The NFL has had some sort of diversity initiative for nearly two decades now. The Rooney Rule was adopted in 2003 with the initial focus of hiring minorities in head coaching positions. It required every team to interview at least one diversity candidate before making a new hire.
The rule has since expanded to include front-office positions in 2009 and over the past few years the league has rewarded teams who develop minorities that went on to be hired elsewhere across the league.
Teams are now required to conduct outside interviews with a minority candidate for vacant quarterback coaching jobs as well, which added on to the change in 2021 to include coordinators.
There have been multiple changes to the rule but some teams are still able to dance around it. At the beginning of the 2022 season, only three teams had Black head coaches: Todd Bowles of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Mike Tomlin in Pittsburgh, and the recently-fired Lovie Smith in Houston.
The Texans have now fired Black coaches in back-to-back years and many critics say that there is a diversity problem in Houston.
NFL insiders Carl Dukes and Jason La Canfora of the Audacy Original Podcast “In The Huddle” talked about the “despicable” situation in Houston and criticized Texans owner Cal McNair and general manager Nick Caserio.
“Nick Caserio, who’s the general manager there, is crap,” Dukes said (11:01 in player above). “And the way he’s handled these situations, what he’s done, the culture that he’s built which is ‘Yes, we’re encouraging African American coaches to apply and we want to have one’ and then you do what you’re doing is just despicable.”
Smith was hired last offseason after the Texans fired David Culley. Dukes said that “was a sham hire and it was completely awful,” mentioning Culley’s 27 years in the NFL before getting a head coaching job offer.
“Lovie Smith is on the staff, Lovie then gets the job this last offseason,” he said. “Both were only given a year. Both were fired. Both were African American coaches.”
The NFL has worked to improve its diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts over the past several years, but those efforts haven’t been enough.
“It’s disgusting to me that the league is sitting back and not saying anything because the league is all about diversity and we want to give these guys opportunities,” Dukes continued. “So I saw the Texans … firing of Lovie Smith and I just kind of shook my head. That organization’s been a mess but where are you at on this with Lovie Smith? I don’t think he was the long-term answer, but a year? One season? This is bulls–t.”
“It is. And look, Nick Caserio should’ve been fired because owners don’t fire themselves,” La Canfora said. “Cal McNair, who’s proven to be a feckless leader, who’s proven to be inept, who’s proven that he can’t do anything to distinguish himself but does much to make that franchise look like the scourge that it is. He won’t fire himself. He should’ve fired Caserio along with this. Now you’re going to let Nick Caserio be a part of the third hire after treating two well-respected African American coaches as if they were just completely disposable one-year placeholders. It’s shameful. It’s shameless.”
La Canfora wrote in his column earlier this week that McNair is the face and human embodiment of the league’s crisis in terms of diversity inclusion, and he reinforced that opinion with Dukes.
“His daddy was caught saying racist stuff on tape and he has doubled down on that with how he’s handled these last two coaching hires,” he said. “It falls on Caserio, sure, but it falls mostly on the owner.
“Nick Caserio’s not sitting in those ownership meetings where it’s only one person – one representative – per team and the league is begging and pleading for these guys to be more forthright and be more equitable in how they handle these situations.”
La Canfora mentioned the fact that the Texans wanted to hire former NFL quarterback Josh McCown for the last two years. Instead of hiring him, they turned to Culley and Smith for one year each.
Culley and Smith were treated as one-year options and it wasn’t a secret.
“Everybody in the league knew that Lovie by the middle of the season was going to be fired and Lovie knew as well,” La Canfora said. “Lovie gave them the ultimate middle finger, mic drop on the way out by playing that game to the hill, messing up their plan, and finding a way to beat the hapless, feckless Colts to ensure the Texans won’t get the first overall pick.”
La Canfora then also went in on the NFL’s diversity “efforts” – or lack thereof – in today’s current climate.
“That’s the state of affairs in the NFL. They can have all their meetings. They can have all their summits. They can have all their diversity conferences. They can’t make billionaires do what they don’t want to do and a lot of these billionaires are not inclined to hire people who don’t look like them,” he said. “Until we get more diversity at the top in terms of who owns these teams, nothing’s going to change. I am completely convinced of it. The bottom-up stuff won’t work…
“Nothing will change until more people with different backgrounds, different experiences, and different shades of their skin begin to be put in true power positions in the NFL; that is team presidents and that is owners.”
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