Troy Vincent:‘Double standard’ for Black coaches when it comes to keeping jobs

soxhop411

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the Washington Post just put sent out an article that has Troy Vincent and Jonathan Beane (who are two of the NFL’s highest-ranking Black executives) speaking about the double standard when it comes to Black coaching getting and keeping jobs

Here is a small snippet from the article, but I would recommend clicking the link below and reading the rest
A top NFL official said Tuesday “there is a double standard” in the league when it comes to retaining as well as hiring Black head coaches, a pointed public acknowledgment by the league that its teams have fallen short of the goal of increasing diversity within the senior coaching ranks.


Speaking one day after the Miami Dolphins fired Brian Flores as their head coach following a second straight winning season, Troy Vincent, the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations, said the league should not “shy away from” its record of teams firing Black head coaches after winning seasons or very short tenures. Flores’s dismissal leaves the league with just two Black head coaches.

Vincent cited past cases with prominent Black coaches being let go, including Tony Dungy with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Jim Caldwell with the Detroit Lions and Steve Wilks with the Arizona Cardinals. He added the example Tyrone Willingham losing his job at Notre Dame.
“There is a double standard, and we’ve seen that,” Vincent said in a phone interview. “And you talk about the appetite for what’s acceptable. Let’s just go back to Tyrone Willingham at Notre Dame was fired after a winning season. Coach Dungy was let go in Tampa Bay after a winning season. So we have seen this. … Coach Wilks, just a few years prior, was let go after one year. And then the things that happened today.
“There is a double standard. I don’t think that that is something that we should shy away from. But that is all part of some of the things that we need to fix in the system. We want to hold everyone to why does one, let’s say, get the benefit of the doubt to be able to build or take bumps and bruises in this process of getting a franchise turned around when others are not afforded that latitude? … We see it at the collegiate level. And we’ve seen that in history at the [professional] level.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/01/11/black-nfl-coaches-firings-troy-vincent/

As the article mentions this has long been issue that the NFL has yet to solve, even with the Rooney Rule, as most of the time we see teams interview someone who they really have no intention of actually hiring and just are doing it to satisfy the Rooney Rule.. You cant reward teams (the hiring team) for hiring a minority coach because that would be a slap in the face, as you would be essentially bribing teams to hire a minority coach.... Though it would also be difficult for the NFL to determine how serious they were when they interview someone to satisfy the Rooney Rule, without the NFL looking at their internal communications (which we know NFL owners would go nuclear over)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/01/11/black-nfl-coaches-firings-troy-vincent/
 

PC Drunken Friar

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I agree it's an area worth looking into and there probably is something there... But using Willingham as an example isn't the way to go about proving your point. Going 11-12 in 2 years is not what ND is looking for (then going 11-37 at Washington, to boot).
 

Hatcher Steals Home

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At ND at least they treated Willingham basically the same as Bob Davie before and Charlie Weis after.
This is a no win situation to bring up, but Weis with 5 years compared to Whillingham's 3:
Weis:
2005: went 9-3 and finished #9 (AP)
2006: 10-3 #17 (AP)
2007: 3-9, unranked
2008: 7-6, unranked - Question here would be did his first two years buy him more time?
2009: 6-6 and he was out.

One losing season and two not good enough for Notre Dame's expectations (nor the expectation of the contract).
 

Vinho Tinto

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Willingham’s recruiting classes were dropping like an anvil when he was fired, but the core of Weiss’s first two seasons were his players. He scapegoated Willingham’s final classes when he went 3-9.

There are plenty of coaching examples in the NFL to bring up (Dennis Green, Jim Caldwell or the general dismissal of every successful black coaches) without going back to an NCAA coach who was fired 17 years ago.
 

Kenny F'ing Powers

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I guess it comes down to what people feel the responsibilities are of team owners who hire new coaches. Is there a responsibility to make diverse hires, or is it solely about the best coach? Not to say the best coach can't also be a minority, but the well of coaches is mostly white.
 

scott bankheadcase

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I guess it comes down to what people feel the responsibilities are of team owners who hire new coaches. Is there a responsibility to make diverse hires, or is it solely about the best coach? Not to say the best coach can't also be a minority, but the well of coaches is mostly white.
This is where I like the comp pick rule if a minority from your staff gets a head coach job. It gives teams incentives to develop minority coaches more and changes the dynamic of that well.
 

joe dokes

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This is where I like the comp pick rule if a minority from your staff gets a head coach job. It gives teams incentives to develop minority coaches more and changes the dynamic of that well.
That sounds like a good plan. Will that backfire though? "I'm on the fence about hiring this guy. If I do, it gives the other team a pick and that moves us down a slot in the draft." Its unlikely to have an influence, but I'm very cynical about this stuff. It seems that anytime anything is attached to any sort of signing, it becomes an excuse not to do it.
 

scott bankheadcase

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That sounds like a good plan. Will that backfire though? "I'm on the fence about hiring this guy. If I do, it gives the other team a pick and that moves us down a slot in the draft." Its unlikely to have an influence, but I'm very cynical about this stuff. It seems that anytime anything is attached to any sort of signing, it becomes an excuse not to do it.
I mean it’s only a 3rd rounder right now I think, I know the Jets don’t care about the Niners but they didn’t think twice about hiring Saleh because the niners would get a comp pick.

I don’t think that will become a substantial issue.
 

tims4wins

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I mean it’s only a 3rd rounder right now I think, I know the Jets don’t care about the Niners but they didn’t think twice about hiring Saleh because the niners would get a comp pick.

I don’t think that will become a substantial issue.
And it's not like they are giving up their own pick. I wouldn't blink an eye over another team adding a pick around 100th in the draft if you hire their coach, even if it was a division rival. It doesn't move the needle. Hell the Pats and Jets each GAVE UP first round picks to hire BB and Parcells, respectively, and the Parcells situation was within the division!
 

snowmanny

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Dungy isn't a great example either. It's like the Red Sox firing Little/Farrell or the Yankees firing Showalter. Maybe even like Jimmy Johnson. If the next guy wins it all I'm not sure you can complain.
 

Ralphwiggum

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The compensatory draft pick thing is a great incentive for teams to have more diverse coaching staffs. In a league where 70% of the players are black the coaching ranks are still pretty embarrassingly white. If as noted above the reason why there are still so few diverse head coaches is because the funnel for qualified head coaches tends to be white, then the goal should be to diversify that funnel. The draft pick thing is a great way to do that. If Mayo gets a job this year and the Pats get a third rounder out of it that's fantastic all around.
 

Red Right Ankle

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The compensatory draft pick thing is a great incentive for teams to have more diverse coaching staffs. In a league where 70% of the players are black the coaching ranks are still pretty embarrassingly white. If as noted above the reason why there are still so few diverse head coaches is because the funnel for qualified head coaches tends to be white, then the goal should be to diversify that funnel. The draft pick thing is a great way to do that. If Mayo gets a job this year and the Pats get a third rounder out of it that's fantastic all around.
Yes. Even better would be if the league incentivized/required teams to create and execute on plans to diversify their recruitment processes for junior football staff; get them to look outside their traditional recruiting networks and geographies, set up paid internships for underrepresented groups, etc. If the criteria for getting an interview to be a intern is basically, "know someone on the staff," and the staff is all white dudes, well the likelihood is that the people that staff knows are also mostly white dudes.
 

mauf

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The compensatory draft pick thing is a great incentive for teams to have more diverse coaching staffs. In a league where 70% of the players are black the coaching ranks are still pretty embarrassingly white. If as noted above the reason why there are still so few diverse head coaches is because the funnel for qualified head coaches tends to be white, then the goal should be to diversify that funnel. The draft pick thing is a great way to do that. If Mayo gets a job this year and the Pats get a third rounder out of it that's fantastic all around.
Does the NCAA track the racial diversity of college athletes? I’d argue that the “funnel” for NFL coaching gigs includes everyone who played college ball at any level and either got a degree or played pro ball.

I ask because I think one reason the NFL has gotten a pass is because people intuitively understand that only a small subset of pro players are viable candidates to coach at that level, so people wave off the 70% figure. But just about everyone who coaches pro ball played in college (even if it was just D3), and I’ll bet the ranks of college football players are more diverse (and specifically, more African-American) than either the general population or the current ranks of NFL coaches. Hard to chalk that up to anything except implicit bias.

Edit: There’s a lot of data a Google search away. Much of it is dated. But it appears part of the problem is that Black men are being hired as assistants but aren’t being promoted to coordinator roles in anything like proportional numbers — and of course the vast majority of head coaches emerge from the coordinator ranks.
 
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Super Nomario

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Yes. Even better would be if the league incentivized/required teams to create and execute on plans to diversify their recruitment processes for junior football staff; get them to look outside their traditional recruiting networks and geographies, set up paid internships for underrepresented groups, etc. If the criteria for getting an interview to be a intern is basically, "know someone on the staff," and the staff is all white dudes, well the likelihood is that the people that staff knows are also mostly white dudes.
Re: the bolded, there is the Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship program (where minority and woman candidates get to coach with teams during summer camps), as well as the Nunn-Wootten Scouting Fellowship on the personnel side. But, as you note, you're still fighting uphill against nepotism and referral. Even the black coaches / scouts who do get a foot in the door tend to players the coach formerly worked with (like Mayo and Troy Brown) or referrals (Flores recommended BC teammate DuJuan Daniels, now the #2 personnel guy in Las Vegas). But given the decades of racism in the NFL (and society in general), nepotism and referral is always going to disproportionate benefit those who have historically been in power.

Does the NCAA track the racial diversity of college athletes? I’d argue that the “funnel” for NFL coaching gigs includes everyone who played college ball at any level and either got a degree or played pro ball.

I ask because I think one reason the NFL has gotten a pass is because people intuitively understand that only a small subset of pro players are viable candidates to coach at that level, so people wave off the 70% figure. But just about everyone who coaches pro ball played in college (even if it was just D3), and I’ll bet the ranks of college football players are more diverse (and specifically, more African-American) than either the general population or the current ranks of NFL coaches. Hard to chalk that up to anything except implicit bias.
As of 2015, all levels of NCAA football were 39% black, 14% other minority. FBS was 48% black, 15% other minority. So not as dramatic as the 70% figure, but still underrepresented (I studied front offices in 2019 and found they were 28% black, 4% other minority).
 

mauf

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As of 2015, all levels of NCAA football were 39% black, 14% other minority. FBS was 48% black, 15% other minority. So not as dramatic as the 70% figure, but still underrepresented (I studied front offices in 2019 and found they were 28% black, 4% other minority).
Thanks. So the funnel is at least 40% Black. (This shouldn’t surprise anyone who follows the sport at any level — even in the lily-white suburbs of Boston, your typical high-school team has several Black players.)

No excuse for the NFL to be where they are now.
 

RG33

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I think Troy Vincent has a point and it is worth the league exploring and discussing openly.

I also think Troy Vincent is a duplicitous scumbag.
 

Sandwich Pick

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I don't know why Vincent would bring up Tony Dungy, of all people. Vincent was on both Eagles teams that decisively knocked Dungy's underachieving Bucs out of the playoffs. He was also on the team that Dungy's replacement beat in the NFCCG the following year with largely the same roster.

As for Steve Wilks, I don't recall another situation where a team punted on both a 1st year head coach and a QB drafted in the Top 10 after 1 season. I know Kyler Murray being right there made it a lot easier, but the sunk cost fallacy had to be tempting for the Cardinals to fall victim to at that point.
 

HomeRunBaker

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I agree it's an area worth looking into and there probably is something there... But using Willingham as an example isn't the way to go about proving your point. Going 11-12 in 2 years is not what ND is looking for (then going 11-37 at Washington, to boot).
Can’t think of a worse example after what Willingham after his time at Washington before being fired. Even at Stanford was he that impressive? He finished below .500 in 3 of his final 5 seasons there, and that’s with the gimme non-conference game on the schedule (that he lost one year). Had Stanford not beaten ND his final year there I wonder if he even gets the job in the first place.
 

sodenj5

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Mike Tomlin is one of the longest tenured and most successful coaches in the league. Brian Flores got hired and fired by a black general manager and the owner specifically said he was not fired for performance reasons.

I’m not saying there shouldn’t be more diversity in front offices and coaching staffs. There should. But using Flores’s job as the platform for the argument that black coaches don’t get a fair shake is a mistake.

Flores inflicted plenty of damage to himself within his tenure that ultimately lead to his dismissal. Should those issues have been able to have been resolved? Maybe. But Ross and Grier clearly felt that the relationship was irreconcilable.
 

Vinho Tinto

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Dungy isn't a great example either. It's like the Red Sox firing Little/Farrell or the Yankees firing Showalter. Maybe even like Jimmy Johnson. If the next guy wins it all I'm not sure you can complain.
John Farrell and Buck Showalter aren’t in the hall of fame. Like Jimmy Johnson, the team won a title the season after he left and quickly sank like a stone.

In the context of the Bucs history, firing Dungy was a ridiculous thing to do. Yes, they won with Gruden the following season. They then went back to being one the league’s shit teams until Tom Brady signed. It’s easy to forget how high a level of defense he had that team playing. He was undone due to not opening up the offense after signing Brad Johnson; but Dungy did not deserve to be fired - but the team is owned by the Glazers so it was an on brand move.
 

PC Drunken Friar

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Mike Tomlin is one of the longest tenured and most successful coaches in the league. Brian Flores got hired and fired by a black general manager and the owner specifically said he was not fired for performance reasons.

I’m not saying there shouldn’t be more diversity in front offices and coaching staffs. There should. But using Flores’s job as the platform for the argument that black coaches don’t get a fair shake is a mistake.

Flores inflicted plenty of damage to himself within his tenure that ultimately lead to his dismissal. Should those issues have been able to have been resolved? Maybe. But Ross and Grier clearly felt that the relationship was irreconcilable.
Should this not be the sole reason (other than off the field shenanigans) that a coach gets fired? Take in the whole body of work/opportunity/time, etc?
 

ManicCompression

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In a league where 70% of the players are black the coaching ranks are still pretty embarrassingly white. If as noted above the reason why there are still so few diverse head coaches is because the funnel for qualified head coaches tends to be white, then the goal should be to diversify that funnel.
Can someone explain the link between playing the game at a high level and coaching at a high level? I don't quite see it - BB, the greatest coach of all time, played at football powerhouse Wesleyan. If you run through the list of head coaches in the league, only a small number - Vrabel, Reich - are recognizable as players.

We shouldn't expect parity between the 70% number and the percentage of black coaches on staffs in the NFL. The staffing pool is much different - it's the population of people who love football enough to work 18 hours a day, get paid dogshit for the first decade of their career (or their whole career), move their family around possibly every year or two, and have some stressed out asshole yell them at when things go wrong. Every. Day.

It's not a fun gig and you have to be a special type of personality to want to do it after making millions as a player - there are easier and less stressful ways to make money.

These "end of the funnel" quotas and incentives carry a boatload of problems, IMO, so I think the best way to encourage diversity in the coaching ranks is to standardize paying low-level employees in college and the pros a middle class wage instead of a minimum wage. The board is tilted, like so many glamour jobs, in favor of wealthy kids whose parents will monetarily support their early career aspirations. Let's even it for everyone. I'd rather an impactful change like that instead of the typical CYA HR BS that is the Rooney Rule.
 

sodenj5

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Should this not be the sole reason (other than off the field shenanigans) that a coach gets fired? Take in the whole body of work/opportunity/time, etc?
I don’t disagree I was in favor of keeping Flores.

Bill’s style of coaching works because he has unilateral authority, answers to no one other than ownership, and has a vault full of Lombardis with an extensive track record of winning.

When you don’t have all of those things, that style of coaching gets old very quickly.

I suppose the analogy is if you’re a programmer, and you generate kick-ass code but you’re confrontational with management, you make other people uncomfortable at work, and you generally are difficult to work with, management may eventually decide that your output is no longer worth the baggage that comes with it. You can be fired despite being good at your actual job.
 

Mystic Merlin

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I don’t disagree I was in favor of keeping Flores.

Bill’s style of coaching works because he has unilateral authority, answers to no one other than ownership, and has a vault full of Lombardis with an extensive track record of winning.

When you don’t have all of those things, that style of coaching gets old very quickly.

I suppose the analogy is if you’re a programmer, and you generate kick-ass code but you’re confrontational with management, you make other people uncomfortable at work, and you generally are difficult to work with, management may eventually decide that your output is no longer worth the baggage that comes with it. You can be fired despite being good at your actual job.
A lot of NFL head coaches seem like assholes, which is, of course, a trait that can be cited by management when they want to can someone whose teams were successful on the field.
 

sodenj5

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A lot of NFL head coaches seem like assholes, which is, of course, a trait that can be cited by management when they want to can someone whose teams were successful on the field.
Don’t disagree.

Ross has seen three winning seasons in the last dozen years. Two of them were this year and last year under Flores. I don’t think Ross made the decision to fire the most successful coach in his tenure on a whim.

For better or worse, Ross was unwilling to hand the entire franchise over to Flores and cut out Grier.

Edit: this is largely a function of Ross not being involved in they day to day operations like a Bob Kraft. He has Tom Garfinkle in place to oversee the business side of operations, and Grier in place to oversee the football side of ops.
 
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Ralphwiggum

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Can someone explain the link between playing the game at a high level and coaching at a high level? I don't quite see it - BB, the greatest coach of all time, played at football powerhouse Wesleyan. If you run through the list of head coaches in the league, only a small number - Vrabel, Reich - are recognizable as players.

We shouldn't expect parity between the 70% number and the percentage of black coaches on staffs in the NFL. The staffing pool is much different - it's the population of people who love football enough to work 18 hours a day, get paid dogshit for the first decade of their career (or their whole career), move their family around possibly every year or two, and have some stressed out asshole yell them at when things go wrong. Every. Day.
I don't think anyone has said that there should be parity, only that minorities are underrepresented in the coaching ranks. But @mauf probably had it right in that we should be looking at the college ranks rather than just players at the NFL level since so many coaches never played beyond college (as you note with BB).

These "end of the funnel" quotas and incentives carry a boatload of problems, IMO, so I think the best way to encourage diversity in the coaching ranks is to standardize paying low-level employees in college and the pros a middle class wage instead of a minimum wage. The board is tilted, like so many glamour jobs, in favor of wealthy kids whose parents will monetarily support their early career aspirations. Let's even it for everyone. I'd rather an impactful change like that instead of the typical CYA HR BS that is the Rooney Rule.
I don't disagree with your point about compensation, but what are the problems with creating incentives for teams to broaden the funnel of potential minority coaches? So many of these entry level jobs go to guys who have connections, oftentimes family connections (BB with his father, and now with his sons). Breaking that pattern and having a true merit based method of choosing your entry level coaches is beyond hopeless. Giving teams reasons to take a flier on someone who doesn't have that family or friend connection is a good thing IMO.
 

mauf

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Mike Tomlin is one of the longest tenured and most successful coaches in the league. Brian Flores got hired and fired by a black general manager and the owner specifically said he was not fired for performance reasons.

I’m not saying there shouldn’t be more diversity in front offices and coaching staffs. There should. But using Flores’s job as the platform for the argument that black coaches don’t get a fair shake is a mistake.

Flores inflicted plenty of damage to himself within his tenure that ultimately lead to his dismissal. Should those issues have been able to have been resolved? Maybe. But Ross and Grier clearly felt that the relationship was irreconcilable.
I don’t think Flores is a good example either, but for different reasons.

Vague complaints about a successful person’s relationship issues are a common vehicle for discrimination. In Flores’s case, however, he was fired by the same people who hired him three years ago. Also, three years without a playoff appearance is the usual rule of thumb for what gets an NFL head coach fired. If it were my call, I would’ve given Flores another year, but anyone who claims this was something other than what usually happens to a coach who doesn’t produce results has the burden of proof, even though the NFL’s overall record in this area is poor.
 

CFB_Rules

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Can someone explain the link between playing the game at a high level and coaching at a high level? I don't quite see it - BB, the greatest coach of all time, played at football powerhouse Wesleyan. If you run through the list of head coaches in the league, only a small number - Vrabel, Reich - are recognizable as players.

We shouldn't expect parity between the 70% number and the percentage of black coaches on staffs in the NFL. The staffing pool is much different - it's the population of people who love football enough to work 18 hours a day, get paid dogshit for the first decade of their career (or their whole career), move their family around possibly every year or two, and have some stressed out asshole yell them at when things go wrong. Every. Day.
That's only part of the pipeline. The other part is you are born "into the network" by being in a coaching family. Then you get to skip most of those steps. And those networks are almost all entirely white.

Black coaches can also skip those steps if they were a player at a VERY high level. If you were playing in the NFL for a decade, congrats, you are on par for a coaching job with a white guy with the right last name.
 

Super Nomario

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Can someone explain the link between playing the game at a high level and coaching at a high level? I don't quite see it - BB, the greatest coach of all time, played at football powerhouse Wesleyan. If you run through the list of head coaches in the league, only a small number - Vrabel, Reich - are recognizable as players.
It's pretty funny though - obviously Vrabel and Reich are white, as are Kliff Kingsbury and Dan Campbell. As far as I can tell, Ron Rivera is the only minority head coach / former player. So even in that group we're way short of the 70%.

It is fair to note we should expect the 70% figure and it would be more reasonable to expect a number more in line with the overall population of college football players (since almost all coaches / front office at least played college on some level). But we're short of that, too, as I noted above. And for GMs, in particular, there's a bottle-neck at the top; owners are happy with minorities advancing through to director level, but don't seem to want to hire them for the top post.

We shouldn't expect parity between the 70% number and the percentage of black coaches on staffs in the NFL. The staffing pool is much different - it's the population of people who love football enough to work 18 hours a day, get paid dogshit for the first decade of their career (or their whole career), move their family around possibly every year or two, and have some stressed out asshole yell them at when things go wrong. Every. Day.

It's not a fun gig and you have to be a special type of personality to want to do it after making millions as a player - there are easier and less stressful ways to make money.

These "end of the funnel" quotas and incentives carry a boatload of problems, IMO, so I think the best way to encourage diversity in the coaching ranks is to standardize paying low-level employees in college and the pros a middle class wage instead of a minimum wage. The board is tilted, like so many glamour jobs, in favor of wealthy kids whose parents will monetarily support their early career aspirations. Let's even it for everyone. I'd rather an impactful change like that instead of the typical CYA HR BS that is the Rooney Rule.
I agree with all this. I don't see it changing, though. The short pay and long hours is a badge of pride. Teams like it because it filters out "people who don't really want it." They have tons of applicants for entry-level positions; discouraging people from applying is a feature, not a bug, to NFL (and college) decision-makers.

Black coaches can also skip those steps if they were a player at a VERY high level. If you were playing in the NFL for a decade, congrats, you are on par for a coaching job with a white guy with the right last name.
Of course a white guy who played in the NFL for a decade, like John Elway or John Lynch, gets to skip to a high-level job right off the bat with minimal qualifications.
 

ManicCompression

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I don't think anyone has said that there should be parity, only that minorities are underrepresented in the coaching ranks. But @mauf probably had it right in that we should be looking at the college ranks rather than just players at the NFL level since so many coaches never played beyond college (as you note with BB).
I suppose, but I feel like every time this discussion comes up, the difference between the population of coaches and players is offered as some kind of evidence that's useful when it's not.

I don't disagree with your point about compensation, but what are the problems with creating incentives for teams to broaden the funnel of potential minority coaches? So many of these entry level jobs go to guys who have connections, oftentimes family connections (BB with his father, and now with his sons). Breaking that pattern and having a true merit based method of choosing your entry level coaches is beyond hopeless. Giving teams reasons to take a flier on someone who doesn't have that family or friend connection is a good thing IMO.
I'm in agreement with you for the most part, but I'd argue that end of funnel programs actually tighten networks rather than loosen them. The only people who won't be affected by quotas or incentive programs are those who benefit from nepotism. If anything, they benefit, because the pool they operate in is smaller. Those most affected are the folks who don't have connections. I'd rather see teams disincentivized to engage in nepotism as that would open up the choke point a bit more.
 

Mystic Merlin

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I don’t think Flores is a good example either, but for different reasons.

Vague complaints about a successful person’s relationship issues are a common vehicle for discrimination. In Flores’s case, however, he was fired by the same people who hired him three years ago. Also, three years without a playoff appearance is the usual rule of thumb for what gets an NFL head coach fired. If it were my call, I would’ve given Flores another year, but anyone who claims this was something other than what usually happens to a coach who doesn’t produce results has the burden of proof, even though the NFL’s overall record in this area is poor.
Wait, you are holding him responsible for missing the playoffs in 2019? That team was widely expected to win 0-2 games.

In any event, this entire discussion is based on the rationale for firing Flores that the owner voiced. He said Flores wasn’t fired because of the team’s on field results. Is he lying?
 

tims4wins

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Wait, you are holding him responsible for missing the playoffs in 2019? That team was widely expected to win 0-2 games.

In any event, this entire discussion is based on the rationale for firing Flores that the owner voiced. He said Flores wasn’t fired because of the team’s on field results. Is he lying?
I think he's saying that coaches usually get 3 years to get their teams to the playoffs.

The Dolphins awful start this year cost them a real chance at playoff bid.
 

tims4wins

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It's pretty funny though - obviously Vrabel and Reich are white, as are Kliff Kingsbury and Dan Campbell. As far as I can tell, Ron Rivera is the only minority head coach / former player. So even in that group we're way short of the 70%.
Tomlin is another one
 

Ralphwiggum

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I suppose, but I feel like every time this discussion comes up, the difference between the population of coaches and players is offered as some kind of evidence that's useful when it's not.
It is useful because the population of NFL head and assistant coaches is made up of former players, so there has to be something else going on for a league that is overwhelmingly minority to have so few minority coaches. But I have acknowledged that the better number to look at would be the percentage of minority players at all levels of college football rather than the NFL.
 

sodenj5

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I think he's saying that coaches usually get 3 years to get their teams to the playoffs.

The Dolphins awful start this year cost them a real chance at playoff bid.
And a complete collapse last year in Buffalo. Flores wins that game and beats either Atlanta or Jacksonville this year, he’s probably in the playoffs two consecutive years and still has a job.

For all the good he did, he started 1-7 this year and beat Buffalo once in three years.
 

RIrooter09

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And a complete collapse last year in Buffalo. Flores wins that game and beats either Atlanta or Jacksonville this year, he’s probably in the playoffs two consecutive years and still has a job.

For all the good he did, he started 1-7 this year and beat Buffalo once in three years.
Buffalo is an extremely talented team with a stud QB. Miami is...not. Flores doesn't shop for the groceries so he can only be expected to do so much. Just because Ross kept the black GM who's been loyally failing at his side for two decades doesn't mean there wasn't a racial component to Flores having such a short leash.
 

sodenj5

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Buffalo is an extremely talented team with a stud QB. Miami is...not. Flores doesn't shop for the groceries so he can only be expected to do so much. Just because Ross kept the black GM who's been loyally failing at his side for two decades doesn't mean there wasn't a racial component to Flores having such a short leash.
And that is where our opinions diverge. Flores was very actively involved in the roster construction in Miami. Did he have final say and authority like Belichick? No. But everything I have read the last few days suggests that Flores had a very direct hand in personnel and Grier essentially signed off on whatever he wanted to placate Flores.

If you want to point to the success of the defense and defensive personnel, you absolutely have to point the finger at the offense, the failings of the offensive line, and the lack of talent at the skill positions under Flores.
 

PC Drunken Friar

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I think I have said this before, but I think one of the biggest reasons for a lack of A-A head coaches (and maybe to an extent OC/DC) is that the NFL is such a tight "old boy" network. And white coaches sort of get a pass when it comes to being a former player. To be an A-A head coach, it is very likely that they played in the NFL. I don't think white coaches face that same hurdle. The coaching pool is so much smaller.

By my count, coaches that coached this year (non-minority)...25 HC had zero NFL experience. 4 did (Kingsbury, Dan Campbell, Vrabel and Reich). of the 3 minority coaches ( Flores, Culley and Rivera) 1 out of 3.

But historically (including these 3), there have been 21 A-A HC in the NFL. 11 of the 21 have played in the NFL. That is a huge percentage compared to white HC.
 

mauf

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Wait, you are holding him responsible for missing the playoffs in 2019? That team was widely expected to win 0-2 games.

In any event, this entire discussion is based on the rationale for firing Flores that the owner voiced. He said Flores wasn’t fired because of the team’s on field results. Is he lying?
I would’ve given Flores another year for exactly the reason you state — the 2019 Dolphins were exceptionally talent-poor, so that year’s result should be disregarded when evaluating Flores. If you looked only at 2020 and 2021, you’d see a guy who should be on the hot seat but ought to get another year to show results. If you went back through recent history, however, I think you’d find that that kind of forbearance is relatively uncommon, particularly for first-time coaches.

I didn’t give much weight to Ross’s stated reasons for the change because when any business feels the need to explain publicly why a highly-paid employee is leaving the organization, the publicly stated reasons are seldom congruent with the actual reasons.
 

richgedman'sghost

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Can someone explain the link between playing the game at a high level and coaching at a high level? I don't quite see it - BB, the greatest coach of all time, played at football powerhouse Wesleyan. If you run through the list of head coaches in the league, only a small number - Vrabel, Reich - are recognizable as players.

We shouldn't expect parity between the 70% number and the percentage of black coaches on staffs in the NFL. The staffing pool is much different - it's the population of people who love football enough to work 18 hours a day, get paid dogshit for the first decade of their career (or their whole career), move their family around possibly every year or two, and have some stressed out asshole yell them at when things go wrong. Every. Day.

It's not a fun gig and you have to be a special type of personality to want to do it after making millions as a player - there are easier and less stressful ways to make money.

These "end of the funnel" quotas and incentives carry a boatload of problems, IMO, so I think the best way to encourage diversity in the coaching ranks is to standardize paying low-level employees in college and the pros a middle class wage instead of a minimum wage. The board is tilted, like so many glamour jobs, in favor of wealthy kids whose parents will monetarily support their early career aspirations. Let's even it for everyone. I'd rather an impactful change like that instead of the typical CYA HR BS that is the Rooney Rule.
Don't disagree with the substance of your post but one addition. Ron Rivera played at Cal Berkley and was a player on the 85 Bears that whipped the Pats in the Super Bowl. He also led the Panthers to the Super Bowl.
 

Bergs

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I think Troy Vincent has a point and it is worth the league exploring and discussing openly.

I also think Troy Vincent is a duplicitous scumbag.
This is pretty much 100% on point right here.