Jalen Hurts and a motley crew of playoff quarterbacks are the NFC’s new State of Play

A first-rounder, a second-rounder, and two Day 3 picks walk into a postseason ...

The numbers are funny, if nothing else. The four quarterbacks still standing in the AFC entered this postseason with 14 playoff wins.

The four NFC quarterbacks?

One.

The four AFC quarterbacks will enter this weekend’s divisional-round games with six AFC championship game appearances among them.

The four NFC quarterbacks?

None.

It’s an interesting dynamic, especially if you are someone who interpreted the Eagles’ wild-card loss to the Buccaneers last January as a referendum on Jalen Hurts’ staying power as an NFL starter. Case in point: Is there any scenario in which the Eagles or their fans walk away from their playoff showdown with the Giants on Saturday convinced that what they really need is a guy like Brock Purdy or Daniel Jones at quarterback?

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Let’s include Dak Prescott, too. He’s seven years into his career and still has not advanced past the divisional round. He entered this postseason with exactly one playoff win. Yet he’s the one guy in this field who kinda sorta looks like the type of quarterback people usually have in mind when they say that you need a quarterback in order to win.

It’s something to think about whenever you hear someone say that Saturday’s game will be a defining one for Hurts. Not only is it a disservice to all that Hurts has accomplished in leading the Eagles to a 14-3 record this season, it’s ignores the extent to which the NFL landscape has changed at the quarterback position.

The NFC co-favorites have a third-string rookie as their starter. The Giants have yet to commit to Jones beyond this season. Geno Smith just started a playoff game. Jared Goff almost got a chance. Marcus Mariota, Sam Darnold, Andy Dalton, and Taylor Heinicke all spent time as starters. Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers both looked like shells of themselves with no heirs apparent in place. Along with Purdy, that’s well over half of the NFC.

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Can Hurts lead a team to a Super Bowl? Well, just look around.

Let’s be clear: Hurts has a chance to play his way to immortality this postseason. If he shows up on Saturday the way he showed up in the Eagles’ 48-22 win over the Giants in the regular season, he will deserve every bit of permanence that people bestow upon him.

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My point is more the opposite: Hurts has already answered the biggest question. In fact, it might have been a misguided question to begin with. Whatever he does should have little or no bearing on the Eagles’ immediate future at the quarterback position. That’s a rare position for an Eagles quarterback. It’s also a remarkable one for anybody who spent last offseason debating Hurts’ aptitude as an NFL starter or dreaming up ways to replace him.

Last year, it was fair to wonder whether that Bucs loss was a defining game for Hurts. His performance was tailor-made for the doubters who viewed him as an exciting but limited stopgap option en route to finding a long-term replacement for Carson Wentz. The Eagles themselves sent plenty of signals that they were keeping their options open, from their stockpiling of draft picks to their reported desire to land an established NFL star. If Russell Wilson was open to being an Eagle, maybe he would have been.

Well, the game done changed.

To a certain extent, the cult of the franchise quarterback was always slightly overblown. In the last five years alone, we’ve seen Jimmy Garoppolo and Goff enter the final eight minutes of the Super Bowl with a tie or a lead. We’ve seen Nick Foles win one. Before that, there was a six-year stretch when Joe Flacco and Eli Manning won half of the Super Bowls. And who can forget the early 2000s, when Brad Johnson, Rich Gannon, Jake Delhomme, Matt Hasselbeck, and Rex Grossman all logged Super Bowl appearances in a five-year span.

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But this season is truly the best of times and worst of times. Never has the league seen so stark a line between the haves and the have-nots. Give credit to Howie Roseman and Jeffrey Lurie for recognizing that the upside of drafting Hurts in the second round was too valuable to pass up. At least half of the league will enter the offseason without a clear-cut starter in place. The vast majority of those teams will need to get lucky to have even a competent option in place.

Given the circumstances, it’s remarkable to think that only a year ago many of us were wondering how the Eagles might be able to improve upon Hurts.

The NFL is full of teams who spent their offseasons chasing quarterbacks who fit their ideal image of what it takes to win. Four of them will be playing to go to the AFC championship game. A lot more of them will be watching the NFC playoffs from home.