Patrick Mahomes was already a household name. Jalen Hurts has become one in his third NFL season. Both quarterbacks want to go down in history at Super Bowl LVII next Sunday. Only one can.
Hurts launched the Eagles from preseason 30-1 odds to win the Super Bowl in Glendale, Arizona, to staking them as the one-and-a-half point favorite against Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs in the showpiece.
‘This is the Jalen Hurts Show at the end of the day,’ Chiefs defensive end Frank Clark said ahead of the big one, as he insists that Kansas City will be prepared to deal with Hurts at full speed.
‘If you can stop what he’s doing, you can possibly slow them down. But he’s playing some great football.’
Hurts seems to be embracing and appreciative of the magnitude of the moment. Both himself and Mahomes are Texas natives, after all. They are both NFL MVP finalists. And they will be the first black quarterbacks to face off in a Super Bowl.
Will Philadelphia Eagles QB Jalen Hurts come out on top of Super Bowl LVII on February 12?
Not even most football fans could’ve predicted Hurts’ rise to stardom before this season
Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes has widely been tipped to become the next face of the NFL now
Having won Super Bowl LIV in 2020, Mahomes set to go down as one of greatest quarterbacks
‘I think it’s history. I think it’s something that’s worthy of being noted,’ Hurts said, also mentioning that, to him, it’s an honor to be facing a familiar face in Mahomes, his counterpart.
The Chiefs beat the Eagles in October 2021 when Hurts threw for 387 yards and two touchdowns. Mahomes? Well, he threw for five.
But the game was one of the earliest signs that Hurts would grow into the main man in Philly, as he has shown fans and doubters ever since.
The 24-year-old will surely be given a significant raise to move him closer to his much more-experienced rival, whether he wins or loses at The University of Phoenix Stadium.
And what can we anticipate from a one-time Super Bowl champion who’s dying to prove himself as the next face of the league?
Now that Tom Brady’s retired from football ‘for good’, Mahomes is suddenly under pressure to show that he’ll be the one taking the torch passed on by the 45-year-old quarterback legend, as many have projected.
Dailymail.com takes a look at the battle of the quarterbacks…
Who are the people behind the NFL armor?
Once named among Time 100’s list of most influential people of 2020 shortly after winning the first Super Bowl championship of his career against the 49ers, Mahomes breathes Kansas City sports, along with his wife, Brittany, ever since he found a home in the Missouri-based franchise as the 10th overall pick of the 2017 NFL Draft.
Godson of former MLB pitcher LaTroy Hawkins, a teammate of his father’s, Patrick Mahomes Sr., on the Minnesota Twins, the 27-year-old and Brittany (née Matthews) are part of the ownership team of the Kansas City Current, a team amongst 11 others in the National Women’s Soccer League. Mahomes is also a minority stakeholder in Sporting Club, the ownership group of MLS franchise Sporting Kansas City.
The quarterback also got down on one knee to propose to his then-high school sweetheart at Arrowhead Stadium on the same day he received his Super Bowl LIV ring in 2020.
Mahomes, 27, has been married to high-school sweetheart, ex-soccer pro Brittany Matthews, since March 20201. The couple have lived in Kansas City, Missouri, ever since Mahomes was drafted by the local NFL franchise in 2017
The couple are considered Kansas City royalty as they are both part of ownerships groups that are tied to other local sports teams in the area. Brittany is the co-owner of NASL outfit Kansas City Current while Mahomes is a minority stakeholder in the Current and Sporting Kansas City, the city’s MLS club
Brittany, left, Mahomes, right, and their daughter Sterling Skye, center, with their newborn son Patrick Lavon Mahomes III. Sterling is nearly two while Mahomes III was born in November
The quarterback got down on one knee to propose to Brittany at Arrowhead Stadium on the same day he received his Super Bowl LIV ring in 2020.
Mahomes’ wife, Brittany once had a brief professional soccer career playing for UMF Afturelding in Iceland before eventually becoming a certified personal trainer.
The couple currently live in Kansas City and married in March, a little less than a year after welcoming their first-born and daughter, Sterling Skye, in February 2021. They also have a son, Patrick Lavon Mahomes III, who was born in November.
Mahomes and Hurts are both Christian and the Chiefs quarterback got closer to his faith while involved in a youth group in middle school.
‘Faith is huge for me. … Before every game, I walk the field and I do a prayer at the goalpost,’ Mahomes told Sports Spectrum in 2020. ‘I just thank God for those opportunities and I thank God for letting me be on a stage where I can glorify Him. The biggest thing that I pray for is that whatever happens, win or lose, success or failure, that I’m glorifying Him.’
On the role of religion in his life, Hurts once told GOD TV: ‘I keep God at the center of everything. I give Him all the praise, I lean on Him all the time. And I know that everything unfolds the way it’s supposed to.’
Mahomes also has a younger brother, Jackson, 22 – an internet celebrity who often records TikTok videos from the sidelines of Arrowhead Stadium while his brother dictates play from under center.
Mahomes also has a younger brother, Jackson, 22. The two brothers are pictured with Brittany
Jackson Mahomes often films TikTok videos of himself from Arrowhead’s sidelines
In contrast, not much of Hurts’ personal life has been revealed. The Eagles quarterback prefers to live his life out of the limelight, as many within his entourage have previously told the press.
The 24-year-old is the son of a Texas-based football head coach from Channelview, 16 miles east of Houston. Hurts has two siblings: a younger sister, Kynnedy, and an older brother, Averion, named after his father.
Jalen’s brother, Averion, played college football for Texas Southern University, as the team’s starting quarterback. He’s now a college football coach at the University of Alabama, where Hurts, himself, first played football after high school in 2016 before transferring to The University of Oklahoma in 2019.
Hurts, 24, showed off his girlfriend Bryonna Burrows for the first time in public after winning the NFC Conference title on January 29 at Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Burrows and Hurts are believed to have first met while both attended University of Alabama
Burrows could barely contain her excitement at seeing her beau lead his team to Super Bowl
Burrows is a senior client experience consultant for IBM in Dallas, Texas, according to LinkedIn
During his high school days, only one of Hurts’ parents would attend his weekly football games, as the other would watch Averion’s games.
Hurts has recently gone public with his girlfriend, Bryonna Burrows, following the Eagles’ NFC Championship title on January 29. The couple were pictured side-by-side after the Eagles defeated the 49ers.
They met at the University of Alabama, where Burrows graduated from in 2017 with a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and political science, according to People. She is now a senior client experience consultant for IBM in Dallas.
Hurts has two siblings: an older brother, Averion, left, who played quarterback fro Texas State University; and little sister, Kynnedy, second from left. Far right is Hurts’ mother, Pamela
Hurts pictured with family in 2016 during his first season on the Alabama Crimson Tide
Different paths to the NFL pinnacle
In 2020, at only 24, Mahomes became the youngest player to have won both a Super Bowl ring and the game’s MVP award, having been chosen by The Associated Press in only his second season and first as a starter after being the backup to Alex Smith in 2019.
But, the 27-year-old’s path to the top of the NFL wasn’t an easy one by any means.
Coming out of high school, Mahomes was only rated as a three-star recruit by college football scouts and was ranked as the 12th best dual-threat quarterback in the 2014 class.
The NFL’s 2018 Offensive Player of the Year also came close to choosing baseball over football before going to college.
He was an exciting prospect in the 2014 MLB Draft, though he wasn’t expected to be ranked highly due to his commitment to playing football at Texas Tech. The Detroit Tigers did select the Super Bowl LIV champion, nonetheless, but the player, himself, didn’t sign a contract with the team.
Mahomes was only a three-star recruit when he signed to play for the Texas Tech Red Raiders
Mahomes had a chance to play in the MLB when the Detroit Tigers drafted him. At Texas Tech, the 27-year-old split his time being on the university’s football and baseball teams
In Lubbock, Mahomes split his time with the Red Raiders’ baseball team, where he was a relief pitcher, and even received an offer from The Oakland Athletics though he turned it down to keep playing football.
Texas Tech got the best out of Mahomes his junior year in 2016, when the team narrowly finished outside bowl eligibility with a 5-7 record. That season, the then-21-year-old quarterback broke several NCAA records in a 66-59 loss to Oklahoma at home, including for single game passing yards with 734.
He also holds the college record for most combined yards of total offense in a game with 1,708 combined passing yards, and total offense by two players, as the other was Baker Mayfield, the Sooners’ starting quarterback.
Announcing that he would forgo his last year of college eligibility and enter the 2017 NFL Draft, Mahomes was selected as the 10th overall pick by the Chiefs, and little did the franchise’s front office know that Mahomes wasn’t only going to revolutionize the team but also lead it to a Super Bowl after a 50-year absence.
The NFL’s 2018 Offensive Player of the Year has led Kansas City to five back-to-back AFC Championship appearances in his six seasons in the league, from 2018 to 2022, which is tied second most all-time with Ken Stabler for the most consecutive conference championship game appearances by a quarterback.
Mahomes is the son of ex-Minnesota Twins, Boston Red Sox, New York Mets, Texas Rangers, Chicago Cubs and Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Pat Mahomes
Mahomes was once the league MVP in 2018 and has made first-team All-Pro twice (2018, 2022). He is also a five-time Pro Bowler (2018-2022) and was once the Sports Illustrated Sportsperson of the Year during his Super Bowl title-winning season.
This year, with the Chiefs tied atop of the NFL with the best overall team record (13-4) alongside the Eagles, Mahomes has played much of the postseason with a high ankle sprain. The Chiefs narrowly beat Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals at home to book their ticket to Arizona after having beaten the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Hurts was rated as a four-star college recruit in high school and ranked among the top dual-threat quarterbacks in the Class of 2016.
Hurts, who passed for 2,384 yards with 26 touchdown passes and rushed for 1,391 yards and 25 touchdowns during his senior year, committed to The University of Alabama in 2015.
A couple of months later and he was the school’s starting man under center after coming in for Blake Barnett.
He became the first freshman to be Alabama’s starting quarterback in 32 years and went on to have a productive first season in college football under head coach Nick Saban, throwing for 2,780 yards and 23 touchdowns with nine interceptions.
Hurts had a series of ups and downs when he played college football for Alabama (seen against the Auburn Tigers in 2017)
Crimson Tide QB Tua Tagovailoa (13), head coach Nick Saban and Hurts (2) celebrate during the trophy presentation at the SEC Championship game between the Georgia Bulldogs and Alabama in December 2018
Hurts celebrates with fans after leading the Tide past Clemson in Allstate Sugar Bowl in 2018
Against Auburn in the Iron Bowl game, Hurts completed 75 percent of his passes, setting a new record. Alabama wrapped up its 2016–2017 regular season with a perfect 12–0 record, going undefeated in the SEC (8-0).
In December 2016, the Houston-native led the Crimson Tide to win the 2016 SEC Championship over the Florida Gators and was later the recipient of the SEC Offensive Player of the Year and SEC Freshman of the Year.
In the 2017-18 season, Hurts led Alabama to an 11–1 regular season record, losing to Auburn in the last remaining fixture of the year. Nick Saban’s men still reached the College Football Playoff as the fourth seed, where they got revenge against Clemson by defeating them in the 2018 Sugar Bowl semifinal. Hurts was the offensive MVP in that game but had a nightmare against the Georgia Bulldogs in the 2018 College Football Playoff National Championship.
Falling behind 13-0 at halftime, Hurts was benched in favor of then-freshman Tua Tagavailoa, who now starts under center for the Miami Dolphins. The switch worked a trick as the Crimson Tide were champions following a 26-23 victory in overtime.
After Tagovailoa turned the Tide around to victory in the National Championship, questions regarding Hurts’ status on the team were being asked. During the 2018-19 season, the Texas-raised quarterback mostly played as a backup to Tagovailoa even though he led the team to a comeback 35-28 victory against Georgia in the SEC Championship game after being down 14-21 at halftime.
Completing a bachelor’s in communication and information sciences in December of that year, Hurts opted to transfer away from Alabama and joined the University of Oklahoma to play his senior year there.
In Norman, the 2016 First-team All-SEC member helped lead the Sooners to a Big 12 Championship and a spot in the College Football Playoff. In the 2019-20 season. He missed out on the Heisman Trophy, coming second in voting to Joe Burrow.
After being benched for most of the 2018-19 season at Alabama, Hurts transferred to play for the Oklahoma Sooners
Hurts’ first ever NFL postseason game was wildcard series loss against Bucs in January 2022
Tom Brady saluted Hurts after the NFC wildcard playoff game at Raymond James Stadium
The Eagles then selected Hurts as the 53rd overall pick in the second round of the 2020 NFL Draft. Philly had earmarked the 24-year-old as cover for Carson Wentz but the quarterback got his first league start against the New Orleans Saints following injuries to Wentz and back-up Nate Sudfeld.
At the start of the 2021-22 season, Eagles head coach Nick Siriani named Hurts as the team’s starter under center. By the end of the season, Hurts finished with 3,144 passing yards, 16 passing touchdowns, and nine interceptions to go along with 139 carries for 784 rushing yards and 10 rushing touchdowns.
He also ranked first among NFL quarterbacks in rushing yards and rushing touchdowns. He was on the losing side to Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the wildcard round.
This season, Hurts was named NFC Offensive Player of Month for September and led the team to an 8-0 overall start, being the first Eagles quarterback to do so.
Hurts ended the regular season with a 14–1 starting record and was named to his first career Pro Bowl. He was also named Second Team All-Pro is one of the five finalists for the NFL MVP Award this year along with Mahomes.
The Eagles started the 2022-23 postseason with a commanding 38–7 victory over the New York Giants in the Divisional Round. That was Hurts’ first playoff win.
Then, just a week later, he led Philly to win the NFC Championship Game against the 49ers. In that game, he threw for 121 yards, rushed for 39 yards and ran in for a touchdown in his first ever NFL title.
What are they worth?
Mahomes agreed to a 10-year extension worth up to $503million in July 2020. The deal is worth $477m in guarantee mechanisms and included a no-trade clause and opt-out clauses if guarantee mechanisms aren’t met.
Hurts is in the third season of a four-year contract with a total value of approximately $6million.
His base salary for 2022-23 is $1,082,744, which ranks 47th among NFL quarterbacks. Hurts’ base salary will increase to $4,208,000 in 2023, should he not get a pay raise, according to Bet MGM.
Mahomes’ endorsement earnings are close to $17million, according to Sportskeeda, as the QB is sponsored by Head & Shoulders and many more brands
Among Mahomes’ main sponsors is Adidas. The 27-year-old also signed with Oakley, State Farm, Bose, DirecTV among other brands
Hurts doesn’t nearly have the same amount of sponsors as Mahomes. The 24-year-old is an ambassador for Lemon Perfect, an electrolytes drink made by Beyonce, and athletic apparel company Eastbay
If given a contract extension by the Eagles, then Hurts’ value would jump up to $263,190,216 over six years, ranking him behind only Mahomes in the NFL. His average annual salary is projected at $43,865,036, which would rank sixth — one spot ahead of Josh Allen, according to Spotrac’s estimates.
With his current net worth valued at around $40m, Mahomes’ endorsement earnings are close to $17million, according to Sportskeeda. The Chiefs quarterback has deals in place with Adidas, BioSteel, Oakley, Head & Shoulders, State Farm, Bose, DirectTV, Essentia Water and EA Sports.
Meanwhile, Hurts has a sponsorship deal with Lemon Perfect, an electrolytes drink created by Beyonce, and athletic apparel company Eastbay. The Eagles quarterback’s net worth is estimated to be around $6m, per FirstSportz.
What do they do away from the field?
An avid gamer, himself, Mahomes mostly plays Call of Duty online and has boldly admitted to not being much of a fan of EA Sports’ Madden, despite featuring on the video game’s cover twice.
The Tyler, Texas-native also plays golf in his free time and has even participated in several celebrity golf tournaments, including one that featured Bills quarterback Josh Allen, Aaron Rodgers, of the Green Bay Packers, and Tom Brady.
Other than gradually improving his swing during the offseason, Mahomes isn’t contractually allowed to casually play most other contact sports and activities in order to avoid the risk of injury.
The former Texas Tech quarterback also has his own nonprofit organization called the 15 and the Mahomies Foundation, which is ‘dedicated to improving the lives of children’, according to its website.
Outside of football, Mahomes, far left, is a big fan of golf. Pictured with Buffalo Bills QB Josh Allen, second left, Aaron Rodgers, of the Green Bay Packers, and Tom Brady, far right at the Capital One’s The Match VI in Las Vegas, Nevada, in June 2022
Mahomes is not allowed to play other contact sports, as agreed to when he signed his 10-year extension with the Chiefs, worth up to $503million
Mahomes has participated in several celebrity golf tournaments since entering the NFL
Mahomes was also part of a voter registration project in Kansas City. The project encouraged residents to register to vote in the 2020 Presidential Election, joining LeBron James’ Rock the Vote initiative to encourage people to register and vote.
Hurts was once a powerlifter in high school and, as a sophomore, he squatted 500 pounds of weight and was regional finalist in the 198-pound weight class.
Recently, however, the Eagles quarterback filed for a trademark for the phrase ‘HURTS SO GOOD.’ It has since been used for a clothing line that includes ‘men’s, women’s and children’s clothing, namely shirts, jackets, sweatshirts, pants, shorts, vests, gloves, socks, sweaters, underwear, skirts, hats and belts,’ PhillyVoice reported.
The Eagles quarterback is also an advocate for women in sports and leads an all-female management team, including social media, marketing, communications, and sports agent team members.
In 2021, Hurts honored the emergence of women in sports by participating in the NFL’s ‘My Cause, My Cleats’ initiative.
Hurts leads an all-female management team and hired Nicole Lynn as his sports agent in 2020
For all the latest Sports News Click Here
