Bruce Arians Retires

[BroncosFJB]

So, what?

Is the league not allowed to exercise some discretion on the matter?

Again, were they supposed to interview the token minority candidates before hiring the actual minority candidate?

Who are token candidates? This wrongly dismisses other minority candidates from the hiring process.

The league rule states that two external minority candidates must be interviewed for a head coach vacancy.

Since you’re fine with breaking a league rule disguised as “discretion”, then it’s fine for teams to not interview minority candidates when they have openings - by your version of “discretion” teams can hire who they want and simply say, “We exercised discretion interpreting the rule”.

Can’t have it both ways - the league rule is the rule.

[BroncosFJB]

Bucs broke a league hiring rule by appointing Bowles head coach. Imagine the outcry if they appointed Clyde Christensen without interviewing external minority candidates.

[BroncosFJB]

Lawyers happy to see the league overlook a hiring policy violation. If a team chooses to violate this rule in the future they have an easy case - NFL failed to enforce a policy with the Bucs allows teams to cite that example. That’s is how it’s done.

[lvbronx]

Lawyers happy to see the league overlook a hiring policy violation. If a team chooses to violate this rule in the future they have an easy case - NFL failed to enforce a policy with the Bucs allows teams to cite that example. That’s is how it’s done.

The first thing a lawyer needs is an injured party/plaintiff. Who was harmed? Then assuming you win the case, you also have to prove damages. How much was that party harmed?

A good lawyer would also research the rule. It's possible there are exceptions, like when a coach is fired mid-season and an interim coach is hired. There's no Rooney Rule in effect then. Was this hiring after a deadline we're not aware of?

Lawyers can also argue the letter of the law vs the intent/spirit of the law. The intent/spirit of the rule is clearly to assist minorities get a fair chance to be hired. Since a minority was hired as HC, we can assume the spirit/intent of the rule was met. According to the Rooney Rule, if it applies in this specific case, the Bucs could have interviewed two minority candidates, THEN hired a white coach.

[BroncosFJB]

The first thing a lawyer needs is an injured party/plaintiff. Who was harmed? Then assuming you win the case, you also have to prove damages. How much was that party harmed?

A good lawyer would also research the rule. It's possible there are exceptions, like when a coach is fired mid-season and an interim coach is hired. There's no Rooney Rule in effect then. Was this hiring after a deadline we're not aware of?

Lawyers can also argue the letter of the law vs the intent/spirit of the law. The intent/spirit of the rule is clearly to assist minorities get a fair chance to be hired. Since a minority was hired as HC, we can assume the spirit/intent of the rule was met. According to the Rooney Rule, if it applies in this specific case, the Bucs could have interviewed two minority candidates, THEN hired a white coach.

The loophole the Bucs used was the March 1 cutoff when teams can refuse to allow other teams to interview coaches. After March 1 coaching staffs are “locked”.

Meeting the spirit of the rule cuts two ways. On one hand a minority candidate was hired. On the other hand external candidates were denied the opportunity to interview because the Bucs waited until after March 1 to hire Bowles by circumventing the rule.

Flip the scenario to another team who wants to hire their preferred candidate. The team only needs to wait until after March 1 to exclude all external candidates. Imagine the Cowboys firing Mike McCarthy after March 1 and hiring Sean Payton without interviewing any minority candidates. Lot of fans would be screaming about the unfairness of that scenario.

But anyone arguing in favor of how the Bucs hired Bowles would have no argument against any team doing the same thing with their preferred candidate.

Easy for a team to defend who they hired if a candidate wanted to litigate being excluded from hiring. The league allowed the Bucs to manipulate the rule. If the Bucs and the league were acting in the spirit of the rule they would name Bowles the interim coach and conduct a full interview process after the end of the season.

[samparnell]

So, the ultimate end game is to increase the number of minority head coaches, given the levels have been significantly one sided for many years.....knowing full well the issue stems from the fact that there are indeed a large pool of worthy minority candidates who appear to get overlooked in the majority of head coach selections. So the league incorporates rules to try to support a favorable shift in minority hiring, rules that in truth, many of us are not exactly in love with. But it's a start.

The Bucs now decide to change coaches and select a minority HC, who is not only a proven candidate, but resides on their team. Perfect! But you still think they must interview someone else, even though they have aligned their choice with the ultimate goal....to increase the number of minority head coaches. If you've achieved the ultimate goal, why go through the steps in between? The issue relates to the waste of time given credible minority candidates just to appease a somewhat weak rule. So if if you give Bowles the job, which he clearly deserves, aren't you making this an excellent example of positive minority hiring, rather than "wasteful" effort for all involved?

Heck, I am sure The Bucs could go back, and interview one or more other candidates. And I quite sure they will come up short, because the man they want is right there in front of them, on their team. Who happens to be a minority representative.

This issue will probably be revisited several times after the 2022 season as it looks like several head coaches may already be on the hot seat. All such undertakings will most likely be under increased scrutiny. It will be interesting to see what, if any, modifications to the process are implemented.

Denver's recent HC search was followed fairly well on this message board. There were ten who were interviewed, I believe, three of whom are African-American. Were they given bona fide interviews, or is there reason to believe one or more may have been token/going-through-motions-to-satisfy-a-rule contacts?

Eric Bieniemy has been interviewed a number of times, but has not been offered a HC spot in the NFL, although he did decline an offer at CU in 2020.

[beastlyskronk]

Are we really questioning if the Bucs were trying to circumvent the rule? Their HC is black, their assistant head coach is black, their offensive coordinator is black, both defensive coordinators are black, their special teams coordinator is black, there are numerous black position/assistant coaches and they have 2 females on the coaching staff one of which is of Iranian heritage. They already have one of if not the most diverse coaching staff in the league.

The loophole is there so teams don’t have to conduct interviews during the middle of the season with a much more shallow pool of candidates. Teams who fire their head coach aren’t going to wait until March 1st to start their head coaching search, their list of viable candidates will have been significantly cut down if they did that. Besides if the intent of the rule is to give minority candidates a viable shot at being a head coach, in this situation you’d be spitting on what the Rooney rule is trying to accomplish as the 2 candidates would have been interviewed literally just to fulfill the requirement which would make them token interviews that waste everyone’s time while reinforcing this notion that you don’t have to seriously consider minority candidates and also giving other teams ammunition to defend not hiring those 2 particular candidates.

Forcing them to do those external interviews would have almost been as bad as the Texans hiring Culley with the sole purpose of appeasing Deshaun Watson. Culley got the shortest end of the stick imaginable and will likely never get another shot at being a head coach because not only did he end up going to a team where the star QB missed the season due to his pending legal cases but the team sucked on top of it and even though they realistically exceeded expectations he was still fired and now all anyone will point to if his name even gets brought up is how bad the W/L record was with no context of how the team was gutted prior to his arrival by an incompetent HC/GM.

[BroncosFJB]

Are we really questioning if the Bucs were trying to circumvent the rule? Their HC is black, their assistant head coach is black, their offensive coordinator is black, both defensive coordinators are black, their special teams coordinator is black, there are numerous black position/assistant coaches and they have 2 females on the coaching staff one of which is of Iranian heritage. They already have one of if not the most diverse coaching staff in the league.

The loophole is there so teams don’t have to conduct interviews during the middle of the season with a much more shallow pool of candidates. Teams who fire their head coach aren’t going to wait until March 1st to start their head coaching search, their list of viable candidates will have been significantly cut down if they did that. Besides if the intent of the rule is to give minority candidates a viable shot at being a head coach, in this situation you’d be spitting on what the Rooney rule is trying to accomplish as the 2 candidates would have been interviewed literally just to fulfill the requirement which would make them token interviews that waste everyone’s time while reinforcing this notion that you don’t have to seriously consider minority candidates and also giving other teams ammunition to defend not hiring those 2 particular candidates.

Forcing them to do those external interviews would have almost been as bad as the Texans hiring Culley with the sole purpose of appeasing Deshaun Watson. Culley got the shortest end of the stick imaginable and will likely never get another shot at being a head coach because not only did he end up going to a team where the star QB missed the season due to his pending legal cases but the team sucked on top of it and even though they realistically exceeded expectations he was still fired and now all anyone will point to if his name even gets brought up is how bad the W/L record was with no context of how the team was gutted prior to his arrival by an incompetent HC/GM.

The Bucs circumvented NFL policy, intent or not. The intent to circumvent policy was obvious as Arians admitted his goal was his succession plan to hire Bowles.

Arguing it‘a fine to violate NFL policy because the Bucs ultimately hired a minority in Bowles is a fallacy. That would mean any team can violate any policy in the name of helping a minority candidate. Accepting one violation opens the door to teams interviewing another team’s coach during the restricted period.

[beastlyskronk]

The Bucs circumvented NFL policy, intent or not. The intent to circumvent policy was obvious as Arians admitted his goal was his succession plan to hire Bowles.

Arguing it‘a fine to violate NFL policy because the Bucs ultimately hired a minority in Bowles is a fallacy. That would mean any team can violate any policy in the name of helping a minority candidate. Accepting one violation opens the door to teams interviewing another team’s coach during the restricted period.

But Arians wasn’t going to retire until Brady decided to come out of retirement because in his words he wasn’t going to leave Bowles high and dry like that. So the Bucs didn’t purposefully wait until after March 1st to circumvent the Rooney rule. And that’s just if you believe that Arians retired on his own terms (a FO position isn’t much of a retirement) and wasn’t pushed out to appease Brady as has been rumored. So again, there was no intent to circumvent the rule, just bad timing by an egotistical QB.

And ultimately this is a moot argument because as I said earlier, teams aren’t going to handicap their coaching search by waiting until March 1st to figure out what direction their team will be going in, in 2 weeks when FA starts. There wouldn’t be anything the FO could do that would scream dysfunction louder than that. Secondly, the NFL is already looking into closing the loophole so the Bucs actually shed some light on something that could be abused in a very specific and rare set of circumstances. In fact only 12 head coaches since the inception of the Rooney rule have been hired outside of January, with well over half coming from Super Bowl teams. So out of the 100+ coaches hired over the past 19 years (1/5 of all coaches ever) only 12 have been hired in February, absolutely 0 have been hired in March and 2 were hired in December. Even with the internal promotions, Bowles is literally the only coach to be named head coach after March 1st since the Rooney rule was established and it isn’t like NFL front offices and owners didn’t already know about this loophole.

No team will be looking to exploit this, not even Jerry Jones to hire Sean Payton, besides Payton is old anyway and they’re not hiring him to watch Kellen Moore leave and give up draft picks to get him from the Saints as his contract would still be in effect.

[BroncosFJB]

But Arians wasn’t going to retire until Brady decided to come out of retirement because in his words he wasn’t going to leave Bowles high and dry like that. So the Bucs didn’t purposefully wait until after March 1st to circumvent the Rooney rule. And that’s just if you believe that Arians retired on his own terms (a FO position isn’t much of a retirement) and wasn’t pushed out to appease Brady as has been rumored. So again, there was no intent to circumvent the rule, just bad timing by an egotistical QB.

And ultimately this is a moot argument because as I said earlier, teams aren’t going to handicap their coaching search by waiting until March 1st to figure out what direction their team will be going in, in 2 weeks when FA starts. There wouldn’t be anything the FO could do that would scream dysfunction louder than that. Secondly, the NFL is already looking into closing the loophole so the Bucs actually shed some light on something that could be abused in a very specific and rare set of circumstances. In fact only 12 head coaches since the inception of the Rooney rule have been hired outside of January, with well over half coming from Super Bowl teams. So out of the 100+ coaches hired over the past 19 years (1/5 of all coaches ever) only 12 have been hired in February, absolutely 0 have been hired in March and 2 were hired in December. Even with the internal promotions, Bowles is literally the only coach to be named head coach after March 1st since the Rooney rule was established and it isn’t like NFL front offices and owners didn’t already know about this loophole.

No team will be looking to exploit this, not even Jerry Jones to hire Sean Payton, besides Payton is old anyway and they’re not hiring him to watch Kellen Moore leave and give up draft picks to get him from the Saints as his contract would still be in effect.

The Bucs still circumvented the NFL’s policy, whether intentional or bad timing. If bad timing was a legitimate excuse (it’s not) for breaking policy, teams could break any NFL policy and simply claim bad timing.

If the Bucs had hired a non-minority coach under the same circumstances, corporate media and fans would be crying foul for circumventing the league’s hiring policy.

Not that Bowles wasn’t qualified, he simply benefited from being with the Bucs as a coordinator with Arians. Like any other team they wanted their guy. When teams target their preferred candidate, the Bucs hiring Bowles underscores how people hire - they hire who they prefer.

What cannot be ignored is the fact that other potentially qualified candidates were excluded from the opportunity. Tough to claim coaches are unfairly missing opportunities to interview when defending the Bucs hiring their guy without interviewing other candidates.

[beastlyskronk]

The Bucs still circumvented the NFL’s policy, whether intentional or bad timing. If bad timing was a legitimate excuse (it’s not) for breaking policy, teams could break any NFL policy and simply claim bad timing.

If the Bucs had hired a non-minority coach under the same circumstances, corporate media and fans would be crying foul for circumventing the league’s hiring policy.

Not that Bowles wasn’t qualified, he simply benefited from being with the Bucs as a coordinator with Arians. Like any other team they wanted their guy. When teams target their preferred candidate, the Bucs hiring Bowles underscores how people hire - they hire who they prefer.

What cannot be ignored is the fact that other potentially qualified candidates were excluded from the opportunity. Tough to claim coaches are unfairly missing opportunities to interview when defending the Bucs hiring their guy without interviewing other candidates.

They didn’t break any rules though as the policy says nothing about promoting from within after March 1st. It’s a legal loophole for sure, but legal as of now nonetheless. Now will it change next off-season, maybe, but the change won’t net anything as Bowles is the only coach to be named head coach after March 1st since the rule’s inception. Again teams aren’t going to wait until March to put their entire coaching staff in place. It’s way too close to free agency, it’ll give the new coach next to no time to convince pending free agents to resign, and it’s way too close to the draft. Plus no candidate is going to go to a team where they won’t be able to put their staff in place and since coaching staffs are locked they’d either be stuck with a shallow pool of coaches not on a team, college coaches, or what’s already in place. If the NFL mandated that, they’d be adding fuel to the fire as now every coach put in that situation will be able to say they weren’t given a fair shot because of all the reasons listed above which will only make the optics look that much worse for why minority coaches aren’t getting hired or why they’re getting fired. Also any candidate that gets interviewed and wasn’t hired is going to be perceived as someone who isn’t ready, doesn’t interview well, or simply not a good candidate. We’ve seen this play out the past few seasons with Eric Bienemy.

If you’re arguing they broke the spirit of the rule, I don’t see how when the spirit of the rule is to hire minority coaches. The spirit of the rule isn’t just to interview minority candidates, that’s just the process in which they can enact the spirit of the rule which the Bucs ultimately met.

As far as people crying foul if they would’ve promoted a non minority candidate, anyone who would, would only be doing so because they just changed the policy which would be disingenuous. There’s no uproar when teams fire a coach and name their interim coach, no one cried foul for Rich Bisaccia getting the job over Edgar Bennett last year when Gruden was fired.

What you’re arguing to fix would actually have a much more negative impact on the hiring of minority coaches IMO.

[BroncosFJB]

They didn’t break any rules though as the policy says nothing about promoting from within after March 1st. It’s a legal loophole for sure, but legal as of now nonetheless. Now will it change next off-season, maybe, but the change won’t net anything as Bowles is the only coach to be named head coach after March 1st since the rule’s inception. Again teams aren’t going to wait until March to put their entire coaching staff in place. It’s way too close to free agency, it’ll give the new coach next to no time to convince pending free agents to resign, and it’s way too close to the draft. Plus no candidate is going to go to a team where they won’t be able to put their staff in place and since coaching staffs are locked they’d either be stuck with a shallow pool of coaches not on a team, college coaches, or what’s already in place. If the NFL mandated that, they’d be adding fuel to the fire as now every coach put in that situation will be able to say they weren’t given a fair shot because of all the reasons listed above which will only make the optics look that much worse for why minority coaches aren’t getting hired or why they’re getting fired. Also any candidate that gets interviewed and wasn’t hired is going to be perceived as someone who isn’t ready, doesn’t interview well, or simply not a good candidate. We’ve seen this play out the past few seasons with Eric Bienemy.

If you’re arguing they broke the spirit of the rule, I don’t see how when the spirit of the rule is to hire minority coaches. The spirit of the rule isn’t just to interview minority candidates, that’s just the process in which they can enact the spirit of the rule which the Bucs ultimately met.

As far as people crying foul if they would’ve promoted a non minority candidate, anyone who would, would only be doing so because they just changed the policy which would be disingenuous. There’s no uproar when teams fire a coach and name their interim coach, no one cried foul for Rich Bisaccia getting the job over Edgar Bennett last year when Gruden was fired.

What you’re arguing to fix would actually have a much more negative impact on the hiring of minority coaches IMO.

The rule adopted last year by the NFL required teams to interview at least two external minority candidates. The Bucs violated the policy. If the league doesn’t address the policy violation by the Bucs, they open the door to teams violating other policies of the hiring process.

Waiting until after March 1 when teams lock their coaching staff from interviewing doesn’t absolve the Bucs of following the policy to interview external candidates. The NFL leaves themselves open to teams violating the rules and using this example as a defense.

Excluding candidates from competing for the Bucs head coach vacancy gives other teams a defense for violating hiring policies.

Teams naming an interim coach is a different scenario because they interview multiple candidates after the season. Although the Bucs naming Bowles head coach without interviewing external candidates creates the perfect path for teams to follow when they fire coaches mid season.

[Peanut]

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