NFL continues to show its true colors

Here’s the thing about clarity: It differentiates. It makes things clear, exposes things, brings things to light. It can be a mirror. It can be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth while still being not absolute in the truth being told.

One thing that we know — that has been so very clear — is that the NFL, in the words of Kanye referring to then-President George W. Bush, ‘‘does not like Black people.’’ At least — or especially, depending on your POV — in the position of power that comes with the title of head coach.

Here we go again, right? The same ol’, same ol’. Another Black columnist complaining about another recycled (fake) Black issue after Black Monday as Black History Month approaches. Why can’t you all just let this be? Accept it for what it is? Always race-baiting. You’re making something out of nothing.

Well, clarity has a way of contradicting any and all ‘‘there’s nothing to see here’’ circumstances in sports. Unquestionably in a league that continues to show how it really feels about head coaches who don’t look like the owners.

Mike McCarthy in Pittsburgh. Joe Brady in Buffalo. Kevin Stefanski in the ATL. Jeff Hafley in Miami. Jesse Minter in Baltimore. John Harbaugh in N.Y. Todd Monken in Cleveland. All fit the profile. Of the 10 coaching jobs that became available during the NFL’s latest speed round of pink-slipping once the regular season ended, Robert Saleh in Tennessee, he of Lebanese descent, is the only coach of color to land a head-coaching spot.

‘‘I am horrified by how few Black head coaches there are now in the National Football League,’’ Skip Bayless preached last week. ‘‘We have seen head coaches hired [by the] Bills, Dolphins, Ravens, Titans, Giants, Falcons, Steelers and obviously now Browns without a single Black coach being hired.’’

And that’s from the white side of the aisle.

See, the Philip Rivers thing was the thing. The thing that made it blatant and overt. For him to come straight off the playing field (after being out of the game for five years before the Colts pulled him in to QB the remainder of their season) with no prior NFL or NCAA experience in any coaching capacity and get an interview for a head-coaching position while coaches such as Brian Flores and Eric Bieniemy and Vance Joseph and Anthony Weaver and Ejiro Evero and Nate Scheelhaase and Byron Leftwich linger in offensive- and defensive-coordinator coaching purgatory feels supremacist. It’s hard to be the head of the snake when the cobra is leucistic.

Discrimination. Bias. Prejudice. Widespread nepotism. Open favoritism. All there for us to receive but not believe. Sounds like the White House. Feels like an extension of the new American climate being created. Looks like the no-f’s-given attitude, strategy and intent of the NFL in this Rooney Rule-less practice of public anti-DEI exclusion are its personal Project 2026.

At this time last year (right before the Super Bowl), the Associated Press released the results of a study. Over the course of 25 seasons from 2000 through 2024, 31 of 173 new NFL coaching (not just head coaches) hires (18%) were Black. On the other side of that, eight of the 19 head coaches (42%) fired after their first full season in those 25 seasons also happened to be, of course, Black. The study also unveiled that there exist 11 teams in the NFL who’ve never had a Black head coach.

When the 2025 season began, six NFL teams were led by brothas. As of today, that number has been sliced in half. Only, as of today, to be increased by zero. Three be the un-magic number. Aaron Glenn, Todd Bowles, DeMeco Ryans. Three left on the coaching carousel as it goes ’round and ’round with fewer of us as it spins, passing us by like the Pharcyde.

The sad thing is that there will be — are — millions who will claim this is an issue unfounded. Responses not target points but triggers: Why can’t you all be like the other races and just be happy? Accept the privilege of just being a part of the NFL? Why does coaching in the NFL have to be about race? You all do know that only two Black coaches have ever won the Super Bowl and the NFL is a winning business?

To which the proper response is: ‘‘You do know that there have only been 20 Black head coaches in the NFL’s history. And did you know that of the 537 men who’ve had the ‘privilege’ of being head coaches in the NFL, 33 of the 36 who’ve at least won a Super Bowl ring have been white? Do the math, homey. We’ll take our winning percentages over yours.” To which we will be forced to follow that up with reminders to those millions of how change works. Especially when it doesn’t.

When a problem that has existed over the course of a 105-year history of a league still exists, a reminder of its existence is proof of its imminence. Because in that 32-member, white-male-majority exclusive club called ownership in the NFL, embolden is the behavior embraced by their multitude.

Broncos (white) head coach Sean Payton simply needs to repeat exactly what he said seven years ago: The ‘‘diversity problem’’ in the NFL is ‘‘hitting us square in the face.’’

In 2026, that hit feels more like spit.