Jalen Hurts is the Philadelphia Eagles’ franchise quarterback, a Super Bowl champion, a Super Bowl MVP, and the first starting quarterback in franchise history to lead the team to two Super Bowls. He’s 57-25 as a full-time starter, has guided the Eagles to five straight playoff berths, three NFC East titles, and a championship, all before turning 28. And somehow, a significant chunk of the fan base and media still treat him like he’s on trial.

I am so sick and tired of it.

Joe Santoliquito over at Bleeding Green Nation published a piece this week with a headline that should make every Eagles fan pause: “Philly better watch itself or it will lose another superstar.” And before you dismiss it, remember this is the same writer who put out that Carson Wentz article back in 2019 calling Wentz selfish and all for himself. He took an incredible amount of heat for that piece. And he was right. He nailed it. So when Santoliquito puts something out with this kind of weight behind it, I think we owe it to ourselves to listen.

The resume speaks for itself

Santoliquito opens by comparing the situation to Philadelphia trading Wilt Chamberlain, running superstars out of town. He acknowledges Hurts isn’t exactly Wilt, but he rattles off the accomplishments, and they’re staggering when you actually line them up. First Eagles starting quarterback to win a Super Bowl. First in franchise history to lead the team to two Super Bowls as a starter. Five straight playoff berths in five years as a full-time starter. One fumble and maybe a competent defensive coordinator away from having two Super Bowl MVPs, all by the age of 27.

How many franchises would trade everything they have right now to have Jalen Hurts as their quarterback? A quarterback who has accomplished this much before even technically reaching his prime? I’m not sitting here telling you he’s the best quarterback in the league. I’m not saying he’s perfect. But this guy is a winner. He’s pretty damn good. And when you put him in a competent system, he has proven time and time again that he can be the guy, that he can win, and that he can bring trophies back to this organization.

So why are we spending every offseason trying to tear him down?

The A.J. Brown factor and the accountability gap

The article brings up A.J. Brown, and Santoliquito doesn’t pull punches.

“Brown had a 2025 season where he gave up on routes, gave up on tracking passes, gave up on his teammates,” he wrote.

We love and appreciate A.J. for what he did here, but let’s be honest. He quit. He gave up on a team with Super Bowl potential. And he had the audacity to blame everybody around him but himself, signing the wall on the way out, saying “best to ever do it.”

We should not define or judge Jalen Hurts based on what A.J. Brown said or did. Brown is gone. Hurts is still here. And what bothers me is how some Eagles teammates came out during that whole saga talking about how much they loved A.J., how he was one of the best teammates they’ve ever had. This is a guy who was in direct opposition to the franchise quarterback, who pretty much threw Hurts under the bus, who was out there at 4-0 complaining about the offense not being good enough. And I don’t feel like a lot of those same teammates came out and defended Jalen the way they defended A.J. There’s a real point to be made there.

The ‘uncoachable’ narrative is garbage

The biggest quote from the Santoliquito piece, in my opinion, is this: for some reason, Hurts is nowhere near as appreciated as he should be in Philadelphia. Anywhere else, a quarterback with his winning résumé and his achievements would be celebrated. The article also notes that people close to Hurts believe the Eagles organization did not support him enough when those postseason stories came out questioning his ability to be coached.

Now, Howie Roseman defended Hurts. Nick Sirianni defended him. Jeff Lurie defended him. But the “uncoachable” narrative is the one that really gets under the skin of Hurts’ camp, and I agree with them 100%. This is a quarterback who has adapted to a different offensive coordinator practically every single year. If you can’t be coached, you don’t survive that kind of turnover at coordinator, let alone thrive through it.

Did the Eagles have a bad season last year? Yes. Did Hurts look rough near the end of it? Sure. But there was a collective failure across the board: the coaching staff, the coordinator, and A.J. Brown torpedoing the locker room. Everybody failed together, the same way they failed in 2023. And it took a champion like Jalen Hurts to bounce back in 2024 and play at the level he did to get Philadelphia back to the Super Bowl.

This is not Carson Wentz

That’s the comparison people keep trying to make, and it could not be more wrong. Carson Wentz was selfish. He wanted everything for himself in the locker room. He didn’t get along with anybody, and that followed him through the rest of his career until he couldn’t sustain one anymore. Jalen Hurts has gotten better every single year since his rookie season. He has worked hard. He has said the right things. He may not be perfect, but he has absolutely solidified himself as somebody who embodies the Philadelphia mentality. He walked into a chaotic situation his first year, muscled through the Carson drama, earned the respect of the veterans, and went on to win a Super Bowl.

People need to put this into perspective before it’s too late. The Eagles cannot afford to push another superstar out the door because the city and the media couldn’t appreciate what was standing right in front of them.