referendum
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- Joined
- Nov 13, 2005
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- 1,687
Like all of us at CF, I'm angry, upset and disappointed with the way Peyton Hillis is being sabotaged, his career possibly wrecked etc etc with the trainwreck situation at Cleveland. Also, the way Gerhart is being wasted in Minnesota is just as bad. In terms of the treatment of these two players as regards the overall state of white football players in question, I'm not as concerned. I would argue that even if Hillis and Gerhart, and even Hester and Leonard were all of a sudden given many more opportunities to be actual runningbacks, it would not make that much of a difference in terms of the overall whiteness of the NFL. Looking at my 1981 research, what comes out clearly is that even then white runningbacks were rare, one had Riggins of course, and the Denver runningback, and Paul Hofer, and a few other active fullbacks, but by and large the runningback position was black dominated. However, in spite of this black domination at runningback, the average team had about 9.5 white starters as opposed to today's 6.0 starters. Put another way, there are 32 starting feature back positions in the NFL, and even if we saw a magical resurgence in whites at that position we are looking at what, the chance of 4 or maybe 6 starting white runningbacks? Meanwhile there are 352 starting positions on defense in the NFL, and whites make up a ground total of about 45 of them. There are literally hundreds of positions out there that we can be rooting for whites to win out on defense, even with the "no non-blacks allowed at cornerback" NFL mythology.
Some more food for thought: even on the very weekend where things are looking worse and worse for Hillis, we may have seen the ending of not one, but two black QB's careers as starters, with Mcnabb probably done for good, and Campbell probably out for the Raiders for good and hard pressed to find another starting position, I would think. Furthermore, Oakland and Minnesota are going to white QB's even under black coaches.
The road to a whiter NFL lies just as much in the lesser known victories such as Jason Phillips becoming a starter for the Panthers starting this Sunday, or Eric Cook stepping in for an injured Lichtensteiner in Washington and keeping the position in white hands, or Kyle Rudolph taking over for Shiancoe in Minnesota (this hasn't happened yet but I'm hoping it will by next season). Anyway, I'd like to hear from others about these thoughts, that maybe some of us are putting too much importance on the Hillis situation, at least those of us who are making it a litmus test for the overall state of white players in the NFL.
Some more food for thought: even on the very weekend where things are looking worse and worse for Hillis, we may have seen the ending of not one, but two black QB's careers as starters, with Mcnabb probably done for good, and Campbell probably out for the Raiders for good and hard pressed to find another starting position, I would think. Furthermore, Oakland and Minnesota are going to white QB's even under black coaches.
The road to a whiter NFL lies just as much in the lesser known victories such as Jason Phillips becoming a starter for the Panthers starting this Sunday, or Eric Cook stepping in for an injured Lichtensteiner in Washington and keeping the position in white hands, or Kyle Rudolph taking over for Shiancoe in Minnesota (this hasn't happened yet but I'm hoping it will by next season). Anyway, I'd like to hear from others about these thoughts, that maybe some of us are putting too much importance on the Hillis situation, at least those of us who are making it a litmus test for the overall state of white players in the NFL.