Lamar Jackson Is The Modern Day Peyton Manning : Clay Travis

In 1995, 1996, and 1997, highly rated University of Tennessee football teams quarterbacked by Peyton Manning lost to the highly ranked Florida Gator football teams of Steve Spurrier in three consecutive seasons. Manning's Volunteers crushed most SEC competition in those three years -- Manning would go 39-6 as a starter at Tennessee -- but the narrative was set for Manning's career, he couldn't win "the big game." While Manning would go on to win the SEC title in 1997 and become the overall number one pick in the 1998 NFL Draft, none of that mattered as he began his NFL career, the narrative was set -- he couldn't win the big game. 

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Entering the NFL, Manning took his Colts to the playoffs in year two, but the Colts lost in the post-season every year before the Super Bowl, often to Tom Brady's New England Patriots. It wasn't until his ninth NFL season that Manning's Colts finally got past Tom Brady's New England Patriots, and he won his first Super Bowl. For those of us who remember this era, I don't believe any quarterback has ever been criticized more for failing to win the "big game" than Peyton Manning was from his tenure at Tennessee until he won a Super Bowl with the Colts in the 2006 season. 

It was a decade of constant, unrelenting criticism that rained down on Peyton Manning. 

But Manning wasn't the first quarterback to get lambasted for failing to win the big game. It's a constant refrain in football. 

Indeed, Manning took over the mantle of most criticized NFL quarterback from Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway, who was ripped to the high heavens for his own failure to win "the big game" until he ended his Hall of Fame career with two straight Super Bowl titles in 1997 and 1998, just in time for Manning to enter the league.

Since that time, the "big game" mantra has been foisted on a bevy of quarterbacks, Aaron Rodgers and Cam Newton among them. Sometimes guys win, like Rodgers, and remove the attacks. Other times they never do: Cam Newton. And the failure remains an albatross on their shoulders in the post-career ranking of their accomplishments.  

In fact, to this day, if you ask most NFL fans who is the greatest quarterback to have never won a Super Bowl title, most would answer former Miami Dolphins Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Marino.

That's why I would argue the three most criticized quarterbacks of my life, in order, are Peyton Manning, John Elway, and Dan Marino.  

MIAMI GARDENS, FLORIDA - DECEMBER 30: Former Quarterback Peyton Manning looks on prior to the Capital One Orange Bowl between the Tennessee Volunteers and the Clemson Tigers at Hard Rock Stadium on December 30, 2022 in Miami Gardens, Florida. (Photo by Megan Briggs/Getty Images)

I begin this column with this historical background because I think it's very important to consider recent, past history in light of present history. Top quarterbacks, for my entire life as a sports fan, have always been held to a high standard: win Super Bowls or endure unrelenting criticism. 

That's how we measure greatness in the NFL. 

That's why Tom Brady, with his seven Super Bowls, is almost universally considered the greatest quarterback of all-time, and it's why Patrick Mahomes, with three Super Bowls at present, is almost universally considered the greatest quarterback playing today. 

Now you can argue that's an unfair standard, but the ultimate test of NFL quarterback greatness is Super Bowl victories. 

Lamar Jackson Is Not Discriminated Against.

Presently, the four best quarterbacks in the NFL are: Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson and Joe Burrow. You can argue someone else is one of the four best quarterbacks in the NFL, but I believe you'd be incorrect. These are the modern day top four in most football fan opinions, including my own. Of these four quarterbacks, Patrick Mahomes has two MVPs and Lamar Jackson has two MVPs. No other quarterback playing today has won an NFL MVP except for Aaron Rodgers, who has three MVPs, and one Super Bowl win. 

I write all of this as a prelude to my primary argument, because I think it's important to contextualize the modern history of the NFL and rebut narratives that have been allowed to take root and be accepted as truths: foremost among them that black quarterbacks in the NFL are still discriminated against, particularly Lamar Jackson.

It's just flat out untrue, and it unnecessarily divides sports fans to argue this.  

In fact, I think this argument is 100% a manufactured race baiting tactic that has been deployed on social media by racially divisive sports media figures in order to advance their own careers and divide sports fans into identity politics categories.

I have a radical idea. The best possible thing we should do is hold every athlete, regardless of race, to the exact same standards of criticism and analysis.  

I'm writing this today because I think it's important to actually slam the door once and for all on this narrative and demonstrate how untrue it really is.

I hope every football fan reading this today, regardless of your racial background, will read this with an open mind. 

So here we go.  

As a prelude, I'm not arguing that racism against black quarterbacks hasn't existed at some point in time in football, in the pre-Civil Rights era it certainly did, and in the 1970s and 1980s, it was still a factor when it came to opportunities, but for those of you around my own age or younger, that was born around 1980 and later, it absolutely, positively has not existed.

What's more, claiming it has existed actually ignores an incredible fact. Football has actually helped lead the charge to triumph over racism.  

 (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images)

A bit of biography here before I continue further. The first quarterback I ever remember cheering for of any race was Tony Robinson, the University of Tennessee's starting quarterback in the 1985 SEC championship season. Robinson happened to be black, but I thought nothing of it. The color I cared about the most was orange, the bright orange on his Tennessee jersey. In 1988, Doug Williams, playing in one of the first Super Bowls I remember watching on TV in its entirety, won a title for the Washington Redskins, beating John Elway and the Denver Broncos. Throughout my young life as a football fan, black quarterbacks played everywhere in college football, and in 1998, Tee Martin won a national title for my favorite college team, the Tennessee Volunteers, and in 1999, Steve McNair took my favorite NFL team to the Super Bowl, the Tennessee Titans. 

I don't remember ever hearing a debate about black quarterbacks or their ability to win at the highest level throughout my entire life.

I understand that people who are a generation older than me had a different experience, but I never even saw or heard this argument emerge until social media took root around 2014 and the race baiters dragged us all back into the past, ignoring all the progress that had actually happened to football. 

I'm going to return to the social media era in a moment, but first let me hit you with this stat. 

Since 1999, There Have Been 28 Black Quarterbacks Drafted In The First Round.

28!

That's a ton of first round black quarterbacks.  

In fact, let me return to that 1999 draft, when this trend really took root, for a moment. I think it's one of the most significant moments in NFL history and I haven't heard anyone really talk about it very much.  

The 1999 draft happened a long time ago now -- even though, to be fair, 1999 seems like recent history to me. 

But it's been a full quarter-century since that draft, 26 years, a long time, certainly, in the world of sports. 

Why do I point to 1999 as an important line of demarcation? Because that's when three black quarterbacks were drafted in the first 11 picks: Donovan McNabb was the second overall pick, Akili Smith was the third pick, and Daunte Culpepper was the 11th pick. 

That year was very significant because in 1999, a full 26 years ago, the same number of black quarterbacks went in the first round that year than had ever been drafted in the first round in the history of the NFL to that point. (Doug Williams was a first round draft pick in 1978, Andre Ware in 1990, and Steve McNair in 1995.)

So 26 years ago, NFL teams decided to invest its most important draft capital -- first round picks and the commensurate money, fame and attention that comes with that -- on black quarterbacks. 

And they haven't looked back for an instant since. 

The glass ceiling for quarterbacks, for all intents and purposes, was shattered on that day in 1999. 

26 years ago!

Yet how many of you even knew that 1999 stat, that in that draft alone the same number of first round black quarterbacks were drafted as in the entire history of the NFL?

I would argue you don't know, because in 1999 most people were focused on something other than race, we mostly, as a society, believed race relations were good and getting better and that everyone's opportunities for success in the country were growing. 

In 2001, Mike Vick became the first black quarterback to be drafted number one overall, and since then Vince Young, the first quarterback taken, third pick overall, in 2006, JaMarcus Russell the first pick in 2007, Cam Newton, the first pick in 2011, Jameis Winston first pick in 2015, Kyler Murray first pick in 2019 and in 2023 black quarterbacks went first, Bryce Young, second, CJ Stroud, and fourth, Anthony Richardson. Finally, in 2024, Caleb Williams went first overall and Jayden Daniels went second overall.

It's not just that black quarterbacks have been highly drafted and highly paid, it's that it has become so commonplace that most sports fans don't even think about race when it comes to quarterbacks at all.  

Far from being a huge cultural moment for black quarterbacks, as many sports media argued in 2023, in reality, the 2023 draft, which featured three highly ranked first round quarterbacks, was actually a mirror image of the 1999 draft, which also featured three black quarterbacks in the first 11 picks, nearly a quarter-century before. 

Oct 27, 2024; Houston, Texas, USA; Indianapolis Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson (5) reacts after the game against the Houston Texans at NRG Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-Imagn Images

Yet you heard sports media extolling that 2023 draft as historic. 

Historic?!

NFL history was actually made in 1999 when three black quarterbacks were drafted in the top 11 picks. 

That was when the NFL turned a page and made a dramatic leap into the future, when the seeds of Doug Williams, Randall Cunningham and Warren Moon's successes were fully realized. 

And it's not just the draft. Right now, the highest paid quarterbacks in the NFL are mostly black too. 

Lamar Jackson, Jalen Hurts, Deshaun Watson, Kyler Murray and Patrick Mahomes are all making in the neighborhood of $50 million a year to play football. 

Good for them, that's how the meritocracy in American sports works. Those with the most talent make the most money. 

Even, sometimes, way more money than their talent would actually suggest they should make. 

Witness Deshaun Watson. Fresh off over 30 sexual assault allegations, he signed a contract with the Cleveland Browns a few years ago that guaranteed him $230 million, the most any player at that time had ever received guaranteed to ever play football. Sure, the Cleveland Browns and their fans regret the decision now, but only because Watson has been a bust. Far from being discriminated against, black quarterbacks in the NFL are being paid more than anyone has ever received to play the game of football. 

Quarterbacks Rule The NFL, Regardless Of Race.

Indeed, if you really want to criticize NFL fans and teams, the argument isn't that the league is racist, it's that if you're good at playing quarterback, you can get away with almost anything off the field. 

I'm not sure how many people will answer honestly, but if you told your average NFL fan that his team's star quarterback would be accused of domestic violence, but also play in the Super Bowl the same season, I think most NFL fans would sign up for that trade off.

And, guess what, as black quarterbacks have become some of the best in the league, TV ratings have skyrocketed. 

It turns out the vast majority of sports fans just want to watch the best players, they don't care about race at all.  

Given all these actual facts laid out above, how is it that so many have become convinced that the NFL is racist, that the NFL is discriminating against black quarterbacks? 

I'll tell you, it's all a false narrative that many are afraid to attack, especially white guys in sports media, of whom there are many. (Here's the truth, if you're a white guy fortunate enough to make a living writing or talking about sports, do you really want to risk your job by arguing about anything race related with someone black? Probably not. So false narratives become accepted truth. No one is willing to put themselves out there and rebut these arguments.)  

But the false NFL is racist against black quarterbacks narrative really took flight with the rise of social media, often populated by very young people without much historical knowledge, and a cabal of race baiters, often black, who seized on one story as evidence of their accusation: Lamar Jackson was being racially discriminated against because he was a black quarterback. 

This all began at the NFL combine when some scouts doubted Lamar's ability to play quarterback at the NFL level. 

In particular, at least one scout said Lamar's accuracy at quarterback was so bad that he should consider playing another position, wide receiver. 

The race baiters in sports media leaped to attention -- THIS WAS DOGWHISTLIING RACISM they all argued in unison. HOW DARE ANYONE SUGGEST LAMAR JACKSON WASN'T A QUARTERBACK? HE WON THE HEISMAN TROPHY! RACISM! RACISM! RACISM! RACISM!

This, of course, also happened at the height of Colin Kaepernick taking a knee for the national anthem and the Black Lives Matter cultural ascendancy, which made combating the argument in public career suicide, especially for white media members, but was it really racist for (some) scouts to suggest another position for a Heisman trophy winning quarterback? Was Lamar Jackson really being treated that differently?

Of course not. 

How do we know this?

Because two other Heisman trophy winning WHITE quarterbacks had received the same criticisms when they showed up for the NFL combine: Eric Crouch and Tim Tebow. 

In fact, let's talk about former Nebraska quarterback Eric Crouch, who most sports fans don't even remember at this point. Crouch, the Heisman trophy winning quarterback, WAS ACTUALLY DRAFTED AS A WIDE RECEIVER IN 2002! 

Crouch wanted to play quarterback, but was seen as being too small and not having ideal arm strength. But he was so athletic that teams were willing to consider him at other positions. As a result, Crouch was taken number 95 overall as a wide receiver. Crouch never played quarterback in the NFL, and even switched positions from wide receiver to safety in an effort to make it in the NFL. 

YES, NFL TEAMS PUT A HEISMAN TROPHY QUARTERBACK ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BALL. 

A Heisman Trophy Winner At Safety In The NFL!

Nearly twenty years before Lamar Jackson got to the NFL combine!

Again, many of you don't know this story at all, but was this racism against Eric Crouch? Or did scouts just not believe his talents transferred to the NFL game?

But it's not just Crouch. 

Nearly a decade later Tim Tebow, another running quarterback, left the Florida Gators, having also won the Heisman trophy, and many teams didn't see him as a quarterback and wanted him to play tight end in the NFL instead. 

Tebow insisted he was a quarterback and was drafted late in the first round, 25th overall, by the Denver Broncos in 2010. 

But no one treated Tebow being asked to play another position as a racial indignity.

And Tebow, like Crouch, didn't make it in the NFL as a starting quarterback.  

Fast-forward eight years from Tebow's draft class, Lamar Jackson, having just won the Heisman trophy as an athletic running quarterback, enters the NFL combine. Some scouts question whether he can play the position, just as they had questioned Eric Crouch and Tim Tebow as well, both Heisman trophy winners with athletic running backgrounds as quarterbacks in college football. 

Suddenly, it was a racist question according to almost everyone in sports media. 

But why?

The race baiters ascended on social media and many young people online, quite simply, have the sports memories of goldfish. Michael Vick might as well have been Kenny Stabler to them. And, honestly, I don't blame these young sports fans because, if you're being honest, you were the same way when you were young. Any athlete that pre-dated your memory was ancient history. But I do blame the adults, the people who knew better, the sports fans of my generation knew this was all absurd. 

Yet almost no one would combat the narrative on social media that the NFL was racist against black quarterbacks.  

It didn't matter that NFL teams had drafted black quarterbacks number one overall in four recent drafts, it didn't matter that as far back as 1999, three different black NFL quarterbacks had gone in the top 11, questioning whether Lamar Jackson was an NFL quarterback was a racist dog whistle.   
Soon this idea was trending everywhere.

And many came to believe it was true.   

The NFL being racist against black quarterbacks suddenly became the number one story of the 2018 NFL draft. As Lamar Jackson waited for his name to be called, the narrative was that every team that passed on him was racist. It didn't matter that Aaron Rodgers had waited forever to hear his name called too, EVERYONE WAS RACIST IN THE NFL BECAUSE LAMAR WASN'T DRAFTED YET.

News flash, AT LEAST ONE SCOUT DOESN'T BELIEVE IN EVERY NFL QUARTERBACK EVERY YEAR.

We all know this.  

This has always been the case, it will always be the case. Picking quarterbacks is hard, forecasting quarterback greatness is difficult. No one, not even the most brilliant NFL prognosticators alive, are good at it. 

Race Has Nothing To Do With It. 

Indeed, if every NFL team was racist, guess what? Simply by being the un-racist NFL team you'd win way more. The best thing that could happen to your favorite team is for everyone else to be racist and your team not to be. Because racism would lead to black players being undervalued, your team could draft them, and you'd win more often. 

But this is rational, and how people who understand basic market economics think. 

The reality is, the NFL is hyper-competitive and everyone copies everyone who wins in an effort to win themselves. 

Regardless, back to the 2018 draft. 

After all this racism, do you know where Lamar Jackson ended up being drafted?

IN THE FIRST ROUND BY THE BALTIMORE RAVENS!

The first round!

Sure it was the very last pick in the first round, but it was still the freaking first round. After all the racism accusations against the NFL, Lamar Jackson was drafted in the first round at quarterback. 

Do you know where Tom Brady, the greatest quarterback in the history of the game, was drafted? 

The sixth round! 

Were NFL teams racist against Tom Brady or did they just project him poorly?

I think you know the answer. 

After all this narrative, Lamar Jackson was a first round pick. 

And he's been a great pick for the Baltimore Ravens. 

He's won two MVPs, he's gone to the playoffs as a high seed a ton. But, guess what? He's been a disappointment in the playoffs, only winning three total games while losing five games in seven seasons as a starting quarterback. Yet Lamar Jackson, potentially next week, may have as many NFL MVP awards, three, as he does playoff wins. 

Plus, Lamar's making over fifty million a year playing football. 

As I mentioned above, he's one of the four best quarterbacks in the league, but he's not being discriminated against based on his race at all. 

Not remotely. 

If anything, he's the most overpraised quarterback relative to playoff success in the NFL today. 

No other quarterback in NFL history has ever won multiple MVPs without winning a single Super Bowl. 

ORCHARD PARK, NEW YORK - JANUARY 19: Lamar Jackson #8 of the Baltimore Ravens carries the ball during the first half of an NFL football divisional playoff game against the Buffalo Bills at Highmark Stadium on January 19, 2025 in Orchard Park, New York. (Photo by Kevin Sabitus/Getty Images)

Given these circumstances, you would expect that Lamar Jackson would be ripped to high heaven for not winning the big game, just like Peyton Manning was early in his career. 

Yet I would argue that, so far, Lamar Jackson has gotten nowhere near the criticism that Peyton Manning did. 

Why?

Because far from discriminating against him, many are afraid to criticize Jackson aggressively because they think they'll be called racist. 

But, guess what, it's not racist to want to hold Lamar Jackson to the same standards as Peyton Manning, John Elway or Dan Marino, it's actually what we should be doing. With great talent comes great responsibility (to win). 

Ask Spider-Man. 

Now I hope Lamar Jackson gets to a Super Bowl and wins it one year, because personally, I'd rather have multiple teams winning Super Bowls than all of them go to the Brady's and Mahomes's of the world.  

But any criticism of Lamar Jackson isn't racist, it's just what comes with high salaries and high talent. 

Hell, and it's not just the NFL either. 

Does anyone remember how savage the critics were against LeBron for not winning a title? Lamar Jackson hasn't gotten a pinprick of the criticism LeBron did before his first title. And do you know who else used to get ripped to the high heavens for not winning titles and flaming out in the post-season?

MICHAEL JORDAN!

People used to say Jordan was great in the regular season, but that he'd never win a title because he couldn't win the big games. 

Go back and watch the great Bulls documentary, "The Last Dance," the criticism really got to Jordan, it drove him to greatness. He was still bitter about it decades later.

And it's not just team sports either. Does anybody remember how ripped to shreds Phil Mickelson used to get for his failure to win majors?

Pressure is a privilege. So is criticism. You don't criticize people who don't matter, you don't put pressure on people who never play in big games. 

Don't Miss The Message Within The Sport.

Okay, so some of you might be asking yourselves, why does all of this matter, why did I feel compelled to write this article? 

Because sports are the ultimate meritocracy. The best man or the best woman wins. (Not the best man pretending to be a woman). It doesn't matter if your mom and dad are rich or poor, if your school is big or small, the scoreboard starts at 0-0, everyone is equal between the lines. 

America would be a far better place if it was more like sports and less like politics. 

What I saw happen in the last decade was the race baiters in sports media working to divide us all. They ignored the excellent history of the NFL in expanding opportunity to all regardless of background, and tried to argue the league was racist, that it was something it wasn't. They ignored the progress and the history. 

They pretended the 1999 draft never happened. 

They believed that sports should be defined not by merit and excellence, but by the color of our skin, that all wasn't actually equal, that identity politics should take over sports like it took over the country. 

And they used Lamar Jackson's draft criticism to do it, to drag us all from a meritocratic present to a racist past. 

And I also love that Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen, two quarterbacks that many in the sports media recently tried to pit against each other based on their race, seem to be genuine fans of one another. As they should be. They are two of the best at doing something that almost no one can do well.

Now I don't know Lamar Jackson at all. 

I really like to watch him play though. 

Why?

Because he's a fabulous talent on the field. 

But also because I know he busts his ass off the field and I respect that immensely. 

In fact, Lamar embodies a work ethic I try to instill in my own three boys. See, Lamar often trains in a t-shirt with a fabulous message on it: "Nobody cares, work harder."

Man, I love that message.

As soon I saw the video of him working out in that t-shirt, I showed it to my kids. I wanted them to learn from his example.  

Because the truth is this, in this social media world we all live in, every single one of us has doubters, every single one of us has haters, all of us have critics.

Just look at the comments on any post.  

But what if we all just took Lamar's advice: "Nobody cares, work harder," and applied it to our own lives?

Wouldn't the nation be way better off?   

Look, playing quarterback is the hardest position in all of sports. 

Almost no one does it very well on a consistent basis. 

And every sports fan, black, white, Asian and Hispanic, should be celebrating those who do it well no matter what their backgrounds might be. 

In the meantime, I just spent $45,000 on four PSL's for a brand new Tennessee Titans stadium. 

I just hope my own team can find a decent quarterback again so I want to go watch the games and not feel like I'm getting robbed with what the tickets cost for my family. 

Black, white, Asian, Hispanic, gay, straight, all I care about is winning. 

If there's a trans midget out there who can win my Titans a Super Bowl, I will be ecstatic. 

But in the meantime, I feel like sports fans have been cheated out of all embracing Lamar Jackson because we let him be defined by race baiting sports media buffoons who want to drag us all back into the past instead of letting us all advance together into a meritocratic future. 

In the end, most of us are fans of sports because we want to believe in excellence, and we want to celebrate it. And if you're a dad like me, you know that most of our kids are not going to play sports for a living, most of us will never live to hear the roar of what it feels like to run out onto the field or court of a big game. 

But all of us, hopefully, can learn to apply the lessons of sports to our life's pursuit in other endeavors. 

And I'll tell you this, I'm not sure if there's a better lesson for kids in America today than, "Nobody cares, work harder." 

Thanks for that, Lamar, and good luck to you going forward playing against everyone except for my awful, pathetic, very sad Tennessee Titans. 

I'm long past ready for the next Steve McNair to lead my own favorite team to the Super Bowl again.