Whitewashed

NFL talks a good game, but minorities still overlooked for most coaching jobs

One of these days the NFL will not have to worry about its owners being equal opportunity employers. (Hopefully.)

That day isn’t today.

Not when just three of the 32 head coaches and two of the 32 general managers are black in a league in which more than 70 percent of the players are black.

The Rooney Rule, which required teams to interview at least one minority candidate for head coaching positions, put more qualified minority candidates into the pool. Yet teams still have managed to look past them.

Thus, Tuesday’s NFL policy changes that will now require teams to interview at least two “external minority candidates” for head coaching positions and one minority candidate for any coordinator job.

Teams now are also required to interview a minority candidate for senior football operations and general manager openings, and they must consider minorities and/or female applicants for other seniorlevel positions.

Theoretically, that should make a difference.

“The NFL is committed to diversity, equity and inclusion, which I believe is critical to our continued success,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said this week. “While we have seen positive strides in our coaching ranks over the years aided by the Rooney Rule, we recognize, after the last two seasons, that we can and must do more.”

While recognition that there is a problem is the compulsory first step in any transformative process, the league made said admission decades ago. Finally, in 2003, three years before Goodell was named commissioner, it

got serious about addressing the situation by implementing the Rooney Rule.

The outcry over a proposal to reward teams that make minority hires at head coach and general manager with improved third-round draft positions leaned heavily on not wanting to make race a factor in the hiring process.

That 17 of the 20 coaches hired in the last three years are white is quite the hint that race is already a factor.

That proposal was tabled.

But this isn’t an imaginary issue.

Last year, there was only one black general manager in the league, Miami’s Chris Grier. There are only two minority offensive

coordinators in the NFL. That’s pathetic.

The “it’ll work itself out crowd” is delusional. NFL owners have had a century to work it out and have chosen not to.

While statistics matter, this isn’t a numbers game, and it can’t be fixed by a hiring quota, which would be impossible to implement anyway.

And the mere consideration of minority hiring affecting the draft is an indicator of how desperate the search for a solution is.

It is sad that some NFL owners believe there needs to be an incentive to encourage fellow owners to be fair.

Without question, the league needs to severely punish teams that abuse the spirit of the Rooney

Rule.

Matt Millen was hit with a $200,000 fine for not interviewing a minority candidate for the Lions head coaching position a few months after the rule was put in place.

In the 17 years since, not one person or team has been sanctioned.

Rewarding a team for being fair in its hiring process isn’t a bad idea. The reward coming in the form of improved draft positioning is shaky. Hitting owners where it hurts most — in the wallet — would be better.

Salary cap adjustments based on minority hiring? How about the league punishing itself, instead of individual teams, by giving up a larger percentage of revenue to the players if it

doesn’t meet its overall objectives?

The requirement for all 32 teams to create minority coaching fellowships to “provide NFL legends, minority and female participants with hands-on training in NFL coaching” should produce better results than draft pick bribery.

No one is pushing for the hiring of unqualified minority candidates. Then again, that would be a true measure of equality.

There is a reason that almost every time you scratch your head and wonder how a coach got a job, he looks like Kliff Kingsbury or Joe Judge, and almost every time you wonder why a guy hasn’t gotten a job, he looks like Eric Bienemy.

It is rare, if not unheard of, for a white assistant coach to become overqualified. Typically, as soon as one’s name hits the radar for a head coaching position, and at times before that, he is granted the opportunity of a lifetime.

Not that I’m psychic, but if one day an NFL team hires a head coach directly from the high school ranks, I’m pretty sure I can guess what he’ll look like.

“We know we can and should do better,” Goodell said.

Yes, NFL owners could have and should have done better for many, many years.

Will they now?