Peyton Manning believes ‘the sky is the limit’ for Jalen Hurts, who calls the Hall of Famer ‘a lot’

During the offseason, Peyton Manning refused to list his top five NFL quarterbacks while he was on a panel at New York’s Fanatics Fest. The 14-time Pro Bowler revealed that the last time he did so, he received a text message from a player who wasn’t named.

That player was last season’s Super Bowl MVP, Jalen Hurts.

“I named five guys, and Jalen Hurts texted me like 20 minutes later, ‘I didn’t make your list?’ Now, Jalen’s mad at me. So, no list today,” Manning said.

Apparently, communication from Hurts isn’t rare for Manning. In fact, the two-time Super Bowl champion said it’s common for him to receive a call from the Eagles quarterback.

“He calls me a lot and asks me lots of questions,” Manning said in an interview with Cris Collinsworth for Pro Football Focus. “They actually run a lot of plays that we used to run. [Nick] Sirianni, to Frank Reich, to Tom Moore, sort of that chain. And he calls me with very specific questions about certain plays. So, he’s a student of the game.”

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The relationship Manning and Hurts have began developing when Hurts attended the Manning Passing Academy. The Hall of Famer even did the write-up for Hurts when he earned a spot on the TIME100 Next list.

“He squats 600 pounds, he can run over guys, he can throw it a mile,” Manning said. “But his appreciation of the cerebral part of the game is what is impressive to me and how he’s taken his game to the next level, and I think the sky is the limit for this guy.”

A lot of Hurts’ mental strength can be credited to managing the ups and downs from his college career, starting from his time in Alabama when he was benched at halftime for Tua Tagovailoa during the 2018 national championship game.

“In my mind, I remember thinking, ‘That kid is finished, he’s finished,’” Collinsworth said.

After serving as Tagovailoa’s backup the following season, Hurts transferred to Oklahoma, leading the Sooners to a Big 12 championship and a College Football Playoff appearance.

“It tells you all about his mental toughness, right?” Manning said. “Because that’s the kind of situation where it’s embarrassing. You just don’t sort of recover from it, mentally or emotionally. So, it tells you how mentally tough he is. And they said he was the first guy to high-five Tua in the locker room and was just as celebratory after that win as all the players that were involved in the game.”

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Since then, Hurts has quarterbacked the Eagles to two Super Bowl appearances, bringing back one Lombardi Trophy to Philadelphia. After the big win, Eagles offensive tackle Jordan Mailata recalled an iconic moment in the locker room.

“How do you do it, man? The bigger the moment, the greater the performance,” Mailata said to the quarterback.

“That’s what the [expletive] I do,” Hurts responded with a cigar in his mouth.

When Manning was asked whether he has met anyone more serious than Hurts, the response was simple: “No.”

“I haven’t had a face-to-face with him in a while. We do a lot of texting and a lot of voice memos, but I imagine he’s reading those with a very straight, serious face. I don’t try to — I don’t crack any jokes with him. I don’t test my material on him because I would imagine I would hear crickets.”