NFL Owners Have a Problem With Coaches of Color

Rhule’s lucrative contract has reset the market for coaches, but it’s also set unattainable expectations for black coaches. For one thing, a black coach is unlikely to be in Rhule’s position, because the underrepresentation problem is just as bad at the college level. Only 12 of the 128 Football Bowl Subdivision teams have a black head coach.

The NFL will never solve this problem if the owners continue to operate as if the lack of minority coaches is somehow the fault of the coaches—and not the system that the league and its owners have purposely constructed. Each franchise makes its own decisions, but the outcome is to exclude minority coaches from head-coaching positions outright—and to hold the few black head coaches to a tougher standard.

With Peyton Manning as his quarterback, Jim Caldwell won a Super Bowl as head coach of the Indianapolis Colts in 2009. More recently, he guided the lowly Detroit Lions to consecutive nine-win seasons in 2017 and 2018. Caldwell, who is now an assistant coach with the Miami Dolphins, hasn’t been able to sniff a head-coaching job since Detroit fired him after just three seasons. On the day general manager Bob Quinn announced Caldwell’s firing, he explained that Caldwell was being let go because his 9–7 record didn’t meet the franchise’s expectations. But considering that the Lions have had one playoff win in the past 54 years, perhaps the conversation should be about how the Lions failed Caldwell, and not vice versa.

Quinn then brought in former Patriots defensive coordinator Matt Patricia, a hot commodity on the coaching circuit who was held in high regard partly because of his proximity to Belichick, the mastermind behind the Patriots’ dynasty. But Patricia was 9–22 in his first two seasons, which included this year’s 3–12-1 season. If Caldwell’s performance wasn’t good enough, why does Patricia warrant a pass?

Since 2009, the only African American to get a second chance as a head coach is Hue Jackson, whom the Cleveland Browns hired several years after he was fired by the Oakland Raiders. He didn’t last in Cleveland, either. That doesn’t bode well for Marvin Lewis, who managed to make the playoffs seven times during his 16 years with the Cincinnati Bengals. Even though Lewis failed to win a playoff game, he still managed to produce some success for a franchise that has had 27 losing seasons since 1968. In 2019, the Bengals replaced Lewis with 36-year-old Zac Taylor, who went 2–14 this season. Lewis, by the way, never won fewer than four games in a season during his entire tenure with the Bengals.

As bad as the most recent hiring cycle has been for minority head coaches, it may not have been worse than the end of the 2018 season. That’s when five of the eight minority head coaches in the league were all fired. All five of those fired were black.

If the NFL wants to create an equitable system for minority head coaches, the owners can’t rely on a rule to create institutional change. NFL owners must recognize that their lazy stereotypes of black male leadership have created this embarrassing problem. In time, we’ll see whether they have the courage to fix it.

Jemele Hill is a staff writer for The Atlantic, where she covers sports, race, politics, and culture.