Three of the top four recruits in the first round during this year’s NFL draft were Black quarterbacks. Coupled with current NFL quarterbacks, Jalen Hurts and then Lamar Jackson smashing payday records and becoming the highest earners in the NFL, you have what looks like a Black QB revolution.
Will White Fans Have A Problem With All These Black Quarterbacks?
That might be a problem for the powers that be, according to former player-turned ESPN sports talking head Domonique Foxworth, who broke down a unique reactionary theory he feels is coming shortly to fellow sports broadcaster Bomani Jones.
“Before we get to the (Philadelphia) Eagles and how scary that is, something just hit me – there’s gonna be some rule changes in the NFL,” Foxworth began on the latest episode of ‘The Right Time with Bomani Jones.’ “They ‘gon do something. And you may be looking at me like I’m crazy, but wait ’til I explain something to you, then you’re gonna be like, ‘yup, they about to fix this.’
“Who’s the best quarterback in football? Patrick Mahomes? Who’s the two highest-paid players in all the league? Lamar Jackson and Jalen Hurts. Who are the first three quarterbacks drafted in this draft? Black dudes. Oh, we got a rule change coming down the pike.”
Enter Will Levis, a white quarterback expected to go fourth in the first round but did not hear his name called on Day 1; Instead, that slot went to Anthony Richardson, a Black QB the Indianapolis Colts selected. When Levis returned home to Connecticut the next day from his anticipated first-round draft party, the University of Kentucky prospect walked into a call from the Tennessee Titans that they had selected him in the second round, 33rd overall.
Where The White Men At?
For Bomani Jones, the Levis second-round drop has everything to do with the evolution of the QB position under Black leadership. The hybrid rushing QB is now the standard, and even though players like Mahomes are judged as playground-tactic gunslingers, having that attribute is proven, and it seems to predominantly come attached with melanin.
“Guys, as crazy as you think this is,” Jones said, “i’ll never forget the first time I saw Harry Edwards speak and he was talking about the quarterback position and when [Michae] Vick, [Daunte] Culpepper, you know that run of dudes started coming, what they did was they started making those punitive roughing the passer penalties where if you just touch the guy on the helmet that you got 15 yards ’cause they had to slow up those defensive backs. Guys, it’s turning into a problem where can’t nobody even talk themselves into Will Levis, right? Something has fundamentally changed.”
Foxworth is well aware that his opinion can be seen as an exposition of the racist culture within the NFL. However, he feels it’s more a matter of fan demographics and who is buying tickets and watching games, which he feels is overwhelmingly a white male audience who follow the quarterback mainly.
Follow The Audience. Follow The Money.
“So, you might be listening to this and thinking that Domonique is arguing that the NFL is just flat out ‘I hate Black people racist,'” Foxworth continued. “No, it’s a different type of racism. It’s because they think that you are a ‘I hate Black people’ type of racist. They know that the stars of this entertainment property are the quarterbacks.
“That is who the people who are three degrees removed from you who’s a superfan they don’t know nobody but four or five quarterbacks’ names. And you know what they believe? The same way the NBA is probably concerned about all these international players, they know that the stars that sell consistently, that they have known to sell consistently are tall white dudes.”
Paging Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, and more are now being replaced with Lamar, Jalen, and Bryce Young.
But will the NFL institute some subtle measures to ease the White quarterback back to the center? If that fan money dips, Foxworth says to count on it.
