1977 to 408.7 in 1979. The NFL continues to be a pass-heavy league, in part due to further rule changes that prescribed harsher penalties for hitting the quarterback and for hitting defenseless receivers as they awaited passes. Passing in wide-open offenses has also been an emphasis at the high school and college levels, and professional coaches have devised schemes to fit the talents of new generations of quarterbacks. While quarterbacks and team captains usually called plays in football's early years, today coaches often decide which plays the offense will run. Some teams use an offensive coordinator, an assistant coach whose duties include offensive game-planning and often play-calling. In the NFL, coaches are allowed to communicate with quarterbacks and call plays using audio equipment built into the player's helmet. Quarterbacks are allowed to hear, but not talk to, their coaches until there are fifteen seconds left on the play clock. Once the quarterback receives the call, he may relay it to other players via signals or in a huddle. Dallas Cowboys head coach Tom Landry was an early advocate of taking play calling out of the quarterback's hands. Although this remained a common practice in the NFL through the 1970s, fewer QBs were doing it by the 1980s and even Hall of Famers like Joe Montana did not call their own plays. Buffalo Bills QB Jim Kelly was one of the last to regularly call plays. Peyton Manning, formerly of the Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos, was the best modern example of a quarterback who called his own plays, primary using an uptempo, no-huddle-based attack. Manning had almost complete control over the offense. Former Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco retained a high degree of control over the offense as well, particularly when running a no-huddle scheme, as did Ben Roethlisberger of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Race Throughout football history, the racial makeup of quarterbacks did not reflect the racial makeup of the sport. Black quarterbacks especially faced barriers in breaking into the starting job at the highest levels. Professional football's first black starting quarterback came in 1968, when the American Football League's Denver Broncos started Marlin Briscoe at the position for part of one season, however, he was later converted to wide receiver. James Harris started several for the Buffalo Bills after the AFL-NFL merger, and later started games for the Los Angeles Rams. Other early NFL black starting quarterbacks include Joe