Two Black quarterbacks will play in the Super Bowl for the first time in history. Jalen Hurts, the quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles, and Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback, who are both Black, will face off this Sunday to make history. The historic moment in football history has caught the attention of football fans and those who view two Black quarterbacks playing in the Super Bowl as a marker of progress toward equity. However, others are less optimistic. Although this moment should not be taken lightly and is to be celebrated, it might be a little premature to consider this a testament to racial equity in the NFL.
On Sunday, February 12, two Black quarterbacks – Jalen Harris and Patrick Mahomes – will lead their teams as the Eagles and Chiefs play against one another for Super Bowl 57. Two Black quarterbacks playing in the Super Bowl is a significant step for the NFL and is a long time coming. The highly coveted quarterback position is considered the leader of their team and is a position that not many Black football players have held. In 1968 Marlin Briscoe, who played for the Denver Broncos and considered to be the first starting Black quarterback in the American Football League, fought tooth and nail to secure his position but left Denver after the Broncos’ coach decided to replace him with Pete Liske, a white quarterback.
Although Briscoe later played for several teams, including the Buffalo Bills, and had a thriving football career, he never returned to the quarterback position. After Briscoe made history, progress toward equity was slow-moving for football. Not more than three Black quarterbacks played during any season between 1987 and 1996. In fact, it was not until 1997 that a major shift occurred when five Black starting quarterbacks played in the NFL simultaneously. However, only Steve McNair was a first-round pick. Since 1997, equity in the NFL has not seemed to move far.
In 2016, Colin Kaepernick, the former starting quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, took a knee during the national anthem before playing against the San Diego Chargers. Kaepernick took a knee in response to ongoing incidents of egregious police brutality directed towards Black Americans and the overwhelming number of Black men killed by law enforcement.
Kaepernick was booed throughout the game by Chargers fans, and his protest began to gain national attention. He also announced that he would donate $1 million of his $11 million salary to charities.
“Once again, I’m not anti-American,” Kaepernick said. “I love America. I love people. That’s why I’m doing this. I want to help make America better.” By the start of the 2016 season, Kaepernick had the top-selling jersey among NFL players, and news of his protest was spreading internationally. On Sept. 5, 2016, even President Obama defended Kaepernick, saying, “he cares about some real, legitimate issues that have to be talked about.”
However, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell told the Associated Press, “I don’t necessarily agree with what he’s doing,” which was possibly telling considering the outcome. Kaepernick's peaceful protest led to other teams either taking a knee or raising a fist during the first week of the regular 2016 season. After opting out of his contract with the 49ers at the end of the season, he was hard-pressed to find a team willing to sign him, and suspicions quickly began to grow that NFL owners were blackballing him. Sadly, he has not played professionally since the 49ers’ final game of that season on Jan. 1, 2017. Kaepernick has since dedicated his time to several causes. One of which has been devoting his time, money, and care to fact-checking police killings. His initiative also offers secondary autopsies to families who have lost a loved one in police-related death cases.
It has been almost seven years since Colin Kaepernick took a knee in 2016 and 54 years since Marlin Briscoe debuted as the first Black starting quarterback. However, the U.S. is just now seeing two Black quarterbacks play against each other in the Super Bowl, which explains why some are cautioning football fans not to break out their champagne flutes just yet — arguing that the NFL still has a long way to go. In 2021, Brian Flores, the former coach for the Miami Dolphins – who is Black – filed a class action lawsuit against the NFL for alleged racial discrimination in their hiring processes, alleging that he was interviewed for a job he knew he was not going to be offered because the team was required to interview a person of color — part of the league's "Rooney Rule" to get more people of color in coaching positions.
Several studies have revealed data that reflect a significant racial discrepancy between who plays in the NFL and who coaches there. According to the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports at the University of Central Florida, around 71% of players in the NFL were people of color in 2021, and only a quarter were white. Yet, only three people of color held head coaching jobs in the league. That said, white men hold the majority of head coaching jobs in the NFL.
From 2012 to 2021, there were 62 head coaching hires in the league, and 51 of those jobs — 82% — went to white men, according to the NFL's 2021 Diversity and Inclusion Report. The 11 other jobs went to men of color. The NFL’s 2022 Diversity and Inclusion report reflects a slight improvement — reporting that the number of head coaches of color has increased to five from the previous three in 2021. However, disparities remain in head coaching and defensive, offensive, and special teams coordinator positions. This is also true for general managers. However, potential racial discrimination in hiring is not the only hot water that the NFL has found itself in when it comes to accusations of racism.
Several NFL coaches have been accused of making racist statements to players and others, including Jon Gruden, the former head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders, who was fired in 2021 after racist, homophobic, and mysogynistic comments that he made surfaced. While some might not consider racist remarks from NFL coaches or large gaps in representation in hiring within the NFL as problematic, others consider both to be huge issues. An issue that is as age-old and classic “America” as country music and apple pie — one that – unfortunately, Jalen Hurts and Patrick Mahomes leading their respective teams during Sunday’s Super Bowl is not going to fix by itself.
