Stop whining about the NFL hiring too many white coaches
Christopher Tremoglie
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Many social justice warriors are seething with anger after two more white coaches were hired by NFL teams on Tuesday. Former Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator Shane Steichen was hired to coach the Indianapolis Colts, and the Arizona Cardinals hired former Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon.
The outrage centers on Gannon and Steichen’s skin color. It has nothing to do with their qualifications or merit — the outrage brigade is just upset that Steichen and Gannon are white, and they wanted someone who is black.
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The anger is truly unwarranted. The NFL has put significant effort into providing black candidates every opportunity to get coaching jobs and has been doing so for quite some time. Nearly 20 years ago, the league implemented the Rooney Rule, which ensures at least two nonwhite candidates are interviewed for every open head coaching position.
A few years ago, that was updated to reward teams that hire minorities. It’s literally an incentive to perpetuate racism under the guise of equality, and apparently, it is still not enough. People must stop believing this unfounded and poisonous left-wing propaganda that black head coaching candidates are denied chances to lead teams. There is plenty of equal opportunity — now, it has become about forcing equal outcomes.
ESPN’s Ryan Clark was the latest commentator to take issue with these hires. He commented that he didn’t understand why Gannon was hired over Kansas City Chiefs assistant Eric Bieniemy, who is black. Clark cited Gannon’s defense implosion in Super Bowl 2023 on Sunday in the face of Bieniemy’s Chiefs, specifically in the second half of the game.
“I don’t want to be the guy that always has to bring up that black coaches are continually overlooked,” Clark said. “I’m the guy that wants to bring up what are these other coaches doing that the African American and minority coaches aren’t doing, that’s allowing them to get jobs. Because it can no longer be about winning championships because neither Shane Steichen nor Jonathan Gannon did that. But here we are, two days after the game that they lost, by the way, and they now have head coaching jobs.”
It isn’t necessarily true that Bieniemy is a superior coach to Gannon just based on one game. But even if he is the better coach, owners make poor hiring decisions all the time. Consider Washington’s Ron Rivera and Tampa Bay’s Todd Bowles, both of whom are nonwhite coaches. They have been subpar as head coaches all through their careers and were clearly the wrong choices for each of their franchises. But the owners felt they were the best candidates at the time. There are many other examples, including Denver’s choice of Nathaniel Hackett as head coach for the 2022 season and the Jacksonville Jaguars’ choice of Urban Meyer before the 2021 season.
On the contrary, consider the Philadelphia Eagles. Many in the media expressed similar outrage when now-Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni was given the job over Bieniemy and former Eagles assistant coach (and former Eagles running back) Duce Staley in 2021, even though Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie is widely considered to be one of the league’s most politically liberal owners.
But Sirianni took the Eagles from four wins and 11 losses in 2020 to the playoffs in 2021, to a franchise record 14 wins, and a Super Bowl appearance in just his second year. Sirianni has turned out to be a great hire. Yet he would never have had a chance if the left-wing social justice sycophants had their way.
Another example is Buffalo Bills coach Sean McDermott. He was repeatedly overlooked before the Bills gave him an opportunity. He has turned the Bills around from a basement-dwelling team to one of the league’s best.
Arizona Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill and general manager Monti Ossenfort have the same right to choose the coach they think will get it done, regardless of his race. Unless these men specifically denied black candidates like Bieniemy the opportunity to coach the team because of race, this is and continues to be a baseless narrative designed to pressure owners into making hires they don’t want to make.
Everyone, regardless of skin color, deserves equal opportunities, but equal opportunities don’t mean equal outcomes. If NFL owners deny opportunities because of race, then fine, let’s start rooting them out and holding them accountable. But as of now, there is no evidence of this occurring. And given all the initiatives the league put into effect not to hire white people, it could be argued that just the opposite is happening.
Owners have every right to hire whomever they want to and shouldn’t be pressured into hiring someone solely because of race. It’s time to stop whining about the NFL not hiring black coaches.