Does the NFL Need the Rooney Rule?

Yes.

I read a lot of cleveland.com/sports, and right now there are a lot of articles up about the Browns interviewing Perry Fewell, which they did today. Many think this interview was simply to fulfill the Rooney Rule requirement, which is that all temas must interview a minority candidate for a head coaching job. This is a false, as Mary Kay Cabot reported in this article that the Browns brass were "eagerly anticipating" the interview. There are lot of comments on different articles about how "outdated" the Rooney Rule is because it's "insulting" to minority candidates when they're just interviewed as a token candidate to satisfy the rule.

I'm not trying to stifle free speech, as those people are entitled to their own opinions, but as an African-American male, I have to say that the Rooney Rule is neither of those.

First of all, the rule was only established in 2003, back when only seven African-Americans had held a head coaching position in the NFL. Yes seven in the entire history of the NFL, which was formed in 1920. Plus, there were only two black coaches at that time - Herman Edwards and Tony Dungy. There are currently five black head coaches (could be six if Oakland hires Hue Jackson as they're expected to), and six minorities if you count the Panthers freshly named HC Ron Rivera. You also have Art Shell, Dennis Green, Romeo Crenel, Mike Singletary and the aforementioned Edwards and Dungy as African-Americans who have held coaching positions since that time. That's a huge increase from before '03, and to me it means that the rule is working.

Now when it comes to those "token" interviews, I believe even if the team knows who they want to hire, they're still important. Take Leslie Frazier for instance. That guy has been a coveted defensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings, and with the amount of interviews he had received the last couple of years the Vikings knew they were probably going to lose him this offseason if they didn't hire him themselves. Lo and behold, that's exactly what they did. That is the Rooney Rule at work.

I also believe that the Rooney Rule should be extended to NCAA football coaches. When you look at the numbers, there are 32 coaches in the NFL and there are going to be at least 6 minority coaches next year. You look at just Division 1 football, and there are upwards of 100 temas and you could count the black coaches on no more than two hands. (Check out this article and this article for where I got that. It's been a little while since those articles came out, which is why I didn't give an exact number).

Despite the fact that I think a lot of the NCAA football system is stupid and corrupt, I think the NFL has proved that if you make it a requirement to at least interview a minority candidate, you're going to increase the amount that are hired. You can't tell me there aren't more qualified minority coaches for college football in this country than have been hired. They just need to be given the opportunity.

So, you eight readers out there that I'm preaching to, I believe the Rooney Rule is an important part of the NFL today. It's not outdated, it's not irrelevant, and it certainly is not insulting.

Just ask Leslie Frazier.

~MAS

A Look At... Perry Fewell

As I said in my previous post, I'll be taking a look at some of the head coaching candidates for the Browns and letting you know just how qualified I think they are for the job. As Browns President Mike Holmgren said on Monday, this is an extensive search with a lot of early candidates, so I may not get to all of them, but I'll try.

The coaches I'm talking about today is defensive coordinator of the Giants Perry Fewell. He has received permission from the Giants to interview with the Browns, but as far as I know, he doesn't have a strong connection to the Bill Walsh coaching tree that Holmgren himself is a part of.

Fewell is a defensive backs coach by trade, and has spent the last five seasons as a coordinator, 2006-09 with the Buffalo Bills and then this past season with the New York Giants. He also served as the Bills' interm head coach for the last seven games of the '09 season, where the team went 3-4 beating the Dolphins, Cheifs and Colts. The Colts game deserves an asterisk as it was week 17 and they were resting their starters for their eventual Super Bowl run, but they only lost one game by more than 7 points - a 31-3 loss to the Atlanta Falcons in week 16. I think that's fairly impressive for a team that's a perennial basement dweller in the AFC East.

For the past year, Fewell's Giants were in the top 10 in each of the yardage categories as they were 7th in total yards, 9th against the pass, and 8th against the run. However, they were 17th in points allowed, as they gave up 21.7 per game. I feel like the Giants offensive turnover problems had a lot to do with that, though, since they had the league leader in interceptions at quarterback, Eli Manning.

Depends on the way you think about it, but the Giants could be considered 5th in sacks with 46, but since there are three teams ahead of them tied with 47, I'll consider them 3rd. They were also first by far in forced fumbles with 48, 10 more than the second place New Orleans Saints and Pittsburgh Steelers. They also were first in recovering fumbles, with 23. All those are good numbers, but the Giants are usually at the top of those categories every year, so I think they might have more to do with Tom Coughlin than Fewell.

A lot of people are saying that Fewell is just being interviewed for a lot of these jobs because he satisfies the Rooney Rule, but I think Fewell could be a pretty good coach for any team based on the record he had as interm head coach of the Bills. That being said, I don't think he'll be the next coach of the Cleveland Browns because he has no previous connection to Holmgren and probably wouldn't run the West Coast offense. And even though Holmgren has said that it's not a necessity, it's clearly preferable as it's a system he and GM Tom Heckert are familiar with, and Colt McCoy would run it well.

So no, I don't think Perry Fewell will be the 16th head coach of the Cleveland Browns, but I always like to hear of African-American coach getting opportunities. The more interviews he gets, the more his name gets out there, and he could end up as the next Leslie Frazier, who just had the "interm" tag removed from his title as head coach of the Minnesota Vikings after receiving numerous interviews for positions last year.

I'll be back soon with more on the coaching search. Go Browns!
~MAS