General Manager
Minnesota Vikings: Kwesi Adofo-Mensah
Chicago Bears: Ryan Poles
New York Giants: Joe Schoen
Las Vegas Raiders: Dave Ziegler
Head Coach
Minnesota Vikings: Kevin O’Connell
Chicago Bears: Matt Eberflus
Denver Broncos: Nathaniel Hackett
Jacksonville Jaguars: Doug Pederson
Las Vegas Raiders: Josh McDaniels
New York Giants: Brian Daboll
Houston Texans
Finalists:
Brian Flores
Jonathan Gannon
The Houston Texans are a mess. I feel bad for the coach that works for the McNairs.
Miami Dolphins
Finalists:
Mike McDaniel
Kellen Moore
Either one of these candidates could report for classes at the nearest high school and look the part.
New Orleans Saints
Dennis Allen
Eric Bieniemy
Brian Flores
Aaron Glenn
Byron Leftwich
Darren Rizzi
The New Orleans Saints were the last team to start their head coach search. Of their current candidates, only Brian Flores is in contention for another job. With only two other vacancies remaining, the Saints should have their pick of qualified, deserving candidates.
***
Even if Brian Flores hadn’t sued the league and three teams for racist hiring practices, the lack of diversity in another round of NFL hires would be a serious issue. Of the 13 head coach and general manager openings only two were filled by a minority candidate. Both were general managers.
Minnesota Vikings: Kwesi Adofo-Mensah
Chicago Bears: Ryan Poles
Six head coaches have been hired. Despite a lengthy list of qualified candidates, zero minority head coaches have been hired. Things would brighten a bit if the remaining three vacancies were filled by a minority candidate. 33% is a huge improvement over 0%. Unfortunately, I don’t trust Cal McNair and Stephen Ross to do the right thing. If Eric Bieniemy finally gets his shot in New Orleans, the league will double their number of black head coaches.
Pathetic.
This is the second year that the league will be handing out compensatory draft picks to teams that have a head coach or general manager candidate plucked from their team. It doesn’t look like the league will be handing out very many compensatory over the next two years. Only the Cleveland Browns (Kwesi Adofo-Mensah) and Kansas City Chiefs (Ryan Poles) will be receiving the bonus picks. The league is trying to encourage teams to promote and develop minority coaches and personnel people to boost the pool of qualified candidates by putting a third-round carrot out there for them. The thing is, there’s no shortage of candidates. For decades, there hasn’t been a shortage. The only thing that’s missing is a willingness by teams to hire minority candidates. No Rooney Rule or third round pick is going to change a team owner that doesn’t want a minority in a position of authority with his team. Until the league takes a good, honest look at the 32 team owners and/or the people truly running the teams, the general manager and head coach diversity will always be pathetic. You can take any sampling of old, white men and I’ll bet a solid percentage will have racist leanings. Take a sampling of rich, old, white men and that percentage will sky rocket.
Despite the league’s pathetic head coach diversity, nothing should be taken from the six new head coaches. They do deserve their shot. There’s only 32 NFL head coach positions. There are 100s of coaches qualified to fill them. Maybe Byron Leftwich and Eric Bieniemy deserve a first shot before Doug Pederson and Josh McDaniels got their second shot. The Jacksonville Jaguars reportedly did try to hire Leftwich. Unfortunately, an idiot, Trent Baalke, was in the way. Leftwich is forced to be selective because he rightly knows that he has one shot at this. That’s the real problem. A white coach will often get opportunities no matter how many times he’s fired. He’ll often get a second or third opportunity before a black coach gets a first. Maybe, someday we’ll see the same diversity among the head coaches that we see among the players. Right now, I can’t see that day.
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