NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The proposal to encourage more minority hiring for head coaching and GM openings in the NFL has, at least, created a lot of conversation.
But it’s super flawed.
I’ve seen and read people who could benefit from it give it a thumbs down. Boosting a team’s third-round pick by six spots (for a minority head coach hire) or 10 (a GM) or 16 (for both) the year after hiring them isn’t a great incentive.
In coaching hire terms, that’s a jump from Jonathan Greenard to Terrell Lewis for a team that may have been in the outside linebacker market and in the right range in 2020 and had them stacked the way they went off the board. In GM terms it’s Lewis to Zach Baun. In the coach-plus-GM equation, it’s just short of Lewis to Julian Okwara.
If the hire is still in place three years later, a fourth-round pick moves up five spots.
That is really minor.
And frankly, a team that has put itself in position to have to hire a coach and/or a GM a should not benefit in any new way over teams who’ve fared better by hiring coaches and GMs they haven’t had to fire -- regardless of what color any of them are.
As a middle-aged white guy, I'm certainly no authority on minority opportunity