The Evolution of the Swashbuckling Quarterback: Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts, and the Changing Role of Quarterbacks in the NFL

Swashbuckler is a great word. Read it aloud. There’s a lot going on there. Twelve letters. Three syllables. Strong consonants. Sounds like it could be the name of a hero in a pulp novel or comic book. Indiana Jones was a swashbuckler, and you could see him teaming up with Swash Buckler to find the Armor of Achilles before the bad guys did.

Swashbuckler used to be a great word to describe NFL quarterbacks. It used to be a popular word to describe NFL quarterbacks. Brett Favre. John Elway. Fran Tarkenton. Joe Namath. Bobby Layne. Burt Reynolds in The Longest Yard. The word connotes daring, derring-do, bravery, flirting with recklessness only to dance away from danger. The swashbuckling quarterback dives for the gotta-have-it first down and tries to thread a third-down pass between two defensive backs and hates having to check the ball down to the running back in the flat.

Is Jalen Hurts a swashbuckler? Sure. A bit of one. Just not as much as the quarterback he and the Eagles will go against on Sunday: the Bills’ Josh Allen. Hurts doesn’t mind living on the edge, but Allen doesn’t know any other way to play. He’s definitely a swashbuckling quarterback. He might even be a careless one. He certainly has that reputation. He’s thrown 12 interceptions this season — the second-most in the league — and fumbled four times. Last season, he fumbled 13 times.

Yet for all that carelessness, Allen remains one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL, one of the most productive, and maybe the most thrilling. He leads Hurts in most of the prime statistical categories used to rank and measure quarterbacks: completion percentage, touchdown passes, QBR, passer rating. He has been sacked on just 3.5% of his dropbacks, a rate less than half of Hurts’ (7.6%). Yes, in the main Hurts has been much better at protecting the ball, but they’ve been similar in that regard this season: Allen has committed 15 turnovers; Hurts, 12.

The point of comparing Allen and Hurts isn’t to start an argument about who’s the better quarterback and why. It’s to note how the position has changed and how the manner we think about the position has changed over time. Because by the standard and expectations that were common throughout the NFL from the mid-1960s into the 2010s, Allen wouldn’t be considered careless or reckless or anything other than a great quarterback. And Hurts, just for being smarter with the football than Allen, would be a successor to Steve Young as the ideal combination of throwing ability, running ability, intelligence, and leadership.

» READ MORE: An inside look at Julio Jones’ impact on the Eagles receivers: ‘Everybody respects him here.’

From 1970 through 2011, a span of 41 years, there was only one full (i.e. non-strike) NFL season in which the quarterback who led the league in interceptions threw fewer than 20. In 2008, Favre led the NFL with 22 interceptions, three years after leading the league with 29 in ‘05. As the league evolved, making it easier for quarterbacks to complete passes and put up points, throwing an interception became the worst thing a QB could do. Now, it’s the rare coach who doesn’t mind his quarterback taking risks, who understands that the tradeoff for at least some of those interceptions, some of those plays where Allen or Hurts seems to scramble himself into a worse situation, is that those quarterbacks will make more breathtaking plays, too.

Hurts strikes about as good a balance between those two styles — the creativity/boldness that his athleticism provides him, the discipline to stick to the fundamentals of the position — as one could hope for. There’s one play that always leaps to mind when I think about him at his best: third down and 8 in the first half of Super Bowl LVII, Chiefs defensive end Frank Clark charging after Hurts from the left, Hurts spinning away, turning his back to the line of scrimmage before rolling left, straightening his hips, and firing a completion to Zach Pascal for 9 yards.

“You want to try to manage the situations that come up as best as possible,” Hurts said. “Ultimately, it comes down to the execution of it. I’ve said it before: It’s kind of a results-based league, and everybody looks at the result. But playing the position, you have to truly look at the process, how you’re thinking of something, and how you want to operate during the different circumstances that may come about or the different realities that may happen during a play. Instincts take over. In terms of being aggressive sometimes and not being aggressive, it’s just pure management.”

We’ll see how well Allen and Hurts manage themselves Sunday. No matter the game’s outcome, it’ll be fun to watch them swashbuckle back and forth. The sport could use more of that.

The Eagles host the Buffalo Bills on Sunday. Join Eagles beat reporters Olivia Reiner and EJ Smith as they dissect the hottest story lines surrounding the team on Gameday Centrallive from Lincoln Financial Field.

2023-11-25 10:00:00
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