Black coaches in NFL wonder: When will we be the “it” guy?
HIRINGS OVER 10 YEARS SHOW CHALLENGES
It’s the Thursday morning before Super Bowl LI, where three days later New England will rally past Atlanta in the biggest comeback victory in Big Game history. Falcons running backs coach Bobby Turner sits at a table, reading a newspaper, alone for most of the 45-minute media scrum. To his right, Raheem Morris, Atlanta’s assistant head coach/receivers coach, also sits largely uninterrupted.
On this February morning, there is one assistant coach soaking up the media’s attention: Kyle Shanahan, the latest to don the “offensive genius” label. Four days later, the 37-year-old Shanahan will be named San Francisco’s head coach. On this day, he’s surrounded by dozens of reporters questioning him about his next gig.
Three accomplished men, two black and one white, their careers paths juxtaposed. Turner is one of the NFL’S most respected assistant coaches, with a long track record of producing star running backs. Morris, a career defensive coach, brought his leadership and people skills to help a struggling Falcons offense reach its juggernaut status a year ago. But it was Shanahan who landed a six-year head coaching contract.
The scene encapsulates what irks so many black offensive assistant coaches in the NFL. Who decides which coach becomes the “it” guy, and why is it rarely us?
The Denver Post looked at NFL hirings over the past 10 years, and the data shows black offensive coaches face a significantly more difficult path to becoming a head coach than their black defensive colleagues and white offensive counterparts. The simplest explanation is that black offensive assistants may not fit the traditional benchmark NFL teams often have when hiring an offensive coordinator or head coach while “hot” candidates like Shanahan do.
“Everything is so fast-tracked now. That’s the frustrating thing — it’s a flash-advancement league,” said the Broncos’ Vance Joseph, the first noninterim black head coach in franchise history. Joseph built his résumé on defense, specifically the secondary. “Who’s the next hot coordinator? There are a lot of longtime minority assistants — guys who could be great head coaches, have put in the time and earned it — but they get looked over for the hot name, media-friendly guy.”
If you’re a young black assistant coach looking to someday become a coordinator or head coach, you stand a much better chance if you move to the defensive side of the ball. That’s because the most direct path to NFL advancement on offense is coaching quarterbacks, a position black assistants rarely get.
“When you look at an OC getting hired, you say, ‘What was his expertise?’ ” Turner said. “Some guys are being hired just because he was a quarterbacks coach and they want him to have a relationship with the QB.” Some numbers:
• 110 of the 147 offensive coordinator jobs (74.8 percent) filled since 2007, not counting coaches hired on an interim basis, went to a former NFL and/or college quarterbacks coach.
• Of those 110 jobs, five went to black coaches (4.5 percent) and three of the five went to the same black coach, Hue Jackson, now Cleveland’s head coach.
• Black coaches accounted for eight of the other 37 offensive coordinator jobs (21.6 percent) that went to coaches without a QBS coach background, showing they often have to take the long route to the top.
• There are only two black QB coaches in the NFL: Byron Leftwich, who was hired by his former coach, Bruce Arians, with Arizona, and David Culley, who coached NFL wide receivers for more than 20 years but took the Buffalo quarterbacks coaching job in a late-career attempt to become a head
“The criteria for being an offensive coordinator or head coach needs to change. It has to be your overall wealth of knowledge of the game, ability to call a game, ability to relate to people and ability to evaluate personnel. Why do they need to work hand in hand with the quarterback? We’re missing out on a lot of good coaches because of that criteria.” Anthony Lynn, Los Angeles Chargers head coach
coach. There were no black QBS coaches in the NFL a year ago.
The Denver Post spoke with 10 black coaches about the hiring process. All said they believe that NFL teams most often hire “white” when looking for offensive coordinators, while black coaches stand a much better chance of advancement on the defensive side of the ball, where they are often viewed more favorably than their white counterparts for their emotional leadership and ability to relate to players in a league where 70 percent of the players are black. (Several coaches requested anonymity to avoid a negative impact on possible future employment.)
“I had a white coach tell me once, ‘If you go to the defensive side of the ball, you’ll be a head coach quick,’ ” said Los Angeles Chargers head coach Anthony Lynn. “You have it, but you have to go to defense. So, everybody knows.”
The Broncos’ and Chargers’ offseason hirings of Joseph and Lynn, respectively, gave each franchise its first noninterim black head coach. The NFL now has seven black head coaches, tied for the most in league history. Lynn was an assistant for 17 years, primarily a running backs coach, before getting his promotion.
Progress is apparent, but there are issues bubbling lower on the coaching totem pole.
“My grandfather sat me down when I was kid and told me, ‘If you want to go where you want to go in life, you’re going to have to run faster.’ ‘’ Lynn recalled. “I said, ‘Grandpa, I’m the fastest kid on the team.’ He goes, ‘One day, you’re going to understand what I’m talking about.’ I get it now. I have had to be more patient than others. … It got frustrating watching a quality control guy holding a clipboard for a couple of years get promoted to quarterbacks coach and become an OC before you, even though that same guy is relying on you for the run game and protection.”
Touted for his leadership
The “leader of men” label has been thrown around Joseph so much at Dove Valley that it’s become a cliché. It became a buzz phrase at Broncos headquarters from the moment general manager John Elway attached it to Joseph at his introductory news conference. In reality, it’s a loaded compliment.
“When I hear the term that I’m a leader of men, that’s flattering. But ultimately, this is a game of football IQ ,” Joseph said. “That’s always a thing you have to fight. My top trait as a football coach can’t be a ‘I’m a leader.’ I’m a football coach and a guy who can scheme with the best. Now being
a leader, that’s a part of it. That’s my job. That’s not why I got this job.”
While there has been a spike in the hiring of black head coaches, there is a clear route they’re taking to the top.
• Of the 99 noninterim NFL head coaching jobs since 2007, 18 of those positions were held by blacks (18.2 percent).
• 52 of the 99 had an offensive background (52.5 percent), and of those 52, only five were black (9.6 percent).
• But of the 46 head coaches who primarily had a defensive background, 13 were black (28.3 percent).
• Baltimore’s John Harbaugh, the 99th, came primarily from a special-teams background.
In other words, it’s nearly three times more likely over the past decade for a black head coach to have a background on the defensive side of the ball. The ratio (2.6 to 1) doesn’t change much when comparing black defensive coordinators (33, 22.8 percent) and offensive (13, 8.8 percent) coordinator positions during the same window.
“If I was frustrated at all, it was in trying to become an offensive coordinator,” Lynn said.
It took Buffalo firing Greg Roman and Rex Ryan last year for Lynn to be catapulted into the spotlight as an interim offensive coordinator and then a head coach.
“After a while, I felt like I would be a head coach before I would be an offensive coordinator,” Lynn said. “That’s what I began to focus on. Black defensive coaches aren’t better at coaching than black offensive coaches. When you look at the numbers, it’s clear what’s happening.”
The “leader of men” tag applies primarily to defensive coaches, likely in part because playing defense involves more emotion and physicality than does offense. In looking to fix an offense, owners and general managers typi-
cally seek the next “genius,” coaches who have worked with quarterbacks. They’re looking for the next Shanahan.
• 22 of the current 29 NFL offensive coordinators were a college/nfl QBS coach (75.9 percent). Of those, none are black. (There are three black offensive coordinators this season.)
• 26 NFL teams haven’t had a black offensive coordinator since at least 2013.
• Twenty teams haven’t had a black offensive coordinator since 2007.
“Being a defensive coach is not considered a thinking man’s job,” said a black NFC offensive position coach who requested anonymity. “It’s about reaction and emotion. Nobody wants to hire a black coach because of his mind.”
The Broncos have two of the NFL’S most experienced black offensive position coaches, running backs coach and assistant head coach Eric Studesville and wide receivers coach Tyke Tolbert. Studesville has coached NFL running backs since 1997, and was the team’s interim head coach for four games when Josh Mcdaniels was fired near the end of the 2010 season. Tolbert has led the wide receivers since 2003. Neither has been a permanent offensive coordinator or noninterim head coach.
Tolbert said he “wasn’t surprised at all” when told about the poor record of promotion for black assistants on the offensive side.
“If we had a tryout and had coaches call plays, can Studesville or Tyke call plays like Mike Mccoy or Adam Gase? We don’t know,” said Broncos running back C.J. Anderson. “They don’t get that opportunity because they are stuck as position coaches. (Broncos defensive coordinator) Joe Woods is getting the opportunity to do that now. That’s the big difference.”
Woods was promoted to defensive coordinator this year after 13 seasons coaching NFL defensive backs, including the past two in Denver.
Studesville’s and Tolbert’s stories are similar to the plight of black assistant coaches across the NFL. Twenty-eight of the 32 running backs coaches and 17 of the 32 wide receivers coaches are black. No other offensive assistant position (QBS, offensive linemen, tight ends) has more than six black coaches. Coaching running backs is historically the toughest job to advance from.
“They hire black position coaches to manage primarily black positions, and it’s like they think you just babysit these guys,” said one black assistant on an NFC East team.
For the few black offensive coaches who make it to the coordinator level, they reach another roadblock. Of the three current black offensive coordinators, Edgar Bennett (Green Bay), Harold Goodwin (Arizona) and Terry Robiskie (Tennessee), only the latter calls plays. Of the 13 black offensive coordinators over the past 10 years, only six had play-calling roles. Two went to Jackson. More than 75 percent of the other 134 offensive coordinator jobs were playcalling positions, which helps your chances of getting a head coaching position.
Waiting for your opportunity
Robiskie is near the top of the waiting list, if his résumé and the NFL’S advance-
“I don’t care whether they coach offense or defense. All I go on is his ability to lead a team. The game of football is about the ability to teach, develop and motivate — and the people who can do that the best.” John Wooten, chairman of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, on the success of the “Rooney Rule,” which helped elevate minority coaches.
ment paths hold true. It may be difficult for teams to ignore the 62-year-old former wide receivers coach if he helps lead Marcus Mariota and the Titans’ running game to the playoffs this season. He said he “absolutely” still has aspirations to be a head coach.
Turner, Studesville, Culley, Goodwin and Cleveland running backs coach Kirby Wilson were among the names consistently mentioned by fellow coaches as being overdue for promotions.
“Sometimes that process is a little bit slower for us,” said Morris, who was Tampa Bay’s head coach from 2009-11. “But we have to go through that process.”
Said Lynn: “The criteria for being an offensive coordinator or head coach needs to change. It has to be your overall wealth of knowledge of the game, ability to call a game, ability to relate to people and ability to evaluate personnel. Why do they need to work hand in hand with the quarterback? We’re missing out on a lot of good coaches because of that criteria.”
One black NFC position coach expressed frustration that white coaches such as Doug Pederson, who wasn’t a play-caller, and 31-year-old Sean Mcvay received head coaching jobs with less than 10 years of NFL and college coaching experience, while black coaches without quarterback coaching experience such as Robiskie (35 seasons), Goodwin (22 seasons) and Turner (42 seasons) haven’t received the opportunity.
“There’s no new plays,” said Lynn, who spent four years with the Broncos as a player and three years as a coach. “It’s just football. It’s not
rocket science.”
There is no union for NFL coaches, so hirings are based upon management’s discretion and usually are made in rapid-fire fashion at season’s end. The NFL’S personnel development committee, led by Hall of Famers such as Bill Polian, John Madden, Ron Wolf and Tony Dungy, offers an annual recommendation list to teams, but longtime relationships often have a bigger impact on hirings of assistant coaches and promotions.
The NFL does have the Rooney Rule and the Fritz Pollard Alliance. Both advocate for diversity and equality during NFL head coach and front office job searches.
“The Rooney Rule has been and is an incredible positive for minorities and the industry,” said Polian, a former Colts general manager. “There is still more that we can do in a nuts-and-bolts fashion.”
Only six black head coaches were hired from the NFL’S inception in 1920 to 2003, when the Rooney Rule became active. In the 14 years since, 12 black head coaches have been hired.
John Wooten, chairman of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, is happy with the success of the Rooney Rule. “I don’t care whether they coach offense or defense,” he said. “All I go on is his ability to lead a team. The game of football is about the ability to teach, develop, and motivate — and the people who can do that the best.”
Polian said “unequivocally yes” when asked if other NFL executives told him they’ve interviewed a black coach to satisfy requirements of the Rooney Rule only to be pleasantly surprised about how well the interview went.
“I understand the intent of the rule,” Lynn said. “But I don’t always like the intentions people have for the rule and how they use it.”
Standing on their backs
Culley is still chasing his dream at age 61.
He left Kansas City head coach Andy Reid, his boss for the last 18 years, and his expertise coaching NFL and college wide receivers for more than 30 years to become the Buffalo quarterbacks coach this year. Culley put himself in a better position to finally get noticed for a head coaching opportunity. (He declined an interview request for this story.)
Most black running backs and wide receivers coaches never become an offensive coordinator or a head coach. The ones who do often put in more than 20 years of coaching that position to move up.
Lynn had two opportunities to switch — once to defense and once to