On Sunday evening, NFL fans watched the Carolina Panthers, led by head coach Frank Reich, fall to 1-7 after a grinding beat down by the Colts defense.
As the Panthers wilted away, all I could think about was the Panthers’ former interim head coach, Steve Wilks.
In 2022, the Panthers started 1-4 before Rhule was finally fired and Wilks was named interim head coach.
Normally, interim head coaches keep the ship afloat while ownership searches for a new head coach.
But Wilks did more than steady the ship.
Under his guise, the Panthers went 6-6 and finished the season 7-10, almost winning the NFC South and a playoff birth. It was an incredible feat by Wilks, who deserved better after the way Arizona treated him after only one season in 2018, a season in which the team was essentially talentless after horrible draft and roster decisions.
Arizona’s mistreatment of Wilks exemplified the trend of Black coaches being passed over or being hired as “clean-up” men by teams, where excuses such as “didn’t interview well” haunted Black coaches like “poor Wondelich test scores” hampered Black quarterbacks.
As I wrote in this story on Black NFL coaches last year, in 2006, three years after the Rooney Rule was instituted, “the league seemed to be heading in the right direction. There were seven Black head coaches, four more than three years prior. After a few years of fluctuations, that number reached seven again in 2017. These were hopeful signs of things to come.”
Unfortunately, things soured quickly.
Black coaches like Anthony Lynn, Brian Flores, Lovie Smith and David Culley were tasked with cleaning up messes left by others only to be discarded in favor of younger (whiter) coordinators. Smith and Culley were humiliated by the Texans as they were both fired despite cleaning up the mess left by Bill O’Brien.
And while Houston eventually hired the talented DeMeco Ryans, the message it sent to Black coaches was horrible.
Between 2021 – 2023, there were 21 total NFL head coaching vacancies of which only three went to Black coaches (Todd Bowles was promoted after Bruce Arians retired). As of today, there are only three Black head coaches in the league- the Steelers’ Mike Tomlin, the Bucs’ Bowles and Ryans (note- the Dolphins’ Josh McDaniels doesn’t identify as Black).
The ones not retained were Lynn, Flores, Culley, Smith and Steve Wilks.
In Arizona, Wilks was replaced by Kliff Kingsbury, a young (white) offensive coordinator. Kingsbury was then gifted Heisman Trophy winner Kyler Murray and full management support, benefits not afforded to Wilks.
Over his four years in the desert, Kingsbury went 28-37-1, with one winning season and one playoff appearance.
Wilks went to the Browns as the team’s defensive coordinator, and then to the University of Missouri in the same capacity before landing back home in Carolina as the team’s secondary/defensive pass game coordinator.
After dismissing Rhule, Panthers’ owner David Tepper handed the reins to Wilks and he finished second overall in the NFC South. His reward for his success? Watching former Colts head coach Frank Reich, who held a 3-5-1 record with Indy in 2022 before being fired, get the job.
Since then, Wilks became the defensive coordinator of the 5-3 San Francisco 49ers while Reich has the Panthers at 1-7, meaning he’s now 4-12-1 over the past two seasons.
The bigger picture is how some of the coaches NFL owners thirsted to hire are doing. Gone are Kingbury and, more recently, Josh McDaniels. The Giants’ Brian Daboll and the Rams’ Sean McVay are discovering how hard it is to coach teams that are rebuilding. Sean Payton has to be kicking himself for returning to the NFL sidelines and the Bears and Cardinals are just lost no matter who’s wearing the headset.
But the Carolina Panthers had their man last season and they blew it. The Cardinals and Bears are in the same position as the former had Wilks in 2018 and both could have hired him this season.
While NFL owner head coaching hiring bias might eventually change, one thing now is certain.
Steve Wilks is owed a major apology.
