The Black Quarterback: Running from the Devil – Again

It seems like every so often this article must be dusted off and reposted. Today, this article is for Michael Vick, Vince Young, and Tavaris Jackson. The former Atlanta Falcons QB, the backup at Tennessee, and the starter – for now – at Minnesota are taking more than their fair share of hits from the Internet peanut gallery and the mainstream press. Today, it is seen as cool to openly call Vick a stupid quarterback and too ignorant to play the position; same for Young and Jackson. It’s cool because White dudes have been waiting so long to say these things and not get crushed for doing so (people are funny like that).

That is, in a word, bullshit.

So, while I continue to look at Rick Pitino (I’m not sure where I come down on his situation) and wait for that spark of personal understanding about the Louisville hoops coach and his extramarital dealings, I wanted to remind people why the Black QB has hit the “Endangered Humans-Endangered Careers” list.

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This is an article that has been on my mind for some time. The subject matter originally was Vince Young and race. You know, black quarterback who, in college is a star – make that super nova. But everyone can see that his mechanics are not those of the “prototypical” QB. In the pros he has a great year and appears to be on the verge of revolutionizing the NFL game. Then, when defensive coordinators begin to understand the weaknesses of this quarterback, the following season his stats drop. He can never quite do enough to satisfy his fan base. He walks around the practice field with a tee-shirt that reads, “I am a quarterback,” as if that will justify his existence; something you would never see his white peers do.

I read LZ Granderson’s article awhile back on VY and thought, okay, this is a great starting point. But there is more to this story than can be said in a column. And there’s more to the picture of Vince Young and the running quarterback than meets the eye.

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In the 1950s pro offenses mimicked famed Oklahoma head coach Bud Wilkinson’s split-T offense, where the quarterback was flanked by a halfback and a fullback. However, by 1953 the spread offense arose to take advantage of the Greasy Neal-inspired “Eagle Defense” or the “61″, which is the precursor to the modern Cover-2 or Tampa-2 defense. The spread and the spread with a slot receiver were designed to take advantage of the downfield gap in the 61. This offense required the quarterback to be able to throw accurate passes down the hash marks – seams – of the field. Paul Brown adopted this offense and when his Cleveland Browns became a National Football League team, they dominated the league for five years before defensive coaches developed the 4-3 defense to cover downfield gaps in the spread plus defend against the run.

This continuing cat-and-mouse game between offense and defense effectively made the running quarterback extinct. In his place came the statuesque signal caller who could stand in the pocket with defenders flying around them and wait patiently for a receiver to come open. The famed quarterbacks of this era were Otto Graham, John Unitas, and Y.A. Tittle. While Graham was a reformed single-wing quarterback, the other two were of this new mold of passer who could make every throw and mix the run and the pass in their play-calling with requisite aplomb.

Since 1953 the drop back passer, or pocket passer, has persisted as the prototype for all NFL quarterbacks.

Here, a question relative to Vince Young needs to be asked and answered: What role does the black quarterback play since pro football began to evolve into what it is today?

First, a myth needs to be broken. Outside of Marlon Briscoe, who played quarterback one year – 1968 – for the AFL Denver Broncos, black men who played quarterback in the NFL or the AFL did not hit the ground scrambling. James Harris, Joe Gilliam, Doug Williams, and Warren Moon, the first four black quarterbacks in the NFL were all pocket passers.

Other black quarterbacks who played in the NFL during this period mostly filled backup roles. They included: John Jones from Fisk (New York Jets – 1975), Carlos Brown (Green Bay 1975 – 1976), Parnell Dickinson from Mississippi Valley State (Tampa Bay Buccaneers 1976), Dave Mays from Texas Southern (Cleveland Browns 1976- 1977 and Buffalo Bills 1978), John Walton from Elizabeth City (Philadelphia Eagles 1976 – 1979), and Vince Evans from USC (Chicago 1978–1983). These quarterbacks too were much more known for their skills in the pocket than for their ability to scramble.

Then came Randall Cunningham. And with him came the myth that persists today.

It is important to note that the omission of Cunningham from the Hall of Fame is as close to a criminal offense as can be committed by those journalists with votes. In NFL history only Jim Brown, Y.A. Tittle, Johnny Unitas, Brett Favre, and Randall Cunningham have won three MVP awards and other than Favre who will be, all but Cunningham are in the Hall of Fame. And no player other than Cunningham, who won the MVP award in 1988, 1990, and 1998 has, won the award eight years from his previous honor.

Between 1987 and 1990 Cunningham averaged more than 3,000 in passing yards and 24 touchdown passes per season. But he also led the Eagles in rushing in 1987 and 1990. In 1990 Cunningham passed for 3413 yards and tossed 34 TDs. He also rushed for 942 yards, at the time the second-most for a quarterback in NFL history (Bobby Douglass ran for 968 yards in 1968). He led the NFL in passing and was ninth in the league in rushing. No quarterback has before or since had a season like that of Cunningham’s in 1990. Randall Cunningham’s receivers that year? Calvin Williams and Fred Barnett. His tight end was Keith Jackson. The Philadelphia Eagles leading receiver in 1990 was running back Keith Byars with 81 receptions for 819 yards. Jackson was the team’s second-leading receiver with 50 receptions. Williams caught 37 passes, while Barnett caught 36.

Cunningham retired due to injuries after the 1995 season but was called by the Minnesota Vikings to join their team midway through the 1997 season. In 1998 Cunningham was elevated to the starting role for the Vikes. For the first time in his career Cunningham had stars at wide receiver in Hall of Famer Chris Carter and the prolific rookie, Randy Moss. However, by this time in his career, Cunningham was a pocket passer only. He responded by throwing for 3704 yards, 34 touchdowns to only 10 interceptions, with an astounding passer rating of 106. The Vikings’ record was 15-1 and but were upset by the Atlanta Falcons in overtime in the NFC championship game.

Despite his unprecedented ability to control a football game with his arm or his feet, Randall Cunningham the runner is the player who is selectively entrenched in the memory of football fans and football writers across the country. The “problem” with Cunningham, in the opinion of most football writers, appears to be that he never led a team he quarterbacked to the Super Bowl and obviously, never won a Super Bowl.

What is saddest about the Cunningham saga is that while Randall dominated the highlights, his contemporary, Warren Moon, a classic drop-back passer, was putting up monster numbers with solid, but not exceptional receivers in Houston. Moon and his team, like the Eagles with Cunningham, was known to be a good to great regular season team but a team that never was able to get over the hump. And in this time of quarterbacks receiving too much credit for wins and too much responsibility for losses, Moon and Cunningham were forced to quietly endure “choker” labels despite leading teams that had fatal flaws that were perennially exposed come playoff time.

In the end, though, Moon’s numbers could not be ignored and he was voted into the Hall of Fame. But because there was an inordinate emphasis – extreme bias – placed on Cunningham’s running ability, Cunningham’s importance to the history of the game he will more than never receive his due – and never be placed alongside other quarterbacks of legend in the Hall.

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Randall Cunningham’s presence in the NFL did not influence offensive coordinators to want to suddenly begin actively seeking out dual-threat quarterbacks. In fact, it probably did just the opposite; if there were signal-callers in college that displayed this ability they were more than likely actively shunned.

The NFL, despite being the pinnacle of the game, is the place where the fewest football innovations take place, particularly on the offensive side of the ball. Sure, every once in an eclipse simultaneously seen in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres someone comes along who tries something different. The last real innovation in the pros was actually a carry-over from college. It was June Jones’ run-and-shoot offense. Not the run-and-shoot that was more a spread offense of the Warren Moon Houston Oilers, but the real deal was run in Atlanta at the behest of head coach Jerry Glanville. And you see where Glanville and Jones are – not the NFL to be sure. And they will probably never again collect an NFL paycheck. Additionally, there was the cousin of the run-and-shoot, Steve Spurrier’s “fun-and-gun” offense he brought from the University of Florida to the Washington Redskins in 2002; you see how far that got him.

What the NFL is, is a copycat league. Every wrinkle, every nuance that produces positive results is copied and subsumed into every offense or defense in the NFL within a year. But to attempt something revolutionary or even remotely close to game-altering is a no-no. Remember, there are but 32 head coach positions and 32 offensive coordinator positions available in the NFL. Now, if you’re an offensive coordinator on a team and you somehow manage to convince a head coach to run an offense that is not an offshoot of the Paul Brown-Sid Gillman tree, or the Bill Walsh tree and it fails, you can expect to be summarily fired and your highest position with an NFL team from that moment forward might be an advance scout of college talent scout; you’re like an assistant principal in an elementary school – relatively inconsequential and that replaceable.

Where the Cunningham myth made its biggest impression was in the collegiate ranks. For the first time young black boys were growing up with a dynamic leader at quarterback. Randall was Jordan-esque to black high school quarterbacks. They saw the weekly highlights on ESPN. He could run, pass, jump – do everything but dribble and dunk.

College coaches saw this, too.

NCAA teams ran the veer and the option offenses which required mobile QBs who could both run and throw. But both offenses were run-oriented where the element of surprise was often a pass. Nebraska, under Tom Osborne, for instance, would run 40-to-50 times a game and throw, perhaps 15 passes all day and win by an obscene margin. The thought of finding “the next” Randall Cunningham, though, meant unpredictability and flexibility in a game plan. Having the ability to call 40 running plays and 20 or 25 passes changed the tenor of a college football game for a head coach and his offensive coordinator.

While Cunningham was plying his trade in the NFL, college teams that just two recruiting classes earlier had no capability to make up a fourth quarter deficit were able to throw the ball to take advantage of the college rule where the clock stops after every first down, thus stretching the final minutes of a game to an almost indeterminate amount of time. No-huddle offenses in the final two minutes of a half and a game became viable options rather than desperate measures with scatter-armed quarterbacks with mostly bleak outcomes.

In 1989 as a junior, Andre Ware set the table for black college quarterbacks known for their arms as well as their legs when he won the Heisman Trophy while at the University of Houston. Ware played in the pass happy run-and-shoot offense and threw for 4,699 yards and 43 touchdowns.

That year, 1989, was the first time black QBs proliferated at Division I schools. The following quarterbacks played for top college programs:

Major Harris, University of West Virginia; Reggie Slack, a junior at Auburn University; Ronald Veal, a junior at the University of Arizona; Quinn Grovey, a junior at the University of Arkansas; Darian Hagan, a sophomore at the University of Colorado; Travis Hunter, a senior at East Carolina University; Charles Price, a sophomore at the University of Nevada Las Vegas; Phil Vinson, a senior at New Mexico State University; Anthony Thornton, a junior at Ohio University; Shawn Moore, a junior at the University of Virginia, and Lionell Crawford, a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin. And at the University of Michigan Demetrius Brown and Michael Taylor competed for the starting job.

Four years later in 1993 under Bobby Bowden, Charlie Ward won the Heisman Trophy and brought Florida State its first national championship.

However, between the professional debut of Cunningham and the non-debut of Ward was the dream postseason of the Washington Redskins’ Doug Williams, which culminated in a decisive Super Bowl XXII win over the Denver Broncos. Williams was not a scrambler, not a run-first quarterback. Like the black quarterbacks before him from black colleges and universities, Williams, a Grambling University graduate, was a drop-back passer. By the time Super Bowl XXII was played, Williams’ knees were shot so any movement he might have had in his days in the United States Football League (USFL) or with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was long gone.

While Division I schools across the country were scouring high schools for the next Randall Cunningham, these same schools were actively eschewing black drop-back passers. We will never know how many classic black high school signal-callers had to change position to play big-time college football, or were passed by these same schools altogether. Despite Ward’s double dip of winning a national championship and a Heisman Trophy he was not drafted by an NFL team. Though the public complaint was that Ward was “too small” to play quarterback in the NFL, the common talk was that Ward was a product of Bowden’s system and left to his own devices, was not a facile enough decision-maker to play in the pros. Though Bowden lobbied loudly for his quarterback, no NFL general managers listened. Instead Ward, also the Florida State starting point guard, had a long career as an NBA point guard, mainly with the New York Knicks.

Ward’s plight was an oft-repeated one in the 1990s: outstanding black starting college quarterback receives not a sniff from any NFL team.

In the rare instances when black collegiate quarterbacks got a look from the NFL, it was invariably a quick one. “Blacks get two types of opportunities to play quarterback in the NFL,” said James Harris in 1974, when he was the lone black NFL starting quarterback, playing for the Los Angeles Rams, “a chance and a ‘nigger’ chance.” When they didn’t become stars overnight – and quarterbacks rarely do, black or white – there was always talk of shifting them to positions where their “natural athleticism” would serve “them” better. That this is blatant racism is nearly laughable. NFL people would be quick to point out the plight of 2001 Heisman Trophy winner Eric Crouch. The former Nebraska quarterback was selected by the St. Louis Rams in the sixth round of the 2002 NFL Draft as a wide receiver. After one good hit Crouch refused to play any more receiver. As a result he kicked around the NFL and the Canadian Football League and at 29 is no longer playing football.

However, one Eric Crouch does not in any way make up for the legion of talented black quarterbacks shunned by the NFL. It is not as if the league doesn’t want most of these football players but that is exactly the point. They are wanted. As football players, not quarterbacks. The only way NFL offensive coordinators appear to want to traverse outside of the templates of offensive styles set up for them is when they have that rare athlete on their rosters who can both spearhead their offense and simultaneously be subservient within it. Unfortunately for these coordinators this is a rare occurrence as most black college quarterbacks enter the pros resigned to the fact that they must earn their pay at a position other than quarterback.

But there was one college QB whose hunger to be a signal-caller on the highest level made him willing to do anything for the chance and another with similar abilities who would only be known as a quarterback.

Steve McNair from tiny Alcorn State University was a legend far before he was an NFL reality. A four-sport star in high school, McNair was pursued by the Seattle Mariners in 1990 at age 17. That year as a safety he intercepted 15 passes and was a high school All-American at that position.

Major colleges including Florida State wanted McNair ————— as a safety. McNair, though, was set on playing quarterback and settled on the one school that would allow him to be its signal-caller, Alcorn St. By the time he was a junior at Alcorn he had the nickname of “Air McNair” and all thoughts of him as a safety disappeared. When his college career ended McNair passed and ran for almost 6,000 yards and 53 touchdowns. In the 1994 Senior Bowl McNair stood out among his peers on and off the field to the point where the Houston Oilers made him the third pick in the 1995 NFL Draft.

From there, McNair’s career arc is well known. Early in his career the task of Oilers-turned Tennessee Titans head coach, Jeff Fisher, was to keep McNair from scrambling when his first option was covered. As his career continued, the chore became to get McNair to run when his passing options were closed. Steve “Air” McNair led the Titans to within one yard of tying the St. Louis Rams on the final play of the 2000 Super Bowl. along the way McNair and the Titans defeated the Indianapolis Colts – 19-16 – and their celebrated quarterback, Peyton Manning.

Since then, McNair has been battered to the point where, after 12 years, his career might be over. It is said that he is a warrior, but a warrior who never quite lived up to his potential.

The quintessential example of the treatment of black quarterbacks in the NFL, though, is that of Kordell Stewart. The former Colorado University star quarterback was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1995. He was given the nickname “Slash” by Myron Cope, ex-radio announcer for the Steelers because he was relegated by head coach Bill Cowher to lining up mainly at wide receiver and running back and occasionally quarterback.

The result of this alleged innovative move with Stewart by Cowher resulted in Stewart quickly became a dabbler at many positions and master of none. And yet, despite leading the Steelers to the AFC Championship game, Kordell Stewart became a clown-like, novelty figure in Pittsburgh, neither team leader nor valued skill position player. He ultimately fell out of favor with the Pittsburgh football media and more importantly head coach Bill Cowher, and was released by the Steelers in 2003.

2003 was the same season Bryon Leftwich of Marshall University was drafted by the Jacksonville Jaguars.

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This is 2007. This season we have witnessed the fall of the classic, from the pocket black quarterback, Leftwich, in favor of his “more mobile” backup, David Garrard. Leftwich was said by his head coach Jack Del Rio, to have “regressed” as a quarterback. It is interesting – and no accident – that Leftwich, viewed as heroic throughout his college career and first three seasons as a pro, suddenly became a malcontent in the Jaguars locker room.

Meantime, if we look around the NFL we see a proliferation of black quarterbacks – all from the mobile mold: Donovan McNabb, Tavaris Jackson of Minnesota, Garrard and his backup Quinn Gray, Daunte Culpepper and rookie number one overall draft pick, JaMarcus Russell of Oakland, Charlie Batch who backs up Ben Roethlisberger in Pittsburgh, and Jason Campbell in Washington.

Batch, now much more stationary, was once mobile. And the only quarterback in the above name whose position is not secure, is not so ironically, Leftwich. And yet, there is one more name to add to this list, one other college quarterback with Leftwich’s pedigree as a classic-style quarterback. He, at present cannot get a shot at the NFL despite his high-profile college winning. In fact, when his team did win a national championship, the success of the team was given, in large part to his backup, though his performance in the ultimate college contest was one that validated his entire career to that point.

His name is Chris Leak.

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It is true that most black quarterbacks were the best athletes on the field when they were young. It is true that each of them carries the responsibility of the entire football world on their shoulders.

It is true that every college coach from Mack Brown now to Tom Osborne them has told them, “If your first read isn’t there, use your legs,” because these men know that if they teach these young men to go through their progressions, that they might be sacrificing a touchdown for a five to seven yard gain and a first down.

For the generation coming up racism is perceived as not something dangerous – so they laugh at it, watch black comedians incorrectly call themselves racists and laugh some more; call themselves racists just to feel like they a re part of a larger whole.

Yet they cannot see through the rabbit hole to the light of reality when they cannot dissect a play as well as their white counterpart because they were told to use their legs in stead of check down to a secondary receiver. They only do their duty and sacrifice themselves at every turn. They take more late hits that their white counterparts because they are perceived as part running back by referees. They are seen as expendable by coaches because they can always become wide receivers or corner backs.

And they never, ever ask why.

But there is one part of the equation and the making of the black quarterback that is never asked, never hinted at, never perused by those who write about the games.

Where does this phenomenon come from? Not from the outside – the coaches, the fans, the owners – but from the inside. Since when did the voice of the man in charge of his life feel it was okay to be silent about his inability to play the position of quarterback like his white peer?

Americans are stupid people. We pretty much believe what we’re told, by and large. And the bigger the lie, the more we believe. Fans and pundits alike believe the black quarterback is a mobile creature who thinks better on the run than he does in the pocket. Like the stigma placed on the jazz musician, he is at his best when improvising even if the “improvisation” is just window-dressing for a different type of structure. And the black quarterback, in his quest to fit in, to play the position of his dreams, is no different. He buys into the image provided for him ———- and wears t-shirts telling the world he is, in fact, a quarterback all the while.

Here is where the taboo will be posited: the majority of white quarterbacks arise from middle to upper class families. The majority of black quarterbacks come from lower middle class to impoverished backgrounds.

As the white quarterback is growing up he has time to think, to ponder his future, to wonder what his future will hold. He is protected by his family and at school protected by his athleticism. By high school, every single student understands that the well-being of the school hinges on the ability of the white quarterback and the success of the football team he leads. His coaches have a responsibility to provide him with every tool necessary to succeed. This includes teaching the athlete, to the best of the coach’s ability, to read defenses in preparation for his college years on the field.

With this nurturing environment, should the white quarterback pan out in his time at a university of his choice, a career in the NFL automatically awaits. He can become Brady Quinn, who played a total of about a dozen plays during his rookie season with the Cleveland Browns, yet Quinn appears as the star in Subway sandwich and EAS sports drink commercials. He is seen as mature, willing to put his head in the play book and learn the pro game. After all, he’s been in training for the job since he was 14.

White quarterbacks from affluent backgrounds have immediate access to “quarterback schools” like the Manning Passing Academy hosted and run by the Archie Manning and his sons, includingthe famous Super Bowl champion Peyton and his younger brother, Eli. There is Terry Copacia’s All-State Quarterback School and Evan Bowen’s Elite Passing Academy and Air 7 Quarterback University (Air 7 QBU) which were recently featured on HBO’s Real Sports. Joe Montana, arguably the best quarterback in the history of the NFL, thought so highly of QBU he sent his son, Nate, a walk-on this season at Notre Dame, to the camp. “Scholarships” for poor, black quarterbacks that pay the tuition for the camps do exist, but they are few compared with the parents who pay the requisite fees to attend.

Let us now turn our attention that magically mysterious and sometimes improperly-named area of our cities – the “ghetto.” We are looking at a world the country at-large knows of not at all. Sure, there are rumors and enough tales of those who rose from its streets to believe that all it takes to succeed from there is discipline and will power, two attributes that, historically, have never been associated with black people.

The blighted urban area is a dangerous place where people survive on hard work as do their white suburban not-quite neighbors. However, they also must survive by their wits and guile, and often by stealth. It takes a certain intuition and heightened ability to understand the most minute alteration in the movement of people, even in the appearance of a blank space, to survive.

In the ghetto, if your first option isn’t there, use your legs to create something…. it is sometimes the difference between life and death. There is always the presence of fear in the ghetto. There too is a do it yourself-ism in the ghetto that is part of the alleged heart of these United States. It is more real than any frontier-to-riches story, or from nothing to something tale of white people from anywhere else in America; the “who you know” truly does not exist in the ghetto, you make it through your day or out of your environment by the merit of the work you put in ————– every, single day.

This young man grows up searching for a way out of his environment, hoping his skills as the best athlete on the field will carry him to greater heights. At every turn there are people who are more than willing to use his talents to their benefit, with his greater good being secondary to their own cause. It is in this environment where scouts for college coaches hoping to circumvent NCAA rules, reside. Their jobs are to steer athletes to the college program for which they – unofficially – work. These middlemen give the black high school quarterback illegal perks with the unsaid understanding that there is a college football program paying for this swag, waiting for their official commitment in the form of their signature on a scholarship contract on national signing day.

He will find that these people will be lurking just around the corner for his entire playing career. Be they a corrupt agent looking to secure him as a client while in college or a corrupt businessman looking for the now pro quarterback to invest in a non-existent business.

For this quarterback there is little learning of how to play the position. Correcting throwing motions is as rare an act as comprehensive film study of their opponents or their own play. The game of football is an extension of everyday life. The success of the high school team is based on the survival tactics of the quarterback rather than his knowledge of the defenses he faces. Though he might be popular in the halls of his school, unlike his white counterpart come basketball season, unless he is the star of that team as well, his exploits are likely to be forgotten by the middle of winter.

This is a snapshot of the bleak landscape in which an overwhelming number of black quarterbacks arise. With this backdrop is become more obvious why they enter the NFL as singularly talented athletes but stunted in growth when compared with most of their white peers.

With the automatic stigma of “athlete” attached to most black quarterbacks, on the surface it would seem to be a boon to any NFL head coach to stumble upon classicists like Byron Leftwich or Chris Leak.

Leak was raised by his older brother C.J. who played quarterback at Tennessee and in high school was one of the most sought-after players in the nation at his position. Chris chose Florida over Tennessee because Volunteers head coach Philip Fulmer refused to give C.J. a chance to compete as the starter, choosing Casey Clausen instead. Then in 2004, with an added year of eligibility, Fulmer again chose other quarterbacks over the elder Leak, including Erik Ainge.

In his senior year as a Gator the younger Leak completes 63.6% of his passes for 2942 yards and 23 touchdowns to 13 interceptions. These gaudy statistics were accomplished in Urban Meyer’s spread option system, one that was not at all conducive to the smallish drop back passing Leak. In obvious running situations Meyer substituted heavily-recruited freshman Tim Tebow for Leak. Tebow, this season’s Heisman Trophy winner, was Meyer’s pet choice as quarterback. The sophomore is a big, bruising runner whom can withstand the pounding that comes with running the spread option in the SEC.

And because of Tebow’s success, college coaches around the country are actively searching for white quarterbacks to run the spread-option; a domain that was once an almost all-black quarterback domain. As with most cultural -artistic advancements in America, they originate from black people ———– then are copied, co-opted, and appropriated by whites.

However, it was Leak who led Florida to the national championship in 2006, not Tebow. But on NFL Draft Day. Leak went undrafted. It was said that his arm was weak and he was too small to play quarterback in the NFL. Leak, though is the same height as Drew Brees and proved his arm strength winning the distance-throwing competition with a 65-yard pass in postseason an All-American affair. Leak signed as a free agent with the Chicago Bears but was released before the season began.

Under his older brother’s tutelage, Chris was taught to read defenses at a young age. Today, Leak is known as a cerebral player who spends as much time in the film room as he does on the practice field. Yet no NFL team seems to want him; GMs seem to find the size excuse and arm strength fallacy to not allow him a proper shot at making their squad more attractive than the possibility of him leading their team.

The present crop of black college quarterbacks will face the same fate of other “athletic” quarterbacks before them. The next classic black player at this position to enter the collegiate ranks is 6’5″, 215-pound E.J. Manuel, who will play for Bobby Bowden at Florida State next season. Manuel’s present 40-yard dash time is 4.6 so he is not a running quarterback. The Seminoles run a pro-set offensive commandeered by coordinator Jimbo Fisher.

Barring unforeseen circumstances, Manuel will be an NFL prospect in the coming years. The young player is set to declare his bio-medicine as his major, so he might be – arguably – the most intelligent college football quarterback in the country. Saturday, Manuel participated in the Under Armour All-Star Prep football game. His throwing motion will have to be tweaked, as he throws a bit too over-the-top and close to his ear hole at the moment. However, his arm strength is evident and he will certainly be able to make all the throws necessary to play football at the professional level. It will be interesting to watch the reactions of general managers league-wide to Manuel and his abilities when he is among the college quarterbacks to be considered to be drafted by NFL teams.

Manuel could be a first round draft pick like Leftwich. He might also be shunted aside and unceremoniously released after posting a 24-17 record as a starter by the team that drafts him after four years, as was Leftwich.

Think about this fact. Never in the modern history of the NFL has a quarterback been released by his team after posting a seven games over .500 record.

Never.

Yet it happened to Leftwich. Never mind that he was replaced by another black man, David Garrard, a mobile quarterback. Garrard’s nickname is “George Bush.” He is an admitted “company man” who backs his coach’s every decision, even if it means he sits on the bench. Oddly, these are not the qualities ascribed to most quarterbacks. They are used to making bold decisions and thrive on their individualism (though they are able to blend that with the concept of team). Those are the qualities that make them leaders among their teammates; those were the qualities for which Byron Leftwich was known.

Leftwich’s release by Del Rio and Jacksonville was never fully explained. In a time when having two quality starters is a must in the NFL, the Jacksonville head coach cast his four-year star starter to the winds for an unproven backup and third-stringer, Quinn Gray. Around the NFL, the move was met with scepticism. But what was even more stunning was that teams around the league were not clamoring for Leftwich’s services. There are a dozen teams in the NFL without a reliable starting quarterback, yet Leftwich went untouched until the dysfunctional Atlanta Falcons called for him.

Del Rio took another tremendous risk when he let go of Leftwich – alienating and losing the trust of his team. And sure enough, when Leftwich was released, his teammates privately groused about Del Rio’s decision. It was not that they did not approve of Garrard, they just knew who was best to lead them. It was not until Garrard led the Jacksonville offense on a fourth quarter drive during the season that they felt confident – not in Garrard, but in the decision making of their coach.

Del Rio did not want a quarterback who might challenge his thinking in any way; that appeared to be Leftwich’s primary crime. But that is Tom Brady, or Matt Hasselbeck, or Brett Favre, or Peyton Manning. Del Rio wanted an exact extension of him. He wanted someone who would “do it his way” and no other way. In other words, a subservient quarterback – and he got one in Garrard. With that as a mandate for success, it is no wonder that the Jacksonville quarterbacks are all black.

And here the thought arises: because Leftwich is used to reading defenses, in fact is dependent on deciphering defenses for his survival, he might be an anathema to certain white head coaches; same with Leak. Again, because of his training, it will be interesting to track E.J. Manuel during his time at Florida State and when it is his time to enter the NFL.

Even Donovan McNabb, a middle class, black, two-sport high school star in football and basketball has never escaped the “athlete” label. Today, with 10 years of NFL experience it is widely said that if McNabb does not have use of his legs he cannot be successful; he said not to be able to “make things happen” downfield from the pocket. Middle class McNabb, because he was so gifted physically, too is stigmatized like his urban, ghetto peers.

We have viewed the black quarterback across time and space, and across racial and philosophical boundaries. And we arrive here, today. It is 2007 and the message to black quarterbacks appears to be: we want you, but we want you on our terms.

We want you, just don’t think.