The NFL has transitioned from pushing to mandating minority and female coaching hires, but is the controversial move any more meaningful than previous gestures derided as having more to do with public relations than cultivating budding talent?
“Beginning this season, all 32 clubs will employ a diverse person (female or a member of an ethnic or racial minority) to serve as an offensive assistant,” the new policy states. There is a reason for the emphasis on offense: “In recent years, head coaches have predominantly had offensive backgrounds,” the league explained.
Sincerity Questioned
While the term “mandate” may suggest added heft, critics are accusing the league of engaging in more Woke window dressing that will only further stoke discontent all around. In February, ex-Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores filed a lawsuit against the NFL, claiming that its “Rooney Rule” requirement that a minority candidate be interviewed for all head coaching positions is nothing but a sham. As part of his suit, Flores contends that the New York Giants scheduled an interview with him to satisfy the Rooney Rule even though the decision had already been made to hire Buffalo Bills assistant Brian Daboll.
It’s not a novel charge. The Rooney Rule was implemented in 2003 and has been a source of ire ever since. In 2010, two head coaching jobs were filled among a similar outcry. “The [Seattle] Seahawks met with [Minnesota] Vikings defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier amid reports that USC coach Pete Carroll would be hired regardless of how impressive Frazier was,” AP reported at the time.
The team once named the Washington Redskins before rebranding as the sterile and inoffensive Washington Commanders this year allegedly pulled off the same act with black assistant coach Jerry Gray, interviewing him even as it was widely known that the squad was pursuing white former Denver Broncos head coach Mike Shanahan for the position. Shanahan eventually got the job.
“That is not what the Rooney Rule is supposed to be, (that) you make up your mind and then interview a candidate for it anyway just to satisfy the rule,” black Hall of Fame coach Tony Dungy, formerly of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Indianapolis Colts, said 12 years ago.
‘The Way College Campuses Are Run’
Fast forward to today, and the question is: Has the system merely been tweaked from token interview to token hiring?
The best explication of this critique comes from veteran black sports columnist Jason Whitlock, who has spoken out for years on professional sports leagues’ woke pandering. Whitlock has become something of a conservative icon in the process, and now works for Glenn Beck’s Blaze Media.
In a discussion with Beck about the new NFL policy, Whitlock astutely said:
“Look, the NFL is just going further and further Woke. And… they want to run the NFL the way college campuses are run. And college campuses, generally speaking, have just as many if not more administrators as they do professors. And so what they’re talking about is hiring administrators.
“People that can’t coach football. I’m not saying that to be sexist, but coaching football is not really in most women’s skill set. They haven’t played the game. But they’re gonna set up all these administrator jobs for women and say ‘look how inclusive and diverse we are. And look at all the progress we’re making. We have female coaches.’
“And then they’re also going to, you know [bring in] LGBT, coaches of color that perhaps are not getting their jobs based on merit will have some type of special title and role on the team. It’s just muddying up the system with a lot of mid-level management people that have no real skills.”
One could say the NFL is satisfying a mandate in the same hollow way that its teams have insincerely conducted their fraudulent Rooney Rule interviews. Only this requirement doesn’t come from a commissioner’s office. Vocal progressives are demanding all forms of mass entertainment toe its socio-cultural line.
~ Read more from Joe Schaeffer.
