The NFL Draft confirms that black quarterbacks are the face of the league

DETROIT – For the second time in as a few years, two Black quarterbacks are expected to be chosen amongst the top three picks in the three-day NFL Draft that begins Thursday, and three could go to the first round.

Over the last two NFL seasons, African-American signal-callers have been chosen as first- and second-team Associated Press All-Pro quarterbacks, and black passers have won each the AP League MVP and Super Bowl MVP awards. The best player in the league is a black quarterback. The league’s best rookie is a black point guard. After being sidelined attributable to discrimination for much of the NFL’s history, black quarterbacks now dominate skilled sports’ most successful league, with USC’s Caleb Williams, LSU’s Jayden Daniels and Michael Penix Jr. from the University of Washington are desirous to join this talented group.

Williams, Daniels and Penix, college stars, are coveted by teams trying to excel in top sports positions. This is a far cry from what most black quarterbacks have faced in the draft, and nobody can articulate it higher than Warren Moon.

As a senior at Washington in the 1977–78 season, Moon led the team to a conference championship, helped it win the Rose Bowl and was named conference co-player of the 12 months. However, Moon was not drafted into the NFL, and he only got his probability to play quarterback in the league after he broke passing records and won multiple championships in the Canadian Football League.

The NFL was founded in 1920, “so when you stop and think about… as long as the NFL has been around, what happened to me and many other very talented players wasn’t that long ago” – Moon, the only black quarterback enshrined in the Pro Hall of Fame Football, he recently told Andscape in a telephone interview.

“It really has been like that for all of us for a long time. And now everyone knows the reason: it was simply racism and stereotypes. What we’ve seen recently, especially with so many players drafted over the last 10 years, means we’re now desirable in the draft. The reason for this is also obvious: our success.”

In the previous 87 iterations of this process (the first NFL draft was held in 1936), only 28 African American quarterbacks were chosen in the first round, and none were chosen until Doug Williams finally kicked down the door in 1978. However, 16 have been chosen as of 2011 ., including one in each draft except 2016 and 2022. In the 1999 draft, which marked the first time that as many as three black passers were chosen, Donovan McNabb and Akili Smith were chosen second and third overall, respectively. In the 2023 draft, the second to feature as many as three African-American quarterbacks chosen in the opening round, Bryce Young was chosen first overall, C.J. Stroud second overall, and Anthony Richardson fourth overall.

On Thursday night, it will be shocking if the Chicago Bears, who own the first overall pick in the draft, didn’t select Caleb Williams, who was the 2022 Heisman Trophy winner during his time at USC. Daniels, who put up eye-opening stats as each a passer and runner at LSU , won the 2023 Heisman Trophy. He is widely considered a top-three pick. Last season, Penix, who throws the scenic deep ball, led Washington to the College Football Playoff National Championship game, where it lost to Michigan and finished 14-1. Despite his injury history, Penix, thanks largely to his standout days as a professional (he has demonstrated elite arm talent in addition to impressive athleticism), is now widely viewed as a high-round prospect, three NFL player personnel officials told Andscape.

Williams, Daniels and Penix will join the NFL in a season by which Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, a three-time Super Bowl winner and three-time Super Bowl MVP, is the league’s MVP. Under Mahomes’ direction, the two-time defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs became the first team since the New England Patriots in 2004 and 2005 to win back-to-back Super Bowl championships.

Mahomes will turn 29 in September.

For the second time in five seasons, Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson is the reigning AP League MVP. He is 27 years old. The Houston Texans’ Stroud, the landslide winner of last season’s AP Offensive Rookie of the Year award, is the league’s fastest rising superstar. He will turn 23 in October.

The fact is that black quarterbacks have turn into the face of the NFL.

According to team officials, coaches and current and former players interviewed by Andscape, with the enormous pressure on football managers and coaches to win, green really is the important color influencing decisions in today’s draft. That established, given their long-standing position at the bottom of the league, the rise of black quarterbacks over the last 10 years is as surprising because it is noteworthy, though to not Doug Williams.

“We (pioneering black quarterbacks) at all times knew this is able to occur. It was only a matter of opportunity,” Andscape Williams, the first black quarterback to begin in the Super Bowl and win the game’s MVP award, said recently. “We at all times had guys who could do what these young guys are doing now, but they did not have the probability to do it.

“Looking at the draft right now, no team can afford to let go of a guy who has the potential to do what a lot of these guys are doing. And not only (appetizers). When you look at so many of these teams now, you’re starting to see more and more guys getting a chance to play as subs. It’s a big difference. For a long time, boys who could become stars had a chance. But you wouldn’t see us in these replacement positions. Now yes. This is a big sign of change.”

Just have a look at the AFC North.

Jackson, Deshaun Watson of the Cleveland Browns and Russell Wilson of the Pittsburgh Steelers are the projected starters for his or her respective teams. The other two quarterbacks on the Ravens’ roster are also black. Jameis Winston is predicted to play behind Watson in Cleveland. Justin Fields, the Bears’ 2021 first-round draft pick, is Wilson’s backup in Pittsburgh.

For years, quarterback guru Quincy Avery saw this coming.

The groundwork for change began at the local level, said the renowned trainer.

“We’re finally seeing Black quarterbacks getting opportunities at every stage of their development,” Avery told Andscape. “Now we see guys who’ve had the opportunity, irrespective of what part of the country they arrive from, to play quarterback since they were (very young). This is something we’ve not seen before.

“Later, as they moved up (in high school and college), the younger boys suddenly saw that older boys who looked like them were getting a chance to move up. So they just expected to get the same opportunities. This is not a surprise to them. We see the future right now. “We will soon see a league full of black quarterbacks.”

As the saying goes, the die has been solid. He was once prevented from playing the game, now black quarterbacks run it. Given the trends in the NFL Draft, do not be surprised in the event that they proceed like this for a protracted, very long time.