As has become the annual tradition, sports media personalities are crying racism as NFL coaches are hired and fired. As always, those cries are unfounded.
The biggest news from the NFL’s “Black Monday” was that the Miami Dolphins fired Brian Flores. Flores, who is black, just wrapped up his third season on the job, having put the Dolphins on the brink of the playoffs for the past two years. His firing was certainly a surprise.
The typical rumbles of racism weren’t far behind. Doug Farrar, a former Sports Illustrated writer now at USA Today, went on a rant about “white mediocrity” and complained that black coaches were held to an unfair standard. It is unacceptable to him that five black coaches were fired in 2018 and replaced by white coaches. (Three of those five white coaches have since also lost their jobs. The other two took their teams to the playoffs).
But a mere 32 head coaching positions comprise too small a sample size to make any grand assumptions about race or anything else. NFL coaching staffs are incredibly diverse, and the people in those 32 head coach positions each face unique challenges and circumstances. When looking at what happened to Flores, the cries of racism once again fall apart.
Flores was fired because of a power struggle with general manager Chris Grier — and also because his relationship with quarterback Tua Tagovailoa had deteriorated. The Dolphins, in essence, chose Grier and Tagovailoa over Flores. Whether that proves to be the right decision or not, pointing to racism as the cause is sophomoric — Grier is also black, and Tagovailoa is Samoan.
By choosing Grier and Tua (both pictured below) over Flores, the Dolphins are proving that they are racist pic.twitter.com/sgOUqqpnKy
— Zachary Faria (@ZacharyFaria) January 10, 2022
But more importantly, coaches and general managers are let go over power struggles routinely, irrespective of anyone’s race.
Jimmy Johnson left the Cowboys thanks to one such fight in 1994 even though his team had won back-to-back Super Bowls.
Jim Harbaugh was forced out of the San Francisco 49ers gig despite his 44-19-1 record because he and the front office didn’t get along.
The Chargers fired Marty Schottenheimer after a 14-2 season because of a “dysfunctional relationship” between him and his general manager.
Note that all of the coaches I just named are white.
General managers also sometimes lose these fights. Floyd Reese, fired by the Titans in 2006, and Mike Maccagnan, fired by the Jets in 2019, are two other examples. Both of them are white, and both lost power struggles with their head coaches.
This happens all the time. Nearly every example of a black coach being fired is comparable to that of some white coach in similar circumstances. Yes, Steve Wilks was fired by the Cardinals after one season (3-13 in 2018), but the Jaguars did the same to Mike Mularkey (2-14 in 2012), as did the Browns to Rob Chudzinski (4-12 in 2013). Yes, the Lions fired Jim Caldwell in 2018 despite his having led his team to its best performance this century, but the Raiders did the same to Jack Del Rio that same year.
All of these things happen regularly. Some owners are fickle and unpredictable, while others are more patient. Teams make bad decisions and good decisions and settle power struggles by firing people. Race has nothing to do with it, except among race-obsessed media figures who judge every hiring or firing based on skin color alone.
