If 56% of NFL players are Black and 1.6% are Asian or Pacific Islander, what percentage of playoff quarterbacks would you expect to be Black or AAPI?
Ravens: Black
Texans: Black
Browns: Black
KC: Black
GB: Black
Cowboys: Black
Eagles: Black
Miami: AAPI
Rams: White
Bills: White
Buccaneers: White
Steelers: White
49ers: White
The NFL is not known for its progressive stance on diversity. But once one person breaks ranks and lets Black guys play QB? Everyone else has to do it too, just to compete.👍🏿
@mekkaokereke Don't forget the Super Bowl press conference when reporters asked Doug Williams how long he'd been a great Black quarterback or something like that.
It was only 1988. In fairness, I think both Warren Moon and Randall Cunningham had failed to make the playoffs that year...
@mekkaokereke Everything I know about football I learned from this post, and by the looks of it like the quarterback ratio is really close to the overall player ratio.
@floatybirb@mekkaokereke yeah, but that is super recent. I expect there was maybe one black quarterback at any given time around 2000. Maybe 2? And yeah. They were absolutely not talked about the way white quarterbacks were. I lived in Nashville then, McNair was the TN QB, and Manning was the TN college boy (but did not play there as a pro). Boy howdy were those different conversations
@peterme@mekkaokereke@floatybirb I’m ready, but the NFL definitely isn’t. (Nor is the premier league. There, we can start with the refs. What an embarrassment.)
@mekkaokereke@lkanies@floatybirb and even when they did field Black QBs they were… weird about it? I swear to god Buddy Ryan was trying to get Randall Cunningham killed.
There is no concerted woke agenda to get more unqualified but sufficiently Black quarterbacks a starting position. That's not what's happening. In fact, there's still tons of racist pressure to try to steer Black quarterbacks away from QB and towards other positions.
And even when Black quartbacks have record setting performances, they're criticized for not looking "quarter-backy" while doing it. Not exaggerating. That was a real comment that a sports writer made about Lamar Jackson.
@mekkaokereke Plus the commentators talking about how “physical” Black QBs are, or describing their bodies in terms (and depth) they never use for white QBs. Like, I am pretty sure from NFL coverage that Brock Purdy is just a being of pure energy, but I bet someone’s written an entire article about Lamar Jackson’s biceps.
Steve Young was objectively one of the fastest premiere QBs in history. He frequently used his feet to extend plays, or if no receivers were open, he would take off and run. This caused defenses problems, because they would have to "waste" a defender just to watch him, in case he decided to run.
You can see that Steve Young was faster than most NFL linebackers and safeties🤯
@mekkaokereke Lions? Having the QB position reflect the overall distribution is relatively recent though. Kind of a remarkable change considering the not so DEI aware ownership of NFL teams (that’s a severe understatement).
@mekkaokereke the Browns starting playoff QB was white, but your point stands. (They had 5 starting QBs this season, so any confusion is understandable/expected.)
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