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By Ethan Desjardine
Cronkite News

PHOENIX – As the NFL wrapped up the opening week of the 2024 season, the prominence of Black quarterbacks continues to rise, solidifying their impact in the league and shaping the future of the most popular professional league in American sports.

The league saw a record number of African-American signal callers starting Week 1, with 15 of the 32 teams choosing Black quarterbacks to lead their offense, breaking the previous record set last season when 14 began the season as starters.

Black quarterbacks are not just starting at the most important position in sports, however – they are dominating.

Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, one of the NFL’s premier stars, has won two Associated Press MVP awards, along with three Super Bowl championships. In 2023 and 2024, Black quarterbacks were both taken first overall in the NFL Draft. Super Bowl LVII featured two Black quarterbacks, Mahomes and the Philadelphia Eagles’ Jalen Hurts, facing off in the big game for the first time in NFL history.

This dominance for Black quarterbacks has not always been the case within the most profitable league in sports. Historically, the quarterback position has been overwhelmingly white, and it wasn’t until recently that Black athletes began to be looked at as starting-caliber quarterbacks in the NFL.

In 2011, Black quarterbacks started in just 15% of games, compared to 29% in 2022, according to Chase Stuart of FootballPerspective.com.

As Black quarterbacks continue to make history, pushing the sport forward, and the number of starters continues to grow, it is hard to ignore how many years it has taken to reach this point.

What took so long?

Until recently, Black quarterbacks were often asked to change positions if they wanted to succeed at the next level.

“There was a time when all the Black quarterbacks I knew, coming out of high school, going into college, were being told to become a linebacker, a tight end or some other position, and the same thing seemed to be true in the star quarterbacks at the college level unless they were superstar quarterbacks,” said Richard Lapchick, president at The Institute for Sport and Social Justice.

Even two-time NFL MVP Lamar Jackson of the Baltimore Ravens was one of those players. Before the 2018 NFL Draft, analysts projected Jackson may have to switch positions after starring at Louisville, where he won the 2016 Heisman Trophy, along with numerous other prestigious accolades. Despite his obvious talent, Jackson fell to the 32nd pick in the draft.

It wasn’t just a matter of being forced to change positions that held many athletes back, but also the work of unfair stigmas that continued to linger around the league until the early 2010s.

Black quarterbacks were often unfairly labeled as “athletic” but not “leaders,” and never given the chance to play their respective positions after college.

“They used to label us as athletes, athletic quarterbacks, instead of just quarterbacks,” said former NFL quarterback and 2023 College Football Hall of Fame inductee Michael Bishop. “For a long time, I think for the Black quarterback, that stigma was a slap in the face, because, yes we’re athletic, but we can play this position.”

The success at the highest levels of Jackson, Mahomes and Hurts has helped change the perspective and stereotypes that have always surrounded the quarterback position in the NFL.

“As a young Black man, a young Black athlete, when you see that, you smile,” Bishop said about the recent accomplishments of Black quarterbacks. “You say to yourself, ‘Man, if he can do it, I can do it, man, I want to be just like Jalen Hurts, I want to be just like Patrick Mahomes.’”

Unfair criticism, double standards persist for Black quarterbacks

The NFL has come a long way in terms of equality among players, and even though Black quarterbacks are achieving unprecedented success at the sport’s highest barometer, the occasional unfair criticisms remain.

Announcers still often use different verbiage to describe plays made by Black quarterbacks in comparison to white quarterbacks.

“An African-American quarterback may throw an interception, but they describe it so much differently from the All-American white quarterback,” Bishop said. “This is a quarterback too. If we’re going to describe the play, let’s keep it fair. It’s the way that it’s described that still makes you wonder, ‘Have we made it yet?’ ‘Why can’t we get the same respect?’”

Black quarterbacks still also face different criticisms, pressure and expectations than their white counterparts.

“You’re under a bigger spotlight, you’re under a magnifying glass,” Bishop said. “You’re looked at differently, so you’ve always got to be on your Ps and Qs, you’ve got to watch film, you’ve got to almost play a perfect game to keep your job.”

Bishop faced many doubters and unfair treatment early in his career, as do many young Black quarterbacks, but he stresses the importance of young athletes being given opportunities.

“A lot of people said I couldn’t play quarterback,” said Bishop, whose professional career spanned 11 seasons after he was drafted by the New England Patriots in the seventh round of the 1999 NFL Draft.

Bishop proved those doubters wrong and paved out a lengthy football career, obtaining many accolades on the way, including being a Heisman runner-up in 1998, winning the Davey O’Brien Award and winning a Grey Cup in the CFL.

“All we want is opportunities, that’s it. If I can’t play, prove to me I can’t play, don’t just hold me back and never give me the opportunity,” Bishop said.

Progress and promise for Black quarterbacks

As racial barriers continue to be broken down, and more opportunities are being given to young athletes, it is almost a given that fans will continue to see more and more success stories authored by young Black athletes.

Despite issues that still linger, it is clear that the NFL is moving in the right direction. While there has been progress, it hasn’t been as progressive as former Super Bowl XXII MVP quarterback Doug Williams hopes.

Williams was the first Black quarterback to both start and win a Super Bowl, and did so in record-breaking fashion. Williams amassed 340 yards total and threw four touchdowns in a single quarter to lead Washington to a 42-10 rout of the John Elway-led Denver Broncos on the way to earning MVP honors.

Williams was a pioneer of the game, and fought for more than just on-the-field victories, winning respect for Black quarterbacks of the past, and future. He broke barriers, and changed the stigmas surrounding Black quarterbacks, proving that Black players can be just as talented and as smart as their white counterparts.

“The goal is obviously that people in the future don’t have to break barriers anymore, they just get there on their merit, and hopefully that’s what having this many Black quarterbacks and coaches will mean for the NFL,” Lapchick said.

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