NFC quarterback rankings: Where does Jalen Hurts rank this offseason?

The Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl, and that’s something to be happy about. Jalen Hurts won Super Bowl MVP, and that’s something to be proud of. That being said, there are still people out there who don’t like him as a quarterback — and even claim he’s not a top-10 QB.

Now, if you’re a person who says, "The Eagles are World Champions. I don’t care what idiots say," that’s entirely respectable, admirable and downright enviable. Unfortunately, not everyone is like that. When you go online, in any capacity, you’ll see someone dogging Hurts. So this is the correct ranking of quarterbacks in the NFC.

Numbers aren’t worth much if they don’t mean wins

Different things make different quarterbacks good. Josh Allen has a cannon and is a weapon on the ground, Lamar Jackson is a weapon on the ground and can sling it, and Jalen Hurts runs his offense better than anyone — and he does it in the biggest moments. That’s the most important thing a quarterback can do. 

NFL.com's Nick Shook has the NFC’s best quarterbacks ranked as Jared Goff, Jayden Daniels, Baker Mayfield, Matthew Stafford and then Jalen Hurts. The real rankings are different.

5. Matthew Stafford: Floor is too low

It was outlandish for Shook to throw Matthew Stafford above Hurts. Stafford’s a good quarterback, a tough dude, and his game against the Eagles was very impressive, but that was him playing at his ceiling. His floor is atrocious. When he’s bad, he’s baaaaaad bad.

Nick Foles is a hero, but no one is going to sit there and tell you that he was a great quarterback. He had one of the best performances of all time at the most important moment, but his floor was pretty abysmal. 

Stafford is at a point in his career where he just doesn’t have it like he used to. When he’s hitting his floor, their team suffers, and they play losing football. When Jalen Hurts starts to get near his floor, the team does suffer, but he pivots, and the team plays winning football. 

4. Baker Mayfield:  Not built for the moment

Mayfield being ranked higher than Hurts is straight-up foolish. Again, Baker Mayfield is a good, fun quarterback, but he’s simply not better than Jalen Hurts. In Shook’s rankings, he notes that the Buccaneers scored 30+ points in three of their last seven games, which is right. Except two of those teams were against the Giants and the Panthers, which is not impressive at all.

The third game was against the Chargers, and the Buccaneers scored 40 points. That was a really good game by Mayfield. He crushed it there. I can’t argue with that. He had four touchdowns and five incompletions; it was unbelievable. 

Unfortunately, then you get to the Wild Card round, where the Buccaneers lost to the Commanders. Baker choked at the most important time. 

It was first-and-10 from his own 15-yard line, and he botched a fake handoff, turning the ball over and giving the Commanders a chance to get a go-ahead touchdown — which they ended up getting. You can’t choke in the biggest moments and expect to be ranked higher than Jalen Hurts — who, famously, never did.

3. Jared Goff: Regular season champion

Shook thinks Goff is the best quarterback in the NFC because he had a good 17 games, which is fine. It’s wrong, but it’s fine. All of those good regular-season stats don’t mean anything if you play poorly and cause your team to lose.

Jared Goff threw for the second-most yards in the NFL, had the second-highest passer rating and completion percentage in the regular season. In the postseason game he played with the top-seeded team in the NFC, he went 23-of-40 for 313 yards, one touchdown, and three interceptions.

2. Jayden Daniels: Terrifyingly good

Jayden Daniels is a good quarterback, and he’s coming off one of the most impressive rookie seasons of all time. That’s terrifying. If he stays healthy and keeps getting even marginally better year-over-year, he’ll probably end up being the best quarterback in the NFC.

Unlike Goff and Mayfield, he came in clutch in the postseason, and it was really impressive. The way that he didn’t let the divisional game against the Lions get to his head, and he took everything that the Lions defense gave him was really good.

Then came his biggest test in the NFC Championship game. When the Eagles went up 41-23 in the fourth quarter, Daniels wasn’t able to bring it home for the Commanders like he had been doing all season. 

He led the team to a turnover on downs and then threw an interception. There was a turnover on downs on their next drive, but at that point, their hopes were gone. You can’t hold that against him. 

To be the best quarterback in the division, you can’t break like that. Especially when the guy who is the best quarterback in the division doesn’t do things like that. 

1. Jalen Hurts: QB1 

Jalen Hurts isn’t just the best quarterback in the division, he’s also a top-three quarterback in the league because he’s the best quarterback at running his offense. Is he the most athletically talented? No. Does he have the strongest arm? No. Does he run his offense with lethal efficiency? You betcha. 

He is simply the best at being a quarterback. He doesn’t always flash like some guys do, but when he does, it’s beautiful.

People will argue, "Yeah, but Saquon Barkley made it easier for Jalen to throw the ball." Yeah. Duh. Because that’s what great offenses do. But do you know who made life easier for Saquon? Jalen Hurts. 

Defenses also had to account for Jalen Hurts as a weapon on the ground, which gave Saquon room to do Saquon things. Early in that divisional game against the Rams, QB1 broke off a 44-yard touchdown run because the Rams sold out on Barkley — and to be fair, who could blame them. 

After that, the Rams knew they had to account for both of these guys. Take the 78-yard touchdown run in that same game: Jalen Hurts checked into that play. He saw what the Rams’ defense was doing, but he knew what the offense had in its bag, and it went to a play that allowed Saquon Barkley to hit a homerun. It’s stuff like that that numbers don’t show. Sure, Saquon had the best complete season by a running back of all time, but it wasn’t just because of him and the offensive line. 

As for passing? Hurts only threw the ball 361 times in the regular season and only had 2,903 passing yards. That doesn’t mean he’s bad at it. That means he didn’t have to. If you can consistently run low-risk rushing plays for a very high reward, why wouldn’t you?

Then, you jump to the NFC Championship game and the Super Bowl where Jalen said, ‘You know what? How's about I do it too?’ 

He had his two best games of the season as a passer and an overall quarterback when they mattered the most. In the NFC Championship game, he threw the ball 20 times. One was for a touchdown, and 12 of them were for first downs.

Then, in the Super Bowl, he saw that Saquon Barkley wasn’t going to have a King-Quon game, and he pivoted. He picked apart the Chiefs' supposedly great defense in the air, and broke the record for most rushing yards by a quarterback in Super Bowl history (a record that he set two years ago). He rightfully won the Super Bowl MVP and cemented himself as the best quarterback in the NFC and as a top-three quarterback in the NFL alongside Allen and Jackson. 

Again, those two guys are wildly talented in their own right, but when everything matters the most, no one quarterbacks a team better than Jalen Hurts.