NFL to propose incentives to hire minorities

Originally posted by English:

Originally posted by weit53:

Originally posted by TheGore49er:

Idk if that's the answer, but something needs to change. A league that's mostly black players, barely has any black GMs or HCs? Doesn't make sense

Sure. Can't say there isn't a discrepancy. But when hiring someone or considering someone for a job, skin color should not be a factor. With this they are making it a factor. It makes people look at someone's race when looking at candidates and it might lead to adding people to the list just because they're a minority, not because of their value.
It's the same thing with the laws that say a certain amount of the people in top jobs (board members) have to be women. If you have a short list of 10 people which you consider the best and they happen to be men, you have to take 2 out and put women instead, despite being potentially less qualified. Lo and behold, that's discrimination against men.

Good intent, bad strategy.

So what would you suggest then?

How about force teams to be sold to minorities. That way minorities will be selecting coaches and gm

Originally posted by Andra:

Originally posted by English:

Originally posted by weit53:

Originally posted by TheGore49er:

Idk if that's the answer, but something needs to change. A league that's mostly black players, barely has any black GMs or HCs? Doesn't make sense

Sure. Can't say there isn't a discrepancy. But when hiring someone or considering someone for a job, skin color should not be a factor. With this they are making it a factor. It makes people look at someone's race when looking at candidates and it might lead to adding people to the list just because they're a minority, not because of their value.
It's the same thing with the laws that say a certain amount of the people in top jobs (board members) have to be women. If you have a short list of 10 people which you consider the best and they happen to be men, you have to take 2 out and put women instead, despite being potentially less qualified. Lo and behold, that's discrimination against men.

Good intent, bad strategy.

So what would you suggest then?

How about force teams to be sold to minorities. That way minorities will be selecting coaches and gm

ya that would go over well lol.

They tried the rule requiring teams to interview black candidates for HC and teams have just found ways around it. I think most owners just want to win and hire the best coach they can find. Most come from coordinator positions so they need to increase the number of black coordinators. The problem is that still doesn't guaranty that he will become HC material. The worst part of trying to force teams to hire more black HCs and GMs is that they may end up putting guys in those spots that aren't ready or qualified. Then they can use that as an excuse to go back to hiring white guys.

So are they thinking that the owners are too racist to hire a minority coach or GM? Well if that is the case, then why would they still hire them regardless how many picks they get.

This is all just virtue signaling at its highest. And its pretty racist towards minorities saying you are not good enough to get hired for your own merits, so we are going to force teams to hire you.

Originally posted by smithgdwg:

So are they thinking that the owners are too racist to hire a minority coach or GM? Well if that is the case, then why would they still hire them regardless how many picks they get.

This is all just virtue signaling at its highest. And its pretty racist towards minorities saying you are not good enough to get hired for your own merits, so we are going to force teams to hire you.

ya forcing teams to hire minorities is the wrong way to go about it. its a slap in the face as well to the guy getting hired.

it will come down to more minorities going into coaching, and soon you will just have a bigger pool of minority coaches than white coaches. teams will have no choice by then.

Originally posted by weit53:
Sure. Can't say there isn't a discrepancy. But when hiring someone or considering someone for a job, skin color should not be a factor. With this they are making it a factor.

Sad to share with you but indirectly, it's clearly been a factor for decades upon decades. You leave the parameters the same,...the results stay the same.

Extremely wealthy people -- something that's clearly correlated to skin color most times to begin with -- are the ones doing the hiring. Given that, it's no surprise that the results haven't changed.

I'm not in favor of what's proposed, but there are literally next to no more ideas to give deserving people that are looked over time and time again more opportunities.

if you go black you never go back

Originally posted by 16to87:
if you go black you never go back

Not sure that that's the aim here.

Originally posted by TheGore49er:

Idk if that's the answer, but something needs to change. A league that's mostly black players, barely has any black GMs or HCs? Doesn't make sense

Only if you believe that playing football professionally and coaching requires the same skillset.




Look at a guy like Belichick. He was studying film, doing scouting reports and drawing up gameplans as a teenager. The same way you develop to be a QB, a RB or a WR, he was getting developed to be a coach at a very young age. Bill Walsh was coaching high school teams to state championships before he was 30. Look at the coaches in the SB. Shanahan grew up immersed in football and was developing to be a coach long before he entered the league. He was an NFL OC before he turned 30 and still had to wait about a decade before he became a HC. By the time Andy Reid turned 30, he had been coaching in college for nearly a decade.



I think the NFL is making a mistake with a top down model instead of a bottom up one. If you really want more minority head coaches then you have to start developing them at a younger age. You need to incentivize recruiting for bright, young minority coaches that are in the college game. Then you setup a program to develop those coaches, so that you wind up with more better quality head coaching candidates period.



Right now, each year you may have one or two star candidates and the rest are varying degrees of meh. Most head coaches bust.



The league clearly is favoring offense but where are all the great minority offensive minds? The Shanahans, McVays, Reids and Sean Paytons? Let a minority coach be a playcaller for a great NFL offenses and teams will be kicking down his doors to get him hired.


Instead of silly pandering schemes, the NFL should be pushing hard to get teams to go after coaches like Josh Gattis. He's a young, well regarded offensive coach that has been coaching in college for over a decade. Get that guy on an NFL staff and give him a shot at becoming an NFL OC at some point. If he thrives there, the sky is the limit for him.






TL;DR. If you want more minority head coaches you need more minority offensive quality control coaches, more minority QB coaches and more minority offensive coordinators. You have to build from the bottom up. Hire smart young minority coaches from college and get a pipeline going.

People are thinking because there are a lot of black players, there should be a lot of black coaches, but those two don't relate and I think it works the opposite way.

If a person loves football but doesn't have the physical tools to make it playing the sport, they are more likely to go into the direction of coaching. So they increase their skills on the coaching aspect of football.

Also many players when they are done playing football probably want to get away from football after spending all their young adult lives entrenched within it. So it sense they would want to get away from it when they retire. Of course there are always exceptions.

Are there currently any minority coaches out there that you feel should be head coaching right now and the only reason they are not is because of the color of their skin?

Originally posted by smithgdwg:
People are thinking because there are a lot of black players, there should be a lot of black coaches, but those two don't relate and I think it works the opposite way.

Until you begin to see that players are getting opportunities without much of an issue, and that their minority counterparts are the ones mostly left out.

Originally posted by smithgdwg:
People are thinking because there are a lot of black players, there should be a lot of black coaches, but those two don't relate and I think it works the opposite way.

If a person loves football but doesn't have the physical tools to make it playing the sport, they are more likely to go into the direction of coaching. So they increase their skills on the coaching aspect of football.

Also many players when they are done playing football probably want to get away from football after spending all their young adult lives entrenched within it. So it sense they would want to get away from it when they retire. Of course there are always exceptions.

Are there currently any minority coaches out there that you feel should be head coaching right now and the only reason they are not is because of the color of their skin?

But there are a lot of black coaches. Go look at any NFL teams staff, and you will find a lot of position coaches that are black. So it's not like they don't go into coaching.

And to Phoenix's point. I agree with that currently, but about 10+ years ago? NFL wasn't this offensive juggernaut that it currently is. NFL has always been a more defense oriented league + run the ball. And there was still a lack of black coaches.

Originally posted by TheGore49er:
But there are a lot of black coaches. Go look at any NFL teams staff, and you will find a lot of position coaches that are black. So it's not like they don't go into coaching.

And to Phoenix's point. I agree with that currently, but about 10+ years ago? NFL wasn't this offensive juggernaut that it currently is. NFL has always been a more defense oriented league + run the ball. And there was still a lack of black coaches.

There's a lot of white coaches too that don't move up in their careers. Some guys want it that way because they are happy being a position coach ala Tom Rathman and some guys just don't ever make enough of an impression to make teams believe that they can run an organization. A primary example being Pete Carmichael who has worked under Sean Payton forever and has been an OC there on some teams with very explosive offenses. Then you have a guy like Dave Toub who has been a top 3 NFL special teams coach for over a decade, who has gotten looks but is unlikely to ever be a HC due to the lower value of the unit he coaches.

Right now the quickest way to become an NFL HC is to be perceived as an offensive mastermind. I can't think of many minority coaches that have gotten that label. Denny Green may have been the last one? And he had two NFL HC jobs. Its a supply and demand issue and right now there's far more demand than supply. Teams without a stable HC situation all want a brilliant young offensive minded HC but there are more teams looking for one than there are viable candidates right now. So much that we've seen two college HC's hired in the past two years and that is with skipping over some of the best regarded offensive minds in college like Lincoln Riley and Tom Herman. College is where the pipeline needs to start, whether awarding scholarships or repaying student loans for some, the NFL could develop a committee to help identify and groom promising young minority coaches in the college game.

One idea that has been brought up is not allowing teams to block interviews for any minority candidate. So if you have a RB or QB coach that you like a lot but a team wants to interview them for an OC position, you can't reject the request. That is one small way to increase the opportunities for minority coaches to move up in the ranks. I think stuff like that makes a lot more sense than what is reported in the OP.

People should be hired based solely on merit and qualifications. End of story. I couldn't care less what color or race. Stupid PR stunt by the league.

Originally posted by English:
So what would you suggest then?

I don't know if there's an easy, perfect solution. The problem exists, but this proposition is not it. Maybe something along the lines of what Phoenix wrote.