The NFL Experiment to "Do the Right Thing" in Minority Hiring

NFL reporter and former Pro Football Writers of America's President Jim Trotter joined Kyle T. Mosley to discuss the new NFL proposal to incentivize minority hiring for team owners.

As a student pursuing a degree in Chemistry within the hallowed halls at Morehouse College in Atlanta, I learned a Chemist's experimentation techniques from my professors Dr. Troy Story and Dr. Grace Han.  Observation, hypothesis, experimentation, modification of the hypothesis, and theory.

An analysis of the recent proposal introduced by NFL Commissioner Goodell and Executive Vice President of Football Operations Troy Vincent to equal the hiring playing field via incentivization could become counterproductive. I thought about a fellow alum's (Spike Lee) and his famous movie title. In 2020, is the National Football League prepared to "Do the Right Thing?"

THE EXPERIMENT AND ITS ADOPTION

The Observation: NFL minority assistant coaches and front-office personnel are subjected to disproportionate hiring practices by team owners and decision-makers.

The Hypothesis: Eradicate all discrimination in the hiring practices of NFL team owners.

The league is comprised of the following:

1. Teams: 32  
2. Owners: 2, Minorities of color. None are Black nor Latino/Hispanic.
3. General Managers: 2 Black
4. Coaches: 4 Minority Coaches, 3 are Black. 1 Hispanic.
5. Players: 70%+ NFL Players are considered minorities, mostly Black.

The Experimentation

To increase the number of minority hires within the executive-levels and coaching ranks, the NFL owners adopted a plan to incentivize the hiring of minorities within their organizations.

The Proposal

Longtime sports columnist Jarrett Bell noted two important sections of the incentive plan:

• A team that loses a minority assistant coach who becomes a head coach or loses a personnel executive who becomes a general manager will receive third-round compensatory picks in each of the next two drafts.

• A team that loses two minority staffers to head coach and general manager positions would receive three third-round picks. A team that loses two minority staffers to head coach and general manager positions would receive three third-round picks.

The Observation

Why are billionaire owners and business groups enticed with the lure of money or premium draft picks to introduce fair hiring practices for minorities?

The NFL corporate offices cannot force owners to hire, but now they are dangling incentives to induce fairness in their team's hiring practices. In most cases, the National Football League's ownership comprises private business owners or family who control who, what, and when they hire.

The 32 teams operating in the National Football League generated a projected revenue of 15.26 billion U.S. dollars in 2019 from a report by Statista. Of these teams, four classify their ownership as minorities - only two principal owners are designated as people of color.  A report lists owner Shahid Rafiq Khan (Pakistani) of the Jacksonville Jaguars and co-owner Kim Pegula (Korean) of the Buffalo Bills. No principal owner in the NFL has been recognized to have African-American and Latin American heritage.

The lack of ownership representation likely exists in the NFL because mostly white males control the families and organizations at the helm. The missing images of diversity in the ownership ranks play a significant role in minority hires at the executive and coaching positions. After 28 years in the employment industry, I am a first-hand witness to corporations' hiring strategies.  Employers typically hire their reflections.

In my conversation with NFL reporter and columnist Jim Trotter, he advanced the dialogue to examine the executive levels as a possible avenue for change. Why? Because general managers influence owners' decisions in their operations and hiring practices.

Only two owners have placed their trust in African-American general managers to guide their organizations, Andrew Berry (Cleveland Browns) and Chris Grier (Miami Dolphins). These men are two of thirty-two executives seated inside one of the most powerful rooms of influence in professional sports - the NFL Owners Meetings. 

Pro Football Hall of Famer Ozzie Newsome, Executive Vice President from the Baltimore Ravens, was a highly successful general manager with the team. The Ravens website gives him credit as "the architect of Baltimore's Super Bowl XXXV and Super Bowl XLVII championship teams and an elite personnel evaluator who became the NFL's first African-American general manager in 2002." Yet, with all of Newsome's success, the opportunities come as few, short-tenured, and never given again by NFL owners.

Trotter gave me an astonishing and solemn fact, "Not once has there ever been a minority general manager who was fired and then rehired by someone else [in the NFL]. (However), we can go down the list with white candidates who have been fired and rehired."

The NFL may argue to the coaching hires as proof of valuing diversity. A point of contention could be that those same head coaches have been given "shorter tenures" and not recycled as often as their white colleagues. Steve Wilk's one-season stay with the Arizona Cardinals is an example. 

NFL owners did not extend Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy the privilege by NFL owners to interview for several coaching vacancies at the end of the 2019 season. Instead, Bieniemy was on a Super Bowl run with his MVP quarterback Patrick Mahomes.  

Who's moved the cheese? Accept or modify the hypothesis. 

Jim Trotter noted, "I'm not casting aspersions here, but a coach like Joe Judge (he was a special teams coach) who was not on the offensive side of the ball, was not regarded as a young creative play-caller or play designer, gets a job in New York with the Giants. 

And then we later hear John Mara, the owner of the Giants, say, well, he was really looking for a CEO type, and Joe Judge fit that. And my fear is that all of a sudden now the target's being moved because a decade-plus ago, two decades ago, black coaches were told that if you want to be a head coach, the thing you need to do.

Is it to be on the defensive side of the ball? So, many of them went to that [offensive] side of the ball. Even Mike Tomlin [Pittsburgh Head Coach] started on offense and went over to the defense to get in that pipeline. When the black coaches got over there [to the other side], all of a sudden, we were told, now owners are looking for offensive guys, creative minds on that side of the ball. And so now you see guys trying to get in that pipeline. And my fear now is that owners are going to move the target again and say, no, you know what? 

It's neither of those things. Now we want the "CEO type." And that's what's unfair in this process."  I remarked, "Yeah, it's like they keep moving the cheese, right?"

Trotter, and I, find it difficult to conclude what effect, positive or negative, the newly instituted proposals will have on the NFL ownership hiring practices. Just as the Rooney Rule, it appears the process could be manipulated by owners in a half-hearted attempt of compliance. Or, it could very well have a franchise to find and hire an Ozzie Newsome type to architect and transform a floundering program to reach the pinnacle of professional football, a Super Bowl championship.