The New Yorker:

The position is a uniquely American institution—a calling, connected to foundational myths about leadership and manhood. Why does it matter so much?

By Louisa Thomas

Jalen Hurts, the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback, is a Super Bowl champion, the reigning Super Bowl M.V.P. He has played in two of the past three Super Bowls; in his first one, in 2023, he had put on one of the best performances of his career, never mind that his team ended up losing that year. Hurts has never missed the playoffs as a starting quarterback. He can launch deep balls or find a small crease, rip open the defense, and run. He never seems confused or overwhelmed. He, sometimes literally, carries the team on his back. All he does is improve. On Thursday night, in the N.F.L. season opener against the Dallas Cowboys, he calmly but powerfully took what the defense gave him, in the air and on the ground, leading his team to the win. He looked in control. Then again, he throws in stinkers from time to time. He’s not Lamar Jackson. He lacks the talent of Patrick Mahomes. He doesn’t have Josh Allen’s galvanizing fire. He’s a beautiful tushwith arms. Last season, Hurts wasn’t even the most important player on his own offense. He’s a good quarterback but not a greatone, at least not yet. A great quarterback is like an obscenity: you know it when you see it.

Why does it matter so much? A quarterback is not just another position on a football field. It’s a uniquely American institution—a calling, connected to foundational myths about leadership and manhood. “The very idea of the quarterback was and remains bound up with who we are and how we see ourselves on a national scale,” the journalist Seth Wickersham writes, in his new book, “American Kings,” which sounds grandiose until you realize just how much pressure rides on the shoulders of a quarterback, on and off the field. There are actors and musicians who are more famous, businessmen and politicians whose decisions are of far greater consequence. But there is no one else who has to manage such a distinctive mix of violence and spectacle, and who is exposed to such risk of public failure week after week. “The reason to do it is the holy hell,” the Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young tells Wickersham. “It is everything a human being can be thrown into.”

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