All NFL teams will hire a Minority Offensive Assistant Coach for 2022 season

Every NFL team will hire a minority offensive assistant coach for 2022 season
from Adam Stites, with YardBarker.com/www.yardbarker.com

All 32 NFL teams will be mandated to have a minority offensive assistant coach on staff for the 2022 season, the league announced Monday.

The coach can be a woman or the member of a racial or ethnic minority, the league says, as it attempts to make improvements in diversity. The NFL is currently facing a lawsuit from Pittsburgh Steelers assistant Brian Flores, who claimed racial discrimination was the reason he was fired as head coach of the Miami Dolphins and why he wasn’t seriously considered as a head coaching candidate for the New York Giants.

Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney II, who serves as chairman of the NFL’s diversity committee, said that he hopes the mandate creates a pipeline for coaches to rise through the ranks and eventually become head coaches.

“It’s a recognition that at the moment, when you look at stepping stones for a head coach, they are the coordinator positions,” Rooney said Monday, via ESPN. “We clearly have a trend where coaches are coming from the offensive side of the ball in recent years, and we clearly do not have as many minorities in the offensive coordinator [role].”

The Kansas City Chiefs have finished four consecutive seasons top six in the NFL in both scoring and total yards, but offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, who is Black, has not been hired as a head coach. Neither has Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich, who has led the team to three straight top three finishes in points scored.