February 19, 2026
Bill Streicher/Imagn Images
As constant and intense as debate will be this offseason, the Eagles can very much win another Super Bowl with Jalen Hurts as their quarterback.
The quarterback conversation across the NFL will rage on all offseason, because it never truly burns out.
The subject of who's elite, who's in the top 10 or 15 of the league, who might be on the trade market, and who's the next face of the franchise awaiting in the draft will conquer the sports talk airwaves and chatter amongst fans for months until there are finally games to play again, because those topics always do.
If your team doesn't have a superstar quarterback, the general thought goes, then your team doesn't have a chance. You need a Patrick Mahomes, a Lamar Jackson, a Josh Allen, a Matthew Stafford, or a Joe Burrow. You need the guy who can throw a minimum of 300 yards and two or three touchdowns a game while dictating the entire offense, because that's what almost two decades of Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, and then on to Mahomes have conditioned many to believe.
The past two Super Bowls, though, have torn a hole in that conventional thinking.
The Eagles ran all over the league, and then they beat the Chiefs dynasty down into pieces to win Super Bowl LIX in a blowout a year ago, in the team's second Super Bowl appearance in three seasons.
Then the Seahawks came along and did similar all of this past season, shutting their opponents down, especially within a tough NFC West, and then running the ball straight through them, which culminated in a thrashing of the Patriots in Super Bowl LX that never really felt close.
The Eagles got it done with Jalen Hurts as their guy under center, who is never going to throw up consistently eye-popping passing numbers, but has proven great in all the unconventional and intangible ways, with the willingness to buy into a scheme and commit to it, even if it doesn't always look pretty to watch.
The Seahawks just got it done with Sam Darnold, who was once a league whipping boy haunted by a poor situation with the Jets, but stuck around through the years, certainly didn't develop on a curve, yet found his way with the Vikings last year, and then carried it over to Seattle with this past one. He wasn't an outright game-changer for them, but he was dependable, had some dangerous pass-catching threats led by Jaxon Smith-Njigba, and a run game dominated by Kenneth Walker.
And that was more than enough to clinch the NFC's top seed, barrel straight through the conference playoff field, and then through an upstart Patriots team from the AFC, all with a mean defense taking over on the other side.
Sam Darnold and Jalen Hurts both have won Super Bowls before many of the league's more highly-regarded QBs.
It was more than enough for the Eagles a year ago, too, when it was Saquon Barkley taking off into the open during a historic rushing season and behind the strongest offensive line in football, while A.J. Brown powered through secondaries, DeVonta Smith ran the crispest routes in the game, and a young Vic Fangio-coached defense learned how to leave even the league's best offenses with nowhere to go.
And it very much still can be for the Eagles.
The offense is undergoing a schematic, philosophical, and, for now, unproven overhaul under new coordinator Sean Mannion.
The likelihood is that it's going to call for Hurts to work more with his arm, and from varying degrees of under center in a more deceptive gameplan, while the line in front of him starts to transition, knowing that Lane Johnson and Landon Dickerson – both now confirmed to be back for 2026 – probably only have so much time left.
But they'll still be bringing back Barkley, Smith, and maybe Brown (depending on how these next couple of months play out for the wideout). Plus, they'll still have the young and mean defense led by Jalen Carter, Jordan Davis, Zack Baun, and Quinyon Mitchell, among many others, coming back, even if they're about to start getting expensive.
That's still a winning recipe, and one that Hurts can still very much thrive within, even if it still won't put him in the same view as a Mahomes, a Jackson, an Allen, or now a Drake Maye.
Then again, he doesn't have to be, and it won't really matter if it's him and the Eagles playing in another Super Bowl, while most of those aforementioned star QBs not named Mahomes or Stafford are having excuses fished for them for why they either still haven't won yet or still haven't even made it to begin with.
Because the reality is you don't need the elite of the elite QBs to win a Super Bowl.
Build a team, run the ball down your opponent's throat, and bring a defense that can pummel them into the ground.
It's much easier said than done, of course, but when that happens, good can be good enough at QB. Hurts and Darnold can get a team to the finish line.
They both just did. They both have the parades and the rings on their finger to prove it, and could very well do it all over again.
All while pundits and fans everywhere else make excuses until they're blue in the face for why the other superstar quarterbacks still haven't.
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