The NFL's Minority Problem

The accusations made by Brian Flores in his class-action lawsuit against the NFL, Miami Dolphins, New York Giants and Denver Broncos have shaken the sports world, and if they are proven true, will have profound repercussions throughout the league.

Here are the allegations that are contained in the lawsuit:

In 2019, the Denver Broncos kept Flores waiting several hours to interview for their head-coaching vacancy, and when team officials finally did show up, they looked disheveled and hung over from the previous night. At the time, Flores was an assistant with the New England Patriots. The job eventually went to Vic Fangio, a white man.

In 2019, while head coach of the Miami Dolphins, owner Stephen Ross approached Flores and offered him $100,000 per game to tank the season so that the team could land the overall number pick in the NFL draft the following year.

In January of this year, the New York Giants invited Flores to interview for their head-coaching vacancy. However, in a text exchange with Patriots coach Bill Belichick, which was intended for then Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll, but was mistakenly sent to Flores, Belichick congratulates Daboll for landing the job three whole days before Flores's interview. To say Flores was humiliated would be an understatement.

Look, I realize that these are just allegations; we still have no way of knowing whether they're true. But here's what we do know:

Over the last twenty years, only two NFL head coaches have had consecutive winning seasons for the Miami Dolphins: Dave Wannstedt and Brian Flores. After getting off to a 1-7 start, the Dolphins went 8-1 the rest of the way, finishing 9-8. Yet Flores was let go after only his third season.

News of the termination was met with surprise and skepticism by most people covering the league. By all accounts, Flores was considered a good head coach who had done a more than competent job with a team coming out of a rebuild. Given that the Dolphins play in the same division as the Patriots and the Bills, a 9-8 record isn't all that bad.

When the Rooney Rule was instituted in 2003, there were three Black head coaches in the league. With the firing of Flores, there is now only one Black head coach: Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers. After the conclusion of the regular season, nine head-coaching vacancies opened up; four have already been filled. Not a single one by an African American, though technically Flores is still a finalist for the Houston Texans vacancy. Who knows what will happen now that this suit has been filed. 

It is inconceivable with such qualified assistant coaches as Eric Bieniemy in Kansas City that not a single one has been hired as a head coach. Indeed, Bieniemy never even received the courtesy of an interview this off season. The question begs, why?

Initially, I thought John Mara and Steve Tisch were going to hire former Chiefs' Director of Player Personnel Ryan Poles as their next GM, and Poles would then hire Bieniemy as his head coach. It would've been a win-win for a beleaguered organization: two eminently qualified African Americans charged with restoring the Giants to their glory days. What a headline that would've made.

Instead, another headline has dominated the sports pages of the New York metro area.

Just to be clear, Mara and Tisch are well within their rights to hire anyone they feel is best qualified to lead their franchise. Nothing in the Rooney Rule compels a team to hire a minority coach; only to interview them. And to be sure, Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll are considerable improvements over the previous regime of Dave Gettleman and Joe Judge. But the revelation that they went through a pro forma interview simply to check a box is an indictment for an organization that has had more than its fair share of missteps over the last decade.

Regarding the bribery charge, it is certainly no revelation that the way in which the NFL conducts its draft incentivizes teams to deliberately lose games in order to get a better seeding. That is precisely why both the NBA and NHL conduct draft lotteries: to ensure that their teams aren't tempted to tank games for personal gain. Regardless of what the investigation into Ross reveals - and if in fact the allegation against him is proven to be true, he should be permanently banned from the league - it would behoove the NFL to amend its draft procedures to conform with the above-mentioned leagues.

Speaking of things the NFL should amend, it is time to revisit the Rooney Rule. Clearly it isn't working. All it has done is given teams an off ramp when it comes to hiring Black coaches. It is time the league tried a new approach; something along the lines of dangling supplemental draft picks for hiring men of color for assistant coaches and head coaches. The former would get a second round pick; the latter a first rounder. It sure as shit beats what's in place now. 

If the NFL really wanted to fundamentally change how it does business, it could incentivize its owners to sell off parts of their teams to minority owners. Two supplemental first round picks for a 25 percent share; three first rounders for 40 percent. What good is having a seat at the table if you don't own the table?

The bottom line is this: Brian Flores has taken a huge risk here by launching this lawsuit. In all likelihood, he has permanently imperiled any chance he has of ever becoming a head coach in the NFL. The league has a long memory; just ask Colin Kaepernick. I'm sure Flores knew that going in. All the more reason to take him and these allegations seriously.

As for the parties involved in the suit, including my own Giants: They have some 'splainin' to do, that's for sure.

Memo to John Mara: Forget About Jason Garrett!

Look, I know I've been critical of your organization over the last six years, and with good reason. As principal owner, you've allowed a once proud franchise to deteriorate to the point where, were it not for the hapless Cincinnati Bengals, you'd be in line to get the first overall pick in next year's draft. Even with the Bengals in the mix, you're still the odds-on favorites to get the second pick. That would make two out of the last three years in which your team had a pick that high in the draft, and the other year you went sixth. Not since the '70s, when your father Wellington ran the show, has this franchise been this inept. Shame on you for letting that happen.

But as bad as things are now, they could get worse. I know that's hard to believe given the fact that you could finish the season with a record of 2-14, but yes, it could get worse. And that's because there's a rumor floating around out there that beleaguered Cowboys coach Jason Garrett would like the chance to coach the Giants should Jerry Jones decide to fire him at the end of the season.

Let me just be as direct as I can here. Jason Garrett deserves to be the head coach of this team the same way I deserve to be the starting center for the New York Knicks. Have you watched the Cowboys this season? They look like a herd of deer caught in some motorist headlights. Never have I seen a team this talented be this completely overmatched on the playing field. Despite outgaining their opponent on Thanksgiving day, the Buffalo Bills embarrassed the Cowboys on national TV by forcing three turnovers and converting on key down after key down. Josh Allen in his first full season at quarterback looked like a ten year veteran, while Dak Prescott played like a rookie making his first start.

Of course, the problem for Prescott is that this is his fourth season in the NFL, and not only hasn't he improved from his rookie year, he shows every indication that he's going backwards. Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that Prescott isn't a good QB; it's just that given the level of talent around him, he's nowhere near where he should be. Compare and contrast Prescott's stats with those of Russell Wilson. While Prescott has averaged more yards per game than Wilson - 315 to 267 - he's thrown eight more picks. And his passer rating is 13 points lower than Wilson's, and five points lower than what it was in his rookie season. Put succinctly, Prescott has not improved as a quarterback over the course of his career, and that is a direct result of having a head coach who doesn't know how to get the best out of his players.

Think about it: a team that has Ezekiel Elliott in its backfield, the best offensive line in the game and a front seven that can instill fear in opposing quarterbacks and running backs alike, and they're 6-6 with four games to play? And that's after they got off to a 3 and 0 start by beating the likes of the Giants, Redskins and Dolphins. There's no excuse for what's going on with this team. The mystery here isn't how Garrett has somehow managed to last this long as Cowboys' head coach, but why any team in its right mind would want to hire him for anything more important than, say, ball boy.

He's a terrible clock manager who has virtually no abilities as a play caller. Just last week in a game against the Patriots in Foxborough, Bill Belichick badly outcoached him. And it's crystal clear from all the available evidence that Garrett doesn't command the respect of his players, either. No less a Cowboys' legend than Jason Witten, when given the chance to back his coach, instead threw him and his assistants under the bus. As every sports fan knows all too well, when you lose the locker room as a coach or manager, you're toast.

What the Giants need is a teacher; someone who can develop young players like Daniel Jones and Saquon Barkley. But they also need a no-nonsense coach who will bring discipline to the sidelines. This team hasn't just been bad this year, they've been sloppy. The amount of mistakes that are committed on both sides of the ball are indicative of a team that not only doesn't know how to make critical plays at critical moments in the game, but is not held accountable when it fails to do so.

The play calling has been equally abysmal, both offensively and defensively. While it's true you can't overcome a dearth in talent - not in this league anyway - you can mitigate it if you know how to utilize the talent you do have. A good coach can give even the least talented team a fighting chance on Sunday. But instead, Pat Shurmur and his assistants look like a pack of absentee landlords in a slum.

If the Giants do in fact fire Shurnur and his assistants at the end of the season - as they should - and if Jerry Jones does the same with Garrett and Co. in Dallas, both franchises should do themselves an enormous favor and hire replacements that can bring out the best in their respective teams. For the Giants, that means looking outside the box and going with someone who, for lack of a better expression, kills both birds with one stone.

And after considerable consideration, there's only one name that comes to mind: Jim Harbaugh. Yes, I know he's currently coaching at Michigan and, yes, I'm fully aware that he hasn't exactly done a bang up job there. But that shouldn't disqualify him from being the next head coach of this team. It certainly didn't disqualify Pete Carroll when the Seattle Seahawks were looking for a head coach and I'm fairly confident that nobody would argue that his hiring hasn't transformed that franchise, and indeed the entire city. Were it not for a bad call late in Super Bowl 49 against the Pats, the Seahawks would've won back to back titles.

But getting back to Harbaugh. When he took over as head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, that franchise hadn't made the postseason in almost a decade and he managed to get it to three consecutive NFC championship games and a Super Bowl appearance in four seasons. And let's be honest, Giants fans, if Kyle Williams doesn't fumble that punt in overtime, it might've been two Super Bowl appearances. That's how good the 49ers were under Harbaugh.

Prior to Harbaugh's arrival in the Bay area, Alex Smith was at best an average quarterback. But in Harbaugh's first year at the helm, Smith not only became a solid signal caller, he led the team to a 13-3 record and an appearance in the conference title game, which as I mentioned above, might well have been a Super Bowl appearance had it not been for some shoddy ball handling.

Then the following season, Harbaugh took the biggest gamble of his coaching career by benching Smith for second-string quarterback Colin Kaepernick. At the time, the 49ers had a record of 6-2-1. With Kaepernick under center, the team went 5-2 down the stretch and made it all the way to the Super Bowl before losing to the Baltimore Ravens, who were coached by Harbaugh's brother, John.

The bottom line is that Jim Harbaugh knows how to win in the NFL. He reversed the fortunes of a moribund franchise that was going nowhere fast. He also turned two mediocre quarterbacks into championship caliber quarterbacks; just imagine what he could do with Daniel Jones. Think about this for a moment. If Harbaugh had had a running back as talented as Barkley in his backfield, he might've won that Super Bowl against his brother. Hell, he might've won two of 'em. Here's another morsel to chew on. Had 49ers' CEO Jed York not fired Harbaugh after the 2014 season, as his GM Trent Baalke wanted, he might've been spared the ensuing four years of losing records. There's a lesson to be learned here: great coaches, unlike their general managers, do not grow on trees.

Now before we all get carried away, a reality check is in order. No matter who the Giants hire to replace Shurmur, it will not be an easy task putting this franchise back on the winning path. A lot of bad decision making went into creating this catastrophe masquerading as a football team. But while hiring the right football coach may not be the silver bullet Giants fans have been dreaming of ever since Tom Coughlin was shown the door, hiring the wrong one again could set things back a decade or more.

Consider this. Barry Sanders, the legendary running back Barkley is most compared to, had exactly one postseason win to show for his ten seasons with the Detroit Lions. As tragic as that fact may be, the Giants are in jeopardy of one upping it.

Food for thought this holiday season, Mr, Mara.