Patrick Mahomes, husband, father, evangelical Christian, and quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs is poised to lead the first NFL franchise to a record breaking three consecutive Super Bowl wins. His mother, Randi Martin, says he found his faith in high school; splitting his time and talent between a youth group at his church; being a three-sport star and Male Athlete of the Year at Whitehouse; and continuing on with the Texas Tech Red Raiders racking up a 3.91 GPA along the way. "Faith is huge for me,” Mahomes says.

Before every game, I walk the field and I do a prayer at the goalpost. I just thank God for those opportunities, and I thank God for letting me be on a stage where I can glorify Him. The biggest thing that I pray for is that whatever happens, win or lose, success or failure, that I'm glorifying Him.

And all on the Sabbath, too. For Christians, that one day of the week set aside by God to "Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy." So due to the violence, Puritan Christians objected to contemporary forms of football through the 20th century until U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt put the moral force of the White House behind collegiate football and clubs. As sitting U.S. President Donald Trump descends upon Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, the NFL has removed the phrase “End Racism” from the end zones ahead of the game.

Perhaps you’ve followed the game since 1967 when legendary coach Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers faced the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10; or when the Miami Dolphins achieved that only perfect NFL season in 1972; or maybe you’ve seen all 10 of Tom Brady’s Super Bowl appearances, and record seven Super Bowl wins! As Nielsen expands its out-of-home panel this year, the new data, analytics, and measurements are set to double if not shatter last year’s television record breaking audience of 123.4 million viewers.

Over the past quarter-century, it seems the NFL has shifted from a running back to a quarterback-driven league. That's not only evident in how the game is played, it's also clear when it comes to individual awards and player salaries. Each of the past 11 NFL MVP awards were given to quarterbacks, who command more money than any other position. Brady isn't the only quarterback who has contributed to this change, however. Patrick Mahomes, who signed a 10-year, $450 million deal in 2020, has the largest contract in NFL history, and rightly claims in earnings one of the greatest Black jobs in America.

A rematch of Super Bowl LVII, LIX will be played between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion and two-time defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Philadelphia Eagles. The Chiefs’ intend to claim their third consecutive Lombardi Trophy, cementing the dynasty as one of the greatest of all time. The Philadelphia Eagles intend to avenge their 2022 title loss, and become NFL champions for the second time in eight years. For the second time in Super Bowl history, both starting quarterbacks are Black.

When the Eagles' Jalen Hurts squared off with the Chiefs' Patrick Mahomes in Super Bowl LVII, they were publicly cognizant of the weight of their title clash, the first to ever hold such a label. "I think it's special," Mahomes says. "I'm just glad that we can set the stage for kids that are coming up now.”

Hurts echos the sentiment. "It is history. It's come a long way. I think there's only been a handful of African-American quarterbacks to play in the Super Bowl, so to be among the first is pretty cool.”

Exactly eight Black quarterbacks have taken the stage as starters since the game's inception at Super Bowl I, but Colin Kaepernick was and remains the NFL’s renown activist. In 2016, Kaepernick knelt during the national anthem at the start of NFL games in protest of police brutality, racial inequality, and race norming. “Believe in something,” Kaepernick said. “Even if it means sacrificing everything.”

The spectacle coincided with a landmark 2015 settlement, in which the NFL promised to compensate former players who developed dementia and other brain diseases linked to concussions. The NFL has since awarded $1.2 billion to more than 1,600 athletes. But a Washington Post investigation recently discovered the league has saved hundreds of millions of dollars by rejecting payouts to hundreds of retired players suffering from dementia on the race-norming technicality. Specifically, Black players were treated differently when it came to cognitive assessment than White players, even though Black players make up the majority of the league.

Fourteen players with CTE (confirmed in autopsy) petitioned and failed to get settlement money or medical care, including: trailblazing sports broadcaster Irv Cross, and Hall of Fame defensive end Claude Humphrey. The Washington Post’s Will Hobson explains why to PBS NewsHour’s Amna Nawaz:

Part of the reason they didn't qualify on the cognitive test score front was because the scores were race-normed; curved and adjusted to a formula that assumes Black former players naturally perform worse on cognitive tests than White players.

Race Norming is the practice of evaluating test scores by race or ethnicity. First implemented by the Federal Government in 1981, it was initially designed to counteract racial bias in aptitude and neuropsychological tests by comparing and averaging test score in silos of racial groups. Based upon statistics that showed Blacks receive less education than Whites, it was also presumed that Blacks couldn't perform at an even clip with their caucasian counterparts.

According to the U.S. Census in 1981, roughly 50% of White high school graduates immediately transitioned to colleges and universities; while 44% of Black high school graduates immediately transitioned to U.S. colleges and universities. Therefore, test scores for federal jobs between Black and White job applicants were neither compared nor averaged, and assumptions ensued about physical and mental competence between the two races. Race Norming was outlawed in the federal government in 1991 by the Civil Rights Act.

On 2 June 2021, the NFL suspended their Race-Norming practice that assumed all Black NFL players had lower cognitive functioning in a $1 billion dollar brain injury settlement. The Good News? Just as the gratuitous DEI spoils system is being eradicated, both Mahomes and Hurts have proven they can take a lateral hit for the national unity; jive to an iconic diss track about culture appropriation during halftime; and align their playmakers with a new slogan in the end zone which tonight will read, “Choose Love.”