The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Between the Lines Ep. 3: The Invisible Ceiling

Episode Date: February 28, 2023

Clarence Shelmon is Eric Bieniemy before Eric Bieniemy. Shelmon was hugely successful as the offensive coordinator for the San Diego Chargers in the late 2000's. In his five years as OC, the Chargers never were lower than a top five offense in the league. Despite the resume - the head coach opportunities never came.Episode 3 of Between the Lines hears from a diverse group of football coaches on the challenges they face advancing their careers in a league that has historically failed them. Voices in the episode include Shelmon, Hue Jackson, Ron Rivera, Sean Desai, and more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's like somebody beating you down every day, and you keep working hard. The pain on Clarence Sheldman's face is evident. And it's not the money. You know, if it was the money, I would still be there. For the former Chargers Offensive Coordinator, it exists both on the surface and deep inside his core. Money doesn't alleviate that, that mental anguish that you have because you know intuitively, no matter what you do, chances are you're not going to get the opportunity that you so that you may deserve. Football was Shelman's life.

It got him out of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It gave him a career. It afforded him financial stability. And more than that, it drove Shelman's internal ambitions. Why would you put yourself through that emotionally, mentally, physically, psychologically, year after year after year after year, and you keep producing it nothing? and tangible happen. Shellman wanted to succeed and become an NFL head coach someday.

It's not good for you, mentally or health-wise. I value my happiness, my health, a hell of a lot more than I did than working for the NFL and making sick figures. Unfortunately, Shelman's experience is not a unique one for black coaches in the NFL. I just don't think they see us in those lead chairs. I mean, let's just cut to the chase, and that's exactly what it is. This is Hugh Jackson. Now the head coach at Grambling State, Jackson was an NFL head coach twice with the Raiders and Browns.

Minorities were meant to be a part of this league when it first started. It took injunction. It took lawsuits. It took different things to get coaches or players to be. Players first to be involved and then coaches to be involved. Jackson is speaking to how, since its birth, excluding black people, has been in grandkids. trained in the NFL's DNA. It wasn't intended for black people like him and Shelman to have roles in the league at all.

That's where it all started. And I've always said that people have to understand the history of where everything started before we can ever talk about why things are the way they are now. Helping black people achieve career advancement has never been what the NFL is about. With that in mind, it's no surprise that the league has rarely had more than a handful of blackhead coaches. You have to understand what the league is talking about. told you and see it for what it really is and what it's telling you today.

Barring a major shift, it's unlikely that the numbers will ever change. I'm Tashon Reed. This is Between the Lines. Episode 3, The Invisible Sealing. Black players make up the majority of NFL rosters, but there are currently only three head coaches who identify as black. Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel's father is black, but he considers himself biracial. The higher you go, the harder it is, for black men to get jobs. Being excluded because of their race is something that many coaches have had to grapple with long before their careers.

Clarence Sheldman was no different. I grew up in a very difficult situation. My mom was a janitor at the all-white high school in Bolshe City, Louisiana. When I went to school, I didn't go to school with white kids. It was segregation. My last semester was my first time ever going to school with white kids. They integrated the schools in the middle. my second semester of my senior year.

Growing up in the South in the 50s and 60s, Shelman's family was largely just focused on making a living. Young Clarence only began to aspire for more by chance. My mom worked two jobs, so on the weekends she worked for these white people as cleaning and cooking and ironing clothes, and she would bring home the newspapers. And one day she brought home a newspaper on a Saturday, and I was reading, I must have been 11 or 12 years old, and it's talked about these people from New York who flew to Paris for breakfast and came back. And in my naive, I was very naive. I thought, I just said, well, you know

what, they must have gone to college. It must be really smart. At the time, I didn't know what Paris was, mind you. I just knew it was someplace far away from where I was. Those two things made me want to try to pursue sports and then also get an education. Shelman went on to earn a football scholarship at the University of Houston. He also had a brief student in NFL with the New England Patriots, but he was quickly cut. I came back and finished up my college degree, and then I worked one year as a meatpacking company. I was a salesman, but I wasn't happy doing that. I decided I wanted to coach football, so I took a job, 5A school in Corpus Christi Carroll,

and I was the offensive coordinator there, and I installed the veer, and we were good. And what happened was after my first year, I was contacted by Homer Smith from the United States Military Academy. And apparently they was doing a national search. From what I understand it, was 75 candidates. And I was one of the three that they selected. And that's what got my coaching career started. From there, Shelman spent years as an assistant coach in college before making the jump to the NFL. As he looked around him, he noticed a troubling trend.

Black coaches weren't getting the same opportunity. as their white counterparts. The head coach hiring cycle ahead of the 1997 season stood out. Ten NFL teams were looking for head coaches. All of the openings went to white men. That offseason, Shellman and eight other black assistant coaches

went to the NFL headquarters to meet with then Commissioner Paul Tagliabu. The meeting lasted for six hours. The message, opportunities needed to increase for black coaches in the game of football. What we was trying to do is try to come up with solutions that would lead to advancement for men of color. And he understood it and was very receptive to it. We were supposed to have another meeting and nothing really ever came of it.

That was typical of conversations at the time. They hit a dead end. In 1997, there were only three blackhead coaches in the NFL, Dennis Green, Ray Rhodes, and Tony Dungey. That shifted somewhat with the establishment of the Rooney Rule in 2003, but it wouldn't last. In the years to come, the number of blackhead coaches continued to fluctuate.

Shelman took note, but he was still vying to accomplish a goal that was formed after a 1991 conversation with then Rams head coach John Robinson, who gave Shelman his first job

in the NFL. And one of the things that was very profound as I was leaving, he said to me, I don't want you to thank yourself as a running back coach, thank you yourself as the office

coordinator and a future. your head coach. And that always stuck with me. He didn't have to do that. And he did. And he didn't know it, but that gave me a tremendous amount of confidence. Sheldman bounced around the league as a running backs coach. After that stint with the Rams, he was with the Seahawks and Cowboys before landing with the San Diego Chargers in 2002. First off, clearance was very intelligent. He understood the game extremely well. Ladanean Tomlinson was in his second year in the league when Shelman was hired by the Chargers. say that under Clarence, when he was my position coach and office coordinator, I learned the

most football that I've ever learned in terms of the details of the game, how to read defenses, you know, how to anticipate, you know, these certain blitzes, how to know when these blitzes are coming. All these things, you know, coming out of college, I didn't know. With Shelman, it wasn't just about X's and O's. He developed a genuine connection with Tomlinson and others throughout the roster. Clarence had a great way of communicating, so that meant you could come and talk to him about anything. And I would a lot of times go and, you know, get advice. Then we would get into, you know, obviously his passion and his goals. And I knew that he wanted to be a head coach one day. Shelman was well liked among his position group in the locker room, but that didn't mean he was

always pleasant. He was balanced in his effort to motivate them to grow. You know, he knew how to communicate with players, he knew how to get the best out of you. He knew how to push your buttons, but at the same time, love on you. He knew he just had that, you know, that coach field to him. There were times where I'm telling him he would challenge me, and we would go back and forth, but I knew it was all in love that he was trying to get the absolute best out of me. Sheldman pushed Tomlinson to adopt a cerebral approach to the game. Tomlinson already had all the physical talent.

you could ask for, but he had to refine his mentality in order to reach his Hall of Fame potential. 32-yard line Tomlinson, Ziggs and Saints is way free. Just like a quarterback reading the coverage and understanding where he might go with the football before the snap. And there he goes. Ladenian Tomlinson with his second touchdown run today. We always hear about Peyton and he's going to understand what you're doing and you're dead. Honestly, it's the same thing as a running fact.

position, Ladanian Tomlinson. He sneaks by Washington, breaks it free, and the San Diego Chargers have won an overtime. A 41-yard touchdown. If I'm sitting back there, I'm the last man behind the line of streams. I'm looking at the entire defense, and I start to see this movement by the defense. I start to see the lineback kind of creep, and he's looking. A coach can help you identify what that blitz or what movement is about to happen along the defensive line.

So now I can play my game. I can make them think, oh, I'm going to other direction. And with my quickness, that allows me to beat everybody where, you know, my normal quickness might give me an eight-yard run. But what Clarence has taught me, that's going to give me 60 yards now. That's the difference. Under Showman's coaching, Tomlinson became one of the best. players in the league. It culminated in his incredible 2006 season when he won the NFL's MVP award.

Tomlinson, in he goes, and that is four for Ladanian Tomlinson. Four this week. He may obliterate the record by the end of the season. After years of excelling in his role as running backs coach, Chargers head coach Norv Turner promoted Sheldman's offensive coordinator in 2007. Turner. Turner still called the plays, but their immense offensive success was a collaborative effort. Norr pretty much dealt with the passing game. Clarence was a run game guy, you know, so he would put the run game in and start the run game to the offense. So imagine at the beginning of the week when we're game planning, what we're going to do,

how we're going to attack a team, when it was time to talk about the run game, Clarence would get up in front of the, you know, the offense and go through all the run plays and what we're doing. And then when it was time to talk about the passing game, you know, that's what Norv got up. When Norve did this thing and he would go through the rest of the offense. And then, you know, the way it would work throughout the game, Norv had, if he wanted to run the ball, Norm would say, Clarence, what do you like here? We're going to run it. And Clarence would say, hey, I like X, Y, and Z. And, you know, Norv would call it. In Shelman's five years as O.C for the Chargers, the Chargers twice had the second best offense in the league. But

From the outside looking in, the vast majority of that credit went to Turner. There's an unwritten rule in the NFL that you have to call plays if you're going to take that next step. But obviously, it's only applicable to certain people. You know, there's a lot of guys that made head coach that didn't call plays. In alignment with that view, the head coaching interviews didn't materialize for Shelman. It was then that Shelman got a firsthand account of the struggles that Blackhead coaching candidates faced. We all work extremely hard in this business. Quite frankly, I was one of 32 at the top of my

profession in the entire world. Regardless of what profession there can say they was one of 32. So I know I had to goos to be a head coach. Once I didn't get any interviews or anything like that, I just realized that my path as far as being able to have some opportunity to keep going forward, it didn't look like it was going to happen. At the end of the 2011, season, Sheldman reached a point where he had enough. He was done with being overlooked and put in a box that he didn't create. As I went about my career and I observed the hiring practice of the National Football League throughout my 21-year career in the league, as I observed what went on in Green Bay with

Sherman Lewis, he was the offensive coordinator. Guys who was under him all went on to get head coaching jobs. He never got an opportunity. Gruden, Andy Reed, Marty Martin Whig, I mean, mean, Mike Sherman. So when you know that history, it doesn't give you a whole lot of hope. Shelman sat down with his wife, and they mapped out how they wanted the rest of their life to go. They had two options. Number one, Shelman could give up on his aspirations in favor of securing financial security. Number two, he could also just leave the game. As he thought about it, the choice became clear.

You know, I looked at our situation financially, and I didn't want to keep banging my head against that wall, you know. The emotional, the mental, the psychological, the physical toll it takes on you. I had to get up every morning and look in the mirror at myself. I had to feel good about myself. I could no longer look at myself and know that I was being culpable in regards to the lack of progress in regards to my career. And when you're talking about my narrative coaches, most of us, you know, come from dire situations and we don't, you know, it's hard to walk away from that kind of money. While I could have kept on coaching and make high six figures or what have you, under the circumstances and

knowing what I was facing, the money didn't mean that much to me in regards to my integrity, my pride, and how I felt about myself after that. So I chose to walk away. Despite only being 59 years old, Shelman retired. He received multiple offers to continue coaching, but turned them all down. Shelman wasn't willing to put himself through that any longer. You realize that no matter what you do, sometimes it's not enough. I've always been one that I've worked extremely hard to get where I am because I come from nothing. I'm not going to let someone else determine my happiness.

And all of a certain, I wasn't happy anymore. I knew it was unfair. And so I only had two recourses. Stay there and do that, suffer the emotional, the mental, the psychological distress that being a situation like that put you in or leave. And for me, the national football wasn't worth giving the rest of my life to under those conditions. For Shelman, the source of why there remains an opportunity gap between white and black coaches,

is not hard to identify. The lack of progress during his time and after falls on those who ultimately make the hires. We know who are responsible for the hiring, right, and the firing. It's the owners and the general managers. You know, there's this belief that they don't know us. And when I say us, meaning people of color, I always ask myself this question. You mean you tell me all those owners, all those general managers, they know all these white guys they hire? I don't think so.

So what's the difference? You know, I was with Art Sherrill a few weeks ago. We was talking about this subject. And he said something to me that was profound. He said, until people finding it in their heart to look at you as a human being and not see you anything other than that and judge you by your excellent on the field, it's not going to change. I don't know that you can mandate or legislate hiring practices. It has to be a fundamental change in people's way of thinking in their heart.

Coming up after the break, we'll speak to some more diverse coaches about their experiences. They made it apparent that it's no accident that many of the issues Sheldman dealt with continue to persist today. Despite having the odds stacked against them, there have been some blackhead coaches who've been able to achieve and sustain career advancement. Come on, we've got to be able to concentrate. We cannot make errors down in the red zone. Tony Dungey was controversially fired by the Bucks after leading them to the playoffs for the third consecutive season in 2001. But he immediately landed on his feet as the Colts head coach in 2002. Four seasons into his tenure,

Dungey became the first blackhead coach in league history to win a Super Bowl. Dungey won going up against a fellow black man. then Bears head coached Lovie Smith. It was a monumental moment for the game. When Mike Tomlin was hired a Steelers head coach ahead of the following season, there were an NFL record seven blackhead coaches in the league. It seemed a corner had been turned, but that wasn't the case. Thought things, like you said, were getting better,

but things honestly were probably at the highest point it could be, and obviously things have not trended in the right direction since then. Hugh Jackson would become a benefactor of the initial push from the Rooney Rule. After several years working as an offensive coordinator at Cal and USC in the late 90s, he felt stagnant and made the jump to the NFL as Washington's running backs coach in 2001. It was a downgrade, but it was part of his effort to become a head coach. It didn't take him long to realize that would be a difficult task. And then I can really see what was happening.

I think some of us don't understand what, college football and the league is telling us. And I started to see really quickly that if I didn't get into the quarterback role and coach the most important position in pro football, it wasn't going to happen where it's going to have a chance to be a coordinator or a head coach. The year the Rooney Rule was established in 2003, Washington promoted Jackson to offensive coordinator. But after that season, the entire staff was let go.

And Jackson was placed on a constant hamster wheel of having to prove himself, bouncing between position coach and coordinator. Every time Jackson ascended to a higher role, the entire coaching staff would get fired. But then Jackson, in 2010, became an OC with the Raiders. This stint would also last just one season, but it was finally good news for Jackson. Raiders owner Al Davis hired him as their new head coach.

One thing I'll say about Al Davis, he never saw color. It was about who was the most talented. He gave me an opportunity first to be his coordinator. then to be his head coach and I'm grateful and thankful for that. God bless him. I'm for sure in my heart of the past. I still would have been there. Al Davis died during the 2011 season and his son, Mark Davis, took over the team. Despite the fact that Jackson got off to a promising seven and four start before finishing eight and eight in his first year on the job, Mark Davis fired him after the season. Oh, that was rough. Our counterparts, go eight and eight, they don't lose their jobs. That doesn't

happen like that. So we've seen a man go nine and seven, you know, being Jim Caldwell, lose his job. I've seen myself go eight and eight and lose my job. Those things don't normally trend that way for the other side. So it was tough. And for me, what was tougher is I had to start all over. I couldn't get a job as a quarterback coach or a coordinator. You think that's normally where you go when you're leaving being the head coach. You go down a notch. You become a coordinator, you become a quarterback coach or whatever that is. I had to go coach on defense, you know, with Marvin Lewis, who was my best friend who gave me a lifeline. This quick exit with the Raiders remains an example of how blackhead coaches are often

given a short leash, even when they have win-loss records that don't typically lead to firings. You know, there's only been a few of them that have come out the other side of this. I mean, kudos to Tony Dungey and Lovie Smith when he was in Chicago and the job that Mike Tomlin's done. I look at us as outliers that way. The job that Marvin Lewis did in Cincinnati for so long, without a lot of things that he needed at his side. So I get it, but I think that's what it's been.

Commander's coach Ron Rivera, whose Hispanic, is another outlier. He's been a head coach concurrently since getting his first job with the Panthers in 2011. And while Rivera isn't black, he faced similar hurdles along his journey. I had, I believe, of the total of eight head coaching interviews before I landed my first job as a head coach. I honestly never felt like I was fulfilling the Rooney rule. I didn't. And maybe because I had a pretty high opinion of myself. So I thought, oh, maybe this is for real.

But now, in a retrospect, I almost wonder. Before he was a coach, Rivera was a longtime linebacker with the Bears from 1984 to 1992 that helped them win a Super Bowl in 1986. He tried living as a civilian after he retired, but it didn't fit him. Eventually, his wife Stephanie urged him to return to the game. She said, you know, you look lost. You have no direction. You need to get back in football.

What's interesting is the guy that got me started on it was Walter Payne. Walter and I were talking one time at a game and I made a couple of comments about the coaching and he said, how come you're not coached? I said, well, honestly, I don't know how to get in. And Walter said, well, once you come see me tomorrow, because at the time, he was on the board of directors in the Chicago Bears. And he called Ed McCaskey and talked to Ed. I was their first volunteer defensive quality control coach. And from there, I just worked my way up the ladder until I got my opportunity.

Rivera became the Eagles linebackers coach in 1999. And one year after the Rooney Rule was established in 2003, he became the Bears defensive coordinator and grew into a head coaching candidate. Rivera didn't take it personally when he wasn't offered the job following his first eight-hit coaching interviews, but the ninth interview was different. And I do know, for a fact, one interview that I was offered, rumors were pretty strong as to who was going to get the job, and hearing the rumors and understand they were pretty strong. I declined that interview. So I was offered a ninth one, but I turned that one down just because of what you hear when you listen to what's going on in the great find. So I turned that one down. Rivera's football acumen wasn't in question.

But what he lacked was the necessary relationships to push through. Eventually, though, he caught a break. Following his second season with the Bears, he was invited to a diversity and hiring meeting at the Combine with then Commissioner Paul Tagliabu. And what happened was you went to this event, you listened to a couple of speakers, then they had this luncheon that you were able to sit down

and owners were there, general manager were there, presidents were there, the decision makers. We were put in front the decision makers. And one of the people I got to sit down and have lunch with and talk with, were the Spanos families. I got to talk to Deem Spanos and get to know him a little bit. And then, lo and

behold, two years later, I'm working for them. The Bears didn't renew Rivera's contract after the 2006 season, but the Spanos family hired him as the Chargers linebackers coach the next season. The season after that, he was promoted to defensive coordinator. Then in

2010, the then owner of the Panthers, Jerry Richardson, reached out to the Spanos family during Carolina's head coaching search. He called Mr. Spanos and talked to him about me and my wife talked to Susie Spanos about us. And because we had developed that relationship, he spoke very highly of me. Mr. Richardson told me, after he hired me, he told me, because I wanted you know that your previous owner, Mr. Spanos, was very positive about who you can be in thinking that you would succeed. Rivera broke through, but a rough start but his job. security and jeopardy. He posted back-to-back losing seasons and struggled to win closed games. Given diverse coaches often have a short leash and rarely get another chance after being fired,

Rivera was anxious. But again, his relationship with ownership proved to be beneficial. Instead of firing me, my owner worked with me and he helped me get an opportunity to sit down and meet with John Madden and I was able to ask coach if he'd mentor me and help me through this. And he did and gave me that opportunity. If my owner hadn't been patient, if he hadn't been willing to give me that opportunity, I mean, nobody would have blamed him. I wouldn't have blamed him. I was very fortunate that I had an owner that gave me time, that gave me a chance.

The patience paid off. In 2016, Rivera took the Panthers to a Super Bowl appearance in a string of three consecutive seasons of making the playoffs. Stays in bounds. That means this game is over. The Carolina Panthers are NFC champions. and Ron Rivera is going to the Super Bowl. Rivera was ultimately fired by the Panthers after the 2019 season, but the resume he compiled across nine seasons at the helm in Carolina

helped him get hired as the commander's head coach in 2020. Among other factors, Rivera believes the lack of opportunity to foster relationships and build trust with decision makers hinders the upward mobility and longevity of diverse coaches. So as we've gone through this, this cycle, these last 12 years since I became a head coach, you know, we've had some pretty good moments, but then we regressed after that as a league. And that I think was a little disappointing because as I look at it, I think part of the reason we've digressed was that program no longer existed, the opportunity to put minority candidates in front of the decision makers, owners,

the presidency, the GMs no longer existed. And so what happened was because there wasn't that opportunity, very few minorities travel in the same type of circles, and very few of them even have those connections. And so the opportunity wasn't there. The NFL brought back a similar program that will allow diverse candidates to connect with decision makers last offseason. Time will tell whether it produces results. There is another potential avenue to help diverse coaching candidates that doesn't get nearly as much attention. Acting head coaches taking more initiative to put diverse coaches in better positions to move up the ranks. Right now, there are only a few black offensive coordinators compared to more than a dozen black defensive coordinators. The league has

prioritized hiring head coaches with offensive backgrounds in recent years, which has stagnated the ascension for many defensive coordinators. If more head coaches promoted coaches of color, it would help strengthen the pipeline of diverse head coaching candidates. There are examples of that theory directly correlating with positive results. From both perspectives, from the employer perspective and the employee perspective. And so I think it's just important to understand that there are dynamics that are for people that are underrepresented in general. Sean Desai, the Seahawks associate head coach who became the first Indian coordinator

in NFL history with the Bears in 2021, is one of them. He had minimal experience when then Temple head coach Al Golden hired him as a defensive assistant in 2006. And after seven seasons working in the college, he was. drinks, the Bears, took a flyer on him as a quality control coach in 2013. Eight years later, Desai became Chicago's defensive coordinator. We can as an industry and as a profession try to optimize our representation based on merit, giving people opportunities to earn certain roles, and then when they're in those roles supporting them so they can be successful. And I think that's

really important when you're talking about underrepresentation, regardless of the minority keep you talking about. Whether it's owners, general managers, or head coaches, it's vital for diverse coaching candidates to develop strong relationships with decision makers. Desai set out to build authentic relationships in addition to focusing on his work as a coach. But that's only one part of the equation. Networking is a two-way street that requires collaboration. So myself, I got to be really actively trying to build relationships and in an authentic way. You know, I don't think you can be the guy that's just networking all the time. And then on the other end of the street, you need people that are willing to build relationships with you. And they got to be willing to recognize and see your

work and applaud your work when you do great work. Obviously, in the conversation, race and representation is important, but it's really a power issue. You know, when people in certain power roles have the ability to uplift others and recognize others that are not in those power roles, I think you've got to be able to do that. But that means you've got to have an open mind. You know, you've got to have an open mind and be willing to get outside your comfort zone. and step outside of a tight network that sometimes closes certain people off to opportunities. You know, you've got to be accessible. The perspective of most NFL decision makers remains narrow.

After the break, we'll home in on the hard truths about why that is. To listen to every episode of Between the Lines, Ad Free, and bonus full-length interviews with people like Doug Williams, Bumani Jones, Hugh Jackson, and more. or subscribe to the Athletic Audio Plus exclusively on Apple Podcasts. White people fundamentally believe that black people are intellectually inferior. And at some point, we just have to drill in on that fact. HBO and ESPN's Bomani Jones is speaking about an ideology that goes back thousands of years and extends far beyond sports.

But in this case, Jones is referring to the NFL's hiring practices. given the number of qualified diverse coaching candidates, it's hard to identify another reason for the seemingly endless lack of diverse head coaches. That's the constant through all these decades of history where we've had these ups and downs and changes in these things and everything else. But when it really comes back down to it is the people who make the hiring decisions, I don't think that they are going to look at two candidates

and think the black candidate is obviously and clearly superior and then go with the white candidate. I just don't think so. They are looking at these candidates and just somehow always believe that the white one is better. And I don't know why. It just works out as some kind of quirky coincadink that it always goes that way. But I don't think these people are intentionally operating at the expense of the bottom line in making these decisions. I think they legitimately believe whether they realize it consciously or not that when they see that white man come up, that's a head coach.

That's what the head coach appears to be to them. And so the black dudes are typically going to be the ones who ultimately lose. The athletic national NFL reporter Mike Sandel has reported on the lack of diversity in the hiring process in the NFL for years. When you go to interview for a job, they're not just opening the door and saying, you know what? We're going to reinvent this position. And we're just going to interview 50 people and we're going to take the best one. Sometimes they already know. The owner already knows who they're going to hire.

And that's been very difficult to defeat, even if they bring in people. For an interview, they're still going to hire so-and-so. Sando has spoken to black coaches who say the lack of clarity when it comes to what NFL owners and general managers want makes it difficult to decipher what criteria to aim for. I think it's an extremely frustrating process, you know, to the extent that people could be required to say why they hired somebody, is really the only extent to which we can evaluate the hiring, right? Because right now we're sort of like, uh, they like this person, but we're not a, 100% sure why they chose them over this other person.

They're not really accountable for that. I think in other jobs and other businesses, sometimes there is a process that could be analyzed better. This is a little bit of a mystery where even the people who don't get the job aren't really sure. Okay, what was it again? From the ownership level,

there's been a lack of willingness to engage in those conversations. There's some hard realities that people actually have to confront. So you always wind up in this trick bag where when it's time to figure out what the solutions are for matters of race, we always ask black people. and I'm like, yo, if I actually had the answer, I personally would have been done fixed this. I have great incentive to do such things. It's white people that don't have the urgency and the impetus to get behind this.

And I think part of it is just the difficulty for so many of them and so many people to just square up and just be like, no, the more I think about it, yeah, I realize consciously or otherwise, I just don't look at black people as my first choice for intellectual positions. As former NFL head coach Hugh Jackson points out, the types of kids. candidates that decision makers consider often excludes black people. To me, it's become a league of analytics. So if you're not an analytic guy and us as minorities, we don't, not that we don't understand it, not that we don't want to deal with it, but we're our own algorithm. You know, we've worked our tails off to get to where we are.

So if you're not in that particular space, they don't see you that way. And it's the young Caucasian guys who are supposedly the very bright guys are to get these opportunities. you know, all the time. And it's just the way it's been. There's no shortage of awareness about the fact that the NFL has a diversity problem among its head coaching ranks. Despite that, owners haven't shown their willing to change. Why would they?

Eager's growing is making a ton of money. People are watching football at a high level. Why do you need to change it? Why do they really need to do anything different? There's no money coming out of their pockets. There's nothing that's saying the game is slowing down. or people are mad because this is not going right. We have a cycle of a day or maybe a day and a half

where people talk about the issue and then it goes away, right? So tell me what is going to make them do anything about it? Nothing. So at the end of the day, that's why nothing gets done until somebody really hits it where it really hurts, which is in their pocket, you know, and that's not going to happen because people love sport, right?

People love football. And so they know this. So they placate to a lot of the other things that, you know, that we try to do. But at the same time, it's not going to move to neither. League mandated legislation is another option. But there are limits there, too. Former player and NFL Players Association Representative Don Davis doubts there's much more the league can do. Education is one thing.

Awareness is one thing. Action is another. I don't know what other rules, whether legislation can be put in place to, encourage those in power to hire more minorities. Honestly, I just, I just have no idea. I mean, I think at this point, you might just have to, which is hard to say, mandated, but I think, I think you just got to say, look, y'all just got to hire some more black folks, period. As a black head coach, I've heard some who were in the pipeline say, well, I don't want you to hire me because I'm black. I want you to hire me because I'm the best candidate. And I would

just say, while I applaud that, and I understand what you're. saying, no, I want you to just hire because he's black. And let's just try that out. See, I think there are some others who have gotten it, you know, not because they're white, but race played a part. And you allowed them an opportunity. Such extreme in-house mandates would likely never happen. As has been the case historically, the force that changes things will probably have to come externally. Oh, no, you got to take them to court, right? Like, we got the Rooney rule because somebody took them to court. You get free agency because somebody took come to court. That is the thing that they respect. Like this level of money and power, that's the

thing that they respect. They respect lawyers. That's taking it out back to fight in their world is to take this thing to the courthouse. Like, oh, you got a problem with it. Let's square up. All right, well, let me call my lawyer. And then we square up and then we go about it. That to me is going to be the thing and has always been the case. Again, the Rooney Rule came about because they did not want to go to court with Johnny Cochran. Probably a wise play fundamentally when they decided to do that. Vikings' defensive coordinator Brian Flores did just that with his bombshell class action lawsuit against the league in 2022. Is the NFL racist? I think the numbers speak for themselves as one black head coach.

The former Dolphins head coach sued the Giants, Broncos, Dolphins, and the NFL for alleged racial discrimination. The Miami Dolphins fired him after back-to-back winning seasons. Flores and his attorneys have now filed a class action lawsuit, alleging discrimination against. against black coaches. In the lawsuit, Flores presented a text message from Patriots coach Bill Belichick that indicated the Giants decided to hire Brian Daibol as head coach before they began their interview process, which would have been a violation of the Rooney rule. Bill Belichick thought he was texting Brian Daibble.

Turns out he was texting Brian Flores, a series of texts. One of them, the final ones, is sorry, I bleeped this up. I think they're naming Brian Daibol. I'm sorry about that. Flores also accused the Broncos of a similarly. flawed interview process in 2019 and said the Dolphins asked him to intentionally lose games early on in his coaching tenure. Flores has since been joined in his lawsuit by 49ers' defensive coordinator Steve Wilkes, who was the Panthers interim head coach last year and

former NFL assistant Ray Horton. Commissioner Roger Goodell is telling owners that the league does not have enough head coaches of color. That follows a lawsuit by fired Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores accusing the NFL of racial discrimination in hiring. The league had said those allegations are without merit. It's probably not a coincidence that following Flores' lawsuit, the league went from one to four black head coaches, has grown to a league record eight black GMs, and now has a league record five black team presidents. As Ron Rivera highlights, it's always taken that sort of pressure to garner change within the NFL. I think at some point you have to do something to help promote the change. If speaking out is the right thing to do,

then speaking else is what you should do. You know, that's easy for me to say. But I just think what Coach Flores doing is a testament to his character. And a couple of those coaches that have followed suit. Hey, goodos to them. You know, because it is unfortunate. And I think if we all take a step back and look at some of the successes we've had, people have had, you would be willing, I think, to say, you know,

these guys deserve opportunities or deserve a second chance or they deserve the same type of opportunities that other people have got. You know, I used to tell people, you know, we live in a land of opportunity. But doesn't mean everybody's opportunities are the same. But after the initial push following Flores' lawsuit, going into the 2023 season, there will still be just four blackhead coaches. It's a clear sign that it's far too early to say whether Flores' lawsuit will evolve into a long-term solution. Many, like Hugh Jackson, are skeptical that it will. I don't. Because if it did, why hasn't it?

It's been there. I mean, he's still coaching in the league. I get it. I mean, it's an ongoing effect until when. I mean, if that really happened, which I believe it did, and he dealt with it, why are they not pushing forward on it to resolve it? Either way things go from here with Flores,

he still pointed out an unavoidable fact. Diversity is the league's greatest issue from top to bottom. Thank you for listening to Between the Lines. Deshaun Reed is the creator, and host of the series. Madhavia and Mike Smelts are the executive producers. And special thanks to Robert Mays and Michael Beller.