There is no question that when the AFC Championship Game kicks off on Sunday, all eyes will be on quarterback Lamar Jackson as the Baltimore Ravens host the Kansas City Chiefs.
ESPN analyst and former NFL cornerback Ryan Clark says that Jackson winning a Super Bowl would be a game-changer – and that it would be bigger than the win Doug Williams led the Washington Redskins to 36 years ago.
“This is bigger than Doug Williams,” Clark told First Take on Saturday.
Bigger than the first Black quarterback to win the NFL’s biggest game at its most important position? That’s quite a hot take – even in this era of hot takes.
“I know we’ve had the Doug Williams’ win Super Bowls – win Super Bowls,” Clark said. “We’ve had Patrick Mahomes, the Russell Wilsons. But Lamar Jackson is different than all of them.”
Clark’s premise is that Jackson has been unconventional in almost every way – from having his mother to his agent, to his hairstyle and much more – that him leading the Baltimore Ravens to a championship game would have a bigger impact than any other win by a black quarterback.
There may be some merit to the fact that Jackson is the least conventional of those players named in terms of style and more. But that’s nothing compared to how unconventional Doug Williams was for his entire football career. From getting Heisman votes at Grambling State back in the 1970s, to being the first black player picked as a quarterback in the first round to his triumphant win over the Denver Broncos, Doug Williams was as unicorn-ish as it could get.