1) I'm not black. (Or Asian or Latin or Native American or biracial or Jewish or Muslim or any of the many, many cultural backgrounds that are prejudiced against much more than white Christian Americans.)
2) I believe there are PLENTY of people that still exist in this world and, yes, in this country, that have racist tendencies, or are just blatantly bigoted. It's a fact, and I wish it wasn't, but god only knows when that fact is going to change. I just hope the number decreases steadily through time.
3) I do not believe I know what it feels like to be prejudiced against because of my ethnicity. And I'm not claiming to.
I just got done reading an article on ESPN.com from Jemele Hill, who I think is a good writer, not that I agree with 100% of the things she says, but she usually comes up with pretty solid topics, albeit sometimes controversially. Here's a link to the article in question. (Likewise, here's a column by Jason Whitlock about LeBron playing the race card.)(And here is an article written by a blogger who seems to appropriately balance the argument in a thoughtful way.) Hill seems to sort of take this waffling stance on the treatment of black quarterbacks--that yes, the ones in question (Donovan McNabb, Jason Campbell, Vince Young) have at times underperformed, most notably Young, but that also their treatment has not been 100% on the up-and-up, going so far as to say that Jeff Fisher doesn't trust VY, and his mistrust has fed into a sour environment for the two.
On top of that, I read a comment in a chat with Bill Simmons yesterday from someone saying: "Funny how you'll blame Vince Young for the issues in Nashville but not acknowledge his career success and Jeff Fisher's lack of it..." What? Jeff Fisher's lack of career success? First of all, he's a head coach in the NFL, and he's the longest-tenured one at that. Something about that SCREAMS "career success" to me. Secondly, he's won 25 more games as a head coach than he's lost. Third, if you think Vince Young has succeeded in the NFL without help from his HEAD COACH, you're just insane. And as far as Fisher's mistrust of Young leading to the sour environment goes, that's a chicken-and-egg argument basically claiming that the chicken made the egg and it's a done deal. I'm a big sports fan. I read stuff from all over, it doesn't have to be my home team. And I read stuff from all sorts of sources--journalists, bloggers, stat people, beat reporters, former players. The bottom line on Vince Young seems to be that he's a pretty talented guy who just doesn't seem to have "gotten it" yet in the NFL. It could be that he was just so dominant in college that he never developed the proper work ethic. He could roll out there on the field and simply walk through teams (as he did on the BCS-winning touchdown run). To make it in the NFL, you need a little bit more than that. Donovan McNabb "got it" and I don't think you'll read anything from anyone claiming otherwise. He works his ass off, he studies up, he showed Michael Vick the difference between putting up stats and winning games (and look how Vick has taken that to heart). He's gotten it for sure--and maybe part of that is because he was criticized so early. Eagles fans wanted Ricky Williams (they were unaware of how insane he was) but Andy Reid went with McNabb because he thought it was an opportunity they couldn't pass up. McNabb came from Syracuse and knew he'd have to prove himself. Young came from Texas and a national championship and thought, "What the heck--I thought I already proved myself?" Some people are just wired differently.
The criticisms on the field that I've seen time and time again of Young don't seem that insane to me. He struggles with accuracy and making quick decisions (these were, for a long time, criticisms of Eli Manning), but he's a hell of a downfield passer and throws a pretty deep ball on top of all the playmaking ability with his legs. I don't know how to say it other than those comments seem pretty dead-on. Now, the flip side of it is, he's had a tough time dealing with team management issues. He doesn't seem to be able to handle getting benched, apparently he's missed a bunch of team meetings, and the bottom line is that you can't really have that from your quarterback--or any of the key players on the team. He disrespected Fisher to his face, perhaps as a result of his feeling that Fisher must have a grudge against him dating back to last season, when Fisher stuck with Kerry Collins through an 0-6 start. Here's a thought: YOU bench your starting quarterback after a 13-3 season. Go ahead, see how easy it is. Was six games too many? Should Fisher have pulled the plug sooner? (By the way, here's the six teams Collins lost to in that stretch: @ Pittsburgh, Houston, @ NY Jets, @ Jacksonville, Indianapolis, @ New England.) If Fisher has a mistrust of Young, perhaps it's because of Young. Not because of his skin color. To make the claim that Fisher doesn't trust a black quarterback is to EGREGIOUSLY overlook the fact that Fisher tabbed Steve McNair as his starting quarterback for the better part of TEN SEASONS, and McNair to this day is the best Titan in team history (Tennessee, not Houston). It seems irresponsible, or lazy, to suggest that the issues in the Titans' clubhouse are related to race. At least, if that were the case, it would mean that Fisher is weirdly selective about who he is racially biased against, choosing only those who seem to openly disrespect him.
I'm not going to sit here and say that there aren't people out there who probably don't trust Young as a quarterback because he's black. It's a shitty reality of this world. But what I am thinking is that those people are fans (or "fans") in some regard, onlookers, and not the men pulling the strings behind the curtain. Could it be writers? Perhaps. But from what I've seen, analysts' critiques of Vince have been pretty fair. He's found himself on his fair share of Greatest College Players Ever lists, and I think few people doubt that his Rose Bowl game against USC ranks as one of the all-time top performances in the sport. But his wild success in college masked a problem that seems to be coming out in the pros--he can't handle failure very well. And I mean even small failures, in game, not being able to stand boos, or being injured and missing games. Somehow, critics have turned Fisher's action of not sending Young back into the game into him "not trusting" Young. "If Brett Favre was hurt like that, would a coach stop him from going back in?" Probably not. But Brett Favre is a hall of fame quarterback who has played hurt many, many times and played successfully. Vince Young, in his short career, has occasionally had injuries that linger and recur. If Fisher sends him back out there and Vince is injured more severely on the next play, wouldn't that suggest that Fisher "doesn't care what happens to him"? It seems like he's damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. Apparently trying to protect your franchise quarterback from injury gets you nowhere these days.
I've been trying to think of ways to address the Jason Campbell problem this whole time, but I don't think I can come up with anything. Campbell has been a solid quarterback in the NFL. Solid, but unspectacular. The Redskins decided they didn't want him anymore, so they dealt him. Certainly it had everything to do with race, since they replaced him with--oh, that's right, a black quarterback. And the Raiders are probably biased against Campbell too, since they've never--oh, that's right, they tried every way they could to get JaMarcus Russell to succeed after drafting him #1 overall. The Raiders never bet the house on Campbell. They traded for him because it was an opportunity to acquire a solid NFL quarterback at a reasonable price, and they certainly didn't have their mind made up as to who would be starting for them. They don't have the luxury of a Peyton Manning or even a Sam Bradford--someone who they know they're going to stick with. But I've paid a decent amount of attention to this team for the last few years, and in my honest opinion, Bruce Gradkowski is the best quarterback they have, and have had for the last couple seasons. He's not awesome, but I think he's fiery and aggressive and makes plays. He's probably not that much better than Campbell, but right now this team has a poor pass offense, period, regardless of who is behind center.
And it's no secret that I love McNabb. I've written about it extensively, and I will openly admit it to anyone. He was my favorite player during his whole run as an Eagle, and honestly, I probably wouldn't BE an Eagles fan if it weren't for him. I don't understand Mike Shanahan's move at the end of the Lions game. Simply put. It didn't make sense, I was angry, I thought he took a winnable game and threw it in the garbage, and followed up by making a bunch of weird excuses that didn't make sense. But what does that have to do with him not liking him for his race? There's no way that Shanahan simply mistrusts Donovan as a black quarterback. Rick Reilly, who has recently written a lot of garbage, pointed out a lot of counter-arguments in a recent column.
Surely, McNabb was at the center of the Rush Limbaugh firestorm. But Rush is an idiot and spouts a lot of baloney and white people will tell you that. He likes being edgy. McNabb handled the ordeal with a lot of class. And, just like Young, McNabb definitely has his doubters out there, and some of them probably simply doubt him because of his race. But what position of power are those people in? Are they running the team? Are they writing the national columns? Are they on television in front of millions? I don't believe they are. ESPN saw to it that Limbaugh wasn't anymore. People out there are going to hate other people for whatever reason they want. You can't stop that from happening. Does that mean that there's a culture brewing in the NFL that signals mistrust of black quarterbacks? I don't think so. Wins bring dollars, and dollars make owners happy. Happy owners make happy coaches and happy players. That's the bottom line, literally, and I think you can see that from the Vick story that's been going on. As much as people hated him for what he did and as scummy a guy he was, he's winning games and lighting the field up, and the team has to stick with him--AND fans are loving it. McNabb brought a lot of wins to Philadelphia and a lot of people love him for it. But he also never brought that ONE particular win and a lot of people are upset about it. What are you going to do? Remember when Peyton Manning was the guy who could never win "the big one" before he finally did? It happens. Nobody doubted that Peyton was a good quarterback. He just was the guy you'd always bet against in the playoffs. The Eagles got rid of them because of a certain team philosophy that suggests not holding onto assets until they're worthless. It sucks. Did McNabb have more productivity in him? For sure. But so did Brian Dawkins when he was let go. So did Brian Westbrook. So did Sheldon Brown. The management of the team just has a philosophy to keep the wheels churning and bring in new talent. If it didn't work, they wouldn't do it. Now the Eagles are 7-3 and everyone's favorite to win the NFC. You can argue that it was rude of them to trade McNabb when they did, but you can't argue that they didn't have winning football games at the top of their priorities when they did. Fans may delude themselves into thinking that winning one season is all that matters. They'd trade in ten winning seasons for one Super Bowl and nine winless years. But that's just what I said--delusion. It's not good business, it's not good management, it's not good for team spirit. You try to win as many games for as long a time as you can. Andy Reid decided it was time to cut ties with Donovan, when he could still get decent value for him, and Reid did him a favor by trading him to a team with money that was still capable of competing.
As much as I love McNabb, the comments that he made that Hill attributes to him in her article seem a little misguided. For one, they were made in 2007, which is a weirdly long time ago when referencing players like Peyton Manning and Carson Palmer. In 2007, Carson Palmer was a very promising young quarterback with a couple excellent seasons under his belt and the Bengals seemed to be turning this around. If he wasn't criticized at that time, it was because the Bengals had been so purely awful for so long that to see them succeed was joyous for everyone involved. And I once again don't understand the short term memory that people have regarding Manning. He was trounced routinely for not being able to win the big one, despite being statistically a tremendous quarterback and winning a lot of games in the regular season. Then he finally won one, and after that point, has continued to lead winning seasons and play lights-out. If he is criticized rarely, it is because he is one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history. But that doesn't mean he was never criticized.
Finally, towards the end of the article, Hill points out that a lot of people suggested Vick move to another position other than quarterback when he returned from prison. Certainly this was because he was a black quarterback, and not because he missed TWO YEARS in prison. The fact that Vick even returned to football at all was a nod to his superior athletic talents. People suggested that he come back in a different role because he threw away his career by being a criminal, because few teams were knocking down his door to come back and be a starting quarterback (which he wanted), and because they thought he could be useful immediately by playing a wildcat or splitback. Suggesting that those comments were motivated by race would be to act blind to the facts: he missed a huge portion of time in prison, potentially irreversibly affecting his timing and rhythm; teams in the league had moved on and worked with new quarterbacks; he was an amazingly effective runner in Atlanta but not as effective passing; making him your starting quarterback would have been handing the keys to someone fresh off of a federal felony conviction who was teetering on the edge of Roger Goodell's death list. It was a very specific case, one that most analysts had absolutely no history dealing with. So they attacked it specifically. And if simply suggesting he moves positions is a strictly "black quaterback" thing, then I would present to you the following: Tim Tebow, Matt Jones, Julian Edelman, Scott Frost, Eric Crouch. Quarterbacks are suggested to change positions all the time, based on their skill sets. It's not restricted to black quarterbacks only.
I know that there is a lot of pressure on black quarterbacks to succeed. But there's a lot of pressure on everyone in the NFL to succeed--white, black, everything in between. And I acknowledge that, as they say, "haters gonna hate," but to take these issues that are popping up with some of the NFL's talent and suggest that they are racially motivated seems a little bit narrow-sighted to me. Anyone associated with the NFL knows that it's impossible to overstate the contributions made by black players--at all positions.
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