During his playing career, Warren Moon undoubtedly faced racism as a black quarterback in the NFL. He also believed that criticism heaped upon Cam Newton in the weeks leading up to the draft was racially motivated. But if you take a deeper look, Moon's comments have little support.
Moon said, "I don't see other quarterbacks in the draft being criticized by the media or fans about their smile or called a phony. He's being held to different standards from white quarterbacks." Moon is right in that Newton has been heavily criticized for his personality and leadership but to suggest that he is the only one and that it is only happening because he is black is way off base. Just last year Jimmy Clausen, who is white, was expected to be one of the top QB prospects in the draft but was heavily criticized for his leadership skills and ended up falling to the second round.
Moon also wondered why Newton's history in a spread system was being used to question his transition into a professional style offense. Again, Moon claimed that no white QB's were subject to this same criticism and so he concluded that it must be due to the color of Newton's skin. This is a ridiculous suggestion considering the fact that QB's that come from spread offenses are always heavily criticized. In fact, just last year Tim Tebow, a white QB who plays a similar style to Newton, fell to the bottom of the first round amid concerns of his ability to transition from the spread offense.
Moon shouldn't be so quick to pull the race card. If he had done a little research before making his own comments, he would have seen that there were white QB's from just last year that faced similar criticism to Newton and it could be argued that the criticism on the white QB's was more harsh considering they were drafted much lower than Newton who went 1st overall.
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