Week Two Crystal Ball - Thursday
Week Two Crystal Ball - Thursday
Bills-Dolphins brings a magical player to mind
My friends, it’s Bills (1-0) at Dolphins (1-0) tonight in a rivalry that dates to Miami’s 1966 entry1 into pro football. And the game has THE GURU thinking of a legendary quarterback.
No, it’s not Tua Tagovailoa or Josh Allen. Or even their Hall of Fame predecessors like the Fins’ Dan Marino and Bob Griese or the Bills’ Jim Kelly.
Instead, I’m talking about a revolutionary player who excelled for Buffalo and Miami over the course of his electric nine-year career with six teams. A truly groundbreaking talent. A man so good that he was nicknamed “The Magician.”2
His name was Marlin Briscoe and, if you’re a sports fan, you likely heard his name a couple of years ago when he passed away at age 76. A player whose versatility was astonishing, an athlete who made people get up from their seats and watch, a man who was well before his time.
You see, Marlin Briscoe was the first black quarterback in a major professional football league, taking the field as a rookie for the Denver Broncos in 1968 in the old American Football League3. A University of Nebraska-Omaha alum, he possessed great traits for the position: a strong arm, quick feet and tremendous poise.
Unfortunately, like many game-changers, the powers-that-be weren’t ready for him. Maybe in part because he liked to use his legs but, largely, because of the color of his skin.
After banning black players in 1933, the NFL re-integrated in 19464, a year before Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier. But there were unwritten rules about black players, who weren’t often played at “thinking man’s positions” like QB, center, middle linebacker, etc. They were relegated to receiver, running back, and defensive back.
It’d be funny if it weren’t so tragic. Which begs the question, “How did Briscoe wind up on the field?”
Simply put: the other QBs were either ineffective or injured5 so, in an early-season game against New England, coach Lou Saban (“They’re killin’ me, Whitey, they’re killin’ me) inserted Briscoe, who he’d been playing at defensive back. The youngster provided a spark and, a week later, became the first black QB to start an NFL game.
Briscoe played in 11 contests during that 1968 season, starting five and posting a 2-3 won-loss record. Pretty good, considering that the Broncos only won three games in all of 1967. And he also acquitted himself quite well in a league that was loaded with high-quality QBs.
To wit: he led the AFL in yards per completion (17.1)6 and finished with a better TD:INT ratio (14:13) than veteran stars John Hadl (27:32) and Joe Namath (15:17), who would lead the Jets over the Colts that postseason in Super Bowl III.
Alas, after that rookie campaign, Briscoe never quarterbacked in the NFL again. Like a football version of Charlton Heston’s “Moonlight” Graham7 in “Field of Dreams.”
Yet, in spite of the bias he faced, he did have an excellent pro career, leaving Denver after one season to play receiver for the Bills (1969-71), Dolphins (1972-74), Chargers (1975), Lions (1975) and Patriots (1976).
He caught 224 career passes - an excellent number at the time - and scored 30 TDs, even making the Pro Bowl with the Bills in 19708. And he also earned two Super Bowl rings in Miami, including one as a member of the famed 17-0 1972 squad.
So, what is Mr. Briscoe’s legacy? Well, I’d say it’s on display every weekend in today’s NFL with 15 African American quarterbacks starting for their teams in Week One. And it goes well beyond the starting lineup: all three Browns QBs are black, e.g., just as it was with the Ravens in 2023.
Legends leave impacts and surely, that’s what Briscoe did.
As for tonight, you can catch all the action on Amazon Prime at 8:15 pm ET. And, provided that Tyreek gets to the field in one piece, I’ll go with the home team. Let’s call it 30-27, Miami.
The Week One record, by the way, was 10-6 (.625). Enjoy the evening and I’ll catch you this weekend!
The only magician I’ve ever known personally is my old Lehigh teammate, Marcelo Campillay, who could make a plate of wings disappear lickety-split. He still holds the Lehigh Valley record with 106 wings at 3rd Street Chicken & Ribs on a winter Tuesday.
The AFL merged with the NFL in 1970.
There were black players in the league until 1933 when they were banned by team owners. Among them, the legendary Fritz Pollard, who became the first African-American to play in the NFL in 1921.
Appreciate it, New York Times.
Thank you, Pro Football Reference.
Noted AFL-ophile Greg “CORKY” Corcoran rightly notes that it was Burt Lancaster, not Heston, who played the elder Graham in the film but, there’s no chance I’m admitting that in the text.