This list of Black starting NFL quarterbacks includes Black and African-American quarterbacks who have started in a regular-season or post-season game in the National Football League (NFL). The quarterback is the leader of a team's offense, directing other players on the field. Some authors have contended that Black players have been excluded from playing quarterback in the NFL because of the belief that white players would not follow their leadership and the perception that Black quarterbacks lack intelligence, dependability, composure, character, or charisma. Promising Black quarterbacks at the high school and college levels were often transitioned at the professional level to other positions, such as running back or wide receiver.[1] While a ban on Black players in the NFL ended in 1946, the quarterback position was among the last to be desegregated.
Although Black quarterbacks and other quarterbacks of color vary in physical size and playing style, racial stereotyping persists. A 2015 study found that even when controlling for various factors, black quarterbacks are twice as likely to be "benched", or removed from play, as white quarterbacks. Other studies have found that sports broadcasters are more likely to attribute a Black quarterback's success to superior athletic attributes and a white quarterback's success to superior intellect. It was not until 2017, when the New York Giants started Geno Smith in place of the benched Eli Manning, that all 32 active NFL teams had started at least one Black quarterback. That year, nearly 70% of NFL players, but only 25% of starting quarterbacks, were black. 14 of the league's 32 starting quarterbacks were Black at the start of the 2023 NFL season, the most in a single week in NFL history.[2]
The quarterback position has changed over the years and did not exist in its modern form in the early 20th century. In the early days of football, quarterbacks were called upon to throw the ball, run the ball, and kick the ball; the forward pass was not adopted widely until the 1930s. However, tailbacks who played in the single-wing formation are "the equivalent of a modern-day quarterback" or "the closest thing to it."
Single-wing tailback Fritz Pollard, a key figure in the early days of the NFL, became the league's first black quarterback when he started playing the position for the Hammond Pros in 1923. By that time, he had already become the first Black head coach in the NFL, and prior to his professional career, the first Black quarterback All-American and the first to appear in the Rose Bowl. Pollard faced racism throughout his career, including from his teammates. In college, fans were reported to sing "Bye Bye Blackbird" when he took the field. Pollard would sometimes have to enter the field through a separate gate, or be driven onto the field in a car for his own safety, in order to avoid fans who chanted "kill the nigger" and threw bottles and bricks at him. After retiring from football, Pollard started the first black tabloid newspaper, the New York Independent News.[3] In 2005, Pollard was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
The demise of the competing American Football League (AFL) in the 1920s left a "glut of available white players eager to sign on with the NFL, rendering Black players expendable." In 1926 there were five Black players in the NFL, in 1927 only one. With the onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s, economic pressures led to a further deterioration of race relations, and minorities were often vilified and scapegoated. When the Chicago Cardinals signed Joe Lillard in 1932, the same year a rule change expanded the forward pass and Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the US presidency with 75% of the Black vote, he was the NFL's only Black player at the time. Lillard started 12 games with the Chicago Cardinals, and although he threw passes, ran the ball, kicked the ball, and returned punts, he was used sparingly as a quarterback.
1932 was also the year that segregationist George Preston Marshall founded the Boston Braves. The following year, Marshall renamed the Braves the Boston Redskins and brokered an NFL-wide ban on Black players. Joe Lillard was released, and by 1934, there were no Black players with NFL contracts. In 1937, Marshall moved the Redskins to the southern city of Washington D.C., which was still segregated, renaming the team the Washington Redskins. Marshall's so-called "gentlemen's agreement" barring Black players from the NFL lasted until after World War II, when the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) launched in 1946 as an unsegregated competing league. NFL owners relented and lifted the ban, although Marshall nevertheless refused to sign any black players to the Redskins until 1962, when he finally relented under threat from President John F. Kennedy to cancel the Redskins' 30-year stadium lease unless they integrated.
In 1949, George Taliaferro became the first black player drafted into the NFL. Taliaferro had previously played college football for the Indiana Hoosiers. He missed the 1946 season when he was conscripted into the US Army but returned to lead the Hoosiers in both rushing and passing in 1948. The NFL's Chicago Bears drafted Taliaferro in 1949, but he had already signed a contract with the Los Angeles Dons in the AAFC. The LA Dons later joined the NFL, and Taliaferro along with them. He played an unprecedented seven positions during his career, including single-wing tailback or quarterback, more than any player in NFL history. Taliaferro retired in 1955.
Two other Black quarterbacks made brief appearances in the pre-Super Bowl NFL. Willie Thrower, "the first black NFL quarterback of the modern mold", played for Michigan State in college before playing one professional game at quarterback for the Bears, in relief duty, on October 18, 1953. Charlie Brackins, the NFL's first Black quarterback to have graduated from a historically Black college or university (HBCU), played one game as quarterback for the Green Bay Packers in 1955, missed both of his pass attempts, and was released by the team before the next game.
| Quarterback | Team | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1920–1926 | Fritz Pollard | Akron Pros, Milwaukee Badgers, Hammond Pros, Providence Steam Rollers, Akron Indians | |
| 1932–1933 | Joe Lillard | Chicago Cardinals | |
| 1950–1955 | George Taliaferro | New York Yanks, Dallas Texans, Baltimore Colts, Philadelphia Eagles | |
| 1953 | Willie Thrower | Chicago Bears | |
| 1955 | Charlie Brackins | Green Bay Packers | |
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In 1967, the American Football League agreed to merge with the NFL, becoming the American Football Conference, with most former NFL teams forming the National Football Conference. Although the first championship game between the two conferences, known as the Super Bowl, was held in 1967, the merger was not completed until 1970. Marlin Briscoe played for the Denver Broncos, an AFL team, in 1968, and is considered the first black quarterback to start a game in the modern NFL. Briscoe started his rookie year as a defensive back, but when the starting quarterback was injured, Briscoe was called to fill in. He started the last five games of the season, during which he threw 14 touchdown passes and was a candidate for Rookie of the Year. Nevertheless, he was released after the season, and later converted to a receiver.