Jalen Hurts vs. Jayden Daniels: Who is the best QB in the NFC East?

There’s a certain fanbase in the NFC East that will try to tell you that there are three good quarterbacks in the NFC East. Ignore those people because Jalen Hurts and Jayden Daniels are the only two good ones.

The Week 16 game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Washington Commanders is going to give us our last guaranteed time to see these two face off against each other. Even if it’s stupid, each quarterback’s performance in this game is going to weigh heavily in online arguments about which one is better.

This is going to look into Jalen and Jayden's wildly different running styles and some passing stats to figure out which one of these two is the real golden boy of the NFC East.

The 'Jalen or Jayden' argument is going to happen for a long time

Arguing about quarterbacks is a great American pastime. Those debates are even better when the two quarterbacks are in the same division. No one cares about the ‘Who is better: Jordan Love and Justin Herbert?’ discussion… but ‘Who is better: Jalen Hurts or Jayden Daniels?’ Now, we’re cookin’.

When someone says, ‘Jayden Daniels is better than Jalen Hurts’ just know that they’re excited about a new flashy thing. Jayden was drafted second overall in the 2024 draft a few months after winning the Heisman, so that excitement is understandable, especially for a cursed franchise. 

With this, we’re comparing a rookie to a veteran. Jayden Daniels has 14 games under his belt. Jalen has almost four years. We’ve seen Jalen play the best game of his career in Super Bowl LVII, so we know what his ceiling is. We probably haven’t (but hopefully have) seen Jayden Daniels’ ceiling.

Two dual threats

Jayden Daniels burst onto the scene and looked flashy. In his first three games, he ran the ball 33 times for 171 yards and three touchdowns. Since then, it’s been relatively toned down.

He was flashy, he was quick, and he showed that he could be slick and escape to the outside to get first downs. It was impressive, but you could see his weakness: He takes a whole lot of contact. That ended up biting him because early in the game against the Panthers in Week 7, he messed up his ribs. 

To be fair, that run was sick. When you use the word ‘dynamic’ that run is the exact definition of it. He’s just not the biggest guy in the world, and when he puts himself out like that, he’s asking for something to get hurt. That seems like it might be a rookie mistake though. Sometimes it takes quarterbacks a year or two to learn and get comfortable with sliding. 

Jalen Hurts, on the other hand, isn’t going to do a whole bunch of shifty moves to make the entire defense miss. He’ll juke to make the first guy miss, and then either slide before contact or run through contact when it’s necessary. We’ve seen it countless times, but most famously, against the Vikings in Week 2 of the 2022 season.

Those are things that Jalen can do because he’s built like a Chrysler Pacifica Hellcat, whereas Daniels is more of a fancy motorcycle. Sure, you can certainly say Jayden is more dynamic, but Jalen is unquestionably more dominant and powerful.

Who can spin it better?

We're going to completely disregard the receivers for this. If anyone ever argues, 'Well, Jalen gets to throw to A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. Jayden just has Terry McLaurin,' just respond with the old, 'I can walk perfectly fine, but shoes make it a whole hell of a lot more comfortable.' That's a confusing thing to hear, and it'll end that conversation without you having to defend the Eagles for being better at building a roster.

Comparing the passing game between the two is tough. If you look at just this year, everything would tell you that Jayden is a better passer than Jalen. 

Jayden’s whole thing at the beginning of the season was his incredible completion percentage; in the first four games, he was averaging a completion percentage of 82%. Now his season average is 70.7%, but that’s still really good. 

A different (and arguably better) way to look at the completion percentage is completions per dropback. That way we’re looking at plays that were called passes. That means it includes sacks, scrambles, and throwaways. All of these numbers are coming from Next Gen Stats.

You have to go to the hundreds-place to see the difference between the two. 

The problem with looking at those numbers is that the Eagles are the most run-heavy team in the NFL this season, so it’s more accurate to include all of Jalen Hurts’ dropbacks and completions from the past three seasons. 

These two are nearly identical in that regard.  The point here is that Jayden Daniel's really high completion percentage isn't all that impressive when you dig into it and compare it to other good quarterbacks.

The next best thing to look at for these two is their Completion Percent over Expected (CPoE). Next Gen Stats defines that as “The difference between a quarterback’s actual completion percentage and expected completion percentage controlling for the level of difficulty of each pass.” Essentially it takes the quarterback’s location and speed while throwing, the target’s location and speed while catching, how close defenders are, and a bunch of other stuff that makes a throw easy or hard. 

Unfortunately, NGS doesn’t give us one of these for a Completion Percent per Dropback over Expected, so this will have to make do.

Even in a year where he’s not being asked to throw the ball nearly as much, Jalen is making more difficult throws and he’s completing more of them. That sure sounds like he’s a better passer.

Now, maybe you want to compare each quarterback’s best game of the season and career. Luckily, both Jalen and Jayden had killer games against the Bengals.

Again, Jalen’s best game that he’s ever played in its entirety was in the Super Bowl. He went 27-for-38 for 308 yards and a touchdown and rushed for 70 yards and three touchdowns. On the biggest stage, Jalen outplayed Patrick Mahomes. The best quarterback that Jayden has outplayed was Kyler Murray in a Week 4 game. 

Jayden Daniels is a good quarterback, and he’ll probably keep getting better and better. He might be a more dynamic runner than Jalen Hurts, but as a passer and smooth operator, he’s got some catching up to do. Jalen is, without a doubt the best quarterback in the NFC East right now.