In a sport like football that takes itself way too seriously, there is no place more sacrosanct than the position room.
It’s the place where players who play the same position and the specific coaches who lead them congregate to contemplate in the days leading up to that week’s holy war.
For the Ravens, who opened their 2023 season Sunday against the Houston Texans, their quarterbacks room looked different than any other quarterbacks room in the 103-year history of the National Football League.
In that room are quarterbacks coach Tee Martin, assistant quarterbacks coach Kerry Dixon and signal callers Lamar Jackson, Tyler Huntley and Josh Johnson.
The three players and the men who coach them are the pulse points of the most important position on the football field. That they are all Black is not insignificant.
Sports sell themselves as meritocracies, where the only qualifications for success are that you be faster or stronger or occasionally smarter than your opponent.
And no sport sells its alleged equality more than football, which regularly wraps itself in the American flag. It is the most popular American sport, by far, yet also the sport that has been the slowest to embrace racial progress.
Football teams, be they collegiate or professional, have been glacier-like in moving to hire coaches of color. And until recently, the numbers of Black quarterbacks at either level have laughably low.
But the times are changing. More Black young men are lining up behind center at major colleges than ever. And a record 14 Black quarterbacks started in this weekend’s season opening NFL games.
That’s important, because of the prominence the position carries. It’s the glamour spot of athletics, the most visible and highest profile place to be in all of American sports.
And it has traditionally been dominated by White men, from Otto Graham and Sid Luckman in the early days through Johnny Unitas, Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw in the middle to Tom Brady more recently, the story of the NFL has historically been told through players of a certain color.
These days, the highest profile quarterbacks are Patrick Mahomes, the two-time Super Bowl winner from Kansas City, Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts, whose Eagles were bested by Mahomes last February in the Super Bowl and the Ravens’ Lamar Jackson.
Jackson, who signed a monster five-year contract in the offseason after much hemming and hawing, is one of only two players in NFL history to win the Most Valuable Player trophy unanimously, Brady being the other.
His ability to maneuver through traffic has made him one of the dynamic figures to watch in the league.
That Lamar Jackson is coached by two Black men and backed up by two others is a big deal. It’s presumably the first time in league history that a quarterback room has been completely filled by Black men.
The moment was so meaningful that the Ravens sent out a photo of the five without much comment. For 2023, the Baltimore quarterback room will be the room where it happens.
And that’s how I see it for this week. You can reach us via email with your questions and comments at Sports at Large at gmail.com. And follow me on Twitter and Threads at Sports at Large.
Until next week, for all of us here, I’m Milton Kent. Thanks for listening and enjoy the games.