Green Light with Chris Long - Ep 22b - Rooney Rule thoughts with Chris Long

Episode Date: January 16, 2020

Stefanski - 1:30. Rooney Rule - 11:40. Main Factors of Problems with Rooney Rule - 24:18. Tony Dungy Bringing Assistants Along - 39:47. Ideas for Improvement - 47:15. About Chalk Media: Following the unfiltered voice and vision of Chris Long, Chalk Media is the interactive online community for you, the intelligent and humorous sports fan. Driven by access, Chalk delivers a unique perspective that cuts through the canned talking points and provides a variety of content from your favorite sports and entertainment celebrities. Here at Chalk, we don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we are rooted in challenging the perception of professional athletes. We embrace the “real” with a unique combination of humor and intelligence. Chalk is a community with a voice beyond 240 characters that brings a perspective and vibe to a traditionally brash and boastful sports media space. Subscribe and enjoy weekly content including podcasts, documentaries, live chats, celebrity interviews and more. Nothing is off limits at Chalk - hot news items, trending discussions from the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA are just a small part of what we will be sharing with you. 🌍🏀🏈SUBSCRIBE NOW ⚾🏒⛰️ http://bit.ly/chalknetwork Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So yeah, this is, I guess this would be Greenlight episode 22B, because there's a lot to talk about, you know, all that we hit this morning in 22A. But the Rooney Rule needs its own pod, and this is what I'm going to try to do. What could go wrong? Just a white dude talking about the Rooney Rule for an hour. This should be easy, really easy. Thanks for tuning in. This is my last warning.

If you don't like hearing me talk about race or you want me to stick to sports and I don't assume that most of my listeners are like that, then just log the off. I still love you. Well, maybe I don't. But this is your last warning. Okay, you're about to cross.

It's about to get real. All right, you're about to walk through the door. Hurry up. X out of it. If you don't want to hear about the Rooney Rule, okay, here we go. We mentioned Stefansky, Kevin Stefanski, who is now the,

he joins the illustrious ranks of Cleveland Browns football coaches. He's the 10th coach for Cleveland since 99, the sixth in eight years. Golly. Former Vikings OC, I'll mention in a second. I'll go through his track record. He has paid his dues, even for one of these young-looking,

coaches, these young offensive minds. He's part of this group that was Kingsbury, McVeigh, Shanahan. There's a theme here. And we're talking about that in depth in a minute. Read the Rooney rule. But he has really, I mean, God, he's 37, but he's the longest tenured coach in Minnesota. He's bounced around positionally in the building.

So he's got experience everywhere. His dad, for whatever it's worth. longtime NBA GM, 37 years old again. And I felt like the Browns were not going to let him get away twice. I think they'd end up regretting it. They passed on him last year for kitchens. This year I think they might have had a little bit of worry in their head that if we let him walk, hire McDaniels.

And McDaniels, there were rumblings that they wouldn't give him the reins organizationally the way Josh wanted to run things. exhaustively that Stefansky was going to get hired somewhere else next year and you probably if he ends up being a great coach, never live that down because you're already a meme organizationally from a standpoint of

selecting players and coaches. A lot of people scratching their heads over Salah and Stefansky going head to head on Saturday, one getting their ass kicked and the one that did on the field at least got the job.

also a lot of people wondering who was the one responsible for the offensive uptick in Minnesota and the development of Kirk Cousins was it actually Stefansky or was it Kubiak you know Zimmer privately I think has has mentioned Kubiak being one of the best things that ever happened to him as a head coach so maybe part of Zimmer is like you know I got my guy here anyways good for Kevin but we'll be okay I've got Kubiak who's kind of in that consultant role, which is a weird deal. But again, he's been all over the place. He only spent one year outside of Minnesota as the football operations guy at Penn.

And then in the early 2000s, ended up in Minneapolis as assistant to the head coach, assistant quarterback coach, tight end coach, running back coach, quarterback coach, interim OC. And then OC, he made Kirk a statistically top 10 guy. across the board this year, helped him win in the playoffs in the Superdome, which is a big, big win for somebody we never thought had that in him. And all this while having four out of your five offensive linemen be kind of subpar. Now they have two really good receivers and you got Delvin Cook,

but they did a lot to put Band-Aids on some weaknesses up there. Use the play action pass, great, got the run game going. Yeah, I thought he did a good job. If he was the one pulling the strings, I like the hire more than I've liked the last few Browns hires, whatever that's worth. When a coach gets hired, I like to go read players' quotes. I want to know what they're saying about them,

because really it's not, you know, most players, and I'm sorry I'm going to cuss a little bit in this segment. I have barely cuss to this point in this pod But most players aren't going to shit on a guy that just got a job Go out of their way to do that Especially if he's out of the building It's like why take a pop shot But you can read between the lines

And a lot of times if I don't like coach They just got hired you asked me about it I'm going to be like yeah he's a good coach And I'm happy for him Good for him You know I'm not going to go in depth And unsolicited sing the praises of that coach And that's what I heard a lot

When I hopped online today and looked at quotes from guys in Minnesota. You know, Kyle Rudolph, his quote, he says the word command multiple times, command. And that's big for a head coach. Can you command, can you have a presence in the room? Not every great football mind has command. And that's a worry with a young OC type

walking into a room full of vets that maybe there's a guy that's one or two years younger than you, maybe in McVeigh's case when he came in there were older players in him how will that command translate he also mentioned the ability to quote relate to guys and he has a way of showing every player how they can help his team this team win that's a really good thing I think being able to relate is something that you have to worry about with a young coach and he's going to walk into a locker room, in an NFL locker room, you cannot fool. You've got to be able to relate.

You've got to be able to be honest, emotionally intelligent. And that came across in the pressure today a little bit. And we'll get into that in a minute. But Dalvin Cook quotes, exactly positive influence of my life since I came to Minnesota, believed in me as a person and a player. So he's mentioning the personal influence outside of football. That's a theme with Dalvin Cook.

when he mentions Kevin Stefansky, which means that, hey, listen, he doesn't have to mention off the field stuff. He mentioned it. That means he's invested in his players off the field, like who they are, who they are when they go home, they leave the building.

That resonates with guys, and it resonates with Dalvin. You can tell. Thielen says it's cool to see a guy who's just grinded. Everybody says about this guy who works his ass off, which I kind of hate it for him because rightfully,

with the topic we're about to tackle and the Rooney Rule, most people probably assume that he's just like he's had an easy road. He has paid his dues. And by all accounts, he works his ass off. Thielen said he's a grinder, quote, leader. He mentioned his demeanor. He's paid his dues.

That was the theme with Thielen. Irv Smith just got in a league, quote, detailed in his work, wanted things done a certain way, and doing things a certain way, knowing what you want, having a plan. Some of these coaches don't have a plan. He's being intentional and being intentional. and being intentional is great quality, especially as a head coach. Players want to know why we're doing things.

Why? For some coaches, that's the most dangerous, scary question in the world because they don't know why. It sounds like he's a guy. If you ask him why, he tells you exactly why.

Brad Childress, he's got a belief in what he's doing. He's resolute. Talks about how prepared he is and how he leaves, no stone unturned. Again, detail and work. you know, resolute, believes in what he's doing,

is you've got to believe what you're doing. Players can sniff that. They can sniff bullshit, and they can sniff a guy who doesn't really know what he's talking about or what he wants. And again, the presser, since we've become, it's the press conference Olympics here. He used a point card analogy,

whatever you think of that. He came across the guy who was emotionally intelligent. He didn't look meek, but he spoke softly, more softly than the last two guys. I think that's fine. You don't have to be up there like giving a Rudy speech or you know huffing and puffing That works too sure but you risk a lot doing that guys want to be talked to like grown men And they want to be talked to on their level and he seems like a guy who knows what he wants

And one thing I like he mentioned was he said your personality is encouraged but your production I think is It's non-negotiable something to that effect so I think he he addressed that right off the bat that I know we've got some personalities here I'm fine with you having a big personality but you have to produce and that's true that that's anywhere in the NFL you know if you're outspoken and I was outspoken in my career I had a personality but when I'm not playing well I tried to shut the fuck up I tried um you know he talked about Baker quote unquote accurate as they come that was his Baker commentary he seems to believe in Baker because why would you take the the job knowing that you're probably going to get another job down the line here

if you don't like Baker. He probably sees him as an asset, and I do think you can get Baker back to what he was in the second half of last year. It's there. Once you show me it, it's there. He mentioned hiring more minority coaches, and that is something that we're going to talk about.

That's great. He denies having to turn in his weekly game plans, which I know Browns are very analytics focused right now, and it seems like they're kind of babysitting their head coach. There were some rumors that he'd have to turn into his game plan. kind of unheard of, he denies that. So the big question is, you know, was it Kubiak or was it Stefansky? We'll find out.

I know that Zimmer had the comments that I mentioned earlier about Kubiak having a huge impact, but he did a lot with that group, with Kirk. You know, we talked about all the statistical categories that Kirk Cousins lived in the top five to ten this year, even the top five and a lot of them. That had to do with somebody. We'll see who it was. And with all those online issues we mentioned, covered a lot of warts. Also, random observation. Guy looks like Joe Flacco. Yeah? Yeah. But what we're really here to talk about is, and I've referred to it as the elephant in the room, and when I tweeted that it was the elephant in the room. Somebody actually got mad at me and said, you're not meeting racism head on

calling it the elephant in the room. I was like, Jesus, dude. Like, all I talk about is this shit. I get it from both sides. Like, what do you think the elephant in the room is? Didn't know I was going to do a segment this week, did you? And part of the reason we waited to do this segment was, you know, I did it last, I tried to do this segment once last week and I liked it. I liked it. but I got a couple really good calls from people that illuminated some different angles for me. And I was like, I got to do this over and more completely. Also, it kind of gets lost in the noise of everybody talking about the Rooney Rule last week. I think the longer we can talk about it, the better.

So obviously the elephant in the room is that another year where you got a bunch of openings and you got no black coaches being hired. Of course, last week, it was big news because, you know, Joe Judge was the hire that people freaked out about. He's seemingly, if you listen to First Take or some shows that, you know, and Stephen A's monologue was great. You know, if you listened, you thought he was a wide receivers coach in New England. He's a special teams coordinator.

There is a difference there. I think any of these examples, it's fine to talk about this and use them as example. of the holes in the hiring process. And that doesn't mean we're shitting on the coaches being hired. They all have paid dues, most of them. And they're all certainly great coaches in their own rights, and we'll see as head coaches, because it's a crapshoot.

You never know. But the fact remains that this Rooney rule was put into practice for a reason, and it doesn't seem to be getting it done. That's not a hot take. you know a little bit of background Rooney Rule was enacted in like 2002 on the heels of like Dungee and Greens firings as head coaches

that seem to be a little hasty and the fact of the matter was that before the Rooney Rule was enacted and by the way the rule for those of you who've been living under Iraq sets a guideline that you have to interview for head coaching position one coach of color

which hasn't gotten it done and before that rule there were only six coaches of color somehow in the rich history of the NFL which the pages of that lengthy book are authored by black men in uniform

but for whatever reason we all know why there were only six minority coaches from the early 70s when black players started really becoming prevalent presences in locker rooms and then became the majority on the field.

They were only six and that doesn't make any sense because I mentioned about 68% of players are non-white and the vast majority are African-American men. And as a player, my perspective is that for a long time in locker rooms, I took for granted because I was in the best melting pot in the country. It's an NFL locker room. guys from different backgrounds, socioeconomic, ethnic, different personalities, values, and we speak freely with each other.

We have great conversations, enriching relationships. So I take for granted when I was a young player that, well, yeah, the coaches are probably the same way. And then as I got older, started talking to some folks, especially my veteran friends who were maybe trying to get into a coaching, guys I came in a league with that might have matriculated into the coaching ranks. I started to pick up on things. As I'm playing more, I start noticing that, you know, when I was young,

I would see, yeah, there's black coaches. There's minority coaches, but I didn't pay attention to what they were doing, what they were coaching. Now, I'm not talking about head coach or not. I'm talking about which positions they were coaching and whatnot, and I'll get into how relevant that is. As I got older, I became more keen to it. And then, you know, recently it's just been a big topic of conversation.

I do think that most people, and there's nothing wrong with not knowing about this if you weren't a player, because even some of these young players, as I mentioned, when I was young, I wasn't real keen on it. As fans, maybe you look at the NFL as this melting pot, and you should, from a locker room standpoint, it's great that way, but you take for granted the coaching process and the hiring process. And I don't blame you for not knowing, but there's an excuse for not knowing. There's no excuse, though, for being annoyed that people are talking about it. And I know that some of my followers or my listeners are probably thinking, oh, he's doing the race thing. Well, you can just log the fuck off because this is absolutely a relevant topic and there's plenty of smoke.

You know, where there's smoke, there's fire. There's an overwhelming amount of smoke here. So maybe it's good news this week that they're actually talking about it. It dominated the news cycle and relatively speaking. Rooney and Mera had comments, but we need action, right? Joe Judge has already hired four out of five coaches being minorities, including the assistant head coach and special teams coach. So that's great.

But since the rule came into effect, it hadn't gotten it done. There's been highs and lows, like a high being the uptick to a one. watermark year in 2011 where eight coaches of color were head coaches in the NFL but that's 25% of league not not 70

70% is the representation when it comes to the players on the field 25% might have been a record high but that shows you how far we have to go and you know 2015 there were seven African American GMs the lows of course

2012 15 fire of coaches and GMs, not a single black dude got hired. I mean, researchers and major universities are telling you explicitly, it's twice as hard to move up in the ranks as a black coach or a black coach as it is for a white coach. There is data, empirical data that suggests that. I don't even think suggests is, there's no suggestion, it's true.

There's, you know, I'll read you this. the 2019 NFL racial and gender report card issued by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports. Tides is the acronym at the University of Central Florida stated that racial hiring in the NFL is the worst it's been in 15 years. How is that possible? While the NFL can boast 70% players of color in 19, it can only point to 12.5% of head coaches of color, 6.3% people of color in the GM principal and charge category and 12.8% people of color at VPs and above. Per the Tides report, the NFL received grades of D plus F and D plus in each of the respective areas. In contrast, the report stated that 33.6% of NFL assistant coaches are of color. These statistics bear out the glass ceiling faced by coaches and front office executives

of color as they move up the ladder. That was some interesting reading right there. And for me, what it pointed out, and only mentioned negative, this Tide study had some positive grades for the NFL in certain areas. But the closer you got to the money and the decision making, the grades got lower. So it, like, it's not helping anybody if your diversity report card says you're an A-plus for the players on the field or for wide receivers coaches. But the close you get the money, there's a protective force that seems to be weighing that

grade scale down. And I'll get into that. So I said, I want to do a segment on this. You know, it's topical. I'm certainly not going to shy away from it. You walk a thin line as a white player, a white guy with a podcast thinking you know shit about the Rooney Rule, whether you know about the problem or the solution because I never experienced the problem.

I can read the data, though. I can read articles. I can look at the anecdotal evidence. For me, though, I had to talk to people to understand. I talked to my peers. I talked to probably five, seven African-American coaches, front office folks, talk to a few white coaches, you know. And listen, if you're sitting here skeptical, thanks for continuing to watch.

Hopefully you'll find this illuminating. Again, don't feel bad if you don't know about it. this stuff. It's not a, shouldn't feel guilty because you didn't know. Um, I talked to a bunch of guys that I trust or that people I know trust and they would have every, like it would be in their best interest to exaggerate this stuff. But the stats back it up. Like, it's a reality. And let me just tell you, if nobody's lying here, because I, I know these guys or, you, you, you know, have mutual friends that vouch for these guys being 100% honest all the time. And I can tell you in talking to these black coaches and front office guys,

there is a hopelessness. That's what I came away with was that here are the problems. I don't know how you fix it. A lot of them. And a lot of feeling defeated. Even one coach, like, I was like, what's the solution? and he was like, don't buy the product. I was like, damn, dude.

I mean, it's depressing. A couple quotes stuck out to me. One was, one of the coaches said, and I quote, racism is alive and well in the NFL until you get minority owners. You won't see change. Another coach called this whole thing

an eerie, eerie force. That's undeniably in existence. And I believe him. Hearing the anecdotes, the stats, it's hard not to. You know, people, these guys I talk to mention coaching unions, you know, there is no coaches union, like there's a player's union.

I don't know if that would do anything. They mentioned back channel agents. A lot of these deals are done halfway through the year. You know, these agents who are big time are not necessarily looking out for the interest of black coaches regularly. And they are the puppet master. behind the scenes when it comes to this hiring process. A lot of these hirings are done before the Rooney Rule even has a chance to do its work.

Like halfway through the season, I'm pretty sure David Tepper knew that Matt Rule, whether he's the right guy or not, was his guy before he fired Ron Rivera. And a lot of times you talk about tampering with players and whatnot, a lot of times there's conversations going on before this stuff even gets going. guys talk about Fritz Pollard Alliance. Fritz Pollard is a group that's supposed to be like the transparency police, the validity police in this hiring process, and on a lot of fronts in the NFL in general,

when it comes to standing up for equality and equitable practices, in this case, in the hiring process. Guys are excited about the direction. There's been, you know, some, new developments with that group that they're excited about. But what I took away where there were three main factors. All right. Number one, protection of the quarterback room.

Number two, nepotism and the coaching fraternity. And number three, the owner class. So those are the three main factors that are causing you to see the disparity. Number one, with protecting the quarterback room. First, I should mention, quarterback room is one of the best avenues to get to the finish line, that being head coaching position.

And there is an intentional and unintentional force that seems to be going on across the league that's keeping black folks out of that room. There's only two black OCs. So OCs climb the ladder. quarterback coaches climb the ladder. There's only two of them in the entire league who are African-American. You have one O-line coach.

They sometimes get head jobs. One black O-line coach. There's 10 defensive coordinators, but that trend, and we'll talk about that in a minute, has kind of gone by the wayside. So I was told a story by one of these coaches about Steve McNair. Steve McNair obviously took the Titans to the Super Bowl and lost, came up just short. Mike Jones' play is up for one of the best moments in NFL history right now. But McNair was a bit of a work in progress.

He wasn't just a world beater right off the bat. Alcorn State, you know, he was a pro project a little bit, turned into being one of the most productive guys in the league and a big part of why they were in the Super Bowl. And he had a quarterback coach. And his quarterback coach had a lot to do with his development. Craig Johnson was his name. Now, after he coached in the Super Bowl,

that shit fell apart in a couple of years. After that, Craig Johnson never saw a quarterback room again. He hasn't coached quarterback since. I think right now he's like coaching running backs in New York. What's up with that? One of the coaches I talked to pointed to that immediately. He's like, that's insane.

if you coach a guy to the Super Bowl and have a lot to do with his development at this point at this juncture in 2019, 2020, sorry, you're getting a head job at some point or at least you're going to be an O.C. But I mentioned the O.C. numbers. Doug Williams, one of the best quarterbacks

the last 30 years, or he had one of the best runs with the hogs and Washington and an iconic black quarterback. He has a son trying to get him into coaching, calling everybody in the league. Barely anybody even wants to let him in the door. And by the way, I've played for a bunch of coaches who had kids coaching in the NFL.

And they place them, they protect them, they bring them along. And some of them are really good coaches. There are some great coaching families and we'll get into the nepotism and the coaching fraternity thing in a minute but it's not hard to get your son a job if you play in the league

organizationally if you go back to your organization you say I just want to place my son in quality control like quality control trust me it's not hard he tried to get his son just in the door

only a couple teams even answered the phone the ones that did he was like yeah I want him to like can you place him in the quarterback room so we can learn it's Doug William's son nah the only guy that that hired him or answered the phone and was unfazed by the request was Sean Payton you know and that's that guarding of that room those are two anecdotes there's a hundred of them even like GMs there's a position under GM called DPP there's only three, four black DPPs in the league.

That's the O.C of GM. So there's a guarding at that level in the front office. And there's a guarding on the coaching floor, that side of the building as well. Even on defense, the coaches I spoke to mentioned, the lack of black linebacker coaches. On defense, if there's one position that you could most likely get a promotion, from its linebacker coach.

They deal with the entire defense from the first level to the third level. And they're mostly white. Even in college, like I mentioned, I asked, I was like, well, how does this force funnel black coaches into position groups that have ceilings? Like in college, and guys mentioned that sometimes a carrot will get dangled. might be more money, something else. Hey, yeah, go coach the wideouts or, you know, there's the guarding at every level. And the nepotism and the coaching fraternity doesn't help that.

I mention that. I'm not anti-coaches kids. I'm not anti-famous people's kids. My dad happens to be famous as fuck. My dad happened to be a Hall of Fame in the NFL. But there's a difference between NFL players coming from a football family and NFL coaches. and again, there are some good coaching families. I'm not anti.

But when you're a player, like I had 14 sacks in the ACC, my senior year, there's a reason I got drafted. I went out and did it on the field. My brother, the great guard at Oregon, a ton of physical talent and ability, looks nothing like my dad. He's the milkman's kid. Like he's a foot taller and 40 pounds, 60 pounds.

He's insanely talented. You could be a player's son. It's different to being a coach's son. And I identify with some really good coaches. I get how much of a struggle it must be to deal with that shadow thing. And I'm certainly not trying to be discounting that, but there is nepotism. Scott Turner is an example. So Scott Turner is now the O.C. in Washington.

But fast forward or rewind back, Ron Rivera got his start in coaching from. Norv Turner in San Diego. When Norv Turner, when Ron wanted Norv Turner to come to Carolina, he said, where he wanted his son placed in Carolina and he wanted him placed in the quarterback room. He was so intensely loyal to his son and Ron felt he owed Nor of a favor because that's how a lot of this works. All these coaches are serving old masters. Always looking out for whoever got their start.

and coaches, by the way, hypocritically, they always get, like, if you're a bad coach somewhere and you can be a disaster, you'll still get another chance. Players, not as much. So, Ron forced Scott into the quarterback room with Cam Newton, your franchise. It seemed like a relationship thing, so much so that I think Norv's nephew was currently in the quarterback's and he forced him out for his son. Now, what happens when Ron gets the job in Washington intensely loyal? And he could end up being an awesome OC, but you know how some people look at it. It's like this doesn't seem right.

It seems like people calling in favors. And that's kind of the way things go with coaches. And where we are, we're at nepotism. Mike Zimmerson just got a D.C. job. I don't know if he's a good coach or not, but if he is, it's full. fucked up because he's going to get judged super hard because of this trend of any coach given any old coach a job or looking out for him just because they're related. Another thing that coaches mentioned when I talked to him was there's no standardized test.

Like if you're a college player, like I mentioned, you can compare players, their production in college, the whole nine yards to each other. They're playing at the same level. there's something you can go off of. With coaching, it's a trade. I'm not discounting coaches. Like coaches work hard as shit. They work harder in the players.

Their hours are crazy. I know ones that sleep on couches and are at the building 24 hours a day. Like, don't come home to their families. It's actually sick. It's actually ironic. They don't come home to their families, but then they look out for them professionally. So they work really hard.

I'm not down on them, but they look out for each other. and the accountability factor is not the same. They bring their friends along. So there's no standardized, like, coaches' school. You can't judge, like, even when you judge a coach on his performance, it's hard to know because there's players involved. Like, Joe Brady just got hired. I don't know.

I don't know if it's because everybody was so good at LSU, like we just mentioned. Guys like Shanahan and McVeigh, who have paid their dues, and they're really good coaches. They turned out awesome. but coaching is a trade so whoever taught these guys before they knew football they didn't know it. It's not like they were born to coach.

I guess black coaches are asking why can't we get the same access to that training from the bottom up? And that comes through a lot of these pipeline, the quarterback room, offensive coordinators, these young minds. Another coach mentioned it's like the Juco non-qualifier thing. I coached in college, he said,

I got a lot of non-qualifiers. A lot of them had post-grad degrees like six, seven years later. Were they dumb when they were non-qualifiers? No, they weren't taught how to do school yet. Once you're taught how to do it, the sky's the limit, unless you're dumb. And if you're dumb, you're not going to be a good student. If you're dumb, you're not going to be a good coach.

But give guys an opportunity as all. And finally, this was a disturbing thing that one of the coaches mention, which was, I feel like if you let black coaches in, who do the 68% non-white players listen to? Who do they follow? That's the fear that some, not all white coaches, say to myself, like, well, if I let former players in, especially former players who have clout and respect and who look like the players in the locker room, then where do I fit in as a coach who might have been

working my ass off for 30 years? That sounds like racism if that's what's going on. And again, players don't care. I've never cared who my quarterback was. I was a minority in a defensive line room my entire career. Don't care. Love my teammates. We just want to win.

Why isn't it the same when it comes to a coaching pipeline? And finally, the owner class. Most presidents and owners are not like players socially. That was a direct quote from one of the front office guys I talked to. they hang out with certain people that look like them. They want to be comfortable. In fact, one guy mentioned that coaches kind of give the owners kind of give this vibe off that I paid all this fucking money.

You're going to tell me I got to be uncomfortable. I bought this expensive toy and you're going to tell me how to use it. So good luck telling owners how to spend their money, who to hire. They can always hide behind the subjectiveness of the, the process, subjectivity, sorry. It's an inexact science. So I don't know how you do the owner thing. Like there's a cultural difference there when all your owners are two minority

owners in Pagula and Kahn, but neither are black men. And then there's the partnership and fans angle. Like owners, a lot of them probably think, according to the coaches I spoke to, that listen the the demo i'm after the fan base might not like it if i have a blackface leading my organization and what about certain partnerships like it's not like the partners necessarily don't like black people it's like well my demo kind of likes white people it's not even about not liking black people it's about we want to appeal to the people that like our team and that's ding ding ding racism in hiring um you know i thought to myself well you need more former players to be owners

they would get it well part of that's generational but the the last player owner we had was jerry richardson and that didn't go over so well did it um also with with owners they either die or they pass it on to their family and we just can't sit around forever waiting on that to happen waiting for something to change. So even black coaches and GMs were brought up as part of the solution. Like, we need something out of them was kind of the sentiment I heard from some of these coaches that I talked to. Even one coach seemed upset at some, you know, he mentioned that no GMs, no black GMs, other than the guy in Miami who just hired B-Flow, and the guy in Miami, who just hired B-Flow,

and the guy who interviewed Ray Rhodes back in the day, I can't remember who it was, have even interviewed a black head coach. There's just been two. And I wonder how hard that must be once you broken in as a black coach because I guess you can look at it one of two ways. You can look at it either.

One, I'm in the door, and I'm going to do exactly what I want to do, and I don't care who it pisses off. And that sounds idealistic. But I could also imagine that if you work so hard your whole career to get there, You not only want to be successful, but you also want to be able to bring more people along. And bringing more people along for some coaches might appear like, hey, I got to play the game a little bit.

Me coaching a long time and being successful is going to be better for black coaches than forcefully hiring my friends, who are the right guys for the job in a lot of cases. So I'm not saying just like as favors hiring friends, hiring the right people, whatever they look like. I can that must be a kind of a mind fuck one guy mentioned that Tony Dungey the first 14 coaches he hired were white and maybe that was a case of I'm going to get a foundation under me I'm going to get some success and then I'm going to bring people along

and he did with Tomlin and Calwell and he made him coordinators and that's a big key that kept getting mentioned if you make your if you if you hire black coordinators they will eventually be black head coaches And that was the case with Tomlin and Colwell. And whatever you think of Marvin Lewis, I'm not a big Marvin Lewis fan, but he did bring Hugh Jackson along.

He made him a coordinator. And that turned out to be a bad idea. But as far as hiring him in Cleveland, three and 36, but that's what happens. You make them coordinators. You make guys coordinators. They're going to get opportunities. And black coaches and GMs were mentioned here as well.

And I'm not, again, this isn't me mentioning. is guys I talk to. But it's not all bad. Like Bruce Ariens kept getting brought up. You know, he kept coming up. Three black coordinators that he's hired. 11 of 30 of his coaches or minorities. He's got two women on staff.

He's not guarding the quarterback room. He's got Byron Leftwich in there who hopefully eventually, if he's qualified, he'll get a head coaching job. So solutions, right? seems like a systemic issue, you know, even in college from the bottom up, there's the guarding factor of the quarterback rooms, the coaching pipeline, coordinator positions. A guy mentioned that I talked to, and I like this, he said, yeah, there's studies,

but an independent institution needs to look at the lowest levels from the bottom up, not what's happening at the head coaching hiring process level. Look at it at the lowest levels. and the data, you need data and you need access. So it can't just be data. That'll only tell part of the story. You need the access and good luck getting that in college, right? For it to be academic, truly academic.

So I hear. Possibly player councils. That was my naive-ass brainstorm idea. White podcast guy, former player. I'm like, yeah, why don't you just have some former players for him like, you know, councils in each organization mandated by the league, simple. If there's six of them, have four of them be black dudes and two of them be white dudes. Make it statistically representative of the makeup of the league and have them counsel the owners on the hiring process.

Owners have final say, but there's a transparency factor there. Those players can kind of police that process. Plus, players know who the coaches are. better than the owners. But it was pointed out to me because of the way the owners are. They get to vote on basically everything. You think they're going to vote on more regulations for them? That was naive of me.

I think here's a big thing. Since the Rooney rule, there's been nine DCs of color. Unfortunately, it's kind of come at the same time, and there's been 13 hires since the Rooney Rule of head coaches of color. again, nine D.Cs. So you're thinking, oh, that's a way we can get in this thing. And there's 10 D.C.s in a league right now. So you think there's the opportunity.

No, because the Boy Wonder thing, the young offensive mind thing, kind of coincided with that watermark year in this, you know, this last five, seven years, they've gone away from D.C.'s. So it's a copycat league. I'm not even saying everybody who's hiring these young, young white faces that are young guru offensive minds. And I'm not denying that some of these guys are great minds. I'm saying that when the pool is all white and it's a copycat league,

and every owner's like, what are they doing over here? Over they're hiring from that bucket. Let me go look in the bucket. There's no black guys. Why is there no black guys? Because we're guarding these avenues, these pipelines. And so defensive coordinator has stopped being a hot thing. And there's a lot of black D.C.s in the league.

I think you've got to recognize the pipeline, meet it head on. I think the target keeps moving, as we mentioned, with the defensive coaches. But I think one big problem for me, looking at it, and the Rooney rule was amended one time in 2018, to include a rule where, and do Staley, who's a really good coach in Philly, and I know well, he was, I think part of the genesis of this amendment was

the Eagles hired Doug, and it turned out to be a great hire, but they checked off the Rooney Rule Box, and that's another complaint that guys have mentioned talking to is that the way we talk about it, the media talks about this way. they hire they you know a team interviews a black uh coach and the media is like and that will suffice the runy rule well they suffice the runy rule with deuce and deuce is in the building so think

about that if i go if i go hire a white head coach and i'm like yeah but we we interviewed deuce it was a good interview right well deuce ain't going to say it was bullshit if it was and i'm not saying it was but like deuce isn't going to come say it was bullshit he wants to a future with the team that he's currently in the building on. So they have to interview a coach, not only a minority coach, but outside the building. And I looked at that letter that included that information. And the letter at the end is signed by like a council for like, I don't know, diversity or whatever. Like there's two councils that sign this letter. And we're dealing with the Rooney rule. So the council weighs in on ways to improve it. And that's great. And that's great.

everybody's probably awesome on this committee but everybody's pretty much white on the committee and so like my thing is if this is not a white guy problem it's a white guy problem from a standpoint of you got to support and and and be an ally and try to help out but you can't be the architect need you need black folks in the meeting that's about black folks and of course I'm a white guy doing a podcast here, but I have a fucking podcast, so I have to talk about it. And also, I didn't think of this stuff. I asked my peers who are actually dealing with it. So I would hope the next time they send out a letter like that,

that there's a lot more black people weighing in on that process. You know, I think the coaching school could be a cool twist. I don't know how that would work, but, you know, more of a standardization of the process that we can evaluate more accurately and compare coach to coach. It's not an exact science, I understand that, but try to standardize it a little bit more. One idea I heard that I love was a symposium idea.

One of these coaches mentioned, wouldn't it be great if all the owners had to devote a couple days, a week, a retreat, a symposium like to do with the rookies, where these owners have to come in and spend a week with all the black coaches in the league? get to know them on a personal level. Ask them how the process can be improved.

If they have a gripe, if the owners have a gripe with, hey, it's really not, you know, this situation, let me be more transparent. This is what happened in this hiring process. Hey, this is how you interview better. If it's an, like, we know what it is. But it takes away the plausible deniability. Get everybody in the same room. The NFL should front that. That should be something they do every year until this thing is solved.

Give the black coaches a voice, a direct voice to the ownership, and the ownership, a direct voice to black coaches, because communication is the only way if you really want to make a difference as an owner, you have to communicate with these guys, and not just the guys in your building who you answer to, or who answer to you more directly, guys that can speak freely. And I had a radical idea,

and some of you guys are going to think I'm... I don't know what you're going to think. But next time there's an owner opening, give first writer refusal to a black guy. The world's not going to blow up. You'll survive. If there's one black owner in the NFL, a league that's made up of 70% pretty much black dudes,

I don't think it's that radical. honestly first right of refusal and the league should be paying for all these solutions except for the the study because that if you pay for a study you get what you want out of it um

but the bottom line is and this uh you know I plucked this tweet from Bomani Jones um who's a buddy of mine I don't think he'll he'll mind me taking his tweet it's a good take since World War

two, there have been 18 black head coaches. 13 got three full seasons. 10 made the playoffs. Four appeared in the Super Bowl and two won the Super Bowl. So it's not like black coaches can't coach. Seem to be pretty good at it. I don't know. I think the bottom line is you look at the NFL.

what does the NFL love to present, project? And I've been a part of it. Listen, I'm proud of being the man of the air. I'm proud of doing community work, but they love to project, you know, an image of this melting pot. It's a reflection of the best of America, right? And on the field, it is. I play with guys who came from places that they never would,

two guys would have never been sitting together having a conversation. if it weren't for football. My godson, I would not be in his life if it's not for football. My best buddy that I play with in college, and I probably never would have been sitting together where I grew up, where he grew up, if it wasn't for sharing a locker room, which is the most beautiful, awesome thing in football is the locker room.

It's special and that's the one thing you miss That part is a melting pot That part is like America But if you look at the commercials and the marketing The NFL and the sponsors Every time you turn on the TV It's a Pepsi commercial or something And everybody in the commercials

White people black people Asian people Hispanic people Everybody's happy They're enjoying each other It's America right It's just like the rest of our idealistic idea of what America is.

So you look at the field, you look at the commercials, melting pot. You look in the front office, you look at the ownership, you look at the coaching positions that have upward mobility, not like the melting pot. And so I guess the NFL has to decide, you know, are we really an idealistic slice of America? or is it just like every other business? And I actually think the NFL has an opportunity

in everything it does to lead from the front, which is why I've tried to work with the NFL, like instead of just being like, I don't want to work with the NFL, because you have like, this is center stage for diversity. The league is 70% non-white. But the coaching staff, the front offices don't reflect that.

And so in that way, I mentioned the grade scale for minority hiring practices. The closer you get to the money, decision-making, the power, the grades get worse for the NFL. And so they need to do something about that. They need to do it soon. I can't snap my fingers and think of a cool solution. I mentioned some that these guys share with me as possible solutions. But I think right now we're treating the symptom and not the sick. when we just hammer away at, you know, the month before a coach is hired.

This is a pipeline thing. This is a systemic thing. It's going to take time, but it's good. We're talking about it. And anybody gets uncomfortable because we're talking about it, like, just, fuck, you listen this far. I hope you feel like you wasted a ton of time. But it wasn't a waste of time for me learning about it.

I thought I knew. It's like peeling back an onion. And I appreciate those coaches and those front office guys for sharing that stuff with me. I know when you get a call from a white guy and you're like, hey, I want to talk about the Rooney Rule. So, I mean, that probably, your first reaction is probably like, what do you know about this shit, dude? It's really hard. What do you want me to tell you? Well, they told me a lot and I appreciate it.

And hopefully I was informative for y'all listening and watching who are, likely mostly white and again not your fault you don't think about this stuff a lot but here we are um so thanks for watching um thanks for listening to episode 22 um keep an eye out for our live watch this weekend it'll be a lot more fun in that segment which was a downer tough to do with a hangover um but i'm a grinder i'm like kevin stefansky so thanks again thanks for listening That was a heavy subject, and y'all hung in there for a while if you did. So I'll catch this weekend. Actually, I'll catch you Saturday morning.

More Greenlight. Live watch this weekend. Take care.