September 14, 2023
It sometimes feels like Jalen Hurts has the whole world on notice, especially with the latest honor.
Announced Wednesday, the Eagles' star quarterback was revealed to have a spot among TIME Magazine's TIME100 Next, a list dedicated to highlighting the next wave of influential voices across various fields like sports, arts, health, business, and so on.
He got his own cover, along with a foreword written about him by one of football's greatest ever.
So, wrote Peyton Manning of Hurts:
I first met Jalen Hurts—who led the Philadelphia Eagles to the Super Bowl earlier this year—when he was in college and a counselor at the Manning Passing Academy, a summer football camp for high school players. I’ve admired him ever since. I strongly respect his willingness to learn. He’s always thinking about getting better. For example, he will sometimes text me questions about plays that his team can run in the red zone. Though I sometimes have to remind him I haven’t played in seven years (I have to dig into some old archives to remember plays), I’ve so enjoyed these conversations. Jalen is a natural leader who cares about his job and the organization that he plays for. The Eagles signed Jalen to a record-breaking contract extension this offseason, and he feels that accountability and responsibility to make them glad they made that investment. He’s not celebrating. He doesn’t see it as a reward. He sees it for what it is: the Eagles are paying him for what they expect him to do now. He’s a model of how to approach a job. This is where the hard work begins. [TIME]
It's definitely been quite the summer for Hurts after his MVP-caliber performance last season catapulted him into becoming one of the NFL's biggest stars.
He signed a long-term contract to become one of the highest-paid players in football (and was briefly the highest for a second), landed major sponsorship deals with Air Jordan, Hulu, and now Beats by Dre, starred on the cover of Sports Illustrated's annual NFL preview issue as "the new Fresh Prince," and now also has the latest honor from TIME.
But of course, this is all coming off a heartbreaking loss to the Chiefs in the Super Bowl, and will all mean little in the end if he and the Eagles can't get back and win it.
"Money is nice, championships are better," Hurts said back in April after signing his five-year, $255 million contract extension to stay on as the Eagles' franchise QB.
"I think about these moments and I think about these times, and you say it's an exciting moment...but I think I set the precedent for what it is that I desire," he added at the time. "I think for me, it's so hard because my mind's everywhere and I just really can't help but keep the main thing the main thing, what I set out to do and what this organization is set out to do.
"The only thing that I've ever wanted to do was be the best version of myself. That hasn't changed, that won't change."
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