BUCS WILL ANNOUNCE NEW HEAD COACH, G.M. TODAY

In what likely was one of the shortest searches for a new head coach and a new General Manager in the history of sports, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will announce on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. EST their new head coach and new General Manager. The announcement will come less than 24 hours after the franchise abruptly fired former head coach Jon Gruden and former G.M. Bruce Allen. Though the team-issued release doesn’t identify the new head coach or the new G.M., it widely has been reported that defensive coordinator Raheem Morris will be the new coach, and that pro personnel director Mark Dominik will be the new G.M. The speed with which this is happening makes us wonder whether Morris and Dominik knew that Gruden and Allen were being fired before it happened, which to say the least won’t do much to help Morris and Gruden have an amicable relationship in the future, or Allen and Dominik. We also wonder whether the league will express concern to the Bucs for elevating Dominik, who is white, without honoring the spirit of the arguably outdated Rooney Rule. Though the Rooney Rule doesn’t apply to G.M. hires, teams have been encouraged to engage in inclusive and diverse searches for such positions. The elevation of Morris, who is black, to the head-coaching job without (presumably) interviewing any other candidates makes us believe even more strongly that the time has come for a comprehensive review and debate as to whether the Rooney Rule should be scuttled. The goal of the measure was to ensure that minority candidates receive fair consideration for head-coaching jobs. In less than three weeks, three African-American coaches received head-coaching jobs without any (or serious) consideration given to other candidates. These developments not only prove that the NFL franchises have made great strides in the consideration of minority candidates, but also increase the possibility of the perception that the current procedure is unfair to non-minority candidates. We’re not saying that the rule should be dumped. But it definitely should be reviewed, and a range of possible changes (including dumping it altogether) should be considered before the next hiring cycle.