- Joined
- Mar 19, 2006
- Messages
- 33,988
- Reaction score
- 14,478
Here is the talking point that most bothers me. Not surprisingly I'll talk about why in a moment
First, I should say that if I'm Flores -- and I am assuming he didn't just make up 100k per game to tank and so on -- what am I looking at? The Phins are treating me like not a real coach, they're going to check their box, have me tank the season, fire me when I don't (even though I beat the Pats twice which is huge in fins land) and had them a whisper behind us in the final standings, and a winning record at that. So that's sketchy. Then I'm interviewing, and in the interviewing process "the grapevine" knows that another candidate got the job despite him not getting his interview yet. Yet he knows, and we all know, that the Giants set him up as a "Rooney Rule" interview. So the BB episode is more his evidence than another instance of racism, but then he thinks about that, maybe even after doing the interview, and says "do I have some responsibility to protect BB in this?" Of course he doesn't. BB is the one not doing right, just fielding that text from the old coach carousel grapevine in the coach fraternity... and not clapping back "Hold on, no way, Flores isn't getting interviewed????" He KNEW Flores was a candidate or he wouldnt think he's ****ing up by texting him. So now Flores is perfectly rational in concluding "you know what? BB doesn't have any clue what it's like out there from my perspective and he's part of all this." Then he looks at his "resume"... hell, you can go back to "Education of a Coach" and know how he feels about the coaching fraternity, you can look around at the Patriots present staff and see nepotism right in front of you -- and for him, those are barriers.
Ok. Now about the quote. I've seen lots of people making this point. 70% Black players should mean.... what?
I agree so far as saying you should have a fair shot and I think it's clear that without a Rooney Rule, and even WITH a Rooney Rule, that's not happening. Events are kind of telling us that.
But I've actually seen people saying it just makes sense you'd have 70% Black coaches.
Welp, it's a long, LONG time until we have to worry about that outcome. But that talking point irks tf out of me, and I was never one of these guys screaming and beat red about the Bakke decision.
One of the talking heads I like to watch, Joy Reid, basically said it's a 70% Black league, then caught herself and said "Now it's down to 60 something," adding something along the lines of "in case you think this kind of stuff has no effect." I don't remember exact words, but it had that point to it.
So she's complaining that the 70% overrepresentation of 12% (I believe) of the population is being "eroded," on the one hand, and that the 70% representation is not being reflected among coaches, on the other hand.
That is one way this irritates me -- the 70% figure doesn't strike me as justifying any conclusion further than "come on, we need SOME Black coaches." It is a majority Black league, but I think the import of that is more like "look this is not an all-white league and we're not trying to have any part of it all-white or even close." Like I said, right now it's theoretical, because White coaches are the dug in structure, the Black aspirants for this limited pool of slots are the ones without power.
But why's it a 70% Black (player) league?
To represent the league player composition you need 21 Black head coaches and 21 Black owners. To represent prevalence in the population you need 4 Black head coaches and 4 Black owners. The "right" number, a number where "we'd feel comfortable?" I'm afraid some will now want the 70% given how much this stat's making the rounds.
I don't think that's right, because I don't think that anybody's questioned how we got 70% Black players. Evidently the whole league and everybody commenting agrees with Jimmy the Greek, that African Americans are genetically determined to be better players, perhaps based on surviving the Middle Passage. I think we also have to understand that the NFL represents a "way out" in the Black community in many cases, and in far fewer white communities. In that case, Joy Reid should be thrilled if, as she said, Black representation among players is down to 60-some percent.
The other way this irritates me is that most coaches never played pro football. They all played some sort of football I'm sure (but if you think of it, none except the newest ones played football under its current rules.) For that matter, should there never be a female coach? We were recently all treated to the woman ref. Well in a 100% male player league, why is there a female ref? Obviously my point there is not against having a female ref, it's that you don't need to be a football player to know the rules. That's true of the coaching side too, although I'd wager you'd need them to have experience in a football league somewhere. It's a good reason to have a women's league.
All you Nazis out there don't trip over yourselves agreeing with me on this one. I hear it. I don't like it. But I think here there are too many lines of logic going opposite directions, and it's irritating. There should be more Black coaches, and in fact, there should probably be more than the 4 predicted by prevalence in the population. But can we stop before 70%?
