(02-04-2022, 10:32 PM)SamusAranX Wrote:

(02-04-2022, 08:37 PM)Bullseye Wrote: That's the whole point.

It's never been purely about merit.

How else can you explain Josh McCown, whose only coaching experience is on the high school level, actually getting a SECOND NFL head coaching interview?!?

For over a decade, African Americans weren't allowed in the NFL at all as a matter of policy.   For several decades to follow, they weren't allowed to play certain positions like QB, C and MLB, under the rationale that blacks were not equipped to handle the more cerebral positions.

As a society, we aren't too far removed from a time where race dictated where you were able to live, where you were able to be after sunset, into what doorway you could enter and exit, whether you could get healthcare at the nearest hospital, where you went to school, who you could marry, what jobs you could hold, where you sat on a bus, what water fountains you could drink from, whether you were allowed to vote or sit on a jury.  The racism that created those comprehensive LAWS, policies and practices persists today, manifesting itself in myriad ways that triggers the very outrage you are complaining about.

When I first joined the Jaguars.com board, I literally argued against the entire board on this very topic.  I was quite familiar with the subject matter, as I graduated from law school just a couple of years before, and my Upper Level Writing requirement was on this subject.

Cyrus Mehri and Johnnie Cochran (yes that one) threatened an employment discrimination action against the NFL and its member clubs for the failure to hire black coaches.  The immediate, reflective reaction to that was aversion to the idea NFL teams would somehow be forced to hire unqualified minorities.  Interestingly, a few months later, the Jaguars hired Jack Del Rio to be their next head coach.

At the time, he had all of ONE (1) year as an NFL defensive coordinator, and maybe 6 years as a position coach.  At the time, there were numerous other candidates, black and white, who had way more experience as coordinators and coaches than JDR.  Yet when he was hired, there was universal celebration.  People gleefully echoed the sentiment he expressed in the pres conference that "there would be no more 3 yards and a cloud of dust."  Yet these same people were dead silent about JDR's comparative lack of qualifications.  As a group, the people on this board associated a lack of qualifications to black coaching candidates, but did not subject guys like JDR to the same scrutiny.  He was given the the unquestioned presumption of qualification they denied to the hypothetical black coaching candidate without having any idea what qualifications that unnamed coach might actually have.  When I called them on it, nobody had anything remotely resembling an explanation for the double standards.

Whether you think this double standard is the end result of conscious or unconscious bias, the end result is the same.  Sadly, NFL owners are not exempt from these biases, and neither are black/latino/Asian coaches.  This disparity has state and federal law implications, to say nothing about ramifications in the lives of the coaches involved.

A lot of what you have said is understandable  and while I may disagree in some conclusions, I do know this: you are right that for whatever reason, minorities are not getting head coaching opportunists. 

But to me the Flores lawsuit just showed what a mockery the Rooney rule has been made by franchises. 

There has to be a better path to help identify and move forward qualified minority candidates. But I’ll be darned if I know what it is.

Every HC interview should be done with the top 16 OCs DCs and STCs and then add another 5-10 misc people (people out of the league etc). This interview is generic, they each get a piece of paper to write the answers to the questions. Then the interviewers ask position specific questions. After that wave only bring back the 2 best oc dc stc and misc best. Those are the interviews you do 1 on 1. Take your pick.

If you want to get in the running, be in the top half of the league. As far as how to get a coordinators position again interview the top 16 people just below that position. So 16 QB coach's, Online coaches etc. Might take a bit longer but I don't see how that couldn't be considered fair. You're not hiring the best of the best but you are interviewing the best of the best.

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