1st Black QB matchup in Super Bowl history represents progress

[ticatfan]

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.
https://www.cbc.ca/sports/black-quar...feb1-1.6734203

[Woodman]

The Bengals should not have made it to the 2nd round ....

The Chiefs should have faced the Ravens and we should have faced the Jags.

[Albany,n.y.]

Please let's stop the Warren Moon BS. This week I heard one of the players say, in response to the fact there are 2 black QB's in the game "Warren Moon wasn't allowed to play in the NFL" I'll forgive him because he young & has bought into that myth, here's the real story: Moon didn't like the fact that SOME teams wanted him to switch positions. He signed with the CFL BEFORE the NFL draft. If Warren Moon "wasn't allowed to play in the NFL" then why did Doug Williams get drafted in the 1st round of the same draft that Moon dodged to go to Canada? Every time I hear the Moon BS, I think that all the credit Moon gets is much more deserved by Doug Williams, a much better person off the field than Moon can ever dream of being. Moon is a wife beater & his whole story of how he ended up in the CFL is BS.

[Albany,n.y.]

put him in a time machine and send him back to 1980, and he likely starts his pro career in one of two places: In the background, like Doug Williams and Vince Evans, or in Canada, like Moon.

Nonsense: Williams was the starting QB for Tampa in the 1979 NFC Championship game, a year after he was the Bucs #1 pick. He was hardly in the background & in 1980 was coming off leading his team from a laughingstock to the NFL championship game in his 2nd season. That's not "in the background". Too bad the Canadian writer doesn't know what he's talking about when he talks about the NFL, or maybe he's too young to know much of anything that really happened in 1980.

[ticatfan]

Nice deflection. Lol

[Woodman]

Maybe we can console Ossai by reminding him that his penalty pushed the whole NFL closer to making history.

Or maybe he just ****ed up

[Night Train]

Side note : The first black QB's I remember were Marlon Briscoe in Denver and James Harris in Buffalo. Briscoe was later our All-Pro WR on a bad team. Harris could throw the ball a country mile and did play far more later on with the Rams. No question the White coaches and GM's back then believed these athletes didn't have the brains to play QB and remember the plays.

[Novacane]

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.

This part................................is fricken stupid.

[Novacane]

Too bad the Canadian writer .

Ah, ok. That explains why so stupid.

[Novacane]

Or maybe he just ****ed up

Maybe but I'm sure once someone pointed out to him that his **** up helped set up the first ever matchup of black QB's he was glad he did it. This writer is a GD idiot

[Woodman]

Maybe but I'm sure once someone pointed out to him that his **** up helped set up the first ever matchup of black QB's he was glad he did it. This writer is a GD idiot

That's for damn sure.