The tipping point may end up being Justin Fields. That’s absolutely jaw-dropping because in a sane world, the tipping point should have been Lamar Jackson.
Yet the tipping point should have been Deshaun Watson. Or Teddy Bridgewater. Or Cam Newton. Or any time in the 21st century. Sinking a Black quarterback’s draft stock, reputation and image under the weight of transparently-racist stereotype-riddled commentary should had been left in the 20th century.
Where it also did not belong.
What’s happened more often over the past decade is only marginally more subtle than what happened throughout the previous history of the NFL, when teams simply moved Black quarterbacks to other positions with the explanation that the position was too cerebral and that their “athleticism” could be put to better use elsewhere.
Decades after the Tony Dungys of the world became defensive backs and the Warren Moons went undrafted and fled to Canada, the underlying reasons remain the same.
The powers-that-be in the sports just can’t quite envision a Black quarterback having the mental capacity, work ethic and leadership skills to be handed the most important position in the sport.
These days they don’t directly call Black quarterbacks dumb, lazy and shiftless, but they walk right up to the edge and imply it.
They walk as close as ESPN NFL analyst Dan Orlovsky did in the lead-up to this draft when he went on a podcast and decided to innocently pass along some scoop on Fields and his two years of dominance at Ohio State, from the always-popular anonymous scouts.
“I have heard that he is a last-guy-in, first-guy-out type of quarterback – like, not the maniacal work ethic,” said Orlovsky, offering no attribution, evidence or justification.
“Where is his desire to go be a great quarterback?’’ Orlovsky added. “I think that there’s a desire to be a big-time athlete, from what is expressed to me, but where is his desire to be a great quarterback?’’
Again, in a world not ruled by either insanity or white supremacy, Fields would never have to explain or justify his status at the very top of the quarterback class.
To step in as a first-time starter in 2019, as a junior and a transfer from Georgia, and put up the numbers he did; to lead not only his teammates but most of the entire movement by Big Ten teams to reverse the league’s decision and play through the 2020 pandemic; to survive the maze of cancellations, postponements, and outbreaks to get the Buckeyes to the playoff; to shake off the brutal hit in the playoff game against Clemson, throw six touchdown passes and eliminate Trevor Lawrence’s team to reach the title game against Alabama.
And finally to hold not one, but two pre-draft pro days to enhance his draft stock? None of that would send the message to anyone with eyes or ears that Justin Fields either doesn’t like to put in the work or doesn’t have the drive to excel.
That’s exactly the message the scouting, evaluating and commentator world spread about him, though. The deft moving of goalposts is a landmark of the traditional racist smear. So is mounting a criticism that can’t be disproven by tangible fact – it’s always those hazy “intangibles” about “football IQ” and “grit” and “want-to” that trip up the Fieldses every year. (That is, when outright lies won’t quite do: remember, one of the knocks against Lamar Jackson was that he “can’t throw.”)
The effort expended debunking what Orlovsky said, then, was barely worth it; it was devised specifically to be debunk-proof.
Neither was the time devoted to defusing the nonsense injected into the Fields discussion by otherwise-reputable ESPN insider Chris Mortensen.
We’re also well beyond the obvious comparisons between the language used to describe the white and Black players from the same position every year. Or the way the very attributes used to damn the prospects of Black quarterbacks are flipped to elevate the stock of the Carson Wentzes, Mitch Trubiskys, and Josh Allens in past drafts. (If you’re not beyond that, though, this report by three Penn State political scientists published in 2017 explains it succinctly.)
Insert the names Zach Wilson and Mac Jones from this draft class. You just never can tell when that athleticism will suddenly become attractive … except you always can. The smears, based on racist tropes that date back to our forced arrival on these shores four centuries ago, are only enhanced by the blatant double standards.
Watson came into the 2017 draft appearing to possess the full package of everything the sport claims to love in a quarterback. He eventually dropped to 12th overall and the third quarterback taken in 2017 because scouts harped on his interception total in his final season – one where he led Clemson to a second straight national title game. He went 10 spots behind Trubisky, for whom all his flaws and inexperience were forgiven because of his “upside” and “raw skills.”
A year later, Jackson’s “raw skills” were the reason given for why he should have been moved to another position (and why he made a point to refuse to run a 40-yeard dash in workouts).
Yet the biggest problem is not the over-eagerness of reporters, analysts and commentators to pass along predictably slanderous descriptions, in the hunger for access and the hottest of takes.
The problem is the evaluations, and the evaluators, themselves.
It’s rare that those who drag down the reputations of Black quarterbacks put their names and faces behind their words. Bill Polian, Hall of Fame executive, was the exception, and he was a big one. Polian is forever known as the guy who said in 2018 that Jackson, the future unanimous MVP, should be moved to wide receiver. (The technology gods have handed down their eternal punishment: Google “Bill Polian” and see the first phrase to auto-fill.)
Nolan Narwocki is in that exclusive club, too. He was the one who, in 2011 for Pro Football Weekly, described Newton as “very disingenuous” with a “fake smile” and a “sense of entitlement” who “will always struggle to win a locker room.’’
And Mike Mayock, now the general manager of the Raiders and then an expert at the NFL Network. He passed along the scuttlebutt that 2014 draft prospect Teddy Bridgewater was falling down the boards because scouts “had some concerns about whether or not this young man is ready to step up and be the face of a franchise.”
The norm, though, for the public face of these evaluations is disseminating ugly perceptions from scouts and evaluators who hide their identities.
The thread that runs through the fabric of pro football history is the consistent, almost-uninterrupted effort to deny, downgrade or diminish Black players who try to play quarterback. Occasionally in the last two or three decades, a surge of Black talent has navigated the landmines enough to raise the hope that the old days are left behind for good.
The dream that quarterbacks will be all evaluated by the same standards, and that Black quarterbacks will be evaluated the way Black players at every other position are, seems within reach.
Yet it remains out of reach because every candidate gets almost immediately burdened by the way they’re viewed by the people who will determine their fate in the league. On top of all the tests quarterbacks have to pass on the way to the draft, is the test of disproving something that’s been a lie for the entire existence of the league, the sport, the culture, the society, and their ancestors’ presence in the Americas.
An army of men with sharp eyes, wired brains and centuries of prejudice – but without the courage to identify themselves – found a way to chisel into the popular consciousness the perception that Justin Fields isn’t smart enough or hard-working enough for one of the top three teams in the draft to take a chance on.
Fields did nothing to earn or deserve that. Neither did Jackson, Watson, Bridgewater, or Newton. The rising young Black quarterback in the 2022, 2023, and 2024 drafts won’t earn or deserve it either.
Maybe one of them will be the tipping point, but don’t count on it. History – of the NFL and otherwise – says differently.
