A thread about interracial running back Hines Ward got me searching for info about how race affects opportunity in the NFL, which lead to an interesting article about disparity in the racial make-up of players in certain positions in the sport.

The author suggests that there is 1-a bias against selecting white players for "black" positions and 2-that more white players on the bench would yield a statistical increase of two wins per season for a team, possibly changing playoff outcomes.

Though I think it might be just as easy to explain the racial differences at certain positions as cuased by the lack of alternative opportunities for blacks outside of sports, and to expain the increased wins with white benchwarmers by the increased support from the fans (noisy when their team's on defense and quieter when they're on offense), the statistics are probably about right.