Tweet
By now we all know how horrible Cincinnati Bengals defensive end Joseph Ossai felt after the last-minute penalty that helped propel Kansas City to the Super Bowl.
His out-of-bounds shove to Patrick Mahomes' back set up Kansas City to hit a game-winning field goal in last Sunday's AFC championship game, and afterward Ossai sat on the bench crying. Later a teammate named Germaine Pratt, stalking into the Bengals' locker room, ripped Ossai in a fit of frustration for which he would later apologize.
Maybe we can console Ossai by reminding him that his penalty pushed the whole NFL closer to making history. Kansas City's last-second field goal clinched the AFC title, and sent them into a Super Bowl showdown against Jalen Hurts and the Philadephia Eagles. It will mark the first time in Super Bowl history that both teams will field a Black starting quarterback.
It's also fair for CFL fans with long memories to wonder why we should celebrate two Black QBs in a title game at this stage in pro sports history. I have a hazy recollection of Condredge Holloway and the Argos facing Roy Dewalt and the B.C. Lions in the 1983 Grey Cup — mostly I remember my parents shouting at the TV and high-fiving when the Argos won. But the first Grey Cup game to feature two Black quarterbacks actually happened in 1981, when Warren Moon's Edmonton Eskimos defeated J.C. Watts and the Ottawa Rough Riders.
Some of you are old enough to have seen that one, and to point out, correctly, that the NFL doesn't deserve a medal for crossing this particular finish line 42 years behind schedule.
It's worth remembering how outlandish a two-Black QB Super Bowl would have seemed in 1981, when Moon and Watts met in the Grey Cup. Moon, of course, was a Rose Bowl MVP quarterback at the University of Washington who began his pro career in Canada because NFL teams wanted to make him a tight end. Watts was a similarly decorated quarterback at the University of Oklahoma, who auditioned at several positions — none of them quarterback — after the New York Jets drafted him.
Nine years earlier, Chuck Ealey had a similar story. He went undefeated as a high school quarterback in Portsmouth, Ohio, and at the University of Toledo. Entering the 1972 draft, his agent advised teams to leave him alone if they didn't plan to play him at quarterback.
They left him alone.
Later that year he became the first Black quarterback to win a Grey Cup.
His out-of-bounds shove to Patrick Mahomes' back set up Kansas City to hit a game-winning field goal in last Sunday's AFC championship game, and afterward Ossai sat on the bench crying. Later a teammate named Germaine Pratt, stalking into the Bengals' locker room, ripped Ossai in a fit of frustration for which he would later apologize.
Maybe we can console Ossai by reminding him that his penalty pushed the whole NFL closer to making history. Kansas City's last-second field goal clinched the AFC title, and sent them into a Super Bowl showdown against Jalen Hurts and the Philadephia Eagles. It will mark the first time in Super Bowl history that both teams will field a Black starting quarterback.
It's also fair for CFL fans with long memories to wonder why we should celebrate two Black QBs in a title game at this stage in pro sports history. I have a hazy recollection of Condredge Holloway and the Argos facing Roy Dewalt and the B.C. Lions in the 1983 Grey Cup — mostly I remember my parents shouting at the TV and high-fiving when the Argos won. But the first Grey Cup game to feature two Black quarterbacks actually happened in 1981, when Warren Moon's Edmonton Eskimos defeated J.C. Watts and the Ottawa Rough Riders.
Some of you are old enough to have seen that one, and to point out, correctly, that the NFL doesn't deserve a medal for crossing this particular finish line 42 years behind schedule.
It's worth remembering how outlandish a two-Black QB Super Bowl would have seemed in 1981, when Moon and Watts met in the Grey Cup. Moon, of course, was a Rose Bowl MVP quarterback at the University of Washington who began his pro career in Canada because NFL teams wanted to make him a tight end. Watts was a similarly decorated quarterback at the University of Oklahoma, who auditioned at several positions — none of them quarterback — after the New York Jets drafted him.
Nine years earlier, Chuck Ealey had a similar story. He went undefeated as a high school quarterback in Portsmouth, Ohio, and at the University of Toledo. Entering the 1972 draft, his agent advised teams to leave him alone if they didn't plan to play him at quarterback.
They left him alone.
Later that year he became the first Black quarterback to win a Grey Cup.
Comment