Ten head coaching jobs opened up this past offseason. It was a record-tying number, the most vacancies the NFL had seen in a single cycle in its entire history. And when the music stopped, not one Black coach had a chair. The situation had the former Indianapolis Colts coach, Tony Dungy back in conversation. The Hall of Fame coach, who broke barriers himself as the first Black head coach to win a Super Bowl, has spent years trying to explain a problem that the league keeps struggling to name. And on a recent appearance on The Just Life podcast, he took another shot at naming it.

“I think it’s more that these owners really don’t know what they’re looking for,” said Tony on The Just Life podcast. “They don’t know how to recognize hidden talent or talent that’s not just in their face. When you have a young, energetic, intelligent guy, sometimes that doesn’t come to the forefront.”

However, he emphasized that the decisions of the owners are not racially motivated, given that all the teams want to win the Super Bowl, and their goal is to hire the best coaches possible, but a majority of them happen to be white. In short, it is the lack of exposure to the actual talent, and they fail to define what they are looking for from their coaches.

The Super Bowl-winning coach also thinks that the NFL owners tend to go for the household names with past successful records or someone from a recommendation instead of going for suitable candidates whose goals and vision could align with a particular franchise.

The Denver Broncos and the Minnesota Vikings’ defensive coordinators, Vance Joseph and Brian Flores, are two shining examples of Black coaches with head coaching experience, but they did not get a head coaching position this offseason like their white counterparts, who received promotions, such as Jesse Minter to the Baltimore Ravens or Klint Kubiak to the Las Vegas Raiders as head coaches.

Art Shell paved the way for the African-American head coaches in the modern era after he was hired by the Los Angeles Raiders. However, it was Tony Dungy who made the most impact after winning Super Bowl XLI in 2007, becoming the first African-American coach to attain the honor. He was closely followed by Mike Tomlin, who won the championship with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and he notably worked under Tony at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the initial phase of his NFL coaching career.

Tony Dungy and Mike Tomlin remain the only two African-American coaches to win the Lombardi Trophy. Today, Todd Bowles (Tampa Bay Buccaneers), DeMeco Ryans (Houston Texans), and Aaron Glenn (New York Jets) are the only three NFL head coaches from the African-American community.

Despite the limited diversity among the coaches, Tony pointed out the positive changes seen among quarterbacks.

Tony Dungy praises the growing diversity among the quarterbacks

From Joe Montana and Brett Favre to John Elway and Steve Young, most of the elite quarterbacks in the league had been white in the 1980s or 1990s. Nevertheless, the league has seen a significant shift in the QB diversity in the past 25 years, which Tony Dungy praised in the same interview.

“Now, Patrick Mahomes and Russell Wilson and Jalen Hurts, they haven’t had to go through that (diversity challenge),” added Tony during the same podcast. “We now recognize these guys were great. They’re great leaders in college. They’re going to be great leaders in the NFL. So, that has changed. And the landscape for quarterbacks is so much different than it was 25 years ago.”

The diversity at the QB was much different in the late 1990s, with Charlie Ward remaining a primary example. He was a phenomenal athlete who played both football and basketball in college. Representing Florida State, he won the Heisman Trophy and became a national champion. Despite his accolades, he went undrafted in the 1994 NFL Draft, which was why he opted to play professional basketball, suiting up for the New York Knicks, San Antonio Spurs, and Houston Rockets in the NBA.

That landscape has taken a different turn now. Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes, who is of mixed heritage, remains the most popular quarterback in the league at the moment. Moreover, Ravens‘ Lamar Jackson, Eagles’ Jalen Hurts, Texans’ C.J. Stroud, Packers’ Jordan Love, and Cowboys’ Dak Prescott are leading the pack of signal callers in the league today, setting the standard with dominant performances.