As the only minority owner in the NFL, Shad Khan can relate to the NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's memo sent to teams last week that diversity for head coaches in the league has been 'unacceptable.'
However, it will take action from Khan and the rest of the league's 31 owners to correct the problem.
And currently, that action is moving at a snail's pace.
The Jacksonville Jaguars are among 13 teams - including the Bills, Patriots, Ravens, Titans, Jaguars, Cowboys, Commanders, Giants, Saints, Falcons, Panthers, Rams, Seahawks, have never had a black non-interim head coach - though the percentage of black players during the 2021 season was 70%.
''I think a lot needs to be done,'' said Khan, a Pakistani-American billionaire businessman who purchased the Jaguars from Wayne Weaver for $770 million in 2011.
''When I flip it, I've spent, hard to believe, half a century dealing with corporate America. So I was on the other side of the fence as a minority person, a minority business person looking for work from corporate America. About 40 percent of the business is minorities, and yet they were doing less than 1 percent of the business.''
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Yet, Khan's record on hiring a minority head coach is the same as the majority of the league's owners - zero.
During their exhaustive five-week coaching search, Khan strongly considered Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich, who emerged as a finalist after being interviewed twice.
However, Leftwich appeared to have fallen out of favor when he made it known that he couldn't work with general manager Trent Baalke. He wanted the franchise to hire Arizona Cardinals director of scouting Adrian Wilson to replace him, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke to the Florida Times-Union at the Senior Bowl. Both Leftwich and Wilson are black.
When it became clear the Jaguars were leaning towards hiring Doug Pederson, the former head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles who led the franchise to its first-ever Super Bowl during the 2017 season, Leftwich took himself out of consideration.
Leftwich has yet to make any public comments regarding his candidacy for the head coaching job in Jacksonville or confirm if they were in actual negotiations on a contract before talks broke off that led to Jaguars stepping up their pursuit to hire Pederson, who was the first candidate to interview with the Jaguars and it took 33 days before he was interviewed a second time and landed the job.
''I think. It was a 30-plus day process for us,'' Khan said. ''There are great candidates, and there are a number of clubs looking, and you've got to have the right fit. It's really personal for me in a way because we interviewed a lot of people.''
Flores files lawsuit against NFL
Earlier this month, Flores, who is Black, filed a lawsuit against the NFL and three teams — the Miami Dolphins, the New York Giants, and the Denver Broncos — for allegedly carrying out discriminatory hiring practices. Flores was fired as the Miami Dolphins head coach on January 10 after three seasons despite winning having a winning record the past two seasons.
Before Flores' lawsuit was filed, Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin was the only black head coach. Of the nine head coaching vacancies during this cycle, the two were filed with minority hires: Mike McDaniel was hired by the Dolphins, and the Houston Texans hired Lovie Smith.
Goodell says there is no finish line with diversity, inclusion
''I think there is no finish line with diversity and inclusion,'' Goodell said Wednesday at his annual 'State of the league' address ahead of Sunday's Super Bowl at SoFi Stadium. ''I think that's something that constantly we have to keep at the forefront of everything we do. It makes us better. It makes us bring the best talent into the league, and I think we've made a tremendous amount of progress in a lot of areas.''
The NFL implemented the Rooney rule in 2003 that requires teams to interview at least two external minority candidates for head coaching positions.
The league expanded the Rooney Rule in 2021 to require teams to interview at least two external minority candidates for general manager/executive of football operations positions and all coordinator roles. Before the change, the requirement was to interview one minority candidate from outside a team for openings in those positions.
During the Jaguars coaching search, they interviewed former Indianapolis and Detroit coach Jim Caldwell, Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator Todd Bowles and Leftwich, who are all black.
And with Khan announcing a front-office restructure that will included an executive vice president of football operations - two minority must be interviewed. The Jaguars have already interviewed former Minnesota Vikings general manager Rick Spielman for a high-level front-office position.
Last year, the Jaguars interviewed five black candidates for the then-vacant general manager job that eventually went to Trent Baalke, who is white.
''There's a lot of heavy lifting ahead, and we've got to show results,'' Khan said.
