ESPN Is Obsessed With Jalen Hurts' Skin Color And Black Quarterback Narrative

ESPN cannot stop celebrating that a black quarterback won the Super Bowl – again.

"Black excellence," ESPN said in its initial X post about the Super Bowl results. "Jalen Hurts joins Patrick Mahomes, Russell Wilson and Doug Williams as the only Black QBs to win a Super Bowl."

The network then uploaded a graphic of Hurts with the phrase "Black History Always," referencing the company's initiative to celebrate black history every month.

Talk shows like "First Take" and "SportsCenter" were enamored with Hurts's ability to lead his team as a black man.

Someone named Martenzie Johnson (a user of Bluesky) then published an article on ESPN's homepage in which he ranked all the black quarterbacks heading into next season. 

"Hurts’ performance — 293 total yards and three touchdowns — was the cherry atop yet another season of black excellence amongst the league’s quarterbacks," the article begins.

"When you think of the best players at the position, it no longer looks like a crypto conference: We were one Mark Andrews drop away from Black quarterbacks taking up all four spots in the conference championship games."

While we understand Johnson was overly excited to blame a white guy (Mark Andrews) for ruining the hopes of seeing four black quarterbacks compete in conference championship weekend, he has his facts wrong.

Had Lamar Jackson and Andrews connected on the two-point conversion, the Ravens would have only tied the Bills in that divisional playoff matchup. Buffalo would have received the ball, tied 27-27, with 1:33 remaining and multiple timeouts. According to ESPN's real-time data, the Bills would have had about a 70% chance of winning the game in that scenario. If not, the game would have headed to overtime.

OutKick contacted the author of the piece and Andscape PR rep Mac Nwulu to ask if the outlet plans to correct this error. Neither has responded.

NEW ORLEANS, LA - FEBRUARY 10: (EDITORS NOTE: Image has been converted to black and white.) Quarterback Jalen Hurts #1 of the Philadelphia Eagles addresses the media after being presented the Pete Rozelle Trophy as Super Bowl LIX Most Valuable Players during the Super Bowl Winning Team Head Coach and MVP Press Conference inside of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center on February 10, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Eagles defeated the Kansas City Chiefs to earn their second Super Bowl win 40-22. (Photo by Don Juan Moore/Getty Images)

Here was what the editor of the article said on social media before the start of the game:

"The Era of the Black Quarterback: Can Lamar Jackson complete the first-ever conference finals superfecta: Jayden Daniels ✅, Patrick Mahomes ✅ Jalen Hurts✅ Lamar Jackson ❓," Dwayne Bray asked.

No wonder Andscape articles are so frequently light on facts.

Put simply, a black quarterback winning the Super Bowl shouldn't be a story in 2025. It was a story in 1988 when Doug Williams became the first black quarterback to do so. 

That was 36 years ago.

Moreover, a black quarterback has started on the Super Bowl-winning team for each of the past three seasons (Mahomes twice and Hurts). At what point does ESPN move past seeing these quarterbacks as black and just as quarterbacks? At what point, have enough black quarterbacks won Super Bowls that it need not be the headline the day after?

As Jason Whitlock reported, the number of black Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks is consistent with the number of black people in America. 

"Thirty-five quarterbacks have won a Super Bowl. Four of them are black. So, 12 percent of the American population has won 11 percent of the Super Bowls. When will the race idolaters be satisfied? When will ESPN stop doing this, stop dividing the American people?"

NFL teams supposedly dismissed black quarterbacks forty years ago. If that's true, that's awful.  Luckily, the NFL corrected that problem some 30 years ago.

Black quarterbacks should not inherit eternal victim status because a supposed injustice took place in the 1980s.

It must also be insulting to Jalen Hurts to see ESPN turn his career-defining victory into a grift to further its racial agenda. Despite how they are covered, the likes of Hurts, Jackson, and Mahomes have shown no interest in embracing a role in the race war. 

They don't want to be seen as black quarterbacks. They want to be seen as great quarterbacks. And all three are. As are Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Jayden Daniels, CJ Stroud, and Justin Herbert.

The sports media should celebrate the strength of quarterback play in the NFL. Instead, ESPN is fixated on the skin colors of those great quarterbacks.

Ultimately, articles ranking black quarterbacks heading into 2025 are not progressive but regressive. Articles like that demand fans see players through a racial scope and develop opinions of them based on their race.

Race clowns like Martenzie Johnson and Chris Canty have actually made black quarterbacks less likable, to no fault of the players. Fans, including me, rooted against Lamar Jackson in the playoffs not because we have anything against Jackson, but because of how obnoxious his fanboys in the media are.

Thus, one couldn't blame a fan for rooting for a white quarterback next season simply to avoid the type of coverage ESPN displays every time a black quarterback wins a Super Bowl.

The coverage is exhausting, divisive, and wholly unnecessary.

There is a time and place to recognize the history of black quarterbacks in the NFL. But that time and place is not every week and every time a black quarterback succeeds.

It's time to move on.