WS Chronicle

After the latest firings, the NFL is left with only one Black head coach, Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers. With the league nearly 70% Black, how are we still in this position of having only one Black head coach in the entire league?

At the start of the season, there were only three Black head coaches in the entire league. Brian Flores was fired by the Miami Dolphins after three seasons and the Houston Texans gave David Culley his walking papers after only one season where he didn’t have his Pro-Bowl quarterback.

Flores finished the season 9-8 with the Dolphins after a 1-7 start and just missed out on a playoff berth. The Dolphins seemed to be on an upward trend and ended the season with a 33-24 victory over New England. Flores’ firing was a shock to most people in the football world.

It seems the main reason for the firing of Flores was due to the tension between him and team general manager Chris Grier. Dolphins’ owner Stephen Ross gave a statement where he tried to deflect from the real reason Flores was let go, instead of stating what most people already knew.

“I made the decision today to part ways with Brian Flores,” Ross said in a statement from the team. “After evaluating where we are as an organization and what we need going forward to improve, I determined that key dynamics of our football organization weren’t functioning at a level I want it to be and felt that this decision was in the best interest of the Miami Dolphins. I believe we have a talented young roster in place and have the opportunity to be much better in 2022. I want to thank Brian for his hard work and wish him nothing but the best in his future.”

Flores took the high road and was very graceful in his statement after his firing. After what he has accomplished in three years, I don’t think I would have been able to bow out in such a manner.

“I want to thank the Miami Dolphins for the opportunity to be the head coach of this team for the last three seasons,” he said via ESPN. “It was an honor to represent the franchise and lead this group of men. I am grateful most of all for the players, coaches and support staff who gave everything they had on a daily basis to help us win games. They deserve the credit for any success on the field, and it was the honor of a lifetime for me to go to work with them everyday.

“I have always believed that leadership is really about service, and I did my best to serve the players, the staff and the organization every day. I believe in this team and will always value the relationships my family and I made here.”

I understand if you have tension between the general manager and head coach, it can make for an unhealthy workplace. I guess owner Stephen Ross took the side of the general manager and that left Flores as the odd man out. I am just not sure that was the wisest decision due to Grier’s track record as general manager.

As the Dolphins GM, Grier has made some very sketchy decisions with player movement and in the draft. From the drafting of Tua Tagovailoa, when Flores reportedly wanted Justin Herbert, to the trading of Laremy Tunsil and Minkah Fitzpatrick, Grier has shown himself to be average at best when it comes to player evaluation. Flores won’t be unemployed long.

For Culley, he was dealt a bad hand from the start of the season. Without star quarterback Deshaun Watson for the entire season, the Texans finished the year at 4-13. I don’t think anyone figured the Texans could do much better than they did with the hand they were dealt this season.

Watson didn’t play this season as he was dealing with 22 civil lawsuits alleging sexual assault and inappropriate behavior. He also requested to be traded last season but that didn’t happen. The firing was apparently the decision of Nick Caserio.

Caserio says that Culley brought a “positive culture” to the team and admits that the team was in a “rough spot” when Culley took over as head coach. The question remains: what else was Culley supposed to do in order to keep his job?

The Texans played hard each and every week and they won a couple of games that no one expected them to win. With the lack of an above average signal caller and no run game to speak of, I think the Texans fared well this year. I just feel like Culley earned at least one more season to see if he could right the ship.

That’s where my biggest complaint really lies with both of these firings. I am not claiming that any of these owners or general managers are racist, because Grier of the Dolphins is Black himself, but it seems that white head coaches are given a longer leash than Black coaches.

That sentiment goes back decades in the history of the league. From Tony Dungy, Dennis Green, Herm Edwards, Jim Caldwell, to several others, it seems that when it comes to Black coaches, they are expected to take over bad teams and then are not given sufficient time to turn things around.

The other issue I have is when a Black coach actually does show signs of improvement, they are let go and the teams hire a white coach to take over. It’s like they want the Black coach to do all of the dirty work by improving the team and then let a white coach reap the benefits from that. Just doesn’t seem very fair.

Now I know people will bring up Marvin Lewis as an example of a Black coach who was given a long time to show what he could do. Granted, Lewis was given 16 seasons with the Bengals, but he is the exception, not the rule. He turned a horrible Bengals team into one that was competitive but never was able to win a playoff game, unfortunately for him.

It is very early in this new hiring cycle as the season has not been completed, so there are quite a few Black assistant coaches that should be high on any team’s list to hire. Guys like Eric Bieniemy, offensive coordinator of the Kansas City Chiefs, Duce Staley, assistant head coach/running back coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, Teryl Austin, senior defensive assistant/secondary coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Byron Leftwich, offensive coordinator of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Todd Bowles, defensive coordinator of the Bucs, should all be serious candidates for head coaching jobs this offseason.

But outside of one or two of those guys, I keep hearing names like Kellen Moore, offensive coordinator of the Dallas Cowboys, or Dan Quinn, defensive coordinator of the Cowboys, as serious candidates for jobs. Please tell me what Moore and Quinn have done that warrants them being catapulted above the aforementioned guys in the previous paragraph.

I am not saying that there are only Black head coaching candidates that should be considered, because there are some white assistants who deserve consideration as well. But the league needs to figure out something better than the Rooney Rule, because it’s not working at all.

There were only three Black head coaches when the Rooney Rule was adopted in 2003. For those that don’t know what the Rooney Rule is, it basically states that a team must interview at least one minority candidate for head coaching and front office positions. It just doesn’t seem like getting these minority candidates in the room for an interview is enough.

To the contrary, the NBA has 13 Black head coaches out of 30 teams. For years, the NBA has been more aggressive about making sure minority candidates are in position to be hired, and they have. I mean, come on … the NFL should be embarrassed to have fewer Black head coaches than Major League Baseball, who has two.

I don’t know what the answer is to fix it, but it needs to be addressed quickly. Maybe the NFL should coordinate with the NBA to figure out how they have been able to increase their minority coaching numbers.  

I am a firm believer in “representation matters,” so for the league to be nearly 70% Black and only have one Black coach is unacceptable. What message is that telling our kids? So, they can play the game and make owners rich, but they can’t coach the game that they have made so popular?  Doesn’t even sound right does it?  

Do better, NFL. The ball is in your court.