[aeneas1]

perusing twitter yesterday i came across a post by a black guy who responded to a tweet announcing that the chargers had just hired staley to be their hc, the guy wrote:

"I guess there aren’t any Black Sean McVay types available."

it was as sobering as it was short.

i responded that i wondered if olsen, taylor, lafleur or staley would have been snatched up as quickly as they were if they were black and coached under mcvay, that i'd like to think so, but it was tough given that after three stellar seasons as the chiefs oc, and a lengthy nfl resume, bieniemy continues to get passed over.

the guy responded:

"My point was that you don’t normally hear of young minority “genius” candidates with offensive or defensive acumen. That label is only for whites."

and he's right.

in fact i came this article from 2018, published right before the rams/patriots super bowl, which speaks directly to this:

Modiano: The 'White Genius Coach Awards' that expose white privilege in NFL pipeline
By Chuck Modiano Feb 02, 2019 at 11:05 AM
https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/foot ... story.html

The Rams and the Patriots are in the Super Bowl, so expect to hear the word “genius” thrown around a lot with contrasts of the old Bill Belichick vs. the young Sean McVay. After Sunday’s game, Fox’s Curt Menefee noted that in the previous few minutes: “Three more of Sean McVay’s assistants got hired as head coaches.”

Menefee’s quip is part of a running NFL joke after this month’s hiring of three head coaches (Matt LaFleur; Kliff Kingsbury; Zac Taylor) whose past relations with McVay trumped their barren resumes. The joke exploded nationwide after the Arizona Cardinals now famously issued the following statement on their hire:

“Kingsbury is friends with Rams coach Sean McVay – the 32-year-old offensive genius who has become the blueprint of many of the new coaching hires around the NFL…”

The since-changed statement was instantly mocked far and wide amidst countless Twitter Head Coach applications by folks who may have made eye-contact with or shared a bathroom stall with Sean.

Now let’s pretend Sean’s Super Bowl visit wasn’t gifted by a blown ref call against the Saints, or that he didn’t win his first playoff game this month. The hunt for "The Next McVay" might seem new but it’s just the NFL’s latest affirmative action pipeline for white coaches. Teams would be wise to review the failures of the previous one, the hunt for “The Next Belichick,” which has produced five separate head coach failures to date.

What makes "The Next McVay" so different is it's the most untested, unproven, and unqualified batch of white coaches in modern NFL history. But really, what were the Cardinals supposed to say: “Kingsbury had a losing record as a college coach, and never coached one single down in the NFL.” That’s not a good look either.

What if the Packers issued this statement: “In his only season calling plays as offensive coordinator, Matt LaFleur had the 27th ranked offense and he is the primary reason the Titans missed the playoffs.”

And what if the Bengals stated this: “Zac Taylor was once promoted to Dolphins OC for five games by his father-in-law Mike Sherman. In those games he went 2-3, and the offense averaged 17 points.”

If you can’t sell experience or performance, then you have to sell what can’t be measured: their friends and their minds. The main difference between McVay and his buddies, is he actually put in a real job application. His nine years coaching included eight in the NFL, and three successful years as an OC. Don’t be fooled by his youth — McVay was tested, and he performed. Before McVay, putting in three strong years as an OC was a minimum standard. If less, you better have been successful. Not anymore.

Despite Jim Caldwell’s stellar resume as a proven head coach, OC, and “QB Guru” (please read before you disagree), we are told he is “uninspiring.” Despite the No. 1 ranked offense by Chiefs OC Eric Bieniemy, we are told that “he didn’t call the plays,” even though Doug Pederson didn’t either, Matt Nagy did for only five games and LaFleur called them really badly. This is bigger than McVay.

Last year I wrote “Great White Hope QB Awards,” and after a few requests, offer the “White Genius Coach Awards” that focus on four other affirmative action pipelines that have largely failed spectacularly. They are:

1) Nepotism Football League Awards (White Bloodline Pipeline)
2) “Brilliant Offensive Mind” Awards (Offensive Coordinator Pipeline)
3) College Coach Genius Awards (Whites-Only Amateur Pipeline)
4) “The Next Belichick” Awards (Proximity to White Genius Pipeline)

I. “NEPOTISM FOOTBALL LEAGUE” AWARD (White Bloodline Pipeline)

The Nominees:

1963-2019 The Shula Streak: 55 straight seasons as Head Coach or Offensive Coordinator
1988-2019: The Shanahans: Getting White Privilege since before Art Shell
2003-2019: The Gruden Brothers: Haven’t won a Playoff Game in 16 years (10 while coaching).
2018-2019: The Carolina Turners: Norv has three kin on his staff.

In the Nepotism Football League, blood lines matter.

Don Shula was a coaching legend, but history suggests Zac Taylor’s inexperience will more likely translate to “The Next David Shula,” Don’s son who once went 19-52 as Bengals coach. Mike Shula, who has had a mixed career as OC, was fired last year by the Panthers, but was immediately rehired by the Giants. Shula, Brian Schottenheimer and Mike Groh are all NFL OCs with last names that ring familiar.

In Carolina, Shula was replaced as OC with the “Norv Turner Family Plan.” Norv's son, Scott, and nephew, Cameron, became the new quarterbacks coach, and assistant QB coach. Turner's brother, Ron, is an offensive consultant. Norv’s family is being funneled into the Head Coach Pipeline that often begins with QB coaches turned to OC’s.

Last month, Klint Kubiak was expected to become the Broncos QB coach. When Gary Kubiak’s negotiations with Denver hit a snag, Klint just followed his Dad days later as QB coach for the Vikings.

NFL coaching brothers Jon and Jay Gruden also have their sons on their staff. In 1969, their father Jim Gruden coached at Dayton under John McVay — Sean’s grandfather and former Giants head coach. Jon gave Sean his first NFL coaching job at age 22. It’s all very incestuous. Young Jon was once a media-hyped boy genius too, an idea cemented after he delivered a 2002 Super Bowl win with a Tony Dungy-built Bucs defense. Since then, Jon has gone 49-63, never won another playoff game, and has already set the Raiders back years.

Nepotism Football League Award Winner is ... “The Shanahans” in an Upset

The Shanahans are associated with success more than their incredible intergenerational white privilege. Mike is old enough to have coached the Raiders back in the NFL’s Jim Crow Coaching Era right before Art Shell broke the NFL coaching color line in 1990. After Mike was fired, Shell would immediately outperform him. Look:

8-12: Mike Shanahan (Raider Record, 1988-89)
19-9: Art Shell (Raiders Record, 90-91)

In 1995, Mike would get to coach John Elway’s Broncos, who would then draft Hall-of-Famer Terrell Davis, the forgotten anchor of two Bronco titles. “Two Super Bowls” would cement Mike’s reputation as an “offensive genius,” but a closer look at his post-Elway/Davis career reveals a coaching version more like Eli Manning than Elway. Mike won only one playoff game in his final 14 seasons, and was a disaster of a DC coach.

Mike was able to promote his son Kyle to his OC before he left. Kyle’s reputation as genius is largely built off one great year as Falcons OC in 2016, not his epic blunder that cost them the Super Bowl, or his 10-22 record with the 49ers. In 2018, Kyle lost two games to Steve Wilks, the Cardinals black coach fired after only one season.

Art Shell would go 54-38 before being fired in 1994 (9-7), and the rest of the NFL shut him out for 12 years as the game passed him by. If Mike was a genius, then what did that make Shell? In a league where over 90% of owners, GMs and now head coaches are white – nepotism is racism. Period.

II. “BRILLIANT OFFENSIVE MIND” AWARDS (Offensive Coordinator Pipeline)

Criteria: Coaches hailed for their great offensive minds, so GMs believe they will be great NFL head coaches.

The Nominees

2017-2018 Kyle Shanahan, 10-22 with 49ers
2013-2014 Marc Trestman, 13-19 with Bears
2001-2002 Marty Mornhinweg: 5-27 with Lions
1999-2016 The Chargers (Mike McCoy-Norv Turner-Mike Riley)

"When he was interviewing,” explained the NFL general manager, “we sat down for five hours in a hotel room, one on one, he and I, and we talked about preparation for a game, and there was a spot in there when he said a few things to me which made me think, 'Wow, this guy's a football coach.'"

The GM went on to praise his “unique blend of “intelligence,” “thoughtfulness” and “competitiveness,” which “people don’t always see.” But he saw it. In 2013, The Bears GM Phil Emery hired his man: Marc Trestman.

Trestman, a past CFL coach, hadn’t coached in the NFL for a decade. Those five critical hotel room hours preceded five years of Bears losing at 27-53, a nosedive from their previous 5-year record of 45-35 under head coach Lovie Smith, who was fired after a 10-6 season.The Bears defense plummeted from No. 3 under Lovie to Nos. 30 and 31 in those two years, and Emery and Trestman were both fired. Lovie was not so replaceable. After the Bears, Smith immediately interviewed with three teams, but they chose Chip Kelly, Doug Marrone and Mike McCoy.

Fired black coaches rarely ever get immediately rehired by another team like Adam Gase just did for the Jets. Unlike Gase, black coaches are never media-described as a “coaching wunderkind” either. This year’s repeat of Lovie is Jim Caldwell, whose Lions fell from 9-7 to 6-10 under Matt Patricia. In a year that prioritized QB development, the resumes of Caldwell and Bruce Arians (hired by Bucs) were miles ahead of the rest. Perhaps Caldwell is not as good an interviewer as Trestman or Kingsbury.

“Brilliant Offensive Mind” Winner is … The Chargers!

Prior to hiring Anthony Lynn, the Chargers were all “QB Gurued” out. Former “great offensive minds” with quarterback coach roots like Mike Riley, Norv Turner and Mike McCoy failed to deliver. So the Chargers tried something new. They hired a black guy with successful roots as a running backs coach, a coaching position filled with black coaches who almost never get promoted for allegedly not being a QB coach.

Lynn was first discovered by the great Bill Walsh, and a protégé of Bill Parcells. Despite his first playoff loss last week, the Chargers have gone 21-11 under Lynn after going 9-23 the previous two years under McCoy.

So with Lynn’s immediate head coach success, and Bieniemy’s high-octane Chiefs offense, why is there no running back coach pipeline? Given the myriad of head coach managerial duties, why isn’t being an assistant head coach, and RB coach like Lynn or Eagles Duce Staley, a more qualified pipeline option?

III. COLLEGE COACH GENIUS AWARDS (Whites-Only Amateur Pipeline)

Criteria: College coaches hired without previous NFL coaching experience.

The Nominees

2013-2016 Chip Kelly, 28-35 record with Eagles and 49ers
2007-2008 Lane Kiffin, 5-15 with Raiders
2002-2003 Steve Spurrier, 12-20 with DC Team
1999-2001 Mike Riley: 14-34 with Chargers

Why did college-to-NFL coach failures Bobby Petrino, Nick Saban and Butch Davis miss the cut? That’s because they had multiple years of previous NFL experience. Kiffin only had one year, so we kept him in.

Even if Kingsbury didn’t have a losing college record, top college coaches like Steve Spurrier and Chip Kelly also failed miserably – the latter largely because of a monster ego propped up by a media routinely praising “The Genius of Chip Kelly.” Successful college-to-NFL coaches like Pete Carroll or Jim Harbaugh already had a solid NFL background. Two notable exceptions are Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer of the 1990s Hall-of-Fame stacked Cowboys who each brought 10 and 16 years’ college head coaching experience and national titles. The copy-cat NFL hire of Dennis Erickson proved less successful (40-56).

White College Coach Winner is … Lane Kiffin – in a runaway!

As son of great defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin, there may not be a football coach in America as spoiled rotten privileged as Lane. This past year coaching Florida Atlantic, he passed on the privilege, and hired 24-year-old Charlie Weis Jr. as his offensive coordinator.

Black college coach? Please. “College-to-NFL coach” and “white” are synonyms. It’s never happened for a black coach.The only college-to-NFL black coach in history was Stanford’s Dennis Green, except he also spent four NFL years coaching under Bill Walsh. In Green’s first nine seasons, he also produced one of the most amazing coaching feats of all-time. No, not his 15-1 offensive juggernaut season where Super Bowl dreams were denied by a missed field goal. It’s that Green made the playoffs with seven different quarterbacks. Now THAT’s genius.

IV. “THE NEXT BELICHICK” AWARDS (Proximity to White Genius Pipeline)

Criteria: Must have been a past Patriots offensive or defensive coordinator under Bill Belichick

The Nominees

2018-Present Matt Patricia: 6-10 record with Lions after 9-7 under Jim Caldwell
2009-2011 Josh McDaniels, 11-17 as Broncos Head Coach; 2-14 as Rams OC (2011)
2006-2010 Eric “Mangenius’ Mangini, 33-47 with Jets and Browns
2005-2012 Romeo Crennel, 28-55 with Browns and Chiefs
2005-2014 Charlie Weis, ask a Notre Dame or Kansas Fan

Belichick has now amassed 30 NFL playoff wins. His Patriots coordinators? Only one. Think about that.

That one win came via Texans coach Bill O’Brien in 2016. “The Next Belichick Award” is the far more qualified predecessor to “The Next McVay.” “Proximity to White Genius” is so arousing to NFL owners that even black coaches can ride this wave. But history is not in Brian Flores’ favor, the latest Belichick coordinator expected to get a top job (the Dolphins).

Belichick is better at winning than grooming. Being a great coordinator and a great head coach are very different skill sets, but NFL GMs are not swayed by past evidence. Or even care that Belichick himself had a 41-57 career coach before Tom Brady — a man who has employed more coaches than the Cleveland Browns.

The opposite of The Belichick Tree is The Tony Dungy Tree, and if teams prioritized winning over whiteness, they’d examine his mentorship methods. Lovie Smith, Mike Tomlin and Jim Caldwell have all been to Super Bowls, and Herm Edwards’ two NFL playoff wins are double that of Belichick’s kin. Two years before retiring, he also brought on Colts current coach Frank Reich. Dungy liked to promote and provide staff with years of experience as asst. head coaches to learn and manage ALL facets of the game (see Caldwell and Edwards).

The Next Belichick Award Winner is … Sean McVay’s Friends!

McVayMania is not new, but his impact on white coach affirmative action is. The cautionary tale of “The Next Belichick” should have prevented “The Next McVay,” but the opposite happened. Whereas Belichick’s staff had to be coordinators and produce Super Bowls first. Now any buddy can get a shot.

Prior performance and experience no longer matter — only proximity to perceived white genius. And to have your mind described as “great,” “bright,” “brilliant,” “genius,” and other language media refuses to use on Caldwell, Lynn, Bieniemy, or any black coach. It’s so bad now even good white coaches are getting snubbed.

Part of it is economic racism. In blackballing Colin Kaepernick, NFL owners already made it crystal clear winning is not their top priority. Pleasing their overwhelmingly white fan base is. Similar to college coaches, McVay is the Rams biggest star – not Aaron Donald, Jared Goff or Todd Gurley. With “McVay is the Way” T-shirts in full swing, he is an NFL marketing dream, and owners want to cash in on the next one.

The other part is the vast majority of NFL owners are Trumpian clones, and just as incompetent. They select their GMs and execs with the same mindset, bias, and care that Trump selects his cabinet. And no matter how many coaches kids, Chip Kelly’s, or Belichick disciples fail, they keep picking and re-picking the same cabinet.

They’re selling white fans white hope in white genius. Not only that, but they often believe in it themselves.

So instead of just admitting to the real issue (blind belief in white male superiority), many of us talk a lot about symptoms like “getting more black coaches into QB coach to offensive coordinator pipeline.”

But is this really about a “pipeline” or another “white line”? What’s wrong with the defensive coordinator pipeline? Did we already forget Belichick has a defensive background like Pete Carroll, Mike Tomlin, Tony Dungy, and Bill Cowher — all of whom had quarterbacks thrive under them despite their defensive roots?

And what do you think would happen if we magically made all the QB coaches black and all running back coaches white? Well, I’ll tell you. The goalposts would shift again, and there’d be a brand new trendy pipeline. Running back coaches would then become “The Next McVay!”

And if you don’t understand that, you don’t understand NFL owners, or NFL history.

Einstein once said “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result.” NFL owners are insane. And that’s coming from a real genius.

[ramsman34]

That’s fucking pathetic and sad. I hope we hire a black DC and frankly a black OC - O’Donnell has not impressed with how Goff has played.

[Kid Charlamagne]

Maybe someday this will get more than lip service, it’s hard to believe that guys like Gase and Patricia had such great interviews considering they were bad coaches and pretty much hated by everyone on their teams. I watched Kingsbury at Tech and the word genius never entered my mind, and as much as love Staley this is his one and only year as a coordinator in the nfl. Everyone has opinions and plans like the Rooney rule but it seems pretty clear that the billionaires who write the checks are not ready to embrace diversity fully. The problem with exclusion is that it can be so easy and feel so benign, many of those involved would be shocked to hear words like racism.

[max]

I’m pulling for Morris to have our D play even better next year.

[actionjack]

I’m pulling for Morris to have our D play even better next year.

Im good with as well, AS LONG as we dont lose some our great internal defensive coaches.

[Hacksaw]

Raheem Morris could be coming to town. The way the thread is titled I'm not sure it applies but he and McV do have a history.

[AvengerRam]

I've always considered the term "genius," when applied to coaches, to be an extreme and absurd example of hyperbole.

The article is likewise over the top, asserting that there is "economic racism" and citing Colin Kaepernick as an example. I find that type of broad brush painting exceedingly unhelpful.

There is a trend of hiring young HCs with experience building/running offenses. That trend does not exist due to any discriminatory intent. Its just the way the game has gone.

There are two African-American OCs: Eric Bieniemy and Byron Leftwich. Both have done an excellent job and should be HCs within the next 1-3 years. If they are not, write an article about that.

[ramsman34]

Raheem Morris could be coming to town. The way the thread is titled I'm not sure it applies but he and McV do have a history.

Is there a source for this? He would be an awesome DC!

NVM. Just saw the other threads

[snackdaddy]

When it comes to successful black coaches, you can't overlook Mike Tomlin. He's been a steady force there for years. Always has them in contention. I'd rather have a guy like that without the genius label than the genius who hasn't won a lot of games.

[snackdaddy]

On another note, the McVay factor still seems to permeate around the league. Now we will have a black coach associated with him. It will be a good test to see if he gets a head coaching job through that association. If not, then I can see where the perception about hiring black coaches is a legitimate one.