Hurts will try to become fourth starting QB to win a Super Bowl after losing in his debut

Jalen Hurts bucked decades of history just by getting back to the Super Bowl after losing his first trip there as a starting quarterback.

Now he will try to become the fourth quarterback to win the NFL's ultimate prize as a starting quarterback after losing his first Super Bowl start.

Hurts came close two years ago when Philadelphia lost 38-35 to Kansas City in Glendale, Arizona. With a win next week in New Orleans, Hurts would become the first quarterback since John Elway 27 years ago to win a Super Bowl as a starter after losing in his first trip.

Out of the 36 starting quarterbacks who lost their Super Bowl debuts, the only ones to end up on the victory stage as a starter are Kansas City's Len Dawson, who lost Super Bowl 1 and then won it three years later, and Miami's Bob Griese, who followed a loss in Super Bowl 6 with a win the following year.

Just getting back to this stage is unusual for Hurts, who ended a string of 19 straight QBs who failed to return to the Super Bowl after losing their first trip as a starter. The last to get back was Buffalo's Jim Kelly, who lost four straight trips in the 1990-93 seasons.

Hurts again will face Patrick Mahomes, who will tie Elway for the second-most Super Bowl starts at quarterback with his fifth next week, trailing only Tom Brady's 10. With a win, Mahomes would join Brady (six), Terry Bradshaw (four) and Joe Montana (four) as the only QBs with four rings.

Mahomes will make his fifth Super Bowl start as a small group of QBs has had a grip on the AFC's Super Bowl berths. In the last 22 seasons, only six AFC QBs have started a Super Bowl, with Brady leading the way with eight, Peyton Manning having four and Ben Roethlisberger three. Joe Flacco and Joe Burrow each have one since the start of the 2003 season.

It has been an entirely different case in the NFC, with 19 quarterbacks combining for the 22 starts, including one for Brady with Tampa Bay. Hurts joins Russell Wilson and Eli Manning as the only quarterbacks to start two Super Bowls for an NFC team since the start of the 2003 season.

Run to daylight

The Philadelphia Eagles ran their way to the Super Bowl.

The Eagles tied an NFL playoff record with seven touchdown runs in the NFC title game win over Washington, matching the mark Chicago set against Washington in the 1940 NFL title game.

Hurts scored on three of the TD runs with Saquon Barkley adding three more — including his record seventh touchdown run of at least 60 yards this season. The only other teammates to run for three touchdowns each in a regular-season or playoff game since at least 1940 came when Priest Holmes (four) and Derrick Blaylock (three) did it for Kansas City in a 56-10 win over Atlanta on Oct. 24, 2004.

The Eagles also set a record for most yards rushing in a season with 3,731 in the regular season and playoffs. The mark before this season was 3,535 by Miami in its perfect 17-0 season in 1972. Baltimore also eclipsed that mark with 3,664 yards rushing.

The Eagles have a chance to break their own record for most touchdown runs in a season. They have 39 heading into the Super Bowl — three shy of the mark they set in the 2022 season.

Tough-luck Allen

Josh Allen once again came out on the short end of a playoff matchup against Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs.

Allen is the first quarterback ever to lose four postseason starts against another QB, although little of the blame should be pointed in his direction.

Allen has a 100.2 passer rating with 11 combined touchdown runs and passes and just one turnover in four playoff starts against the Chiefs.

Allen's 101.5 career passer rating in the playoffs ranks fourth best among the 74 quarterbacks with at least six playoff starts in the Super Bowl era, trailing only Super Bowl winners Mahomes (105.6), Kurt Warner (102.8) and Matthew Stafford (102.3). Allen's seven career playoff wins as a starter are the most for any QB who hasn't made the Super Bowl.

The Bills became the first team to win at least 11 games in five straight seasons without reaching a Super Bowl, topping the previous mark of four held by San Francisco (1995-98) and Philadelphia (2000-03).

Coaching carousel

The coaching carousel is nearly filled, with the New Orleans Saints the only team out of the seven that fired their head coach that hasn't found a replacement.

The new batch features four coordinators who got promoted into their first head coaching jobs and two retreads, with former Tennessee coach Mike Vrabel getting the nod in New England and Pete Carroll getting hired in Las Vegas after previous stints with the Jets, Patriots and Seahawks.

Carroll joins Bill Parcells and Marty Schottenheimer as the only coaches since 1940 who have had non-interim stints with four franchises.

The addition of Carroll sets up a power-packed roster of coaches in the division, led by Kansas City's Andy Reid, who has 301 career wins and is going for his fourth career Super Bowl title.

Denver's Sean Payton (179 wins) and Carroll (181) have combined for 360 additional wins, with both winning Super Bowl titles. Jim Harbaugh of the Chargers has a .685 winning percentage in five seasons as an NFL head coach, with one Super Bowl trip and a college national championship.

He will try to join Carroll, Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer as the only coaches to win a title in both college and the pros.

The AFC West will be the first division to start a season with every head coach having previously been to a Super Bowl. The 1999 NFC West came close with Atlanta's Dan Reeves, Carolina's George Seifert, New Orleans' Mike Ditka and St. Louis' Dick Vermeil all having gone, with San Francisco's Steve Mariucci the outlier.

Only two divisions didn't have any coaching changes, with the NFC West and AFC North remaining stable. That's nothing new for the AFC North, which last had a coaching change following the 2019 season when Cleveland hired Kevin Stefanski to replace Freddie Kitchens.

Next season will mark the sixth straight with the same four head coaches for the four teams. That's the longest stretch ever without a coaching change, topping the four straight seasons for the NFC Central in 1978-81 and the NFC West from 2019-22.

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