Fake-Fat Sunny
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Posts posted by Fake-Fat Sunny
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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.
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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.
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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,
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Just look at Jauron's performance as Head Coach of the Buffalo Bills to date:
Record: 0-0
Record against the Division: 0-0
Record at the Ralph: 0-0
Bad decisions made: 0
Good decisions made: 0
You are ALL so right!!!! Why bother even giving Jauron a chance??? You are ALL experts, YOU all know EXACTLY what is going to happen....Jauron WAS a failure in Chicago.....he had SO much time to prove himself with the Lions and that dysfunctional francshise, why even bother??
Start the Ebay auctions RIGHT NOW, sell ALL your Bills merchandise, yearbooks, future tickets etc....
How can I be such a fool to give this coach a chance? This is the INSTANT GRATIFICATION world is sports now, I need to know RIGHT now how good or bad a coach will be....I NEED TO BE THE FIRST to tell you who will be coach...LOOK AT ME!!! LOOK AT ME!!!!
Ive had it. The knee-jerk reactions on this board has become borderline instantity.
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.
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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.
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I've been wondering, have the Bills been monitoring sites like this and looking at fan reaction? Do they care? Normally you'd say the Bill's should pick whomever they feel is the best man (or woman) for the job. But considering the short leash most fans are giving the Bill's right now, you'd think they'd want to do something to ease the fans concerns. Season tickets are important and I'd think they'll see a bigger dropoff in sales if they go with Jauron. Ralph stated there was no budget for picking the coach. Again hiring Sherman will support that statement. If I recall, didn't Marv in the past make some type of quote, "If you start listening to fans, soon you'll be one"??
The difference I see between the two is, if they give Sherman the job, I think the fan's will give him a bit of a break next year if they start losing. If they give it to Jauron, I doubt there'll be much of a honeymoon. If they start out 2-6 everyone will rip them and start staying away form the games.
If they pick Sherman, we'll never know if they picked him cause they felt he was the best person or because of fan reaction. If it's Jauron. you will know they don't care about fan reaction, or are oblivious to it. In todays internet world, I'd more think it's that they don't care.
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.
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So the Bills will pick Jauron. I know that they won't make the decision on what the fans think. But with the state of the Bills right now you'd think that they might take who the fans want into consideration. In my case, if the Bills signed Sherman I'll renew my season tickets the day after he signs. If they sign Jauron, I'll have to wait and see what other off-season moves they do. I think Sherman gives us instant credibility and I think he's just a better coach.
Please sign Sherman and do it ASAP.
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.
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maybe worse off is the wrong choice of words, but it is more difficult for them to compete in a pool of white applicants only
there's this stereotype that asians and indians are supposed to be "smarter" or something...that they're better at math and science...it's simply not true, however when thrown into a pool of applicants, if they don't stand out to be far above average as expected, why hire them? what happens to the asian or indian kid that is simply average? perhaps it's entirely untrue, but i've heard it mentioned quite a few times...maybe it's a way for parents to scare their kids into working harder
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.
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I'm not sure that Indians or Asians are worse off than whites, but certainly they're not better off.
It turns out racial employment laws, as implemented in the U.S., actually make it harder to establish a meritocracy. Let's say you as an employer adopted some kind of test to give all your applicants. Unless protected minorities do as well on this test as whites, you'll have to prove to a skeptical court that your test is directly related to the position you're hiring for. Most intellectual aptitude tests produce somewhat racially skewed results, so you can't use them unless you like the idea of spending time in court. You can't rule out people with felony convictions, unless you're going to make the case to the court that the particular felony conviction in question directly relates to the position at hand.
Because employment law creates artificial obstacles to employers using standard tests to determine merit, it's more tempting for them to base hiring decisions on connections instead.
Yet another obstacle to a meritocracy is that it's too easy to sue an employer for discrimination. If, as an employer, you're afraid of getting hauled into court based on turning someone down, then maybe you're going to be less willing to interview a lot of people. The whole connection system gets you a smaller pool of people to work with, each of whom is individually less likely to sue.
There are other countries that haven't turned their employment law into a circus, which is one of the reasons you see so many jobs leaving the U.S.
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.
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What signs are those? 50 years ago, the average record for an NFL team was .500. Guess what it'll be next year? .500.
The signs which point to the addition of coaches of A-A descent being deserving of HC jobs on the basis of merit is that teams coached by these men have done well and in fact far better than they did under their previous HCs.
Specifically, Lovie Smith;s prescence coinciding with a reversal of Bear fortunes and in particular Marvin Lewis's orescent in Cin reversing years of poor performance there.
Ny good performance is am using the ability of their teams to get Ws and make the playoffs when the previous HCs could not do this with these teams.
There are a ton of factors which influence whether a team gets Ws or makes the playoffs besides the work of the HC. There results are not conclusive at all, but really switch the onus to those who want to claim like Jimmy the Greek that A-As somehow lack the fundamentals to win.
When one adds in the level of success experienced by other A-A coaches like Tony Dungy and Herm Edwards leading their teams to the playoffs and getting rehired by the marketplace (again not proof positive of competence as even Rich Kotite got rehired after failure) but in conjunction with the good record produced by Lewis and Smith, there is a clear burden of proof on those to demonstrate that there is some A-A failing which mitigates them from being HCs.
Again add to that the odd occurence of trailblazer Art Shell producing a clear winning record as HC and getting to the playoffs a number of times but somehow not getting another nibble at a job.
It is statistically obvious that the total record of HCs will always be .500 so making this point is little more than facile and does not address the point i was making. The point I was making that this record of Ws (even with weight of Romeo Crennel team;s losing thus far) shifts the burden of proof to those who want to claim that HCs of A-A descent are not hired because of some alleged meritocracy in the NFL.
What about white coaches like John Fox or Charlie Weis, who also didn't get the head coaching jobs they deserved when they deserved them? One of the reasons Weis was put on hold was that he didn't have maybe the same connections as some less competent coaches hired ahead of him.
The answer is that the problem here is that GM's and the NFL actually are commiteed to something other than producing Ws as the only criteria for hiring. If there was in fact a meritocracy in the NFL then our own Bills would have hired John Fox or gone after Marvin Lewis hard and recruited him.
Instead, I have felt virtually right from the start (and said so on TSW) that TD's primary motivation seemed to be hiring an HC who could not run him out of town the way Cowher did. Thus, he hired an HC who very quickly to even an outsider like myself clearly was not competent to be an HC (his hires as position coaches smacked of his own insecurity amd unwillingness to hire someone capable of being an option for HC if hje failed, further, he had no real O skills or chops, further he was a butcher at making game decisions like clock management or dealing with challenges).
You correctly point out a real problem that good folks like John Fox got passed over by the NFL decision-makers (TD in this case) but the answer is not to accept the hiring of incompetents like Morninwheg or GW and say too bad to Lovie Smith and Marvin Lewis. or to require that either winning coaches like Smith and Lewis or winning coaches like Fox get left out (Weis is a proven great college HC but there is no proof he is a proven winner in the NFL at HC).
You fail to really acknowledge the issue that the NFL ain't a meritocracy but seem to insist that the only answer is for a Lewis or Smith to take the fallout of this idiocy. I think that your target should be incompetent coaches.
You're dead wrong about this. Take two different companies. Company A allocates 80% of its open positions to the well-connected, while leaving 20% for the best qualified. If this company adopts an affirmative action program, most of those 20% merit positions will go to minority candidates, leaving white, merit-based candidates out to dry. Company B is a strict meritocracy, and it doesn't matter who you know there. If this company adopts an affirmative action program, more qualified white candidates will be excluded to make room for less qualified minority candidates.
The ONLY way an affirmative action can lead to more of a meritocracy is if a company chooses to reduce the importance of connections while at the same time implementing the affirmative action program. This course of action seems unlikely at best.
Rich Kotite is a good example of a coach who used networking to make up for his less than stellar performance. Better qualified coaches--including a number of white coaches--were excluded from head coaching positions to make room for him. In today's NFL, there is still room for the well-connected but mediocre head coach.
Again you seem to be accepting the fact that life will always be unfair and then demand that the no system be put in place which forces anyone besides A-A coaches to accept the burdens of the bad or unfair hiring system.
This view will not work because:
1. The history of race effect NFL hiring and employment which resulted in few A-As being QBs until recently and results in few A-A HCs is so statisitcally evident that it is simply not accepted in our society which has a history of race based slavery, Jim Crow laws and other race based transgressions.
2. Since a majority of players are of A-A decent it simply is bad employee relations and cannot stand for them to not be able to aspire for the highest on field NFL jobs when they retire as players.
In the end, the NFL will be better off because:
1. The first coaches of A-A descent are likely to be well qualified individuals like a Marvin Lewis or Tony Dungy who waited longer than normal for an HC job because of the NFL good ol boy network routinely passing over these men for jobs.
If an NFL owner is interested in getting the best HC material he can find, he needs to look seriously at the available A-A HCs out there. This is true not because these men are inherently better coaches, but because if you are good but you are A-A you may well have been passed over as TD chose GW (instead of Lewis and also the succesful John Fox or Matt Millen who chose the clearly unbalanced and not-ready-for-primetime Marty Morningwheg as an HC.
2. When the Charlie Weis and John Foxes are the ones getting screwed in addition to the Marvin Lewis and Tony Dungy's maybe finally the NFL will adopt more meritocracy in hiring HCs.
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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.
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What difference does the color of ones skin make? Isn't it the content of their charactor that matters?
I personally think that it is totally wrong for the league to have made a rule that in essence says "each team that is looking for a new coach must bring in a token minority" This is self defeating and demeaning to the minority coach. Especially if he is the only minority that interviewed for the position. ie James Lofton.
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.
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I would tend to believe that if a African-American, Hispanic, whatever his nation or origin might be, that his qualifications would far outweigh the color of his skin. This rule is nothing more than a Paul Tagliabue over reaction. A few criticised the NFL, and their lack of minority head coaches, and the NFL put in this rule, for nothing more than to appease those speaking out (which again, are in the minority). This embarasses the NFL, and those who are interviewed late in the process.
Who here doesn't believe that Lofton went into the interview in Buffalo thinking to himself, "I'm nothing more than a fulfillment to a rule"?
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.
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In this case it's because eveyone knows the Bills already have narrowed down their choice to 2 white guys. If minority candidates are interviewed early, then I think they are legitimate. When they come at the end of the process, especially after the press has "leaked" who a team is most interested in, then it's usually a charade.
PTR
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.
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Everytime a quailified assistent minority coach is being interviewed everbody automaticaly says its just a Rooney Rule pick? I guess my question to those on this board that feel that way--- is it because you don't feel that they are quailfied in the first place to warrent an interview. And if you think that about them, would you hire them anyway? Or is it because they are interviewed and are not picked?
If they are not picked does it automaticaly mean that the owner or GM is a racist pig and that is the only reason the Qualified enough to get an interview assistant minority coach--- was brought in to interview in the first place---- was NOT to hire him?
So I guess everybody who interviews a minority a coach is only doing it because they are a racist. Anybody that hires a minority coach did it because they were forced to--- and they are racist. And anybody that fires a minority coach only hired that coach in the first place to prove to the football world that they were right and that every minority coach is dumb. So they sign him to a million dollor contract a year just to prove their point. I don't think so!
I just wanted to make sure I understand the thinking of the people on the board who are upset and think the Rooney Rule is a joke. Personally for me if I'm hiring a coach I hire the one I think can make my franchise a winner and can handle the ups and downs of the position. I interview anybody that is refered to me by the people I know in the business and I don't waste my time or money on token interviews. I suspect that most if not all of the owners and GM's feel the same way.
Detroit thought they had thier coach and hired him. I do not believe that makes them racist. Maybe stupid because if they had gone through the process they might not have had to fire the guy. But they are not racist for hiring the guy they thought that they wanted and would do the job.
Good teams that are trying to make good decisions will use the process that is in place. And if they do then just maybe then they won't have to fire the coach they hired so quickly.
The teams that are not true to the process will be punished by hiring bad coaches and having loosing teams.
The Bills are taking their time and it is frustrating but I think and hope that in the long run they will pick the right coach that can turn this team around. I just hope that if they do not pick a minority coach that you guys won't go nuts on this board with the garbage about minority hiring and token Rooney Rule interviews. Believe me it makes no sense to do token interviews. It cost too much money and waste too much time especially for two over 80 year old guys.
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.
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First, it seems like you're equating "progress" with the idea of increasing the number of blacks by decreasing the number of whites. I take issue with that. The real definition of progress is a system in which people are hired strictly based on merit.
Second, you point to affirmative action as a way of dealing with the injustices of the old boy network. I vehemently disagree. Let's say there's a company with ten openings. Nine of them are allocated to white people with good connections. The tenth hasn't yet been spoken for. So along comes an affirmative action program, which states that one new hire out of ten must be a minority. You know the nine connected people aren't being squeezed out, so that leaves the white guy trying to get in on merit to give up his place. This problem has made it all but impossible for a non-connected white or Asian male to get into an Ivy League school.
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.
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I'd give FFS three seconds before he reversed his love of affirmative action if HE was passed over for a promotion or job because of it.
THREE SECONDS.
And sorry, FFS...quotas, counting statistics and looking at color to determine job eligibility is NOT the American Way. Thats what we strive to do away with.
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.
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As of 2002, African-Americans made up roughly 13% of the U.S. population.
Today, African-Americans make up roughly 19% of NFL head coaches.
Enough said. These quotas are both unnecessary and racist in their very nature.
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.
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Nope, your whole arguement supports the idea that race should be a factor in hiring. It should not be. Hire somene who knows and cares about what they are doing. The whole rooney thing is just plain wrong. I am not a minority yet, and have been passed over for many jobs in my comapnay becaue they did not have their quota for minorities. When I do become a minority, which should be in a few years, will I get to play the race card then? Will I ask why there are so few white minority coaches in the league? Chances are I wont have to, because race shouldnt matter and the person who is the best at that position will win out.
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
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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.
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It's Ralph money, it's Ralph's call for good or for ill. This is America after all.
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Haha once again, we get the patented FFS enumarated list. Last time I saw one of these, you were arguing in favor of Mike Williams.
I think it's a question of value. While I don't think this season is a true reflection of WM's ability, I think you have to take into account how replaceable these players are. The fact of the matter is good running backs who move the chains are much easier to find than explosive receivers and this has been a major trend of late. The Bills managed to get Travis Henry after the first round and he was a productive RB for quite some time. Backs like Larry Johnson and Kevin Jones were late first round picks. While WRs are in abundance in every draft, a smaller fraction of them end up performing the way they were touted to perform. Bottom line, productive running backs are easier to find. Teams often have a surplus of running backs. Baltimore had Jamal Lewis and Priest Holmes on the same roster! Carolina had Stephen Davis and Deshaun Foster. Pittsburgh has the Bus and Parker. Receivers like Lee Evans are hard to replace and for that reason, I have to agree with Holcomb's Arm here.
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.
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Oh because there are a lot of black players therefore all the coaches should be black? My race is considered white, but should I call myself a European American? Please stop with this minority thing, call it what it really is, hire a black coach because "whatever lame excuse you can come up with insert here". I hope we just plain hire someone who cares about winning, and not weather our QB is white or running back is black.
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?
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I couldn't agree more.
It is amazing to me that people actually think that fans, players, or owners would rather have an inferior coach and thus a worse team than hire a coach who happens to be black. (I assume that these are the same people that insist 9-11 was a big government conspiracy).
I'm sure that somewhere in the south today, a black guy is not getting a job at some factory because the manager is a racist POS. But to assume that mentality extends to everyone involved in pro football coaching (and everywhere else) is just crazy IMO.
If people are so convinced that racism is SO prevalent that a black person can rarely be considered for a job he/she is qualified for, doesn't that stand to reason that the vast majority of people are in fact racist? (Surely it can't be a handful of racists who just happen to be doing all the hiring, can it?) So does that mean that people who believe this consider the majority of their friends, family and acquaintances to be racists? If that's really the state of our country, it can't all be on the other guy, right? Sorry, but I'm not buying it.
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.
Why I am not bummed at all Sherman is not coming
in The Stadium Wall Archives
Posted
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.