BOSTON (AP) -- From his den in Huntsville, Alabama, Onree Jackson will quietly root to see Jacoby Brissett under center when he watches New England host Houston on Thursday night.
Almost 50 years have passed, but Jackson still remembers his excitement when he was drafted out of Alabama A&M in 1969 by the Boston Patriots - the franchise's first black quarterback.
Back then, the team hailed his potential to be ''the Willie Mays of pro football.'' But he never played in a regular-season NFL game.
Now, Brissett could establish a footnote for a franchise born in a city with a complicated racial past, its first African-American player to start at quarterback.