No matter who wins this year’s Super Bowl, a Black quarterback will go home with a Heisman trophy. This will be the first Super Bowl in NFL history in which both teams have a Black starting quarterback: Patrick Mahomes for the Kansas City Chiefs and Jalen Hurts for the Philadelphia Eagles.
While Black athletes have historically constituted a large percentage of NFL team rosters, they’ve been underrepresented in quarterback positions. Only six Black quarterbacks have started in a Super Bowl game prior to Mahomes and Hurts.
In 1988, Doug Williams became the first Black quarterback to go to the Super Bowl and the first to win one, when he led Washington to victory over the Denver Broncos during Super Bowl XXII in 1988. It would be 26 years before another Black quarterback would lead a team to Super Bowl victory: Russell Williams, who led the Broncos to win Super Bowl XLVIII in 2014 against the Seattle Seahawks.
“To have two Black quarterbacks in the Super Bowl, I think it’s special,” Mahomes told reporters Thursday. “I’ve learned more and more about the history of the Black quarterback since I’ve been in this league. The guys that came before me and Jalen set the stage for this, and now I’m just glad we can set the stage for kids that are coming up now.”
Mahomes has been in two Super Bowls before this one. He and the Chiefs won Super Bowl LIV in 2020 against the San Francisco 49ers, and lost Super Bowl LV the following year to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
This will be Hurts’ first Super Bowl. He will be the Eagles’ second Black quarterback to start in the Super Bowl, following Eagles MVP Donovan McNabb. McNabb was the Eagles’ starter in their 2005 loss to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXIX.
“I think it’s history,” Hurts told reporters. “I think it’s something that’s worthy of being noted and it is history. It’s come a long way.”
