The 2022 season was another groundbreaking season for black quarterbacks in the NFL. There were 21 black quarterbacks who threw at least one pass this year, the highest number in a single season in NFL history. The graph below shows how many black quarterbacks in the NFL ^[1]Or AFL or AAFC. threw at least one pass in each season since the league began recording passing statistics in 1932:

Black quarterbacks also started 29% of all games, another high-water mark for the league. In 2022, 15 of the league’s 32 teams started a black quarterback in at least one game, including the PFWA Comeback Player of the Year (Seattle’s Geno Smith), the Most Valuable Player in the league (Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes) and the quarterback of the league’s best team during the regular season (Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts).

The charts above tell a remarkable story. Consider that the year of the first Super Bowl (1966), there were no black quarterbacks in the AFL or NFL. When Tom Brady was born (1977), there had never been an NFL game where both teams started black quarterbacks. And when Brady was drafted, there had never been two black quarterbacks to face off in an NFL playoff game. Now, on the day that Brady is retiring, it’s a noteworthy sign of progress that we are just days away from the first Super Bowl featuring two black quarterbacks (Mahomes and Hurts). It has been a remarkable journey for black quarterbacks in the NFL, one that started over one hundred years ago. [continue reading…]