A white cornerback finally starts in the NFL

Riley Moss is the first white CB since 2002.

In a triumph for diversity, Riley Moss has begun the 2024 NFL season as a starting cornerback for the Denver Broncos. After three games, he’s second on the team in tackles. He’s the NFL’s first non-black player to begin the season as a starter at cornerback since 2002.

Two other white cornerbacks are on rosters, although they are not playing much yet: Ethan Bonner is listed as third-stringer at corner on the Miami Dolphins depth chart and rookie Cooper DeJean has returned a punt for the Philadelphia Eagles.

Back in the 1990s, Jason Sehorn was a star cornerback for the New York Giants, but then he got hurt. He played his last game at cornerback in 2002, then switched to safety for one last year. So Sehorn had been the last all-white player to start the season as a starting cornerback. The other last non-black starting cornerback had been Kevin Kaesviharn, who is half white and half Thai. I believe he played cornerback in 2002 before switching to safety for the rest of his career.

Moss and DeJean starred together at the U. of Iowa. I suspect that somebody on the Iowa coaching staff said, “You know, while I’m sure blacks do tend to be better than whites at corner on average, maybe everybody’s overlooking a few decent white corners. Maybe the stereotype that no white can play corner has gotten unrealistically strong over the years?”

There was an old Fortune 500 saying: “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.” Similarly, the prospect of starting a white guy at cornerback probably scared a lot of coaches. If he got burned on a couple of touchdowns, you could be fired by Monday. If your black cornerback got burned twice, well, that’s not good, but at least you didn’t hang a big Fire Me sign on your back.

By the way: I’m doing book tour appearances in Chicago this week to promote my anthology Noticing: dinner on Thursday evening September 26th downtown and a speaking event on Friday night September 27th on Chicago’s north lakefront.

See Passage Press’s website for tickets.