Dr Z vs Peter King

Ah, yes . . the Rooney Rule. The same rule Peter King lauded when the Cowboys were trying to hire Parcells. The rule that Dr. Z pointed out leads to stupid situations like when the Cowboys were trying to hire Parcells.

A recap: Dallas' man was Parcells, everyone knew it. And they would have to make no excuses for hiring an excellent coach with his track record. But Jerry Jones calls the league office, wishing to comply with the Rooney Rule, which states that minority candidates must be given proper consideration. The league informed him that if he just gave a cursory phone interview to then-unemployed Dennis Green, he would be in compliance. He did so, and King wrote a fawning column about how great this whole thing was.

I believe the NFL changed it afterward to say phone interviews are not sufficient. Good for them.

I understand the reasoning behind having such a rule, the need for the NFL to seem like it's making an effort to encourage minority hiring. (Side note: Does Norm Chow count? And what about Latino candidates?)

But I have to wonder: how many of these interviews are real on the part of the team? And how many are just a team doing some half-ass talk with a minority candidate even though they already have their man?

It makes me wonder if we'll now get a situation where there's a big-name minority guy who gets the BS interviews when teams just want to comply with this well-intentioned, but poorly thought out Rule.

Dennis Green IS unemployed again, after all.

 

Joe Carr was a pretty innovative and critical guy in NFL history

introduced the standard player contract
banned college players from also playing for pro teams, which happened all the time back then -- usually under assumed names
sounds crazy now but actually introduced the concept of standings
recruited financially stable men to own teams

interesting dude

and he was a former sports writer

 

Interesting stuff...

Does it bother anyone else that they're prohibited from discussing specifics of the vote publicly?

If you ask me, they should be held accountable for how they vote. This way is complete chickenshit.

 

I agree...I questioned that earlier in this thread.

 

Agree

Here is list of voters:

Pro Football Hall of Fame Board of Selectors
Arizona Kent Somers, Arizona Republic
Atlanta Len Pasquarelli, ESPN.com
Baltimore Scott Garceau, WMAR-TV
Buffalo Mark Gaughan, Buffalo News
Carolina Charles Chandler, Charlotte Observer
Chicago Don Pierson, Chicago Tribune*
Cincinnati Chick Ludwig, Dayton Daily News
Cleveland Tony Grossi, Cleveland Plain Dealer
Dallas Rick Gosselin, Dallas Morning News*
Denver Jeff Legwold, Rocky Mountain News
Detroit Jerry Green, The Detroit News*
Green Bay Cliff Christl, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Houston John McClain, Houston Chronicle*
Indianapolis Mike Chappell, Indianapolis Star
Jacksonville Sam Kouvaris, WJXT-TV
Kansas City Bob Gretz, KCFX Overland Park, KS
Miami Edwin Pope, Miami Herald*
Minnesota Sid Hartman, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune
New England Ron Borges, Boston Globe
New Orleans Pete Finney, Times-Picayune
New York (Giants) Vinny DiTrani, Bergen Record
New York (Jets) Paul Zimmerman, Sports Illustrated
Oakland Frank Cooney, The Sports Xchange
Philadelphia Paul Domowitch, Philadelphia Daily News
Pittsburgh Ed Bouchette, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
St. Louis Bernie Miklasz, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
San Diego Jerry Magee, San Diego Union Tribune*
San Francisco Ira Miller, The Sports Xchange*
Seattle John Clayton, ESPN/ESPN Magazine
Tampa Bay Ira Kaufman, Tampa Tribune
Tennessee David Climer, The Tennessean
Washington David Elfin, Washington Times
PFWA Charean Williams, Ft. Worth Star Telegram
At Large Howard Balzer, The Sports Xchange
At Large Jarrett Bell, USA Today
At Large Dave Goldberg, Associated Press*
At Large Peter King, Sports Illustrated
At Large Bob Oates, Los Angeles Times
At Large Len Shapiro, Miami Herald*
At Large Jim Trotter, San Diego Union-Tribune

 

Just an observation, but half the guys on that list are over 65... Hell, King is one of the younger ones...

 

SID is a voter? Good Gawd...

 

I am confused as to what Rick Reilly had to do with process.If he is not a voter how come he could not speak about voting .

 

I don't think he wanted to comment on another SI guy....

 

For one of the few times here, I gotta disagree with my dawg Ragu.

The NFL was greatly helped in its ascent to no. 1 because baseball, basketball and hockey all had crippling work stoppages. The NFL didn't, because Gene Upshaw could give a shit that the players union has as much juice as me after 10 seconds with Sophia Bush.

Of course it did. Men who make billions in capitalistic ventures typically do well in socialistic ventures.

So he deserves credit for bullying two-thirds of the league with "if you don't give us what we want, L.A. or Cleveland will?"

Again: Not tough to do with a powerless players union.

NFL games are a valuable property. But never underestimate the stupidity of TV execs.

I'll give him credit for that.

Piotr did a pretty good job of explaining how transparent the Rooney Rule was for most of Tagliabue's tenure.

I couldn't. Unless leaving before halftime of every game except the Super Bowl counts as an accomplishment.

I prefer to remember what he didn't do. most of all, he didn't make things better for the players who made this league a kabillion dollar entreprise. Yet the lawyer has enough time to assign God only knows how many people to making sure no one's swiping the NFL satellite signal, operating a website called buccaneersrule.com, wearing anything other than NFL-sanctioned clothing on the sideline and showing the Super Bowl in a church.

He also widened the gap between fan and player, made going to an NFL game as expensive as a trip to Disneyland and, yes, turned the NFL into the most insular and media-unfriendly league in sports. He displayed no passion for anything other than making oodles of money. Bud Selig is a bumbling inept fool, but the guy at least likes the sport he runs.

If Tagliabue had to buy a ticket to get into the Hall of Fame for the rest of time, I'd be a very happy man.

 

Yeah, I wouldn't want to be stuck in a room for that long with Sid or Chick Ludwig...