Jennifer King, in the absence of Randy Jordan, was promoted to Washington Football Team’s assistant running backs coach on Tuesday,  making her the first African-American female position coach in NFL history.

Randy Jordan was amongst the seven coaches sidelined against the Philadelphia Eagles due to COVID-19. Hence Jennifer King was promoted on gameday. 

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“I fell in love with football at a super young age — like four or five years old, started watching football with my dad and just going to high school games on Friday night,” King said earlier this week on “On Her Turf,” an NBC program highlighting women in sports.

“I just fell in love with it. I was fortunate enough to start playing tackle football around 22, and played for many years as a quarterback.”

Who is Jennifer King?

Jennifer King is the second female gameday coach in NFL history, and the first African-American woman to have the position. The first was Callie Brownson, who filled in several times for the Cleveland Browns last season.

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The 37-year-old served as Washington’s assistant running backs coach. She was a coaching intern in the 2020 season. 

She is one of two female assistant coaches currently in the NFL, along with Tampa Bay Buccaneers assistant defensive line coach Lori Locust.

“When I started getting into football more and more, I knew I wanted to coach. Ultimately, through a lot of hard work and a few other spots I ended up in the NFL.”

“Being the first black female full-time NFL coach is super special to me, and it’s very important for me to do a good job and just to be a good role model and a symbol of representation,” King said on the NBC interview. 

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“I think it’s important to have diversity in football as it’s important to have diversity everywhere. There’s so many different points of view and backgrounds, and people bring different ideas to the table that are important. It was interesting to see so many playoff teams last season had women involved on their staff.”

Playing with a quarterback who signed four days earlier and missing a handful of starters because of a coronavirus outbreak, Washington could not keep up with the well-rested Philadelphia Eagles.

After jumping out to a 10-point lead, Washington ran out of gas in a 27-17 loss Tuesday night. The Eagles ran all over an opponent depleted by COVID-19 protocol absences, which came at the worst possible time in the middle of a playoff chase and contributed to a second consecutive defeat.

“We’re not going to blame COVID for what happened,” defensive tackle Jonathan Allen said. “In the NFL you get paid to handle adversity. … We didn’t do our job and we got embarrassed.”

With inputs from the Associated Press.