Kicking. Squealing.
In his latest column, sportswriter Jason Whitlock argues that the NFL’s black quarterbacks suffer from an “information bubble” which he deems the biggest hindrance to black QB success. What Whitlock describes is a poorly-functioning feedback loop.
This bubble creates delusion, erodes self-awareness and unwittingly undermines a black QB’s chance of sustaining success.
Cam Newton is a victim of the information bubble. Robert Griffin III is the bubble’s next target.
Let me explain. We’re in our political season. Democrats and Republicans both have their respective information bubbles, MSNBC and FOX News, respectively. They can lock their televisions on a single channel and avoid hearing their perspectives challenged in a credible way and hear their critics’ lambasted. It’s comforting. It’s polarizing. It’s unhealthy for intellectual growth and our democracy.
Black sports fans and black pop-culture media (not sports media) have created a loosely-formed-but-influential social-media and talk-radio information bubble for black QBs. This network of groupthink roars on sports-talk radio, black-owned radio stations, Facebook and Twitter, pumping out the message that Newton, Griffin and others can do no wrong and any criticism of them is rooted in racism. Fear of backlash from this network of well-intentioned enablers causes many mainstream sports analysts (media and fans of all colors) to avoid being totally honest about black QBs.
That’s how a career-killing, information bubble is formed.
White QBs don’t have to deal with this. In Kansas City, a group of fans paid for a banner to be flown over Arrowhead Stadium that called for owner Clark Hunt to bench Matt Cassel. Kansas City’s backup quarterback is Brady Quinn, the Cleveland bust. He’s not a solution. But he was named the starter on Monday.
Imagine the uproar if Eagles fans took similar action against turnover-machine Michael Vick? There would be riots in the streets. Philly fans would be labeled racist.
Information bubbles are destructive, whether in politics or sports.
Since Whitlock compares sports to politics, I’d be interested to hear his thoughts on the bubble which insulated President Obama during his formative years.
Whitlock points to Cam Newton’s postgame interview after Sunday’s loss to the Dallas Cowboys.
Besides sounding like a childish loser, Newton also sounded nonsensical telling reporters that they should leave a suggestion box behind because he didn’t know how to fix the problems facing his team. It doesn’t help that Newton is not smart – something that certainly explains why his bubble is deflating so quickly (the Rush Limbaugh argument which Jason Whitlock here doesn’t agree with). For example, in his news conference where he’s trying to look insightful and intelligent, Newton says that he just wants to win “even if we kick the ball from the 70 [yard line]“. The rest of the news conference is painful to watch as well as Newton tries to come off as deep and searching. It’s clear that he is neither but he seems to believe his own schtick.
I think this is where something like raw intelligence benefits NFL quarterbacks. When physical prowess isn’t enough to get them by as they did in high school and college, they must be able to grapple with mental demons. Self-doubt and adversity. They must be able to identify their own shortcomings and properly allocate blame and praise to their teammates and coaches. If the de facto captain of the team cannot do this the rest of the team falls out of balance and this feeds back to the quarterback helping to speed up his own failure. Higher levels of intelligence help navigate these treacherous waters.
But part of being in the bubble means never being told that these aspects of the game are important. That feedback, communicating, sharing blame and praise, and all of these things are essential to high-level success.
Besides politicians and football players, blacks seem to also face this in their transition from high school age to adulthood. School and adolescence is its own information bubble, and our culture incubates the self-esteem of young blacks. Even when they are painted negatively, their behaviors are still given a sympathetic if not positive spin. Teenage blacks have the highest self-esteem of any racial cohort. This despite the fact that they perform so poorly in school. If we agree that being a teenager is about learning how to become a well-functioning and productive adult citizen, black kids’ esteem is completely out of whack with their future performance. This inevitably leads to a rude awakening, and it should be no surprise that blacks issue many grievances against society and the system. Even if a lot of those grievances are justified, there are still many more grievances which are issued by individuals who were never honestly told what time it was.
***
Whitlock has been a huge critic of ESPN, and he doesn’t hold back in his column:
What does RG3 have to do with any of this?
Well, informational bubbles are often uninformed. Along with being insecure and defensive, they can also be overly enthusiastic out of ignorance.
It’s way too early to anoint RG3. The information bubble has already decided the Colts made a mistake taking Andrew Luck ahead of Griffin. That’s ridiculous. We don’t know yet. There’s not nearly enough information. RG3 has the benefit of playing for a highly experienced head coach. Luck is playing for a new coaching staff that is dealing with the loss of its brand-new head coach.
Furthermore, in reaction to fear of the black information bubble, the mainstream media seem intent on pitting RG3 vs. Newton. On Monday, rather than individually deal with Cam’s immature postgame news conference, ESPN spent the day comparing RG3’s postgame comments to Cam’s.
Why?
It wasn’t a conversation about their playing styles and ability to scramble and throw. It wasn’t a conversation about Cam and RG3 both winning the Heisman Trophy. It was a conversation about Cam’s lack of leadership as a second-year starting quarterback. RG3 has nothing to do with that. ESPN is afraid the information bubble will call ESPN racist for pointing out Cam is a poor leader so the Worldwide Leader protected itself by portraying RG3 as the ultimate leader. We don’t know if Griffin is a great leader. We won’t know until he deals with some real NFL adversity. I suspect he’ll handle adversity quite well. He might be the Ray Lewis of adversity (Ray might be the best leader in sports history). But we just don’t know yet.
I too saw this on ESPN and thought it was strange. By praising RG3 they could then afford to rag on Newton. If there’s at least some praise aimed at a black quarterback then that keeps everyone happy. If anyone were to call them racist they could just point to their positive depiction of RG3. It’s the sports media version of “but I have a black friend.”
***
And just for fun, to give another example of how lacking in self-awareness and how over-confident he is in his own ability, here is a video of Cam Newton responding to a question about what Martin Luther King means to him. His answer is a parody of platitudes.
“I too saw this on ESPN and thought it was strange. By praising RG3 they could then afford to rag on Newton.”
I don’t find it strange and I don’t think this is what’s going on… people really hate Cam Newton and while wanting RG3 to succeed.
blacks will dominate the qb position. just give it time
RG3 is already the best qb in the NFL
RG3 is married to a white woman
Whitlock’s channeling some Paul Kersey here. While Andrew Luck has had an incredible start, the RG3 hype has allowed him to be under the radar. Even the Miami QB has had a 400 yard game and looked decent. Minimal attention compared to RG3. I have been pounding the table that the success of scrambling QBs in the NCAA cannot translate to the NFL due to the concentration of defensive talent into 32 teams with no age limit. In the NCAA, you have 100+ teams and only men age 18-24. In the NFL, it is 32 teams without an age limit; just can you play. A scrambler in the NCAA system can overpower defensive backs and is faster than most LBs (sometimes as big). That disappears in the pros. LBs and DEs are as fast if not faster than scramblers. The safeties in the NFL can tackle.
Good to see you Anti-Racist speaking out for Justice and eradication of the white male female baby by any means necessary. You dissed the Sistah in previous article and our Soldiers took notice with disfavor.
Living in DC (not a Skins fan), we get this 24/7 100% of the time now — constant comparisons of RG3 with Vick and Newton and so on. I think a part of this is probably what you have written, but another part of it is that all of these guys have a broadly similar approach to playing the position — i.e., a much greater emphasis on designed runs and run options, rather than focusing on passing with the occasional scramble thrown in. They play in a similar style, so the comparisons are going to come. But there’s certainly a racial angle as well — Tebow also plays as a running QB with a lot of run options and the like, but doesn’t get compared much with these guys.
The interesting thing is that in terms of total QBR, RG3 really is a great QB, especially for a rookie, but so is Luck (having a slightly higher total QBR than Griffin does). This is a year where the two main rookie QBs are performing incredibly well as compared to the rest of the league. See: http://espn.go.com/nfl/qbr These two are quite different in style, but not in overall effectiveness for their teams, really. I thought that the whole Luck vs Griffin thing last year was through and through with anti-white racism, and it’s been quite interesting to see Luck more than hold his own in total QBR as compared with Griffin, and particularly since Luck is playing on a much weaker team, overall than Griffin is right now.
I think people knock Newton and Vick because they are really just not great. Newton started great, but once the league had the chance to compile and study his game films, he really came down to earth in the second half of last season (his first). At this point, he seems like a fair bust — he’s 26/33 in total QBR. Vick is more passable at 17/33, and has had truly great years in the past, but as everyone knows he has been very up and down and he turns the ball over a lot. RG3 is still in the first half of his first season, so teams don’t really have enough film to really prepare for him properly, especially with the odd schemes that the Shanahans are running with the Skins right now. It remains to be seen if/how the DCs around the league will catch up with this. But as of now, RG3′s main difference from Newton and Vick is that he is simply a better player — he’s not just a runner, but a superfast one (fastest guy on the field most of the time), and he also throws the ball very, very well. Again, he could come down to earth as well if the DCs manage to find a fix to him the way they did with Newton, but that remains to be seen at this point.
The word “bubble” is a common metaphor for two things: insulation and overvaluing. It’s interesting how one can think either way upon seeing the title of this post.
Cam Newton is dumb. He’s masculine, athletic and good looking, but he’s dumb. Someone needs to have the guts to tell him that.
Brendan,
I agree with everything you said. I hadn’t really looked that deeply at their stats and was surprised to see that their QBR was so high.
What’s interesting is that RG3′s traditional rating is much higher than Luck’s though Luck’s QBR is slightly higher than RG3′s. Just looking at their stats it seems that QBR (which is a metric made up by ESPN and is somewhat subjective for game situation) places more emphasis on passing action plays. Luck has a relatively low completion percentage (53.6% versus RG’s 70.4%) but averages about 50 more yards per game.
The thing I don’t really like about QBR is that it’s purpose is to give more weight to game situations. For instance, it supposedly awards more points for a first down completion on 3rd and 5 at the end of a crucial drive compared to a 30 yard completion on 1st and 10 at your own 30 when you’re down by 3 touchdowns at the end of the game. So it is situational in that aspect, but it doesn’t seem to look at the overall play competition between the passing and running games. But even then you get into a situation where it becomes hard to purely rate a quarterback because it’s hard to determine how good or bad the offensive line is.
When you take out the rushing performance of each quarterback, the Redskins still have a much stronger running game. I think that the “unseen” running game is important in determining how good the quarterback is. Passing plays crowd out running plays and factor into the overall win share. When Luck’s rushing stats are taken out, the Colts have 464 yards and 1 touchdown over 6 games. That’s 77 yards per game. The Redskins, after RG’s stats are taken out, have 776 yards and 5 touchdowns over 7 games. That’s 110 yards per game. It seems like the Redskins rushing game detracts from its overall passing game (which seems like it would be a good thing) thus placing a systemic limitation on RG3′s QBR compared to Luck’s who plays on a purely pass-focused team.
Who really cares about some black dudes that will likely end up broke and forgotten. The “bubble” will also protect us from knowing this, unless its “exposed” to show what a racist country this is, robbing those poor black men of all their money.
Anti-racist chimes in with his usual claptrap. Talk about living in a bubble…
“blacks will dominate the qb position. just give it time”
How many decades now have they been singing this song? As always, it’s just around the corner. No, not that corner. The next corner.
“RG3 is already the best qb in the NFL”
As noted above, way too soon to say. Stats mean little. Winning is everything. Until you’ve got a ring on your finger, you’re not better than any QB currently wearing one. And Washington is 3-4.
“RG3 is married to a white woman”
Clearly, he understands the market value of black women.
peter,
actually, the media doesn’t seem to shy away from reporting on athletes going broke. allen iverson, antoine walker, latrell sprewell…those are three that quickly come to mind as having squandered tens of millions of dollars in NBA contracts. people love reporting on and reading these stories.
as for “who really cares”…i guess i care enough to discuss the topic. beats writing about the weather or nothing at all.
russel wislon is another awseome black rookie qb
he is married to a blonde haired blue eyed nordic demi-goddess
looks like no blonde haried babies for that woman!
once again a stunningly gorgeous white girl rejects white boys and gives herslef to a black man to bear his offspring
Two points:
1) Nothing Newton has done this year should surprise anyone. He’s still a very promising QB; among the league leaders in yards per attempt and one of the best rushing QBs in the league. He hasn’t been perfect, but he’s the least of the Panthers problems. And he’s a dumb asshole. We knew that years ago. It just required a little adversity to bring it out of him.
2) While I agree that avoidance of criticism is a major problem for much of black society, I disagree here. Newton is scrutinized on a daily basis by his teammates and coaches; team captain Steve Smith went apeshit on him publicly a few weeks ago. And anecdotally, if you think of the talented assholes to play in the NFL, criticism and adversity almost never brought out the best in them. Jerks like Newton are front-runners. Winning makes them more focused and team-oriented. Losing causes them to fold up and start looking for scapegoats. IQ is the issue, not an info-bubble. I predict Griffin will deal w/ adversity far better, but not because of any change in media treatment, but because Griffin is a relatively intelligent guy.
A more general point on NFL stats. When you’re analyzing a young QB w/ out much of a track record, you need to focus on the stats that tend to be “persistent”, meaning highly correlated from year to year. Interceptions are highly random; see Josh Freeman who went from least to most interception prone y/y. Interceptions are a major component of QB rating. Same w/ TDs.
Better stats are completion% and yards per attempt, mostly because they don’t suffer from small sample size problems. Look at Mark Sanchez. His outlier-low completion% numbers in his rookie year was the clue that he sucked, not the picks.
Newton grades well on stats that tend to be more persistent.
Also, Newton last year and RG3 this year orchestrated two of the most dramatic y/y offensive turnarounds ever for their respective teams. That’s some evidence that the trend towards athletic QBs might be accelerating. Hopefully we get a look at Terrelle Pryor soon. He’s nearly a Newton clone.
Wow, two Brendans in the same thread — haven’t seen that in a while.
Truth Soldier Anti-Racist. Genocide of white race is done in your name and is cheered. Die casper die. Anti-Racist is Wise to advocate putting boots to heads of lone white males as he did in our first communication. All recorded with vigilant eye Sir.
Non-white quarterbacks went a cool 0-5 last week. Black starting QBs are 11-17 against white QBs this season (including Seattle over Green Bay). Last year’s black starters won less than 40% of their matchups against whites as well… remarkably consistent in a league with such enforced parity.
“That’s some evidence that the trend towards athletic QBs might be accelerating. ”
Bingo. Black Men will soon dominate the position.
Also, Newton last year and RG3 this year orchestrated two of the most dramatic y/y offensive turnarounds ever for their respective teams. That’s some evidence that the trend towards athletic QBs might be accelerating. Hopefully we get a look at Terrelle Pryor soon. He’s nearly a Newton clone.
Is it the case that defensive strategies end up being tuned to the tactics used by the last few years of QBs, so QBs that are instructed to change things up a bit catch the defense flat footed?
Anti-Racist you dissed a Sistah. The transgression is noted. Continue to attack racist white boys here with more Truth and Power. People of Dark Color Power dominate all positions sexual too and with you Sir of you like that.
Phalluster, the Skins were bottom 10 in points scored last year and this year they’re 4th. That’s RG3.
In 2010 Carolina was dead-last, with Newton in 2011 they were top 10.
Both the Panthers and Skins have atrocious defenses. That’s not their quarterbacks’ fault.
SOBL1 has been “beating the table” for awhile that running QB skills don’t translate into the NFL. Somehow he doesn’t see Griffin’s success this year as evidence against his proposition.
Given that we’re reading this website I assume I agree w/ you guys on most issues, but you both are being retarded on this topic.
“Is it the case that defensive strategies end up being tuned to the tactics used by the last few years of QBs, so QBs that are instructed to change things up a bit catch the defense flat footed?”
No. This is an argument used by people who can’t accept randomness. They never attempt to prove this quantitatively.
Brendan (not Novaseeker):
It is true that these QBs can have a sudden impact on their teams. But opposing defenses do seem to have an easier time adapting to the running quarterback who might lack in passing ability.
Also, think about the mentality being described here. This applies especially to Newton (I do think that RG3 has the chance to be the counterexample; I like his technique as well as his demeanor, basically he’s humble and he was raised in a military family). Newton started out hot last year and he rode that wave of confidence through the entire season. He slacked towards the end. Now, this season, he’s started cold and there is no indication that he has the emotional ability to recover.
Brendan – I’ll wait on RG3/Luck until season 3. I am old enough to rememebr how Vick was suppose revolutionaize the position. RG3 is different from VY, Vick and Cam; he was in a pass first college offense and could run, he was not a running threat who could pass. Baylor ran a very different offense from the 1 read offenses that VY, Vick and Cam all ran in the NCAAs. Kind of like how Aaron Rodgers, McNabb, Steev Young and Rothlisberger can all run but are pass first guys. In the NFL, you must be a pass first guy. Being able to run when needed is a plus, and has been since the days of Roger Staubach.
RG3 is very good and has the potential to be great because he has the combo of world class speed AND high football IQ. Just listening to him talk you can tell he is pretty sharp, and it appears he’s able to translate that intelligence onto the field, where you have to be great at all the intangibles- the same way Chuck described the best waiters, and how the smarter ones have a better ability to manage chaos. Vick is a great athlete but he will never be a great manager on the field, nor will Cam. But you can see early on that RG3 has the ability to manage a game, and add to that his ability to run for a touchdown at any moment and you’ve got a beast. I’m Philly fan by the way, and RG3 and Vick should not even be mentioned in the same sentence.
SOBL1, your first comment claimed that the athleticism of NFL defenders made rushing QB’s ineffective in the NFL compared to college. You seem to have backed off that claim, or just defined rushing QB to exclude those who have any passing ability.
Both Griffin and Newton are having enormous success in the NFL rushing the ball, incomparable to what Roger Staubach did. Staubach never ran for more than 320 yards in a season and 4 TDs. Newton had 14 rush TDs last year and Griffin could run for 1,000 yards! Griffin has more rushing 1st downs than half the starting RBs in the NFL.
And I don’t know what you mean by “pass first”. Griffin’s rush attempts dwarf those white dudes you named, so you can’t mean quantity. If you mean that it helps to be able to throw, well no kidding.
Bottom-line, the success these guys are having running the ball can make up for major passing deficiencies and if Griffin can simply be an above average passer, then he’ll be among the top few most valuable QBs in the league.
The scrambling QB threat has been around, at least in my earliest memory, since Jim McMahon and John Elway in 1984-85. Over the next two decades, it’s always been the same story: defenses can’t contain him until they figure out how to. Is today any different?
I read a lot into RG3′s name – the ’3′ part is a proxy, to me, for a strong patrilineal line which I think is very important here. Compare his strong family name to increasingly common double-barrelled surname. Those names, just like the convoluted first names of many black athletes, are a function of growing up in households and neighborhoods with strong matriarchal influence. This does not translate well into the realms of men. RG3 is from a military family and probably knows how to interact with a group of men and not develop hurt feelings if he fails or is criticized. I think he’s more mentally resilient than his peer group, Newton, Vick, JaMarcus. As Donny says above, he seems to be “with it” in interviews unlike Newton who is an utter retard.
Christ, I thought the alt-right blogosphere was good with numbers, but I guess you guys are not used to numbers disagreeing with your core ideas.
PA says: “The scrambling QB threat has been around, at least in my earliest memory, since Jim McMahon and John Elway in 1984-85. Over the next two decades, it’s always been the same story: defenses can’t contain him until they figure out how to. Is today any different?”
Elway never cracked 300 rushing yards in a season! Griffin has nearly 500 already. Elway probably ran a 4.8 40 and had little wiggle. Griffin ran sub 4.4! Newton is approximately 250 lbs and runs 4.5. These guys are not comparable to Elway and McMahon.
You guys really are wrong on this. For the second straight year a young black athletic QB is having unprecedented success. Be a race realist, not a racist.
scrambling qbs need field smarts and reasonable passing ability to compete with the best of the smart, visually acute passing-only pocket qbs, like manning or brady. griffin appears to have all three, which makes him a rarity among rarities (enjoy it, anti-racisss), and a genuine threat in the future once his team gels around his style and he has adequate defense taking the pressure off him.
if griffin comes to rely too much on his running ability, Ds will quickly adjust and he is going to have his career cut short by turnovers and accumulated concussions. griffin is a good passer — or at least, he has the stats of a good passer owing partly to the fact that he substitutes what could be bad passes with runs for yardage — and if he deftly navigates his formidable skill-set without relying too much on his run, then expect him to compete with the greats for acclaim.
Brendan,
You’re cherry picking comments. You’ve ignored everything I’ve written and you ignore SOBL’s argument that he’s giving RG3 until year 3 to prove that he’s not a fluke. That’s reasonable given that our judgment is generally clouded by hype that never really pans out, as per Whitlock’s argument in the OP. What all of these commenters are seeing though and which you seem to be ignoring yourself is that QB rushing yards don’t translate into real, long-term success at the position and for the team in general. Elway was considered a scrambling quarterback in his time, but that’s because QBs mostly stayed in the pocket. Compared to QBs after him, he should no be considered a running QB.
As for “unprecedented success” – that’s a lofty phrase considering that RG3 is 3-4 while Andrew Luck is 3-3 on a team that won only 1 game last year.
if griffin comes to rely too much on his running ability, Ds will quickly adjust and he is going to have his career cut short by turnovers and accumulated concussions. griffin is a good passer — or at least, he has the stats of a good passer owing partly to the fact that he substitutes what could be bad passes with runs for yardage — and if he deftly navigates his formidable skill-set without relying too much on his run, then expect him to compete with the greats for acclaim.
I agree with this. One critical piece will be staying healthy, which is not going to be very easy if you are designing an offense around the QB running for 1000+ yards in a season. Even if he can do it against NFL defenses consistently, the injury risk skyrockets from that kind of play and approaches that of a RB — which is generally a more “repleaceable” position on any team than the starting QB position. After his mild concussion, we’re already seeing RG3 run more for the sidelines and slide more rather than do the vertical runs and just get open-field tackled, like he did at Baylor — which is smart, because these defenders are bigger and faster and hit harder, regardless of how fast RG3 can run.
I ignored you CR because I agree w/ most everything you said. But a few points:
1) Win/loss is not a fair standard of judgement. Was Mark Sanchez’s rookie year really more impressive than Newton’s?
2) The argument that rushing QB’s don’t achieve long-term success is based on an extremely small sample size. Vick, Newton, RG3 and Randall Cunningham are our examples (I’m talking about guys who run for 50+ yards per game). The mechanism by which the success of rushing QBs is supposed to decline is defensive adaptation, but I don’t see any evidence for that.
3) In our small sample we’ve got a mixed bag of evidence. Newton/RG3 accomplished unprecedented y/y offensive turnarounds. Vick has been generally mediocre, with one fantastic season mixed in (they were very good in 2010).
My problem is how quickly you guys latch onto confirming evidence (like Newton’s early struggles this year) while being skeptical of other evidence.
To me, the fact that mental midget Cam Newton produced the most dramatic y/y offensive turnaround in NFL history last year and RG3 is doing something similar this year puts the burden of proof on you guys.
Also, while I don’t want to claim that Vince Young was a successful QB, neither his win/loss record nor his stats qualify for mega-bust status. Part of his problems seem to be serious depression-type mental problems. I wouldn’t want to generalize from that example.
A running QB is a huge advantage in the NCAA, much less so in the NFL. Newton carried Auburn to the title. It’s not possible for a run first QB to do that in the NFL. Denard Robinson has started for Michigan for years now and he will not sniff the field in the NFL at QB because he is an awful passer and made of paper mache. Being able to run is a plus in the NFL, but success at the QB spot is based on the arm, eyes and mind. The other factor minimizing the adv of running is age. McNabb and Steve Young were both guys who reduced running as they aged, and even Vick has reduced his running. After a while, they add a QB spy or a short zone net, and you will have to throw over them.
One thing about RG3 that worries me is he has a concussion already and is a ‘skinny scrambler’. Newton + Big Ben (even Luck) are bigger guys with large frames that can take a pounding. I worry RG3 might be out of the NFL within 5 years due to injuries.
It’s a funny thing to witness the contrasting awareness of the dynamics involved in “liberating” football.
There are only two sets of “meta-players” in this sport-centric soap opera. There are those who understand that the entire LIBERAL WHITE MALE infrastructure of football from pee wee to professional is solely motivated by the desire to subplant the white QB in favor of the nonwhite QB so as to evidence “liberation” from “white Supremacy.” And then there are those (coaches and players alike) that must pretend that this motivation is absolutely not the case.
ESPN brass comprises of closet HBDers who have absolutely no qualms about singing the praises of black athletic superiority while simultaneously holding barely revealed contemptuous views of same said black athletes’ intelligence.
The reality is that the friction of this “football” soap opera is entirely in-house.
Both symbolically and concretely, white coaches, management and ownership “breaking free” of the mandate to favor white QBs because of superior intelligence represents an expansion of their respective autonomies. But it comes with a quite predictable price. Black athletes, wholly cognizant of the racial symbolism behind the desire to replace the white QB, know exactly how to leverage this desire into their own expansion of autonomy. The results are already in.
There is of course the one non-player that spectates and heckles. The spectator/heckler cares nothing for the underlying dynamics, racial symbolism or even the fact that he is mislead at his own expense. He’s called a “fan.” And he fans the flames of this drama. But then there is the white Supremacist. In this football drama, he is the devalued and demoted “white QB” who can see the slimy liberal white HBDer both at ESPN and within the league’s infrastructure and their totally self-serving desire to expand their personal autonomy by exalting the “black QB.” He can also see the opportunistic black QB taking full advantage of the hapless liberal white coach, analyst, manager and owner and their total supplication to the idea of black athletic superiority.
Thordaddy was a white QB once. He could throw 60 yards and run you down like Earl Campbell. At 38 and 6’1″, still dunks a basketball. The game of football is not what it used to be and everybody knows why whether they acknowledge it or not.
Football seeks “liberation” and so its demise is inevitable.
It appears the brothers’ brain synapses don’t fire quick enough to make reads in the pocket. That is the only way to win the Super Bowl in the NFL. Doug Williams did it with all day to throw against one of the worst defenses ever to play in the game.
RG3 is unlikely to be successful long term because at Baylor they did not trust him to make reads at the line of scrimmage because he was too confused. The asst coach actually helped him make the play calls from the Line of scrimmage. Not a good sign.
Cam is a a disaster and the scout, Nolan Nowrocki was called a racist 2 years ago for pointing out exactly what is happening today.
The Eagles set their franchise back 5 years with Vick. Russell Wilson will do the same to Seattle.
Josh Freeman will be on the bench next year….at least hopefully if you area Bucs fan.
How many times do we need to see the same qbs winning Super Bowls until you see a correlation?
TR
Brendan (not Novaseeker):
I think that despite the small sample size of black quarterbacks we have enough evidence to show that this type has more difficulty succeeding in the NFL. The burden of proof has been met; now we’re just talking about whether or not certain players have enough of other types of skills to overcome such a burden. I cannot prove that Newton will be a bust until he does actually bust. I can only speculate at this point, but his performance this year seems to be following the pattern of a quarterback on a downward trajectory. I think that RG3 has a much better chance of not fitting the pattern.
As for Newton’s y/y turnaround – last year was a huge year for quarterbacks. His team finished at 6-10, up from 2-14 but it’s not like he took them to the Super Bowl. I think that what happened for Newton is that he is a very talented athlete who can throw at times and who front-ran. He had a couple of good games and got a head of steam in terms of confidence and buzz. But a guy like that needs constant reaffirmation. Once he lost his swag he was back to “real Cam” – a guy who doesn’t have a complete-enough tool chest to do well in the league.
CR, I generally agree, particularly w/ this comment: “now we’re just talking about whether or not certain players have enough of other types of skills to overcome such a burden.” My core argument is that elite rushing QB’s are capable of compensating quite a bit.
But I still think you’re giving Newton too little credit for last year. According to typical ratings systems (that attempt to control for stuff like strength of schedule), the Panthers offense was 32nd in 2010 and 4th in 2011. (Whether you choose to go by yards, points, or whatever, the turnaround looks similar.)
It is cliche, but we can’t run controlled experiments in sports to evaluate player talent. The closest you can get is when an injury occurs, one player is swapped for another and nothing else changes. A y/y player swap is not quite as good, but it’s still informative.
Newton might have the worst brains of any QB ever and that might ruin his career. But there is no avoiding that his rookie year was shockingly good.
No one doubts the athleticism of Newton and Griffin. What is in doubt is whether they can be great QBs and put to rest the notion that the QB position is the white man’s position. But that question really won’t be answered until the entire structure of football comes to the self-realization that it is doing everything it can to fulfill their own self prophesy.
Tiger Woods is the perfect analogy. He is a very good golfer BUT HE WAS BETTER when the whole PGA apparatus was behind his success and certainly gave a blind eye to his PED use.
And why this monolithic support within the PGA???
Down with genuine white Supremacy.
Another angle missing from the narrative is the total lack of desire amongst white alpha football players to be led by a black QB. The usual suspects will either scoff at such a notion or chalk it up to “racism,” but they certainly won’t accept the idea as just bare bone fact.
A good leader should have the highest general intelligence of the group. He doesn’t need to be the best at everything, just the most intelligent at dealing with people.
I agree with Chuck about RG3′s name. That would signal to me an intelligent, well raised black man. Really waspy people are the ones who should avoid those names, everyone else can pull it off.
Well, despite my disagreements w/ most of you, I think you guys are missing out on one of the most interesting cases that could support your ideas. The New England Patriots. Their offense is easily the whitest in the NFL and among the most consistently successful. In particular, their reputation is as a place where non-physically talented guys tend to overachieve. Certainly plausible that a high average IQ could produce something like that. Also, their coach is clearly borderline genius.
(Among their 11 offensive starters, I believe only two are black, one of which is their RB. Both are recent additions. And an unusual number of their reserve offensive players are white as well.)
An excellent, well-written piece. Cam Newton displayed some serious character flaw issues while in college. I wonder what other personality deficiencies he might have and how all of that affects his performance as a quarterback and team leader.
A lot of black QBs NFL failures might be due to how they’re taught to play the position growing up. A HS or college coach whose QB is fast (most black QBs have good speed) will tell him to just take off with the ball if his primary receiver isn’t open, since that’s usually an effective play at those levels. So most blacks don’t develop the skills required to excel at QB in the NFL (poise in the pocket, looking for alternate receivers, reading coverages etc).
As Kevin Costner explained to Tim Robbins in “Bull Durham,” platitudes are your friend when you are being interviewed in the big leagues. These are really young guys out there and they need a lot of fallback blather to stay out of energy-wasting controversies.
It looks like at the level of successful NFL quarterbacks, blacks are about as well represented as whites, relative to their population sizes. In other words, this is an example of, roughly speaking, racial equality.
“It looks like at the level of successful NFL quarterbacks, blacks are about as well represented as whites, relative to their population sizes.”
But is the argument about “successful” quarterbacks or elite quarterbacks?
This post is actually a bit of subtle genius.Calling out the Information Bubble is a big deal for many blacks (and women) who escape serious criticism or preparation warlier in life.
I would argue that this bubble is far, far, more serious with women in general than for black people particularly.
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Another interesting take on this is here: http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/8550792/andrew-luck-better-qb-robert-griffin-iii
@Gorbachev – You mean like Herman Cain most likely climbing the ladder due to AA and no one ever calling his nonsense out made him think he could run for POTUS?
The HBDers within the football sphere are racially stunted jock sniffing white male liberals. They tape ankles and ice down thighs on big stinky black males who are “athletically superior.” But secretly, they have contempt for same athletes in the intellectual sphere ESPECIALLY black athletes. This dynamic is where the identity crisis for the white male liberal HBDer evolved. The HBDer is and was cool with liberalism UNTIL liberalism demanded HBD nerds to concede intellectual equality with these super athletically superior black males. Oh no. We cannot do that! That would be self-annihilating.
Ergo, we can’t expect HBDers to give a entirely truthful account concerning the RG3/newton soap opera. They get the racial angle but they cannot reveal this angle. They stick to them stats and figures.
Of course, it all starts with who the white male liberal HBDer hates?
The elite white male alpha jock, of course. Especially, the intelligent ones.
The NFL Corporation desires and seeks radical autonomy. The entire reason for a man innovating a “corporation” was to expand and extend his autonomy. The bigger and “deeper” these corporations grow the greater chance of this corporation attaining a “mind of its own.” The corporation now seeks its “own” freedom of action. The corporation seeks radical autonomy. Of course, those within the corporation are beneficiaries of this radical autonomy.
So if we understand that the NFL Corporation is seeking radical autonomy as evidenced by its unrelenting desire to replace the traditional white NFL QB with his logical antithesis then we can see in the RG3/Newton sub-soap opera that the issue is a simple one. As compared to RG3, Newton is downright too “white” and to put stock into him when we have RG3 would be “racist” AND LIMIT our freedom of action in deciding the leaders of our teams. Once, we the NFL were limited by tradition AND HDB understandings. Now, we are limited by nothing and can in fact present the antithesis.
If I’m a defensive head coach, I ABSOLUTELY want RG3 to RUN, RUN, RUN. Always one on one. Stuff and stuff some more. CBs get to be dirty and nasty. LB’s and safeties LICKING THEIR CHOPS. He’s out of the league in three years.
He’s one concussion in after 5 games. One more and the discussion will commence. Should RG3 be a receiver? Can RG3 afford a third concussion? A third concussion could effectively end this season. Season two and upon first concussion? The whole thing intensifies exponentially. The NFL desires radical autonomy, but the NFL Corporation does not go unopposed.
They say that the ghetto fabulous Cam Newton takes a rental limousine everywhere, including leaving the stadium for early week walk-throughs or film sessions, lol.
He’ll be flat broke by his 5th year away from the league.
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