Former Indianapolis Colts head coach and Super Bowl champion Tony Dungy has offered his thoughts on the 2026 coaching carousel.
There were 10 head coaching jobs available this year, and yet, the Tennessee Titans were the only team to hire a minority candidate. Their new head coach, Robert Saleh, is of Lebanese descent. Despite having the Rooney Rule in place, no Black head coaches were hired during this year's cycle.
"I think we have become a more diverse league across every platform including coaching, but we still have more work to do," NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said. "There's got to be more steps. We're reevaluating everything we're doing, including the accelerator program, including every aspect of our policies in our program to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow rather than yesterday. We need to be looking at that and why did we have those results this year?"
During an appearance on "Don't @ Me with Dan Dakich," Dungy was asked about the lack of Black head coaches in the NFL. He tried to shut down the narrative that owners only want to hire white coaches.
"I'm one, I don't believe there are guys sitting there saying, 'I want to win, but I don't want a black coach to win for me.' No, these guys want to win," Dungy said, via OutKick. "A lot of them don't know how to win, they don't know what they're looking for, and there are some guys who are under the radar who are not the well-known candidates who are very, very good coaches."
Tony Dungy mentions two coaches who deserve second chances.
Although they didn't receive promotions this year, Dungy believes Denver Broncos defensive coordinator Vance Joseph and Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores are due for another opportunity.
"I don't know why [they weren't hired]" Dungy said. "I'm not going to say it's just because they were black. I know for a fact, myself, I was an assistant coach for 15 years, and I got passed over a couple times, came in second on interviews, and a lot of it was not my skin color but my demeanor, my personality. People didn't think you could win [as] a head coach the way I coach. That's up to them."
We'll see if things change dramatically during the 2027 hiring cycle.