Jalen Hurts Of The Philadelphia Eagles Covers ESSENCE

By Danyel Smith ·Updated April 17, 2023

“I’ll take it black,” says Jalen Hurts, “with honey.” This is how the quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles orders his coffee. There are layers to this man.  

He wants his beverage piping hot, and who can blame him? It’s about to be spring, and Philly is featuring snow flurries. We’re sitting in an empty, yuzu-scented Buddakan dining room, opened early especially for Hurts, as starstruck staffers prep for the dinner rush. 

With Hurts as the Eagles’ shot-caller, the team won a franchise record–breaking 14 games last year. It was a storybook season for a quarterback who has seen his share of underappreciation. That made it especially heartbreaking to watch Hurts, in the last moments of Rihanna’s Super Bowl LVII, come within a literal whistle of winning. “To me,” he says, “it’s all about winning championships. We came up a game short.” 

But Philly’s not mad at Hurts. For many fans, the Super Bowl referee’s call was at best controversial, and at worst unfair to all the players on the field. In fact, Philadelphia—a temperamental sports town with six professional teams—believes in Jalen Hurts. “He is the new Fresh Prince,” West Philly native and hip-hop legend DJ Jazzy Jeff shared with Sports Illustrated. When the Eagles clinched the NFC Championship, Jeff and Hurts even did the infamous Fresh Prince dap-up—a true moment of Black Boy Joy—and they went viral.  

Despite his size, you can’t hear Jalen Hurts roll up on you. He walks like a mouse on cotton. Hurts is in cozy black joggers and a dark hoodie from ALLWINS, a brand worn by elite Gen Z athletes like the Boston Celtics’ Jayson Tatum and the Memphis Grizzlies’ Desmond Bane. Ambitious guys who move with grace and carry big equipment. The brim of Hurts’s Rhude ball cap tilts low under his hood. Eyes: obscured. Body language: relaxed. All wins. He has a mysterious air about him, but about his destiny, Hurts is clear.  

“I always knew what I’d be,” he says. “As a kid, I always knew. I never knew how I’d get there, but I always knew what I wanted.”  

Could he have known he was going to—like Michael Vick, Steve McNair, Colin Kaepernick and others before him—do his part to sack American football’s myth of the gleaming White quarterback? And could he have known he was going to be this fine?  

With Hurts, there’s more than your basic handsome- athlete thing going on. He left “cute” behind at the University of Alabama, where he played with locs streaming down his back. Jalen Hurts is so alluring that even the National Football League posted a clip of him solemnly chewing bubble gum—and everyone wanted a piece. 

Hurts’s agent, Nicole Lynn, says she doesn’t often post him to her Instagram feed—“because I get all the DMs, and I’m like, Hey, that’s my little bro. Everybody gotta chill.” But Lynn knows what she’s working with. “He’s a mixture of Kobe Bryant and Beyoncé,” she says. An avid Bey fan, Lynn knows she’s said a mouthful, but hear her out. “Jalen gives you so little in public,” she explains. “Even when you’re talking to him, you want more. You don’t really know him. He’s not intentionally secretive but naturally has this elusive I need to know, I need more. That’s Beyoncé. It makes you wanna know them. It makes you wanna root for them.” And as for the late Kobe Bryant? “Jalen’s got the Kobe obsessive work ethic. Shooting for greatness. And never satisfied.” 

Jalen Alexander Hurts—in addition to his athletic and leadership abilities, his ambition and his physical beauty—loves to, as he puts it, “keep the main thing the main thing.” One of his main things is the role Black women play in his life. Hurts often reminds folks that while he did not grow up in church, there are other ways to find faith. “I love me some Granny Cindy,” a smiling Hurts says of the grandmother with whom he often FaceTimes. Then he pulls back his hoodie and tilts up his cap. His eyes are bright and engaged. “She’s the staple in my spirituality. She’s always the one like, ‘Ask God for what you want. Ask God for what you need. He knows, but it’s okay to say it in prayer.’ ” 

Hurts is also tight with his mother, Pamela Hurts. An all-star game attender, she gave him a love for artists like Guy, Angela Winbush, and Maze featuring Frankie -Beverly—and she’s deeply and publicly protective of her middle son. Mrs. Hurts, who has been married to Hurts’s father, Averion Hurts, Sr., for nearly 30 years, also modeled for the Eagles star quarterback how to, as he says, “get it out the mud, because she’s had to get it out the mud for herself.” 

Hurts recalls a time, right around his freshman year in college, when his mother, a special education teacher, saw colleagues being laid off and decided she had to find a way to reinvent herself. “She went back to school, and she got her master’s to become a counselor,” he recalls. “That’s a living testimony for me.”  

And when Hurts talks about romance, he mentions things like strolling the holiday Houston Zoo Lights extravaganza with a date. “I’m not married or anything like that,” he says. “But I am spoken for.” Hurts’s girlfriend, Bryonna “Bry” Burrows, works as an IT professional and is a woman of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.—Hurts himself is a member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. They’ve been dating off and on since their University of Alabama days, back when he was quarterbacking for the Crimson Tide. When the two made their romance public, after last season’s NFC Championship game, many Black women across the Internet simultaneously mourned the fact that Hurts was off the market and were giddy to see that a Black woman had won his heart. Jalen and Bry made romance look effervescent and victorious—like we deserve to talk as much about green flags as red.  

“I knew a long time ago,” says Hurts about Burrows. “I mean, to this point in my life, that’s an irreplaceable feeling. I think that’s what allowed us to get to where we are now.”  

The relationships Hurts has with Black women extend from the personal to the professional—including the fact that his first cover story as a pro athlete is with a magazine that has been in service to Black women since 1970. And Hurts’s alliance with his agent is historic. In addition to being president of football operations for Rich Paul’s Klutch Sports Group, Lynn is the first woman of any race to represent a Super Bowl starting quarterback. “Just to give you context on repping quarterbacks,” she says via phone, right before jumping on an elevator, “what I do as an agent is already unique because I am a Black woman. I’m a woman. I’m in the 1 percent of all 900 certified agents. But even for a White male, repping quarterbacks is upper-echelon.” 

The details of how Lynn, a University of Oklahoma alum, contacted Hurts (who wasn’t even following her) via Instagram DMs, was vetted by the player’s father and then was interviewed by Hurts himself, will rock a sports documentary someday. Suffice to say, Lynn’s presence in professional sports is already shattering and profound.  

And these are just a few of the Black women on Team Jalen. “I’m not doing anything to be different,” says Hurts. “I just think that’s the way it’s been ordained. I have the ultimate amount of respect for anyone who goes out there and grinds for something. Puts the work in, and they go get it done. I don’t put a gender on those things.” Hurts is as active and imaginative in his life story as he is on the field. “This process has been very efficient,” he says with what is quickly becoming the quarterback’s trademark grin. “Work has been done. It’s the kind of innovative thoughts that we all just pour. We think about stuff and create opportunities.” 

Hurts wears Louis Vuitton clothing, Fear of God socks, Nike sneakers, a Rolex watch and his own earring.

Jalen Hurts likes the restaurant’s tuna tartare spring rolls, but his accent is big Houston, and he can take it back to Texas real quick. “I eat my crawfish,” says Hurts, “and just enjoy it.” At the suggestion of Old Bay seasoning, the football star gets serious. He’s not one for store-bought spice blends: “That’s for people who don’t know what they doing.” Hurts’s secret ingredient? “Me,” he says. “I will make you the best crawfish you ever had.” 

The backdrop of the Friday Night Lights phenomenon, Texas is the high school–football capital of the world, and Hurts was a young king. Not only was his older brother a quarterback, but their father was, and is, the football coach of Channelview High, which his sons attended. Hurts, Sr., often took the boys to work with him during the summer. “Like day care,” Coach Hurts says via mobile. “You know, put ’em in a truck, pack a lunch and let’s go to the field house.” They were always around sports. 

Among other big football schools, Hurts considered his fave Cam Newton’s alma mater, Auburn, but ultimately decided on the University of Alabama’s famed Crimson Tide. It’s a bit like choosing the New York Yankees or the Boston Celtics: The Tide hangs championship banners like wallpaper. This was 2016, and Hurts had to compete to start at Alabama. “When you’re thrust into new situations, you have to learn the lay of the land,” he says. “I remember telling one of my coaches, ‘I’m going to make all of them see.’” But quarterback Blake Brinett started Alabama’s season opener versus USC. Heartbreak.  

By game two, Alabama Coach Nick Saban named Hurts the first freshman since 1984 to start for the Crimson Tide. Hurts went on to 14 straight wins, and though the Tide eventually fell to Deshaun Watson’s Clemson Tigers in the College Football Playoff National Championship, Hurts led Alabama to victory over the Florida Gators for the Southeastern Conference title. It was the first time that a true freshman had done that in Southeastern Conference football history. 

While majoring in Communications, sophomore Hurts led Alabama to an 11-1 season. That in turn led to the semifinal Sugar Bowl, in which his Tide emerged victorious over Clemson. Hurts was named Most Valuable Player. All good news. Triumph and trophies. But then, on January 9, 2018, the Crimson Tide went up against the Georgia Bulldogs—and in the first half, Hurts struggled. After halftime, his backup, Tua Tagovailoa (now the concussion-beset quarterback of the Miami Dolphins) jogged onto the field in Hurts’s place. Hurts was benched. On national television. More heartbreak.  

 

On Hurts: Fear of God clothing, a Rolex watch and his own earring.

 

But in a move that surprised many, Hurts did not stay in the locker room for the second half. He came right back out to the sidelines and cheered his team on as Tagovailoa took Hurts’s ball and ran with it, literally, to a 26–23 overtime victory over Georgia. In postgame interviews, Hurts kept it together. “We have a lot of guys in the quarterback room that play really well,” he said, still on the field. “[Tua] just stepped in and did his thing for the team.” 

Hurts walked that same high road as debate raged in barbershops and throughout sports media. Former Alabama players called for him to move to tight end or halfback—and even said he was “not an NFL quarterback.” Hurts could feel what was coming. But he kept the main thing the main thing. “No ceilings,” says Hurts in the cavernous dining room. Patrons are now entering Buddakan. Hurts is unbothered. “I don’t put a limit on myself. Nor should I.”  

By September, Coach Saban had announced Tagovailoa’s ascension and Hurts’s demotion. Pamela Hurts was not here for it. “When has Jalen ever whined, pouted or [talked] about what y’all don’t know takes place behind the scenes?” she posted on Facebook. “Jalen spoke his truth, finally, after [three] years of being compliant and controlled.” Her son remained on the team, but he was already on to the next. After Hurts graduated—he walked to huge applause at Alabama’s 2018 winter commencement, with over 20 family members in the crowd—he was eligible to transfer immediately to the University of Oklahoma as starting quarterback for the Sooners, one of the most winning programs in the history of college football.  

Hurts, in his senior season, was not only first runner-up for the Heisman Trophy (after now Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow), but also led the Sooners to a 12-1 season. The team secured the Big 12 Championship before falling to LSU in the National Championship. “Don’t say much, just work,” says Hurts. “Leaders lead because their peers let them lead.”

On Hurts: Fear of God clothing, a Rolex watch and his own earring.

At last. A change that was supposed to have been come, finally manifested. On February 12, 2023, in Glendale, Arizona, for the first time in its 103-year history, the NFL, which is nearly 70 percent Black, featured two Black starting quarterbacks—Jalen Hurts and the Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes—at its Super Bowl. You want to be happy. And we are. But it took far too long. The NFL, and organized sports—however naive it sounds to state it—should have started off playing fair in the first place.  

“For a very long time, I’ve been told what I’m not gonna do. Been told what I can’t do,” says Hurts, as we come to the end of lunch. “ But I never put a limit on myself,” he repeats. It might as well be his mantra.  

Over four full college seasons, in 56 total games as a starter, Hurts led his teams to win all but five. At 24, Jalen Hurts is the -seventh-youngest quarterback to start a Super Bowl—Tom Brady was the sixth youngest, and Mahomes is the fifth. Hurts does stuff in random September games, like complete 84 percent of his passes and also run twice into the end zone for touchdowns. This is an outlandish day on the field, and Hurts is the first in NFL history to do it. He unleashes powerful stiff-arms on opponents and leads the Eagles—strategically, nimbly, unconventionally—like a commander of U.S. Navy SEALs. Add to all that a beautiful Black face, glorious smile and relentlessly cool demeanor, and what we have is a storm perfect enough to further destroy the old ways.  

Let’s run it in all-caps on the jumbotron: The folkloric White quarterback—whether a bullying jock or a hero near tears in an end zone—is down, way behind the line of scrimmage. And: White quarterbacks are not now, nor have they ever been, naturally smarter or better at quarterbacking. Professional sports culture, a bouillon cube of America’s most nefarious norms, has ruthlessly kept Black players from one of the most enviable, admired and visible positions of leadership in the world. 

Hurts wears Louis Vuitton clothing, Fear of God socks, Nike sneakers, a Rolex watch and his own earring.

Hurts’s father, in addition to coaching Jalen through high school, coached his eldest son, Averion, Jr., to a collegiate quarterback career. Coach Hurts believes we’re seeing more successful Black quarterbacks in the pros now because the NFL is adapting. Instead of squeezing Black quarterbacks into outdated NFL traditions, he says, “it’s dealing with…dual-threat kids that have been running zone read and run-pass-option stuff in high school and in college.” Translation: Black quarterbacks like his son, Jalen, love their freedom, and they’ve brought that love to the highest levels of a brutal sport.  

It doesn’t hurt that Jalen Hurts is as compelling as he is determined. There are TikToks devoted to the moments his dimpled face breaks into a smile. Hurts’s skin is caramel still warm in the pan, and the goatee must smell of that browned sugar and maybe some sandalwood. Dude is 6’1,” 223 lbs.—core like the trunk of a Texas oak. Not all athletes have comfort in their bodies, but Hurts knows the power of his and what it can do. Not all new legends recognize what they must achieve in order to change the game. But Hurts, while certainly here to do championship things, is set to accomplish far more. 

Around his honeyed coffee, Hurts’s hands are huge. So too, he says, is his future. “My heart knows what it knows,” he says. “It knows when it’s truly intrigued.” 

Be still, our hearts.  

Same, Jalen Hurts. Same.  

Danyel Smith (@danamo), an award-winning journalist, author and podcast host, is a former producer, editor and writer at ESPN. She has appeared as an expert on ABC, BBC, CNN, CBS and NPR and in countless documentaries.

Photographed by Myesha Evon GardnerStyling by Matthew HensonBarber: Berto Martin at CUTANDTRIMNails by Yukie Miyakawa using Chanel at See ManagementSet Design by Jenny CorreaTailor: Shirlee IdzakovichPhotography Assistants: Ashley Markle and Mouhamadou “Fallou” SeckDigitech: Edward PagesStylist Assistants: Hannah Norman and Chardonnay TaylorSet Design Assistant: Andy MerrowDog: Toddie the Great Dane at All Creatures Great and SmallPhotography Direction: Michael QuinnProduction by The Morrison Group

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