Bill Polian and the Rooney Rule. WRONG!!!

First of all, yours truly would be the last person to question the NFL credentials of Bill Polian.

He was the General Manager of the Buffalo Bills back in the day when they went to four straight Super Bowls. Okay, they lost them all, but just getting there four years in a row is quite impressive.

Then he was the General Manager of the then expansion Carolina Panthers.

Then better than a decade as the Vice-Chairman of the Indianapolis Colts.

Let's just say the man knows his way around NFL front offices and, hence, knows pro football.

But he was dead wrong in a recent statement.

Polian maintained that because the number of minority head coaches in the NFL has never been higher is proof that the Rooney Rule is working.

[The Rooney Rule was established back in 2003 to force teams to interview minority candidates when searching for a new head coach.]

In the sense that there have been more minority hires, Polian is correct.

Yet that ignores another glaring statistic.

Just because a person gets a job through an arbitrary mandate doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be any good at it.

And the list is long of the minority head coaches in the NFL that have been terrible.

Let's start out with the success stories. They are few indeed.

Tony Dungy was pretty good at Indy, as is Mike Tomlin currently in Pittsburgh. Those guys knew/know what they were doing.

Now the not-so-good stories.

Jim Caldwell was recently fired in Detroit, probably because he couldn't win a single playoff game over his four years there.

Vance Joseph in Denver has led the Broncos into the toilet.

Todd Bowles of the NY Jets continues to stink it up.

Herman Edwards is a great motivation speaker, but didn't exactly shine while a head coach in the NFL. In an attempt to finally be shed of him, the NY Jets once traded him to Kansas City for a measly fourth round draft pick. He would stink it up again in KC and be fired -- as he should have been. Old Herm's famous line is, "You play to win the game". Pity, he didn't win nearly enough of them during his tenures as a head coach.

The foibles of such people like Dennis Green, Romeo Crennel, and Lovey Smith are legendary -- and not in a good way.

Hue Jackson in Cleveland has gone a preposterous 1-31 during his two seasons at the helm, but incredibly keeps his job.

Marvin Lewis has been at it for 15 years in Cincinnati, but the Bengals have never been considered a serious contender. What did they do? Just extended his contract for more millions of dollars. It's so outrageous as to be comical.

So yes, Mr. Polian, while this author gives you kudos for your experiences in the NFL, and credits you with being quite knowledgeable regarding same -- you are horribly wrong when you claim the Rooney Rule is "working".

Results matter, and the NFL, like any other sports enterprise, is a very results oriented business. If you can't produce a winner, typically you're gone. That's just the way it is -- and should be.

Just recently, the Oakland Raiders have come under fire because they allegedly didn't obey the letter of the Rooney Rule law. Owner Mark Davis made no bones about wanting Jon Gruden, a worthy candidate (and former Raider head coach/Super Bowl winner in Tampa Bay) to re-take over his team.

It should be noted that the Raiders already have a black General Manager in the person of Reggie McKenzie (whom Gruden will report to). And RM stated on the record during the introduction of Gruden as the new head coach that he had indeed interviewed two "minority" candidates during the process. Even named them.

But evidently, that's not good enough for pseudo do-gooders, (not to mention the hordes of politically correcters out there), such as Polian, continuing to dictate how and who a manager/boss/owner is and is not allowed to prefer for a job he'll be paying for. Millions at that.

Yours truly has always been staunchly in favor of equal treatment. Be it gender, race, religion, politics, age, whatever, if someone if qualified for the job -- by all means give it to them.

But being forced to pass over such candidates because of some silly arbitrary rule -- which BTW -- is discriminatory in and of itself....

Is just wrong.