H O W A R D S B E N D

The NFL just took and unexpected hit and fumbled the ball. Will they be able to recover the fumble and run with the ball, or will they let the opposition bounce on this opportunity and go on the offensive?

The analytics do not look good. There are 32 NFL teams and only one black head coach equating to about 3% for a league that in 2020 was made up of almost 60% black players. The Rooney Rule which requires teams searching for a new head coach to interview minority applicants is obviously not working. There is no incentive and obviously no punishment for not hiring a minority head coach.

Here is an idea. Draft picks are so valuable in the NFL where careers are short and injuries pervasive. Draft picks are referred to as “assets”. These assets are essential to both good teams hoping to maintain their high level of achievement as well as to the average and mediocre teams looking to get back on the winning trail. The NFL Draft Day is almost a national holiday as the fate of teams and the fate of their respective cities rely on how well their teams do on selecting players on the day. The shrewd general managers are known for accumulating extra picks which potentially will help their team succeed in coming years.

There are 32 teams in the NFL with the worse team drafting first. Beginning with the 2023 NFL, there will be a special tier in the draft. After the 16th pick in the first round, any team with a minority coach will get an extra pick. At this time, only the Pittsburgh Steelers will get an extra pick, the 17th pick in the 2023 draft. If more than one team has a minority coach, the length of tenure will determine the higher draft pick…thus a team with a minority coach for 3 years will draft higher than a team with a minority coach that has worked for two years. All teams with minority coaches will get draft choices before the draft reverts back to its traditional sequencing.

The tier of draft choices will be determined by the percentage of minority coaches in the league. If after a few years there is still only a single minority coach, this drafting tier can be moved to the top of the draft board such that a team with a minority coach will get the first pick in the draft. If this revised structure has a more positive outcome, the special tier can be moved to the end of the first round. The goal is to have the percentage of minority coaches match the number of minority players in the league. Hopefully at this point, the NFL will be able to end these special draft provisions.