After Monday night’s game between the Jets and Bills, Week 6 in the NFL’s 2024 season will end with a nice surprise for Falcons and Buccaneers fans as both teams are 4-2 overall and in first and second place, respectively, in the NFC South.
It’s an even more pleasant surprise when you remember that Black coaches lead both teams in their second stints as NFL head coaches, an opportunity rarely given to Black coaches in the NFL.
Raheem Morris got his first head coaching opportunity with Tampa Bay in 2009 and coached the Bucs for three seasons, going 3-13, 10-6 and 4-12, after which he was fired. From there he went to Washington as the defensive backs coach before heading south to Atlanta for six seasons, rising to become the team’s defensive coordinator and interim head coach in 2020.
Morris then headed west as the Rams defensive coordinator and sharpened the unit into one of the league’s best. In his second season, the Rams beat the Bengals in Super Bowl LVI, giving Morris his second Super Bowl ring (he won his first as a defensive quality control coach for the Bucs in Super Bowl XXXVII).
His development as a coach impressed his old team in Atlanta, and he was hired as the team’s new head coach this past January.
Todd Bowles had a similar rise to his current position as the head coach of the Bucs.
Bowles first became an NFL head coach with his hometown Jets in 2015. In his first season, New York went 10-6 but then went south over the next three seasons due to then-GM Mike Maccagnan handicapping Bowles’ chances through poor drafts and a mass release of veteran players. After 5-11, 5-11 and 4-12 seasons, Bowles was fired at the conclusion of the 2018 season.
Bowles eventually landed in Black coach-friendly Tampa Bay as the defensive coordinator and helped head coach Bruce Arians and the team win Super Bowl LV in 2021, after which Arians stepped down and handed the reins to Bowles as the team’s new head coach.
Bowles went 8-9 in his first season but still made the playoffs. In 2023, the team went 9-8 and won a postseason game. This year the team is off to a winning start.
Morris and Bowles were given opportunities as head coaches with the Bucs, and both have taken that experience and are doing well in their second stints as head coaches.
They join Art Shell (Raiders twice), Tony Dungy (Bucs and Colts), Jim Caldwell (Colts and Lions), Dennis Green (Vikings and Cardinals), Ray Rhodes (Eagles and Packers), Herm Edwards (Jets and Chiefs), Romeo Crennel (Browns and Chiefs), Lovie Smith (Bears and Texans) and Hue Jackson (Raiders and Browns) as the only Black coaches to be given second chances as head coaches in the NFL.
That’s 11 men in almost six decades of modern-day NFL history.
Morris and Bowles would love to join Dungy and the Steelers Mike Tomlin as the third Black head coach to win a Super Bowl, and so far this season, they’re on the right path and are making the most of a rare NFL opportunity.
