Today’s NFL seems light years away from October 18, 1953, when the Chicago Bears’ Willie Thrower became the first Black quarterback to ever play the position in an NFL game. It was during the era of Jim Crow, when talent and merit were overtly and unapologetically repressed by skin color. Well into the 2000s, it was a rarity to have multiple Black quarterbacks as regular starters. But this season, an NFL record 15 Black quarterbacks, 47% of the league’s 32 teams, started in Week 1.
Last weekend in the wild card opening round of the playoffs, the percentage was over 50 as seven Black QBs started for the 12 teams that played. Two of the games, Saturday’s Baltimore Ravens (Lamar Jackson) versus Pittsburgh Steelers (Russell Wilson) match up, and Sunday’s Philadelphia Eagles (Jalen Hurts) and Green Bay Packers (Jordan Love) pairing, all featured Black starting QBs.
This weekend, of the eight teams remaining that will take part in the divisional round, half will have Black quarterbacks under center. There’s the transcendent vanguards in the Kansas Chiefs three-time Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes, 29, and Jackson, 28, the league’s reigning two-time MVP who was named First-Team All-Pro last week — a strong indicator he’s likely to win his third consecutive regular season most valuable player award.
The pecking order is next composed of rising young stars the Houston Texans’ 23-year-old orchestrator C.J. Stroud and the Washington Commanders’ 24-year-old force multiplier Jayden Daniels. Last season, Stroud won the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year award. This season, Daniels is poised to capture the honor via a unanimous vote. He helped transform the Commanders from a 4-12 outfit a season ago to a 12-5 regular season squad this campaign. Now, they will be taking on the National Football Conference’s No. 1 seed Lions in Detroit on Saturday night.
Daniels and the Commanders earned that opportunity after he calmly marched them on a 10-play, 51-yard, four minutes and 41 seconds drive last Sunday against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers that ended with a 37-yard field goal by kicker Zane Gonzalez as time expired to give Washington a 23-20 road victory.
Many longtime followers of the NFL have opined that Daniels, drafted No. 2 overall by Washington last April, is the best rookie QB of all-time. While that’s subjective, what is certain is he has lifted the spirits and fortunes of a Commanders franchise that had been wallowing in failure and dysfunction for the better part of the last two decades. Stroud and the Texans will meet up with the Mahomes and the AFC’s No. 1 seed Chiefs in Kansas City on Saturday (4:30 p.m.). Jackson and the Ravens will be in Buffalo on Sunday night (6;30 p.m.) to face the Bills.
Mahomes, a two-time league MVP and three-time Super Bowl champion, is endeavoring to pilot the Chiefs to an unprecedented third straight Super Bowl win. Jackson is seeking his first after becoming the only quarterback in NFL history to pass for 4,000 yards (4,172) and rush for 900 (915) in a single regular season. In the process, he passed Michael Vick as the league’s all-time QB rushing leader (6,173).
Warren Moon (2006) is the only Black quarterback who has been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. But as the sport has evolved, stars like Mahomes and Jackson will ultimately join him.