In the NFL, January is the month for two mini-seasons: playoff season and coach hiring season. Coordinators and college coaches are evaluated and discussed, and some of them get the chance to become NFL head coaches. Every year, happily, more diversity is added to the pool of either current or former head coaches. Last year, Todd Bowles got his first crack with the Jets, and this year, Bengals offensive coordinator Hue Jackson is seemingly in talks for his second head coaching gig. And yet, the pool from which to draw those candidates remains disappointingly small.
A newly-published academic study shared by ESPN examined the source of the problem, and you don’t have to go far to find it: though the Rooney Rule ensures that non-white coaches are (at least superficially) considered for every head coaching position, no such protection exists for coordinators.
The study, published by researchers from Emory, Georgetown, George Washington, and Iowa State universities, concludes that controlling for all other factors, white positional coaches are 114 percent more likely to be promoted to coordinator from a positional coaching spot. That’s hugely significant, considering that coordinators get far more exposure and recognition, and thus consideration for head coaching gigs. In other words, when the Rooney Rule doesn’t apply, the systemic bias against non-white coaches is still allowed to prevail, giving white coaches more than twice the chances as black coaches.
The important thing to remember in this study is how they account for mitigating factors such as unit success, age, previous qualifications and team success. Nothing quantifiable accounts for the difference other than race. It’s a much tougher problem to solve, considering a high percentage of coordinator hires are internal promotions. On the offensive side at least, quarterbacks coaches are the most likely to be considered as offensive coordinators, considering the massive emphasis on quarterback decision making in the NFL. Most quarterbacks coaches are former quarterbacks, and most quarterbacks are white:
And because white players are more likely to play quarterback (a recent study found that black high school quarterbacks are 39 percent more likely to be asked to switch positions when they enter college), they are also more likely to coach the position, and then possibly become coordinators, and so forth. They accrue privilege from the moment they step foot on a field, and it only accumulates as time passes.
This is how systemic bias works. It affects the population on so many levels that it seems impossible to fix. The only visible, hopefully solvable problem is the people who argue bias doesn’t exist. A problem this deep-rooted can seem invisible to those who wish not to see it, but increasing its visibility is the only way to fix it — hence the Rooney Rule.
ESPN notes that the NFL does provide assistance in discovering potential minority candidates for coordinator positions, but the simple fact remains that because no one is forcing anybody to take them seriously, they don’t get taken seriously. Of course, the NFL should do more — everyone should do more. Whether anyone will is a mystery.
(Via ESPN)
