DUNGY'S HALL OF FAME legacy extends beyond the dominant defense he built in Tampa Bay and the Super Bowl his Indianapolis Colts won. It extends beyond a .668 career winning percentage that ranks between Paul Brown and Bill Belichick on the NFL's all-time list (minimum 100 games coached). Dungy also blazed trails. He and his assistant coaches fueled a surge in minority representation within the head-coaching ranks as Lovie Smith, Edwards, Caldwell and Tomlin rose to prominence.
While Dungy's enshrinement in Canton next month provides an opportunity to celebrate this legacy, it's also a reminder that perceived progress in minority head coaching hires had more to do with Dungy's coaching tree than with the Rooney Rule driving a shift in how teams operate.
"The process now probably is not that much different than it was in '97 or '98, unfortunately," Dungy said.
Eight of the 21 minority head-coaching hires since 1997 involved coaches who either entered the NFL on one of Dungy's staffs or had worked on his staff previously. A ninth involved Dungy himself, with the Colts naming him their head coach in 2002 (Tampa Bay hired him in 1996). As noted earlier, that means we can trace back to Dungy 43 percent of minority head-coaching hires over the past two decades.
Caldwell, Smith and Tomlin entered the league on Dungy's staffs. They have become head coaches a combined five times. Edwards was on Dungy's Tampa Bay staff when the Jets hired him in 2001. Edwards became a head coach for the second time with Kansas City in 2006. Frazier had been on Dungy's staff in Indianapolis five years before Minnesota promoted him to the top job in 2011.
"They were all under that tree and I'm sure Tony had a hand in [their hiring]," a minority coach said. "Those were when the Tampa 2 thing was hot and he was responsible for a bunch of them, but overall, for the rest of us, it wasn't really possible."
This minority coach made another distinction, suggesting darker-skinned African-American coaches can have a steeper hill to climb, a phenomenon Georgetown University sociology professor Michael Eric Dyson recently analyzed for The Undefeated regarding Golden State Warriors guard Steph Curry.
"I'm not as light as Dungy," this coach said. "There is a different element of racism there. There is racism, and then there is dark-skinned racism. There are layers, now. It goes deep. You'd better be spit-shined and polished, your teeth had better be white, you'd better be well-groomed and you'd better sound intelligent and see everything around you. Then, on top of that, you'd better be a damn good coach."
A longtime NFL executive who has participated in the hiring process with multiple teams said owners look to make safe choices. Dungy's credibility enabled his former assistants to break through partly on his recommendation. Owners recently have been more apt to hire minority candidates who have been head coaches previously. Second-time minority head coaches Romeo Crennel, Caldwell, Hue Jackson and Smith account for four of five minority hires since 2012.
"In a way, it is good that those guys have been second-timers and they roll into the system so that they are treated like everyone else," Dungy said. "That is progress. But in looking at the numbers overall, we have shifted back to some old hiring practices."
THE PANTHERS, JETS and Steelers are the only teams with coaching staffs composed of at least 50 percent minorities this season. All three have minority head coaches, but five of their six offensive and defensive coordinators are white. This is not an anomaly. The minority head coaches hired over the past 20 years filled their initial staffs with minority defensive coordinators 11 times in 21 chances, beating the 30 percent rate for white head coaches over that span. However, these same minority head coaches started out with white offensive coordinators 76 percent of the time.
Sometimes it's not permitted or simply impractical for new head coaches to replace existing coordinators. Dungy and Caldwell, for example, both inherited Tom Moore, the Colts' offensive coordinator and Peyton Manning's right-hand man. Arians was already on the Steelers' staff and in line to become coordinator when Rooney hired Tomlin in 2007.
Of course, it's tough to hire minority offensive coordinators with so few candidates in the offensive pipeline. Twenty-six of 28 head offensive line coaches are white. All 28 quarterbacks coaches are white, as are all four assistant QB coaches and five others with some oversight of the position. Eighteen of 19 coaches responsible for offensive quality control are white (the lone minority, Rock Cartwright of the Cleveland Browns, is also assistant running backs coach).
There are 29 minority running backs coaches (three white) and 17 minority receivers coaches (16 white). One of those minority running backs coaches, Craig Johnson, was a longtime quarterbacks coach and a former college offensive coordinator. He is now 56 years old and coaching running backs for the New York Giants under McAdoo, whose NFL career path took him from offensive quality control coach (2004) to offensive line coach (2005) to tight ends coach (2006-11) to quarterbacks coach (2012-13) to offensive coordinator (2014-15) before McAdoo became a head coach at age 38.
Becoming an offensive or defensive coordinator is the game within the game. Teams have employed white offensive coordinators about 85 percent of the time over the past 20 years. The rate has been closer to 75 percent white for defensive coordinators, not far off the two-thirds ratio of all NFL coaches who are white this season.
Why does this matter? Thirteen of the 36 head coach hirings over the past five years were offensive coordinators in their previous jobs, while eight were defensive coordinators. Fourteen of the remaining 15 (all but Tomsula) held head-coaching jobs at the college or pro level, including interim NFL head coaches.
"I have talked to a bunch of owners over the past 10 years who were looking for coaches and saying, 'I have to get somebody to get my offense going,'" Dungy said. "And you say, 'Well, if I were copying someone, wouldn't I copy New England or Seattle or Pittsburgh? That might tell you that you don't have to have the hottest offensive coordinator to win Super Bowls."
