Foobar, in fairness to Jack, it was ex-GM James Harris that really got the ball rolling with the black quarterbacks. Garrard was there before Jack or Harris, but he was only seen as an ABSOLUTE backup to then 32 year old Mark Brunnell, who was coming off his best career season ever...Nonetheless, once Harris came in, the very talented and popular Brunnell was gone and Leftwich was drafted to replace him. At one point, Jacksonville had 4 or 5 black quarterbacks on their roster during the pre-season. In 2004, or so, Pete Prisco of CBS Sportsline wrote an article about Harris only wanting "black QB's", which Harris strongly refuted....Amazingly, a few annonymous NFL GM's told Prisco off the record "Harris was trying to make up for lost time" with all the these guys.
What's that mean? Harris was one of the first black QB's in the NFL in the 1970's. Although I don't remember him as a player, I know he made a Pro Bowl with the Rams. But was run off to SD once the Rams signed a washed up Joe Namath....In SD he started for a while when Dan Fouts held out for more money, but once Fouts came back it was back to the bench for Shack Harris. So he became outwardly bitter and complained openly to the media about the plight of the black QB....Is it any surprise that once he became an NFL exec he tried to change things all by himself, hence: "Harris was trying to make up for lost time"? I've tried to find the Prisco article, but (not surprisingly) it has been deleted from the Internet.
If I'm not mistaken, Del Rio fought with Harris after Leftwich became an obvious bust. Word is Jack badly wanted Brady Quinn to replace Byron, but Harris decided to lavish Leftwich's backup (Garrard) with a huge contract....Jax was most certainly very white unfriendly because of Harris, who is now with the Lions. When Jack finally got a QB he wanted (Gabbert), it was too little; too late.
Marxist Media was already openly rooting for Harris in the 1970's?
I think Harris is #12 in the Topps Card above, although he does not appear in the Box Score, which is very odd???
http://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/197612260min.htm