Philadelphia Eagles: Jalen Hurts has been acting like a captain all summer
On Labor Day, the Philadelphia Eagles officially announced their captains for the 2021 NFL season.
Sidebar: Wow, on a day explicitly set aside to honor labor, the Eagles took it upon themselves to recognize their best and brightest. I wonder if that was intentional?
Now, if you had to guess who exactly made up this six-man captainship, in some sort of weirdly specific prop bet, you probably got most of them correct. All but two of the players – Rodney McLeod, Fletcher Cox, Brandon Graham, and Jason Kelce – have been captains before, and the fifth, Alex Singleton, was a fairly obvious replacement for Craig James and Duke Riley, neither of whom made the team. But it’s the other first-year captain who will surely have the most eyes on him as he attempts to navigate the waters of his first full NFL season.
Fortunately, Jalen Hurts is built for this moment.
The Philadelphia Eagles will not regret naming Jalen Hurts their captain.
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Some players are just different.
Some players are among the top-ranked dual-threat prospects in the country but commit to a school known for their game manager approach to the quarterback position.
Some players lose their spot in the starting lineup but opt to stick around for their junior season instead of sitting out a year in the transfer portal.
Heck, some players even get drafted in the second round by a team with a $100 million quarterback already under contract and happily run onto the field lined up at wide receiver despite having never played the position at any level ever.
That player is Jalen Hurts.
Whether at Alabama, in Oklahoma, or even during his abbreviated time in the City of Brotherly Love, Hurts has been lauded for his team-first mentality and ability to lead many sometimes far beyond his years. Nick Saban once said of Hurts, “He’s a very good leader. He’s a hard worker. He’s as fine a person as we’ve ever had in the program.”
Regardless of what you think of Saban as a coach, that is some high praise from a man who has overseen the college careers of thousands of student-athletes.
At the NovaCare Center, players will often mention Hurts’ eagerness to quiz them on specific plays between organized team activities, and his (probably) patented phraseology – the rent is always due, etc. – has seeped into the general vocabulary of the entire team, even players like Rodney McLeod, who seldom interact with his offensive counterpart.
However, now that both players are captains, maybe that’s about to change.
Next. Just give Dallas Goedert a darn extension. dark
In Jalen Hurts, the Philadelphia Eagles don’t just have their potential franchise quarterback. Mind you, I think I can speak for the entirety of Eagles Nation in saying that I really hope they do have a franchise-level signal-caller, but just being able to read a defense, call for a snap, and throw a ball aren’t the only requirement to succeed in the NFL. No, the really good quarterbacks rally their team around a specific purpose and elevate the team above the sum of their parts. Considering Hurts’ admiration both from his former coaches and his peers, I’d say he is more than qualified to be a captain.