On a recent episode of “Undisputed: Skip and Shannon,” Skip Bayless surmised that white NFL owners are uncomfortable around Black people, which is why they do not hire Black coaches.
“I have been dumbfounded by it. It has been inexplicable to me, but then in the end, it’s really pretty explicable,” Bayless said to his co-host Shannon Sharpe.
Also, Bayless referred to an article written by Nancy Armour, titled, “NFL Owners Don’t Want Black and Brown Men As Their Head Coaches.” Armour mentioned Eric Bieniemy, Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator, could not secure a head coach position in the NFL.
Skip Bayless believes older white NFL owners aren’t comfortable with Black head coaches pic.twitter.com/Y93Gv51hUL
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) February 16, 2023
Bayless said he’s echoing Armour’s argument on national television.
“I’m going to boil it down to: These older white owners just aren’t that comfortable with a black head coach because they need to interact, they need to go to dinner with the wives or the significant or whatever. And they’re just not that comfortable. When they do have an interview, it’s gonna be a quicker click with a young white hot candidate.”
Bayless added: “It’s just culture, it’s just the way life is. And I don’t know how to defeat it, because each of these guys is an independent owner in the umbrella of the NFL and it’s hard to legislate ‘you must hire a black coach’ … you can’t unless it’s in the man’s heart to do the right thing — and every once in a while you have [Steelers owner, Art Rooney] the Rooneys in Pittsburgh who did the right thing.”
Currently, the NFL has four Black men calling shots from the sideline as head coaches: Mike McDaniel, Todd Bowles, DeMeco Ryans and Mike Tomlin.
In 2021, the league passed the Rooney Rule, which required every NFL team to interview at least two non-white potential head coaches or potential coordinating coaches.