2006-09-18
Running College QB Matt Jones Shunted to NFL Receiver
Matt Jones stands 6'6'', runs the 40 in 3.37, and at at U-Arkansas his scrambling, option-running, high yardage rushing QB play drew favorable comparassions to Michael Vick and Vince Young... right down to "unconventional" throwing mechanics that had NFL scouts shifting him to reciever. His amazing vertical and standing-broad leaps translated into college basketball success, and he loves fried chicken. In his second year now at Jacksonville, he's the big play recipient of passes from the rather slow-footed, "pocket-passing" QB Byran Leftwich, and sports writers proclaim him the next superstar wide-out. Sounds like a familiar story? Fleet-footed "running" college QB funnelled into the NFL's reciever ranks? Think again: Jones is a cracker... and Leftwich is black. Even their names are backwards.
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4 comments:
You live for racial stereotypes, don't you, Paul?
I know that if this guy was black that you would have known with absolute certainty that the scouts forced him out of QB because he was black. Now we see that although that was the case decades ago, it no longer is. We finally have a modern test of that claim.
And what I love isn't racial stereotypes, but rather the smashing of them.
Lots of quarterbacks become wide receivers. It has nothing to do with race. Sometimes quarterbacks become running backs or linebackers. It has nothing to do with race.
It has to do with the needs of the team and the skills of the player.
Sometimes quarterbacks become basketball players ala Allen Iverson and Charlie Ward.
This is a non-story.
I'm glad you consider this a non-story, and I hope that you are correct that if this runnin' and gunnin' QB were black, he and others wouldn't insist that his switch resulted from race.
I almost used the word "negro" after listening to Eric Michael Dyson's AM radio show today. He and I share that as one of our favorite words. After listening to him today my impression of him elevated.
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