Analyzing the Texans’ recent track record of diversity in top positions

The Houston Texans have committed themselves to being a more inclusive franchise with a soft spot for social justice. How does that intent manifest?

The NFL has received backlash from fans and players alike for its lack of diversity and its ill-treatment of Black players and other players of color. Commissioner Roger Goodell and the NFL released a video, which now has over 8 million views, that many called insincere at best and flat-out insulting at worst.

In 2016, the NFL announced it would be using virtual reality training to help combat racism and sexism within the NFL. Studies show however, that not much has changed in terms of diversity, with the number of players of color actually decreasing since 2016. That was the year former San Francisco 49ers player Collin Kaepernick kneeled during the National Anthem to peacefully protest the systemic racism and discrimination against Black people in the United States. He has yet to play another game in the NFL since 2016.

How do the Houston Texans compare on terms of diversity to their peers in the NFL? We decided to compare the Texans to their AFC South rivals the Tennessee Titans. The three categories we look are: Players, General Managers, and Head Coaches. For simplicity, I will be using two ethnicity markers which include W for White or Caucasian and POC to denote a person of color, which for our analysis indicates anyone who doesn’t fall under the W category. I will analyze the diversity of the Texans starting from 2013 when the NFL first started publishing the NFL Diversity and Inclusion Report, and compare them with the Titans.

Players: Titans Win

I will specifically analyze the starting quarterbacks, which is any quarterback that started a game during a season, Houston had since 2013 and compare them to the Titan’s starting quarterbacks.

From 2017-2019 the Texans had Deshaun Watson, a POC, as a starting quarterback. Therefore, Houston had a POC as a starting quarterback for 42.9% of the time which is pretty close to an even split, but not quite. This percentage is much better than say the Arizona Cardinals at 28.6%, but not quite as high as the Seattle Seahawks at 100% with Russell Wilson.

However, for this comparison, the Texans lose to Tennessee who sit at 71.4% POC at starting quarterback with Marcus Mariota holding it down since 2015. Both teams, however, have given ample chance for POCs to have a starting quarterback at their franchise and for that they should be acknowledged.

General Managers: Texans WIN by a landslide

From 2006-2017 the Texans had Rick Smith, a POC, as their general manager before hiring Brian Gaine in 2018 (Gaine was fired midway through ’19, but will be included in that year’s results). This means the Texans have 71.4% of their general managers being POC since 2013. Compare that to the Titans who are at 0% for the same time period.

Head Coaches: TIE

Neither team has had a head coach that is a POC and thus they tie by default. This should make you think about why that could be, especially with the Rooney Rule in place. Are there not enough opportunities for NFL players, who are majority POC, to transition into a coaching role that leads them to a head coaching position? Is the Rooney Rule just not yet strong enough? Do POC players not want to be head coaches?

The Pittsburgh Steelers have a strong history of diversity within the franchise dating back to 1933. They have also won six Super Bowls with this diversity.

Since its implementation, the Rooney Rule has assisted in the hiring of 14 coaches with minority backgrounds. But Steelers president Art Rooney II knows those numbers should be significantly higher.

“I think where we are right now is not where we want to be, not where we need to be,” Rooney told NFL Network’s Steve Wyche in a January interview.

“We have about one-third of the coaches in the National Football League are from the minority communities. That’s really not a bad pipeline,” said Rooney. “And so, the question is, why aren’t more of those people getting interviews? Why aren’t more of those people advancing through the process? Like I said, there are a lot of pieces to it that we have to look at. We have a lot of work to do that.”

Conclusion

This article is not a call to fire or ban certain ethnic groups from positions of power within the NFL. On the contrary, I want to understand why positions of power don’t seem to be proportionately available to POC. The statistics are meant to make you take a step back and think about what the reasons could be and if there is a way to resolve the seeming disparity. While the NFL indicates it has a commitment to solving the disparity, not much seems to have changed. The players in the NFL also see the disparity and will not put up with it anymore, they are speaking out.