A Different Drummer

February 6, 2005

What Does an NFL Head Coach Look Like?

While everyone waits with baited breath, to see if Terrell Owens’ Willis Reed impression is enough to inspire his Philadelphia Eagles teammates to victory over the heavily-favored New England Patriots in today’s Super Bowl, other games are being played in the NFL. One is the game in which ambitious coaches seek to make it to the promised land of head coachdom. The other is a race game. Many observers are concerned that open head coaching jobs go to the candidate who has the right “look.”

Like journalism in general, sports writing is dominated by the politically correct. Some scribes see themselves less as chroniclers of athletics than as race politicians whose purpose it is to help black men succeed, regardless of whether the black man in question is particularly good at what he does. And so, some sportswriters do what they can to suspend the principles of arithmetic, of paying one’s dues, and of merit. Take NFL.com’s Pat Kirwan. Please.

Kirwan wants every black coordinator, the highest level of NFL assistant coach, to be instantly promoted to head coach, regardless of the job each has done. Let’s look at the arithmetic of coaching in the NFL.

Coaching in the NFL, by the Numbers

Each team has anywhere from eleven to seventeen assistant coaches (the strength and conditioning coach, running backs coach, quarterbacks coach, wide receivers coach, tight ends coach, offensive line coach, defensive backs coach, defensive backs assistant coach, linebackers coach, defensive line coach, special teams coach, special teams assistant coach, offensive assistant (often in multiples), senior offensive assistant, defensive assistant coach (often in multiples), offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator). The top candidates for each head coaching vacancy come from the ranks of current head coaches running other teams, former head coaches now at leisure, college head coaches and offensive and defensive coordinators. The coordinators run a team’s offense, defense, and special teams, respectively, including all of the subordinate coaches, for the head coach. Since the coordinators also deal directly with the players on their side of the ball, among those who have never been head coaches, they have the closest thing to head coaching experience.

In a business with almost 600 current head and assistant coaches, 100 or so major college head coaches, and hundreds more former NFL and major college head coaches to fill 32 NFL head coaching slots, that most candidates will never make it, is a simple matter of arithmetic. During the playoffs, coordinators from teams knocked out of the hunt for the Super Bowl have traditionally interviewed for head coaching jobs, while candidates from playoff teams have traditionally had to wait until their teams were either knocked out of the race, or won the Super Bowl. That tradition kept the Baltimore Ravens’ brilliant defensive coordinator Marvin Lewis from getting a head coaching job for several years, as other teams didn’t want to wait to interview Lewis, and possibly lose him to another team, while also losing out on the next best alternative. That is why in 2001, the “New York” Jets hired Herm Edwards, as head coach. Like Lewis, Edwards is black, but Edwards’ qualification was that he was the longtime defensive coordinator for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, which then had one of the league’s best defensive units. And Edwards has been successful in “New York” (like the “New York” Giants, the “New York” Jets play in New Jersey. The teams are called the “New York” Jets and Giants solely for marketing purposes. New York’s only NFL team is the Buffalo Bills).

Eventually, Lewis left Baltimore in a lateral move to become defensive coordinator for a lousy Washington Redskins team. (The Redskins have been crippled for years by their incompetent, egomaniacal owner, Daniel Snyder.) Lewis improved the Redskins’ defense, but when the team failed, yet again, to make the playoffs, it was the best thing to ever happen to Lewis, who got the head coaching job with the Cincinnati Bengals. The once-great franchise, founded by AAFC-NFL-AFL immortal Paul Brown, who had previously founded the original Cleveland Browns, had long been a laughing-stock. Lewis improved the Bengals to 8-8 in 2004, which although mediocre, was their best record in eight years.

Just Hire the Black Man!

In a December 22 column misleadingly entitled, “Coordinators who deserve to be head coaches,” Pat Kirwan suggested that every black coordinator in the league be made an instant head coach, while implying that the work of superior white coordinators should be ignored. The title should have been, “Black coordinators who deserve to be head coaches.”

Kirwan’s lede: “A few weeks ago, I was asked by a GM which minority candidates did I think deserved an interview for a head-coaching position. I was quick to point out five men who are worthy of a serious interview and strong consideration for a position, not because of the color of their skin, but because of the merits of their work and the history of hiring men with the skills they possess.”

White man speak with forked tongue. The general manager didn’t ask Kirwan which “candidates” he thought were best, but which “minority candidates.” The process was corrupt. That is because of the rule instituted by NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, whereby every team in search of a head coach must interview at least one "minority" candidate. The rule is transparent hokum, because every general manager knows exactly who he wants to hire before he interviews anybody. Thus, Tagliabue's stupid rule (like the same rule imposed by his baseball counterpart Bud Selig) forces GMs and black candidates to go through a ridiculous, mutually embarrassing ritual in which the GM interviews a man he has no interest whatsoever in hiring, and the candidate knows it.

Does Tagliabue really believe in his rule? Does he actually believe, that if he forces a GM to interview someone he has no desire to hire, that some magical breakthrough will occur during the interview, and the GM wil hire the inferior candidate? (The rule is exclusively for inferior candidates; it did not benefit Herm Edwards or Marvin Lewis, because the teams that hired them, had decided before each interview that the man in question was the best head coaching candidate available.) If so, he is either severely mentally retarded or delusional.

I think that the rule imposed by Tagliabue (and Selig) is, at bottom, to protect the sport from whitemail by Jesse Jackson and the NAACP. It is also to boost the self-righteous commissioner's reputation among the media and whitemailing mobs, and through that, his self-esteem. Yet another reason is that since Tagliabue doesn't have to field a winning team, he doesn't have to bother himself with trivialities like coaching ability and intelligence. And he may have taken over the implicit model from the corporate world (which has an NFL flavor of its own), according to which, if every company is weighed down with a certain quota of incompetent affirmative action hires, there is a parity of burden, and no one company suffers. And of course, the NFL (like Major League Baseball) is a monopoly, which makes the imposition of mediocrity easier. (Of course, lots of talented but politically unprotected white guys suffer, but they don't come into the calculations of the Paul Tagliabues; they don't count.) But the only reason a business as big as the NFL is vulnerable to whitemail, is because of the cowardice of its executives. If Tagliabue were a man, he would simply tell Jackson and the NAACP to go to hell, and be done with the matter. Multicultural managers like Paul Tagliabue have created a monster.

But Pat Kirwan loves the monster. When he speaks of a “history of hiring men with the skills they possess,” he sounds just like an NAACP shyster. He even talks of "mentoring" relationships. (So, if Leslie Frazier were hired somewhere as a head coach, would Marvin Lewis quit his job, to hold Frazier's hand?) The guy is a diversity consultant trying to pass himself off as a sportswriter. If he were a real sportswriter, he would be exposing Tagliabue's charade, his cowardice, and his moral depravity. But Kirwan can't get enough of it! He doesn't give a hoot about excellence.

As for the GM, he could see what Kirwan is all about. I think he was just sucking up to Kirwan, in order to earn himself brownie points for appearing “racially enlightened” (read: stupid). You might be able to figure out which general manager Kirwan was referring to, based on which ones he gives powder-puff treatment in future columns.

As we shall see, Pat Kirwan isn’t even interested in hiring the “best black.” For him, any old black man’ll do.

Those who support racial spoils (aka affirmative action, apartheid) often go out in public in meritocratic drag, and Pat Kirwan does pay lip-service, if barely, to the merit principle.

Beginning in the 1960s, one heard much of the notion of “color-blind merit.” Some people really meant it. But others revealed what they were really about in practice. They would say, “All other things being equal,” hire the black candidate. (Some affirmative action supporters still say this!) But in practice, they meant, “Just hire (or accept) any old black!”. E.g., practically overnight, the City College of New York went from having the toughest admissions standards in America, to admitting functional illiterates. The same thing happened to the New York City teacher corps.

The notion of “color-blind” qualifications always stood in contrast to racial advantages, which white segregationists had traditionally used to disqualify blacks. However, already during the 1960s, barely after leftists had begun trumpeting the notion of color-blind qualifications, they switched gears, and with black nationalists, trumpeted black skin as a “qualification” (e.g., being black as a qualification for teaching black children, policing black neighborhoods, and ministering to black social work clients).

A couple of years ago, New York Daily News sports writer Lisa Olson engaged in such racial fork-tonguedness. In a long puff piece on a black head coaching candidate, Olson emphasized the man’s objective (color-blind) qualifications, only to switch gears later in the piece, and emphasize that he had an advantage as a black man, in being able to communicate with black players. Olson needed a lot of space, in order to separate her two, mutually contradictory rhetorical ploys.

(The notion that being black is a professional qualification has been around since the 1960s. In his 1990 book, The Closest of Strangers: Liberalism and the Politics of Race in New York, apostate socialist Jim Sleeper spoke of “professional blacks” – blacks who consider merely being black a “profession.”)

In the NFL, two conflicting developments are on a collision course: The movement for racial spoils and the increasing intellectual demands of the head coaching job. Racialists argue that the domination of the NFL by black players requires that the head coaching ranks mirror those numbers. But that is a political (not to mention, racist) argument that ignores what makes someone an effective head coach, and encourages black players to disrespect white coaches.

(Black Patriots cornerback Ty Law has publicly derided his white head coach, Bill Belichick’s, accomplishments. Law emphasized that the players, not the coach, make all the plays. Funny, but I have never heard of a black NFL player pointing that out in the case of a black head coach. I am, however, aware of several incidents in which black players publicly disrespected white coaches. Note too the campaign during the 2004 season by some black players on the New York Giants, promoted by sportswriters, to get new, white head coach Tom Coughlin, an old school disciplinarian, fired. Such a racist atmosphere has existed for many years in the NBA, where the code phrase “It’s a players’ league” is used exclusively in reference to white coaches, and translates as “No white coach may dare impose his will on black players.” The code phrase was especially popular following black player Latrell Sprewell’s 1997 assaults on his white Golden State Warrior coach, P.J. Carlesimo.)

Coach CEO

A head coach must understand all aspects of his team’s offense, defense, and special teams. But as once relatively simple defensive schemes have in recent years become complex, offensive playbooks now run into the hundreds of pages, and the organizational skills required to run 47 players, up to 17 assistant coaches, and sundry trainers and stadium and training facility personnel increasingly resemble those of a corporate CEO, a smarter man is required than in the past. As the average white has an IQ 20 points higher than the average black, the increasing complexity of the job means that fewer, not more black candidates are qualified to be head coaches.

(Since the 1960s, similar developments have occurred in fields such as teaching (and here), police work, and social work, though for a different reason. In each field, leftwing reformers have called for the job to take on incredibly demanding and often contradictory new functions, requiring amazing levels of intelligence and powers of judgment – e.g., teachers and police officers who are social workers at the same time that they teach the 3Rs and fight crime, respectively – functions requiring candidates with much higher IQs than in the past. But in practice, the same “reformers” have stipulated that every black candidate automatically has such extraordinary abilities, and have succeeded at forcing education and law enforcement agencies to hire black functional illiterates. The same “reformers” have also encouraged blacks to openly defy the authority of whites, no matter how qualified, working in the occupations in question. If the Peter Kirwans and Lisa Olsons have their way, the NFL will welcome the likes of Ron Meeks and Leslie Frazier, but close its doors to the Bill Belichicks of the world.)

Meanwhile, as Steve Sailer, Jon Entine, and a few other hardy souls have reported, black athletes are on average genetically predisposed to be better athletes in most popular sports than whites. Ideally, the head coaching ranks of such sports will be predominantly white, while the players’ ranks will be predominantly black. But that fact is political dynamite, which no mainstream writer may mention.

The Kirwan Five

In his column, Pat Kirwan mentioned a couple of token whites – Carolina Panthers head coach John Fox, and former Giants head coach Jim Fassel -- but those contrived references only served to underscore the patronizingly racial nature of his column.

Kirwan offered five candidates, all of whom were defensive coordinators. (Why defensive coordinators? Because at the time, there were no black NFL offensive coordinators.) He listed the Jets’ Donnie Henderson, the Patriots’ Romeo Crennel, the Bills’ Jerry Gray, the Colts’ Ron Meeks and the Bengals’ Leslie Frazier, in that order.

During the 2004 season, Donnie Henderson did a very good job running the Jets’ defense. (Full disclosure: I am a Jets fan, and would like to keep Henderson around a while.) He had a vastly upgraded linebacker corps to work with, most notably #1 draft pick Jonathan Vilma, who was named NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year. (The Jets’ 2003 linebacking corps was positively geriatric, anchored as it was by Marvin Jones and Mo Lewis, who ended the season with a combined 25 years of service as starters. Both men were cut before the 2004 season.) But in any event, it was only Henderson’s first year as a coordinator. When NFL TV analysts kept saying, “Donnie Henderson has NFL head coach written all over him,” it was an obvious case of racial pandering. I’ve never heard an analyst talk that way about a first-year white coordinator, no matter how good he was. Heck, I’ve never heard an analyst talk that way about a white coordinator, no matter how many years of success he had! The Pat Kirwans of the world not only want to trash the time-honored rule that a man must pay his dues, as far as black men are concerned, but they don’t care a whit about quality. If a man gets promoted to head coach after only one good year as a coordinator, he is less likely to be a successful head coach, than if he has a proven track record of success. (I’d like to say that he is also less likely to be respected by his players, but some black players today are so immersed in their own race games, that they don’t know the meaning of respect. I’m talking about you, Warren Sapp. And you, Ty Law.)

Romeo Crennel did an excellent job this year with the Patriots, whose defense tied with the Eagles for second-fewest points allowed, and has paid his dues. Crennel has been a defensive coordinator for five seasons (the past four for the Pats), an NFL coach for 24 years, and has four Super Bowl rings as an assistant. (He also served as the Jets’ coordinator for special teams, but that didn’t go very well, so the Patriots cut that bit of history from his official bio. Similarly, the Cowboys neglected to mention Bill Parcells’ losing 1987 season with the Giants in his official bio.) That Crennel will get the vacant Cleveland head coaching job is considered a done deal.

Jerry Gray has put together a smash-mouth defense in Buffalo, a unit he has run for the past four years. If Kirwan were concerned about qualifications, he would have touted Gray over Henderson. And yet, as we shall see, among elite NFL coordinators, four years are a drop in the bucket.

And the Meeks Shall Inherit the Earth

Among Kirwan’s candidates, once we get past Jerry Gray, things get downright perverse. In 2002, defensive whiz Tony Dungy (who is black) was hired as the Indianapolis Colts’ head coach to patch the holes in one of the league’s most porous defenses. Dungy’s defensive coordinator, Ron Meeks, had some good talent to work with in 2004, most notably the league’s top pass rushing defensive end combination, Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis, who totaled 26.5 sacks. And yet, Meeks did a terrible job. The Colts defense finished 28th out of 32 teams in yards surrendered per game, the standard measure used for defenses. Personally, I prefer the points-yielded standard, but here too Meeks’ unit was found wanting: The Colts gave up 351 points, 20th in the league. Had the team not had one of the most explosive offenses in NFL history, they would have struggled to reach .500, rather than gone 12-4. And the Colts’ weak defense made them patsies for the hardnosed Patriots, who beat them, 20-3, in the playoffs.

Since when does failure get you a promotion? Kirwan emphasized that Meeks’ defense led the league in takeaways (interceptions and recovered fumbles). That’s a nifty stat, but it hardly offsets all of the Indy defense’s glaring weaknesses.

And then there’s the Bengals’ Leslie Frazier. Since Frazier worked the past two years for a defensive genius in head coach Marvin Lewis, you might expect the Bengals to be stoppers. But you’d be wrong. In 2004, the Bengals won eight games in spite of Frazier’s defense. They beat the lowly Cleveland Browns 58-48, in one of the highest scoring games in NFL history. (And in their earlier game against the inept Browns, the Bengals got thumped, 34-17.) They gave up 372 points, 21st in the league, and were 19th in the league in yards surrendered. Frazier’s defense could not stop the run.

Based on Ron Meeks and Leslie Frazier’s respective 2004 records, no sane GM would consider either for a head coaching position. Indeed, the only consideration in their cases, would be whether to fire them! And to his credit, Marvin Lewis did fire Frazier. Unlike Pat Kirwan, Marvin Lewis’ priority is winning.

But viewed through Pat Kirwan’s rose-colored glasses, Meeks and Frazier’s records are lovely:

“So what else does anyone need to pick up the phone and get [all five] in for an interview? Here are the league rankings of the defenses they are responsible for, and it leaves no doubt they can coach.”