INDIANAPOLIS — Bruce Arians has created the NFL's most diverse coaching staff in Tampa Bay, establishing the Buccaneers as the only team to have Black coaches at all four coordinator positions. They also have two women on the staff as full-time coaches. He is the poster child for what the league aspires to develop with its member teams.
That's why Arians applauded his former team when the Steelers stepped up and added Brian Flores to their coaching staff just two weeks after Flores' blockbuster racial discrimination lawsuit against the NFL.
"I thought it was a great move," Arians said. "He's a great dude and a hell of a coach. He needs to be a head coach in this league. I think Mike (Tomlin) did a great job bringing him on ... and I think it helps the Steelers organization."
Flores' lawsuit shed more light on what has become a troubling topic in the NFL — the lack of Black head coaches in a league where 65% of the players are African-American. Even though he was hired by the Steelers, Flores and his attorneys will not drop the lawsuit against the league.
When Flores was fired by the Miami Dolphins despite back-to-back winning seasons for the first time in 18 years, his dismissal along with firing of David Culley by the Houston Texans left Tomlin as the league's only Black head coach.
Curiously, the teams that fired Flores and Culley hired minority head coaches as their replacements — Lovie Smith by the Texans and Mike McDaniel by the Dolphins.
"I think the biggest thing, more than anything else, is that the situation, the circumstances, have been brought to light," said Washington Commanders coach Ron Rivera, speaking at the NFL combine. "OK, let's don't ignore them, let's figure out the way to correct them. Let's figure out ways to help create a positive set of circumstances. Let's see if we can help the hiring process and improve the numbers."
Arians has done his best to put Black coaches in position to become head coaches. But he doesn't just want to build a diverse staff. He wants his offensive coordinator (Byron Leftwich), defensive coordinator (Todd Bowles), special teams coordinator (Keith Armstrong) and run game coordinator (Harold Goodwin) to move on and become head coaches. (Bowles was a former head coach with the New York Jets after working for Arians in Arizona.)
But he can only do so much.
"We're not owners," Arians said. "We know what good coaches look like. We're coaches, so it's not hard for us. I've been on those committees now for 10 years. We've made better rules and better progress, but it's still not good enough. Obviously, when those two guys (Bowles and Leftwich) are not head coaches after the last two seasons, I think something is wrong."
Part of Flores' lawsuit pointed out flaws in the Rooney Rule — named for late Steelers chairman Dan Rooney — that requires teams to interview at least two external minority candidates for head coach and general manager positions. They expanded that requirement last year to include coordinators.
However, Flores thought he was nothing more than a token interview when he discovered via an erroneous text message from Bill Belichick that the New York Giants had already decided to hire Brian Daboll as their head coach before Flores even had his formal interview.
"I have a friend in sales, and one of the things he said that he tells his salesmen is that when you go out there, they've got to get to know you," Rivera said. "They've got to get to like you so they can trust you and then they'll buy from you. And I think that's what we need to do is be able to create those avenues where every candidate gets an opportunity to get in front of a people so they can get to know them before a process starts.
"If we can create venues where these guys can meet and visit and get to know the decision makers, whether those decision makers be general managers, presidents, or owners, let's see if we can create that so that we can create those positive opportunities."
The Steelers weren't the only team to show interest in Flores, despite his lawsuit. The Texans interviewed him for their head coaching position before hiring Smith.
"I have a lot of respect and admiration for Brian," said Texans general manager Nick Caserio, who was director of player personnel with the New England Patriots when Flores was an assistant coach there. "I think he's one of the better coaches in our league. We had a lot of time together there in New England. Brian is a great coach, and I know he'll do a lot of good things with the Steelers, I'm sure, and he'll be in this league for a long time."
There has been some positive movement around the league.
Two teams — the Bears (Ryan Poles) and Minnesota Vikings (Kwesi Adofo-Mensah) — hired Black executives to be their general manager. That brought the number of Black GMs in the league to five, two more than the number of head coaches.
"You live in both worlds where you're confident in your abilities and your ability to learn and grow, but when that call (to you) gets made, you understand and appreciate the odds that you're facing," Adofo-Mensah said. "It's in a general basis but also in a specific basis, being the color of my skin. You talk about that burden. You know, I grew up in a predominantly white area. I went to a predominantly white college. I worked in a predominantly white field. So I've felt that burden my entire life."
