Racism!

Michael Silver: Race factors into evaluation of Gerhart

When NFL scouts look at Gerhart, they see a 6-foot, 231-pound power back who ran for 1,871 yards and 27 touchdowns last season, getting edged out by Alabama’s Mark Ingram in the closest Heisman vote in history. When they look at Gerhart’s numbers from the NFL scouting combine, they see that he ran a 4.50-second 40-yard dash and registered a 38-inch vertical leap, both impressive numbers for a player his size.

Yet they also see a white guy trying to make it in the league as a feature back…

Race shouldn’t be an issue, of course, but Gerhart can’t help but believe that it has colored the opinions of at least some potential employers.

“One team I interviewed with asked me about being a white running back,” Gerhart says.

Whether race had anything to do with Gerhart’s “getting edged out” for the Heisman, well, we can only speculate. Certainly, the usual suspects pulled that card out when it suited them.

Whether Gerhart’s race will, in fact, affect his place in the draft…that’s speculation, too. All I can say to him is: make the teams that passed on you… pay.

UPDATE - Linked at Creative Minority Report