Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
King: ‘I’m a quarterback’
Houston transfer overcoming stigmas on height, race
D’Eriq King has not yet taken his first in-game snap as Miami Hurricanes quarterback, but conversations of converting him to a different position for the NFL are already taking place.
It began with a tweet late last month from Reese’s Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy about the star dual-threat signal caller who made his name at Houston before coming to Miami as a grad transfer this offseason.
Said Nagy on Twitter: “D’Eriq King is one of the most dynamic players in college football but at under 5-foot-9 some scouts think his best pro position will be slot WR. If he comes to @seniorbowl we’ll play him wherever the NFL wants to see him — maybe both spots.”
Hurricanes junior tight end Brevin Jordan rushed to King’s defense with his own tweet: “No sir, keep DK1 behind the O-Line and put the ball in his hands every play & watch him work. He’s a QuarterBack. #NoCap.”
King, who threw for 4,925 yards and 50 touchdowns while running for 1,421 yards and 28 touchdowns in his time with the Cougars, takes the wide receiver talk in stride.
“I don’t take that as a negative when guys say, ‘Oh, he’s an elite athlete. He might have to play receiver in the pros,’ ” King told 560-AM on Friday. “I’m a quarterback. I want to play quarterback at the next level if it allows me to. I think everybody has something to prove, and I definitely think I have something to prove, too.”
Nagy’s comments appear to be based on King’s height — for what it’s worth, UM lists him at 5-foot-11, although it’s known official rosters may have a tendency to tack on an inch or two — and feedback from scouts he has spoken to that may feel his athleticism could be better suited elsewhere on the field.
But is there still an underlying bias from those anonymous scouts, whether consciously or subconsciously, about an athletic, Black quarterback?
“My dad used to always tell me that you have to prove you can play the position being a Black quarterback,” said King,
who lost his father in the offseason. “That’s anybody, but it’s a little more being a Black quarterback, so there’s a lot of stigmas out there that guys like me like to run all the time, can’t throw the ball. I just play football and don’t worry about what everybody says.”
Of course, scouts who held on to those stigmas with former Boynton Beach High and Louisville standout Lamar Jackson were proven wrong as Jackson won the NFL MVP award in his second season with the Baltimore Ravens. A rundown of some of the NFL’s top quarterbacks today proves those biases futile: Jackson, Patrick Mahomes, Russell Wilson, Dak Prescott, Kyler Murray, Deshaun Watson — and we’re not that far removed from Cam Newton’s MVP season.
Even the height talk has been minimized of late between Wilson, Murray, Baker Mayfield and, before all of them, Drew Brees.
“All those guys are smaller quarterbacks, and I think that’s opening a lot of people’s eyes that you don’t have to be the 6-4, 220, 225-pound guy to play the position anymore,” King told 560. “You just have to be really good with the ball, accurate and make good decisions. That’s what I pride myself on.”
King was officially named Miami’s starting quarterback ahead of fall camp. It was widely expected and some would call it a formality, but Hurricanes coach Manny Diaz pushed back on that notion.
“That would diminish his efforts,” Diaz said. “We felt like when we got into the walkthrough period, and right now ultimately with training camp, we needed someone for our offense to rally around — Miami having a quarterback that the entire locker room believes in.
“There have been great strides from the other quarterbacks. We just felt like it was important for there to be one voice, a leader that could hold everyone on the offense accountable, like all good offenses have.”