Jalen Hurts has extremely high fantasy football ceiling in 2022 originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
As the entire City of Philadelphia argues about whether or not Jalen Hurts is the Eagles franchise quarterback, NBC Sports fantasy football analyst Matthew Berry is bullish on Hurts in 2022.
In fact, he thinks there’s a chance Hurts could end up being the top fantasy quarterback in the league this season.
Get Philly local news, weather forecasts, sports and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC Philadelphia newsletters.
“I think his ceiling, in the range of outcomes, is Quarterback 1 in fantasy,” Berry said recently on Birds Huddle. “The best quarterback in fantasy football. I’m not saying that’s likely. You’ve got guys like Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert at the top. So it’s not going to be easy to do but it’s within the range of outcomes.
“The thing about Hurts, I have him at Quarterback 4, which is higher than the consensus. I was big on him last year, I was big on him as a rookie as well. I’m all-in on Jalen Hurts fantasy-wise.”
Last season, Hurts completed 61.3% of his passes for 3,144 yards with 16 touchdowns and 9 interceptions. But he also had 784 rushing yards and another 10 scores.
So from a fantasy perspective, Hurts was a pretty good quarterback last year.
And Berry expects him to get better in 2022. He even compared Hurts and his trajectory to one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL.
“Well, I remember another young quarterback that came in the league that had good athleticism, that ran the ball well, there were questions about his accuracy, in Josh Allen,” Berry said. “OK? If you look at Josh Allen’s second year in the NFL and you compare those numbers to Jalen Hurts’ second year in the NFL, which we just complete, Jalen Hurts (had) more passing yards, higher completion percentage, more rushing yards, same number of interceptions, same basic touchdowns per game.”
Let’s take a look at each of their second NFL seasons:
Allen: 58.8%, 3,089 yards, 29 TDs, 9 INTs, 6.7 y/a, 193.1 y/g | 510 rushing yards, 4.7 y/r, 9 TDs
Hurts: 6.13%, 3,144 yards, 16 TDs, 9 INTs, 7.3 y/a, 209.6 y/g | 784 rushing yards, 5.6 y/r, 10 TDs
“And then you’re like, wow, what happened going into Year 3 for Josh Allen?” Berry said. “The Bills went out and got him Stefon Diggs. So here’s Jalen Hurts going into his third season and what do the Eagles do? They went out and they got him A.J. Brown.”
Of course, we have to point out that Allen has a unique NFL arm and there was a reason he went No. 7 overall in 2018, while Hurts went at No. 53 overall in 2020.
Maybe Hurts won’t take that kind of a jump. But if he does, maybe Berry isn’t far off about his fantasy football ceiling.
Subscribe to the Eagle Eye podcast
Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Spotify | Stitcher | Art19 | Watch on YouTube
