NFL Proposal To Incentivize Minority Hires Is Embarrassing, Avoids The Real Problem
If anyone ever needed evidence that the NFL will do anything it can to avoid dealing with its race problem by actually forcing owners to realize they have the problem, check out the NFL's proposal to incentive hires of minority candidates at head coach and general manger.
Jake Trotter of NFL.com breaks down what is in the proposal that will up for vote by owners, which could start rolling as soon as Tuesday in a virtual owners meeting.
- If a team hires a minority head coach, that team, in the draft preceding the coach's second season, would move up six spots from where it is slotted to pick in the third round. A team would jump 10 spots under the same scenario for hiring a person of color as its primary football executive, a position more commonly known as general manager.
- If a team were to fill both positions with diverse candidates in the same year, that club could jump 16 spots -- six for the coach, 10 for the GM -- and potentially move from the top of the third round to the middle of the second round. Another incentive: a team's fourth-round pick would climb five spots in the draft preceding the coach's or GM's third year if he is still with the team. That is considered significant because Steve Wilks and Vance Joseph, two of the four African-American head coaches hired since 2017, were fired after one and two seasons, respectively.
The idea is that somehow minority candidates will be more attractive if they get a tangible benefit in the form of improved draft position by making a hire based on race.
This also ignores the fact that some teams have been extremely progressive on this issue, including the Cleveland Browns. Jimmy and Dee Haslam warrant an understandable amount of criticism for their handling of the organization since they bought the team, but they've never had an issue with hiring minority candidates.
They've never had a problem with hiring any candidate and have a ton of practice. But specifically regarding minority candidates, they hired Hue Jackson as head coach of the team and have had Ray Farmer, Sashi Brown and now Andrew Berry in charge of the team's front office. They didn't need an added incentive to do it.
The Miami Dolphins currently have a minority head coach in Brian Flores and minority GM in Chris Grier. Part of the reason Grier and Sashi Brown were hired was outside the box thinking. Both looked at their rosters when they took control of the team and thought it would be faster to tear down the roster, add draft assets to then re-build the team.
If this proposal were passed and a minority GM were hired to take a similar approach, they are met with immediate skepticism that the hire was for the draft position benefits while tearing the team down, starting over.
Especially in the case of Brown, who was hired as the team's Executive Vice President after formerly being the team's legal counsel, he was already met with skepticism due to his background. Add this element to the mix and he's a prop rather than a person.
All of this avoids the real problem. The NFL has one of the older sets of owners in professional sports. And that's really where the problem lies, unwilling to get outside of their own comfort zone. Rather than address that, they are opting for what amounts to bribery.
The goal for the NFL should be to create a level playing field and that teams act in the best interest of their team. Adding what amounts to be minority hire tic-tac-toe to improve draft positions rather than finding the best way for the league to add qualified candidates is both patronizing and embarrassing and should be voted down. The only good thing that could come out of this would be to fully recognize how bad this looks and have a far more honest conversation on how to improve the situation.
Meanwhile, teams like the Browns and Dolphins probably wouldn't hate getting benefits from making hires based on their own interest before this spectacle was introduced if the NFL feels like handing out better draft picks.
