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| Thursday, February 8 Associated Press | |||
| When Marvin Lewis failed to land a head coaching job after his
defense led Baltimore to a Super Bowl victory, one quick reaction
was that NFL coaches were again being chosen by race.
"The process was flawed and possibly slightly biased," said
Ray Anderson, Lewis' agent.
Almost two weeks later, there is more talk that the system may
be hurting the hottest prospects -- assistants on teams in the Super
Bowl, who must wait until the end of January to interview, while
teams are anxious to hire both head coaches and assistants before
that.
"Here is a guy who constructed what may be the best defense
ever, but only one out of seven or eight teams talked to him,"
Tony Dungy, one of three black coaches in the NFL, said after
Tennessee defensive coordinator Gregg Williams was hired over Lewis
in Buffalo.
"Everything happens for a reason, and Marvin will end up in a
better place," Dungy said. "But that doesn't let the league off
the hook. There is something wrong with the process. It's flawed."
The current rule doesn't allow a team to talk to a prospective
coach until his team is out of the playoffs. It was imposed in 1994
after Dave Wannstedt and Norv Turner, both on the Dallas staff,
interviewed for head coaching jobs in Chicago and Washington while
the Cowboys were en route to Super Bowls.
Commissioner Paul Tagliabue tried last year to ease the pressure
on teams needing coaches by pushing back the scouting combine to
late February and the start of free agency until the beginning of
March. But teams still try to hire coaches as quickly as possible.
Of the eight teams with vacancies this year, only Buffalo and
Cleveland went into Super Bowl week without coaches. The assumption
was that Lewis and John Fox of the Giants, the two Super Bowl
defensive coordinators, were 1-2 for those jobs.
But Cleveland suddenly hired the University of Miami's Butch
Davis. Lewis and Fox had quick interviews with the Bills after the
game, and Buffalo then hired Williams.
"We followed the guidelines and the rules of the National
Football League," said Tom Donahoe, Buffalo's general manager.
"Every person that was interviewed had the same shot. We gave
everyone equal time and equal opportunity. And sometimes in life
you have to learn to be a gracious loser as well as a gracious
winner."
There was one black head coach hired this year -- Herman Edwards
by the New York Jets, the first in 42 vacancies since Dungy was
hired by Tampa Bay in 1996 other than Ray Rhodes' move from
Philadelphia to Green Bay in 1999. If Bill Parcells had stayed with
the Jets, he might have hired Maurice Carthon to replace the
departed Al Groh. Instead, Carthon signed as running backs coach
with the Lions.
Two other vacancies went to interim coaches who had the
"interim" taken from them -- Dick LeBeau in Cincinnati and Dave
McGinnis in Arizona. Two more went to big-name former coaches --
Marty Schottenheimer in Washington and Dick Vermeil in Kansas City.
And the Houston Texans, who begin play in 2002, hired Dom Capers,
who was the first coach of the Carolina Panthers in 1995.
The sixth was Marty Mornhinweg, the San Francisco offensive
coordinator, who was hired by Detroit during Super Bowl week.
During that week, Dungy and Gene Upshaw, the executive director
of the NFL Players Association, publicly praised the progress that
was being made. Another black coach, Ted Cottrell, the former
Buffalo defensive coordinator, took the same job with the Jets but
still was also being considered by the Bills.
But Davis suddenly got the Cleveland job and Donahoe chose
Williams, who arrived at his interview totally prepared with graphs
and charts. Lewis and Fox, meanwhile, came straight from the
pressure cooker of the Super Bowl.
After two weeks, passions have cooled.
"The fact that Ted Cottrell, Marvin Lewis, Maurice Carthon and
Herman Edwards were candidates indicates that there are plenty of
qualified black coaches in the pipeline and they'll continue to
come to the fore and will continue to be hired," said Bill Polian,
president of the Indianapolis Colts.
As Carolina's first general manager, Polian lost a second-round
draft choice because he interviewed Capers while he was still
coaching with Pittsburgh in the playoffs.
Given how hard it is to repeat these days, Lewis and Fox may
have an opportunity next season to interview earlier. The
guidelines are almost sure to come up at the league meetings in
March, although league officials believe it's unlikely that teams
again will be allowed to interview assistants on teams still alive
in the playoffs.
"There is a procedure in place where a team that has interest
in a Super Bowl assistant can express that interest," Polian says.
"I think we can work with that."
| ALSO SEE
Dungy tells SI race a factor in Marvin Lewis snubbing | ||