Ran Carthon, Jerod Mayo, Antonio Pierce and the NFL’s fast clock for some

New England Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo during a game against the Buffalo Bills at Gillette Stadium on Jan. 5 in Foxborough, Massachusetts.

Over the past few days, Tennessee Titans general manager Ran Carthon, New England Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo and Las Vegas Raiders head coach Antonio Pierce joined the ranks of the unemployed, cutting into the NFL’s recent gains in inclusive hiring.

The ouster of Carthon is perhaps the biggest blow to the league’s expanded efforts to increase minority representation in top decision-making roles, so let’s start there.

Some high-ranking NFL officials cited the Titans’ hiring of Carthon in January of 2023 as proof that the league’s newest hiring initiative had already succeeded. A member of the inaugural class of a program intended to accelerate the rise of qualified minority employees in coaching and front-office management, Carthon joined the Titans after initially meeting principal owner Amy Adams Strunk because of the Accelerator Program.

A common refrain among many Black NFL employees who have interviewed for top-tier positions in football operations is that they rarely – if ever – interact with decision-makers before the processes begin, whereas team owners often are much more familiar with their white counterparts’ professional and personal backgrounds. The imbalance, NFL officials have acknowledged, is yet another impediment to the upward mobility of minority employees in a league that states it strives to have a truly inclusive workplace from the front office to the field. The program puts candidates in the same room – many for the first time – with the powerful people who run pro sports’ most profitable league.

Formerly the San Francisco 49ers’ director of player personnel, Carthon became the Titans’ first Black GM. Despite the team struggling to a 6-11 record in Carthon’s first season, he was promoted to executive vice president in addition to his general manager title and empowered to lead a head coaching search.

This season, the Titans finished 3-14. That’s a record of 9-25 in Carthon’s two years as the team’s primary roster architect.

One could argue that Strunk didn’t give Carthon enough time. But the poor play of quarterback Will Levis, whom Carthon selected in the second round (33rd overall) of the 2023 NFL draft, didn’t help his cause. With the Titans having the first overall pick in the upcoming draft, Strunk determined she could no longer trust Carthon with the team’s ongoing rebuild.

Big picture, the NFL is a copycat league. If something works well for one team, others often follow suit.

If Carthon, by far the most successful member of the Accelerator Program, had thrived in Tennessee, his success would have been viewed favorably by other team officials considering hiring candidates from the program, some league leaders acknowledge. But in the runway he was given, Carthon failed to take off.

Tennessee Titans general manager Ran Carthon watches the team warm up before a game against the Houston Texans on Jan. 5 in Nashville. AP Photo/George Walker IV

Then there’s Mayo and Pierce, who were on even quicker clocks with their respective team owners: Both first-year head coaches were ousted after only one season.

Although it’s easy to forget now, the groundbreaking hiring of Mayo was roundly celebrated in the NFL less than a calendar year ago. Proponents of fairness in the process of selecting head coaches lauded New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft for his bold succession plan. Kraft elevated the team’s linebackers coach and onetime successful Patriots player to replace the legendary Bill Belichick.

While the league was still processing that the venerable Belichick, who has a record six Super Bowl championships as a head coach, and the Patriots had parted ways after 24 seasons, Kraft moved quickly to install Mayo, making him simultaneously the team’s first Black head coach and the NFL’s youngest head coach. Talk about kicking off the hiring cycle with a bang.

Well, so much for that.

As word emerged Sunday that Kraft after only one season had ousted his handpicked choice to begin the Patriots’ post-Belichick era, he came under fire from prominent former Patriot players for pulling the plug so quickly on a plan that had obviously been in development for some time.

The criticism continued this week, as the head of the group that advises the NFL on matters of diversity and inclusion also blasted the Patriots for having Mayo on an egg timer.

“The firing of Jerod Mayo reflects poorly on the New England Patriots,” Rod Graves, executive director of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, wrote to Andscape in a text message. “Their decision to hire Mayo was presented under the guise of careful consideration. To determine after one season that he is not fit to continue as head coach points to internal issues and a lack of commitment.”

To be sure, Mayo had a rocky rookie season.

On the field, the Patriots (4-13) were downright awful, finishing last in the AFC East and being outscored by 128 points – the league’s third-worst differential. Off the field, Mayo experienced some foot-in-mouth moments, such as calling the team soft after it lost to the Jacksonville Jaguars in London (he later walked back the comment, saying he meant the team “played soft”).

The Patriots’ roster fell into a state of disrepair under Belichick, who had consecutive sub-.500 records his last two seasons with the Patriots, including going 4-13 in his final one. The Patriots this season also made the transition to a rookie quarterback, which often further complicates matters for a first-year head coach.

New England Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium on Dec. 15, 2024. Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

Kraft and his Patriots underlings have not revealed publicly what they expected of Mayo in terms of an opening win-loss record. For a league still trying to find the right path with inclusive hiring, lack of sunlight is a problem, according to law professor N. Jeremi Duru.

A professor of sports law at American University in Washington, Duru is a leading expert on the NFL’s hiring practices. He’s also the author of the definitive book on the creation of the Rooney Rule, Advancing The Ball: Race, Reformation, and the Quest for Equal Coaching Opportunity in the NFL.

The league can do better in explaining to its fans, players and coaches, especially those of color, how decisions are made.

“There is a lot of debate every year about the hiring process, the Rooney Rule, and other initiatives designed to give a chance to candidates more likely to be overlooked,” Duru wrote to Andscape in a text message. “The dynamics around termination decisions, into which there is virtually no public visibility, get much less attention.

“Past studies have shown that Black head coaches are more likely to get fired than white coaches when they have the same end-of-season record. It seems we are seeing the same phenomenon with firings after one year in the job. This is why it is so important for the league and those pushing for a level playing field to emphasize equity with inclusive searches and other initiatives on the front end, when clubs hire head coaches. Because it is much harder to tackle the inequity on the back end.”

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As for Mayo’s situation specifically, it’s difficult to fathom how he could have done much better with the Patriots’ roster after Belichick, arguably the greatest coach in sports history, experienced his only consecutive losing seasons in New England with much of the same cast.

Rookie head coaches need room to grow. Take the case of Dan Campbell.

In his first season with the Detroit Lions, Campbell went 5-11. The following season, things went even worse: 3-13-1. But the Lions had a winning record in his third season, and they played for the NFC championship last season. This season, the team is 15-2 and seeded first in the NFC playoffs. Lions principal club owner and chairwoman Sheila Ford Hamp stuck with Campbell. And she has been rewarded, spectacularly.

That’s not to say Mayo would have had a similar coaching trajectory as Campbell. But what’s certain is this: Campbell had several years to prove what he’s about; Mayo didn’t.

As for Mayo’s public relations gaffes, he’s not the first coach, whether inexperienced or experienced, who has had to walk something back. Surely, he won’t be the last.

In the NFL, the pressure to win on head coaches is palpable. Sometimes, especially when things are going poorly, they say things that would be better left unsaid. If fueling a long news cycle with a boneheaded comment or action is a fireable offense, well, half the league’s team owners would be conducting coaching searches each year.

Las Vegas Raiders head coach Antonio Pierce runs off the field after the team’s loss to the Los Angeles Chargers at Allegiant Stadium on Jan. 5 in Las Vegas. Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Pierce also had rough time during his brief tenure with the Raiders.

In November 2023, Pierce was only in his second year as the team’s linebackers coach when club owner Mark Davis tapped him to be the interim coach. Players responded well to his straightforward approach, and the locker room rallied behind him.

Under Pierce, the Raiders went 5-4. Among the victories was a 20-14 win over the archrival Kansas City Chiefs at Kansas City on Christmas Day, which delighted Davis and played a role in Pierce being rewarded with a multiyear contract to stay on the job.

This season, however, with the Raiders still unsettled at quarterback, they finished 4-13 and last in the powerful AFC West. The division’s other three teams qualified for the playoffs.

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With Mayo and Pierce being fired after only one season, four of the NFL’s last seven one-and-done head coaches are Black.

“The celerity at which Black head coaches and executives in the NFL are removed from office is widely apparent,” Graves wrote in a text message. “It does not diminish the fact that the stakes are ever evolving. But the patience, commitment, and resources are not equally afforded to all to build a foundation for success.”

Carthon, Mayo and Pierce did get opportunities. That’s undeniable. But whether their windows remained open long enough, though, is very much open to debate.

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