The usual scramble of firing and hiring NFL coaches displayed perhaps a touch more impatience this year: Some coaches were dismissed even before the season ended.
But any expectations that all the turnover might yield a more diverse class of coaches were quickly dashed when the dust settled.
In all, seven coaches were fired, roughly in line with recent years.
What is perhaps more remarkable is who replaced them: All but one was white, and the hiring of one black head coach, Hue Jackson by the Cleveland Browns, was offset by the dismissal of Lovie Smith, who coached the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for just two seasons.
Two other black coaches, Jim Caldwell of the Detroit Lions and Marvin Lewis of the Cincinnati Bengals, fell under suspicion in news media reports that their jobs were in danger, but they have held on.
The net result is that the league has six minority coaches (including Ron Rivera of the Carolina Panthers, the only Latino head coach), the same number as last season and one fewer than the peak, in 2006 and 2011.
To some, the status quo might be acceptable, even evidence that the league’s so-called Rooney rule, which requires every team to interview a minority candidate for a head coaching vacancy, is paying dividends. The rule, established in 2003 and named after the chairman of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Dan Rooney, who was the chairman of the league’s diversity committee, came about after the firing of two black head coaches in 2002 — Tony Dungy in Tampa Bay and Dennis Green in Minnesota — prompted an uproar.
But research released this month suggests that the stagnant number, rather than a sign of success, is a result of shortfalls in hiring minority coaches at the assistant ranks. This deficit limits the number of minority coaches considered eligible for the top jobs, as a head coach or as an offensive or defensive coordinator.
The study, released by professors from Georgetown, George Washington, Emory and Iowa State universities, looked at the careers of more 1,200 NFL coaches from 1985 to 2012 and found that black coaches consistently moved more slowly up the ranks than their white counterparts, despite roughly equal performance and skill sets.
“Black coaches are less likely to be promoted than white ones, independent of their first position, their current position, their employer, their prior experience, their education and their age,” the authors wrote in the paper, “Racial disparity in leadership: Performance-reward bias in promotions of National Football League coaches.”
Of course, every owner has his or her reasons for hiring and firing coaches, with a losing record chief among them. Clashes with owners, general managers, other coaches and players also play a role.
Owners also show patience and offer second chances, as in Miami, where the owner Stephen M. Ross of the Dolphins stuck with Joe Philbin even after a bullying scandal rocked the team in 2013, his second season. Philbin continued to lead the Dolphins until they started this season 1-3, then was fired.
The New York Giants stood by Tom Coughlin through a fourth straight year of missing the playoffs before giving him the option of resigning, which he accepted, rather than be fired.
Both were replaced by white coaches.
Aspiring minority coaches, the study suggested, may be encountering a dilemma familiar in the corporate world.
The pipeline of minority coaches, it said, is narrow because those coaches have a much harder time getting promoted at the lower ranks. Without garnering that experience, they may lack the qualifications for top jobs.
White coaches, according to the research, are more than twice as likely as black coaches to be promoted to the coordinator level. By the researchers’ calculations, it takes nine years for a white coach to have a greater than 50 percent chance of being promoted to a coordinator position, and 14 years for black coaches.
Herman Edwards, a former player who coached for nearly 20 years in the NFL, said many coaches were hired and promoted based on their relationships, which is both understandable but also an impediment to closing the gap between the number of black and white coaches.
“When you’re a coach, you’re calling guys you know to fill those positions,” Edwards said. “As a minority coach, you fall behind the eight ball that way.”
He added that the Rooney rule could have a negative effect on minority coaches if teams became suspicious of candidates who were continually called but not hired.
By being passed over more often for higher level jobs, black coaches earn a lot less, too. By the rough calculations of the researchers, a black coach will earn $26.3 million during a 20-year career in the NFL, compared with $49.7 million for white coaches.
Of course, at the head coach and coordinator levels, a coach’s performance tends to be paramount. Coaches with winning records tend to look like geniuses, regardless of their race.
But the researchers found little difference in the winning percentages of white and black coaches in their first seasons.
What is to be done?
The Rooney rule has been widely studied and praised in some quarters. It has also been revised, as it was after 2013, when no minority candidates were hired for 15 head coach and general manager openings. An NFL committee was set up to help identify minority candidates and help candidates of all backgrounds move up the ladder.
But some of that has already occurred without the league’s active intervention. In 1991, 16 percent of assistant coaches were members of minorities, a figure that jumped to 36 percent in 2007. In 2013, that slipped to 29 percent.
“We find no evidence that the Rooney rule reduced the racial disparity in assistant coach promotion rates,” the authors wrote.
They continued, “We find clear evidence of a racial disparity in promotion prospects for NFL assistant coaches that has persisted for over two decades despite a high-profile intervention designed to advance the candidacies of minority coaches.”
Christopher Rider, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor of strategy at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, said that the Bill Walsh Minority Coaching Fellowship, which the NFL established nearly 30 years ago, had been effective at giving young coaches experience.
Brian McCarthy, a spokesman for the NFL, said the league would “look at this research as we do with any study to see if it can help further advance our initiatives.”
McCarthy added, “The Rooney rule has helped provide a diverse group of coaching and front-office talent opportunities for success.”
The authors note that members of minorities do occupy more positions of power across the 32 teams than in corporate America. Then again, two-thirds of the players in the NFL are members of minorities. Until the gap between the percentage of minority players and minority coaches narrows, questions will remain.
