"Black HCs are not given the same opportunities" - Shannon Sharpe believes the NFL sets up black coaches for failure

Shannon Sharpe has some thoughts on the NFL head coaching carousel. After Houston Texans head coach David Culley and Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores were fired from their respective teams, this left Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin as the only tenured black head coach in the NFL. On his show Undisputed, Sharpe weighed in with his own thoughts on the matter.

Shannon Sharpe convinced black coaches are given impossible head coaching jobs

The co-host of Undisputed and former Denver Broncos tight end, Shannon Sharpe, did not hold back as he laid out his feelings on how the NFL treats its black head coaches:

"Black coaches are held to a higher standard than their white counterparts. It's as simple as that. Skip, if we go back and see. Skip, I don't need to do more research. I have 100 years of empirical data that says that black head coaches are not given the same opportunities."

“And when they get a job[,] what job did they give Tony Dungy? Tampa Bay Buccaneers. What job did they give Herman, it was for his first job? The New York Jets. What job did they give Todd Bowles for his first job? The New York Jets. You see what they do, Skip Bayless. They give you a job when they know you can't succeed.”

“And as soon as they give you that job and you don't succeed, what did they do? David Culley, they set the man up for failure. How are you going to win with the quarterback situation that they had? They traded DeAndre Hopkins a year before. They were letting JJ Watt go, and so now the covers are bare: come in. It's like a CEO, Skip. You get a black CEO. We’re gonna make you CEO of this company that’s in bankruptcy. Well, if you don't lead us out of bankruptcy, well, we need to go in another direction because he didn't turn it around. Really?"

In his criticism of the lack of black head coaches, Shannon Sharpe also points out that the few opportunities given are not the most ideal situations. With only 32 teams in the NFL, there are only that many opportunities for the highly-sought after job of running a professional football team.

While each case could be anecdotal (e.g., Mike Tomlin was hired onto a Pittsburgh Steelers team that was already in contention and not in rebuild mode), the overall landscape of NFL head coaches is disproportionate for black head coaches when 70% of players in the NFL are black. While that ratio seems skewed, consider that the NFL had to implement a rule to ensure equal opportunities for potential black head coaching candidates. The Rooney Rule requires teams to interview two external minority candidates for open head coaching positions (as well as coordinators and general manager positions).

When head coach Bill Cowher retired from the NFL, the Pittsburgh Steelers went through the Rooney Rule as a formality, only to end up hiring the minority candidate they were required to interview: Mike Tomlin. Tomlin is now 14 years into leading the Steelers with 7 AFC North titles and one Super Bowl win out of two trips. Shannon Sharpe's criticism of the NFL goes beyond this rule and takes aim at the higher standards that he presumes black head coaches are held to.

Additionally, each head coaching position is solely dependent on the organization and the owners/GMs who run the team administration. If individual teams are not giving black head coaching candidates a fair shot, then the overall landscape looks as bare as it does today -- the NFL, as a league, can only do so much without being guilty of overreach in how individual franchises run their respective teams.

For Hall-of-Famer Shannon Sharpe, he certainly feels that teams can do more. As it stands, the NFL continues to seek that balance between proportionate representation and quality candidates to run an NFL team.