There is an unfortunate trend happening in the NFL, and ESPN analyst Stephen A. Smith is not keeping quiet about it.

As Blavity previously reported, there are only three Black head coaches in the league.

The conversation around the dishearteningly low number of Black coaches comes after the New York Giants' decision to promote New England Patriots Wide Receiver Coach Joe Judge to head coach.  

"This don't happen for Black folk a wide receiver coach that becomes the head coach," Smith said of the recent hire.

In 2003, the NFL formed the Rooney Rule in an attempt to increase the number of minority head coaches and administrators reports Newsweek. In 2009, the rule was amended to include general manager and front office positions. Still, the Rooney Rule remains a routing procedure, and the NFL seems to just be preaching inclusivity instead of actually practicing it.

Since the institution of the rule, the number of minority coaches has not budged: Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Anthony Lynn of the Los Angeles Chargers and Brian Flores of the Miami Dolphins are Black while Washington Redskins coach Ron Rivera is Latinx. 

On Tuesday, Matt Rhule was hired as the head coach for the Carolina Panthers and Mike McCarthy as the coach for the Dallas Cowboys. Both are white.

"I want to announce on national television that I personally am going to take it upon myself, whether it’s to communicate with the NFL league office, whether it’s to communicate with owners, whether it’s to sit up here and raise holy hell, whether it’s to recruit my contemporaries in this business to address it, we got a problem. This is some BS," lamented Smith.

"Black men are not being treated fairly in the National Football League,” Smith continued. “Somebody got to say it. When the stuff that has happened over the last year for this stuff to go on, and we just going to sit up here and have a sports conversation. I ain’t having no damn sports conversation at this particular moment."

Seventy percent of NFL players are Black. Seventy-five percent of head coaches are white, and 94% are franchise owners, reports the Washington Post. In an organization where Black players constitute the majority of those in the league, they are not able to take the lead in facilitating imperative decisions about their livelihoods and their treatment.

Richard Lapchick, the director of The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at Central Florida also thinks the lack of Black hires is not a coincidence. 

“It’s not like there are no qualified candidates. These people are out there and ready,” he told the Chicago Tribune. 

"It’s a serious problem, it’s fair to say nobody is feeling pressured to diversify, especially at the club level,” Lapchick added.

Smith is not one to mince his words about hot button topics. 

In late December, Smith commented on the specifics of the botched workout between the NFL and free agent Colin Kaepernick. He expressed the fact that the NFL was not interested in mending fences with Kaepernick while questioning the free agent's motive.

Smith commented that the manner in which the NFL orchestrated the workout was "a little shaky."

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