Steve’s Collarbone and The African American QB
September 29, 1968, its 3 weeks into the 14 game American Football League season. Coach Lou Saban and The Denver Broncos came into the season with high hopes, as they had 1 year of experience under their 1st round running back, Floyd Little, and confidence in who would start at quarterback, Steve Tensi (2 seasons prior the Broncos had 4 different starting QBs and a last place offense). Despite these high hopes, the Broncos would lose their first 2 games, again due to poor offense, scoring a combined 12 points to a combined 58.
Week 3 was the first home game of the season against a struggling Boston Patriots team. In the middle of the 4th quarter, the Broncos clear-cut starter, Steve Tensi, would break his collarbone, leaving Saban to decide between back-up QBs Joe DiVito and Marlin Briscoe. Saban first sent in DiVito, a rookie out of Boston College. DiVito vastly under-performed, completing only 1 pass out of 6 passes for 16 yards before being pulled from the game. Next, Saban sent in Briscoe, an African American rookie from Omaha University. On his first play in, Briscoe threw a 22 yard pass to Eric Crabtree, already topping DiVito in passing yards. On the next drive, Briscoe would lead an 80-yard scoring drive with 21 yards passing and 38 yards rushing, including a 12-yard scramble for a touchdown. That day, Briscoe became the first African American to play QB in the AFL.
This impressive performance earned Briscoe the starting role in week 4, becoming the first black starting QB in pro football history. Briscoe would go on to finish out the season, throwing for 1589 yards and 14 touchdowns (a franchise rookie record until Elway broke it in 1983), and rushing for 308 yards and 3 touchdowns. The Broncos would again finish the season with losing record, although 1 game better than the season prior.
In 1969, the final regular season of AFL football before the merger, Briscoe wanted to continue playing QB, but Coach Saban planned on starting CFL star Pete Liske and keeping former starter Steve Tensi on the roster. Briscoe would subsequently ask for his release in hopes of finding a QB needy team, but the Broncos would trade him to Buffalo, where he was forced to change positions to WR, as Buffalo was set at QB with multiple pro bowl players at the position. As it turns out, Briscoe was not only a pretty good QB, but a good WR, leading Buffalo in receiving touchdowns 3 years in a row, despite never having played WR before arriving to Buffalo. Ironically, Saban would leave Denver and come to coach in Buffalo in 1972, where he again traded away Briscoe. This time to the Miami Dolphins for a first round draft pick. Briscoe would continue to play WR in Miami, becoming one of the core WRs on the undefeated 1972 Dolphins. Briscoe finished his career never playing QB again.
Fast forward to 1987, Doug Williams, an African American QB, has led the Washington Redskins to Super Bowl XXII versus the John Elway led Denver Broncos. By this point (since Briscoe’s start in 1968), 10 NFL teams have started a black QB at least once, with half of those initial starts being by 2 QBs: James Harris (first starter for the Bills, Rams, and Chargers) and Vince Evans (first starter for the Bears and Raiders). Most notable of the starters in that time were Randell Cunningham, the long time starter for the Eagles, and Warren Moon, a CFL and NFL Hall of Famer. Doug Williams would go on to win that Super Bowl and be awarded Super Bowl MVP, becoming the first African American QB to start and win the Super Bowl.
Today, all 32 teams have started a black QB, although it took until 2016 for the New England Patriots and until 2017 for the New York Giants. While this barrier has, for the most part, been broken, there are still some concerns. Its hard to say how much bias, if any, NFL GMs have concerning black QBs, but subtleties can be seen in the media and from fans. If you are a fan of the many mock drafts that come out this time of the year, you are probably familiar with phrases like the “high I.Q.” black QB or the “deceptively athletic” white WR. Or the classification between pro style QBs and dual threat QBs, where the dual threat QB is usually an athletic African American. It is often the case that these athletic QBs are told by the media to play WR instead, just like Bricoe did. Even more concerning may be the way the athletic QB is developed in college, only being played in systems that take advantage of there rare athleticism, rather than developing the pocket passer “pro style” skills to complement their athleticism; ultimately allowing the pro performance stereotypes to hold some truth. Now, there are of course many cases, regardless of race, where a position switch is actually needed or a QB was played in a non-pro style system in college, which hurts their draft stock. Yet, these systematically created differences still exist.
So, next time you watch Russel Wilson make a 30 yard play out of what should have been a sack or see Kliff Kingsbury trade away Josh Rosen to pick the Heisman trophy winner, Kyler Murray 1st overall, remember we have come a long way since Steve broke his collarbone in 1968, but still can do better.
