A couple of hours before Super Bowl LIX kicked off, Jalen Hurts shared something with a mostly empty Superdome.

He wasn’t talking directly to the crowd, exactly, but through the pair of wrap-around jumbo-trons as an interview with NFL Network’s Rich Eisen aired.

The runner-up of the Super Bowl two years ago discussed how a picture of himself walking through a sea of Kansas City red confetti had been his phone’s screensaver since.

‘I don’t need a screensaver to remind me of anything, but it’s there,’ he said, before adding: ‘Let’s just see if it changes.’ 

After beating Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs in the Super Bowl on Sunday night, Hurts will need to find a new pH๏τo to grace his home screen.

The Eagles quarterback was surgical in his team’s 40-22 win on Sunday night in New Orleans, totaling 293 yards and three touchdowns – and erasing any doubts about his capabilities of a Super Bowl-winning quarterback and scooping up an MVP award alongside the Lombardi Trophy.

Jalen Hurts got the better of Patrick Mahomes on Sunday night in the Super Bowl

Hurts silenced his doubters as he totaled three touchdowns and took home the Super Bowl MVP and Lombardi Trophy

Mahomes was out of sorts as he threw two interceptions, including a costly pick-six

‘The one thing that I’ve always respected is [about Hurts] is that he’s a winner,’ Mahomes said after the game. ‘And I know that sounds – some people take that as like it’s not a good thing, but you have to find ways to win with your football team that you have around you. 

‘And that’s what I’ve learned in my entire career, and that’s what he’s came into the NFL and done his entire career, is that if he needs to run the ball, he will run it. If he needs to throw the ball, he will throw it. And if he needs to make a big play, he will make the big play.

‘And so that’s stuff that not everybody has, and that’s something that I have a lot of respect for Jalen, and I said after the first Super Bowl we played against, I said he will be back, and he was, and he got the better of me today. I’m sure, I’m not, I’m sure we’ll face again at some point in my in our careers in a big game like this.’

Hurts, whose résumé would be the envy of most quarterbacks, has occupied a weird sort of space in the NFL-verse since his team made a run to the Super Bowl two seasons ago.

The Eagles’ loaded roster, at times, has been used as an argument against his own abilities and impact.

His offense’s ‘tush-push’, too, has rankled opposing fanbases against him.

And in comparison to other тιтle-chasers like Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson, he hasn’t always stacked up. 

But on Sunday, with Saquon Barkley mostly held in check by his own lofty standards, Hurts shined. 

‘He played incredible. He did amazing,’ his teammate A.J. Brown said after the game. ‘…He was poised the whole game, he was in control, he made checks and he threw dimes. He just gave us opportunities, and when we were covered a little bit, he took off running – he used his legs.’

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It was Hurts who led the team in rushing, as he scampered for 70 yards. Hurts who found Devonta Smith over the top for a 46-yard-score, and an effectively game-ending 34-0 advantage. 

And Hurts who dusted himself off after a nervy first half interception which briefly silenced a rowdy Eagles fanbase.

Questions will continue to surround Hurts, though they’ll now be the ones he wanted so badly to hear.

Can he win again? How will he fare as the hunted rather than the hunted? When will he get back to football’s biggest game.

For now, as was made quite clear as he smoked on a post-game cigar, Hurts is enjoying his new тιтle of champion.

A new screensaver is sure to follow.