For Michael Vick, evolution of the Black quarterback started in Philadelphia

When the Eagles faced the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII in February last year, it was the first time two Black quarterbacks, Jalen Hurts and Patrick Mahomes, had started in the Super Bowl.

It wasn’t until 2001, 60 years into the league’s existence, that a Black quarterback, Michael Vick, was chosen first overall in the NFL draft. And now Vick, who went on to play five years for the Eagles, is the face of a new three-part docuseries called Evolution of the Black Quarterback.

Black quarterbacks weren’t given a fair shake for much of the NFL’s history. Scouts and coaches often advised them to do something else with their careers — “you change positions, or go to Canada,” as veteran NFL coach Tony Dungy puts it in the Prime Video show.

For the series, Vick traveled around the country to speak to quarterbacks before, during, and after his time in the game about their experiences and how the position has changed.

On that journey, he says in Evolution, “Philadelphia is the perfect place to start.”

“People come up to me and tell me that I changed the game and revolutionized the position,” Vick said to The Inquirer. “I always like to tell people that it was the guys that came before me, and I start naming names. And a lot of those names, whether it was a younger generation or older generation, some of them didn’t know.”

The Philadelphia Eagles have a long tradition of star Black quarterbacks, from Randall Cunningham in the ‘80s to Rodney Peete in the ‘90s, Donovan McNabb in the 2000s to Vick in the 2010s, and Jalen Hurts today.

“I do know that the city of Philadelphia is receptive to any quarterback, Black or white, as long as you’re winning,” Vick said. “Fortunately, we had some great ones, myself, Donovan, Rodney, Randall … I feel like the evolution of the Black quarterback started in Philadelphia.”

The series has Vick interviewing all those men except Cunningham, who, according to director FredAnthony Smith, was busy with his pastorship in Las Vegas and preparing his daughter Vashti Cunningham for the Olympics and was not available to participate.

The director added that in speaking with all of those Eagles quarterbacks, “the love of Philly, and the way that they were embraced by Philadelphia, is something that came up in all of those conversations.”

In the series, Vick speaks to current Eagles quarterback Hurts at Moshulu at Penn’s Landing, and Hurts shares that while working out, he’ll often turn on highlight videos of Cunningham, McNabb, and Vick.

Vick also sits down with McNabb, his teammate and rival at various times, to discuss the time when McNabb was drafted second overall by the Eagles in 1999. While much has been made over the years about a group of fans booing McNabb’s selection that day, McNabb, in Evolution, shares another slight that had not been reported until now.

The Cleveland Browns, who were returning to the league after a three-year absence, had the first overall pick that year and had considered drafting McNabb. McNabb tells Vick in the series, “I talked to some people inside there, [who] told me they had you on the board #1 up until the draft, but someone, I won’t mention names, [said] ‘we can’t start a franchise, here in Cleveland, with a Black quarterback.’”

Vick interviews a virtual who’s who of great Black quarterbacks from the 1960s until today, including modern stars like Mahomes and the exiled quarterback and activist Colin Kaepernick. He also sits down with actors Jamie Foxx and Common, and his former coach with the Eagles, Andy Reid.

Vick, a star quarterback with the Atlanta Falcons, saw his career derailed in a shocking scandal in 2007 after he was found to have operated a dogfighting ring in Virginia, leading to 21 months in federal prison.

Upon his release, Vick signed with the Eagles in 2009 and reemerged as a star quarterback the following year. Like the 2020 two-part ESPN documentary Vick, Evolution, too, features Vick talking about his past mistakes and the importance of second chances in his career.

“Philly will always be a special place to me,” he says in the series. “That’s where I got a second chance to show what I could do. And that’s really the story of the Black quarterback — someone gets a chance, and that changes everything.”

All the interviews point to the particular reverence with which Vick is treated by his colleagues, especially by today’s young quarterbacks, several of whom tell him they grew up watching him play. And that Vick’s exciting style of play, which involved both running and passing adeptly, has hugely influenced those who came after him.

“All the conversations were amazing, and they were natural, and they were organic,” said Smith. “The fact that it was peer-to-peer and that it was Michael talking with either people that had played the position or people that had love and respect for him, it’s different than if you or I are interviewing them.”

Evolution is produced by SMAC Productions, the production company founded by a man who spent many years trying to sack many of the quarterbacks in the series: New York Giants Hall of Famer-turned-media figure Michael Strahan.

“The Evolution of the Black Quarterback” debuts Sept. 24 on Prime Video.