How Can More Black Coaches Get NFL Head Coaching Opportunities?
The trend to hire younger coaches might give us a clue about the path to a head coaching job.
Head coach hiring periods in the NFL are the subject of a lot of debate, and not always in a good way. This year's cycle is no exception.
What's fueling a lot of the debate is that two firings involved black head coaches and drew questions about how they were handled. One of them, Brian Flores, had two winning seasons in three years with the Dolphins (though with no playoff trips). The other, David Culley, was out after one season with a Texans team that was in a major rebuild and a lot of questions raised about who is really running things in the front office.
With the Texans, it hasn't helped that their coaching search, for the second straight year, has involved interviewing former NFL quarterback Josh McCown, whose coaching experience has been limited to high school football. McCown has never held a coaching position in college or the pros, which many believe is necessary to be considered for an NFL head coaching position.
As for Flores, he's already filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against the NFL, the New York Giants (for whom he interviewed for their vacant position but wasn't hired), the Denver Broncos (for whom he previously interviewed in 2019) and the Dolphins. His suit is class action, meaning others who believe they have claims against the NFL or its teams are able to join if they wish.
Setting the Flores suit aside, I don't disagree that the fact that fewer black coaches are getting hired for head coaching positions raises some questions. However, too much of the time, the conversations about this turn into the usual talking points that do less to address the issue and do more to score points toward winning an argument on social media.
In looking at the evidence with recent head coaching hires, my belief is that we are spending too much time asking about who does or doesn't hire coaches based on race and not enough time looking at the path that those who have been hired as head coaches have taken to get there -- and we can do the same with general managers (I will address an example later).
The Trend to Hire Younger Head Coaches
One element I've noticed regarding a lot of recent head coach hirings is that those who have been hired tend to be younger — which I would describe as being no older than 45 years when they were hired. This is particularly notable with Sean McVay, who was the youngest head coach in the NFL at the time he was hired.
Back in 2017, when McVay was hired, he was 31. Another first-time head coach hired then, Kyle Shanahan, was 38 in 2017. Two others who go their first jobs were in their early-to-mid 40s, Sean McDermott (43) and Vance Joseph (45).
McVay, in particular, got everybody's attention because he took a team that went 4-12 in 2016 to 11-5 in 2017 with a division title and 2016 No. 1 overall pick Jared Goff going from a bad first year to a good second year.
Then there's Shanahan, who didn't have as much success his first year, but closed out with a 5-1 record after a Week 11 bye, with newly acquired Jimmy Garoppolo starting the final five games, all games the Niners won.
All of a sudden, you had a lot of people convinced that the way to have success was to find that young head coach who injects new ideas into schemes and can do all these wonderful things, particularly if he's able to take a quarterback and make him look like a superstar in the making.
The pattern continued in ensuing years, even if it didn't always involve a former offensive coordinator or offense-related positional coach. In 2018, hirings that fit the McVay/Shanahan pattern of hiring a younger head coach is his 30s to mid-40s would be Mike Vrabel (43 at the time of his hiring and Matt Patricia (44 at the time of his hiring). They may not have been "offensive-minded" coaches, but they weren't above the age of 45.
In 2019, the practice of hiring younger head coaches, particularly if their background was coaching offense, was more evident. Matt LaFleur (40 when hired), Zac Taylor (36 when hired) and Kliff Kingsbury (40 when hired) all fit that description. Add in Flores, who was 38 at the time, and you have four younger coaches getting their first head coaching gig.
Proceed to 2020, and there's Kevin Stefanski, who was 38, and Joe Judge, who was 39, with Stefanski an offensive-minded coach. Then, in 2021, you had Brandon Staley (39), Arthur Smith (39), Nick Sirianni (40), Robert Saleh (42) and Dan Campbell (45). Smith, Sirianni and Campbell all had their coaching experience on offense.
In 2022, the only head coach hired who would be less than 45 years old is 42-year-old Nathaniel Hackett. However, if the Vikings do go through with hiring 36-year-old Kevin O'Connell as some have reported, that would make two -- both of them offensive-minded coaches.
Among the black head coaches who got interviews, 42-year-old Byron Leftwich was reportedly close to getting the Jaguars job, but reportedly didn't want to work with general manager Trent Baalke. (Additional reports I read have said Leftwich wasn't the only candidate to raise concerns about working with Baalke.)
While Leftwich doesn't appear to be getting a head coaching gig this cycle, imagine what happens if the Buccaneers have success with second-year quarterback Kyle Trask in the 2022 season. If that happens, teams seeking a new head coach after the 2022 season could line up to interview Leftwich.
What’s the Path One Takes to Become a Head Coach?
But if too many owners are thinking about hiring that young coach who has all these great ideas, thinks about the big picture all the time, and especially can get a quarterback to play at a high level, then perhaps we need to look at the path these younger coaches are taking.
Most of these coaches didn't have long careers in the NFL -- some didn't even get the chance to play at all. However, plenty of them caught on as either graduate assistants in college or as interns in the pros. Some of them happened to be part of a famous coaching tree. In at least one case, they worked together on the same team for a brief period.
Getting your foot in the door when you are still in your 20s could very well be a means for more black head coaches to get on the path to becoming a head coach in the future. While it wouldn't solve issues immediately, it could lead to more of them getting that chance down the road.
Consider when other noteworthy black head coaches got their first NFL jobs. Tony Dungy spent three years as a player, then went on to get his first head coaching job at 41. Mike Tomlin started his head coaching duties at 35 years old and Tomlin never played in the NFL. Marvin Lewis was 45 when he started as a head coach and he played just one season in the NFL.
I won't say that any NFL player, black or otherwise, who had a long NFL career can't make it as a head coach. After all, Jim Harbaugh was in the NFL for multiple years and had success at the NFL coaching level. Leftwich also played in the NFL for many seasons, so who's to say he couldn't have head coaching success, too.
But my point is that, for any players who don't make in the NFL, what opportunities do they get to enter the coaching ranks? Might it be possible that, if more black football players who don't make it in the NFL, get more opportunities to show what they can do as a coach, lead to more black head coaches in future seasons?
What Can We Learn From A General Manager Example?
Consider one of the general manager hirings thus far: Ryan Poles, who was hired to be the new general manager of the Chicago Bears.
The story about Poles is that he was an undrafted player with the Bears, who eventually was hired as the team's general manager. But there's a little more to the story than that.
The same year he signed with the Bears (2008), Poles also served as a recruiting assistant for his alma mater, Boston College. Poles thus got a foot in the door that allowed him to enter the scouting ranks, which eventually led to him joining the Chiefs front office in 2009.
How many other black college football players are getting opportunities with their colleges that might get them on a path that leads to a general manager job? And should we not ask the same about such opportunities in the NFL? And then ask the same about opportunities, both college and NFL, that may lead to head coaching jobs?
I don't want to declare that the only way for more blacks to get hired as head coaches is to get these opportunities when they are young, thus meaning they have to forget about a possible NFL career. However, for those who don't make it in the NFL, getting them opportunities in coaching or scouting at an early age could lead to more of them becoming head coaches or general managers in the future.
As for those players who had lengthy NFL careers, it's fair to ask if more should get consideration to join coaching staffs. There could very well be somebody in those ranks who proves himself worthy of a head coaching job down the road. Just ask yourself if we'd be having conversations about Leftwich if he never got the opportunity to be a quarterbacks coach under Bruce Arians, when Arians was the head coach of the Cardinals.
Conclusion
It's easy to take a look at the top of the ladder and say that there's a problem. However, it may be worth asking if we need to look at the bottom rung of the ladder and not just ask who is there, but to ask who is being given the chance to get on that rung. Because if you don't get the chance to get onto the bottom rung, you will never be able to reach the top of the ladder.
Regardless, if we want to see change, we may need to look beyond our perceptions and we certainly need to avoid the talking points. They don't serve to advance the discussion.