In what is catnip to the National Football League’s PR department, Sunday’s Super Bowl in Glendale, Arizona, will feature two Black starting quarterbacks: Jalen Hurts for the Philadelphia Eagles and Patrick Mahomes for the Kansas City Chiefs. Not surprisingly, the NFL is attempting to hold itself up as an agent of racial progress. Even though the NFL is correct to trumpet this history-making moment as a big deal, in wrenching their arms to pat themselves on the back, the league’s executives haven’t done enough to acknowledge what it really says about the league that it turned 100 years old years before reaching this milestone.
Only seven Black men have ever played starting quarterback in a Super Bowl. That number includes Mahomes. Hurts will become the eighth.
This is another moment that exposes harsh realities about the NFL. Not only is this only the first time two Black quarterbacks have squared off in the big game, but there’s also this: Only seven Black men have ever played starting quarterback in a Super Bowl. That number includes Mahomes, who led the Chiefs to victory in 2020 and lost in the big game the next year. When Hurts steps onto the field tonight, he will become the eighth.
“Not only do we get to watch two great quarterbacks, but if done right, we will get a great conversation and lesson about race in America,” Grand Valley State University Professor Louis Moore, author of “We Will Win the Day: The Civil Rights Movement, the Black Athlete, and the Quest for Equality,” told me last week. Moore is now writing a book about the history of Black quarterbacks. “Of course, there will be superficial stuff about progress and how far we have come. But I’m really interested in the history and why it took so long to get to this point. Because the ‘why it took so long’ matters.
“This is a story of how race operates in America,” Moore said. “Stereotypes about leadership and intelligence. It matters, especially if we tell that part. Football is…
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