All Things Sports

Hi guys, welcome back to All Things Sports! This weekend’s Championship Weekend in the NFL as the 49ers will play the Eagles in the NFC Championship game and the Bengals will play the Chiefs in a rematch of last year’s AFC Championship game. The winner of each game will go onto the Super Bowl and compete for the ultimate crown. But what about teams that didn’t make it here or the playoffs at all? Some, such as the Texans and Panthers, went shopping for new coaches after firing theirs during or after the season. These teams are looking for a new head coach in a field that has no shortage of qualified candidates. Brian Flores, Eric Bienemy, Demeco Ryans, and Steve Wilks are all great options for any team looking to find a coach that can lead a team and help them be successful. However, these guys won’t have the best opportunity to get hired based on hiring history. Why, you might ask? It is because they are all African-American and African-American coaches have a significantly worse chance at getting hired or keeping head coaching positions.

Let’s look at two examples. Steve Wilks was fired by the Cardinals after one season in 2019 which saw them be the worst team in the league and get the number one overall pick in the ensuing draft. Now the blame should not have fallen on Wilks because it was really obvious prior to the season that they were in rebuild mode and their roster was not built to be competitive yet Wilks still got fired. Brian Flores was fired by the Miami Dolphins after losing in what was essentially a team civil war and despite being an amazing coach, did not get hired by any team. Both went on to sue the NFL for discriminatory hiring practices. Now it’s not like they are bad coaches either. Brian Flores turned a struggling Dolphins franchise around and made them a playoff-caliber team and Steve Wilks completely revitalized the Panthers’ season this year after being made the interim head coach. Both will most likely start next season without a head coaching job. Why is that? Here’s another interesting stat: there were only 5 minority head coaches last year in the NFL despite evidence showing they perform just as well as white coaches. That doesn’t even account for the fact that one of them, Lovie Smith of the Texans, got fired for no apparent reason(no it’s not about the failed tank they were going to fire him either way). The Texans are the perfect representation of this issue. Over the last 2 years, they have had 2 black coaches yet both have been fired for what can only be assumed to be performance related issues. The only problem with that logic: they have had what has been widely acknowledged as one of the worst rosters in the league over the last two years. There was no explanation for firing either, especially Lovie Smith.

Now this highlights a clear issue in the league as there should definitely be more minority head coaches, by sheer averages if nothing else. But how do we solve it? Well the Rooney Rule already exists to help solve this as it requires teams to interview minority candidates for coaching positions, but it provides no true solvency. What ends up happening is situations like the Giants’ coaching hire last season. They interviewed Brian Flores among other candidates but then gave it to another candidate almost immediately after. Now I am not flaming the hire because Brian Daboll has been the best coach in the league, but it felt like the minority candidate didn’t get a shot. See the lack of solvency now? The solution is tricky because a quota system is simply illogical but incentivization, something the NFL has done, is not. There needs to be a greater incentive to hire minority candidates in order to solve this problem. It is a legitimate solution that has already shown it can work. However there shouldn’t be a need for it in the first place. How did it get here? Professional organizations should not need incentivization to hire a qualified coaching candidate. There is a clear problem in the NFL and it lies in its culture. It needs to be solved.