By Mekhi Abbott
Capital News Service
In week six of the NFL season, football fans in the DMV got to witness an electric quarterback matchup.
Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson and Washington’s Jayden Daniels faced off in what ended up being one of the Ravens’s highest attended regular season games in franchise history.
The rookie, Daniels, would end up passing for 269 yards and two touchdowns. Daniels also led his team in rushing with 22 yards. The reigning Most Valuable Player, Jackson, was a very efficient 20-26. He earned 323 yards, a touchdown, and the win.
Daniels has finally given Washington fans a reason to feel optimistic and Jackson could be on the way to his third MVP award.
“Football fans probably see an emerging quarterback who has shown signs of being great and a veteran quarterback in Lamar that has been great for a long time,” said Jerry Bembry, senior writer for ESPN’s Andscape.
For current fans, the prospect of two separate Black quarterbacks winning both the MVP and NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year would not be surprising. But just 15 years ago, the very idea wouldn’t have been realistic given the landscape of NFL quarterbacks at that time.
When this NFL season kicked off in 2024, there was a new record set for the number of Black starting quarterbacks in a single week – 15. That was up from 14 in 2023.
“In the next three to four years, half of the quarterbacks in the league will be of color,” said former Washington Redskins quarterback Doug Williams during a panel discussion with The Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism in 2023. “It’s not because of their skin color; it’s because they can play the position.”
Williams was the first Black quarterback to start and win a Super Bowl. He, and future stars like Cam Newton and Russell Wilson, helped lay the foundation for Black quarterbacks of today.
They have created a new normal for young quarterbacks that look like them – including Malik Washington, starting quarterback at Archbishop Spalding High School in Severn, Md.
Washington, 18, had the opportunity to grow up watching the NFL where there were a handful of high-performing Black quarterbacks at the forefront.
“Just seeing the influx of us, being in the league, being the faces of teams … It’s not something that has always been like that,” said Washington, a four-star quarterback who is committed to play at the University of Maryland.
Black Quarterbacks in the NFL: The Early Years
In Major League Baseball, Jackie Robinson is widely recognized for his contributions to the sports of baseball, being credited as the man who broke the color barrier. However, in the NFL, the history isn’t as clear cut.
“In football, there’s a lot of little moments, small progressions. One step forward, one step back and then another step forward,” said John Eisenberg, longtime journalist and author of “Rocket Men: The Black Quarterbacks Who Revolutionized Pro Football.”
The year 1953 proved to be an important one as Black NFL players would see their first action at quarterback. In October 1953, National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) National champion Willie Thrower became the first Black man to get snaps at the quarterback position in two separate games. On Nov. 22, 1953, George Taliaferro became the first Black quarterback to start an NFL game.
Fast forward 15 years, the NFL would see its first true Black starting quarterback when Marlin Briscoe started five games as a rookie in 1968. Despite a fairly successful season as a rookie quarterback, Briscoe would leave Denver to play for the Buffalo Bills where he transitioned into becoming a receiver.
It wouldn’t be until the 1980s when Black quarterbacks would see real, sustained success over a period of time. In 1984, Pro Football Hall of Famer Warren Moon was signed by the Houston Oilers. The very next year, the dynamic Randall Cunningham was selected as the first quarterback in the second round of the 1985 NFL Draft.
The Doug Williams Effect
The pinnacle of the progression of the Black quarterback came in 1988 when Doug Williams led Washington to a Super Bowl XXII victory.
Although Washington, D.C., is known as “Chocolate City,” the city’s team was actually the last team to integrate.
“Washington, as a franchise, has a terrible history when it comes to race,” said Eisenberg. “George Preston Marshall, who founded the franchise, he was the descendant of Confederate officers. He was just an outright racist. He did not want Black players on his team.”
Washington eventually did integrate in 1962. Twenty-six years later, Williams would alter the perception of what was possible for Black quarterbacks in the NFL.
“When [Williams] won the Super Bowl, that really set us on the trajectory of, you know what, Black quarterbacks can really make it in this league, and they can win at the highest level,” said Bembry of Andscape. “I think Black quarterbacks have proven that they have a place…they can be the best in this game.”
However, the progression of success for Black quarterbacks in the NFL wasn’t linear.
“I covered that Super Bowl for the Baltimore Sun,” added Eisenberg. “After [Williams] won, everyone thought, ‘Oh well, great! This is great. Everything is going to change.’ But the next, I believe, 25 Super Bowls were won by White quarterbacks.”
Steve McNair out of Alcorn State, a historically Black university in Mississippi, was drafted by the Titans third overall in the 1995 NFL Draft. McNair is still the highest drafted offensive player from a historically Black college in the history of the NFL Draft.
McNair took the Titans to the Superbowl in 2000 and was the first Black quarterback to be named NFL MVP when he shared the award with Peyton Manning in 2003.
But the 2010s would be where NFL fans would truly see the type of impact Black quarterbacks could have on the game.
A Turning Point for Black QBs
The 2011 NFL Draft brought in both Cam Newton and Colin Kaepernick.
Newton, the first overall pick, was the first rookie to throw for 400 yards in his NFL debut and he was also the first rookie in NFL history to pass for 4,000 yards. In 2015, Newton would have one of most dominant seasons in league history.
Kaepernick had an impressive start to his football career – taking the 49ers to a Super Bowl in his second year – before facing backlash for taking a stand against racial injustice. (He would eventually file a grievance with the NFL over the issue and reach a settlement.)
The Seattle Seahawks drafted Russell Wilson in the third round of the 2012 NFL Draft and it led to immediate success. The Seahawks won Super Bowl XLVIII in Wilson’s second season as an NFL starter.
“Cam Newton, Russell Wilson, Colin Kaepernick and Robert Griffin III all came into the league within two years,” said Eisenberg. “For the first time, those guys came in and teams said, ‘We’re going to let you be you.’”
“Russell Wilson won a Super Bowl. Kaepernick [and Newton], they were all in the Super Bowl in their first four or five years. That just threw the door open wide for the Black quarterback who may have been denied opportunity,” Eisenberg added.
The Position Today
The past eight years have ushered in a new vanguard of elite quarterbacks.
Patrick Mahomes has won three Super Bowls, three Super Bowl MVPs and two regular season MVPs in just eight seasons.
Super Bowl LVII at the conclusion of the 2023 NFL season would end up being the first Super Bowl in which two Black quarterbacks faced off against each other. Although Jalen Hurts had one of the best performances in Super Bowl history with 374 total yards and four touchdowns, he would fall short to Mahomes.
Lamar Jackson’s resume also speaks for itself.
As for Washington’s NFL team, Doug Willliam’s Super Bowl victory didn’t immediately open the floodgates for Black quarterbacks, but the team has invested in Black quarterbacks as a franchise in the last two decades.
In 2005, Washington drafted Jason Campbell with the 25th overall pick. Robert Griffin III took the league by storm as a rookie in 2012, but his career would end up being hampered by injuries. Dwayne Haskins was selected with the 15th pick of the 2019 NFL Draft and now Jayden Daniels has taken over and has injected energy in D.C. that Washington fans haven’t experienced in 12 years
“Jayden Daniels, the guy has been really exceptional,” said Bembry. “The way he has transformed interest in this city with the NFL … the energy level, the interest level in this team has been tremendous, unlike anything I’ve seen in recent years.”
Not only are teams investing in and building franchises around Black quarterbacks, but there are other signs of progress: even Black quarterbacks who aren’t consistently starting and scoring have the backing of owners and fans.
Russell Wilson was written off as “washed up” and “over the hill,” but now he is in Pittsburgh and has the Steelers in first place in the AFC North.
There are also Black backup quarterbacks that have their own cult followings and Pro Bowl accolades such as the Brown’s Jameis Winston and Miami’s Tyler Huntley.
Black quarterbacks are now getting second chances and have the freedom to mess up. They’re not forced to switch positions or risk being a bench player for the rest of their career. They no longer have to be exceptional to get the support of coaches and upper management.
“You’re going to have some Black quarterbacks that come into [the NFL] and fail. You’re going to have some White quarterbacks that will fail. But they were given the opportunity,” said Williams during the University of Maryland panel.
It’s something Malik Washington, the starting quarterback at Archbishop Spalding High School, has noticed as well as experienced.
“Growing up, to be honest, I wasn’t the most athletic,” said Washington. “There was really no other position for me to play but quarterback and then by the time the athleticism came, I already established myself as a quarterback. There was never really too many people who tried to push me one way or another.”
Washington takes inspiration from Jackson and Daniels, who he says persevered despite people pushing them “to play the game in a different way.”
“It just kind of gives me an example to follow.”
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