Doug Williams: A Jalen Hurts-Patrick Mahomes Super Bowl is progress, but the NFL has more work to do

When Doug Williams settles in to watch Super Bowl LVII, he won’t be rooting for a specific team.

“I feel like I’ve already won,” Williams told The Inquirer on Thursday from the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala. “Just to see two Black quarterbacks playing a game to me, is enough for me.”

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The significance of having two Black quarterbacks start in the Super Bowl for the first time with the Eagles’ Jalen Hurts and the Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes certainly isn’t lost on Williams. That’s because on Jan. 31, 1988, it was Williams who became the first Black quarterback to start — and win — a Super Bowl when he did so with Washington.

“You look at it this season, there were 11 [Black] starting quarterbacks in the National Football League,” Williams said. “I think that’s progress in a way but we got a long ways to go, it ain’t progress enough because you got these quarterbacks but you don’t have the Black coaches.”

Hurts, 24, and Mahomes, 27, might not have been born yet for Williams’ MVP performance in Super Bowl XXII, but they understand the type of watershed moment that their matchup on Feb. 12 represents.

“It’s history,” Hurts said Thursday. “It’s something that’s worthy of being noted. We’ve come a long way. I think there’s only been seven African-American quarterbacks to play in the Super Bowl. So to be the first for something is pretty cool. I know it’ll be a good one.”

Mahomes echoed a similar sentiment from the podium at his media availability.

“I think it’s special and I’ve learned more and more about the history of the Black quarterbacks since I’ve been in this league and the guys that came before me and Jalen set the stage for this and now I’m just glad that we can kind of set the stage for guys that are the kids that are coming up now,” Mahomes said.

Having two Black quarterbacks reach the NFL’s biggest stage shows how far the league has come since Williams made history in 1988. But it also shows how far the NFL, which was slow to embrace talented and qualified Black players playing the position, and where racial stereotypes are still commonly attached to Black quarterbacks, still has to go. It wasn’t long ago that several NFL pundits and even one NFL team questioned Lamar Jackson’s capacity to play the position and suggested the Heisman Trophy winner move to wide receiver. Two years later, Jackson won MVP at quarterback and now is poised to land one of the biggest contracts in NFL history. Williams believes some of those racial biases were evident in how Hurts was evaluated both in the draft process and his first season as a starter.

“I think number one, all the people who, you know, were probably down on Jalen over the years were doing it not because he was Jalen Hurts as much as because he was a young Black quarterback,” Williams said. “But I think the kid did what you’re supposed to do as a quarterback. And now he’s as good as any quarterback in this league.”

Hurts, who is the latest in a long line of Black Eagles quarterbacks, will be just the eighth Black starting quarterback to reach the Super Bowl, following in the footsteps of Williams, Steve McNair, Donovan McNabb, Colin Kaepernick, Russell Wilson, Cam Newton, and Mahomes, who will be making his third appearance in the big game. But with more and more Black starting quarterbacks, including bona fide superstars like Hurts, Mahomes, and Jackson, it feels like having a Black quarterback starting a Super Bowl will soon become commonplace.

“Whenever a guy like Doug Williams or Michael Vick or Donovan McNabb, goes out and plays great football, it gives other guys like me and Jalen [Hurts] chances to have this platform and have this spot on an NFL team,” Mahomes said. “And so if we can continue to show that we can consistently be great. I think you’ll just continue to open doors for other kids growing up to follow their dreams and be a quarterback of an NFL team and it’s good that we have guys like Jalen on the other side. He’s a great person and obviously a great quarterback.”

Hurts and Mahomes have a fan in Williams, who called the Eagles signal caller “one of the most complete quarterbacks to play in National Football League today” and Mahomes the “ultimate leader.” But while Williams is excited to watch the Super Bowl in 10 days’ time, he believes the next step for racial progress in the NFL is to see more Black coaches on the sidelines during the Super Bowl.

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“I think we still got so much work to do,” the 67-year-old said. “If you’re going to look at it and put everybody on equal playing ground. Coaching ground is the most important thing, [let’s] give these guys an opportunity as head coaches. Yeah, you can smile about it and say these guys [are] in the Super Bowl, but at the same time, you got two white coaches, coaching them, which has been like that for years. There are so many good Black coaches out there that don’t get that opportunity. And I think those guys need an opportunity to coach in this league.”

Devin Jackson contributed reporting to this story.