Long gone are the days of the winning pocket passer. The last pure pocket passer remaining in the NFL Playoffs was eliminated in the Divisional Round, when Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles sent Matthew Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams back to Southern California empty-handed. Hurts and his Super Bowl LIX opponent, the Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes, are both mobile to varying degrees, and they’ll need both their legs and their arms to lift the Lombardi Trophy on Sunday night.
Hurts has led the NFL in rushing touchdowns for a quarterback in each of the last four seasons, including 14 scores this season. He is so lethal as a runner that his sneaks have become synonymous with Philadelphia’s signature play: the Tush Push, where running back Saquon Barkley and tight end Dallas Goedert line up behind Hurts and guide him into the end zone from behind.
In honor of the big game, DraftKings Sportsbook has launched a series of novelty props, including jersey number props, one of which is for Hurts to score exactly as many rushing touchdowns as his jersey number — one.
Bet on Super Bowl Jersey Specials at DraftKings Sportsbook, including Jalen Hurts to Score Exactly 1 Rush TD, here.
At +170 odds, it’s one of the best bets available, given that Hurts has scored exactly one rushing touchdown in eight of his 18 games this season. I’ve written previously that Hurts at +105 odds to score a touchdown at some point in the game was a solid bet, and also that I believed he’d throw at least two touchdown passes. Given that Kansas City hasn’t allowed more than three touchdowns in any game this season, except for in the AFC Championship Game against the Buffalo Bills, it’s unlikely that Hurts would both rush for and pass for multiple scores.
During the regular season, the Chiefs struggled to bottle up mobile quarterbacks; they allowed the seventh-most rushing yards (434) and tied for the eighth-most touchdowns (four) to the position, although they have not yet given up a rushing touchdown to a quarterback in the postseason. In Philadelphia’s 38-35 loss in Super Bowl LVII two seasons ago, Hurts gashed Kansas City for three scores on the ground, and he also scored two rushing touchdowns in a regular-season rematch in 2023.
Fundamentally, Hurts’ chances of scoring exactly one rushing touchdown hinge on the Chiefs’ effectiveness in stopping Barkley from racking up long runs, and given the mediocre run-stopping grades of individual Kansas City defenders, it’s possible that Barkley will punch in most of the Eagles’ touchdowns. But if Barkley only gets it inside the five-yard line, Philadelphia will lean heavily on Hurts, who accounted for 51.4% of the team’s carries in such situations. Besides through the Tush Push, Hurts could also score if he races around the left side, as left tackle Jordan Mailata is the best run-blocker in football.
