Seahawks’ Richard Sherman: ‘Rhetoric is changing’ with black quarterbacks

RENTON – Richard Sherman grew up in Los Angeles but rooted for the Houston Oilers from afar. The reason? They had an African American quarterback in Warren Moon.

“There wasn’t a lot of them back then,” the 27-year-old Sherman noted Wednesday. “I was like, ‘That’s one black quarterback. I hope he wins.'”

More than 20 years later, it’s hardly so much as a footnote that Seattle’s Russell Wilson and Carolina’s Cam Newton, the two quarterbacks who will square off in Sunday’s divisional-round game, are both black. Sherman called it “awesome” that it’s no longer a big deal.

“I mean, he’s in the running for MVP,” Sherman said of Newton.

In fact, Newton is a front-runner for the league’s most valuable player award. Steve McNair shared the award in 2003 with Peyton Manning, but no black quarterback has ever won it outright.

“That’s awesome how the league’s changed in that way,” Sherman said.

Along with Wilson and Newton, the NFL’s other black starting quarterbacks are Minnesota’s Teddy Bridgewater, Tampa Bay’s Jameis Winston and Buffalo’s Tyrod Taylor. Notable backups include Seattle’s Tarvaris Jackson, Geno Smith of the Jets, San Francisco’s Colin Kaepernick and Washington’s Robert Griffin III.

At one point in 2014, all five of the quarterbacks on Seattle’s 90-man offseason roster were black: Wilson, Jackson, B.J. Daniels, Terrelle Pryor and Keith Price.

“There’s a lot of different types of quarterbacks out there – black, white, whatever, and I don’t think it’s always been that,” Sherman said. “It’s always been kind of a knock on black quarterbacks. They only can run, they only can do this, they can’t throw from the pocket, they can only do play actions and things like that, and I think that rhetoric is changing a little bit.”