Josh Allen, Like Caitlin Clark, Is The 'Great White Villain'

Josh Allen is not the Great White Hope he is portrayed to be. He can be more accurately described as the Great White Villain.

Across the media, there is a persistent narrative that white people coddle Allen while tearing down his black counterparts. We keep looking for evidence of this and consistently come up empty. What we actually find are race-idolatrous commentators accusing white people of favoring Allen, while they themselves proceed to attack him.

The latest example comes from The Ringer co-hosts Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay. The pair accused society of favoring the "golden boy" while failing to extend the same grace to Lamar Jackson and James Harden. Lindsay then added the familiar talking point that Allen had no excuses because neither Patrick Mahomes nor Jackson made the playoffs, two quarterbacks she claimed Allen "can’t get past."

Fact check #1: Allen is 2 and 0 against Jackson in the playoffs. Lindsay does not have her facts straight.

Fact check #2: Jackson’s and Harden’s numbers drop significantly in the postseason compared to the regular season. By contrast, Allen’s playoff numbers are better than his regular-season statistics. That's the difference. 

As for Lathan’s broader point, we again ask for examples of who is supposedly giving Josh Allen a pass.

Since Saturday, Lathan’s boss Bill Simmons called Allen’s performance "brutal." ESPN analyst Booger McFarland said Allen "has no one to blame but himself." Ryan Clark claimed Allen let his team down.

Elsewhere, Bomani Jones mocked Allen for the loss. Cam Newton made it personal, questioning Allen’s abilities. Stephen A. Smith did the same. The entire Andscape staff celebrated Allen’s failure. A USA Today writer called the performance "embarrassing." Nick Wright blamed Allen alone for the Bills’ loss. Skip Bayless changed Allen’s nickname from Superman to "Stupor Man." And on and on.

Even voices outside the mainstream sports media criticized Allen. Jason Whitlock declared that Allen "choked."

For context, we went heavy on the examples to compensate for the lack of them elsewhere. Put bluntly, we cannot find anyone who gave Josh Allen a pass.

In fact, the only star quarterback consistently given a pass by the media is the one they perpetually claim is targeted by a racist press, Lamar Jackson.

Here is what Ryan Clark and Cam Newton had to say when the Ravens were eliminated from playoff contention in Week 18:

Clark said, "You fought 8. Gave your team the chance. Had adversity in the first half and kept pushing. Did everything you had to in the second half to earn extra minutes. That’s the way it goes when it’s good on good. This ain’t on you, you showed up in the most important moments @Lj_era8."

When Lamar Jackson fails, football suddenly becomes a team sport.

And yet Van Lathan, Cam Newton, Ryan Clark, Bomani Jones, Mike Freeman, and many others spent the week complaining about media favoritism toward Josh Allen, favoritism that does not exist.

Caitlin Clark can relate.

Her first two seasons in the WNBA were marred by a media narrative claiming she is only popular because she is a straight white woman. Even the ladies on The View discredited Clark by reducing her success to white privilege.

"I do think there is a thing called pretty privilege," Sonny Hostin said. "There is a thing called white privilege. There is a thing called tall privilege."

ESPN analyst Monica McNutt appeared on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" attributing Caitlin Clark’s popularity to "being a white girl from the middle of America." Others argued that Clark had a responsibility to defend black players, even those who smear her, due to alleged historical oppression.

As claims of favoritism grew, Clark became the most criticized player in the league. As OutKick’s Tomi Lahren asked, "If Clark has white privilege, why does she keep having to apologize for being white?"

Funny how that works.

In short, mostly black commentators could not tolerate that a white woman was both better and more popular than her black rivals. By any reasonable definition, the treatment of Clark was the only racism present in the WNBA.

Nikola Jokić experienced a version of this as well, though not on the same level as Allen and Clark, who are white and American. In 2023, ESPN analyst Kendrick Perkins accused MVP voters of favoring Jokic because he is white, claiming it was part of a three-decade trend.

Fact check #3. Only five white NBA players have ever won the MVP.

Those accusations ultimately cost Jokic the award that year. Afterward, an Andscape writer defended Perkins by claiming that white people calling Jokić the "greatest of all-time" was the latest example of "great white hope-ism."

Fact check #4. The article failed to cite or link a single example of anyone making the claim that Jokić was the G.O.A.T. We could not find any either.

Via OutKick Graphics

If you are starting to see a trend, there are no Great White Hopes in 2026. The racial discourse in sports is largely the product of commentators convincing themselves that any praise or popularity of a white athlete must be rooted in racial bias.

Much of the sports media, which is not an especially impressive or rigorous group, operates from a Marxian worldview in which one person’s success must come from another’s exploitation. Translated, they believe the popularity of a white athlete comes at the expense of a black athlete.

They are so committed to this worldview that they go on television and onto their made-for-Bluesky podcasts to throw tantrums over things no one actually said about athletes like Josh Allen and Caitlin Clark.

These faulty narratives are the product of an industry that dedicated an entire wing to anti-white commentary. It built careers. ESPN’s Andscape exists for this purpose. There would be no use for Van Lathan or Cam Newton in the media space were it not for their commitment to stirring racial division.

This group understands it must convince its bosses that enough racism against black athletes still exists to justify their continued employment.

And because no one in sports media actually favors white over black athletes (they would be fired on the spot), the race idolaters are left waging culture wars against racist straw men who do not exist.