Por Amy Tennery
(Reuters) – The youth will be on the pitch for the final game of the National Football League (NFL) season as 24-year-old Philadelphia Eagles star Jalen Hurts takes on 27-year-old leader Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes on Sunday in a battle between young quarterbacks in Super Bowl 57.
At a combined age of 51 years and 337 days, just six years older than the recently retired Tom Brady, the two athletes will be the first under-28 quarterback duo to face each other for the Lombardi Trophy in nearly 25 years.
In a league where older players have already dominated, youngsters are ready to shine.
“There’s a new generation of really talented quarterbacks,” agent Leigh Steinberg, often credited as the real-life inspiration behind “Jerry Maguire,” told Reuters.
While new talent used to take time to establish itself, Steinberg said the new generation has a “different progression than their ancestors,” meeting quarterback coaches and mastering their craft well before the usual time.
Hurts will become the first Generation Z quarterback to play in a Super Bowl, with the Pew Research Center defining this generation as those born in 1997 or later.
Additionally, Hurts, Mahomes, Joe Burrow of the Cincinnati Bengals and Brock Purdy of the San Francisco 49ers became the first quartet of quarterbacks under the age of 28 to start Conference Finals games.
It’s a pattern that tends to favor budget-conscious franchises in a league where established household names command big bucks.
“With the current contract situation, you have to choose: pay a quarterback $50 million a year and lose other parts or, like many teams now, have someone under the rookie contract who expands the money available to other positions,” he said. Rob Ninkovich, an analyst at ESPN, told Reuters.
The Kansas City Chiefs play the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl 57 on February 12.
(Reporting by Amy Tennery in New York City; Reporting by Amy Tennery)
