EL BARRIO, EL FALLS – Happy Monday, to you and yours. We live in hope that the phasing out of the the shelter in place orders will be successful. Now for sports with Sports Rain Man, Junoir Blaber…” Hey, that’s me and here are today’s topics: NFL Affirmative Action Plan, NFL Wrap Sheet & RIP Phyllis George.
NFL Affirmative Action – So, this is what it has come to for the NFL. They are now going to propose two different ideas to their owners to see which they will accept to try and get the owners to start hiring black coaches.
The first idea has the NFL removing their ban on coach tampering. This means assistant black coaches like Kansas City‘s Eric Bieniemy will now be allowed to be approached even while their teams are still in playoffs, so they don’t have to wait until after the playoffs. The courting team can avoid tampering charges as long as the Commissioner approves. Along with Bieniemy, Duce Staley of Buddy Diaz‘s Philadelphia Eagles, the running back coach, was denied a chance to interview for the Chicago Bears offensive coordinator spot because the Eagles were in the playoffs at the time, just to give two key examples. So this will be the final decision of the owners but the idea is that teams can stop blocking top young black coaches from being interviewed and have to comply to give these coaches a better chance.
The second and more insane option is the hiring of a head coach and GM will lead to higher spot in the NFL draft and you can go all the way from the bottom to almost the top of the the third round if you hire a black coach and GM. A black GM and black coach on their own is worth about six spots but combined then comes up to a 15 spots move.
I don’t expect this to pass because the owner of themselves will have to vote on it and it’s been made very clear by the NFL owners that they are very comfortable with the level of blatant racism in a league as is. It will remain over 9o percent black players since a few years after integration and yet there is a dearth of black coaches and GMs.
NFL Wrap Sheet – With a some extra weeks off, it looks like the bad apples of the NFL are at it again. You have a Bills player arrested on DWI and gun possession charges. Long time friends and NFL cornerbacks DeAndre Baker of the Giants and Quinton Dunbar of the Seahawks have been released from Broward County, Florida, jail on bond following their alleged involvement in an armed robbery last week. A former Colts and Packers linebacker has been charged with felony intimidation and finally as of right now another wide receiver faces 5 charges in Colorado. Alas though, let us never forget Colin Kaepernick was considered a bad influence on the team and bad for the sport so he can never get another job thank you.
RIP Phyllis George – I have never heard of Phyllis George or paid attention (as misspelling her name in the original draft would verify! This #OhSnap Moment brought to you by the MTM Edit Staff). But in doing my research for an article today I came across the fact that she was like a mom to lots of female newscasters. As this group here at MTM is solely male, I don’t know if it is anything we can add without sounding like we are mansplaining it. I just want to take a moment to recognize Mrs. George for her contributions, her dedication and a mentor to lots of female sports journalists as they came through the ranks and make she rest in peace.
Share your thoughts and come back tomorrow for Big Ben Whitney. You can also find us on Twitter: @JunoirBlaber, @MeetTheMatts & @Matt_McCarthy00, Instagram– @MeetTheMatts – and Facebook – Meet The Matts.
