I haven’t heard that any coaches accepted payments to lose, but that they were allegedly offered dough, which would be plenty bad enough. You’d think that it would be hard for a coach to deliberately tank without his assistants and some players realizing what was going on.
Regardless, the owners brought this on themselves by tap-dancing around the Rooney Rule and not hiring black coaches who offer at least as much ability as the guys they routinely hire, fire and recycle.
When fans are chanting and holding signs that say “Suck for Luck” you aren’t going to lose them for this. Fans were saying “Tank for Tua” in Miami. They understand sucking one year and getting a great draft pick is better than being mediocre year after year. It will not end the NFL. It sucks for coaches who are expected to lose and then get fired for their losing record.
There should be more diversity in coaching. That doesn’t mean the Giants did something wrong. They hired the assistant GM from the Bills as their GM. He hired the Bills OC for head coach. I’m sure that he had faith and trust in the coach he worked with. He should hire someone else he doesn’t know off of an interview? This is the first time I’ve felt good about the Giants leadership in a long time.
The tanking accusation is thermonuclear, while the allegations of racial bias are (unfortunately) old hat. (I believe they’re accurate, and important, but the story is decades old and just doesn’t have the same impact.) By coming out with both stories at the same time I fear he’s diluting them both.
Jackson is backing off his claims.
Hue Jackson clarifies claim Browns offered him money to lose (nypost.com)
Turns out all he’s saying is that Cleveland had “a four-year plan that said nothing about winning until Years 3 and 4”.
“There was a four-year plan that was crafted,” he said. “I have documentation of that I think any coach would cringe at if he saw it, because it talked about things that had nothing to do with winning — aggregate rankings, being the youngest team, having so many draft picks. None of those things are what lead to winning. Teams that win don’t have a lot of draft picks. Teams that win, they’re not just the youngest team, not to say that they can’t win.
“But I didn’t understand the process. I didn’t understand what that plan was. I asked for clarity. I asked ‘What is this?’, because it did not talk about winning and losing until Year 3 and 4. That told you right there that something was incorrect, and I still couldn’t understand it until I saw the team that I had. And being in the midst of it, and understanding the team that I had, and understand that at the end of the year there’s this money that’s coming in …”
Hue Jackson was self-serving and less than honest?
I’m shocked, shocked! Well, not that shocked
They chose their head coach 2 days before interviewing someone for the job of head coach. Frankly, if the GM was thinking the Bills OC should be their new coach, before interviewing anybody… that’s the purpose of the Rooney Rule. To give people who are not already part of the in crowd a legitimate opportunity.
This is why high level rooms are filled with white men, because the white men in charge put their faith and trust into people who remind them of themselves, who then are in a position to become the new white men in charge.
It’s also why a lot of franchises get mired in mediocrity - they make the same retread hires and pick people that fit the same molds time and time again. They do the same thing every few years and amazingly expect different results each time.
So they did nothing “wrong” in the sense of violating laws or league rules. But they’re doing themselves and their fans a disservice by zeroing in on a coach and GM without due consideration. I know pre-season is coming up, but, to be honest, a few extra months spent getting the right people is better than having to do this song and dance again every couple years.
If anything Flores is (or was) part of the in crowd. Another fired losing coach looking to be recycled as a head coach with a new team. Brian Daboll is the talented newcomer being offered his first shot at being a head coach because of the great work he did with the Bills. Sure he had an advantage. The advantage was working directly with the newly hired GM who recognized his talents and knew he could work with him. Explain how that is wrong.
Doesn’t matter. The NFL has partnerships with gambling entities. Pay to lose for any reason is a huge conflict of interest and a major legal conundrum for the league.
It’s not wrong in the sense of making a bad decision for the future of the NY Giants.
It’s wrong in the sense that the NFL has a rule put in place to combat the entrenched racism present in the hiring of NFL executives. Racism that is strengthened by white ownership relying on personal connections with people who are like themselves. The NFL doesn’t have a problem with talented White OCs getting an opportunity to be a head coach. It happens ALL THE TIME. The NFL has a problem with Black coaches getting opportunities, and this is yet another example of a black coach not getting an opportunity, despite the fact that the Giants offered him an interview.
Sham interviews that happen only to check boxes are bullshit. Whether it’s for a head coach position or that junior accountant job that is going to some VP’s nephew but “the process” requires an outside search.
I’m not saying the Giants needed to hire this person or that person, but they gave a man a sham interview, and for that reason alone, they were wrong.
Talk of The Rooney Rule has reminded me of the time, many years ago, when I was with some friends at a jazz club in Pittsburgh. I pointed out that Dan Rooney was sitting at a table near us.
One of my friends doubted me, saying the guy looked like a generic old white guy. I pointed out that this generic old white guy was sitting with three young black men, each with a neck as big as my waist.
/hijack
There is absolutely no way to combat sham interviews. There will be GMs that have a strong feeling about a certain candidate before interviews. Shining a spotlight on the lack of diversity will help and I do believe that several vacancies will be filled with minority coaches during the off season.
I was shocked when Flores was fired. I expected him to be hired right away by another team. Then the stories came out about the disfunction within the organization. I’m sure he feels none of it was his fault but I wouldn’t touch him with a ten foot pole. Bill Belichick is the only one who can completely dictate what happens on a team. Brian Flores is not Bill Belichick. I wouldn’t want a coach that gets into power struggles with the owner and GM.
I’m not completely tuned in to everyone up for coaching positions currently. I have been following Mike McDaniel. I happen to be a big fan of the SiriusXM comedy show The Bonfire. Dan Soder is Mike McDaniel’s best friend from middle school so he mentions him a lot. McDaniel is currently being interviewed by Miami. He deserves a shot. His running schemes with the Niners were brilliant. Deadspin recently had an article with the byline, “Please stop and think before you inadvertently dub another young, white guy as the next hot NFL coaching prospect.” The article made the central issue of his hiring to be his race. Then it blew up in their face when people pointed out that a quick google of his interviews shows him talking about being biracial with a black father. Good on Deadspin for not hiding the article but just putting a clarification upfront.
49ers’ Mike McDaniel is not worthy of a head coaching gig yet (deadspin.com)
From what I’ve seen, the struggles revolved around him refusing to do unethical things. (poach another team’s quarterback and lose on purpose) Sounds like a guy with integrity rather than someone who is dysfunctional.
Yes that is currently his story after the other stories came out. Stories like him not speaking with the front office and being in an ongoing battle with his own quarterback. Both sides have their story and both stories are different. Neither of us know the truth since we weren’t there.
Since race has become a central issue to the story it should be pointed out that Flores’ boss was the General Manager of the Dolphins Chris Grier. Grier has been with the team for several decades and has been the GM since 2016. He doesn’t seem to have a problem working with other coaches. He also happens to be black. One of seven black general managers in the NFL. Currently the NFL has more diversity in the front office than in the head coaching ranks.
Belichick’s texts strongly suggest that the Giants had already decided on Daboll prior to Flores’s interview; the fact that Belichick also cites the Bills (the team where Daboll was, at that moment, still employed as OC) as a source for his information suggests that the Giants had already informed the Bills that they intended to hire Daboll away.
And, that’s what’s wrong here. Daboll may well be the best guy for the job, and may well be an awesome coach. While, hypothetically, Flores could have blown away the Giants in his interview, and gotten them to change their mind, the texts tell a story that the Giants had already made up their minds, and that Flores was being given an interview solely to check the Rooney Rule box.
Yes the former Assistant GM of the Bills who is the new GM of the Giants knew that he was going to hire the OC of the Bills who he has worked with to build the Bills into a winning team. No interview would change that and nothing should force that to change. There are other situations with other teams where the openings are wide open for someone to come in and dazzle.
Old joke: “The worst thing about women drivers is the way they always turn out to be men just after you criticized their driving to your wife.”
The Rooney Rule isn’t supposed to be about punishing black coaches by making them the target of pretend interviews. The Giants decided who they were going to hire… that’s great, announce it, and take your Rooney Rule lumps like adults.
Instead, the Giants made a decision to hold an interview after deciding who they were going to hire. That isn’t right.
Well said. If you know who your guy is before doing any interviews, then don’t pretend that it’s an open competition. Pay the fine, and move on, without making a mockery of the system.
I guess my question is would someone like Flores be covered by the Rooney Rule? Or should he be? After all, he was a just fired head coach, so he had had a chance. Whether or not it was a good chance doesn’t affect the Giants.
I guess my level of outrage is tempered by the commonality of both the public and private sector putting up positions they have no intention of filling except by one pre-determined person. It may be bad for a team to stick with the same group of people, but that’s not my problem as a fan other than to the degree it makes for a bad team.
And there were a lot of comments some places along the lines of “Of course it was racism. No white coach would have been fired after a season like that.” To which all I can say is that Marty Schottenheimer immediately comes to mind.