In the days leading up to Super Bowl LVII, J.C. Watts got a call from a reporter who wanted his thoughts on the upcoming clash between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles.

Specifically, Watts, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995-2003, was asked about his reaction to the quarterback matchup. This Super Bowl, after all, marked the first time both teams started a Black quarterback: the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes and the Eagles’ Jalen Hurts.

Watts, who played quarterback at Oklahoma, understood the significance of the event. And yet, he wasn’t necessarily impressed.

Perhaps that was because, more than 40 years earlier, Watts had starred in this movie on a different side of the border.

Under center for the Ottawa Rough Riders in the 1981 Grey Cup — the Canadian Football League’s championship game — Watts squared off against the Edmonton Eskimos, whose offense was piloted by Warren Moon. So the idea of two Black quarterbacks opposing each other in a championship game was nothing new to Watts.

And having Black quarterbacks was nothing new in CFL.

“In the Canadian Football League, at one point, seven out of the nine teams when I was in Canada had Black quarterbacks,” Watts, 65, told the Tribune-Review. “So, obviously, it wasn’t an issue to them. And the mobile quarterbacks … that was unheard of (in the U.S.) when I came out of high school. But in Canada, that mobile quarterback was perfect for the Canadian Football League.”

Many Black quarterbacks — especially smaller, more mobile ones such as Watts (5-foot-11, 197 pounds) — found playing time north of the border. Philadelphia native Bernie Custis became the CFL’s first modern-era Black quarterback in 1951, two years before New Kensington’s Willie Thrower earned that distinction in the NFL.

By the time Doug Williams started Super Bowl XXII for Washington in 1988, at least seven Black quarterbacks had started in Grey Cups. Chuck Ealey was the first to win one (1972).

Five Black quarterbacks are in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, as opposed to one in its American counterpart (Moon). Seven have won the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player award. The first of those MOPs, Condredge Holloway, was in 1982, 21 years before Steve McNair became the first Black quarterback to win NFL MVP.

Among the CFL’s top 10 all-time leaders in passing yardage, four are Black: Damon Allen (second), Henry Burris (third), Kevin Glenn (sixth) and Tracy Ham (10th).

“In Canada, they promote ability,” said former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Kordell Stewart. “That’s why Doug Flutie had so much success over there. … They don’t handicap you. They want you to be exceptional and great over there in Canada.”

When Watts graduated from Oklahoma in 1981, Black quarterbacks still were rare in the NFL. Many Black athletes who played quarterback at the college level were asked (read: told) to change positions if they wanted to play in the NFL.

That was the case with Watts. During a workout for the Cincinnati Bengals, coach Forrest Gregg told Watts his style would be great in Canada. After he was drafted in the eighth round by the New York Jets, he was told they took him with the intent of using him as a “specialty” or third-down back.

Watts, though, said he could understand that line of thinking in his case. He ran Oklahoma’s famed wishbone offense and threw fewer than 100 passes his senior year.

But then there was the case of Moon. At Washington, Moon, as a senior, led the Huskies to the Pac-8 title and a victory over Michigan in the 1978 Rose Bowl. Moon was the game’s MVP, scoring on two short runs and throwing a touchdown pass.

At 6-3, 220 and with a live arm, Moon seemed to fit the mold of the era’s prototypical NFL quarterback. Except for one obvious feature.

“I definitely thought I was good enough to be drafted in the NFL,” Moon told the Trib. “But from my attorney, Leigh Steinberg, he was getting through all his due diligence that most teams were not going to draft me as a quarterback. If they did, it was going to be way down in the draft.

“There were 12 rounds in the draft back then, and it was going to be way down in the 10th or 12th round. … Nobody even came out to give me an individual workout, to even look at me as a quarterback.”

Moon’s standard line back then, he said, was he would go to Siberia if it meant he could play quarterback. Canada — though not quite as cold as Siberia — offered him the chance.

“They didn’t see color up there,” Moon said. “They just saw the player. They say, if you can help our football team win, we’re going to bring you up there. That’s where a lot of (Black quarterbacks) went.”

Moon won five consecutive Grey Cups with Edmonton. The fourth was the historic meeting with Watts.

“I didn’t see it at the time, but I saw it later on,” Moon said about the significance of the matchup. “Even this year, I did an interview with TSN … they wanted to make significance of the fact that J.C. and I were the first two African-American quarterbacks to face each other in a championship game.

“It wasn’t Jalen Hurts and Patrick Mahomes. It was the first in the NFL. We did it 42 years ago. We talked about the significance of how long it took to make it happen down here.”

Moon eventually landed a contract with the then-Houston Oilers and went on to a hall-of-fame career on this side of the border as well.

As for Watts, he never got his shot in the NFL. He said he was told by his coach at Oklahoma, Barry Switzer, that he was six or seven years ahead of his time for the NFL. It’s an argument Stewart doesn’t buy.

“You can’t say they were ahead of their time because it’s a slap in the face to the player,” he said. “That’s unfair. Because they did it in Canada.”