RGIII Benched because he is Black? Michael Irvin...

[DJ's left nut]

I hate hate hate the race card in QB discussions.

But I've found the treatmentof RGIII to be dubious at best, to be honest. There have been a handful of times where I've flipped to an analysis of Griffin without hearing the beginning of the conversation and could tell immediately it was him they were talking about because of the kind of vaguely dismissive language they used.

I mean they tend to stop short of saying 'boy', but it sure gets close at times.

My first reaction is always to dismiss this kind of bitching. And I agree he wouldn't be getting treated like this if he was performing better - his poor play is the root cause of the issue. But I do think there is some truth to the fact that he's getting a little more of the 'this kid needs to learn his place and shut up' treatment because he's a black QB. Wilson isn't getting crap because he's a minority that's playing extremely well. But I do wonder if a guy like Luck or Tannehill would be taking these kinds of arrows had they struggled like RGIII has. Tannehill's locker room has been a complete cluster!@#$ and we don't hear people blasting his leadership.

In this particular instance, I do think it's fair to ask if there haven't been some racial overtones to some of the things said about RGIII. Is that why he was benched? Nah, I don't think Shanahan's a racist. But I do think his PR has been disproportionally negative because of it.