This year’s NFL playoffs will feature a record number of Black men who have thrived in leadership positions they rarely had the opportunity to hold in previous generations.
Three Black head coaches have reached the playoffs — Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin, Tampa Bay’s Todd Bowles and Houston’s DeMeco Ryans. Miami coach Mike McDaniel, who has a Black father and identifies as biracial, also is in the playoffs. No more than three Black coaches have reached the playoffs in any previous season.
An all-time high of six Black quarterbacks are starting among the 14 playoff teams — Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson, Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes, Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts, Dallas’ Dak Prescott, Green Bay’s Jordan Love and Houston rookie C.J. Stroud.
Having so many Black men succeed in two of the most visible cerebral leadership positions in American professional sports – NFL head coach and starting quarterback — should be celebrated, said N. Jeremi Duru, director of the Washington College of Law’s Sport & Society Initiative at American University. He said millions are watching them shatter the stereotype that Black men don’t have the mental acumen to excel in those kinds of roles.
Fritz Pollard became the NFL’s first Black head coach in 1921. He died before the Los Angeles Raiders hired the next one, Art Shell, in 1989. A report from The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) before the 2023 season shows there had only been 27 Black head coaches, including Pollard and McDaniel, in the more than 100-year history of the NFL. Even with the New England Patriots hiring Jerod Mayo as their first Black head coach on Friday, Duru said the fact that so few of the league’s 32 head coaches are Black when more than half of the players are Black is problematic.
“It’s important for us to seize upon and celebrate the triumphs that we are seeing now,” Duru said. “But we cannot lose sight of the fact that that triumph does not mean that the problem is solved.”
Thanks in part to their work, Black quarterbacks aren’t a rarity anymore. There were a record 14 Black starting quarterbacks at the beginning of this season. And with so many in the playoffs, it’s clear they are excelling.
“Shows how far we’ve come since people said there wouldn’t be that number consistently, just even starters — much less, these are in the playoffs, playing at a high level,” Prescott said. “Super, super honored.”
Still, there are issues with perception. Just recently, a radio host said Jackson wasn’t “quarterbacky enough,” saying he was more athlete than true quarterback. Jackson followed it by throwing five touchdown passes and posting a perfect passer rating in a 56-19 win over Miami. The team posted the stats on social media with the heading “Quarterbacky.”
Black quarterbacks celebrate each other’s success, in part, because they often face similar criticisms. Mahomes was thrilled when Hurts signed his five-year, $255 million extension last April. Mahomes’ Chiefs defeated Hurts’ Eagles last year in the first-ever Super Bowl matchup between Black starting quarterbacks.
