Meet NFL’s new powerbroker: Nicole Lynn, the agent behind Jalen Hurts’ record $255m Eagles deal

NFL agent Nicole Lynn has been a figure in the backrooms of pro football for several years, but had her biggest moment in the spotlight this week when her client, Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, signed the biggest annual average deal in league history. .

Hurts agreed to a five-year, $255 million — $179.3 million guaranteed — deal with the NFC East franchise after leading them to the Super Bowl last season.

How Lynn, self-described as ‘the Jerry Maguire’becoming one of the league’s most popular players is a story almost as inspiring as the career of Hurts, who once made his way to the University of Alabama before using Oklahoma as a springboard to the NFL and a close second-place finish in the 2022 NFL MVP race.

Lynn, an OU alum himself, already an established agent, sent a direct message to Hurts on Instagram after his last collegiate match in 2020, just three months into the draft, in a send-and-hope sort of, “a total Hail Mary,” as she described it Sports illustrated.

“I didn’t expect him to even see it,” she told the outlet in August. But Hurts did and he gave her a chance to pitch.

Once the pair met, there was a connection of lived experiences that inspired a dynamic that seemingly transcended a typical cop-athlete relationship.

“She said, ‘I’m a woman. People will overlook me. People will doubt me. They won’t give me due respect. But I’ll overcome it, just like you.’ Hurts said of his first face-to-face interaction with Lynn, via SI. And that’s where it really clicked. We had the same vision.’

Lynn has indeed been overlooked, although she has sometimes been viewed as something completely different.

“I was kicked out of a player’s hotel by team security because she thought I was a friend trying to sneak in,” she said. NBC.

Lynn was rewarded for shooting her shot with Hurts long before he became a quarterback considered the NFL’s top signal callers. Just months into their working relationship, Hurts was picked in the second round with the No. 53 pick in the 2020 NFL Draft.

Before he became the face of the franchise and captured Philadelphia within three points of its second Lombardi Trophy in a breathtaking performance in Super Bowl LVII, he was the third-seed quarterback.

Lynn celebrated Hurt’s seismic, history-making deal social media, thanking her “little brother” for trusting her all those years ago at Channelview High School, TX. on the east side of Houston.

“So happy for my little brother @jalenhurts to become the highest paid player in NFL history!

“Thank you for entrusting me with something of this magnitude. I remember going to your old high school to be your agent. I’m a dreamer, but I’m not sure I ever imagined THIS is where we land.’

Prior to her ascension to president of football operations at Rich Paul’s Klutch Sports Group, Lynn was a Wall Street financial analyst—a profession she left for the NFL world through Norman OK.

“I went to law school for the sole purpose of becoming a sports agent,” Lynn, a 2015 graduate, told OU College of Law that same year.

“I’ve always wanted to help athletes transition from college football to the NFL and then transition to the NFL.”

An NFLPA internship made her dreams come true before joining the PlayersRep Sports Agency — she became the first female agent in her ranks while still an associate at a Houston law firm Boardroom.

Three years later in 2018, Lil Wayne’s Young Money purchased APAA Sports PlayersRep. The following year, Lynn’s life changed after eventual 2019 No. 3 overall pick Quinnen Williams chose her as his agent.

By doing so, the former Crimson Tide star enabled Lynn to make history — she became the first black female agent to represent a first-round pick, a top-three star no less.

Why Williams chose to hire an agent stemmed from a momentarily crushing, humiliating moment for Lynn.

The Jets’ All-Pro defensive lineman – who is currently looking for a major contract himself – entered a 2018 speech about her impoverished upbringing and a disastrous six-hour journey to meet a potential client on her birthday, who eventually mocked her.

On a transformative day of December 13, 2015, Lynn wore heels that sank into the mud, which didn’t help her six-foot stature among towering men fresh out of a college football game. Finally, she spoke to a player she desperately hoped would become her first client. He wouldn’t.

His face, it was kind of like he was on the show Punk’d…,” Lynn recalled. “And then he says ‘You’re a sports agent?!”… And then he just starts laughing and walks away.”

The doubts of the nameless player should no longer persist. According to Williams, they never existed.

“She could have done whatever she wanted to do on her birthday and she did. That spoke volumes to me. Imagine how hard she’s going to work for me,’ he said The Athletics ahead of the 2019 draft.

Lynn is a self-confessed “dreamer” and it’s hard to write her story without feeling like it’s something like a storybook.

50 Cent seems to be in line with such a theory – he’s the executive producer for a “sports cop drama inspired by” Lynn’s life and times. She is also an EP for the currently untitled series, per term.

But the dreamer is now on the rise, as evidenced by an ever-growing roster that includes regular All-Pro Myles Garrett and two surefire first-round picks in this month’s NFL Draft; Will Anderson Jr. from Alabama and Bijan Robinson from Texas. Other prospects include Tide’s Brian Branch and Iowa State’s Xavier Hutchinson.

One of Lynn’s former clients, Chris Smith, tragically passed away Sunday — aged 31 — just hours after playing for the XFL’s Seattle Sea Dragons.

She shared a post about his death on her Instagram story with several broken heart emojis.

April 27-29 in Kansas City represents a new beginning for those in Lynn’s stable, and for her it will be another evolutionary step in her self-fulfilling prophecy.