Way back in the olden thymes, the assumption was that blacks were too dumb to play quarterback. Amazingly, people said this while Terry Bradshaw was leading the Steelers to championships. Before Super Bowl XIII, Cowboys linebacker Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson famously ridiculed Bradshaw by saying, “He is so dumb he couldn’t spell ‘Cat’ if you spotted him the ‘c’ and the ‘a’.” Whether or not Bradshaw was really that dumb has always been in question, given is long run of success after his playing career.
Still, it says something about the view of the position that people thought blacks could not play quarterback. It was not just racist white people either. Blacks generally thought this too. In the movie North Dallas Forty, there’s a line about it and no one was picketing the movie theaters over it. This idea has become so dangerous today that sports people have created a meta-language to describe it without ever actually saying it. Chattering skulls will just nod at one another whenever the subject is broached.
For a long time now the goal of football at all levels is to prove that blacks are better quarterbacks than whites. It is an obsession going on at least a twenty years, starting with Donovan McNabb. He was the first black QB to come along who allegedly had the intellect to do all the things white guys could do, but also possessed the special black magic that is so highly prized in the cult. McNabb’s inability to win the big game and become the great chocolate savior was frustrating for the Left. It is why they attacked Rush Limbaugh for noticing it.
In the last decade we have had Michael Vick held up as the new model quarterback, even after he was found to be a sadistic sociopath with a taste for torturing animals. The latest crop includes Cam Newton, Colin Kapernick, Russell Wilson and Robert Griffin III. None of these guys is very good at being an NFL quarterback. Wilson is the best of the bunch, but he acts white and votes Republican so the Left has trouble lauding him as their chocolate savior.
Newton and Kapernick are obvious dumbbells who will never be great at their position. Both were just big fast guys who can run like the wind, but that’s not a great skill for quarterback. The NFL has loads of big fast guys. The shortage is with smart guys who can run a modern NFL offense. Dummies that move their lips when they read can play other positions, but not quarterback. That’s why both of them are fading from the spotlight.
Robert Griffin III was going to be different. He is smart, charismatic, has the special black magic the Left values and he was not acting white like Wilson. The Left could look past Griffin’s politics because he had dreadlocks, which the Left associates with black culture. RG3 was the poster child for the “new” NFL and the “new” quarterback. I put “new” in quotes because this is about the tenth time we have gone through this. Now, Griffin’s career may be over.
Griffin has made close to $20 million and has millions in sponsorship money coming his way so no one needs to feel sorry for him. NFL careers are short and most guys find themselves as salary men before they hit their 25th birthday. Griffin is doing just fine and will probably have a long career in sportscasting after his football career. Even after his troubles in Washington, some team will give him another shot next year and maybe he can extend his career.
In many ways Griffin is emblematic of how the Left treats blacks as ornaments, not people. Griffin is a special athlete, but he was not trained to be an NFL quarterback in college. His college ran a system that allowed him to run around as a tailback, rather than as a NFL-style quarterback. Griffin should have sat and learned for a few years before getting on the field. Instead, the pressure to have the next great black quarterback put him on the field when he was not ready and he got his legs broken up trying to be a runner in a league unkind to runners.
Griffin is emblematic of the Left ‘s view of blacks. The Left does not see them as real people and instead treats them like ornaments to decorate their halls. When a black person is useful they get to sit at the big table, but as soon as they’re no longer useful, they are dispatched. You can see it happening with Obama as the Left distances themselves from a black guy they no longer find useful. Griffin will get the same treatment now as he is balled up and thrown away by the Left of Modern Liberalism.
Steve Sailer has an interesting post on this issue. There have been very few black quarterbacks ranked above average in the NFL.
It is a fact that Bradshaw wasn’t accepted into LSU and ended up at La Tech. That was all the evidence than many needed to conclude that he wasn’t the sharpest tack in the factory.
Remember that to be a successful quarterback in the NFL, you have to have been a QB your entire life. So, in youth football, the RG3’s and such were QBs, but they weren’t in a ‘pro style’ offense. They ran the ball all the time. Then, they get to college, and still play in a run-all-the-time offense. Yeah, maybe they can throw a little (RG3 at Baylor, for example), but they aren’t taught a drop back approach the way the successful QBs like Brady, Manning, or Rivers were. They don’t know how to be a drop back passer, because it isn’t what they were taught.
Intelligence? Probably a factor, but to me, the main thing was the style of offense they ran as a kid. Oh, and that is a function of their coaches – if the coach can’t teach it (like in most of the black youth programs), they won’t learn it.
I think Warren Moon was a successful black QB with the old Houston Oilers. He predated McNabb by at least 20 years. Of course, your observation of the modern era “cult” thing is correct.
Bradshaw, as pointed out, loves to play the hick because he is a smart and clever hick that became one of the best to ever play QB. He, along with other Steelers, helped forge the modern ‘sacred’ image the NFL finds so useful in fleecing fans of their cash.
Bradshaw may have enjoyed playing the hick all his life, but there is no reason to think his IQ does not fit into the Caucasian average, 95-105. That may or may not be at the lower end of what is required to understand an NFL offense under great pressure but we can assume that 85 is not going to make it, which cuts out six of seven blacks from that pool. No doubt in my mind that black NFL players are aware of what’s what. They are challenged and berated six days a week along with every one else to understand their assignments. They know why it is that the bolts holding together the QB come undone the quickest.