just one day after we reported last night that there will be
two new plaintiffs added to the Brian Flores race
discrimination lawsuit. When the complaint is amended on
April 8 and two new teams
that will be specifically named as defendants with some
allegations. Focus directly at the owners of those teams don't
know who yet, but we will soon enough. The NFL trying to do
its best to address
the issues that it has with diversity, in coaching.
And one of the problems.
Is there's no diversity in ownership a statement issued today?
And this is it in its entirety. It's short. It's just a couple
of sentences. The NFL member clubs support the important
goal of increasing diversity among ownership, accordingly
when evaluating a prospective ownership group of a member
Club pursuant to League policies.
The membership will regard it as a positive and meaningful
Factor. If the group includes diverse individuals, who would
have a significant Equity stake in an involvement with the club
including serving
as the controlling owner
of the club.
That's good. Make sense.
In theory,
end of the day, though,
when it's time to sell the team. And this is one of
the problems I have with NFL ownership generally and it
really crystallized for me earlier this year with some of
the crap that's gone on.
There's one
characteristic that matters.
Do you have the money?
Are you the highest bidder? Can you make the current seller
even richer than he, or she already is who puts the best
offer on the table with the Broncos?
For example,
it's a trust that selling this team. They have a fiduciary
obligation to get the maximum return, doesn't matter. If your
ownership group is diverse, doesn't matter
if the people who are buying the team know anything about
football, doesn't matter if they'll be good stewards for
the organization. All that matters is do they have
the most money.
Until those rules change until that fundamental reality changes,
none of us can change. You know what? There's going to make
a different terrain.
If you have two groups, they're offering the same amount of
money. That's where it's going to make a difference. And
here's what's going to happen. Now,
every group is going to have and
maybe this is the best
way for this to be
turned into action. They're going to work to make sure if
you want to be a viable, bitter unless you're ready to
overspend and offer more than anyone else. If you want to be
a viable, bitter, you need to have diversity in your own.
It group that you put together from the get-go.
So maybe that's where this will have benefit. There will be
more diversity in these groups. There will be diversity in
every group and maybe eventually there will be
a controlling owner who is black. The problem is, it's hard to
find anybody at this point.
Who's got the money to buy one of these teams, you're talking
about 30 percent of the purchase price that you
basically have to Handover in cash. You can only borrow up to
a billion dollars. So you got to be able to get a bunch of
other owners together, unless you're going to buy the whole
thing yourself. It's
not going to be easy
and if we end up with two or three or four blocks, A
Connors, is that really going to solve the problem? If
the issue is that the white owners are gravitating toward white
coaches. It's not going to solve the problem. It's going
to take a little bite out of it at best.
Well that that was the Mars Smith's point of
having a black owner, may not change things. That doesn't
necessarily fix the NFL's problem. The NFL has a bigger
problem than that that you know
mother changes need to be made in mindset around the league.
Not just with one owner coming in. That's not going to change
what's gone on in this league for a long time.
Yeah, and
here's the bottom line.
They have a problem. It's been hiding in plain sight. The
lawsuit that was filed by Brian Flores on February 1 is
something that has been there for anyone who was willing
to as a practical matter trade in his career as an NFL head
coach because we know how this goes. Ask Colin Kaepernick ask,
Brian Flores. Once you decide to stick your finger in the eye
of big Shield, you are persona. Non grata.
There are always going to find a way to not hire, you
and hire somebody else, and they will spend whatever
bullcrap narrative, they want to justify it. And there's
Always plenty of people like us in the media who will pass that
stuff along. Sometimes we realize we're being
used and manipulated. Sometimes we don't realize we're being
used to manipulate but that's the way it goes. So Flores was
the first and I'm encouraged that to others are going to do
it. I hope at the end of the day every black coach who
believes that he was wrongfully passed over for head coaching
job will line up and join this lawsuit because you
know what, you mean, they can't retaliate against all of them.
They can't blackballed all of them. They can't shun
all of them. So hopefully
that's what The truth come out. And that's why I keep coming
back to this idea. That on one hand. The NFL is saying, well
we're committed
to change, we're committed to growth. We're committed to
progress and then on the other hand, they say it. But you know
what? That lawsuit that
would rather take in open court. Mmm-hmm.
No, no,
private, private arbitration. We'd like to
we'd like to keep our dirty laundry.
Away from prying eyes. You can't have it both ways. You
can't say, we got a problem. We want to fix,
but you know what? We're going to fix it on our own.
We don't need any Outsiders telling us how bad it is or
what we need to do about it. That is offensive to me that
they're going to try to pull this off and hopefully we'll
keep banging that drum as this case unfolds. I know I plan to
well and thankfully
Mike Tomlin hired Brian Flores to and he's talked a lot about
that this week, Mike. I can end it was good to see and he said,
he didn't want to leave Brian for is out there on an island
and let's, let's face it. Brian Flores is over qualified for
the position. He's in, he's going to help the Steelers.
There's no question
about that and the job that he's in,
but he deserves to be a head coach in this league and
probably will never get that chance again, but I'm glad Mike
that he's getting to continue his career with with Mike
Tomlin. That's fantastic for him and fantastic for
the Steelers.
It's not so fantastic for Brian Flores, but at least he is
getting too coach. I know he loves to do
and this is an impressive.
Breaking ranks type of a move by the Steelers because
the Rooney family very close to the mara family and the lawsuit
against John, Mara against the Giants for
not hiring Brian Flores and Mara upset, and not going to
settle, and it's false claims. And, and now you got your
close friend and common family member Art. Rooney given Brian
Flores a job. I mean, it just shows you what the Steelers
did. Here was number one, the right thing to do.
Over to a bargain for them because they got a great coach
to add to their staff. And number three. It required are
true. Need to be willing to have some awkward interactions
at some point. Inevitably family interactions. Like why
are we,
you know, John's kind of pissed art that you did this. I'm sure
that conversation
is going to happen. Even if it even, if it isn't conjugated
that way, either John's kind of pissed or John could be pissed
or
it creates issues that people would rather not deal with.
I applaud Art Rooney for dealing with it, the NFL Also, dealing
with the issue of lack of diversity and coaching staffs
by
requiring a minority or female coach to work as an offensive
assistant. And, you know, the I'm sorry, but
I'm glad they're doing this, but the fact that they have to
do it doesn't it just show you how bad it is. If you have to
require them to do what they should be doing anyway.
Yes, absolutely, Mike. That's the whole point of you should
be doing this, and I don't know if it's most many teams do
this.
But but they all should be doing this and it's obvious
that not all of them have been doing this or they wouldn't
have to put a rule in that that makes them do this. So it's
a one-year deal
for whoever they hire and we'll see how this plays out. But
like, they've tweaked this, Rooney Rule so many times and
nothing has helped. It's a mindset and until you. That
mindset. Nothing is going to change and I don't know what
the answer is but they've tried everything. They
now they're doing another committee with a lot of outside
people from outside the NFL and now they're trying this.
I don't know what the answer is. I don't have the answers, but
the NFL certainly doesn't have the answers
either.
You know, what they should do, if they really want to try to
fix this problem and create more opportunities for minority
coaches and candidates. At least for now. At least for
now. I'm not saying that this needs to be permanent.
But they should at least for now, say, hey, you know what?
No kids of coaches, get employed by any team.
Dad's the head coach
Dad's doing pretty well
kid. Can go find some other line of work because this nepotism
is one of the things that's causing a lot of these jobs to
go to people that don't necessarily deserve them. You
can't tell me that these, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
There's and here's why it happens. It's very simple
explanation. There's two reasons for it. Shereen number
one.
Owners have their kids working for the team.
So, it's hard for the owners to feel that they're
not being hypocritical if they don't like coaches hire
coaches, but that's where you need to be able to sit down
with the coach and say, hey look, I own the team.
I'm going to die. Someday.
I'd rather have my kid. Take over the business
then sell it. So I'm trying to
teach my kids how to run this thing.
We own it. You don't, you may think you do
but you don't, you work for me and your kid works for me,
unless I say you can't hire your kid.
And these owners, I don't know if they allow themselves to get
bullied by the coaches, or the circumstances or what into
thinking that it's, it's not hypocritical.
There's a fundamental difference between ownership
and being an employee. And secondly,
the coaches like to do it because this is the Cat's in
the Cradle Redemption. This is Dad was gone all the time. Dad
was never around Mom, raise the kids.
Dad's at work sleeping in the office three nights a week and
now all of a sudden, kid grows up
my boys just like
Me, you know, I'm not going to sing it but they, you know,
it's and and hey come work with Dad and we get to be together
20 hours a day. Now we make up for all that lost time. I've
had a coach explain that, to me, that that's why it happens.
It's an opportunity to reconnect with a kid that you
don't really know and you're together all the time. So
I understand why it happens.
But every one of them, as long as the coaches are
predominantly white, every one of those jobs that go out on
a basis of nepotism, going to go away coaches. So, I'm saying,
it doesn't have to be permanent.
But at some point, if they stop that,
At least temporarily
it does. Create opportunities
for people who aren't going to have an inside track to the job
because they're a DNA match for the current head coach
any well and it happens all over the league. Mike. You're
exactly right and that is the reason it happens. I've had
coaches tell tell me that as well, that they didn't get to
spend enough time with
their kids growing up and
now they get to have their kid have time with their kid that
they didn't know growing up and they get to get to know him and
really meet him for the first time to be around them all
the time. So they
Like that and feel like they're doing a good thing, but it does
isn't a good thing. I don't think long-term for the leak.