ON TODAY'S SCORECARD
Ghost White

Super week is here. And with it the NFL coaching carousel is complete.

A pair of offensive coordinators filled the final two spots when the Raiders inked Klint Kubiak from Seattle while the Cardinals signed Mike Lafleur of the Rams, filling the last two remaining vacancies.

After suing the NFL and three of its teams for racial discrimination in their hiring practices, Brian Flores explained why he did it in an interview with CBS Mornings exactly four years ago today, saying “we’re either going to keep it the way it is or we’re going to go in another direction and actually make some real change where we’re actually changing the hearts and minds of those who make decisions to hire head coaches, executives, etcetera.”

It appears those decision-makers are fine keeping it the way it is. None of those vacancies went to Black coaches.

Flores, who alleged at the time that the New YorkGiants interviewed him only to satisfy the Rooney Rule, knew then what should be abundantly clear to anyone paying attention now: the Rooney Rule is not the problem... but it's also not the solution.

How can it be when it's not capable of changing the minds and hearts of men?

The real problem is systemic. It's the people in positions of power, who repeatedly pass on Black candidates for their white counterparts. Which is how you get a situation where a league with a majority of Black players only has three Black coaches (DeMeco Ryans, Aaron Glenn and Todd Bowles) without a sign of things improving. In fact, they seem to be getting worse. There were seven Black coaches in 2018, the year before Flores arrived in Miami.

It's why the Bills willingly interviewing Philip Rivers was such a slap in the face. Nobody had to force them to bring in someone whose coaching experience is limited to high school and who had been away from the league five years.

Meanwhile, qualified Black candidates only get interviews so teams can check a box before hiring who they really want.

The Rooney Rule has only existed for teams to make a mockery of it. You can't change people who don't want to change, and the people running NFL teams won't want to change until they realize how much their success is limited by not hiring from a more diverse pool of candidates. If they haven't realized it yet, it's hard to expect they will anytime soon.

TRENDING TODAY
Bad Hair Day

Jarrell Miller provided the most entertaining moment of Saturday night's Shakur Stevenson-Teofimo Lopez undercard when his toupee was knocked clean off his head during his victory over Kingsley Ibeh.

In the third round of a clash against Kingsley Ibeh, the veteran heavyweight took enough shots to the head that his toupee ended up flapping in the air and revealing a fully bald scalp.

Miller took the development in stride, ripping off the piece at the end of the round and throwing it into the crowd.

The loss of hair didn't stop Miller from winning the fight, as he took a split decision 94-96, 97-93, 97-93.

Miller's record improved to 27-1-2 with the win, his first since March 2023. His last two bouts have seen him lose to Daniel Dubois via 10th-round TKO and fight Andy Ruiz Jr. to a majority draw.

His hair, meanwhile, made the rounds at Madison Square Garden, with WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman procuring it at one point.

Apparently Miller's baldness was a recent development caused by an unfortunate chemical mishap. "I get to my momma's house and she had some shampoo bottles under her table," he said after the fight. "And I shampooed … that s*** was like ammonia and bleach."

BOISE STATE over Nevada by 14

The Broncos’ 17-point, surprising loss at Grand Canyon in a ‘pick’ situation between 13-win squads last Friday dropped them to seventh place in the 12-team Missouri Valley. The good news is the bronkin’ bucks are 3-0 SUTS in this series when coming off a loss, with each win by a double-digit margin. They also bring a 3-1-1 ATS record in this series in games where the Wolf Pack has the better record. With that, Nevada sits one game behind the trio of Utah State, San Diego State, and New Mexico in the current conference standings. The problem is the Wolves take a back seat to all three conference leaders in tie-breakers. They are also 4-11 SU and 3-12 ATS in conference games against opponents coming off a spread loss of 14 or more points. If that doesn’t do it, there’s always THE CLINCHER: Broncos’ head coach Leon Rice is 128-56 outright with Boise State, including 7-1 SUATS in the last eight games against opponents with a better record.

From this week’s PLAYBOOK Hoops Newsletter