Tag Archives: quarterbacks

Lack of black offensive playcallers in the NFL

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The NFL has only one black offensive coordinator:

“We are very, very conscious of this issue, and it’s something that needs to be addressed,” said John Wooten, the chairman of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, an organization charged with promoting equality of job opportunity in NFL coaching and front office staffs. “We have alluded to it and spoken to it directly, and we feel our only course of action is to push more people up the pipeline.”

Complicating matters for Wooten and the legions of aspiring minority offensive coordinators is that the pipeline is also disproportionately dry…

Right now, the NFL’s sole African-American offensive coordinator is the Buffalo Bills’ Curtis Modkins, who doubles as the team’s running backs coach. However, Bills coach Chan Gailey is the team’s de facto offensive coordinator and primary play-caller. Only two African-Americans, the Houston Texans’ Karl Dorrell and the Minnesota Vikings’ Craig Johnson, are quarterbacks coaches, the position-coach job which most frequently leads to offensive-coordinator opportunities.

“This is the biggest travesty that’s taking place in this league, and every black coach is well aware of it,” said one anonymous African-American assistant for an AFC team. “They don’t promote you from running backs coach or receivers coach to offensive coordinator. When guys do get coordinator titles, they have to be position coaches at the same time, and they don’t get paid as much as other coordinators, because they’re not the play-callers. And in a lot of cases, guys believe they’re really there for locker-room reasons, to ‘take care of’ the minority players.”

A classic example in the sociology of sport of how race plays out in sports is to look at the expectations for and portrayal of black and white quarterbacks: black quarterbacks are expected to be more mobile and use their natural ability while white quarterbacks tend to be viewed as tacticians. I wonder if the same thing is going on here. Defense is said to require more reaction ability and athletic skills while offense is about strategy and throwing off the defense. Offensive playcalling is more of a sacred art that requires an intelligent guru to make things happen. Also, it sounds like this is a social network problem: black playcallers need to be able to have access to lower offensive positions, be able to prove themselves there, and then have the opportunity to move up when jobs become available. Without this chain in place, it could be a very similar issue to what might be behind the unemployment gap between whites and blacks.

The article doesn’t say much about this but the NFL has put policies in place for helping to ensure minority candidates are interviewed for head coaching positions so will something similar happen here?

Cam Newton as sociologist?

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A commentator in the Wall Street Journal suggests Cam Newton is a sociologist:

All very true, all very interesting, but this was not the part of Fleming’s article—the cover story for ESPN the Magazine’s annual Next issue—that got the most attention on Thursday. That part would be Newton’s refusal to blame the weirdly harsh pre-draft assessments—ESPN’s own Mel Kiper Jr. compared him to former Bengals bust Akili Smith—on any latent prejudices against black quarterbacks. “I can’t sit up here and look at it like, oh man, my critics are racist,” Newton told Fleming. “I blame JaMarcus Russell and to some degree Vince Young. If you have the opportunity to make that kind of money doing something you love to do, why would you screw it up?” Which, admittedly, is an attention-grabbing thing to say.

It was also deemed a mistake by the sport-pundits whose job it is to deem statements like this mistakes. But as Bomani Jones notes in a terrific column for SB Nation, both Newton and his critics seem to miss the point. “The real danger is in the foolishness of the quote and its underlying sadness,” Jones writes. “It’s stupid because the knocks on Cam were based in the same madness that sent his mentor, [Warren] Moon, to Canada seven years before Russell was born. And it’s heartbreaking because, in spite of the progress the world claims it has made with regards to race, the young man who could be the NFL’s future blamed his own unfair treatment on two men who had to fight the same battles.”

Of course, as long as Newton continues to break records and be brilliant, he can—and will—be able to write his own narrative, in his own words. At the very least, it’s refreshing to have a new star who’s as interesting to talk about—and listen to—as he is to watch.

As far as I can tell, the only reason Newton gets dubbed a sociologist is because he brings up the issue of race. Interestingly, he downplays the racial explanation and goes to more individualistic explanations (i.e., two earlier quarterbacks failed). But it is interesting to note that discussing topics of race gets equated with the field of sociology.

While there is no doubt that Newton could have made a bold statement about how black quarterbacks are treated, I wonder if his statement says more about whether athletes can talk about race or feel like they should than about Newton. At this point in his career, what would Newton gain by taking on people like Mel Kiper Jr.? As a rookie, Newton may not want to be outspoken about a controversial social issue. Would his endorsement opportunities go down if he talked about race? Would sportswriters keep hammering on this? I’m not saying Newton is right by downplaying the larger structural forces that make success possible. However, certain athletes don’t address larger issues like some do. For example, Michael Jordan was criticized by some who thought he could have used his celebrity and standing to push for certain things. Jordan, a savvy businessman, chose not to. Newton may be following a similar path.

In the end, I would guess most sports fans and commentators don’t really want to address racial issues even though it clearly matters. On the whole, they would typically suggest sports transcends racial barriers and on-the-field performance is the only thing that matters. Also, the last time I can remember this being a big debate in the NFL with Rush Limbaugh on ESPN, it didn’t work out well.

Quick Review: NFL Unplugged

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With the  NFL season winding down and games taking on more importance, NFL Unplugged: The Brutal, Brilliant World of Professional Football offered me some new insights into professional football. A few thoughts about this new book:

1. Anthony Gargano suggests much of the game depends on what happens in the trenches with the offensive and defensive lines. This is not a new thought – John Madden pointed this out for years – but it rarely comes out in broadcasts or video games where quarterbacks, running backs, and wide receivers get a lot of attention. These linemen have a hard job: for less respect than teammates, they beat each other up play after play.

1a. I wondered while reading this about how much Gargano’s perspective was shaped by the players he has talked with during the years. While he shared information from players of all positions, he seemed to have closer relationships with some of the players in the trenches.

1b. Gargano seems to like playing up this warrior perspective.

1c. This reminds me of the different color commentary one hears depending on whether the commentator was a quarterback or lineman. Linemen, in particular, seem to see the game in a completely different way and tend to emphasize blocking and who is “getting a push” at the line.

1d. Do many fans have a skewed perspective because of playing Madden football and controlling the guy with the ball (usually the quarterback)? In a video game, the player doesn’t get any sense of the physical nature of football – it essentially becomes a game of X’s and O’s and putting the ball in the right holes or hands. Some years ago, Madden included a blocking feature where the player could control a lineman or other blocker rather than the ball handler. Does anyone ever use this feature?

2. Players have to amp themselves up to even play. Many have nerves, to the point of throwing up repeatedly before the game, and most have to get themselves into a mental state where they would be willing to throw their body into other people for 60 minutes. Gargano describes this mental state as something like “the dark side” that many players try to reach.

3. Even with all of the money they players make, there is no doubt that it takes a toll on their bodies. In our world of white-collar, management, and technology jobs, football players stick out as celebrated workers who put their bodies on the line. One of the classic examples Gargano talks about repeatedly is what happens in the piles when the football has come loose. Most football plans have some clue of what goes on in the piles but Gargano talks about screaming and particularly dirty tactics.

4. Do football broadcasters and commentators have some sort of unwritten rule about not mentioning or talking about the physical nature of football? Many of the commentators tend to focus on the glamorous parts – the quarterback with the perfect throw, the receiver with a great catch, etc. But if so many broadcasters today have played football themselves, why don’t they offer more insights int this? Do they think viewers don’t want to hear this? Americans seem to like football because it is violent – but is there a limit to how much violence people actually want to hear about?

5. There was not a whole lot of insights into actual tactics or strategies during the game. More time is spent talking about the schedule of football players: what happens during the week and then what happens on game days.

Overall, an interesting book that mainly talks about players’ preparation and recovery. Many of the insights have been offered elsewhere but this book is quite vivid in offering a perspective that is often buried or downplayed.