Baltimore Ravens safety Kyle Hamilton took note when two of the three Black first-year full-time head coaches in the NFL were fired: Jerod Mayo by the New England Patriots immediately after the final regular-season game, and Antonio Pierce by the Las Vegas Raiders two days later.
“I don’t want to make it a bigger thing than it is, but at the same time, yeah, it is tough to see coaches who are minorities and earned that job, and respected retired athletes, as well — obviously sad to see those guys go," Hamilton said in the wake of those changes. “Black coaches may have a shorter leash."
More than 90% of the 65-plus Black NFL players surveyed by The Associated Press over the past seven months were encouraged to have seen the number of Black head coaches in the league rise to seven last offseason. But with the departures of Mayo and Pierce, and the hiring of Aaron Glenn by the New York Jets, that number is back down to six, pending the New Orleans Saints' choice for the last opening.
Something several players mentioned — most before Pierce (who originally coached on an interim basis) and Mayo lost their jobs 17 games into the full-fledged gig — was a sense that Black coaches who get a shot need to be successful right away or risk being gone quickly.
“Sometimes,” Chargers linebacker Chris Rumph observed, “they put them in positions where they don’t give them time.”
That, in turn, creates added pressure in a role that already comes with plenty of it.
"As they get hired, do they have the leeway to turn a program around? Rather than starting brand new and saying, ‘You’ve got a year, that’s the end of it,'” said Pittsburgh Steelers defensive tackle Cam Heyward, who has played his entire 14-year career for Mike Tomlin.
“You see it around the league, sometimes: It is surprising when some coaches get fired," Heyward said. "You're like, ‘Man, if they had just stayed with the program and built it up, it could have been something.’”
Since 2000, according to an AP tally, eight of the league's 19 head coaches — 42% — who were fired after their first full season were Black.
In that same span, 31 of 173 new NFL head coaches — 18% — were Black.
“I like to try to think optimistically and think that if a Black head coach either doesn’t get the opportunity or gets fired, it’s because he wasn’t as qualified as the next candidate or he just didn’t get the job done — versus the color of his skin being relevant,” Washington Commanders receiver Terry McLaurin said. “Unfortunately enough, I feel that, sometimes, Black head coaches or Black coaching candidates might have to prove themselves a little more just to get that opportunity or just to stay in the job.”
Ronnie Stanley, a Ravens offensive lineman who's played nine years of professional football, was among the nearly 40% of the players who told the AP they have thought about trying to coach.
He said the scarcity of jobs and track record of brief tenures means it “makes 100% sense” that Black coaches who get a chance to run a club in the pros would find themselves feeling on the spot.
“You have to be in a good place, where whoever is in charge of you has to understand that position and not put more undue pressure,” Stanley said. “There’s enough pressure there on that position.”
Players also raised the issues of representation — and, possibly, connection — when discussing a league in which more than 50% of the athletes are Black and about 20% of the coaches are.
“I don’t think the color of your skin dictates how good of a coach you are. But it would be naïve to think that a Black coach, especially in a Black-dominated profession, wouldn’t understand some things about another Black person that the best white head coaches would never understand — from upbringings to mentalities to family dynamics. Those are just things you can’t quantify," Washington's McLaurin said.
“Does that equate to wins and losses? That’s up in the air,” he said. "But having more candidates who can relate to players on different scales, not just football, is extremely important.”
Brandon Brown, the director of The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES), which publishes gender and race report cards grading various leagues, understands why NFL players would notice — and maybe be bothered by — the percentages of athletes vs. head coaches.
“Representation and identification is extremely important. It becomes even more of an issue when there’s a drastic misrepresentation from a player’s perspective. Wanting to interact with like-minded people is fair for any walk of life. That just goes with any part of society,” Brown said. “The players have a right to … want to have more representation.”
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AP Sports Writers Will Graves, Joe Reedy and Noah Trister contributed.
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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl
Howard Fendrich, The Associated Press
