Jacoby Brissett is making history for the New England Patriots as he becomes the first black starting quarterback the franchise has ever had.
Brissett got the start for the Pats on Thursday night against the Houston Texans because Tom Brady is serving his four-game suspension for Deflategate, while backup Jimmy Garoppolo is out with a shoulder injury.
The moves pushed Brissett into starting action for the Pats and led Julian Edelman to become the team’s next QB on the depth chart.
Brissett was a third-round pick by the Pats out of NC State in 2016. The rookie originally attended Florida.
But the color of Brissett’s skin is a significant development for the Patriots. Here’s a look at their starting quarterbacks in team history:
Jacoby Brissett makes history as the Patriots’ starting QB Thursday night. pic.twitter.com/iqWoBjeaSZ
— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) September 22, 2016
The NFL was notoriously slow to embrace black players as quarterbacks. It really wasn’t until the ’80s when the likes of Doug Williams and Randall Cunningham came on that teams actually felt somewhat confident entrusting that position to black players. As the league has evolved over time and lost a color bias when it comes to quarterback, the Pats were set at starting quarterback with Brady. In fact, you have to believe that had Deflategate not come about, the Patriots would have gone another number of years without having started a black quarterback without it being for racial reasons.
