Jalen Hurts and Patrick Mahomes’ historic step for Black QBs has set them up as the ‘face of the whole league’

When Tony Dungy sees Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts take the field against each other, he sees the great quarterback matchups in NFL history that preceded them, both realized and unrealized.

The former Indianapolis Colts coach had an up-close view of the stretch of Peyton Manning’s career where, more often than not, a game against Tom Brady’s New England Patriots would set one of the two on a path to the Super Bowl. Dungy knew the history of Johnny Unitas and Bart Starr, and shared a locker room with Terry Bradshaw as he dueled with Ken Stabler and Roger Staubach for a few years.

But when Hurts and Mahomes became the first pair of Black quarterbacks to face off in the Super Bowl last February, it was the matchups that never came to be that Dungy reminded his sons about.

“I tell my boys that 30 years ago, 40 years ago, we may have been able to have a matchup like this,” Dungy told The Inquirer. “It would have been outstanding, but they just never really materialized. I’m old enough to remember when Charlie Ward won the Heisman Trophy and didn’t get drafted and he was the best quarterback in college football. We would think now that that’s impossible, but it wasn’t that long ago.”

Hurts and Mahomes will share the field for the third time in their NFL careers this Monday night at Arrowhead Stadium in one of the most-anticipated games of the NFL regular season. Nine months from their Super Bowl meeting, this matchup is more about sentiment than history.

Two Black quarterbacks, leading the two best teams in the NFL, and making a burgeoning case to become the league’s newest main event when it comes to quarterback matchups.

“It shows you how the game is changing,” said Dungy, one half of the first pair of Black coaches to face off in the Super Bowl alongside then-Bears coach Lovie Smith in 2007. “These two guys are not only the face of their franchise, but becoming the face of the whole league.”

The two quarterbacks’ last meeting crescendoed into a 38-35 Chiefs win that featured a record-setting performance for Hurts and a signature comeback from Mahomes. The aftermath featured a postgame exchange of respect in the tunnel underneath State Farm Stadium in Arizona, where Mahomes stated what was apparent to all.

“Hell of a game.”

Hurts had just thrown for 304 yards, run for 70, and scored four total touchdowns. Mahomes had thrown for just 182 yards, but orchestrated the go-ahead drive late in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LVII, leaving the Eagles offense down a field goal with just 8 seconds remaining.

“If there were any doubters left, there shouldn’t be now,” Mahomes said of Hurts’ performance after the game. “The way he stepped up on this stage and ran, threw the ball, whatever it took for his team to win, that was a special performance. I don’t want it to get lost in the loss that they had.”

Midway through this season, Mahomes and Hurts are once again each firmly at the center of the MVP conversation and atop their respective conferences.

Mahomes, who won last year’s MVP award with Hurts as the runner-up, has the Chiefs at 7-2 with 2,442 passing yards and 17 touchdowns, all through the air. Hurts (8-1 this season) 2,347 passing yards, 15 passing touchdowns and seven rushing scores.

“They’ve both answered all the questions, but the big thing is they’ve gotten an opportunity to answer all the questions,” Dungy said. “In the past, maybe there were question marks on guys that they never got the opportunity to answer. I think that’s what we’ve seen. Coaches who can take the talents of these guys, which may be a little different than we’re used to, it may not be prototypical, but they say they can build off that.”

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Over the last three games in particular, Hurts has been on a tear as a passer all while dealing with a knee injury that’s limited him as a runner. He’s gone two straight games recording a passer rating of 130 or better, something he managed just twice over his entire career before that point.

“That’s just who Jalen is,” Eagles offensive coordinator Brian Johnson said. “We constantly talk about how do we evolve, how do we get better, and Jalen just has that mindset to be the best version that he can be. He talks a lot about preparing for each and every opportunity, and each circumstance can be different. But that’s why I’ve always considered Jalen a triple threat of being able to beat teams with his arm, with his legs, and his mind.”

As well as he’s played in each of the two matchups against Mahomes, Hurts has yet to beat his fellow Texas native. Their first meeting came in 2021 at Lincoln Financial Field, when Mahomes threw for five touchdowns to lead the Chiefs to a 42-30 win.

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There’s a mutual respect between the two, as Hurts alluded to earlier this week.

“He leads his team very well,” Hurts said. “They’ve always had a great thing going. Just the level of consistency that they’ve been able to play [with], and not only play, but win. He’s always done a great job, everything he’s been able to do over his career, I have a lot of respect for that. It’ll be a battle.”

Mahomes added: “You have great teams in general. Obviously, Jalen is a great quarterback, but I think just the entire team on both sides — you never know how the game is going to. It could be high-scoring, it could be low-scoring. Two teams that usually find a way to get a win playing on Monday Night Football in front of the whole world, it’s going to be a great game.”

Unlike Manning and Brady, the implications of Monday’s inter-conference game won’t be quite as seismic to either team’s playoff outlook, and there won’t be an annual regular-season matchup.

The Eagles aren’t slated to play the Chiefs next year but will visit them again in 2025 as they’ll play the entire AFC West, but any meetings between them would have to come in February.

“Peyton knew when we were playing the Patriots — and Brady knew when he was playing the Colts — it brought out the best of both of them,” Dungy said. “Because they were so competitive and they knew how big the games were going to be.

“These two guys are going to play a game where bragging rights from now to the next [few] years might be on the line.”