More than a dozen minority coaches declined to comment for this story, citing concerns that speaking candidly would jeopardize future opportunities. Among the 13 Black coaches who did speak -- some on the record but most anonymously -- the issue is clear: Even with hiring rules in place, they feel they cannot overcome ownership bias or the long-established relationships that shape hiring.
"There's no purpose of trying to rethink the rule until there's individuals in positions [of hiring power] that actually want to [hire] the best possible candidate for the job," Thomas Brown, the
New England Patriots' tight ends coach and passing game coordinator, told ESPN. "... You would love to know when someone calls you about an interview that it's actually genuine.
"But if their thought process is to just check a box so they can hire whoever they want to hire ... that can't be controlled or regulated."...
THE EXPERIENCES OF Flores and Graham -- who are close friends from their days coming up as assistants on New England's defense -- mirror accounts from other Black NFL coaches interviewed by ESPN.
Brown, the Patriots assistant, told ESPN he learned hours before he interviewed for an offensive coordinator job that the team had already decided on another candidate, but the club needed to interview him to fulfill the league mandate.
Brown declined to name the team involved, saying it wouldn't change anything if he did.
Brown said a friend who worked with the candidate who ultimately got the job told him that the coach had already cleaned out his office before Brown's interview, a sign he knew he was getting the coordinator job. Brown said he called the club ahead of his interview to let them know what he'd heard.
"It was, of course, denied," he said.
Last offseason, New England's widely reported top head coach candidate, Mike Vrabel, was not under contract with an NFL club, so the team could hire him as soon as they complied with the Rooney Rule. Rather than wait until the Monday after the divisional round, the first day clubs are allowed to interview coaches in-person who are employed by other NFL clubs, New England interviewed Pep Hamilton and Byron Leftwich, Black former offensive coordinators who had been out of the league for two seasons. The Patriots announced their interviews with Leftwich and Hamilton in the
same tweet.
"It's obvious that it was a circumvention of the spirit of the rule," Rod Graves, the former Cardinals GM and former director of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, told ESPN in an interview last fall. "There were other viable candidates available that could have been interviewed. Leftwich and Hamilton, I have a lot of respect for them, but they have been out of circulation."
