Who Every NFL Quarterback is Voting for: A Splinter Guessvestigation

By Jacob Weindling | November 1, 2024 | 3:30pm

Photo by Brooke Sutton/Getty Images

Elections NFL

Who Every NFL Quarterback is Voting for: A Splinter Guessvestigation

The internet is having fun with this subject, and being a big football fan myself, I can’t help but jump into this. I have looked into every quarterback’s politics as best I can, but America’s most important position is well-versed in the art of saying nothing while appealing to everyone. Most of these conclusions below are guesses of varying degrees of silliness, but there is actually a fair amount of information about these guys’ political persuasions, and there are more bleeding hearts on the gridiron than you would think at first glance.

AFC West

Patrick Mahomes: We will begin with the Swiftian dynasty sitting atop the NFL that exposes America as a bunch of hypocrites, both because the NFL’s lone undefeated team has earned it, and his MAGA wife and complicated friend of Taylor Swift, Kamala Harris endorser, has captured America’s insatiable attention for gossip. The NFL’s best quarterback who haunts mine and every other Bronco fan’s nightmares has said he will not endorse anyone, but that won’t stop me, a fan of his rival team, from assuming the worst of someone I have never met.

AFC South

C.J. Stroud: The NFL’s next big QB star hinted at some of his politics after a victory last season. His father is incarcerated, pleading guilty in 2015 to some ugly charges including kidnapping, robbery and misdemeanor sexual battery, claiming he had spiraled at the end of his marriage in 2012 and began using drugs. He’s serving a term of 38 years to life, and Stroud lamented that he is unable to get his dad to come to see him play, saying “I didn’t want to make this public man, but our criminal justice system isn’t right. It’s something that I probably need to be a little more vocal about because what he’s going through is not right. It’s not just my dad’s situation. But the whole criminal justice system is corrupt. I’ve been watching videos, and in Mississippi some of the prisons have rats and roaches and things like that. And don’t get me wrong: criminals, they should do their time and everything like that, but they’re still humans, you know?”

Verdict: He’s definitely not voting for the guy who’s enthusiastic about locking people away in prison.

Joe Flacco: For the second consecutive year, the ageless veteran has been called off the bench to save a contending team’s season from its inept starter. While Democrats in Cleveland and Indianapolis may get fond memories of competent quarterback play when hearing his name, they probably don’t want to scratch the surface of his unvaccinated politics too much.

Verdict: Trump says he’s elite, take a wild guess.

Trevor Lawrence: Few college athletes have ever had the pressure on their shoulders that Trevor Lawrence carried. Not only was he a freshman phenom for a national championship winner at Clemson, but his last year in college came during the pandemic in 2020, and he spoke to President Trump and was a key factor in getting college football back on the field in the fall. The summer before he pushed his record to a preposterous 38-2 in college, he helped lead a Black Lives Matter protest on campus as the nation recoiled in horror to the public murder of George Floyd. For a guy still very young and struggling to find his footing in the NFL, by all accounts, he is light years ahead of his neanderthal NFL brethren in terms of his social consciousness.

Verdict: It’s gotta be Harris, right?

Mason Rudolph: When Rudolph was with the Steelers, Browns defensive end Myles Garrett famously ripped his helmet off in a rage and hit him in the head with it. Afterwards, Garrett said what prompted it was that Rudolph allegedly “called me a ‘stupid N-word.’” Rudolph loves Tomi Lahren and doesn’t like Colin Kaepernick, and if you’re not getting the picture by now, you never will.

Verdict: He’s already voted for Trump five times.

AFC North

Russell Wilson: Mr. Unlimited might be the most skilled athlete of all-time when it comes to saying absolutely nothing of real substance, as Russ has innovated new ways to stay non-committal in his bid to perpetually brand himself. That said, anyone who sells water that falsely claims to cure concussions belongs in Alex Jones’ lead-filled universe.

Verdict: He’s telling Ciara he’s voting for Kamala but he’s secretly voting for Trump.

Lamar Jackson: Because we live in the dumbest timeline, the two-time NFL MVP’s “Truzz Trump” tweet made waves in 2020, and he had to clear up that he was just acknowledging Trump’s compliment of his college teammate, Jaire Alexander, whom Trump said was a good pick. To the many haters and losers, I unfortunately must acknowledge that in this instance, Trump knows ball, as Alexander went on to be one of the NFL’s best corners and a two-time Pro Bowler by the age of 25.

Verdict: I googled the word “truzz” and it apparently means “putting full trust in someone.” Given that Lamar is nicknamed Big Truzz and he bestowed this on to Trump, and “truzzed” supposedly means “to be tripped and buzzed at the same time” per Urban Dictionary, Lamar has low propensity young male Trump voter written all over him.

Joe Burrow: The press learned the hard way earlier this year not to trust anonymous Twitter accounts when they falsely reported that the Bengals quarterback had attended the “White Dudes for Harris” call, but they were not wrong in assuming he may be there.

Verdict: The guy who wrote “The black community needs our help. They have been unheard for far too long. Open your ears, listen, and speak. This isn’t politics. This is human rights.” in the summer of 2020 and “I’m not pro-murdering babies. I’m pro-Becky who found at her 20-week anatomy scan that the infant she had been so excited to bring into this world had developed without life-sustaining organs.” after Roe was overturned is not voting for Trump. Bank one vote in Ohio for Kamala.

Jameis Winston: The only thing that could convince me that Jameis is a Kamala voter is his unbelievably corny pregame speeches that he somehow still does in defiance of all cringe-based logic.

Verdict: Take a wild guess at who a man who once told a group of children “All my young boys, stand up. The ladies, sit down” and was suspended for credible sexual assault allegations is probably voting for.

AFC East

Josh Allen: The resurgence of the downtrodden Buffalo Bills, driven by of one of the most unique and exciting quarterbacks to enter the NFL since at least Cam Newton, let alone ever, is a heartwarming story. It didn’t start out great, with old racist tweets resurfacing on draft night when the Bills took the raw and unproven project from Wyoming with the fourth overall pick. Josh Allen probably voted for Trump in his high school mock election in 2016, but he has grown in many more ways than one in the NFL.

Verdict: I want to end the week on a hopeful note so I am going to assume that the progression of Josh Allen’s societal consciousness follows the uptrend his football development did. In 2020 he said the 57 members of the Buffalo Police Department who resigned in protest after officers who shoved a 75-year-old man to the ground were suspended do not deserve to be part of that unit, so he may be one of the many former Republicans joining Kamala’s side this year.

Aaron Rodgers: A lot of people want to just distill Rodgers’ supposed MAGA politics into his appearances on Joe Rogan and Unofficial Barstool mascot Pat McAfee’s shows, but he is so much more incoherent than that. Don’t forget this is the same guy who went out of his way in a post-game press conference to call out a fan yelling “Muslims suck” during a moment of silence for terror victims in France. Rodgers, like a lot of Joe Rogan’s listeners, has politics that do not glom neatly on to our left-right partisan axis.

Verdict: He is writing in the animal spirit he met on the ayahuasca trip he had last week that helped lead him to victory last night against Houston.

Tua Tagovailoa: His wife Annah shared a post on Instagram from alleged Kremlin stooge who is a big dumb baby that doesn’t know anything, Benny Johnson, putting Tua in Mahomes territory. The difference is that Mahomes is smart enough not to recommend the Qanon-style film Sound of Freedom in public.

Verdict: Who else would an Alabama quarterback who consumes right-wing media vote for?

Drake Maye: The Patriots rookie is smart enough to not touch politics in public, and there is no information about which way he may lean. But there is a lot of information about who his owner votes for, as Robert Kraft donated a million dollars to Trump’s inauguration and continues to give money to AIPAC. The Patriots are an organization run by a MAGA tyrant who won a power struggle over titans of the NFL and friends of Trump, Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.

Verdict: The Patriots are Trump city whether their players want it to be or not. Kraft probably took Maye’s ballot and voted for Trump for him.

NFC West

Kyler Murray: While a man with a documented history of his play slipping every time a new Call of Duty comes out may look like a low propensity male Trump target at first, Murray has been very outspoken in his NFL career. He said he was “sending love to our women” after Roe was overturned and he knelt in protest during the national anthem in 2020 after the George Floyd protests.

Verdict: If it wasn’t clear enough, on draft night, Trump congratulated the man picked behind him, MAGA-douche Nick Bosa, and not Kyler Murray who was taken #1 overall. Murray is in the clear to vote Harris just out of personal spite, let alone the values he has clearly demonstrated during his time in the league.

Brock Purdy: Purdy is very religious, and that has not stopped many on the right from claiming him as one of their own, but like everything in the former Mr. Irrelevant’s NFL career, he has managed it savvily. I can find no evidence of his public political persuasions, and what he truly believes past his religion is as big of a mystery as to how the hell the last pick in the draft got this good.

Verdict: He plays for a team that fled San Francisco while still enjoying the benefits of San Francisco. That’s Trump vibes if I’ve ever seen them.

Geno Smith: Geno is a true grinder. The type of person Trump pretends to be in his appeal to those who also like to pretend they face real hardship. Geno Smith was written off by every NFL coach, analyst and executive after he failed as a New York Jet. After languishing as an anonymous backup for years and existing as a punch line for Jets misery, he got his opportunity in Seattle and blossomed into a really good quarterback. While right-wingers may like to think that grinders like Geno are Trump voters, true grinders know a fake like Trump when they see one.

Verdict: A man who once said that “we better off having Donald Duck lead the country this guy is a fraud!” is almost certainly going to help Kamala Harris win Washington handily on Tuesday.

Matt Stafford: The former Lions great whose trade helped spark a revival of two franchises is an intensely private person, and his political persuasions have always been a bit of a mystery. His wife Kelly has been the opposite, there is no mystery as to the political persuasions of someone who called Michigan a “dictatorship” during Covid and has generally expressed pro-Republican sentiment online. Ever since becoming a lightning rod in public, she has gravitated back towards some kind of middle, trying to both-sides Chiefs Kicker Harrison Butker’s misogynistic graduation speech recently.

Verdict: In 2020, Stafford wrote “We Can’t Just Stick to Football” in The Players’ Tribune, talking about the need to talk about racial injustice. You know that Kamala Harris ad telling wives to pretend they voted Trump but actually to vote opposite their husbands? I have a sneaking suspicion that resonated with the non-wives portion of the Stafford household.

NFC South

Kirk Cousins: While Falcons owner Arthur Blank proved that not every NFL owner is deprived of a moral compass in his Kamala Harris endorsement, I would not hold my breath waiting for his quarterback to follow suit. Cousins is a supporter of Focus on the Family, one of the most rabid anti-LGBTQ organizations in America.

Verdict: He played golf with Trump in 2017, he’s never not voted for Trump.

Baker Mayfield: This one might be the trickiest to figure out. It’s one thing when you’re Brock Purdy or some anonymous rookie who isn’t allowed to say anything other than generic platitudes, but it’s another when you have taken public stances that are diametrically opposite from one another. In 2020, Baker told someone on Instagram asking him not to kneel that he “absolutely” will be before backtracking on that pledge, then two years later, he endorsed an anti-critical race theory PAC in a local school board election.

Verdict: Someone with this confused of politics must be a Jill Stein voter.

Derek Carr: Carr is outwardly religious in a very traditional American way, and this makes him seem like a classic Republican voter, made doubly so by his new residence in Louisiana. But his heartfelt statement in the wake of the George Floyd protests showed a different side to him of what many assumed, and while the word “race” or “racist” doesn’t appear in his very carefully crafted statement, the sympathy expressed towards societal inequities feels real, which makes it harder to think that a truly God-fearing man who preaches love and understanding all the time would be so gung-ho to vote for such a hateful man.

Verdict: We may have a Nikki Haley voter on our hands here, folks, which in this election, makes him a likely Harris voter.

Bryce Young: Like most of his other rookie and rookie-adjacent brethren, Carolina’s Bryce Young has been careful not to speak about his politics, and what he believes is one giant mystery.

Verdict: North Carolina polls make no sense, and it’s because porn forum enthusiast and self-described “black NAZI!” Mark Robinson is dragging Trump down. If you’re not sure who someone in North Carolina is voting for, it may be Kamala Harris.

NFC North

Jared Goff: The other side of the Matt Stafford trade has led Detroit’s and his own revival, stepping up as a leader both on and off the field. After the 2020 George Floyd protests where teammates like Robert Woods shared stories with past interactions with the police, Goff said “It’s important for white people, and especially white football players – and specifically myself, a white quarterback – to stand up and say something and to take action and to be on the side of the right. It’s a matter of right and wrong at this point. It’s no longer, do you understand, do you not understand? It’s just right and wrong and basic human rights.”

Verdict: He may not have been on that White Dudes for Harris Call like the fake report said, but it would not have been a shock if he had been.

Jordan Love: Like his other youthful compatriots, Love has kept his politics a secret, which is probably a good decision in the swing state of Wisconsin, let alone as the successor to right-wing grifter Brett Favre and Joe Rogan enthusiast Aaron Rodgers.

Verdict: Rodgers learned under Favre, and Love learned under Rodgers, while all three are good to great quarterbacks. I am going to assume this pattern repeats itself in Green Bay until it does not, and that Trump can count on at least one vote in Wisconsin coming out of the Packers’ locker room.

Sam Darnold: Like many athletes during the George Floyd protests, Sam Darnold expressed support for the cause and spoke about how he was educated as a white man in the wake of it. Because Darnold has struggled to establish his NFL career and is now making the most of a second chance in Minnesota, he has not stuck his neck out with many political takes given how he has lived so much of his NFL life on the roster bubble.

Verdict: Unlike the doofuses who somehow believe life was better under Trump and the pandemic he left us to fend for ourselves in, Darnold definitely does not believe that the Trump years where he was a draft bust are better than his revival under President Biden. One thing is for certain during this magical season for Darnold: he is the last person in America who wants things to change right now.

Caleb Williams: Here we find another rookie who has been smart enough to never utter a public political take in his life. Illinois is politically diverse enough that it still probably is a smart decision to his own brand to keep out of this mess, but there is one good reason for him to get involved.

Verdict: If my name was Caleb Williams and a Trump supporter named Caleb Williams was arrested for brandishing a machete at people at a voting site, I would tell everyone I am voting for Kamala Harris just to scrub the internet of this SEO affiliation with my name.

NFC East

Jayden Daniels: Washington’s rookie phenom has set the NFL world ablaze with his incredible play to start the year, and while he has done his best to stay out of politics, playing in the nation’s capital has made it inescapable.

Verdict: Daniels may try to stay out of politics like all the other rookies, but after his dramatic Hail Mary last week that authored a new When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong skit for the modern era, he cannot remove himself from politics. Should the “last Washington home game” rule that has been true in 17 of the last 19 elections endure next week, history will remember that Jayden Daniels helped elect the first female President of the United States.

Jalen Hurts: Philadelphia’s star quarterback has never been shy about expressing his political beliefs, as he dumped his former agent, The Young Money APAA Sports Agency after Lil Wayne took a photo with Trump last year. In 2022 he made an impassioned plea for the United States to end the scourge of gun violence, and he has taken to the streets to urge people to vote.

Verdict: Is it really a mystery who a guy who recently said President Obama is “an all-time leader” is going to vote for in a crucial swing state?

Dak Prescott: It is difficult being the Black quarterback of America’s Team owned by a man photographed in 1957 among a group of students opposing school integration. Not to mention that Jerry Jones is by all accounts, the NFL’s worst person. Prescott once said that he did not think NFL games were the “time or the venue” to stage a protest, refusing to join Colin Kaepernick in kneeling to protest police violence, but when police violence reared its ugly head again in the summer of 2020, Prescott pledged $1 million to “improve our police training and address systematic racism through education and advocacy in our country.”

Verdict: Independent of what Dak Prescott actually believes, there has to be a part of him who wants to vote for Kamala Harris just out of spite towards hardcore Trumper Jerry Jones. Given what a clusterfuck the Cowboys’ season has become as Jones blames everyone but himself for it, I’d have to imagine the urge to tell him to fuck himself is as strong as it ever has been in the Cowboys locker room.

Daniel Jones: Again, we find another quarterback who seemed to be genuinely affected by the discussions he had with his teammates in the wake of the George Floyd protests, and in 2020, the Giants quarterback issued a statement saying, “I proudly stand beside my brothers and the entire black community in support of the Black Lives Matter movement to end systemic racism.”

Verdict: We’ll end this on a hopeful note and assume that this commitment remains strong, and he would never vote for a man whose closing message includes “comedians” who are telling “jokes” about Black people and watermelons.