According to a survey of NFL players in 2010, 67 percent of the payers were black, and 30 percent were white; however, some players—like Hines Ward—who were of mixed race were classified as white or “other” despite the fact they would generally pass for black on the street. Although some positions—like quarterback, kicker and punter—were heavily populated by whites, most other positions, especially on defense, were dominated by black players. Not all teams are equally created, of course. Take the Seattle Seahawks, for instance. Last year, I don’t think there were more than 8 or 9 white players on a roster of 50. During training camp this season, of the 90 players currently on the roster, 18 are white. Now, I don’t have any “issues” with that; being a Packer fan my entire life, under normal circumstances I couldn’t care less who is on the team, and if Pete Carroll thinks he has the players who will function best in his “system,” I’m not going to argue with him. Under “normal” circumstances.
But this season isn’t a “normal” circumstance. If you type “Matt Flynn” in the “search” on this page, you will discover that I have been “suggesting” that the Seahawks would do well to take a look at him since well before that spectacular Detroit game, in which Flynn confirmed my confidence in him by setting Packer single-game records for passing yards and TD passes. You could tell near the end of the game that Aaron Rodgers’ felicitations were a bit forced; this guy could play. Some local buffoons, like Mike Salk, have been nursing bizarre fantasies while failing to disguise a deep dislike of Flynn by being “ambivalent” about him. John Clayton initially dismissed him as a “back-up for a reason,” which didn’t take into account that he was playing behind Aaron Rodgers, who also happened to start his first three seasons as a back-up behind a first ballot Hall of Famer. Seahawks game analyst Warren Moon continues to pine after Tavaris Jackson, apparently because he sees a little of himself in Jackson; what that is I suppose I could make a reasonable accurate guess. The Seattle Times’ Danny O’Neil claimed up and down that the Seahawks had no interest in Flynn, and since then his “evaluations” of training camp have been decidedly down on Flynn while puffing-up the competition. For his part, Pete Carroll--with Darrell Bevell whispering in his ear--seems willing to undermine the team by giving T-Jack every last ounce of his faith.
Flynn has his supporters, of course, but they are nowhere near as vociferous as those of Russell Wilsons’ partisans; they have played him so far up in the stratosphere, you wonder if he’ll ever come back down to Earth to actually play. I have my questions about Wilson, which I have summarized several times before. T-Jack has his supporters, of course, but they are hard to take seriously, if not so easy to dismiss. My feeling is that what Flynn has shown in two superb starts against playoff teams, with only one week of preparation with the first team, should put the idea into the head of any reasonable fan that Flynn’s “potential” far outstrips that of T-Jack; the only thing that can keep him “down” is a decidedly second-rate receiving corps—no surprise, since Carroll has to his discredit given the passing game short shrift. Nor should people take the prejudices of Salk seriously; he actually made the absurd statement last week that T-Jack wasn’t allowed to have a “chance” to “compete” against Brett Favre in 2009. Favre only had a career best 107.2 passer rating and a 33-7 TD to INT ratio; it took T-Jack 44 games to throw that many TD passes. Naturally, Salk refused to believe his eyes in the Detroit game, and has ever since done his best to dismiss Flynn and puff-up the rookie Wilson, who can apparently do no wrong, and is “obviously” the “future” of the team. And he isn’t the only one; “experts” all over the football commentating spectrum have hopped on the Wilson bandwagon, despite the fact he hasn’t played a down “for real” in the NFL. Wilson is only an inch shorter than Michael Vick, but while Vick has been an exciting player (who also has a “strong” arm), he has yet to demonstrate an ability to do more than merely take a team into the playoffs. I’m not sure many people are quite prepared to put Wilson even on the same level as Vick.
(In that fabled 1992 game against Cincinnati, game announcers commented that Packer quarterback Don Majkowski, who had a big arm and whose “game” was throwing the ball downfield, seemed unable to make the throws required for the West Coast offense; on the play previous to his injury, on a short pass route over the middle, he hit an offensive lineman right between the numbers. The commentators noted that neither Joe Montana nor Steve Young had “big arms,” yet they ran the offense to perfection. Get where I’m going with this? Of course, Brett Favre eventually found the “touch,” but I’m not prepared to put Wilson in the same category as Favre, either.)
Now for what I was intimating at the top. There are four quarterbacks currently on the Seahawks roster, and in a league where most of the quarterbacks up and down the depth charts are white, the Seahawks are the anomaly—Flynn is the only white individual. Most of the players interviewed from time-to-time don’t seem to demonstrate much of a camaraderie with Flynn, preferring T-Jack or Wilson. Whether this has anything to do with race is a matter of speculation. Personal politics clearly has played a role in the acceptance of Flynn; while the general “assumption” is that Flynn came in to be the starter—which he deserves the opportunity to prove himself to be, since T-Jack has long since wasted his opportunities, and Wilson is little more than super-hype at the moment—there seems to be an attitude of “We don’t know this white dude. Who is he to just walk in here and take the brother’s place?” This is certainly the basis of Warren Moon’s attitude on the matter, and if it infects him, it is well within reason to believe it does on a team that is 80 percent black. Of course, if fans listen to Salk and Kevin Calabro—who despite the fact his expertise is basketball has also been dismissive of Flynn, while being giggly over Wilson—no wonder people wonder why the team bothered to sign Flynn. For his part, Flynn—who apparently thought he was only going to “compete” with T-Jack—in a recent interview betrayed a clear frustration by the apparent ambivalence of the coaching staff toward him, as if they had been dishonest with him. For his part, Carroll has said very little about Flynn during interviews, as if he has a difference of opinion with John Schneider about Flynn’s abilities. Thus he has refused to do right by Flynn, allowing this unhealthy situation to fester.
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