I think the one stat that I keep hearing from the talking heads that makes me crazy is the one about 70% of the players in the league are African-American, and (now), only 2 head coaches are African-American. Thus, racism. I want to climb through my computer/radio and strangle someone every time I hear it. It's as if there is no difference between the qualifications of a player and a head coach. The real statistic, if there even should be one, would be "How many NFL head coaches are former players and what percentage of them are white vs. black?" I haven't gone and counted them all, but from what I can tell, there are very, very few head coaches in the NFL that are former NFL players. Kliff Kingsbury is one of the actual exceptions to the rule (for those that forget, he was drafted by the Patriots in 2003, with the 201st pick in the draft, trying to catch lightning in a bottle twice, hmm?) and then roamed around and went to Canada before turning to coaching 2008. Anthony Lynn and Todd Bowles are also exceptions.
The reality is the guys that choose to become head coaches, for the most part, chose that path very early on in life. The one thing most of these guys have in common is that one of their first resume entries reads the words "graduate assistant." We all know Belichick's story, McCarthy basically started a path towards coaching when he was 25, Pete Carroll started as a collegiate assistant when he was 22, Gruden was 22, Dirk Koetter coached a high school team for 2 years after college, Adam Gase got a job as an undergraduate assistant while in college, Hue Jackson stayed at his alma mater and started coaching at 22, Marvin Lewis was a grad assistant at Idaho State at 23, Andy Reid was a grad assistant at 23, McVay became an Asst WR coach under Gruden when he graduated from Miami at age 22, and on and on and on it goes.
The media make it sound like any old NFL player can become a head coach, and they completely ignore the fact that if these guys were busy playing football, they were falling behind the curve of all of these guys who started coaching immediate after, or in some cases during, college. They can't necessarily compete with the experience the other coaching candidates have. When I hire someone to work for me, experience is always the #1 factor, and I feel it should be that way in most professions.
So while I don't doubt for a second that some of these owners are racist, I think every single one of them would hire a black coach tomorrow if they were guaranteed a couple more wins and a whole lot more money. They may be racist, but they ain't stupid, and they are certainly greedy. I think we need to look into what's happening to the black coaches that start right out of college, and try to move up the ranks. Where are they getting stopped in the process? What's holding them back? How many of them are there? By the time most of these guys get a shot at an NFL head coaching gig, they've been coaching in some capacity for 20+ years. Whereas guys who play NFL football aren't building that resume as a coach. If they have a successful NFL career, they can be starting their coaching career 10+ years behind these other guys who didn't/couldn't play at the NFL level.
Anyway, just something to throw out there because I keep hearing this stat about NFL players and I just don't think it actually proves what the speakers think it proves.