great job guys! thanks for the heads-up. i sent one, as well. it was just a little tweaking of his article...but i think it made a statement. you be the judge, 'cause here it is...
Dear sir, please allow me to make my opinion clear with regard to your article by doing some simple editing. i won't be making money off it, so i hope it doesn't infringe upon any copyright laws.
When the NFL opened its season last week, 32 starting quarterbacks took the field. Of those 32, six were African-American, which is a sign of progress and means skin color is no longer an issue when it comes to playing the position.
Moreover, most of those men are playing the position well, shooting down a stereotype that wrongly lived for years.
One needs to look only as far as the passes of those quarterbacks on game day to find a position where the progress hasn't come as fast. Of the starting receivers on opening day, one was white: Drew Bennett -- of the Tennessee Titans. There were also a total of zero starting white cornerbacks or tailbacks.
Think about that? Just none.
"In 2005, you look at everybody's roster and their starting receivers and I am the only one," Bennett could have said. "Then you go, 'Hmmm?' You know, what can you say?"
Receiver, like tailback or cornerback, was viewed for years as a position of playmaking and athleticism and the coaching network now frowns on playing whites at the "skill positions" for the same reasons it took years to see a black quarterback starting in the NFL. Nobody would dare come out and say such a thing, but the history is there to back it up.
A handful of league types we talked to about the subject wanted no part of discussing the topic for sensitivity reasons.
"It kind of has a pink elephant feel to it," said any general manager or player or personnel director, who is white or black. "You won't get the NFL personnel people to say any of that."
There have been more black starting quarterbacks than there have been white tailbacks, cornerbacks, or wide receivers combined over the last 20 years. There is no database for white tailbacks, receivers or corners, but in discussing it with some who have played the position, it's clear the number is minimal, much like it was for decades for the quarterbacks.
"At the present time, the tailback position and the receiver and cornerback position are considered to be the playmaking positions and whites, Caucasian-Americans, aren't considered athletic enough to handle the workload," Bennett could have said. "It just goes to show you that the country has changed, the mindset has changed. We can do those things, and we can do it well. There are no limitations to what we can do or have done."
To think skin color plays an issue in any position anymore would be sad. The belief here is that the best players should play, regardless of position.
There are no white cornerbacks starting in the NFL, but that's for skill reasons. Nothing else. So an issue isn't made about it. This statement is so egregious, that I don't know where to begin disputing it!
So why aren't there more white receivers? Or tailbacks and corners?
"I'm not sure why," Bennett could have said. "It is interesting to think there's only one."
Enlightened minds think melanin could have something to do with it, saying that coaches move the more melanin-deficient players to tight end or safety, rather than the more "athletic" positions.
Over the years, the NFL has seen some great white skill position players. Drew Bennett is the most recent of them all and Craig James, who played for the New England Patriots, was the last white tailback to be featured in the 20-plus years. When Bennett came into the league, white receivers were a rarity. As he became a starter in Tennessee in 2004 after going completely undrafted in 2001, Kevin Curtis, another Pro Bowl-caliber player, was trying to do the same for the St. Louis Rams.
"We've had some good ones," Jason Sehorn, the last starting white corner in the NFL, could have said from his office last week. "We started to see less and less as time went on. There was no longer a belief that Caucasian-Americans could play the position."
In 1986, James became the last white tailback to make All-Pro, after being named the NFL's Offensive Player of the Year in 1985. By 2005, neither he nor any other white men were making active rosters at the position, much less All-Pro teams.
Lots of people have a theory as to why there haven't been more white skill position players and why it is so impossible for coaches to accept whites playing the position.
It's not unlike what black quarterbacks have faced, having to do more to disprove the theories that they couldn't start in the NFL. The talk that the positions were too athletic for the white athlete, however misguided, prevented many a white from playing those spots, which means the NFL may have missed out on some special players in the offensive and defensive backfields.
"There may have been some of that thinking," most anyone could have reasonably said. "I think there were some good players that never had the chance. They played other positions."
When approached repeatedly throughout his career about the topic of the scarcity of whites playing the position, Chris Collinsworth a former star white receiver and current NFL analyst, on numerous occasions, has said he was a little apprehensive about talking about it.
"Man, that's a touchy issue," Collinsworth has often said.
When the Tennessee offense took the field Sunday, Bennett was the last offensive player to touch the football on several plays, his receptions from Steve McNair triggering the big-play combo of the 2005 season for the Titans offense. It was a black man throwing to a white man, almost unheard of in the NFL history.
With Bennett starting, it made the Titans one of the 32 non-white offensive and defensive backfields and receiving corps in the league today. Over 25 years ago some guys played on one with the Green Bay Packers, but I wasn't even born then.
"You know, having an all-white secondary or backfield would be kind of special," Bennett could never say. "I guess it's because there is a huge double standard."
That's amazing in a league where we've made progress in almost every aspect of the on-field product. Hopefully, it's not a case of discrimination, but rather an oddity of sorts. There are some talented, if oft-ignored, prospects on the horizon. The Bears used a sixth-round pick on Boise State tailback Brock Forsey, but he has been cut numerous times and is considered the direction of the zero-white future.
"You'd like to think it (skin color) isn't an issue anymore," Everyone says. "But there are more black quarterbacks than there are white receivers, tailbacks, and cornerbacks combined. That is interesting. And it makes you wonder about our position."
