In any prior year, one element of the historic Super Bowl matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers would be something to celebrate.
Sunday’s game will be the first championship in which two Black men square off as offensive coordinators in Eric Bieniemy of the Chiefs and Byron Leftwich of the Buccaneers.
And it will be the first Super Bowl to feature five Black coaches in major leadership positions, with Tampa Bay’s defensive coordinator Todd Bowles, special teams coach coach Keith Armstrong and assistant head coach and run game coordinator Harold Goodwin.
But rather than revel in breaking new barriers, frustration, disappointment and anger were the sentiments towards the NFL and its track record of hiring and promoting Black coaches at the start of Black History Month.
Seventy percent of the NFL’s players are Black, however, there are only three Black head coaches (9.4%) following last week’s hiring of David Culley by the Houston Texans. And in terms of all people of color, it’s only five (15.6%) after adding Ron Rivera of the Washington Football Team and Robert Saleh of the New York Jets.
Bieniemy’s exclusion in reaching those ranks during the last two coaching cycles continues to get the most attention and cause the most rancor. He directed the Chiefs offense, one of the most high-powered in the history of the game, to a Super Bowl win, and now they’re literally knocking on the Buccaneers’ door as they seek to repeat as champions.
“I don’t know the answer,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said when asked what Bieniemy still needs to to earn a coaching job. “Am I upset? Yeah, I am a big fan of his. I know what he can do for a team, and most of all the National Football League. He is so deserving of that opportunity. I’m hoping someday it comes. I expected it last year and it didn’t happen. I definitely thought it would happen this year. He is as ready as anybody.”
One of the excuses often used against Bieniemy is that he doesn’t have sole play-calling responsibilities since those duties are done in collaboration with Reid.
But that was the situation Bieniemy’s predecessors, Doug Pederson and Matt Nagy, were in and it didn’t stop them from being hired by the Philadelphia Eagles and Chicago Bears. And neither man was coming off having advanced to a conference title game or a Super Bowl, let alone back-to-back Super Bowls.
The Chiefs were 1-2 in the playoffs with Pederson as offensive coordinator from 2013-15. (He has since been fired by the Eagles.) Nagy was 0-2 in 2016-17. Bieniemy? Try 6-1, with the lone loss being an overtime defeat to Tom Brady’s New England Patriots in the 2018 AFC title game.
The issue of who had play-calling duties seems to be a selective one. It wasn’t a stumbling block when the New York Giants hired former Patriots special teams coach Joe Judge last season, or when the Detroit Lions coach hired former New Orleans Saints assistant head coach/tight ends coach Dan Campbell a few weeks ago or when the Eagles hired former Indianapolis Colts offensive coordinator Nick Sirianni a few days ago.
Though now retired, John Wooten still keeps his eyes on things and has NFL commissioner Roger Goodell on speed dial.
Wooten, who has championed the cause of minority coaches as executive director of the Fritz Pollard Alliance since its inception in 2003, remains shaken by Bieniemy’s plight and the continued hiring of who he perceives are unknown candidates with lesser credentials.
“It bothered me,” Wooten said. “I know how good a coach he is. I know the input he has with what Kansas City is doing. I don’t understand. It’s hurtful. It’s a hurtful thing to see.”
Bieniemy is frustrated as well. But he has refused to show it, handling his disappointments with class and aplomb, while remaining focused on Sunday’s mission.
“First of all, I did not ask to be the poster boy to the situation that I have experienced,” Bieniemy said. “At the end of the day, the only thing you want to do is be recognized for the things that you have accomplished. For whatever reason, that has not happened. And that is okay. I can’t sit here and dwell in pity. I have a responsibility to the Chiefs. It’s to make sure that whatever is going on with Eric Bieniemy is not becoming a distraction from us pursuing our dreams and our goals.
“I’m excited about the opportunity that has been presented to me,” he continued. “The other stuff, I can’t control that. That is out of my control.”
Among coaching snubs, Bieniemy’s name is the biggest. And has become the poster boy for this situation, for sure. But it’s not just about Bieniemy. It’s about the continued lack of opportunities for scores of Black coaches.
It’s why Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians didn’t hold back in expressing his disappointment about Leftwich, who did not even receive a job interview following the season.
Leftwich helped Jameis Winston set team records for yards and passing touchdowns during the 2019 season. Tom Brady, at age 43, set a new team record with passing touchdowns in 2020 while leading the Buccaneers to the Super Bowl with Leftwich as the playcaller.
“I was very, very pissed that Byron didn’t at least get an interview this year,” Arians said. “For the job that he’s done, I think I get way too much credit. And so does Tom Brady for the job that Byron has done. He’s done a fantastic job, he’s everything supposedly what people are looking for.”
What teams are looking for seemingly hasn’t changed since the inception of the league: a coach who often looks like owners, owners who are overwhelmingly white. Only one of the NFL’s 32 teams is owned principally by a person of color, that being the Jacksonville Jaguars’ Shahid Khan, a Pakistani-born American billionaire businessman.
Thanks to the updated Rooney Rule, more people of color are getting cursory looks than ever before as the league is now requiring clubs to interview at least two external minority candidates for head coaching openings and at least one minority candidate for any coordinator job.
In addition, teams must interview one external minority candidate for any senior football operations or general manager job.
But real progress won’t occur until change is made in the hearts and minds of owners. For the record, there are six teams that have never had a minority head coach or general manager. They are the Jaguars, Patriots, Saints, Tennessee Titans, Los Angeles Rams and Dallas Cowboys.
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THE PATH FORWARD
Perhaps Sunday, and Super Bowl LV specifically, is where we can look to for hope.
It is no accident that the Buccaneers are here with the most diverse staff in the history of the NFL, featuring nine Black men. But there’s more.
The Buccaneers are also the only team that has two full-time assistant coaches who are women, assistant defensive line coach Lori Locust and assistant strength and conditioning coach Maral Javadifar.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever been part of anything like this,” Leftwich said. “This is unique. This is different. This is not the norm of how this league is and how coaching staffs look across the league. It’s a blessing that [Coach Arians] has the view that he has. I just hope no one believes that he’s just giving us anything. If you know him, you know he’s not giving you anything. You’ve got to earn everything that you pretty much get from him.”
Arians was purposeful and intentional with his decisions. He didn’t become an NFL head coach until the age of 60. Since then, opening doors for others has been one of his core values.
“If you can teach, you can coach,” Arians said. “As far as the women, it was time. It was time for that door to be knocked down and allow them because they’ve been putting in time, and they’re very, very qualified. The ones we have are overly-qualified.
“As far as race, that was not by design. Those are the best coaches I know,” he said., adding that he likes to hear different voices in staff meetings. “[They] aren’t the same, [they] don’t look alike, but they all have input, [and] you get better output.”
If only more NFL owners felt the same way. Now that would be something to celebrate.
