More Than an Athlete: The Problem With Coverage of Black QBs

Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady’s names have been synonymous with NFL success since the early 2000s. Yet the two have spent the 2022 season embroiled in controversy while their teams hover around and below the .500 mark, a strange phenomenon for the two quarterbacks with a combined seven MVP awards and eight Super Bowl rings crowding their trophy shelves.

Rodgers’ persistent  refusal  to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and disregard for the League’s pandemic-related protocols, as well as Brady’s recurring  meltdowns  on the sidelines during the  finalization  of his divorce from former wife Gisele Bündchen, dominated football headlines for most of the season. NFL fans are reading and hearing about Brady and Rodgers’ personal lives rather than comeback victories and record-breaking performances.

Despite most of the media attention focusing on off-the-field controversies, ​​quarterbacks of color have cemented their role as the future of the NFL. Jalen Hurts has navigated the Philadelphia Eagles to an NFL-best 12-1 record, while the Seattle Seahawks’ Geno Smith and Miami Dolphins’ Tua Tagovailoa, who is Samoan, have led their teams into playoff contention. Former NFL Most Valuable Player Award winners Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes have once again propelled their teams atop the AFC standings.

Rodgers and Brady are losing their status as top-rated quarterbacks in terms of statistics and team success, yet their behavior has failed to radically shift public opinion and media coverage of their skillset. In Colin Kaepernick’s case, controversy surrounding his decision to kneel during the national anthem before NFL games led to teams  refusing  to sign him to their roster. For Brady and Rodgers, there have been no consequences.

Journalists hold the power not only to decide what gets covered in the NFL, but also to influence fans’ perceptions of players. Specifically looking at the difference between Black and white quarterbacks, media coverage can shape the public understanding of what a good quarterback in the NFL should look like, and who is deemed successful.

Black quarterbacks’ success has come to define a new generation of quarterbacks with strong passing and running abilities. Yet this comes at a price: Black quarterbacks are often solely described by their athletic abilities.

Andrew Billings, a journalism professor at the University of Alabama, says NFL coverage has historically relied on stereotypes to characterize Black quarterbacks.

“We’ve had stereotypes of white athletes as born or innate leaders, whereas Black athletes are portrayed or more often portrayed as being natural athletes gifted with athleticism, having almost too much talent to the point that they don't even need to try as hard,” Billings says.

Braynard “Bobby” Brown, a former NFL wide receiver for the Cleveland Browns, says football fans’ perception of quarterback success often hinges on implicit racial biases.

“For so long, when Americans have heard the word quarterback – whether consciously or subconsciously – the first visual that comes to mind is a white player,” Brown said. “And when you hear the intangibles that are necessary and typical of successful quarterbacks, they are normally associated with white quarterbacks.” 

Black quarterbacks’ success this season, coupled with the decline of players such as Brady and Rodgers, may usher in a new era of coverage and treatment of Black quarterbacks. Billings says an increase of Black quarterbacks at the professional level promotes coverage that does not rely as heavily on stereotypes to describe their style of play. 

“Part of that is simply getting to the point of critical mass to the point that you can have enough Black quarterbacks in the NFL that they don't feel the world of weight on their shoulders of having to either live up to or defy whatever stereotypes people might have,” Billings notes.

From 1999 to 2014, the percentage of Black quarterbacks in the NFL hovered around 20% annually, although that number  increased  to 34% by 2022. Of the record-high 13 non-white quarterbacks who started during Week 1 of the 2022 NFL season, 11 are Black.

However, Matt Blaustein, a sports communication and journalism student at the University of Wisconsin who works as a commentator for the Big Ten Network, remains concerned about how older NFL fans are reacting to the new class of primarily Black quarterbacks.

“I recently had an interaction with a white fan on Twitter and he said, ‘This new generation of quarterbacks is awful. I want to go back to the old generation; they clearly have more skills to run the ball.’” Blaustein says. “I responded, ‘That’s inherently wrong, because, statistically, people are playing the best football of all time right now. And saying ‘this new generation’ implies that this new class of predominantly Black quarterbacks is inferior.’” 

According to Billings, the historic lack of Black representation at the quarterback position may be due to Black athletes self-selecting or feeling obligated to play different positions in football due to racial stereotypes, a phenomenon he calls "stacking."

“You're more likely to see white players on the offensive or defensive lines and at the quarterback position, and Black athletes are more likely to be placed in running back, wide receiver, secondary type positions because of a lot of those preconceived notions,” Billings says.

As the number of superstar Black quarterbacks in the NFL increases, journalists’ implicit biases have powerful implications for how fans perceive quarterback success in the NFL, according to Billings.

“Tua Tagovailoa is leading the league in quarterback rating right now,” Billings says. “If journalists comment on his accuracy or pocket passing, is that commenting in a positive way? Or is it that you're commenting because you find it noteworthy and different from what you expected?”

David Niven, a political scientist at the University of Cincinnati, says covert ways of stereotyping Black and white quarterbacks often require deeper thinking about how positive language can be used with negative connotations.

“Largely, you're treating the white quarterback as the more thoughtful participant and the Black quarterback as the more athletic participant, which obviously has both good and bad connotations,” Niven says. “Everybody would want to be intelligent and athletic if they could choose their portrayal.”

Blaustein says he has noticed how racial stereotypes play into coverage of and subsequently damage the public perception of successful nonwhite quarterbacks.

“When Tua messes up, even though Tua has the highest completion percentage in the NFL, people always rag on him, saying, ‘He’s a fake quarterback. He’s a fraud.’” Blaustein says. “And when Jalen Hurts plays, it’s, ‘He’s only good when he runs,’ when, as a matter of fact, he has been one of the most accurate quarterbacks in the NFL. But when a white quarterback like Joe Burrow or Justin Herbert consistently misses passes or regularly makes errors, people just say, ‘They’re great young quarterbacks — it’s just an outlier.’”

Vince Filak, a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, says he has found through his research that by consistently framing Black and white quarterbacks differently, it becomes impossible to separate individual athletes from these stereotypes.

“It's very much in the line of what they would call covert racism,” Filak said. “Now, in one or two instances, you can look at something and think, ‘Well, that might be true, right?’ But when you notice it repeatedly, and it keeps falling along these lines, that's where the problems really start to come in.”

Billings says Black quarterbacks such as Jackson and Kyler Murray face certain criticisms about longevity and injury risk that white quarterbacks, even those with a similar playing style, do not encounter.

“What we're trying to get a sense of is whether we've built in some elements of devaluing the Black quarterback who doesn't become a pocket passer in the way we talk about their contracts,” Billings said. “The reason that we’re given for not paying Jackson top dollar is that we don’t think his style will last. And yet we assumed that Josh Allen is big enough and strong enough to survive even when he arguably plays the quarterback position even more recklessly than Lamar Jackson.”

These double standards also come to light regarding off-field issues. Black quarterbacks are often scrutinized for actions that white quarterbacks are praised for, according to Rushil Vashee, a beat writer for USA Today covering the Carolina Panthers. 

“Cam Newton was a huge character off the field, and he had in a lot of ways the same energy or competitiveness off the field that Brady or Mayfield get lauded for,” Vashee says. “Yet in a lot of media coverage, he was criticized for his outfits at press conferences and a lot of people said he wasn't focused on the game and was too busy with the entertainment side and not the sports side. I think a lot of it did come down to the color of his skin.”

Former Kansas Chiefs and Atlanta Falcons General Manager and Patriots Director of Player Personnel Scott Pioli doubled down on this sentiment, especially concerning media coverage of Los Angeles Rams quarterback Baker Mayfield.

“If Baker Mayfield didn’t look the way he does, think about the words that would’ve been used to describe him,” Pioli says. “Instead, he’s a ‘fiery competitor,’ right? ‘That Baker Mayfield, he’s got a lot of moxie.’ He is a rockstar without a concert.”

These stereotypes are also prevalent throughout the NFL Draft process. Blaustein says he noticed front-office executives also perpetuating stereotypes about Black quarterbacks when analyzing Lamar Jackson. 

“When you look at these quarterbacks like Lamar Jackson, who came out of Louisville winning a Heisman and one of the most accredited college quarterbacks of all time, you still had Indianapolis Colts’ GM Bill Polian say Jackson was ‘not bad for a running back,’” Blaustein recalls. “And when Polian received criticism for that, he said, ‘Oh, no, I meant he is athletic.’ But it was pretty clear what he actually meant.”

Being portrayed as a running back had damaging consequences for Jackson. Despite many mock drafts  predicting  he would be a top-20 pick in a quarterback-heavy draft class, Jackson was selected with the last pick of the first round of the 2018 draft.  Four white quarterbacks were drafted before Jackson, yet only Jackson faced  questions  about his ability to play the quarterback position. 

Jeff Hughes, a DaBearsBlog  writer , notes, “[The term] athlete can start to have a negative connotation, where GMs think ‘we can take this athlete and put him at tight end, we can take this athlete and put him at wide receiver’ – why? Because that’s the Black athlete stereotype.” 

Racially biased draft evaluations extend beyond Jackson. In an analysis of 22 years of draft coverage conducted in 2008, Black quarterbacks were more often  described  positively in terms of their athleticism and arm strength, while experts praised white quarterbacks’ leadership abilities, intelligence and decision-making. 

However, Black quarterbacks’ success may help change the way journalists cover them. Doug Mintz, a lifelong Baltimore Ravens fan, says that he has noticed that as Jackson has become more successful, criticism of his style of play has decreased. 

“I do think in his first season, there was definitely a little bit of a racial element in some of the criticism of Lamar,” Mintz says. “I don’t think it will ever be over, but it did change somewhat as he proved himself in the NFL.”

Brown adds that quarterbacks like Jackson are important to disprove stereotypes not only with respect to their play, but their leadership as well. 

“I do think it takes the coming to fruition of players like Lamar Jackson, proving the doubters wrong when it comes to his decision making, when it comes to his prowess in the pocket, and when it comes to his leadership,” Brown says. “Because the proof is in the pudding.”

The lack of representation at the quarterback position parallels a lack of diversity in the sports media and coaching fields. Without Black journalists and coaches to offer their perspectives, stereotypes often triumph.

Vashee notes the importance of diversity in the newsroom when covering sports.

“The media should convey the opinions of people and fans and players too, and it's really difficult to do that where there’s such a lack of experiential diversity and demographic diversity in the media,” Vashee says. “It’s very hard to change stereotypes when you don’t have diversity in reporting, coaching and mentorship.”

In 2018, only  19%  of national and regional NFL broadcasters were Black, despite the fact that around 70% of players were Black. The perpetuation of stereotypes of Black quarterbacks through football coverage corresponds with the disproportionate representation of Black broadcasters in a majority-Black league.

Pioli says that while diversity is important, it must be coupled with action from white journalists and coaches to improve their language choices.

“When you’re starting below zero – which is what racism is – what does progress mean? It is improving, but nowhere near where we need [it] to be,” Pioli notes. “We need to use the privilege that we have as white males to hold people accountable without attacking them.” 

Pioli says that increasing the number of Black quarterbacks may not be sufficient to change their representation and coverage in a white-dominated industry. 

 “As long as we have the good old white boy network behaving in certain ways, [implicit bias] is always going to exist,” Pioli says.

Vashee says coaches’ own stereotypes can change the way they treat Black quarterbacks on their teams.

“When the entire GM, coaching and ownership of the NFL is white and then the majority of players are Black, it's hard to change many of those stereotypes because those coaches, owners and GMs have those stereotypes and they’re gonna coach the way that they see the player,” Vashee says. 

The NFL’s 2022 Diversity and Inclusion Report highlights the historic lack of diversity at the coaching level in the NFL.

“Only 19 different African American men, four Latino American men, one Lebanese American individual, and one multiracial individual have served as head coaches from 1963 through February 2022,” the  report  reads.

Without representation at the head coaching level, it becomes difficult for Black quarterbacks to overcome stereotyped views, according to Vashee.

“Coaches are often not representative of players and therefore can't really help them succeed in the ways that representative coaches would,” Vashee notes. “And I think it's really telling that the NFL isn't really moving toward diversity at all.”

Despite facing constant criticism regarding playing style and off-field actions, Black quarterbacks have excelled, exemplified by their success throughout the 2022 season. However, the continued existence of racial stereotypes in media coverage indicates the need for efforts to address these implicit biases. 

Brown notes the different “puzzle pieces” necessary to improve the perception and treatment of Black quarterbacks in football — from high school to the NFL. 

“Coaches overcoming their own biases is also part of it. Black quarterbacks being willing to endure the sacrifice and some of the suffering, at least psychologically, is also part of it. Someone stepping up, saying, ‘I can do it,’ and overcoming these biases is part of it,” Brown says.

Billings says that as journalists become more cognizant of their language choices and the disparities in coverage of quarterbacks, it is important for them to notice and acknowledge race.

“People sometimes don't comment on race because they see it as a third rail and say, ‘It's best to just treat all of them as if I'm colorblind,’ which I think is unethical,” Billings adds. “That doesn't mean every NFL game needs to have comments about race, but it does mean you've got to see it. You know what this person's reality has been racking up, but they've had a different lived experience that is at least partially tinged by their racial identity.”

When asked about what he deems the most crucial puzzle piece in the fight to eliminate racial biases in covering Black quarterbacks, Brown spoke about the power of activism.

“The most important part is, whenever we see it — whether it be in the media, whether it be in youth football program, or in the league — we have to call it out,” Brown says. “We have to call it out for what it is. It's a part of this new age thinking, and it’s a version of activism that we call it out and don't allow it to continue.”