When Mike Sando of The Athletic released his annual NFL Quarterback Tiers article, in which he spoke with 50 NFL coaches and executives to get a sense of how those in the know see the men who play the game’s most important position, it was clear that Black quarterbacks still face an evaluation gauntlet that white quarterbacks generally do not. We’re used to the old-school opinions in which Black quarterbacks were seen as more athletic, white quarterbacks as more cerebral. If you think we’re past that at this point, we’ll start with one evaluator’s opinion of the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes.
“We love Mahomes because of his unorthodox throws, not because of his natural pocket presence,” one anonymous source told Sando. “And when that disappears, that is when they lose games. I don’t think that is a 1. I think that is a 2. Nothing against the guy. I love the kid. But take his first read away and what does he do? He runs, he scrambles and he plays streetball.”
For Josh Allen of the Bills, a quarterback who shares a lot of the “streetball” characteristics of Mahomes and Jackson, there appears to be the automatic assurance that he’ll figure it out.
“Josh Allen is a better version of Lamar, and I love him as a football player,” a defensive coordinator said. “I still think he is erratic as a thrower, and so he doesn’t scare me the same way Rodgers does. But he’s ascending.”
“Some guys you’ve got to just give credit for being big, talented guys that can overcome a lot of stuff,” one evaluator said. “He may not be perfect, but he’s so big and so talented that he carries the team. He is a freak. He is not going to expertly handle pure pass situations, but he doesn’t have to a lot of times. He may have five guys hanging on him and complete it anyway.”
Somehow, we don’t think that evaluator would be as effusive about Cam Newton’s athletic potential when he was the 2015 Offensive Player of the Year and the NFL’s Most Valuable Player as the QB of the Panthers. Allen and Newton share a similar overall player profile.
Mahomes? He seems to be stuck in whatever these people think he’s stuck in now.
“It’s like they play NBA iso-ball and just try to get enough space for a matchup on Kelce or a matchup on Tyreek ,” another defensive play caller said. “If Mahomes has a ‘flaw,’ I do not think he is the greatest at diagnosing, but he is so extremely talented with his arm, his release and the way that they…
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