The Right Time with Bomani Jones - Michael Smith on Michael Vick, Cam Newton, Lamar Jackson & 25 years of the Black QB | 08.13

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

Bomani Jones is joined by his former ESPN colleague, Michael Smith, to break down how the conversation around black quarterbacks has shifted over the last 25 years. They explore the extent of the shift, offering how far the conversation has shifted, giving examples like Lamar Jackson, Shedeur Sanders, Teddy Bridgewater, and Justin Fields. Later, they discuss the growing prevalence of black QBs at all levels of football & reminisce about some forgotten black quarterbacks who never got the chance to reach their potential. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time, a wave original. My name is Beaumani Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. We have wrapped up our list of the top 25 athletes of the last 25 years.

We've given episodes around them to offer a bit of context for things that have gone on in the last 25 years. and of course, joining us now, the man who needs no introduction, New Orleans' E's own Michael Smith was going on. Not much, man. What's happening with you? Hey, man, I was in Vegas a couple weeks ago. Way, man, wasn't the same without you. I lost a lot of money, too.

Not like a lot, lot, lot, lot, you know what I'm saying? But I was not victorious. That's why I forgot to send you the text messages with the updates. But did you enjoy it, though? Had a ball. Had a ball. You know, that's, that's all it could be. So my first, yeah, I won't take up too much time with this,

but I'll just remind you that my first real visit to Vegas was with you. And when we sat on at that blackjack table, you reminded me. It's like, look, man, you earned it. This is about enjoying yourself. If you here to make money, you've got a bigger problem. That is what I tell people all the time. Like, I give people like, I just don't like giving away my money. And that's only kind of true because people give away their money in all kinds of ways.

You spend money on all kinds of things where you don't get people. get anything back. The problem is if you approach it with the plan of I'm going to walk out of here with more money than I came with. That strategy is, what's the word I'm looking for here? Fraught. Right, right, right. As an exercise of futility more often than not. Right. And you know what? It is keeping the place going. But I tell you this, I don't know if you've seen this, but they've been reporting about like Vegas being down. And I'll be honest, it felt a little slower. But it's also worth noting it's so goddamn hot that like summer Vegas is now like

a whole different animal you better gamble. I can only imagine I could only imagine. Like you better gamble otherwise you're going to fry. You know what I'm saying? Could before you move on I'm going to just make a request? Like can you, can we do a podcast one day where we just give the inside story

of our last trip to Vegas? I think you can pull that off. Okay. I just I just remember some of our shenanigans that last time. with that art, that art exhibit that we went to. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, we can get around to the immersive, immersive man, go. That installation. Yeah, that's what they call in the business of tease. We got to find out the next time we dive into that. Yes, it was a great day. I forgot what that thing was. I was about to say it's not a big deal. We need to talk about black quarterbacks anyway.

That's what I wanted to talk about with you. The last 25 years of black quarterbacks. Now, I'm going to run something by you. You don't even know that I'm going to run this by you, but I think you'll have thoughts on it. And I'm curious. So when Lamar Jackson came up in our countdown, I made the point that it is entirely possible

that he will go down as the last black quarterback to really get treated like we thought of black quarterbacks being treated and evaluated, right? Like the one that didn't run a 40-yard dash because you're afraid they're going to try to make a run-back kick, slips all the way down, everything else. Switch positions. Right.

Yeah. Right. I think something we don't talk nearly enough about, and I think it is important in these spaces for us to celebrate our victories because it can be very easy and understandable to lock in on everything that's left to do, right? Tyrod Taylor bounces around and makes eight figures to be a backup now. That was something that did not happen for black quarterbacks at a different point of time.

So you and I, we would talk about Aaron Brooks, quarterback. for the Saints who I think people think of negatively, but when you think about it as the second best quarterback in the history of the franchise, if you really go through it. Aaron Brooks's career was seven years and he was out of there. Not because he went to go do television or whatever, but a guy that

was a legitimate starting quarterback. Right? Like he was a, he went for the Saints to the Raiders and he was bad with the Raiders, never to be seen again. Those sorts of things don't seem to happen the same way. That boy, Snoop Huntley, keep turning up places.

Somebody be calling Josh Johnson all the time. Josh Johnson got more jobs. He'd have been on every team multiple times. Yes. Yeah. Talk about a journeyman. It's like he's like a throwback collector. He got a Mitchell and Ness Closie at his crib.

All of that's the same. We have to acknowledge that there are things that have changed in the ways that we see black quarterbacks, where they get drafted, everything else. And it's been a fascinating evolution, I think, that once we got to where it was, I wonder how much of it is that media stopped. covering more of the important societal type things that surround the game.

But this millennium really starts, 0-1 is the year that Michael Vick goes as the number one overall pick. You fast forward to 2025. We had a black quarterback go number one overall. 2024, we had a black quarterback go number one overall. 2023, we had a black quarterback go number one overall. I think they meant eight since Vic, yeah. Yeah, like we, it's not there.

there are still things, but it's not, Gino Smith was able to get back to having a career. And then get traded and get a contract. Oh, the progress is incredible, man. I'm so glad you,

this, I didn't know what you were going to say, but I knew what the subject matter was. And, you know, you and I are usually on the same wavelength. And that's kind of what I was thinking about is just how far we've come. I mean,

because you hate to get complacent. You hate to feel like, or we have overcome. I mean, but we're overcoming, I guess. And to your point, all I could think about is I was watching the draft. And I was watching the commentary and the outrage about Shador Sanders sliding is, man, we didn't come a long way to where we are complaining about an injustice of a quarterback who is lauded for his accuracy and intelligence, not as a theracism, sliding to the fifth round of the draft. When there were once in a part of time, some of the best black quarterbacks in the country

would have just been happy to be drafted to play quarterback to be drafted in any round. Forget the first round. I mean, Doug Williams going 17 was history at the time. That was the first one. Right. They were like, people were white media, mainstream media, upset.

Now I know he's Deion's kid and all that, but upset because the consensus at the time, second best quarterback prospect in this class slipped to the fifth round. And I'm like, man, it's, wow. We have come such a long way in the discourse and the conversation about black quarterbacks because it's so prominent, so successful, so well compensated, the highest paid players in the league, Dak Prescott, for example, black quarterback.

And maybe somebody who's going to challenge for the conversation as the goat is a black quarterback. So, yeah, man, it's really mind-boring how quickly it happened. Because that's a snapshot of time. And that's what I'm curious about right there as I think about it is I don't think we'd be able to find like a clear inflection point, right? There are like there are little things that pop up to make you go, huh. For example, Kyle Murray, a diminutive fellow for a quarterback being the number one overall pick, right? Right, right.

And somebody that you basically go and hire, I mean, it's hard to tell exactly. Do you hire the head coach because you're going to take Kyle of Murray. You take Caller Murray because he had the head coach. But even still, it all went in that direction. But if you go back and I was thinking about this, to 2014, that was the year that the first quarterback to go was Blake Bortles. But the two most prominent quarterbacks in that first round were Johnny Mansell and Teddy Bridgewater. And I remember that was the first NFL draft after I had moved to Miami. So I was working with Dan Levittart who could be, I would have contended a tad bit naive about certain things.

And so going into that draft, I remember telling him, I was like, look, just you watch what happens to Teddy. Now, Teddy ultimately proved to be a mid-to-fringe level starting quarterback, right? Like, he didn't have- By the way, who just got another job? He just did, right, right, who just did, right? But he was not, I mean, we went into that draft with people saying that he was going to that season. He was the first quarterback that would probably go. He wound up going number 32 in the draft. I remember.

You had these moments in drafts where you remember this with brothers that were going through at this point in time. It was Johnny Mansell has big hands. Therefore, it does not matter that he is short, even though being short had been treated like a death knell for quarterbacks the whole way. And now suddenly the ability to run a professional offense. Yeah. And do all the stuff that Teddy Bridgewater was known for.

Suddenly none of those things mattered anymore. And all that mattered was this. This little guy had big hands. So now we're going to eliminate the height and maybe he could scurry around a little bit. And now, look, it turns out without question, the pit, if you needed one, should have been Teddy Bridgewater, right? Like, history has borne that out without question, but not because the other dudes was cold, right? Like, they weren't there. But that was one that now is only 11 years ago where I can point to and be like, okay, you see how they be doing us?

You see how they be doing us? I don't know how many examples I have of how they be doing us. Right. The closest that I could think of was what we thought about with Justin Fields when he slipped in that draft. But even then, that came with a couple of, or Lamar, I mean, other than Lamar Jackson, who I just talked about.

But Justin Fields was more recent and Fields was still, wasn't he like top 15? Yeah, he was top 15 and also. And he traded up to get him. And all the skepticism of him was fair. One of the things was the epilepsy diagnosis, and you'll never really be able to know exactly how. I know of one team that could have taken a quarterback

that didn't because of the epilepsy. But then the other thing that bore out in the film proved to be true. It'd be back there taking too long. Yeah. You know, like that was not a, we get in a brother's situation. But that, okay, but that's great that you brought

that particular thing up, because what has evolved is, that is no longer a general, or a stereotype. Like, if Justin Fields doesn't process quickly enough, Justin Fields doesn't process quickly enough. Not black people lack the necessities to play the position in general.

You know, you asked about an inflection point. What about, and I don't remember exactly what year this is, you agree about this kind of stuff. I mean, you can tell me the year. What about the implementation of spread offenses and the RPO game? Yo, that is. Because once that shit started?

Yes. I mean, you all talk about, like, It's like now, instead of, hey, Michael Vick, going back to Vick, you know, the beginning of this, this chapter in NFL history, you're focusing on, going back to, man, you got to win from the pocket. The only way to do this is win from the pocket. You got to win from the pocket. To now, you're, you can't be a statute. If you lack mobility as a black or like quarterback, and you lack mobility, you are the dinosaur. You are, you don't fit in this modern game. And so it's like, yeah, we're going to wear from the pocket. But we're going to, I mean, once in a part of time, you know what you're only anymore about Lamar Jackson? Oh, man, he's going to get hurt. Now you got guys like Kyle Murray, demeaning though he may be,

like, man, you're all running enough, though. We have come so far in this conversation about black quarterback, so they get criticized for not running enough. That was C.J. Stroud and Ohio State. Their complaint about him was that he didn't run it up. And I ain't going to lie. It was too much quarterback quarterback.

Yo, and I'm not going to lie. When that happened with him, my response to that was, damn, that was a, now you see how they do a situation. for me. Yeah, that's moving the goalpost. Oh, yeah, right, exactly.

Now we move to the goalpost, right? The brother, too smart. He's a smart yarding brother, so he's too easy. Right. Let me tell you who I'd be feeling bad for, tangential to this conversation. I'd be feeling bad for them slow white boys, man. They changed the game on them overnight.

They used to penalize you for being fast. It was better for you to not be able to move. Now they out here, like, all right, cool, let's see you go. Yeah. They might play some music to see if you can dance. Yeah, whenever they started embracing quarterbacks as a rushing threat and the design run game.

That just, I mean, now you're talking about, you know, Cam, Cap, obviously we mentioned Lamar. You know, the list goes on. I mean, that's what I would say was because the way the game was played, because before they could say you don't play the game the way it needs to be played, and they didn't believe that we could play the game the way it needs to be played.

Now it's like, oh, the game is played differently. We've embraced what these guys bring to the table. Oh, and by the way, they're also exceptional pocket passes. I mean, like, the guys that you don't think of as mobile quarterbacks are actually, you know, quite athletic. I mean, Patrick Mahomes, for example. Patrick Robes could run, but that's not his claim to fame. That's not his calling card per se. So, yeah, man, like, it's really crazy how the conversation evolved.

I think it's not just the way the game has been played, but also like these guys are also faces of the league, not just their franchise, it's faces of the league. Guys like Mahomes, guys like DAC, guys that are getting these huge contracts that are these, they're got, we've come, we've gone from quarterbacks just wanting to be paid fair market value. Black quarterbacks want to be paid fair market value

to black quarterback setting the market, you know. There's just so many examples of how we've come such a long way and such a short time. So I think part of what you describe, I think the spread offense is a really interesting point in the role that Cam Newton plays there. And I think that's something that I've talked about in this series in other episodes, but I want to try to walk it back a little farther, right? So I remember when in the middle of the 2003 football season where Texas switched their offense and went to the spread and implemented it with Vince Young and implemented the zone read as their default offense that they were going to. Part of that was, you know, we've got Vince Young, right? But the other part was a recognition by the coaching staff at Texas that the style of offense that they were now running was the style of offense that the players were playing in high school in the state of Texas and that their program had to respond to what the players they were recruiting were going to be able to do what they were going to be capable of doing.

Right now you could argue that's a bit of a shortcut because you should be able to develop them into whatever it is that you need them to be. But I think we saw that same phenomenon start to happen as the spread game became more proliferate in college. Then that also then required the NFL to make some adaptations because the offensive line plays. One of the thing you know about this.

They are having to teach offensive line and how to play NFL offensive line versus college line is like a challenge that they have. But you know something else that happens now in the, or doesn't happen in the NFL, or something that happens in the NFL now that didn't before, which is immediate impact rookie wide receivers. Randy Moss was such an anomaly before because there was, you really couldn't tell which of the college guys was going to turn into a pro guy because it was such a different game

moving up. Now everything has changed. I think it's maybe it's because of the seven, all seven, whatever it is. The point I'm making is that at the lower levels, his style of offense began to spread that then caught on in the NFL and Cam Newton became important because he was the spread college quarterback. Sam Bradford was a similar case the year before because he played the spread at Oklahoma and was still the number one overall pick. The difference is Cam Newton was in one of the most loaded drafts there has ever been, right? And if you redid that

draft, he'd still be the number one overall pick because you couldn't pass up on that guy. And if you were going to do that, you were going to need to start putting some stuff in that worked for him. And then as that went, that offered more of a premium for a quarterback who could move. Yeah. And I'm not saying that black people are faster than white people. I'm saying that, but I am saying that everybody thinks that black people are faster than white people. Therefore, if you say the quarterback got to have some speed, now you got to start talking about these black quarterbacks.

That's like the schools that ran the wishbone. Hey man, if we're going to be playing the speed game, we might have to get some racial progress in this motherfucker if we're going to try to make this happen. But as that went, it got to the place where we talked about. You get to like 2021 and they're like, yo, if these white boys can't move, we're going to have to go get a brother.

And it's not just the evolution of the way the game was played. It's the physical evolution of the people chasing these quarterbacks. If these dudes go survive with these edge rushers and these past rushers being as athletic as they are, we got to have somebody who can protect themselves, who could buy time in the pocket, who could extend plays. Not to mention, you know,

with the rule changes and the secondary and how much you couldn't touch said receivers, it just, everything just catered toward a style of play, you know, set another way that just so happens to, to people with a little more metal than this kid. Hold on, hold on.

Let me throw another theory out here. I don't know if you've ever, I don't know if you've ever heard Harry yet would say this, but he used to say it all the time. And I mean, this is a totally plausible thing. Harry would make the point that once Vic got out there, right, and you had other guys coming up, Donovan McNabb. Because, you know, there's, there have been various points

of, like, surges of black quarterbacks, and then it kind of recedes. It happens very similar with black coaches also, where you look up at a seven of them, then one day you look up and it was two, right? But like these things would happen. And so Harry's argument was once you started to see the rise of those black quarterbacks, those mobile quarterbacks, that is when you saw the penalties become more punitive

for hitting quarterbacks late in the pocket or all those sorts of things, right? Because as those edge rushers got faster, if you want to make sure that the white dudes can play and you think the white dudes aren't fast, All these are ifs, right? If you believe those things, right. If you are to believe those things, then the way to make the white guys faster is to slow down the defensive ends. And the way that you slow down the ends is make it to where they got to pull up.

Yeah. Right? They got to worry about all the things that could possibly go wrong. And that seemed to happen. It feels like you kind of reached a point where if these things were the case, that they reached a point where they had no more rules they could change. This is just what it was going to be. Doesn't it feel weird?

By the way, here's another thing. Going back to like the idea of intelligence, you could argue, I mean, the gold standard for rookie quarterbacks. Because when you talk about receivers ready to play right away, remind me of quarterbacks in the development curve, the goal standard used to be Marino 83, Rotherzberger 04. But I don't think there's any question that the two most impressive rookie seasons we've ever seen are

were back-to-back years of C.J. Shroud followed by Jane Daniels. You know what I'm saying? And it's like not only have black quarterbacks dismantled the notion of we can't process, we can't think, we can't lead. Leadership is another part of it. Like black

quarterbacks have been able to lead organizations, let alone locker rooms. But they've also hit the ground running literally and figuratively. But what I was going to say was, isn't it weird? Hold on all, right fast. I want to say just right quick on that. And I think it's important to note specifically with Daniel.

Stroud is interesting because whatever that fancy test is that comes out, they try to get process of speed. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's the other one. Oh, yeah, yeah. The new one that plus. Right. The one that putting is.

But Stroud did not. Oh, wow. Yes. Wow. Well, you're right. You're right. That was a big thing going into the draft. Yeah.

It was a huge thing. And remember, he didn't think, he didn't think the Texas were going to him for a number of reasons. That's a different story for a different day. But Jayton Daniels, the thing that he has praised for above all else is processing speed. Processing speed, yes, yes. He, I mean, and coming out, it was like, oh, he's just a runner, he doesn't throw over the middle of the field. That's still, that's what I was going to say. Like, as many difficult conversations and difficult, not for us, but for certain people that don't want to have them or listen to those conversations being had, but as many conversations

as we have had about black progress or the lack thereof in this country in every sector of society, but specifically sports for the most part for me and you. Like, it just feels so weird to even approach a feeling of we've arrived. But it's really hard not to. Well, well, well, the one point is it is not us who have arrived. That's true. Fair enough. Fair enough. They, they, they got here. They finally caught up.

They caught up. Yeah, yeah. They finally decided that, you know, winning is probably a little bit more important. Absolutely. And I would also like to make this note, while a quarterback still needs to, you know, be able to move, hey, man, a guy that can drop back in the pocket

and make it happen with quick decision making and a big arm. Yes. Can still be highly successful in this league. Tom Brady was good. Joe Bow is not a runner. He got some. He got some wheels when he can move. He can move in the pocket, yes.

But I'm saying this. Matthew Stafford can still play in the lead. Justin Herbert is not unathletic, but Justin Herbert, whose problem might be that he's a little bit too big. But Justin Herbert is not a guy that can move. But yeah, he can, but that ain't, that ain't what that ain't what that's not his calling card. No, no, that's not what they're paying him to do.

No, yeah. Right. Dag Prescott can kind of run, but that's not really what we're talking about with him. Like, but if you can drop back, see to throw, make Gino Smith, a classic. pocket passer. You can still do that. And what I think maybe is interesting about this time period as anything else is the fact that Gino Smith can now exist as a pocket passer because it used to be you would go through on rivals and you know how rivals are split it up with pro-style passers and dual-threat passers. Yeah, right. Yeah. But see, but like the athlete list makes sense because

that was like you could play a different, depending on what school wants you, right? Yeah. But the dual threat list would be a pretty decent mix demographically. The pro-style mix would be all white dudes, which was basically to say, if you're not going to be fast, we don't want you because we could go find a white dude to be slow. There's actually been a measure of progress, and it is in allowing us to be slow. I'll give you an example. The late Dwayne Haskins, it did not work out. He did not have a good NFL career while he was there.

But I remember asking myself, because remember Dwayne was struggling the NFL while Joe Burrow. was blowing the box at LSU, just blowing everything out. And I was like, hey, man, how in the world did Joe Burrow, if he's this good, how did he not start at Ohio State? And brother,

I pulled up those clips, Duane Haskins out of high school, and it was like looking at John Elway, right? Big, strong, drop back, throw the ball, couldn't really move, but he could do that. there's a, the fact that that now works. Like what I think has happened is just across the board,

the idea of a having, now what you got your black quarterback, shit can get weird, right? With media, with fans and everything. There's still some commentary that's problematic. Right. But the idea of having a black quarterback is not nearly as provocative. No.

As it used to be. Like the notion has dulled really in the last 10 years. And that is, I don't think. fully understand that maybe it's just a matter of finally we got enough people, A, where the states got too high, or B, you just wound up with enough people that were like, oh, yeah, this has been going on forever. Yeah. And also, you mentioned it, the college game. I mean, you know, politically conservative then begin to begin to describe the college game.

I think, I think you've often said, the only thing black about college football is the players. You know what I'm saying? So it's, and but once you started getting more and more black quarterbacks, Now, we have black quarterbacks in college plenty of for years. I mean, you know, obviously asked Warren Moon about that. You know what I mean? Black quarterbacks have succeeded in college for decades. It took the NFL a long time to embrace, you're right, the notion of having a black quarterback to begin with.

And I think it also goes, but it lends itself. It's interesting because I would say quarterback, if we could liken quarterback to, you know, a CEO position or a management position because it's an extension of owner. It's like it wasn't just about it being an up-the-middle thinking position like center or safety or something like that. It was also like, this is going to be the highest paid player more often than not based on the hierarchy and infrastructure of our salary system. Apologies to Doug Williams, who was like in the 40s when he was a starting quarterback. But it's a denial of wealth that took place for so long.

So it was the notion of a black person leading a locker room, being the face of a franchise, but are we going to write the biggest checks on our team to black people and make them the highest pay player and give them the power and authority and the clout that comes with that. Because then you want to talk about some problematic commentary. What's interesting, I was thinking about this too when I know that's all to talk to you is like, the conversation evolved or devolved rather from, can a black man play quarterback to the level of blackness

we associate with black quarterbacks. Like whether it's Donovan McNabb in certain circumstances, whether it's Russell Wilson in certain circumstances, whether it's Colin Kaepernick in certain conversations. And I'm not here to legitimize those conversations. I'm just simply saying,

we got so bored with the conversation around whether or not we have enough black quarterbacks from the days of when Warren Moon was literally the only one in the league once he came from Canada, went to Oilers. So like, what we got so bored with that, and black quarterbacks became so commonplace, going to Super Bowls, getting drafted number one overall, getting big contracts, more than half the league is starting black quarterbacks.

It's like, oh, we're used to this now. So now we've got to have something else to pick on them about. So, like, are you black enough? You know, are you using your platform enough? Even though we never ask white quarterbacks to use their platform. ever, you know, to make, to make social commentary. But is this person, you know, are you dial for the calls enough as a black quarterback?

So that's kind of what the conversation is going. All right, we're going to take a beat because I got a couple thoughts off of that. One that dawned on me about college, that I'm going to run by you and get your thoughts on. But are we talking to Michael Smith here on the right time. All right, we are back with Michael Smith, and you made an interesting point about black quarterbacks in college, and that that is a notion that we had seen for many years.

And this is true. Like, if I'm not mistaken, the first black quarterback to win a national championship, I believe, was in 1960. University of Minnesota. Tony Dungee played quarterback at the University of Minnesota.

Cats like me and you remember the boy, what was his name, Reggie Foggy, played at Minnesota. Minnesota had a lot of black quarterbacks. You know why? Because you can't be out here discriminating when you Minnesota. Right?

Like, Minnesota can't be, like, it's the schools that why, done with the knuckleheads because they can't send players that, right? Like they can't be turning down good players to go there. Remember Tony Rice at Notre Dame? Right. Well, that's an interesting story because that's Lou Holtz. Yeah. Politics are far from mine and far from yours.

Yeah. But brought Tony Rice as a prop 48 to Notre Dame, hired Charlie Strong as a defensive coordinator in the SEC in 2001, because football can get weird, right? But the thing about quarterbacks and black quarterbacks in college, there was still a lot of places that just didn't do it. It wouldn't do it, yeah. Case in point.

Vince Young was the second black starting quarterback at the University of Texas. The first one got the job, I want to say, in 1994. Go check how many black starting quarterbacks there were at USC between Rodney Pete and Caleb Williams. I think a couple may have popped up, but it was a long time. In the period in which I did around, the horn. There had not been a black quarterback at USC, says Rodney P.

Georgia has had one black quarterback who started for one year in the last 35 years, and that was DJ Shockley. Miami, it took a long time before they got around to get in a black quarterback, right? All them dudes is people, Florida, and then you go to New Jersey and give any test to 30. It in college was very often a do what you got to do, if that's the game that you need to play. You see cats in a lot of these far flung locations because you, you know, and the heat, the little less heat on you in some of those places when you make those moves. No, it's everywhere now. It's everywhere now. And in the NFL, look, you still have, well, it's interesting now because the Giants win. I was just thinking about them.

The Giants who have had a, who Dino Smith that one game was the Giants first black starting quarterback. Yeah. To Rod Taylor got some run after, you know, behind, after Daniel Jones got hurt. he got a couple of games before they went to the Tommy DeVito situation. But they're one of those teams that wasn't doing that. Jordan Love is the first time that the Packers have had a black quarterback, what I would call on purpose, right? Brett Huntley has started some games. Senator Wallace,

they've gotten out there. But it's almost like you excuse that because, okay, they have Farvin and then Rogers. It's like, okay, what are you going to do? Exactly. The idea of a black quarterback didn't become a thing until the 1990s. Therefore, in the time that we thought about that,

you can't be mad at him. to have Brett Farmer and Aaron Rogers. You can say that to a lesser degree about the Giants, although when they did star Gino Smith, they then fired the coach for doing such a thing. But it's always, there's still pockets where it's like, yeah, we'll see. I know the idea, for example, the idea that the Giants are going to drafts to Drew Sanders at any point, I was like, guys.

Yeah. You know, you must not know the history of this organization and it's ownership. Right, right. So I say that so to people understand that what we're saying is it ain't all, all A-W-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L good, right? We know it's not all good, but it is a hell of a lot different. Yeah, and I mean, and tomorrow somebody will say or do some shit. You know what I mean?

You know what I mean? It's just around the corner. It's always around the corner. But no, I just, I think about some of the guys that, like, how they would have been received in today's game that, that see you and I are getting to that age where something that feels like a long time ago was really just yesterday, right?

And so I think about the guy that comes to mind for me is Cordell Stewart. Like that old slash thing. Like what kind of quarterback would Cordell Stewart be now? How would he be viewed now? How would he be utilized in today's game? You know, there was so many guys who played this way that were denied opportunities

because, as you said earlier, the league hadn't caught up to them. They were too far. They were born out of time. They were ahead of their time. It's really quite tragic. I mean, I think Warren Moon, because Warren Moon was my,

you talk about seeing it with your chest, Warren Moon threw it with his chest. Warren Moon, I tried to throw like Warren Moon, my whole child. He was my favorite quarterback to watch throw a football. Does he still, I'm not mistaken, have more professional passing yards

than anybody when you combine CFL and NFL in the NFL? I think Tom Brady's 100 year old ass might have got him. Okay, all right. Yeah, that makes sense. But for the longest time, the most prolific passing quarterback of all time, yardage wise was Warren Moon.

But they had to spend the early part of his prime in a CFL far, you know, because they literally wouldn't draft the best quarterback in the country or in Pack 8. Okay. So Cordell Stewart. Yeah.

Who is from? New Orleans, Louisiana, baby. Okay. From the West. way. Across the river. Yeah. I wonder why he didn't go to LSU, neither here nor there. I'd be trying to tell people how we did not get down with LSU when I was growing up. Yo, yo, as that is a, that is an under, it was in the 20, that is Nick Saban's greatest feat. Yeah.

Is what he did for LSU football in terms of, hey, man, this segregation bag is not. Yeah. Like I said, at some point, somebody come in and say, I thought y'all wanted to win, right? Right. But Cordell Stewart went to Colorado where he was an excellent college quarterback, who quarterback excellent teams. And they, you know, there's a lot of option there, but they threw the ball. Like the most famous play of Cordell Stewart at Colorado was to throw to Michael Westbrook at the Biggouts, right?

And that was a hell of a throw. Yeah. Cordell Stewart, to me, is a forgotten figure in that I think that he is the connective tissue of history between, and I'm taking moon out of this, and you'll understand why when I say it, I think. between Randall Cunningham and Donovan McNabb,

Michael Vic, that generation of guys. If you go back and look at clips of Cordell Stewart, the thing I don't think I properly appreciated at the time was how absurdly athletic he was because I thought of him much more as a guy who could just throw the ball. But when you look at some of the plays that he was capable of making

and the things that he was doing, Randall Cunningham was a dual threat because he could run. But they weren't like, they weren't doing a lot of deploying of him in the run game. It wasn't used as a strategic weapon. He also took way too many sack yards. There is a blessing and curse of the style of Randall Cunningham's play,

which is really fun to watch, right? Yeah. The Steelers use Stewart as a weapon. And please let us not forget, they went to an AFC championship game. With Cordell Stewart as their starting quarterback, his record as a starting quarterback was 50 and 34. That 97 season, I want to say they went to,

a FC championship game where they lost to the Broncos. But in 01 and two different seasons. That was the Patriots one. O-W-1. He was going to go home to New Orleans. That was the story because that Super Bowl was in New Orleans. Super Bowl 36. Two different seasons.

Cordell Stewart was a starting quarterback in the AFC championship game. Yeah. Hey, man, that's a thing. Like, I think it's so easy to forget him because, again, like other brothers in that situation, after he got a little bit bad, they got about the league. Yeah. Yeah. And then I think about Pittsburgh. I think about how intentional we still have to be,

not just with our conversation, but also just with some of these moves. Like, Mike Tomlin has had all black quarterback rules. Going back to earlier, you're talking about like backups, getting the guys being paid to be backups. And by the way, backup quarterback is such a lucrative career path if you could do it. Like, everybody wants me to start quarterback, and you can hang around for a bunch of years as a backup quarterback, you'll make generational wealth.

But all the jokes aside, and I'm serious about this, backup quarterback, that there was backup quarterback, they were not going to have you start, you know, Jefferson Street Joe, you know, because we're going to start Terry Bradshaw versus like, you know, hey, we want you to be the backup. If backup quarterback is a very important position in terms of preparation, in terms of just navigating the quarterback room in terms of internal politics. So you got a backup backup quarterback,

that's not just because he ain't good enough. That's a strategically assigned position. It takes a certain type of person to have longevity in their role. But Mike Tomlin has had all black quarterback rooms. I think another frontier that's necessary to continue to push is black quarterback coaches. Because that quarterback coach is the pipeline. There's still so much progress necessary for head coach in the NFL. So the more we can get the barren leperches of the world to transition from being a quarterback to being a quarterback to be in a

quarterback coach and hopefully a head coach. I know he's still waiting on that latter opportunity. That's another frontier, another area of progress that needs to be attacked. Well, an important note that you made there and regular right time list is know what I'm about to talk about right now. One of the best things about having the proliferation of the black starting quarterback is that it then meant the proliferation of the black backup quarterback. Yeah.

Because if you are a team and you have a black starting quarterback in whom you believe, then The only way to keep the white people off of his keister is to have a black backup quarterback. No controversy. If you have any, if you can have any white man in town as the backup quarterback, he could be the president of the city council. If you got any white man in town in town behind him, oh, no, no, it's going to be a thing. Like there was a point at which where I felt like the Packers got it and then I felt like they didn't. I was like, man, you better get you, you better go get you on the black house baby.

You got to go do that. But the idea that, like, so Tariah Taylor became bridge starter guy, right? Which has to be an insulting job to have. But like, he was, you know, such terrible luck. He was the bridge starter and had a Baker-Begville. And then when the charges poke a hole in his love. Yeah. So he could go play with a broken rib.

Let's talk about that in the first place. Like what that tells me now is ain't no both playing with broken ribs. We're done with that. Like, I treat that. Like, we got to treat calf strains after what happened in Tyrese Hallibur. That's exactly right. No, no, we ain't doing this. As Franks at all.

Yeah, no doubt. But that's, I mean, this, it's been a fascinating journey to think about. And I think about, like, Dominique and I always talk about how we got enough black quarterbacks now that we ain't got to lie, right? Like, my daddy ain't got to pretend like Tony Banks is better than he was. We don't have to, we don't have to masquerade in this. But I do kind of like think back on some of the dudes and wonder some of the cats were like, if things had gone a little bit different, if the times had been a little bit different. Like, I'll give you an example. Michael Vick is still to me in large part of what if.

Now, of course, many of his problems were self-inflicted, right? Like just general negligence and outright stupidity on his part, right? But at the same time, if you will go back and watch that Virginia Tech offense that they ran, it was prehistoric. He was not at all prepared to play quarterback in the NFL. But I remember that you remember that first year, but really like that first month when Chip Kelly, was with the Eagles and they were putting that offense on the road and it was Michael Vic. Can you imagine if a 23-year-old Michael Vic would have been deployed in a Chip Kelly offense? I think the black quarterbacks who've been successful, you can't, you can't overstate

because people look at the obvious when it comes to like, oh, you know, the racism or the racial epithets, the hate mail, the booing, you know. the overt discrimination. But like, man, like having to do your job when you can't do that job by being yourself, like you gotta show up and be somebody else. Like that amount of pressure, that amount,

this, for lack of better phrase, the mind fuck that had to take place, whether it was, you know, Michael Vick, whether it was Donovan McNabb, being criticized because, you know, hey, you know, you can't do it from the pocket. And then them trying, because I know McNabb, in particular, like, they would not run so, and like just to prove that they could pray

from the pocket. Like, they constantly had to basically defend themselves. And I'm going to talk about verbally. I'm talking about, like, stop themselves from using their best weapon in order to shut critics up. Like, so the people had had to endure that kind of thing or just had offenses that would, that would handcuff them and hamstring them from being the best they could be. And then when they weren't great, then they, like you said, they yanked their

out of the league. Like all these dudes we name in, like, not only were they, you know, were they limited in terms of how long of a chance they got, but how good could they have been on top of how good they were if they were just been unleashed. Well, I also feel like to a degree we learned that a lot of what they had been saying was lies, right? And what I mean by that is Cam Newton proved that you could go

from running a spread offense in college and learn, and learn how to learn how to have. All of a time, it was 401, I believe. But you learned that you could learn how to run an offense in the pros after doing that. And that was the whole thing where you're not going to be smart to do this. If you do this too much, you'll get hurt. Yeah, da-da-da. Like it was, I guess a lot of concern trolling would be the term that a lot of people use.

But we found out, like, the idea that being fast was a bad thing. Yeah. It's crazy, unless you're John Elway, right? But to be fair to the old logic, I do think that history has borne out and it's been true. you do need to be able to do it from the pocket. Right? Like, yes. No question.

The problem was acting like being fast was a problem in it of itself, right? But when you hear somebody like Steve Young talk about, I had to learn to stand there and do it. And Steve Young, to this day, is the best athletic quarterback in the history of the NFL, right? Like, I don't think we have. I don't know that I've been qualified. Like Steve Young, Syrika, 1993, 392, three, five. might have been the best four-year stretch

I've ever seen a quarterback play. Right. It absolutely is. But it is so funny because a guy that absolutely saw the value of mobility in your quarterback was Walsh. Yes, he did. Montana was not Steve Young, obviously, but part of the appeal of Montana was his ability to get out, buy some time, roll out, pick up some yards when you needed them,

and get it done. And so this idea that being able to move was a problem. And since they think they could all dance, think they could all run, whatever it is, you know what I'm saying, and that's how you wind, and that's how you wind up in a world where Lamar Jackson has to not run the 40. I also was thinking about your question earlier about like trying to pinpoint and flexion points. I know this precedes 2001. But since we're kind of going a little farther back anyway, McNair, not only getting drafted, was it third? Third. Yeah, third overall, but out of an

HBCU at that. You know what I'm saying? Now, other HBCU quarterbacks, I said, obviously to be clear. Shack Karen, stuff, Williams is the long list. But third overall in the modern NFL from an HBCU, that was another big deal at the time. Well, also what is interesting about McNabb is, I think,

and you could pull up rushing yard numbers all you want, that's fine. People think of McNair or McNair. McNair, I'm sorry, thank you, McNair. People think of McNair as a running quarterback in a way that I do not, because I saw them play at Allcorn. They were dropping back with eight, nine wide receivers, if they could. And just throwing the ball 70, 80 times.

Yeah, I don't think people, I think people who had heard about McNair at Allcorn, I don't think they really had a true idea of what kind of player he was. And he was a passer. That was, it was Air McNair, not running McNair. Right, not Greeneer. Not FedEx Ground. It was Air McNair. It was Air McNair.

And then once he got to the league, as could happen from time to time. You get more running with him. Case in point, North Turner having Teddy Bridgewater run to zone read. Yeah, when you said to him earlier, I was thinking about Bridgewater, like, what could he have been if he had blown out his knees? I was like, I had a thought about McNair when you were talking about. I lost it. It'll come back.

I'm getting old. You said something about McNair, and I had a thought that I wanted to chime in with, but I just lost it. Hey, Steve McNair. is close to being a Super Bowl champion. Think about this. One yard more. He's a Super Bowl champion

and maybe in the Hall of Fame and Kurt Warner is not. I think McNair would be a fringe Hall of Fame case at best, but he would have a Super Bowl ring. Kurt Warner without that ring is not in the Super Bowl. It's not in the Hall of Fame. You know how cold you got to be to steal half MVP from Peyton Manning?

Yes, he did. Like, like, I mean, like, Steve McNair so cold, they said, you know what, Payton, you're going have to share this joint. You might be the golden boy. Yo, not even going to lie. That is one of many moments that I believe that if I were a white person and I was trying to compile by C, racism is over list. Peyton, man, and Kobe P.

Ebony and I have your MVP. That would be on the list. It'd be right there with Adrian Peterson, 2012. of NFL MVP. Yeah. Paint Maddissue. Right? Like, see?

There it is. Like, I need to stop giving any white people material. Not all white people, just the walls that would be looking for it. But, but make Nehneras are all the fair, but yeah.

I mean, with a Super Bowl win, an MVP under his belt, the numbers he compiled, the way you want, toughest, toughest quarterback, he don't take a backseat to anybody when it comes to toughness. Dude, would not practice all week,

be in the training room all week on the trainer's table, barely, barely moving, and go out there, and put his body on the line. So, yeah, man. You remember just apropos or nothing. You remember going to them dances,

taking them pictures with the fellas? Remember that oil is number nine, how cold that was? Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah. That's back in my jersey collecting days. I just had a flashback.

I had a flashback. I now imagine Michael Smith in front of a blanket with a picture of Alexis on it. Right. He is Steve McNair, number nine jersey. We're picture me rolling. All the time. I had, I had, I had, I had my daughter cracking up the other day.

I was talking about the after exam jam. Them dancing in high school, man. Brough. Bring it back. And see, that's right, because you were one of them dancing cities. I'm from Houston. Houston is not a dancing city. It's not?

Y'all ain't have talent shows called the explosion? Brother. We had talent shoes. We had all kinds of. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't feel confident using the appropriate language necessary to explain the way that I believe that men in Houston view dancing who is supposed to do it and why they are supposed to do it. But if you look up the only song in Houston about a dance, it was the South Side and it is not a dance. It is simply moving your hands to either side

to the beat. We are not a, we are not. And like, I got to Atlanta and I'm like, what are all these men out here doing dancing? Well, just to be clear, just because when I say dance, I don't mean I mean, like a sock hop as the old folks used to call. No, no, I know you were saying, I get that. Oh, okay. I get you there. But then when you're like, but you talk about like explosion or whatever? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Now, I couldn't do it. Now, this is going to shock you, but I'm saying, but at least you knew anybody. No, man, brother, brother, I'm just saying this. And but when you talk about the fact that, oh, the fellows might have a dance group, no, no, no, that didn't happen there. Let me tell you something funny right fast before we go. You talk about not being able to dance. I can't dance either.

I can't dance to save my life, right? You neither. And I was talking to a good friend of mine, and he was talking about how his son can't dance and he can't dance, but he had to have a hard conversation with him, which is, as long as you're going to be black, brother, there is no opting out of the dancing. If you had a party and it's a girl and you try to make it happen,

you're going to have to dance at some point. There's no, you don't get to say, I don't do that. That is not on the board. And unlike white people, you will be judged. You need to know that too. You can't dance, you will be judged. White privilege is the dance floor. Do whatever you want.

The beat is what you say the beat is. That's what going on there. But, brother, you're going to have to get out there and do it. I feel like you can opt out of the electric slide or any other of them country-ass line dances. You don't have to do that. But the other stuff, no, brother, you're going to have to get in there just a little bit. Hey, this is, man, you want to laugh.

I mean, people have seen me dance. before. It's, it's, they laugh and at me, not with me. Let's put it that way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. People have seen. No, no. No, like I said, my favorite dance move used to be when you pull your t-shirt up a little bit. That was the, that was the, that was the best dance move I had to offer, really. Switching your body from side to side. Yeah. I ain't got a lot, brother. I ain't got a like, I'm good at math, though. You know what I'm saying? You're good at this talking thing. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. If we could go somewhere without all this loud-ass music,

I could regale you with all kinds of charms. There you go. Instead, you out here dropping it, and I'm trying not to fall. That's what's up, man. There's always a pleasure talking to you, bro. I appreciate you, man. Michael Smith, my brother, I will talk to you soon. I always feel like I go to our memory lane.

If we'd have grown up together, man, we'd have been, ah. We'd have been unfair. To be perfectly honest. It worked out well. They'd wrote a Jet Magazine an article about the two brothers of the same blog. Look, look how far it is. on cool. No doubt. Love you, man. Appreciate you. Love you too, brother. Ladies and

gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us here on the right time. We do this thing three times a week. Ryan Brumbley handling everything behind the scenes. Thank you, sir. Remember, follow the right time. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. We'll talk to you guys in a couple of days.

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