NFL Shouldn’t Try To Get Teams To Hire African American Head Coaches, GMs By Dangling Draft Picks

Is it that bad?

Are those who run NFL teams so incapable of decency when it comes to hiring minorities (African Americans, in particular) as head coaches and general managers for their $16 billion-per-year business before COVID-19 that they need a gimmick to nudge them in the right direction?

Not only that, but will NFL owners really vote Tuesday during a virtual meeting on whether to reward themselves with better draft picks for doing what they should’ve been doing forever regarding their hiring practices?

Yes, yes, yes, and this is embarrassing.

In sum, here’s the proposal for that virtual meeting: Any of the NFL’s 32 teams could jump 10 points with its third-round pick in a given draft for hiring a minority general manager and six points for hiring a minority head coach.

Oh, and if a minority general manager or a head coach under this new system reaches a third season, that team could move up five spots in the fourth round of the next draft, earn a couple of gift certificates to Chick-fil-A and maybe receive a shiny toaster.

Just kidding about the certificates and the toaster, but not by much.

For an industry so adept at marketing that political ads during this past Super Bowl went for $10 million a piece, you’d think somebody in their ranks would brainstorm something less insulting than this.

You know, like urging those doing the hiring around the NFL to pick up the phone for a chat with the slew of African American candidates everywhere.

If a team needs help finding those African American candidates, I provided a mighty list in a previous Forbes.com piece.

The names ranged from Ivan Fears (running backs coach for the New England Patriots) and Duce Staley (assistant head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles) to Ken Norton (defensive coordinator of the Seattle Seahawks) and Eric Bieniemy (offensive coordinator of the Kansas City Chiefs).

Instead, NFL bosses spent this offseason continuing their habit of ignoring African American candidates in dramatic ways.

Matt Rhule? He’s a career college coach with a combined 47-43 record at Temple and Baylor, but the Carolina Panthers made him the sixth-highest paid head coach in the NFL with a seven-year contract worth up to $70 million.

Then there was Joe Judge. Who? Don’t ask. Despite a resume not worth mentioning, he became the head coach of the New York Giants around the time the Panthers grabbed Rhule.

Neither Judge nor Rhule is African American.

Upon further review, whatever the NFL’s diversity committee wants the owners to do Tuesday along these lines of receiving draft picks or even household appliances is better than the status quo, which reeks.

More than 70 percent of NFL players are African American, but just four head coaches and two general managers are minorities. Worse, only three of the league’s past 20 openings for head coaches were filled by minorities.

This is a long way from 2017 and 2011, when the NFL had a record eight minority head coaches to begin each of those years. Even then, the Rooney Rule was just mildly effective with its requirement that each team must interview at least one minority candidate for a head-coaching opening.

Franchises often ignored the rule.

So this is good: The NFL’s diversity committee also wants owners to vote Tuesday on requiring several interviews of minority candidates for head-coaching openings, and they’re suggesting the revamping of the Rooney Rule to include defensive and offensive coordinators, where teams regularly hire head coaches.

In addition, the NFL diversity committee wants the owners to change the rule against allowing assistant coaches to interview for coordinator spots with other teams.

Here’s a suggestion: The NFL diversity committee should forget all of that, make things simple and urge the owners to dig deep into their souls to contact minority candidates without prodding.

Then those owners should hire them.

We can dream, can’t we?