We now have six minority coaches in the National
Football League and that's progress. And that's something
the NFL has been trying to achieve in. This is all
happening
in the aftermath not all of it. But a lot of it is happening.
The aftermath of the Brian Flores discrimination lawsuit.
We reported earlier this week that there will be two more
plaintiffs added to that lawsuit coming up on April. The
8th.
There was a Rooney Rule
loophole that I was not previously aware.
Yeah, this and I'm saying surprised it even exists. And
first of all, first of all,
my understanding, the Rooney Rule is,
if you're going to hire a black coach, you don't need to do
anything special.
You don't need to do anything out of the ordinary. I think
the problem is that now that the Rooney Rule requires two
minority interviews,
the idea of locking on to one person and giving that person
the job. Maybe maybe it is.
Not as simple as it used to be because how can you interview
too?
If you go straight to one and Elevate that person? But
the news we saw last night in the NFL, was putting this out in
the NFL, is sticking by this. And I've asked
the question. There's one specific question of way to get
an answer to and I haven't gotten the answer yet, which
may tell me what the answer is. Maybe the answer is leave me
alone.
But
the Rooney Rule, according to the fell stop, supplying after
March 1 because after March 1,
you can no longer do a search.
Includes assistant coaches from other teams, no longer are
those teams automatically required to give you permission
to pill for their coaching staff, because it's March,
our staff is locked in place
for this season. We shouldn't have to allow you to
potentially take away our offensive coordinator or our
defensive coordinator or quarterbacks coach, or whoever
you may want. We
are our team is ready. We're getting ready for the season,
right? So,
so
After March 1.
That's the League's position rule doesn't apply that creates
one hell of a loophole
that Critter that I can't imagine the NFL
wants this to be applied by anyone and everyone who is
thinking, okay?
Okay.
I know who I'm going to hire next.
I don't want to go through the whole charade. I don't want to
fly
all across the country or wherever I have to go to meet
with these people. I don't want, I don't want to do that.
I know who I'm going to hire,
and he knows who I'm going to hire, and he's ready to go and
he's quietly behind the scenes working to do everything,
the otherwise would be doing if he had the job. So I'm just going
to wait until March 2nd
or March 1. Well, no, I'm gonna wait until the moment after
The Rooney Rule no longer applies
and I'm going to fire my coach and I'm going to hire a white
Coach. Rooney Rule doesn't apply and I think of that
specifically Chris, with the Cowboys me right now. So you
think if Jerry
is Jerry Jones rolls out of bed today
and says, hey, you know,
Mike McCarthy is out Sean Payton's in.
You don't have to do any of the stuff.
The otherwise would have had to do. You don't have to do any of
it.
You don't have to have a search. You don't have to
interview anyone. You can just say Mike McCarthy out Sean
Payton in
because that's what the Buccaneers did, but oddballs in
people are saying, well, if Todd Bowles is black. It
doesn't matter. But I really do think that the potential
application of the rule comes from the fact that you're now
required to interview at least two minority candidates.
So, technically,
they didn't comply with the Rooney Rule in past years.
You know, when you when you're higher now, they, yeah. When
they hired Raheem Morris, boom, plucked him right off a Jon
Gruden staff Inside Job, John Gruden's out where he Morris
gets elevated. It's not even a question
because
at that time you only had to have one minority interview,
but now with two. Yeah, they had to comply. Well. No, they
didn't because it's after March 1. Okay, fine wait until next
march then when Jerry gets rid of McCarthy and brings in Sean
Payton
and it is a hell of a loophole that I can't imagine. The NFL
would want to have. No, it is a loophole. There's no question
it regardless in this situation. Great. A black man
and African American who's deserving to be a head. Coach
got hired. So that's good. You're right. They didn't
follow to a tee. It does seem weird. But I guess what I would
say just to,
you know, push back or,
or at least have a conversation with this is,
I think it's gonna be able to be very rare instances like this.
It'd have to be almost like
a Sean Payton type of guy.
And even with that, you know, I think till like the way you
laid it out. Sean Payton, not might not love, you know, or
a coach that's in that situation. It's not the best for them
either.
You know, the fact that oh, it's March 1st. Oh, I guess it.
Take over coaching staff that damn, I wouldn't have most of
these guys here anyways, and they're loyal to Mike McCarthy.
And now I'm coaching it. So like, yes and Theory that's
their
100% And it is a loophole.
But I think it would be rare to pull it off to where, I don't
know if you necessarily have to be worried about this
consistently happening. I guess is
is what I'm But it does seem a little odd, nonetheless, that
after this date, it's like this, but
I think you explained it. Right. I mean coaches are kind
of said at that point staffs are set, you know teams have
lost a defensive coordinator replaced, it. You can't go all
the way they replace their defensive coordinator. Now, we
want to steal
your next defensive coordinator and go somewhere else.
That's where it would be tough.
But I hear what you're saying. There's definitely an issue
there.
I would have assumed that the appropriate procedure once
the ability to interview and hire coaches from other teams has
ended as of March 1, or whenever the deadline was,
I didn't know
when it was. Now I do, it's March 1.
I would think that the proper procedure would be
that if your coach departs
voluntarily, or involuntarily or
involuntarily, but they're making it look voluntarily.
As, in this case.
You have an interim replacement who takes over for the rest of
the year and then you do a search.
After the year, that's the easiest way around this. That's
the most appropriate way to deal with it.
Bruce Arians is out,
Todd Bowles, becomes the head coach for 2022.
And then after the season, we do a search that fully complies
with the Rooney Rule, and that's clearly not going to
happen here. Because balls got a five-year contract and and
look to make this work as a true succession.
It's not a true succession.
If Todd Bowles is the coach and all these guys, guaranteed is
one year, right? Because then after, 22 while Tom Brady's
retired, or Tom Brady's, becoming a free agent, whatever
the case may be.
So maybe we're going to go in a different direction, altogether
with our coaching staff because we're going in a different
direction, altogether with our team. And you know, maybe if
the team
in Brady's last year goes 10 and 7
as
Aryan suggested. Brady gets injured. We go 10 and 7 Todd
Bowles doesn't get the job. So
it's
the bottom line is there is a loophole that is glaring and it
requires just
I mean, look how slow.
Whoa, the process went this year.
And and when some of these jobs got filled, you're not talking
about waiting, all that much longer. No, you're not. You
just want to get around the Rooney Rule altogether, right?
But, but anybody who did, it would be
walking into a PR
nightmare. I, yes, you're welcome. And a nice they're
going to be. They use their
and potential litigation brought by the individuals who
were frozen out of even an opportunity to interview for
the job because you have deliberately found a way around
the Rooney Rule.
And let's see the
Messages, let's see the emails. Let's see.
Let's see what you did to engineer
this decision that
look spontaneous. Like boom. All of a sudden Mike McCarthy
is resigning for health issues on March 15, when behind that
curtain,
it's clear
that Jerry Jones was setting this up
for a McCarthy to Peyton switch. So I just, I think
I agree with you. This is something that is going to be
used, very rarely, right? Whoever does it is Bring into
a PR nightmare potentially and number three,
you may get yourself in trouble with the league or you may get
yourself sued. Because if you set this up, in advance
to spontaneously happen after March 1.
There's a chance that
that the digital paper trail. Yeah. Is going to show that
that you are up to something and you're going to be held
accountable. Yeah, agree. Agreed. It'll let alone like
I think you add that with the risk of not having the right
coaching staff and that being weird
and all that to,
you know, so I think it would take rare.
Circumstances and of Tampa, smart, they'd go,
you know, even with this, go ahead. Yeah, we interviewed
Byron Leftwich. We interviewed by and leverage before we
interviewed balls for the job. And that's how he appealed to
the the Rooney Rule, you know,
they're smart. Maybe that's what they could do there.
I just kind of Pop. You really want to do you want? I know?
But but if you do that, yeah, you're right. Yeah, you're
right. It's like people
said, well, that on fire up. Yeah, right, right, right.
Yeah. We don't really want Byron.
We just, you know, and it's Bowles has coaching experience,
bowls is odor and Byron can focus on Working with Tom Brady
and focusing on the offense, but it's just,
it's a strange loophole
that I didn't know existed. And the league is all in with it.
They've told multiple different reporters, including me that
this that this is how it works. It doesn't apply after March 1,
and
maybe it's always been that way. But they've never had to
admit it. And now, 20 years later. They had to admit it.
That's what I was kind of thinking of it. Just the whole
thing to. I mean, it's just rare through the history of
football, right? I mean you named Jimmie Johnson, that's
one that popped in my brain.
I was sitting here thinking about, can I remember any other
leg? A ones Bill Parcells, right and the 90s offseason.
When they handed it down to re Hanley, the wasn't that
a little bit of a late decision.
I mean, I was 10. I can't exactly remember how that went down.
But would you say Matt Casey? I feel like that he's okay. Yep.
He's I felt like that was like, almost a March decision as
well. Was a little bit like he was coming back and
then all the sudden it was like, I'm exhausted and I need
to step away and they gave Ryan Hanley the job, but
you're, you know, to your point it is rare and I was just
wondering, too just as a Fan. Those are the only two ones.
I can really think of May 15
the IC IC May 15
May 15 1991 Parcells step down from his post as Giants head
coach, right, maybe 15. Yeah, and I thought it was late in
the game. I got
you know, I wasn't sure if I was remembering that correctly.
But yeah, so it's very rare to your point. And I think it
would take the aligning of the Stars like you said of
some special coach
who's on the not a coach or another football team. Team,
you know, sitting on the sidelines there and you can get
them.
But but yeah something to certainly look at in the future here
and it's far less likely to create any type of a problem
for the team. If the next head coach is black, that's so
the Buccaneers aren't an issue here. But if it ever does
happen,
where the next coach who is hired without the benefit of
a search that complies with the runer role as white. There's
going to be hell to pay
and maybe that's the biggest deterrent.
There would be hell to pay if Buddy
in this day and age
in this climate with the Brian Flores class action. Pending
if somebody tried to pull that now,
like, if Jerry Jones decided today, hi, I didn't know,
I didn't know about a loophole.
I didn't, I can't do a very good Jerry. I don't know. How
can anyone not do?
I don't know anything about loophole.
Hey, Sean. I got a loophole.
So I gotta get, I can't,
I can't, I want me some loophole.