by Aubrey Bruce, For New Pittsburgh Courier
I have something that I have been inclined to get off my chest for the past few years.
A representative of “Black Lives Matter” called me around the time that a young man named Eric Garner was placed in a chokehold by an NYPD police officer and later died. He was originally arrested for allegedly selling loose cigarettes illegally. The officer’s name was Daniel Pantaleo.
I declined to join the Black Lives Matter movement.
The majority of the attorneys representing victims’ families have gotten paid after filing civil suits against the police departments that employed the officers that committed the civil violations. Young Black people being slayed while these money-seeking attorneys are being paid and sometimes laid….you digggg.
I declined to associate with any movement until Blacks stop killing Blacks, as well. Game, set, match.
PATRICK MAHOMES, of the Kansas City Chiefs.
Now that I have laid that nest egg on your doorstep, let’s take a look back on the treatment of Black quarterbacks during the past 100 years in the NFL. The league has mucho egg on its face regarding the employment of not only Black quarterbacks, but Black athletes in general in regards to pay scale and the marketing of brown and Black players.
Fritz Pollard was the first Black NFL quarterback to perform in 1923. However, from Willie Thrower to Doug Williams to Donovan McNabb, Kordell Stewart, James Harris, Marlin Briscoe, Colin Kaepernick, Lamar Jackson, Deshaun Watson and the current NFL Hall-of-Famer in waiting, the K.C. Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes…there could have been many more but as many fans and scribes may know, in the past many outstanding Black quarterbacks were forced to switch to other positions in order to make the roster of many NFL teams.
LAMAR JACKSON, of the Baltimore Ravens.
Remember when it was the standard of quarterbacks to appear cerebral as far as the way that the position of quarterback was defined? If the quarterback was not stationed in the pocket surveying the defense looking for, finding and exploiting a defensive weakness, that athlete was usually graded as not smart enough the assume the position of an NFL QB.
Many white quarterbacks were slow-footed; but it didn’t matter, the position was defined by not how slow you were downstairs but how fast you were upstairs. You could run a nine-second 40-yard dash as a White QB as long as you were able to read and dissect defenses.
Black “life” matters as far as today’s Black and brown NFL quarterbacks are concerned because the public and the NFL has finally accepted the reality that many defensive linemen can run sub-five-second 40-yard times, QBs no longer afford to be “pocket backs.”
DESHAUN WATSON, of the Houston Texans.
Quarterbacks not only have to extend plays, they have to make new plays. The value of Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson is now close to three quarters of a billion dollars.
Unlike Black Lives Matter, Black quarterbacks do matter. Ben Roethlisberger is a Pittsburgh Steelers’ future Hall-of-Fame player. However, he is a play extender. Mahomes, Watson, and Jackson are “playmakers.” Defensive coordinators don’t lose sleep over Big Ben outrunning their defense; maybe out-gunning them, but certainly not outrunning them.
Black quarterbacks are not the future of the NFL; they are the new standard of the NFL.
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