Jalen Hurts has been living in Philadelphia for a while now, but the Eagles quarterback held off on visiting one of the most iconic sites in the city until Friday.
The steps in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art became famous when Sylvester Stallone scaled them during Rocky and many others have done the same before putting their arms in the air to mimic the ficitional boxer’s celebration at the top. Rocky lost his fight with Apollo Creed at the end of the movie, but it’s now become the spot where Philadelphia celebrates its champions and Hurts told the crowd at the Eagles’ parade on Friday that he refused to visit until he was one of them.
Hurts became a champion in New Orleans last Sunday and he went on to tell the crowd that the title was one born of resilience. Hurts was benched at Alabama before resurfacing at Oklahoma and he and the Eagles faced many questions about their future after a dismal finish to the 2023 season, but Hurts said the key has been to keep fighting through any bad times.
“You know, I told myself when I got drafted that I wouldn’t come to the Rocky steps until I won a championship,” Hurts said, via NBCSportsPhiladelphia.com. “And now we’re here. And I know this year, this team has had to battle through so much, this team has had to fight, this team has had to persevere and there’s been a ton of scrutiny, ton of opinions, a ton of all of that. But I know about this city, one thing we do is we fight. We fight. And you go through the course of these things and you learn that success isn’t build off of approval. It’s built off of endurance, it’s built off of strength. You can’t quit. You can’t lose if you don’t quit. And in Philly, we don’t quit. So thank you. The next pursuit begins. Go Birds.”
The difference from the end of the 2023 season to the end of the 2024 season makes it clear how quickly fortunes can change in the NFL. The Eagles’ post-Super Bowl LII trajectory told the same story in reverse and the 2025 team will be trying to avoid another dip.
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