fifth quarterback taken in that 2020 NFL Draft — behind Burrow (No. 1), Herbert (No. 5), Tua Tagovailoa (No. 6), and Jordan Love (No. 26). Hurts has as many playoff wins as the four quarterbacks drafted ahead of him combined (six), and was the first one from that class to win the Super Bowl.

To justify misevaluating Hurts, it’s easier for NFL execs to point out what he doesn’t do well and the loaded roster around him than his accomplishments on the football field. That’s especially true when every team –including his own — passed on him in round one.

Again, it doesn’t matter where Hurts is ranked amongst his peers. He’s doing exactly what his team is asking him to do, and at a high level. Hurts will continue to win games, and reap the benefits of winning.

Like Hurts said, championships are better.