Historic matchup highlights related issues of coaching and ownership
This Sunday’s Super Bowl features a historic first—two Black quarterbacks will be starting in the NFL season finale, Patrick Mahomes for the Kansas City Chiefs and Jalen Hurts for the Philadelphia Eagles. But this first-time feat doesn’t erase the fact that the NFL has a longstanding history of racism when it comes to Black quarterbacks.
That history of racism dates back to Fritz Pollard, the league’s first Black quarterback, who led the Akron Pros to the first NFL championship in 1920. Years later in 1933, the league secretly banned Black players, reportedly at the insistence of then-Washington football team founder and owner George Preston Marshall. He did not sign any Black players to his team until the 1960s, almost two decades after the NFL lifted its ban on Black athletes in 1946.
In football, the quarterback position has long been revered as the most important position on the team. Because of longstanding racial stereotypes about intelligence and leadership skills, Blacks have historically faced difficulty becoming quarterbacks at the college level, and especially at the pro level.
Even if they were able to play quarterback in college, once they got to the NFL, Blacks were often forced to switch positions to make the roster. Black quarterbacks have often been subjected to racial stereotypes perpetuated by draft experts and scouts—and even NFL analysts and commentators—that Black quarterbacks aren’t smart enough to call plays and lead an NFL team.
Because of racial barriers, some Blacks went to Canada, where the CFL welcomed Black quarterbacks as early as 1951. Others, like Marlin Briscoe and James Harris, went to the new American Football League as quarterbacks in 1968 and 1969 respectively, because the AFL was known to be more accepting of Black players.
At that time, only three percent of NFL quarterbacks who threw at least 100 passes in a season were Black. Even as the number of Black pro quarterbacks increased beginning in the 1980s, they were often only described as “great athletes” and not recognized for their on-field acumen.
Since the first Super Bowl in 1967, following the NFL-AFL merger, several Black quarterbacks have led their teams to the title game, including Patrick Mahomes, who is making his third trip this weekend. The only Black NFL quarterbacks to have finished their seasons as champions are Mahomes in 2020, Russell Wilson in 2014, and Doug Williams in 1988. In 2020, a record 10 Black quarterbacks started for NFL clubs; this season there were 11.
Other stories
Asked whether he considers it a big deal that two Black quarterbacks are in this year’s Super Bowl, Doug Williams, who was the first Black quarterback to win the game and earn Super Bowl MVP, said, “I don’t think we’ve had to deal with that [story].
“We’ve got one Black QB [referring to himself] out of the way, and now we’ve got two [Mahomes and Hurts] out of the way,” Williams observed in an MSR phone interview last week. “We’ve also had two Black [Super Bowl] coaches with Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith.”
Instead, the former player-coach-team executive pointed out that there are other stories that need to be told, other issues that deserve attention during this week as the media pushes thousands of stories leading up to Sunday’s contest.
“To be honest with you, the biggest issue is the number of Black coaches” in the NFL, stated Williams. Black players “would love to see somebody who’s coaching their team that looks like them,” said Williams. “I think the problem is not the NFL itself, but the problem is the owners of these teams.”
In their NFL “Racial and Gender Report Card” released last November, The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) reported that the total number of NFL head coaches of color increased less than four percentage points, from 15.6 percent in 2021 to nearly 19 percent in 2022, with only four Black head coaches starting the 2022-23 season.
With five new head coaching openings after the season ended, only one Black head coach—DeMeco Ryans in Houston—was hired, succeeding two Black head coaches for the Texans who were fired after only one year. Furthermore, TIDES pointed out that the percentage of Black NFL head coaches remained the same for both the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons (9.4 percent), while the percentage of Black players in the league is more than 56 percent.
And only two people of color—neither Black —“have significant ownership interests” in an NFL club, says the TIDES report.
“I’ve known Troy Vincent [the NFL players union head] and I’ve known the commissioner [Roger Goodell]. They have had a lot of meetings and talk to the owners straight up. They have brought [Black] candidates in,” said Williams. “But at the end of the day, the owners have to open up their minds, and ultimately open up their hearts,” noted Williams, who previously worked in a leadership role with the Washington football team (now the Commanders).
He added that the White NFL owners “don’t really know Blacks. They know what they know, and that’s what they go with. That’s the sad part of this whole thing.”
The Brian Flores lawsuit was filed in Feb. 2022, against the league and three NFL teams, alleging racial discrimination in their hiring practices. In his lawsuit, he stated that the league is “managed much like a plantation” because the owners profit off the players’ labor. Although Williams admitted he was not up to speed on the class action lawsuit, he affirmed, “They’ve got a legitimate gripe.”
Asked why the Black NFL players don’t speak out more about this, Williams simply said, “Think about how much money these players make. If I’m on the team, I’m getting paid. I’m not going to say anything to get me kicked off the team.
“This is a league that’s about making money, and the players make money,” he reiterated. The owners make all the team decisions, including the people they hire to head up various departments, coaches, and scouts, the majority of whom are White. “They hire who they like,” said Williams.
Asked if he believes there will ever be a Black majority owner in the NFL, Williams said, “I would love to see that. But you and I both know when you are talking about money and wealth, the prices of these teams are through the moon.”
