{"id":843585,"date":"2026-03-30T20:30:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T20:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/843585\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T20:30:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T20:30:20","slug":"buccaneers-coach-todd-bowles-bemoans-lack-of-black-head-coaches-in-the-nfl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/843585\/","title":{"rendered":"Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles bemoans lack of Black head coaches in the NFL"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles didn\u2019t shy away on Monday from discussing the NFL\u2019s head coach hiring practices<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the billion-dollar question,\u201d Bowles said at the league\u2019s annual meeting when asked how the NFL could increase diversity amongst its head coaches. \u201cI wish I could answer that. I don\u2019t know what to do about that. It\u2019s depressing, it\u2019s sad. You want better. We have to do better. It\u2019s not a lip service thing; it\u2019s an action thing. I don\u2019t know what that action is at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bowles is one of three Black head coaches in the NFL. The league had a record-tying 10 head-coaching vacancies this past offseason but no jobs went to Black candidates and only one \u2014 Robert Saleh with the Tennessee Titans \u2014 went to a person of color. There were several Black coaches interviewed for the openings, as is commonplace since the institution of the Rooney Rule in 2003.<\/p>\n

However, Bowles expressed concern that not all of those interviews are legitimate. He said he \u201cabsolutely\u201d felt that he was used to check a Rooney Rule box at various junctures in his career. It\u2019s something he voiced to \u201cquite a few people\u201d but the reaction was generally a shrug.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan\u2019t prove it,\u201d Bowles said. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing to talk about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bowles has landed two head-coaching jobs in his career. In 2015, he interviewed with the Atlanta Falcons, San Francisco 49ers and Chicago Bears before becoming the head coach of the New York Jets. He was fired after going 24-40 in four seasons. Bowles then joined the Bucs as defensive coordinator for three seasons under Bruce Arians and was promoted to head coach in 2022 after Arians retired.<\/p>\n

Over the years, Bowles also interviewed\u00a0with the Miami Dolphins in 2012 for a job that went to Joe Philbin, with the Minnesota Vikings in 2014 for a job that went to Mike Zimmer and with the Atlanta Falcons in 2021 for a job that went to Arthur Smith.<\/p>\n

Denver Broncos defensive coordinator Vance Joseph was a hot candidate in this year\u2019s hiring cycle. Joseph, like Bowles, is a defensive mind who had a short run as a head coach in his first shot and built up his reputation again by being successful as a defensive coordinator. However, Joseph\u2019s chance at another head-coaching opportunity will have to wait at least another year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe success he\u2019s had the last couple of years and Denver having the defense like they\u2019ve had and building the credibility and credentials that he\u2019s had, not to get a shot \u2014 or another shot \u2014 is unbelievable to me,\u201d Bowles said. \u201cSomething has to be fixed.\u201d<\/p>\n

One theory that\u2019s been floated<\/a> is that the responsibility extends beyond ownership and general managers, who actually make the hires, and includes current head coaches, who can help put more Black coaches in better assistant positions that have proven to be a head-coaching pipeline, such as offensive coordinator. Bowles doesn\u2019t believe that\u2019s the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen that theory done, and I\u2019ve seen it passed over as well, so I think that\u2019s a BS theory,\u201d Bowles said. \u201cPeople put people in position and you hire who you need to hire and who you want to hire. It hasn\u2019t gone that way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles didn\u2019t shy away on Monday from discussing the NFL\u2019s head coach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":843586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2077],"tags":[211,7,6,704,250,2597,2596],"class_list":{"0":"post-843585","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-buccaneers","8":"tag-buccaneers","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-tampa-bay","12":"tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","13":"tag-tampabay","14":"tag-tampabaybuccaneers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116320025031971444","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}