NFL
Jalen Hurts Contract: Meet the 5 Women Who Helped Get the Eagles QB $255M
Tim Crean started writing about sports in 2016 and joined Sportscasting in 2021. He excels with his versatile coverage of the NFL and soccer landscape, as well as his expertise breaking down sports media, which stems from his many years downloading podcasts before they were even cool and countless hours spent listening to Mike & The Mad Dog and The Dan Patrick Show, among other programs. As a longtime self-professed sports junkie who even played DII lacrosse at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, New York, Tim loves reading about all the latest sports news every day and considers it a dream to write about sports professionally. He's a lifelong Buffalo Bills fan from Western New York who mistakenly thought, back in the early '90s, that his team would be in the Super Bowl every year. He started following European soccer — with a Manchester City focus — in the early 2000s after spending far too much time playing FIFA. When he's not enjoying a round of golf or coaching youth soccer and flag football, Tim likes reading the work of Bill Simmons, Tony Kornheiser, Chuck Klosterman, and Tom Wolfe.
All posts by Tim CreanUpdated18 Apr 2023
With the new Jalen Hurts contract extension, the Philadelphia Eagles just made their quarterback the highest-paid player in NFL history. This deal is a testament to his perseverance as a football player, his development as a quarterback, and the incredible team around him on the field. Credit also goes to the five women who make up his all-female management team. Here is what you need to know about Jalen Hurts’ agent, Nicole Lynn, and the rest of the women who just helped him ink a $255 deal.
Meet the Eagles QB’s agent and female-led management team
Jalen Hurts’ agent is Nicole Lynn, now the President of Football Operations for Klutch Sports Group.
Back in 2020, Lynn was a young sports agent on the rise, already representing several former Alabama players like Quinnen Williams, per Sports Illustrated. However, just before the 2020 NFL Draft, she shot a player from her alma mater, Oklahoma, a DM on Instagram.
“Hey, have you picked an agent?” Lynn wrote to Hurts. “If not, I’d love to link.”
Hurts and his father met with Lynn, and the QB saw the “same fire” in her as an oft-overlooked female sports agent that he had as a signal-caller few believed in at the time.
After Hurts got into the league, he started adding more female professionals to his team. Today, he works with Chantal Romain, Shakeemah Simmons-Winter for communications, Jenna Malphrus for management, and Rachel Everett for marketing.
Romain is the former Director of Social Responsibility, Player Programs, and Marketing Communications for the NBA, while Simmons-Walker has worked for Madison Square Garden, the New York Knicks, and the corporate communications department at ESPN.
Malphrus spent time in the sales world before becoming a client services manager for Klutch, and Everett has run her own sports marketing firm for over a decade.
The historic Jalen Hurts contract extension is, of course, due to his play on the field for the Eagles. But it also happened thanks to this incredible team around him.
The Jalen Hurts contract
Regardless of the fascinating backstory of Jalen Hurts’ agent and female-driven team, the new Jalen Hurts contract is historic, and everyone who has helped him get to this place should be commended.
Hurts signed a five-year, $255,000,000 contract with the Eagles during the 2023 NFL offseason. While all the details aren’t available just yet, what we do know is that the pact includes a $23,294,000 signing bonus, $179,300,000 guaranteed, per Spotrac.
This means the contract has an average annual value (AAV) of $51,000,000, which is the highest AAV in NFL history. Previously, Aaron Rodgers’ $50.2 million per season was the highest AAV of all time.
While it’s nice to be the highest-paid player in the NFL right now, that title likely won’t stay with Hurts for long.
One of the interesting things about the Jalen Hurts contract is that the Nicole Lynn-negotiated deal resets the franchise quarterback market in the NFL. Hurts’ fellow Class of 2020 signal-callers, Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert, will now use this deal as a benchmark in their extension negotiations.
While Herbert could come in at or a little below this deal — as he doesn’t have a Super Bowl appearance on his resume — Burrow was the No. 1 pick in that draft and has also been to the Big Game. The AAV on his next contract should make him the new highest-paid player when the deal is announced.
