On Sunday, the NFL’s two MVP favorites, Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson and Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen, will face off to determine which team will compete in the AFC Championship. The two have been linked throughout their careers, but especially this season, as the debate over who should be MVP is no longer limited to on-court performance. The Allen-Jackson rivalry exists primarily because the former, who is white, and the latter, who is black, competed against each other. And this is largely due to the racialized nature of the quarterback position itself and a general political climate that uses athletes to promote racial (and racist) narratives. Unfortunately, the winner and loser of this weekend’s game won’t do much to quell the noise and nonsense.
To understand how we got here, you have to understand how the quarterback position became the most politicized position in sports.
There is a long history of black quarterbacks struggling to gain respect in the face of racism and double standards regarding their abilities behind center, primarily due to the idea that the position requires a certain level of intellect to be executed – QBs must study plays, evaluate coverages. and think on the fly. Black quarterbacks have had to battle stereotypes about their intellect as a barrier to securing a job in the NFL. Just look at the classic case of Warren Moon, who was the 1977 Rose Bowl MVP but was not invited to the combine and had to play in the much more open Canadian Football League. mind, before joining the NFL.
Or look at quarterbacks like Kordell Stewart, who was asked to play wide receiver and running back, positions more traditionally athletic and dangerous than quarterback, when he entered the league. Or listen to the commentary of someone like Rush Limbaugh, who infamously claimed that Donovan McNabb was given a pass for his poor start to the season because the NFL “really wanted a black quarterback to succeed.” McNabb, of course, would lead his team to the Super Bowl.
The history of race and the quarterback position goes beyond anecdotes. Research confirms this. A 2015 study showed that black quarterbacks were twice as likely to be benched after a poor performance as their white counterparts. An analysis of NFL play-by-play shows that commentators tend to describe white QBs as intelligent and black QBs as naturally more athletic.
Due to all of these factors, the black quarterback became more than just a position on the field for black people. I grew up rooting for two things in the NFL: my hometown team winning a Super Bowl, and if that doesn’t happen, we can at least have a black quarterback, because a black quarterback represents a rejection of stereotypes and discrimination that plagued the NFL. position since its creation.
This is where Lamar Jackson comes in.
Jackson faced some of the problems that traditionally plague black quarterbacks. Despite his collegiate success and measurable results comparable to other quarterbacks in his 2018 draft class, Jackson was not drafted until late in the first round. Former Colts general manager Bill Polian also echoed old stereotypes by suggesting Jackson move to wide receiver early in his career. These obstacles only endeared black people to him more, because we wanted to see him prove persistent stereotypes wrong.
There is another reason why Jackson has developed such an emotional connection with black fans: he represents a type of black quarterback and athlete who has been much maligned, even in contrast to other prominent black quarterbacks who are his contemporaries , namely Patrick Mahomes. The Chiefs quarterback has been the NFL’s golden child since his debut with the team, accumulating three Super Bowls and two MVPs. He deserves to be the face of the NFL. But Mahomes also has the pedigree and experience necessary for that success: His father, Pat Mahomes, Sr., was a major league pitcher. Mahomes came from money. He also has fair skin and curly hair. He has a white mother and a white wife. He talks like he was media trained and came into the league ready to be the pitchman for every product available. In other words, he’s acceptable to Middle American audiences, even as a black man, especially when he stands on the shoulders of black quarterbacks who paved the way for him to succeed in the league.
Lamar Jackson is something different. He wears platinum grills on the field. He speaks with a deep southern Florida accent. He doesn’t have superstar parents or success. Jackson had to dig him out of the mud. And when he chose to eschew conventional agents and have his mother represent him, it became particularly controversial as he renegotiated his contract with the Ravens a few years ago. Additionally, his running game is more like the Michael Vicks of the quarterback world, quarterbacks traditionally associated with athleticism because of their throwing accuracy. This is one of the main reasons why Jackson’s pocket passing – a trait usually associated with “traditional” quarterbacks – has always been questioned despite the fact that statistics have long proven that he is as accurate than anyone in the league. So when commentators say he’s not “quarterback” enough, that comes with added scrutiny because it relies on a history of assumptions about players who look and play like Jackson and are very far from the actual product on the ground.
It’s also important to note that Lamar Jackson’s emergence as one of the NFL’s great quarterbacks occurred at a time when the league and country were at a crossroads. Lamar Jackson emerges in an era when so many great quarterbacks are black. A post-Brady/Brees/Rodgers/Rothelisberger/Manning era. Now the aforementioned Patrick Mahomes and Jackson, in addition to Jalen Hurts and others, are just as important. Additionally, Jackson’s MVP season came in 2019 on the eve of a nationwide racial reckoning where arguments over representation, who deserves what in America and a bitter fight over racial tensions spilled over to across the country at each demonstration.
And that’s where Josh Allen comes in.
Allen, who was drafted 7th in the 2018 draft – the same as Jackson – is in many ways the flip side of Lamar Jackson. He represents another angle of how the quarterback position is stereotyped. Ironically, his style of play mimics that of black quarterbacks who came into the league in years past. He’s an ultra-athletic QB with a cannon for an arm. At 6’5″ and around 240 pounds, Allen is an athletic unicorn who reminds me of Steve McNair and a faster Donovan McNabb in terms of physicality. Of course, Allen is rarely compared to those quarterbacks. He is rarely asked about his presence in the pocket And no one questions whether he’s “quarterback” enough, even though he and Jackson are one and two in career rushing quarterbacks in the playoffs.
Allen’s introduction to the world came with its own racial reckoning. As he entered the draft, old tweets from his high school days surfaced. In the tweets, Allen used the N-word while quoting rap lyrics. He apologized profusely and spoke to Stephen A. Smith about his regret for his comments.
This moment would follow Allen early in his career, especially as he and Jackson battled to see who was the best quarterback in the draft class. It’s a perfectly American story, perfect for another great racial debate: a once-white QB spouting N-words and a black quarterback fighting against stereotypes. As is often the case, Allen would find another audience beyond Bills fans and football fans who are impressed by his skills on the field: he would become the star who overcame the fearsome and mythical culture of cancelation. Allen, who once again went out of his way to apologize for his stupid tweets, was still being used as an example of a white man who couldn’t be stopped by people who wanted to “cancel” him. » for old social media posts. Not to mention the following from people who automatically want to defend anyone accused of racism or even perpetuate it. These fans don’t really care about the true greatness of Allen, of whom there is plenty of praise. They care about what it means to stand alongside someone who has even the slightest potential to offend marginalized groups.
In 2024, the rivalry between Allen and Jackson has come to the fore at another culturally significant moment. Both were in their bags all year, becoming the first duo in NFL history to face each other in the playoffs after throwing for more than 40 touchdowns and fewer than 10 interceptions in a regular season. For the first half of the year, Jackson was clearly the MVP. Then, Allen put together colossal performances against teams like Detroit and Kansas City and seemed to be the favorite. Since then, the two men have been neck and neck. Really, you can’t go wrong as an MVP, as they each have their own compelling arguments (Allen’s supporting cast vs. Jackson’s division opponents and strength of schedule, etc.). And the next playoff game should be a celebration of the year they’ve each had. But Jackson’s possible third MVP bid comes at a time when “DEI” has become the pejorative du jour, a thinly veiled insult to echo Limbaugh’s 20-year-old sentiment that minorities et al. getting rewards and jobs they don’t deserve. Allen therefore represents a challenge to the “DEI” prize. He’s the white star who overcame cancel culture and truly won the type of awards that white men have been deprived of in recent years.
This is all nonsense and noise, of course. And it’s another way we bring our racial baggage to the sport: kind of like Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese, Magic Johnson versus Larry Bird, or any time a white boxer is in the ring with a black boxer. Unlike those matchups, Allen and Jackson will not share the court simultaneously. They won’t exactly face each other head-to-head. And they didn’t indicate that there was any real rivalry between the two.
“In the history of football, I’ve never really played against another quarterback,” Allen said this week. “I played against their defense.”
The comment reminds us of what’s really going on between the two men: They’re fighting over who’s the better quarterback not named Patrick Mahomes for a chance at dethroning a dynasty. And they remind us that the history of the quarterback position makes it impossible for Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson to exist in a vacuum without the weight of society’s baggage on their shoulders.
