Culture
QB future for all 32 NFL teams: Russell Wilson, Aaron Rodgers and other intriguing questions
Russell Wilson playing for a new contract with the Pittsburgh Steelers ranks among the top quarterback storylines heading into the 2024 NFL season’s final weeks. There are many others of interest, which makes this a good time to check in on all 32 quarterback situations.
As I usually do this time of year, I’ve grouped all 32 quarterbacks into buckets based on how their teams should feel about them, from “Committed Without Reservation” at one end to “We’re Looking For A Way Out” at the other.
The New York Giants’ current starter (Drew Lock) is not listed, but their former one (Daniel Jones) does appear. I’ve included contract duration and salary rank, along with where each ranks in EPA per pass play among the 40 quarterbacks with at least 100 pass attempts this season.
1. Committed Without Reservation
We have top-five QBs in their primes, signed to long-term contracts.
Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City Chiefs
Signed thru: 2031 | APY Rank: 12 | QB EPA Rank: 10/40
There’s been an interesting statistical tradeoff for Mahomes in recent weeks. After tossing eight touchdown passes with nine interceptions in the first seven games, the TD-INT ratio has flipped to 11-2 in five subsequent games. His sack rate has also jumped from 5.1 percent to 9.0 percent, while his rate of passes gaining more than 15 yards has dropped. Not that any of these things affect how the Chiefs feel about their quarterback, who leads the league in fourth-quarter comebacks (four) and game-winning drives (six), per Pro Football Reference.
Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills
Signed thru: 2028 | APY Rank: 14 | QB EPA Rank: 4/40
Allen has become the betting favorite for MVP honors in recent weeks and is everything the Bills hoped they were getting when they traded up to draft him in 2018. His sack rate has fallen and his explosive pass rate has risen across all three offensive coordinators during his seven seasons.
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Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens
Signed thru: 2027 | APY Rank: 8 | QB EPA Rank: 1/40
The Ravens are winning the big bet they made on Jackson when they signed him to an extension before the 2023 season. Jackson’s production, in decline before he signed the deal, has reached new highs. He has 41 more total touchdowns than turnovers since signing the deal, tied with Allen for the best differential in the league. Jackson ranked 21st (+13) across the 2021-22 seasons.
Joe Burrow, Cincinnati Bengals
Signed thru: 2029 | APY Rank: 4 | QB EPA Rank: 6/40
Burrow passed for 820 yards with nine touchdowns and one interception in 41-38 and 35-34 defeats to Baltimore this season, capturing the essence of this Bengals season. Cincinnati ranks fifth in offensive EPA per play but only 30th on the defensive side. That is the largest differential between offensive and defensive rankings through Week 13. The other teams with similar disparities include the 8-5 Ravens (-24), 8-5 Commanders (-24) and 6-6 Buccaneers (-23).
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Justin Herbert, Los Angeles Chargers
Signed thru: 2029 | APY Rank: 7 | QB EPA Rank: 21/40
Herbert was fifth in Quarterback Tiers voting before the 2023 and 2024 seasons despite slipping from Tier 1 to Tier 2 entering 2024. He’s throwing fewer passes and taking more sacks for a team that is winning on defense. It’s difficult to imagine coach Jim Harbaugh straying too far from his run-heavy philosophy.
2. Committed And Hoping The Sky Is The Limit
We think our young QBs can become stars (and there’s some evidence to prove we are right).
Jordan Love, Green Bay Packers
Signed thru: 2028 | APY Rank: 3 | QB EPA Rank: 13/40
Comparing Love to predecessor Aaron Rodgers would seem unfair if Love weren’t starting his career with similar production.
Rodgers through 27 starts: 64 percent completions, 7.8 yards per attempt, 50 touchdown passes, 18 interceptions
Love through 27 starts: 63 percent completions, 7.4 yards per attempt, 51 touchdown passes, 23 interceptions
The main differences: Rodgers added more EPA on scrambles and lost more EPA on sacks, while Love has lost more on interceptions.
C.J. Stroud, Houston Texans
Signed thru: 2026 (not counting fifth-year option) | APY Rank: 26 | QB EPA Rank: 25/40
To what degree does Stroud’s decline in production from his rookie season reflect a weakened offensive line and injuries at receiver?
That will be a key question heading into next season for the 2023 Offensive Rookie of the Year.
3. Committed And Content
We have veteran quarterbacks signed for the long term and are happy with the situation.
Jared Goff, Detroit Lions
Signed thru: 2028 | APY Rank: 6 | QB EPA Rank: 3/40
Goff is proving to be a great good-team quarterback.
Now in his fourth season with Detroit, Goff is replicating his 2018 Super Bowl season with the Rams through 12 games, except he’s throwing the ball less frequently and throwing it shorter, which means a higher completion rate and fewer explosive gains.
Everything else is about the same: the won-lost record (11-1 both years), the passer rating (109.9 then, 109.0 now) and the elevated yards per attempt (9.1 then, 8.8 now).
Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles
Signed thru: 2028 | APY Rank: 9 | QB EPA Rank: 12/40
The Eagles are 31-4 through the first 12 games of the past three seasons with Hurts in the lineup. The big difference this season is how much more Philadelphia is leaning on its defense and ground game, led by Saquon Barkley.
Hurts, in his first season with offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, has attempted 304 passes during the 10-2 start this season, down from 403 during the team’s 10-2 start last season. That’s a drop from 33.5 attempts per game to 25.3 per game.
Kyler Murray, Arizona Cardinals
Signed thru: 2028 | APY Rank: 10 | QB EPA Rank: 14/40
Murray seems to have matured and is no longer defined by the “homework clause” Arizona put into (and later removed from) the contract extension he signed in July 2022.
After missing parts of the past two seasons with a torn ACL, he has started the first 12 games of a season for the first time since 2020, his second year in the league.
One big difference from then to now: He averaged a career-high 7.6 rushes and scrambles per game then, compared to a career-low 3.9 this season. While he leads the league in ESPN’s Total QBR metric, teams are blitzing Murray much more effectively than in recent seasons.
Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys
Signed thru: 2028 | APY Rank: 1 | QB EPA Rank: 28/40
The Cowboys have had a winning record six times in seven seasons when Prescott started at least half the games and never had a losing season (they were 8-8 in 2019). But the team fell off in 2024, Prescott suffered a season-ending hamstring injury and his new contract is set to count $89 million against the cap in 2025 — his age-32 season — making the future look murkier.
Baker Mayfield, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Signed thru: 2026 | APY Rank: 18 | QB EPA Rank: 11/40
Mayfield has found a home in Tampa and is providing a solid return on the Buccaneers’ three-year, $100 million investment in him. Since joining Tampa Bay last season, he ranks 10th in EPA per pass play and is tied with the Ravens’ Jackson for the league lead in touchdown passes (53).
The Buccaneers have a mediocre record this season (6-6) because the defense ranks 29th in EPA per play. Mayfield has posted career-high totals through 12 games for passing yards (3,034), passing touchdowns (25), passer rating (101.3) and EPA per pass play (0.11). He’s done it for an offense that ranks fifth in points per game (27.2) and sixth in EPA per play.
4. Committed And Content, With No Guarantees
We like our QBs and have them signed beyond this season to deals containing little or no more guaranteed money. This gives us more flexibility to consider our options.
Matthew Stafford, Los Angeles Rams
Signed thru: 2026 | APY Rank: 15 | QB EPA Rank: 17/40
When Stafford sought a new contract last offseason, the Rams gave him $40 million fully guaranteed, with only $4 million in guarantees after this season. That gives the team greater flexibility to move on from Stafford if some combination of age/injury/performance leads the Rams to consider other options. Stafford remains the best option now. His three game-winning drives are his most since having four in 2021.
Geno Smith, Seattle Seahawks
Signed thru: 2025 | APY Rank: 19 | QB EPA Rank: 23/40
The way this Seahawks season has played out under new offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb, with the team skewing heavily toward the pass and Kenneth Walker III ranking 30th among running backs in rush yards, the focus could fall more on the overall approach than it falls on the person taking snaps from center.
Whatever the case, Smith remains under contract for 2025 under terms favorable to the team, as his $24.8 million in compensation is not guaranteed. That gives the Seahawks flexibility if they decide to consider other options.
Smith had 30 touchdown passes with 11 interceptions in his first season as the Seahawks’ starter (2022). He has 13 and 12, respectively, for an offense that has struggled to find consistency so far this season.
5. Committed With Concerns
We signed our QB to an expensive long-term extension but can’t feel great about it, for different reasons.
Tua Tagovailoa, Miami Dolphins
Signed thru: 2028 | APY Rank: 5 | QB EPA Rank: 2/40
The Dolphins struggled to function when Tagovailoa was not available to them, pushing back against perceptions that the quarterback was mostly a product of coach Mike McDaniel’s scheme and the team’s elite weaponry.
The team has averaged 0.09 EPA per play on offense with Tagovailoa, compared with -0.32 per play without him. That is the difference between being a top-five offense this season and being more than twice as bad as the last-ranked one (Cleveland at -0.15).
Tagovailoa and the Dolphins paid a heavy price for learning more about the quarterback’s value. The concussion he suffered against Buffalo in Week 2 spurred another round of questions about his long-term health and viability as a quarterback.
Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville Jaguars
Signed thru: 2030 | APY Rank: 2 | QB EPA Rank: 27/40
There’s little evidence Lawrence can overcome tough situations, or that the Jaguars can help him enough to ensure success, but the team still entered into a $275 million extension with him before the season, when there was no looming deadline to do so.
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Here’s where Lawrence ranks in EPA per pass play: 25th since 2021, 20th since 2022, 25th since 2023 and 24th this season. He’ll likely remain among the top five in average annual salary for years to come. Can he close the gap?
6. Committed Until No Longer Committed
Our veteran starters could be on the way out, for different reasons.
Derek Carr, New Orleans Saints
Signed thru: 2026 | APY Rank: 16 | QB EPA Rank: 9/40
The Saints’ next coach will likely help decide what course the team follows at quarterback after this season. Releasing Carr could be difficult given the team’s salary-cap situation, but all options would seem to be on the table as the club sets a new course. Designating him a post-June 1 release would make the most sense if the Saints decide to cut ties.
Kirk Cousins, Atlanta Falcons
Signed thru: 2027 | APY Rank: 13 | QB EPA Rank: 16/40
Cousins could be running out of chances to reverse a recent slide in production. How long before first-round rookie Michael Penix Jr. becomes the best option? It seems fitting that this career crossroads has Cousins returning to Minnesota against his former team in Week 14. Here’s hoping Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell is miked up during pregame, at least.
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How long before Penix takes over from Cousins as the Falcons’ starter? (Kevin Sabitus / Associated Press)
Aaron Rodgers, New York Jets
Signed thru: 2025 | APY Rank: 17 | QB EPA Rank: 29/40
Rodgers’ contract has a $35 million option for 2025. It’s difficult to see the Jets exercising it when a franchise refresh seems appropriate and Rodgers, who just turned 41, has lost athleticism.
As disappointing as this Jets season has been from a quarterback standpoint, this might be worse: The team’s 88.2 passer rating is its second-best through 12 games since 2008.
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7. Committed, But At What Value?
Our QB has earned an extension, but recent events have raised questions about the price.
Brock Purdy, San Francisco 49ers
Signed thru: 2025 | APY Rank: 84 | QB EPA Rank: 7/40
Purdy, with less than $3 million in career earnings, has a $1.1 million salary in 2024. He’s been the NFL’s biggest bargain over the past two-plus seasons and should be in line for a big raise, but how big?
Six weeks ago, the conversation revolved around whether Purdy might cash in for $60 million per year. But as the season slips away and some of Purdy’s physical limitations surface, could the 49ers decide to wait? Could they pursue more of a compromise deal, in the spirit of what Green Bay did with Love in 2023? There’s time to figure out something.
8. Lots to Play For Down The Stretch With Contract Talks Ahead
The veteran we signed on the cheap will command an extension if this keeps up.
Russell Wilson, Pittsburgh Steelers
Signed thru: 2024 | APY Rank: 63 | QB EPA Rank: 8/40
The one-year, $1.2 million deal Wilson signed with the Steelers (while still collecting $37.8 million from Denver on his previous deal) ranks as the biggest bargain in the league this season.
Wilson’s passing production in six starts projects to 4,706 yards with 28 touchdowns and nine interceptions over a 17-game schedule. The final five games deliver some difficult defenses, but with the Steelers all but assured a playoff berth, Wilson has a great opportunity to make Pittsburgh his longer-term home.
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9. Evaluating: Long Runways
Our first-round rookies are just getting started.
Jayden Daniels, Washington Commanders
Signed thru: 2027 (not counting fifth-year option) | APY Rank: 24 | QB EPA Rank: 5/40
This season has showcased Daniels’ dual-threat prowess along with some preexisting durability concerns, but Washington must be very happy with its selection of Daniels overall. His EPA per pass play ranks fifth through 13 starts among all rookies since 2000, per TruMedia. Matt Ryan, Robert Griffin III, Ben Roethlisberger and Prescott rank higher. Wilson, Herbert and Stroud rank sixth through eighth, respectively. That is good company for Daniels.
Caleb Williams, Chicago Bears
Signed thru: 2027 (not counting fifth-year option) | APY Rank: 22 | QB EPA Rank: 30/40
Williams has gone from ranking among the bottom 10 in EPA per pass play under former coordinator Shane Waldron to ranking among the top 10 after three games with Thomas Brown in the role. Whether that is sustainable, the uptick has been encouraging for the No. 1 pick in the 2024 draft. Who will be coaching Williams for the long term?
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Bo Nix, Denver Broncos
Signed thru: 2027 (not counting fifth-year option) | APY Rank: 39 | QB EPA Rank: 26/40
Nix has feasted on the AFC West and NFC South, combining for 15 touchdown passes with one interception in eight games, including six Denver victories. He ranks among the top 10 in a range of passing categories, including EPA per pass play, since Week 8.
Drake Maye, New England Patriots
Signed thru: 2027 (not counting fifth-year option) | APY Rank: 25 | QB EPA Rank: 22/40
Maye has less around him than the other first-round rookie quarterbacks, one reason the Patriots were reluctant to start him right away. He has arguably outperformed expectations given that context, shifting the focus away from him and onto what New England must do to help him in the coming offseason.
10. Evaluating: Clock Is Ticking
We haven’t given up on the 2023 first-round picks we benched, but there’s some urgency.
Bryce Young, Carolina Panthers
Benched after only two games this season, Young has played well enough in five games since his return to renew hope for his future. The Panthers are 2-3 and averaging 21.4 offensive points per game since Young’s return. They had a 2-16 record while averaging 11.2 points per game on offense in his previous 18 starts.
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Signed thru: 2026 (not counting fifth-year option) | APY Rank: 23 | QB EPA Rank: 34/40
Anthony Richardson, Indianapolis Colts
Signed thru: 2026 (not counting fifth-year option) | APY Rank: 29 | QB EPA Rank: 31/40
The Colts were much worse on offense during the two games Joe Flacco started than they were previously or since Richardson returned to the lineup for the past three games. Richardson remains a low-percentage passer capable of the spectacular but is still seeking consistency. How patient will the Colts be in developing him?
11. Evaluating: Need An Alternative
Our young QB could play his way into a future with us, but it’s looking like we’ll be in the market for an upgrade.
Will Levis, Tennessee Titans
Signed thru: 2026 | APY Rank: 53 | QB EPA Rank: 35/40
The Titans’ current coaching staff inherited Levis and could keep him but presumably would not want to bet its future on him, given the returns so far. Can Levis finish strong?
Aidan O’Connell, Las Vegas Raiders
Signed thru: 2026 | APY Rank: 71 | QB EPA Rank: 15/40
The Raiders had O’Connell on their roster entering this season and preferred signing Gardner Minshew for $12.5 million per year. Can O’Connell play his way into their future plans over the remaining five games? His 340-yard game at Kansas City was a start.
12. Thank You For Your Service (And The Future Comp Pick)
We’re grateful for our QB but committed to a different one.
Sam Darnold, Minnesota Vikings
Signed thru: 2024 | APY Rank: 21 | QB EPA Rank: 19/40
The assumption here is that Darnold has played well enough to earn an opportunity greater than what the Vikings can promise him in 2025, when first-round pick J.J. McCarthy returns from knee surgery to presumably claim the starting job.
13. Likely Headed to Free Agency as a Bridge Starter/Backup
There will be a market for these veterans, but not necessarily as the undisputed starter.
Jameis Winston, Cleveland Browns
Signed thru: 2024 | APY Rank: 42 | QB EPA Rank: 20/40
The Browns are averaging 21.8 offensive points per game when Winston starts after averaging 13.4 when Deshaun Watson was in the lineup earlier in the season. Their rate of explosive pass plays has more than doubled from 8.4 percent with Watson to 17.8 percent with Winston.
It’s possible the Browns or another team will project Winston as a starter next season. The two pick sixes Winston threw against Denver on Monday night tempered some of the recent enthusiasm.
Daniel Jones, Minnesota Vikings
Signed thru: 2024 | APY Rank: 90 | QB EPA Rank: 32/40
Jones could fill the Darnold role for the Vikings next season if Darnold finds a better opportunity elsewhere. He could also test the market, although additional time with O’Connell in Minnesota could be good for his career longer term.
14. We’re Looking For A Way Out
Help! Our quarterback could not start for any team, but we owe him more than $90 million over the next two seasons.
Deshaun Watson, Cleveland Browns
Signed thru: 2026 | APY Rank: 11 | QB EPA Rank: 40/40
The worst contract in NFL history isn’t getting better soon enough for the Browns. Watson, out for the season with a torn Achilles tendon, is scheduled to count $72.9 million against the cap in each of the next two seasons. Those figures could be manipulated in various ways, but Watson is getting his money regardless, unless he violates the contract in some way.
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(Top photo of Russell Wilson, left, and Aaron Rodgers: Joe Sargent / Getty Images)
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Maybe you woke up this morning haunted by the first four lines of W.H. Auden’s “The More Loving One” — or tickled by its tongue-in-cheek handling of existential dread. (Not ringing any bells? Click here to begin the Poetry Challenge).
This is a love poem. Perhaps that seems like an obvious thing to say about a poem with “Loving” in its title, but there isn’t much romance in the opening stanza.
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
Ada Limón, poet
Nonetheless, the poem soon makes clear that love is very much on its mind.
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
David Sedaris, writer
The polished informality gives the impression of a decidedly cerebral speaker — someone who’s looking at love philosophically, thinking about how it works and what it means.
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Reginald Dwayne Betts, poet
Musing this way — arguing in this fashion — he stands in a long line of playful, thoughtful poetic lovers going back at least to the 16th century. He sounds a bit like Christopher Marlowe’s passionate shepherd:
Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.
Auden’s poem, like Marlowe’s, is written in four-beat lines:
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
Josh Radnor, actor
And it features strong end rhymes:
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Samantha Harvey, writer
These tetrameter couplets represent a long-established poetic love language. Not too serious or sappy, but with room for both earnestness and whimsy. And even for professions of the opposite of love, as in this nursery rhyme, adapted from a 17th-century epigram:
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell
The reason why I cannot tell.
But this I know and know full well
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell.
There is some of this anti-love spirit in Auden’s poem too, but it mainly follows a general rule of love poetry: The person speaking is usually the more loving one.
This makes sense. To write a poem requires effort, art, inspiration. To speak in verse is to tease, to cajole, to seduce, all actions that suggest an excess of desire. That’s why it’s conventional to refer to the “I” in a poem like this as the Lover and the “you” as the Beloved. The line “Let the more loving one be me” could summarize a lot of the love poetry of the last few thousand years.
But who, in this case, is the beloved? This isn’t a poem to the stars, but about them. Or maybe a poem that uses the stars as a conceit and our complicated feelings about them as a screen for other difficult emotions.
What the stars have to do with love is a tricky question. The answer may just be that the poem assumes a relationship and then plays with the implications of its assumption.
This kind of play also has a long history. Since love is both abstract and susceptible to cliché, poets are eager to liken it to everything else under the sun: birds, bees, planets, stars, the movement of the tides and the cycle of the seasons. Andrew Marvell’s “Definition of Love,” from the 1600s, wraps its ardor in math:
As lines, so loves oblique may well
Themselves in every angle greet;
But ours so truly parallel,
Though infinite, can never meet.
The literary term for this is wit. The formidable 18th-century English wordsmith Samuel Johnson defined a type of wit as “a combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike.” “The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together,” he wrote; that kind of conceptual discord defines “The More Loving One.”
The second stanza is, when you think about it, a perfect non sequitur. A hypothetical, general question is asked:
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
Mary Roach, writer
The answer is a personal declaration that is moving because it doesn’t seem to apply only or primarily to stars:
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Tim Egan, writer
Does this disjunction make it easier or harder to remember? Either way, these couplets start to reveal just how curious this poem is. We might find ourselves curious about who wrote them, and whom he might have loved. Tomorrow we’ll get to know Auden and his work a little better.
Play a game to learn it by heart. Need more practice? Listen to Ada Limón, Matthew McConaughey, W.H. Auden and others recite our poem.
Question 1/6
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
Tap a word above to fill in the highlighted blank.
Your task today: Learn the second stanza!
Let’s start with the first couplet in this stanza. Fill in the rhyming words.
Ready for another round? Try your hand at the 2025 Poetry Challenge.
Edited by Gregory Cowles, Alicia DeSantis and Nick Donofrio. Additional editing by Emily Eakin,
Joumana Khatib, Emma Lumeij and Miguel Salazar. Design and development by Umi Syam. Additional
game design by Eden Weingart. Video editing by Meg Felling. Photo editing by Erica Ackerberg.
Illustration art direction by Tala Safie.
Illustrations by Daniel Barreto.
Text and audio recording of “The More Loving One,” by W.H. Auden, copyright © by the Estate of
W.H. Auden. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd. Photograph accompanying Auden recording
from Imagno/Getty Images.
Literature
Oedipa Maas from ‘The Crying of Lot 49’ (1966) by Thomas Pynchon
“The unforgettable, cartoonish protagonist of this unusually short novel is a California housewife accidentally turned private investigator and literary interpreter, and the mystery she’s attempting to solve — or, more specifically, the conspiracy she stumbles upon — is nothing less than capitalism itself,” says Ngai, 54. “As Oedipa traces connections between various crackpots, the novel highlights the peculiarly asocial sociality of postwar U.S. society, which gets figured as a network of alienations.”
Sula Peace from ‘Sula’ (1973) by Toni Morrison
“Sula arguably begins to disappear as soon as she’s introduced — despite the fact that the novel bears her name. Other characters die quickly, or are noticeably flat. This raises the politically charged question of who gets to ‘develop’ or be a protagonist in American novels and who doesn’t. The novel’s unusual character system is part of its meditation on anti-Black racism and historical violence.”
The speaker of ‘Lunch Poems’ (1964) by Frank O’Hara
“Lyric poems are fundamentally different from narrative fiction in part because they have speakers as opposed to narrators. Perhaps it’s a stretch to nominate the speaker of ‘Lunch Poems’ as a main character, but this book changed things by highlighting the centrality of queer counterpublics to U.S. culture as a whole, and by exploring the joys and risks of everyday intimacy with strangers therein.”
This interview has been edited and condensed.
More in Literature
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Let’s memorize a poem! Not because it’s good for us or because we think we should, but because it’s fun, a mental challenge with a solid aesthetic reward. You can amuse yourself, impress your friends and maybe discover that your way of thinking about the world — or even, as you’ll see, the universe — has shifted a bit.
Over the next five days, we’ll look closely at a great poem by one of our favorite poets, and we’ll have games, readings and lots of encouragement to help you learn it by heart. Some of you know how this works: Last year more Times readers than we could count memorized a jaunty 18-line recap of an all-night ferry ride. (If you missed that adventure, it’s not too late to embark. The ticket is still valid.)
This time, we’re training our telescopes on W.H. Auden’s “The More Loving One” — a clever, compact meditation on love, disappointment and the night sky.
Here’s the first of its four stanzas, read for us by Matthew McConaughey:
The More Loving One
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
Matthew McConaughey, actor and poet
In four short lines we get a brisk, cynical tour of the universe: hell and the heavens, people and animals, coldness and cruelty. Commonplace observations — that the stars are distant; that life can be dangerous — are wound into a charming, provocative insight. The tone is conversational, mixing decorum and mild profanity in a manner that makes it a pleasure to keep reading.
Here’s Tracy K. Smith, a former U.S. poet laureate, with the second stanza:
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Tracy K. Smith, poet
These lines abruptly shift the focus from astronomy to love, from the universal to the personal. Imagine how it would feel if the stars had massive, unrequited crushes on us! The speaker, couching his skepticism in a coy, hypothetical question, seems certain that we wouldn’t like this at all.
This certainty leads him to a remarkable confession, a moment of startling vulnerability. The poem’s title, “The More Loving One,” is restated with sweet, disarming frankness. Our friend is wearing his heart on his well-tailored sleeve.
The poem could end right there: two stanzas, point and counterpoint, about how we appreciate the stars in spite of their indifference because we would rather love than be loved.
But the third stanza takes it all back. Here’s Alison Bechdel reading it:
Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.
Alison Bechdel, graphic novelist
The speaker downgrades his foolish devotion to qualified admiration. No sooner has he established himself as “the more loving one” than he gives us — and perhaps himself — reason to doubt his ardor. He likes the stars fine, he guesses, but not so much as to think about them when they aren’t around.
The fourth and final stanza, read by Yiyun Li, takes this disenchantment even further:
Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.
Yiyun Li, author
Wounded defiance gives way to a more rueful, resigned state of mind. If the universe were to snuff out its lights entirely, the speaker reckons he would find beauty in the void. A starless sky would make him just as happy.
Though perhaps, like so many spurned lovers before and after, he protests a little too much. Every fan of popular music knows that a song about how you don’t care that your baby left you is usually saying the opposite.
The last line puts a brave face on heartbreak.
So there you have it. In just 16 lines, this poem manages to be somber and funny, transparent and elusive. But there’s more to it than that. There is, for one thing, a voice — a thinking, feeling person behind those lines.
When he wrote “The More Loving One,” in the 1950s, Wystan Hugh Auden was among the most beloved writers in the English-speaking world. Before this week is over there will be more to say about Auden, but like most poets he would have preferred that we give our primary attention to the poem.
Its structure is straightforward and ingenious. Each of the four stanzas is virtually a poem unto itself — a complete thought expressed in one or two sentences tied up in a neat pair of couplets. Every quatrain is a concise, witty observation: what literary scholars call an epigram.
This makes the work of memorization seem less daunting. We can take “The More Loving One” one epigram at a time, marvelling at how the four add up to something stranger, deeper and more complex than might first appear.
So let’s go back to the beginning and try to memorize that insouciant, knowing first stanza. Below you’ll find a game we made to get you started. Give it a shot, and come back tomorrow for more!
Play a game to learn it by heart. Need more practice? Listen to Ada Limón, Matthew McConaughey, W.H. Auden and others recite our poem.
Question 1/6
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
Tap a word above to fill in the highlighted blank.
Your first task: Learn the first four lines!
Let’s start with the first couplet. Fill in the rhyming words.
Monday
Love, the cosmos and everything in between, all in 16 lines.
Tuesday (Available tomorrow)
What’s love got to do with it?
Wednesday (Available April 22)
How to write about love? Be a little heartsick (and the best poet of your time).
Thursday (Available April 23)
Are we alone in the universe? Does it matter?
Friday (Available April 24)
You did it! You’re a star.
Ready for another round? Try your hand at the 2025 Poetry Challenge.
Edited by Gregory Cowles, Alicia DeSantis and Nick Donofrio. Additional editing by Emily Eakin,
Joumana Khatib, Emma Lumeij and Miguel Salazar. Design and development by Umi Syam. Additional
game design by Eden Weingart. Video editing by Meg Felling. Photo editing by Erica Ackerberg.
Illustration art direction by Tala Safie.
Illustrations by Daniel Barreto.
Text and audio recording of “The More Loving One,” by W.H. Auden, copyright © by the Estate of
W.H. Auden. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd. Photograph accompanying Auden recording
from Imagno/Getty Images.
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