Philadelphia have opened the 2026 season 2-0, edging Washington 24-22 at home and then winning 24-20 in Nashville, where Jalen Hurts threw for 264 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions.
London is not next. Chicago away on Monday 28 September and the Rams at home on Sunday 4 October come first. The Eagles then meet Jacksonville at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday 11 October, and the Philadelphia Eagles @ Jacksonville Jaguars betting will be shaped by a quarterback who has already done the one thing almost every Eagles great failed to do. It also revives an argument Philadelphia has been having since 1960.
Donovan McNabb
McNabb left Philadelphia in 2010 holding the franchise records for passing yards (32,873), touchdown passes (216), completions (2,801) and attempts (4,746). He still holds all four. He went 92-49-1 as the Eagles’ starter, more regular-season wins than any quarterback in club history, and made six Pro Bowls, every one as an Eagle.
He also took the club to five NFC Championship Games, including four in a row from the 2001 season to 2004. Only one of those produced a Super Bowl. In Super Bowl XXXIX he threw for 357 yards and three touchdowns against New England, threw three interceptions too, and lost 24-21.
That case against him has been made loudly for 20 years. It also depends on ignoring everything except February.
Randall Cunningham
Cunningham was doing in the late 1980s what the league now builds offences around. In 1990 he threw for 3,466 yards and 30 touchdowns and ran for 942. He won the Bert Bell Award three times, in 1988, 1990 and 1998, a total matched only by Johnny Unitas and Peyton Manning.
He finished with 4,482 rushing yards as an Eagle. What he never had was the January to match it. A knee injury in the opening game of 1991 cost him a season, and the deepest he took Philadelphia was the divisional round.
Norm Van Brocklin
Van Brocklin played three seasons in Philadelphia and won the league MVP award in the last of them. On 26 December 1960 at Franklin Field, he beat Green Bay 17-13 for the NFL Championship. It remains the only play-off defeat of Vince Lombardi’s coaching career. Van Brocklin retired immediately afterwards, aged 34.
Nick Foles delivered the club’s next title 57 years later. Starting for an injured Carson Wentz, he threw for 373 yards and three touchdowns in Super Bowl LII, caught a one-yard touchdown from Trey Burton on the Philly Special, and beat New England 41-33. No player had thrown and caught a touchdown in a Super Bowl before.
Both are beloved. Neither is the answer, because two months is not a career.
What Jalen Hurts
Hurts has both halves. He lost Super Bowl LVII 38-35 despite running for three touchdowns, then came back and won Super Bowl LIX 40-22 against the same opponent. He completed 17 of 22 passes for 221 yards, ran for 72 yards, more than any quarterback had managed in a Super Bowl, and took the MVP award.
The volume is arriving too. He is 6-4 in the play-offs and sits on 63 career rushing touchdowns, six short of Steve Van Buren’s franchise record of 69, which has stood since 1951. Only the passing totals lag, and McNabb’s 32,873 yards is a long way ahead.
The Verdict
McNabb has the fuller body of work and probably always will. Cunningham has the highlight reel. Van Brocklin and Foles have the trophies that came before Hurts.
But the job is to win the last game of the season. Hurts is the only quarterback in the club’s history to do that as the established starter and be named the best player on the field while doing it. Take the ring, the MVP and a record book he is still climbing, and the answer is Hurts, narrowly.
It is also why the NFL odds keep pricing Philadelphia near the front. The argument about the greatest Eagles quarterback is close. The one about the most valuable is not.
Main Image: USA TODAY Sports
