Diversity has been the moving target that has forever eluded the NFL with far too many “close but not quite there” moments to fully account for.
But this Super Bowl will be one where the football gods have laid out the kind of historic first that speaks to what happens when decades of increased opportunity coincide with the brick-by-brick dismantling of decades-long stereotypes.
Super Bowl 57 features Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes at quarterback who has established himself as one of the most talented playmakers in the NFL.
The Chiefs are facing the Philadelphia Eagles whose quarterback is Jalen Hurts, a national championship-winning quarterback whose status in the NFL took a meteoric rise this season.
Never has there been a Super Bowl with both starting quarterbacks being Black.
This reality does more than speak to the growth and evolution of the Black quarterback in the NFL.
The sight of a Black quarterback being a starter, let alone a star, is no more an NFL anomaly.
One of the binding threads that’s woven into the fabric of most Black quarterbacks, is their ability to be able to sprint their way out of a pass rush, with the same effectiveness as a deep spiral pass.
That is where the evolution of the Black quarterback is, today.
They in so many ways serve as a reflection of the multi-faceted qualities—when given an opportunity to showcase them—that so many Blacks in other aspects of society, for far too long, were denied.
I think about past quarterbacks like Syracuse’s Don McPherson who was a runner-up for the Heisman Trophy spearheading an explosive option attack while mixing in a solid passing game.
But in the 1980s, the revolution had yet to arrive; a revolution that would recognize the power and purpose that a quarterback who was equally adept at running and throwing the ball, had significant value.
And that value achieved what every NFL team wants: to win at the highest level. Which brings us to Sunday’s matchup.
Mahomes has already won a Super Bowl and was recently named league MVP for the second time in addition to being named to the NFL’s All-Pro team for the second time.
Hurts isn’t quite as accomplished, but has shown all the signs that he too will be in that elite, championship-caliber conversation soon.
Mahomes was named to the NFL’s All-Pro First Team. The second team selection? That would be Hurts who is 24 years old—three years younger than Mahomes.
To see two of the NFL’s top quarterbacks on the grandest stage of them all at such an early stage in their careers, provides the kind of hope so many Black quarterbacks of the past never had.
Think about it.
There will be millions who will tune in to the game. Some will watch it in its entirety. Others will tune in more sporadically.
Among those viewers will be little Black boys who can actually envision themselves someday quarterbacking a team in the Super Bowl.
It’s the kind of “Representation Matters” moment that has the potential to not only change lives but also significantly alter the landscape of the NFL.
There’s a chance that there will be a Black star quarterback of the future who will lead his team to the Super Bowl and point to Sunday’s game as the moment that it became real to him that not only could you play in the biggest game of them all, but you just might face someone who looks a lot like you.
At this point, it doesn’t matter which quarterback emerges and leads his respective team to victory. Them simply being on this stage is a victory that goes far beyond winning a football game.
Mahomes and Hurts embody the change that so many have championed for, that so many have been cast aside and looked down upon who are now coveted.
They are the change that we all want to see—the kind of everlasting change that should be the first of many Black-on-Black quarterback battles for the ultimate prize in the NFL.