PHILADELPHIA — Sixteen years ago, Tony Dungy and the Indianapolis Colts beat Lovie Smith and the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI. You might remember it because Peyton Manning won his first ring, or because Prince delivered the greatest halftime show in history. You also might remember it because it was the first time two Black coaches met in football’s title game.
It was a hallelujah moment for equality.
In a little less than two weeks, Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs will play Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LVII. It will be memorable because Andy Reid will be trying to win his second title in four years, and because the Eagles will be trying to win their second title in six years, both times with a second-year head coach. It also will be memorable because it will be the first time both teams will start a Black quarterback.
Or will it be memorable?
Not to most people. Not, really, to me, a fifty-something Black writer who’s spent much of the past 32 years monitoring the injustices of the NFL.
It certainly will be memorable for Doug Williams, the first Black quarterback to start in the Super Bowl.
“We have come such a long way,” Williams, now 67, told Andscape on Sunday night. “It has been so hard, so many barriers, but we did it.”
It’s not a hallelujah moment. Really, it’s just ... football.
This is how we define progress. When a woman leads congress. When a gay man runs for president. When an interracial couple is second in line to lead the United States, and the leader wouldn’t be the man.
It’s when something that seems extraordinary really isn’t anymore.
Progress.
Climbing the mountain
It’s been 35 years since Warren Moon was starring in Houston as Williams started, won, and was named MVP for Washington as he beat John Elway and the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXII after the 1987 season. Steve McNair was the second Black starter, in Super Bowl XXXIV, which came 12 years later, after the 1999 season. Both had to attend HBCUs — Williams starred at Grambling, McNair at Alcorn State — to play the position they were born to play. And yes, 12 years between Super Bowl starters — that was a problem.
But McNair’s success with the Titans helped the cause. Less than two months after McNair came within 1 yard of possibly leading Tennessee to a Super Bowl victory, the Eagles drafted Donovan McNabb No. 2 overall that season, the Cincinnati Bengals drafted Akili Smith No. 3, and the Minnesota Vikings drafted Daunte Culpepper No. 11. That was the sea change.
After decades of racism, in which white NFL execs projected athletic Black QBs as defensive backs, receivers, or running backs who lacked the makeup and intelligence to play the game’s most demanding position, the NFL began to put a premium on playing the best players at the position.
This was 24 years ago.
Since then, McNabb, Colin Kaepernick, Russell Wilson, Cam Newton, Mahomes, and now Hurts have taken their teams to the biggest game. Wilson and Mahomes each won. Wilson has gone twice. This is Mahomes’ third trip.
Assuming Mahomes wins the NFL MVP award this season, three of the last eight MVPs will have been Black quarterbacks. This year, Mahomes’ top competition was Hurts.
The most dynamic athlete in the game, Lamar Jackson, won in 2019, and he will be the subject of the biggest offseason story as his Baltimore Ravens and the rest of the league determine how much he’s worth — and it might be the biggest contract in NFL history.
The most controversial figure in the game, Deshaun Watson, also is a Black quarterback. Accused of serial sexual assaults involving massage therapists and suspended for the first 11 games of the 2022 season, Watson would be just as controversial if he were white. He also would be just as rich. Before the suspension, the Cleveland Browns traded a king’s ransom to Houston for Watson, then gave him a five-year, $230 million contract, the most guaranteed money in NFL history.
Five of the six biggest contracts in the NFL belong to Mahomes, Wilson, Kyler Murray, Watson, and Dak Prescott. By summertime, Hurts and Jackson will be top earners, too. The 49ers have staked their future to Trey Lance, the No. 3 overall pick in the 2021 draft, eight picks before the Bears took Justin Fields, who might be an improved version of Lamar Jackson.
John Wooten, 86, is a former NFL lineman, a former front office executive for the Eagles, and is the former chairman of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, which advocates for Black NFL coaches, pioneered every Black cause in the NFL for five decades.
His labors have created the environment in which a Mahomes/Hurts faceoff can be considered a matter of course.
“I understand what you mean,” Wooten told me Monday. “When I watch these guys play all these different places around the league, in high school and in college — you have to marvel at from whence it came. That’s the fight that we fought. Now, we see the rewards. The evolution has been in front of you for years.”
An inevitable convergence
It was always most likely that the Eagles and Reid would be part of this intersection. They have employed the most, and the best, Black quarterbacks for the longest time: Randall Cunningham, Rodney Peete, McNabb, Vince Young, Michael Vick, and, now, Hurts.
Similarly, Reid has proved relatively colorblind in compiling his rosters and his staffs. He’s a Mormon out of BYU, which shouldn’t necessarily indict him one way or another, but more than anything else Reid’s a kid who grew up in a racially diverse neighborhood in Los Angeles. That much more informs who Reid is. During the social justice protests of 2020, Reid was one of the few white NFL voices who supported the Black Lives Matter movement.
It’s not as though the NFL morphed overnight into a progressive paradise. Despite enacting the Rooney Rule 21 years ago, then tightening its parameters — only the Pittsburgh Steelers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers currently have Black head coaches (Miami coach Mike McDaniel doesn’t identify as Black). Former Dolphins head coach Brian Flores filed a class-action lawsuit last year alleging racial bias in hiring practices, a suit joined by Steve Wilks, the spurned interim coach in Carolina.
The league knows it has a problem. NFL players have sported social justice messages on their helmets since 2020. Teams paint anti-racism mottos in their end zones.
So, no, the meeting between Mahomes and Hurts is not insignificant. After all, it’s the 57th edition of the game, so it took nearly six decades for this to happen.
Now that it is happening, it feels more coincidental — more inevitable — than emancipatory.
