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Super Bowl LVII

Mahomes v Hurts: America’s
fear of a Black quarterback
begins to fade
Super Bowl LVII shows that football is more willing to
see Black men as leaders ; although that doesn’t apply
to other levels of US society, or the NFL
Andrew Lawrence
@by_drew

Fri 10 Feb 2023 08.05 GMT

Thirty-five years ago a harsh spotlight shone on

Washington’s Doug Williams. He was the story of
Super Bowl XXII, the first Black quarterback to
start in the NFL title game. In the run-up to the
game he was blitzed with questions about his
race, but this was the one that hit home.

Reporter: “How long have you been a Black

quarterback?”

Williams: “I’ve been a quarterback since high

school. I’ve always been Black.”

Never mind if that wasn’t precisely what was

asked; the question lives in infamy as a low point
for sport’s fourth estate. Unsurprisingly, that
question isn’t anywhere near people’s minds as
Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes and
Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts brace for this Sunday’s
Super Bowl – and in the last state to observe
Martin Luther King’s birthday, to boot. Though
they figure to be forever yoked as the first Black
quarterbacks to face each other in a Super Bowl
no matter who wins, the history they’re poised
to make has yet to touch off a media frenzy. In
one sense, that’s progress.

More on this topic America has changed a lot

Super Bowl LVII: since Ronald Reagan feted
the fruitless
Williams and his victorious
quest to find a
flaw in Patrick Washington teammates on
Mahomes’s the White House’s South
game Portico after the QB’s record-
setting MVP performance.
Black men read the nightly news, run Fortune
500 companies, run the Department of Defense.
Outwardly, it would seem the country has never
been more comfortable with letting the Black
man lead, even as the contrary has never been
easier to prove – starting with the Black
president whose mere presence tore the country
in half before giving rise to Trumpism. In truth
the Super Bowl, America’s grandest cultural
expression, doesn’t just belie the state of the
nation; it misrepresents the NFL’s own
inclusionary fairytale as well.

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Despite considerable effort, the NFL – a league in

which the overwhelming majority of players are
Black – has remained stubbornly white within its
ownership, executive and coaching ranks. And
yet: the league can at least say that the stars of
its franchises are no longer the fair-haired boys.
Unlike Williams, who came to the NFL from a
historically black college and repeatedly pushed
against sly attempts to change his position,
Mahomes and Hurts were top-rated high school
passers who starred at elite Power Five colleges
before landing their current jobs. Even the way
they’ve been able to grow into those jobs is
unremarkable in a sense.

Where their Super Bowl-era forebears Marlin

Briscoe, Joe Gilliam and Vince Evans were
treated as square pegs who needed to be
hammered into shape to conform to the rigid
offensive tactics of the day, the modern NFL
quarterback throws hard, runs fast and can call
on great athletic ability at a moment’s notice –
attributes that used to stereotypically be applied
to Black QBs.

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But now quarterback play is nowhere near as

rigid as it used to be. It couldn’t stay that way,
not after Lawrence Taylor and the ‘80s-era
Miami Hurricanes overwhelmed the NFL with
defensive speed and effectively turned
quarterbacks into sitting ducks. All the attributes
that (usually Black) quarterbacks were once
stigmatized for – their happy feet, sleights of
hand and general improvisation wizardry – are
highly sought-after now. When the all-Black QB
matchup was sealed two weeks ago, Williams
had to blink back the tears.

A perceived lack of intelligence, once the biggest

knock against Black quarterbacks, has rightly
been disproven. The prevailing style of
contemporary quarterback play is
unapologetically “Black”, that is to say bold,
freewheeling and improvisational – and the style
is showcased by white stars, such as Josh Allen,
Justin Herbert and Joe Burrow too. The position
as Tom Brady played it isn’t dead per se, but his
retirement surely marks the start of the sunset.

US president Ronald Reagan receives a football from Doug Williams

after Washington’s Super Bowl XXII triumph. Photograph: Dirck
Halstead/Getty Images

The writing’s been on the wall as far back as

2014, the last time there were two Black
quarterbacks in the Super Bowl, albeit on the
same side. At the Media Day that year, I found
Seattle pass rusher Michael Bennett by himself
on a dais and asked for his thoughts on
Seahawks backup Tavaris Jackson. “I pay
attention to every quarterback,” he told me,
“especially, um, the … the colored ones. He’s one
of those guys that doesn’t get a lot of credit.”

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Later that Super Bowl week Russell Wilson

guided the Seahawks to championship glory,
becoming the second Black quarterback to win a
Super Bowl and avenge the defeats suffered by
Steve McNair, Donovan McNabb and Colin
Kaepernick. Even though Jackson barely made it
into that big game (or many more thereafter), the
Black QB takeover was already under way.

This year’s Super Bowl is more than mere

validation of the Black quarterback. It’s proof of
their evolution into a proper institution. It used
to be that a Black quarterback had to be an
otherworldly talent (Michael Vick, Cam Newton)
or an undeniable one (McNabb, Warren Moon)
for teams to justify a starting spot for them. Now,
it’s plain common sense. Four years ago the
Baltimore Ravens were in a long post-
championship swoon, and coach John Harbaugh
appeared as good as gone. To save his neck,
Harbaugh benched Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco
and elevated Lamar Jackson, then just a rookie
out still figuring out the game, and the Ravens
have been AFC threats ever since.

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Kansas City’s Andy Reid pulled a similar move

earlier that same year, subbing out former top
pick Alex Smith for Mahomes as soon as the
latter’s talent became undeniable. Instead of
finding fault with the younger QB’s quirks, Reid
let them inform his imaginative schemes and
embolden his playcalling. As Mahomes prepares
to start his third Super Bowl in four years,
already, he looks like the best to ever do it.

What’s more, he’s at his most magical when he’s

jump-throwing touchdowns, completing no-
look third-down conversions and otherwise
quarterbacking against tradition. To those who
might doubt Mahomes’ identity because he has a
white mother and lighter skin, consider: he
effectively forced the NFL to bow to the social
justice movement after recording a video calling
on the league to “condemn racism and the
systematic oppression of Black people” and
“admit wrong in silencing our players from
peacefully protesting”.

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But the far wilder success story is Hurts,

upstaged on his own Alabama team by Tua
Tagovailoa in the Crimson Tide’s comeback
victory in the 2018 college national
championship. In another decade, that moment
of ignominy would have doomed Hurts to his
cohort’s Kordell Stewart or Antwaan Randle El
(read: a quarterback turned catch-all athlete) if it
didn’t outright quash his pro potential with
scouts. But quite frictionlessly Hurts moved on
to rehab his reputation as a passer at Oklahoma
before landing in Philadelphia via the second
round of the 2020 draft. Thirteen games into that
season he unseated franchise QB Carson Wentz.

This season the Eagles cruised to the NFC’s top

seed and through the playoffs behind Hurts –
who, in addition to speaking in support of the
social justice movement, trusts his career to one
of the NFL’s few Black woman agents. After the
Eagles dispatched the Giants in the NFC
divisional round, Philly coach Nick Sirianni went
as far as likening Hurts to Michael Jordan – a
comparison that feels like a stretch for this Black
Eagles QB. Where Randall Cunningham, McNabb
and Vick were awe-inspiring dynamos, Hurts is
still little better than a reliable decision-maker at
this point – albeit one with inborn confidence
and an unrelenting reflex for self-improvement.
You could call that a diss if this wasn’t a new
frontier – one where a Black quarterback is both
clutch and just OK.

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America is still far from being totally

comfortable with letting a Black man take the
lead on every stage. But on the football field, at
least, there doesn’t appear to be an issue with
Black starting QBs (actually running the team is a
different matter). No one bats an eyelash when
Teddy Bridgewater, Josh Johnson or Tyler
Huntley – career clipboard-holders, all – enter
the huddle in relief. To paraphrase that noted
American sports philomath Winston Churchill:
This isn’t the end or even the beginning of the
end but, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Topics
Super Bowl LVII
NFL / Patrick Mahomes / Super Bowl / US sports / features

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