Fake-Fat Sunny

It certainly is not because I think a great deal of Jauron, but because given Sherman's background and skills it is hard for me to see how he wins here. Sherman ended up not working out in Detroit because they took the GM role from him and relegated him to only being an HC. He wasn't umsuccessful there playing both roles (though usually it is too much for one guy to do well) mostly in my view because the prescence of Brett Favre provided one of the most reliable answers ever at QB (a position which unfortunately most teams and certainly the Bills since they needed to replace Kelly have put too much faith and time into to the detriment of the team and winning football) and thus to the O. The main problem I see on the Bill right now is that under the TD regime he did some extraordinary things both on and off the field, but overall, his primary motivation (either conciously or unconciously) seemed to be making sure that he did not have an HC here that could run him out of town like Cowher did. This led to the dissension of him picking GW over Fox and Lewis (in retrospect Fox is better HC and he should have sucked up to Lewis and his wife to get them here amd then picling MM. He seemed almost passive/aggressive in managing GW virtually not minding if he failed as long as he did not get blamed but really keeping GW on a short leash (as seen in the sorry Larry Centers incident) and with MM, he seemed to exercise too much control as MM ended up being and looking indecisive amidst the dumb decision to extend and then take the cap hit of cutting Bledsoe. At any rate, i really doubt that if Sherman came he would not want a strong role in the GM phase of the game and if he and Marv had disagreements (virtually guaranteed) the media would assure that these disputes were not resolved creatively and positively but they would have tried to sell advertising by chronicling this as yet another mano a mano fight. If Sherman came here and ran the store that would have been one thing, however, to add him wanting to run a ship which between Ralph wanting to more active, and Modrak hanging around already seems to have too many cooks. Sherman coming without having near total control would likely have made this bad, and I mean really bad.

I don't think we want Favre on the backside of his career. Maybe he could drag this team to the playoffs this year, but it seemed likely he would retire this year and its incredibly doubtful that we would not be condemned to yet a new rebuild in 2007 and we try to build an O around whomever the new QB of the future would be. Since the guy following Favre would almost certainly not be able to run an offense built for Favre's unique style and talent it would mean yet another new O. I nave zero interest in Favre as our QB of the future, which is what you are talking about in 2007 if Favre came here.

Not being Mat Millen's choice for HC is almost certainly a great sign, After his selection of that winner Morningwheg and not being able to make it work with Mooch, there is probably no higher endorsement in the NFL than not being Millen's choice.

The Bills problem from my point of view does not seem to be a lack of focus and payment to OL players but having made some bad choices which coupled with bad breaks has produced bad performance. I am not letting the Bills braintrust off the hook at all because it is responsible for the OL being bad. However, the reason you state for this in your post does not seem to match the real events which happened. Exhibit 1: If ever there was a case of the Bills commiting to paying big bucks and because of his lousy performance grossly overpaying him it was for RT Mike Williams. The Bills certainly can be faulted for hiring GW and allowing him to make stupid investments in non-OL position coach Vinky and the non-experienced Ruel, but the decision to commit to a #4 slot salary for an RT they planned to make an LT (and the general consensus among pundits was that he could do this goes against your lack of fiscal commitment to the OL theory, Ex 2: Villarial was an essential pick-up once we jettisoned Ruben, but given his production I think we overpaid him for his worth and at least if not exceeded the market for him. Ex 3: Mentioning Ruben this is probably a timely place to point out that it is unfortunate that we cut him lose given that Villarial is a Ruben re-do at best. However, again the cheapskate thing to do would have been to make him play out his contract. Rx. 4: Bennie Anderson was given a pretty good dime for jumping offside but again this was making a bad choice not a lack of commitment. Ex 5: I will certainly concede that they made a decision not to spend big LT dollars in the case of resigning Jennings (one of several Bills OL draft choices) but thank gosh they did as he proved to be so injury prone if they had taken your approach and laid out the big bucks it would be for him to spend time in the trainer's room as he did in SF. Ex 6: the Bill certainly signed Peters on the cheap and dealt with the meltdown of Sullivan and Pacillo with Smith who came here from the Ravens PS where he started, but neither of these things are bad things in my view as the alternatives where we did make bigger financial commitments would have been worse. Ex 7: There are several examples of the Bills trying to find a good OL player on the cheap like Sobisskit or that highly ranked byt oft-injured guys whose name I forget they signed in the initial TD days. However, I have no problem with signing a guy for the minimum hoping he will play as well as Peters. I would have a problem if they insisted on playing this idiot and generally the Bills have made a habit of simply cutting these flyers. Perhaps you could more reasonably argue that our big expenditures on folks like Anderson and the likely cap hit of cutting MWs undercuts our ability to spend on the OL, However, it will take some fiscal analysis to demonstrate this rather than a simple whine that the Bills will not spend on the OL. The problem has not been an unwiillingess to spend but that we spent badly,

You are right, here we are with an HC and no one can rationally argue that he is winless as a Bill. The numbers are the numbers.

He strikes me as a fine choice. 1, 80% of the HC candidate strike me as about the same, like folks from Marv Levy who stunk in KC and won here to genii like Bill Belicheck was adequate at best in Cleve (and this is if you are charitable about your assessment) and showed what he could do with a good team and good breaks in NE, most HCs strike me as different in the specifics but relatively the same as far as the final results. Of the 20% oe so who are "special" most of the these folks are like A rich Kotite who can lose anywhere and its the rare talent like a Nill Parcells or a Joe Gibbs who have shown the general ability to win with very different types of teams. 2. As a former HC, Jauron has shown some good ability in several seasons that indicate he is the upper rung of the 80% though he also stunk up the joint working with Detroit recently (I do not blame him completely for this as they have much bigger issues starting with Matt Millen( and finally producing poorly enough to get canned in Chicago. 3. The key things for the Bills it strikes me is that after the dissension and disruption accompanying the demise of TD and his passive-aggressive management style that pulled off some outstanding moves, but ultimately he seemed to be about making sure that no HC would ever run him out of job like Cowher did (thus he picked failure GW over Fox for whatever reason and did not work actively to suck up to Marvin Lewis and his wife and get them to come here). Ultimately I think it is most important for the Bills to be a winner is not to adopt any particular strategy, but instead to be a TEAM rather than a team. If Ralph is active fine but his activity needs to be to keep everybody pulling together rather than make some folks winners and some folks loser who are still Bills. The Golden Boys will probably remain on the same page and if Jauron has built a relationship with and sucked up to Ralph so he is one the same page we will be in much better shape than the"|watch you back" approach which came to describe the Bills.

My guess is that they are monitoring websites such as these because it would simply be good market research to know what their customers (and particularly manic ones willing to devote time to sites such as this and buy Zubazz pants (and actually wear them out in public) and buy season tickets are reacting to things. While monitoring is good, they would be silly to allow fan opinion (which is mercurial at best to drive decisions. They hear us but it does not necessarily matter. If anything they can assign an intern to monitor the sites and report up the foodchain as to what is going on.

I would guess the overwhelming majority of fans really don't know. The INTS are not necessarily even complete yet and even if they were folks know they were not there to look these men in the eye, Ultimately, a lot of this comes down to a more rational judgments by fans of do you trust Marv and Ralph or not. I do right now because as a Bills fan I almost always give my owner and appointed leader the benefit of the doubt until they screw up on the field. I have grave doubts about Ralph and Marv but as a afan they get the benefit of any doubt I have so I am on board with their decision whatever it is. I felt the same way about TD. I have grave doubts from the start about GW from the start but he got the benefit of the doubt from me (also clearly my opinion did not matter much). I was happy to also give GW a mulligan after the 3-13 year due to an expected result for cap hell. Ironically, I begin to call publicly on TSW for GW's dismissal after the team's record improved to 8-8 on the field because the other elements of GW's on the field performance demonstrated to me that once again the NFL hiring process had failed and rather than pick the guy who could win on the field (Fox or Lewis), TD seemed more motivated by picking a guy who would not pull a Cowher on him. Right now, the benefit of the doubt says keep the faith. I doubt the fan base is overwhelming toward any point but if it is I think it also is keeping the faith. Actually if we are not I think it says more about us as fans than about Marv or Ralph.

These general theoretical comments (some of which make bizarre generalizations about racial groups which are simply a stupid way to judge individuals who are members of that racial group even if they were true) have little to do with application to the specific case of the NFL and use of the Rooney Rule. The NFL coaches and HC jobs really represent such an incredibly small group of jobs (there are only 32 NFL HC jobs in the world) and an incredibly small group of qualified applicants that trying to draw rules which should be applied to these particular cases from the general stats can get pretty silly pretty quick. In addition, there are some solutions which would create a result which would be fair to the folks involved which have no real application to societal treatment of this issue. Also, folks are taking general rules which certainly are applicable to how government should operate, but they are applying them to how a private business operate and these are two different things were even when the same principles are applied there can be very different approaches mandated or dictated to produce the same results. Its just extremely sloppy to say that the principles which have driven the acceptance of the Rooney rule by this business called the NFL means that the pool of HCs should have x amount of Native Americans, Asians or women, The Rooney rule was adopted and crafted to remedy past race based results where the NFL had hired no or very men of African-American descent as HCs even though a majority of the current and recent players are of African-American descent. I wisj folks would get beyond the idiocy that this rule somehow dictates that some number of Asians, Native Americans or other groups that have been discriminated against in our society are HCs. That is not the intent, thought or practice behind the folks who thought up or agreed to live within this rule and quiite frankly one looks like a moron to insist otherwise.

Agsin the Rooney rule is designed to balance what many feel has been a demonstrable race based hiring practice in the NFL which did not allow many qualified A-A applicants (a majority of current and recent players being of A0A descent and thought that does not gurantee they will be good HCs certainly makes them viable applicants). Yes our society has and does discriminate against Asain-Americans, Native Americans etc. However, the Rooney rule is about the NFL. If you want to make a case that there also is an NFL record of discrimination against Asian-Americans or NativeAmericans I am all eyes and they should be included. If you can make a credible case of NFL discrimination against women applying for HC jobs then something should happen here (I doubt that there are even 17 qualified women to be HCs so that the total HC pool looks like the 50%+ Americans that are women. If you want to make a case that the NFL and its good ol boy network does not have a recent history of not considering men of A-A decent to even be able to be QBs, much less HCs then again I am all eyes. The Rooney rule and NFL affirmative action policies designed to increase the competence of A-A applicants through coach internships and such is designed to reverse a history of statistically demonstrable race base hiring practices by the NFL (compare the pool of qualifies applicants to the numbers hired or even interviewed for HC work or QB use). Further, it is designed to deal with reality of managing a majority A-A employee pool, This management works far better when this player pool has some legitimate aspirations of obtaining the highest onfield job with the team after they retire as players. Arguments which focus on the theory of race relations and employee management rather than the reality of the NFL are simply facile and do not focus on the real world.

This obviously is a guesstimate since there is no exact numeric value for the size of the pool of applicants and certainly qualified applicants. However one would have to be a total fool not to be able to judge that those who played the game certainly comprise a significant number of the qualified applicants (the LeBeau's, Dungy's. etc.) and that since a majority of the current and recent players in the league are of African-American descent the number of qualified applicants of A-A descent is also probably substantial. Does fact that roughly 20% of current HC's are of A-A descent lag far behind the applicant pool? Well, it is a simple statememt of fact that the current % of A-A HC lags far behind the current number of % of A-A players. I think it is certainly the case that not all players would not be good HC's, but the qualified applicant pool is actually larger that the actual HC pool since not all qualified applicants (white, black. or indifferent) will get jobs. Someone else with the time and knowledge of sites to link to can do a count of what % of HCs are former players, but my guess is that when one takes the % of A-A players and subtracts out the one's who are not qualified HC applicants or have no interest in doing the job that a 20% A-A HC number still lags far behind the % of qualified A-A applicants. (This is particularly true when NFL teams have a definite history of actually choosing folks to be HC who in retrospect were clearly not qualified for the job. GW for example may (and I mean MAY) be qualified for an HC job with the knowledge he gained from his time screwing up the Bills as HC. However, it is clear that at the time despite the fact that he blew TD away in the interview he actually was no way he was going to be an adequate HC given his deficits and his skills. His amazing D knowlege makes him a great DC, but as an HC: 1. He really had little offensive skills or feel for running an O. 2. He really was to insecure as a person and for whatever reason did not put together a staff with folks with a past NFL history to match his deficits probably because he was not comfortable hiring an heir apparent or rival. 3. He had an overblown sense of theatrics and tools like the airhorn ended up producing a lack of respect for him among players. 4. He really lacked a good feel for the game as evidenced by a bad record of challenges, some definite poor clock management, and the bizarre decision to punt the ball from somewhere near the enemy's 35 yard line. Rather than hire a guy with the skillset to win the game (John Fox and Marvin Lewis were amongst those available for the final HC opening that off-season) TD instead seemed focused on hiring an HC he knew he could beat if it came down to a fight like the one he lost to Cowher. I think between the large number of A-A HC candidates likely to qualify for the applicant pool, he small number of HC jobs to fill, and a clear history of the NFL hiring men who proved to be bad HC's like Rich Kotite, Marty Morningwheg, and GW it seem a pretty reasonable statement to me to make that even a 20% A-A HC number lags far behind the available potential pool of A-A HC candidates.

The difference that the ciolor of one's skin makes is that American society both by law and practice has unfortunately discriminated against people. This reality has produced not only unfairness (and even death) for Americans in its practice, but has created a disadvantage which has caused their children to start out with one hand tied behind their back. One can devolve into an argument about the level of American socities discrimaination but suffice to say that I am talking about the impacts and effects of fortunately long past discrimination like slavery, more recent discrimination like the Jim Crow laws and statistics that indicate that even today when one compares US bamk rates of giving loans to people there is a racial disparity in these results even when one compares ethnic minorities to the results of the majority community for folks of the same economic level and background. These discrimination issues are one thing for society but are even clearer and both recent and still exist in the NFL. Even tougher for the NFL, a majority of the current and recent workers are of A-A descent and the number of A-A HCs has lagged far behind this pool of potentially qualified candidates. It is wrong to make judgments about employment based on irrelevant factors to an individual's character like skin color. However, American society and the NFL in particular has invested in hiring that at least has produced a result with a statistical disparity linked to race on issues such as QB employment and HC hiring. The Rooney rule and the programs designed to increase the qualificiations of former players of A-A descent and to introduce them into the good ol boy network that really drives NFL hiring are there to increase the hiring of qualified A-As to have the number of A-A HCs be closer to the likely number of qualified applicants in the pool. It has not achieved that yet, but it would be unreasonable to expect it would mere years after being in place when it is designed to reverse decades of folks of A-A deascent not getting a fair shot.

Unfortunately the recent history of the NFL has simply not been that the quality of your work and character easily outweigh the color of your skin. 1. Until the late 80s (actually the early 90s until it became routine) virtually all NFL teams refused to employ players of A-A descent as QBs in this league. It was actually the Bills making use of Marlin Briscoe at QB way back when who broke this barrier but it took the work of James Harris and accomplishments of Doug Williams as SB MVP to show how stupid and against the interest of winning football games this was. By the mid 90s it became routine for their to be A-A QBs and folks like McNair and McNabb have led their teams to SBs from the QB position. However, the history of players of A-A descent being barred from this job is statisitically clear. The sudden change where now it is routine speaks to this past behavior as not being driven by the skills of A-A players to play and do well at QB. 2. The recemt past and current number of HCs of A-A descent particularly compared to the likely size of the pool of qualifed HCs candidates who happen to be A-A (this number is built by a majority of recent players being A-A and though being a former player does not mean you will or want to be a good HC, clearly the hiring pool of qualified candidates is larger than the 20% of current HCs who are of A-A descent or the recent days where there were only a couple of A-A HCs prior to the Rooney rule. In general, it appears to me looking from outside that rather than A-A folks looking at getting an interview as happening "just because they are A-A" they look at it the same way that conservative activists like Condi Rice or Colin Powell view affirmative action efforts (which they are on record supporting generally). These "token interviews" get their foot in the door so they can demonstrate what they can do. They are a chance to get into the good ol' boy network which has made unfair hiring decisions in the past based on who you know rather than what you know. The "token" interviews will almost certainly not result in Lofton getting an HC job, but they can put him on a track to build a relationship with an HFL hirer that gets him a position coach or coordinator job. If he does well with these this can be a fast track to an HC job. I think the token interviews help the process and can get folks an opportunity they would not have gotten under past discriminatory MFL hiring processes.

The results of the impacts of the Rooney Rule are actually too early to tell for sure in my view, but the intial results look pretty good. 1. While the # of HC's of A-A descent is still no where near the size of the pool of likely qualified candidates due in strong part to a majority of the current and recent players being of A-A descent (this is no certaininty of quality but is a significant factor in the number A-As in the hiring pool who are potentially qualified) there has been a significant increase in the number of A-A HCs. It is not hard to improve on there only being a couple of A-A HC' s but the current number (around 6 or so I think) is a notable increase since there are only 32 HC jobs in the world. The results are greatly aided by the most recent hires Marvin Lewis and Lovie Smith producing such good results when one looks at the W/Ls in the recent past and this year of their teams. One can make a credible case of success. 2. It is a mistake to view any "token" interviews as being purely a bad thing. True they do not result in the hiring of HC's of A-A descent (the goal of the program rather those who falsely attempt to claim it is designed to create an HC pool which looks like America- while its nice when qualified Asian-Americans like a Norm Chow get the jobs they deserve, the Rooney Rule is designed to balance a recent past NFL history of discrimination against the racial group that composes a majorioty of NFL players. Though hiring a Norm Chow is nice if he is qualified hiring him might make the NFL HC pool look like America but so would hiring 17 women as HCs and that is not the point of this program). The reason why even "token" interviews are good (though again they are far from perfect) is that they introduce an A-A candidate into the good ol network by which HC hiring is generally done in the real world. In some cases. this actually appears to result in HC hiring. As best as I can tell, Lovie Smith got fasttracked in a way he certainly would not have without the Rooney rule and his getting a foot in the door allowed him to impress the Bear's braintrust and got him a job. While some folks seem to view getting a job this way as being suspect, looking at the support which unquestioned conservative actors like Condi Rice or Colin Powell give to affirmative action programs like the Rooney rule, this is not a problem at all for folks who have seen members of their racial demographic group suffer from years of discrimination. Even a token interview can have the effect of giving a player like James Lofton a foot in the door and he will get a chance to demonstrate to an NFL hirer what he can do. If he chooses to pursue a coaching track and gets a "token" interview as HC of the Bills it will be easier for him to get a "real" interview to be the OC or WR coach elsewhere. If he gets and does well at a position coach or coordinator job then he has the resume to become an HC eventually. So though I see the token interviews as flawed I do not see them as totally bad.

I think the mistake that most people seem to make (a mistake which is fostered by how out society seems to operate) is to assume that there is ONE (and only 1) reason which is correct for describing folks motivations. I know very little for sure, but the thing which I am pretty certain is correct is: 1. Different people have different motivations- Rather than there merely being one central factor that motivates everybody, different folks do what they do for different reasons. Some of these reasons are good (IMHO) and some of these reasons are bad (IMHO) and they run all up an down the scale. Even worse, some folks may share the exact same motivation but do very different things prompted by the same motivation. Folks seem to post as though there is only a right reason and a wrong reason to explain a particular action but it is simply far more nuanced than that. Internet posters in particular (and both doctrinaire Repubs who worship Rush Limbaugh and doctrinaire liberals who worship Rev. Jester Jackson seem to make the false assumption and take the easy way out of assuming and arguing that their opponents are simply at least stupid and probably evil). Folks lose a sense of reality and take the easy way out by not recognizing nuance. 2. The other big error that folks seem to make is to assume that there is merely one motivation for others, when actually the reasons and rationales motivating folks are usually complex and what a doctor of my lovely wife (explaining her illness) would describe as multi-factorial. The answer to you question of why is it is that folks generally want to take the easy way out and either fail to realize or grapple with the fact even their opponents share a lot of things in common with them. For me, despite the certainty which this post may imply, I feel that any leg up that I have is not because I know everything (my wife assures me I do not know much at all and thank gosh she is there to fill in my many gaps) but actually the great thing which makes me feel more secure is that I know pretty well what I do not know. Folks like Rev. Pat Robertson and Mayor Ray Nagin for example seem to claim that they know exactly what GOD thinks and why he sends hurricanes to New Orleasns or will send them to PA. I know I really have no firm clue about what GOD thinks and ultimately what really is right in this life and really is wrong. However, the good news for me is that I know when I woke up today (a true necesary victory and if you blow this one it will be a very bad day for you). From this grand start, my job is to take another breath and to try to put one foot in front of the other. In order to do this, I make a lot of assumptions about what in fact is right in this life and what is wrong. However, though I make these assumptions I am not foolish enough to actually believe that what I think is right it totallty correct and what I think is wrong is totally incorrect. For me life at its best is about discovery and both Rush Limbaugh and the Jester have many things that I can learn from them about what is right and what is wrong. This general view applies to your specific question about the Rooney Rule in that I think the starting point is one of a declaration of a major flaw in the NFL and its hiring practices. the starting point is the recognition that the status quo of HC hiring is unfair and cannot stand. The difficulty is the question of how you reverse this unfairness without also be unfair to those who benefited from the past inequality. The Rooney rule strikes me as a good attempt to address this bad situation by offering up opportunites for discriminated classes by mandating interviews rather than trying to balance off past unfairness with future unfairness of a quota system. To date, since the Rooney rule and programs were created it seems to have resulted in increased hiring of HCs of A-A descent and the really good news (which may b coincidence but the facts are what they are) significant hirings of A-As have been some of the best HCs measuring by W/L (specifically Marvin Lewis and Lovie Smith have led their teams to far better records than they produced in the past). These results coupled with performances like Tony Dungy getting a second shot was HC of a quality performing team, Herm Edwards though troubled this year with NYJ's QB injuries made the playoffs under him and going back to Art Shell breaking the barrier he was not rehired despite producing a clear winning record and leading his team to the playoffs. The events on the ground have made it impossible for opponents of the Rooney rule to argue that the focus on righting past wrongs and unfairness to A-As has diminished the quality of the HC pool. Instead folks atttack the Rooney rule based on their own really inaccurate or quite false descriptions of the motivations behind it (for example some try to claim that the goals of the program are to and will be achived when the racial demographics of HCs are the same as those of America. This is bad statistics. the Rooney rule does not seek to make A-A HCs equal to the number of A-A's in America (just above 10%) it seeks to move the total number toward the % of players of A-A descent in the league. There is no hard and fast number which is success as the pool of A-A former players is not the same as the pool of qualified A-A candidates for HC. However, it was pretty clear to all the partners who make up pro football (the NFL and NFLPA essentially) that having 2 or 3 of 30 HC's being of A-A descent in no way equalled the pool of viable candidates which the former players provided. The Rooney rule is a real step forward IMHO because it adopted a program based on opportunity (enforced interviews) rather than mechanistically mandated quotas. it also set this program up for success and immediate action for those willing to take advantage of them from the aggrieved group through A-A coaching internships which had the effect of improving the talents of the A-A pool and inserting them into the good ol' boy network which has essentially driven NFL hiring decisions. In general I think the answer to your question as to why folks attack this program are multifactorial. 1. Some attack it because they are doctrinaire liberals who are only satisfied by quota systems which do not produce good results at all in my view. 2. Some attack it because they are doctrinaire conservatives who are only satisfied by maintaining the status quo regardless of how unfair the results are because in general they benefit from the status quo (privilege for their demographic group though they fail to see it because they simply assume this is normal. 3. In general, I think folks are insecure and really a bit frightened by things they lack knowledge of and the fear that if they are disadvantaged at all (or do not get an advantage) they will die or not get something and be unhappy. There of course in my view are different and a million other reasons to answer the question why, but this is my cut on the answer to your question. It may be disagreed with by some (I look foeward to learning from any responses they give) and simply out to sleep others because of my inarticulation or because they are stupid. It takes all kinds in this world and that is part of the reason the world is near from my perspective.

First, all signs seem to point to the quality of NFL coaches improving as more people of A-A descent are hired. I think this is true not because A-As are better HCs (there are A-A Rich Kotites just as there was a white Rich Kotite. I think the reason that there is improvement of HCs overall is because since there was year's of discrimination against A-As becoming HC's, the HCs of A-A descent who are breaking through now represent some great candidates who were made to wait or were passed by because of the non-relevant factor of race. Due to the increased focus on A-A hiring guys like Lovie Smith are now getting their shot and a fellow like Marvin Lewis who should have been hired the year his Raven's defense set league records, but he had to wait not one off-season as NFL teams rushed to do hires before they were forced to take him after the SB and then he was not even hired the nest off-seasion. As it happens both Smith and Lewis turned around franchises which had not been competive for years. Your second point fails to recognize that statiscally moving from hiring zero or very few of a group discriminated against to a more fair hiring practice will actually improve the quality of the group hired. This will be true as long as: 1. A hiring process based on quality is pursued in hiring under affirmative action. 2. The group receiving affirmative action includes people who are in fact qualified to do the job. Specificallty using your example, the questuion is whether the ten white employees you start out with are in fact the ten most qualified people. In the NFL's case they are clearly are not. If the tenth white guy you lose because someone has to lose their job is Rich Kotite and the man hired to replace him under the Rooney rule and affirmative action is someone likea Marvin Lewis or a Lovie Smith then clearly the HC pool is improved. Are you taking into acount that the hiring process you start out with is flawd and discriminatory? The NFL has a clear history of hiring (and actually rehiring) incompetent HCs like a Rich Kotite. Most reasonable people also feel that folks like Tony Dungy or Marvin Lewis had to wait far longer for HC jobs that their quality as applicants dictated. The reason I assume that the qualiy of HCs is improving under the Rooney rule and the NFL efforts at affirmative action is because of thse factors. One can argue about everything involved in football, but when one looks at the W/Ls amassed by the "best and brightest" A-A HCs and specifically when you compare it to the work of the segment of white HCs who got canned, the trade off of these A-As who earned jobs from their interviews is a net gain in quality over the failed white HCs who were fired. Do you disagree? On the face of it regarding the NFL you are going to have to argue that the fired white NFL HCs (Marty Morningweg for example) are of better quality than the A-A HCs hired (Lewis and Smith who turned around losers, Edwards and Dungy who made it to the playoffs numerous times with their teams, or even Art Shell who produced a clear winning record as an HC and made the playoffs with the Raiders several times while numerous HCs post Shell except for Gruden failed miserably with the Raiders. In the case of the NFL (what we are talking about here really) affirmative action, the Rooney rule and the hiring of more A-A coaches after they interview shows every sign of improving the HC pool quality.

Actually, I once lost a job applying to be a legislative correspondent on Capitol Hill specifically because I was not a woman. I know this because the Congressional office head who made the decision informed me that this was the reason he had picked a woman over me who pretty clearly did not have as accomplished resume as I ha. Perhaps he was lying to me and the real reason she was chosen over me was not diversification but she slept with the right people, it doesn't matter because what you suggested was how I would react to be passed over due to a diversity issue and I certainly believed that was the case. I was really pissed and PO'ed.. for about three seconds actually. Yjough I slammed down the phone i was on, pretty quickly I looked at it from the perspective of thinking about the many years of discrimnation that women had faced in my American society. It really is quite horrifying for me to remember that though we were founded in 1776 it actually took us until 1920 to recognize the right of woman to vote. I'm sorry, but I have a firm belief though men and women are quite different (and as my lovely wife will tell you I definitiely say Viva la difference) they are inherently equal. It was certainly an effect and outgrowth of the way civilization developed, but I am so glad that I live in a time and a country that honors a woman's right to vote and it is horrendous that they had to live with economic and job discrimination that went with this. Gender discrimination and inequality are still big issues in our society and part of our society (if you think that there is gender equity simply look at the % of women who serve in Congress, maybe the lack of gender equality there explains in part why Congress is so stupid). At any rate, I pretty quickly decided that I did not mind too much being discriminated against as long as the job went to a member of a group that had been discriminated against. I do not expect everyone to react as I did. i was 22 or 23 and pretty sure that I would find a good job somewhere. The true irony is that I actually count myself as extremely lucky i did not get the job. I'd probably still be marooned on Capitol Hill and in DC if I had gotten too far down the Cpngressional career track. As it was I went to work for a not-for-profit working on environmental protection and I loved the decade I spent in DC working for the environment. Rven better, it built up job contacts which allowed me to find the middle of moving to Buffalo where my lovely wife is from but still do work for DC based groups. Living at Buffalo expense rates but getting paid DC rates is not a bad middle to take advantage of. So in the end being discriminated against on a hiring decision pissed me off for about 3 seconds. I was semi-pissed but philosphical about it for a while anmd realize now that I really would not want to work for anyone stupid enough to pass on a good employee for political reasons.

The better and more relevant statistical comparison here is no a comparison of HCs pf A-A descent to the population but instead a comparison of the number of A-A HCs to the pool of qualified applicants. This is a more relevant comparison because if one followed your logic of the HC pool needs to look like the demographics of America, then 51% of the HCs should be women. Sorry, but I do not think there are even 17 women who are qualified to be NFL HCs (if you think there are then feel free to make the case I do not think you can). It's impossible to really say what the number of A-As in the pool of qualified applicants to be an NFL HC is. However, given that former players are certainly a substantial part of the pool of qualified candidates (not exclusively since you do not have to play the game to be a good HC, but it helps a lot) and that a majority of the NFL players have been of A-A descent for quite a while, it was fairly rediculous that there were only a couple of A-A HCs when the Rooney rule was created, Even at 19% the number of A-A HCs still seems small compared to the likely pool of qualified candidates.

I agree totslly that race should not be a factor in hiring, However, there is this little thing called reality and unfortunately race is a factor in hiring and in many decisions in the US. One can certainly make a theoretical argument that the key to ending this counter-productive and unfair practice is for groups which were discriminated against to simply call for fair treatment from here on out. However, this would not seem to be fair to them and particularly to their children as the science based analysis shows that discrimination and racism still exist today in society. For example, there is a substantial difference in the number and amount of $ which banks loan to people of color versus what they loan to whites (or people of pallor as one friend of mine refered to folks who were white like he was) even when you hold income levels as a non-factor by comparing loan and approval rates for people of color and whites of the same income level and history. Similar studies looking at how doctors recommend various better but more expensive heart treatments for pictures white versus black subjects who have the same demographics (weight, age, blood chhemistry, etc), looking at the housing shown to similar couples of different races looking for a home etc. An examination of various environmental problems and their effects on people indicate that one's race is the best predictor of whether their is a hazardous waste site in the same zipcode where you live. Ironically income was also a clear predictor but pme's race was a better predictor/ Race is simply a factor. It is not the only factor, but racism unfortunately still exists in our culture. The NFL IMHO deserves great plaudits for taking an affirmative action based on opportunity using the Rooney rulw and using programs to create more qualified A-A candidates rather than using a quota system which would not only raise more hackles but would create dumb results. I also wish race was not a factor in hiring decisions, but until those who do the hiring in our society eliminate race as and issue it will continue to be one. The objectives studies unfortunately indicate that this has not happened yet. The fact that there is such a wide variance between the number of A-A HCs and the number of A-As in the pool of former players indicates that racist pracitices have not yet ended in the NFL. I think the adoption of the Rooney rule and the programs which came in conjunction with have conincided with a significant increase in the number of A-A HCs and based on looking at W/L and the performance of folks like Marvin Lewis and Lovie Smith the quality of the HC work has improved with the addition of these A-As

Who knows for sure as the media tends to be a lot more about attracting eyeballs so their corporation makes big bucks than they are about accuracy. Of course, the two things are not mutually excusive but what used to be a public service that happened to be a business is now a business that just happens to also be a public service. In the days were station get their realtively small but profitable set of listeners from stoking controversy like WGR or columnists try to get noticed so they can cash in accuracy in reporting sometimes suffers. Ironically for me if this does prove to be true that MM had trouble with the defensive staff it would be consistent with a theory of mine that part of the Bills bad play this year was that a D which returned 10 of 11 starters and should not have missed Phat Pat as much as the D seemed to actually may have lost a little of its edge if they viewed TD and by extension MM giving up on winning this year in exchange for giving JP a valuable year of training by losing a few tough games. I hope that Marv and RWS are not already in a caustic different page about this stuff.

It's Ralph money, it's Ralph's call for good or for ill. This is America after all.

My response does stem from the fact that it is a false question since in reality we do have to leep just one of them. By forcing folks who choose to answer a non-reality question (I;m not sure who is foolishly wasting their time more, those who waste it by answering or those who waste it by answeing to say yawn its a waste of time) I think it really is asking who has more upside. Here I think that it does come down to a choice between Evans and McGahee. The thought that recently great pivotal RBs are more easily replaced that great pivotal WRs is a very compelling argument. Particularly with the MFL and its rules becoming more pass-happy in response to D's becoming better and more sophisticated, a good team seems to need not only a productive #1 WR but actually a good #2 that draws or exploits coverage to make the #1 effective. If Evans were gone, the Bills would need to find a quality WR to make the #1 WR productive or to replace Moulds if he leaves via FA. On the other hand, if WM goes down it would be bad, but if one's OL plays adequately (which our OL has not done) even a journeyman could fill his role on a short-term basis or have a shot at becoming a star. However, looking purely at the player, I am compelled to vote WM here because I think his upside is still untapped by the Bills (in part because of our balky OL) He really has not put together 16 games of reasonable productivity yet and if he does, look out/ His first season was a PUP bust/ His second season saw him take the starting role around the 5th game and he ended up putting up over 1000 yards. His thrid season saw him get to 2000 yards on the ground faster than any Bills, but in the second half of the season he lapsed into a period of non-productivity for several games. Even the best player can expect to have a couple of games where he is stifled by the opponent, but the 5 or 6 games which were not productive for WM this year were troubling. He bears part of the blame for this because I think after he bragged publicly about being one of the best RBs in the league and in the very next game was shut down (I think by Oakland) he let this get to him a bit, However, over the course of the rest of the season, I think his lack of productivity is correctly attributed to Clements and MMM not running him enough (his yards per carry even in these ganes where he did not accumulate yardage like he did in the first half of the season was still over 5 yards per carry). It also can be correctly attributed IMHO to some bad OL play. I think WM still has some upside that an O can really be built around him much as Larry Johnson had shown in KC or LaDamian Tomlinson has done in SD. I just do not see Evans becoming another Steve Smith who is an example of an O being built around him even at his best. As fatr as frontrunner in this poll McGee goes, if you instead asked me the question who is the most valuable Bill on this team McGee gets my vote. he really does special things on KR and tied for the team lead in INTs as well. However, I view this as a different question than the one asked as to who would I keep. As we saw with Dante Hall after his extraordinary KR year and also saw this year with WM getting far fewer KRs for TDs if necessary a teaM can adjust to take a good return guy out of the game. In the long run if I have to keep one player it is probably going to be one who can help you score points as a position player. McGahee probably has two years left to really put up 1800 yards or more rushing in a season and then time will see him playing out the clock. I thinl he still may develop into the player who can do this so he is my one keeper.

No. Flat-out. There need not and I think should noty be a requirement that the number of HCs of A-A descent match the number of players of A-A descent. However, I also stronly believe that there should be opportunity where each individual is measured by the stength of his skills and character (Do you disagree?). The NFL has a pretty clear history of recent actions and current results where instead of equal opportunity based on skils they engaged in hiring and employment practices based on racial descent. Do you disagree that until the late 80s at best and actually the early 90s that the NFL refused to employ people of A-A descent as QBs? Do you disagree that a significant part of the hiring pool for HCs is made up of former NFL players and since a stromg majority of NFL players are of A-A descent then the pool of potentially qualified candidates would logically include a significant number of people of A-A descent? The Rooney Rule to me is a great move that mandates and encourages equal opportunity without a stupid embrace of an enforced hiring quota which in itself would deny opportunity to qualified applicants. Though I flat out diagree with a quota which would mandate that the racial background of HCs match the racial background of players, do you see that this is different from seeing that as the number of A-A HCs goes up it actually reflects the equalizing of opportunity?

It strikes me as a mistake to require that Marge Schott like Nazi paraphenalia be found in the home of an NFL owner BEFORE they NFL takes any actions to reverse a pretty clear history of race based discrimination. The clear history of race based discrimination in the NFL is seen in the virtually total lack of QBs of A-A descent until the late 80s (and really the 90s until there was more equal opportunity and it became routine to see an A-A QB). Do you or does anyone else think this real world occurence was not race-based? Another piece of evidence which is pretty clear to many folks is that though the majority of NFL players are of A-A descent and former players make up a significant part of the pool of qualified HC candidates, even with the Rooney Rule only 20% of NFL HCs are of A-A descent. I and others feel that race based discrimination in hiring and employment by the NFL explains this statistical outcome. If you have some other explanation I'm all eyes so please make a case to explain this real world effect. It being a random outcome seems far-fetched statistically given the racial history of this society and how quickly things turned around once the color line was broken over time with the early episodic achievements of Marlin Briscoe, James Harris and Doug Williams. The effect being based in folks looking mostly to win seems not likely in that there are clear examples of even the Rooney Rule being flaunted by Matt Millen and then him having to can the good old boy he hired because Detroit continued to rack up Ls under Mooch. It stikes me as legitimate that the American government would need proof (like Marge Schott and her prized collection of Nazi parapenalia before it would be justified in denying a citizen of rights. A govrnment denial of right is NOT even justified in this case because though Marge Schott is an idiot she broke no law. However, I think it is quite reasonable for a private business like the NFL to agree to a policy like the Rooney Rule to create opportunity where the NFL has historincally denied it due to an issue like race. Folks who think the Rooney Rule and approach is dumb certainly have a right to think that. However, if they also choose to intelligently justify this thought, I think they need to: 1. Describe how if race-based practices were not a signicant part of the reason behind people of A-A descent not being employed as QBs until quite recently and the statistical difference in total # of people of A-A descent as HCs v. the hiring pool of qualified individuals what is (are) the significant reasons. 2. Is it OK to merely accept the current numbers of A-A HC hires as is with no action or are their reasonable affirmative actions that the NFL should take? (In my view the Rooney Rule of mandating at least on A-A interview and the all important policy of A-A coching internships and other activities designed to feed the pipeline are very good affirmative actions which are far better than the stupid mechanistic embrace of quotas. The NFL clearly recently engaged in racist employment practices (A-A QBs) and still has a current race-based disparity in HC hiring versus the pool of qualified candidates. An affirmative action to stop these un-American activities is clearly mandated and I am proud of the NFL (which unfortunately has a history of messing up simple things like coin flips) for enbracing the American way using tools like the Rooney rule.