In retrospect, the decision was not easy. It involved, as you might expect, a series of complicated choices.
For instance, Paul Tagliabue could have insisted that justice be an overriding concern. Instead, the NFL commissioner chose political expedience.
He might have fallen on the side of honesty or integrity. Instead, he gave weight to hypocrisy and the perpetuation of a farce.
By now, you probably have heard of the $200,000 fine Tagliabue dropped on Detroit Lions president Matt Millen. Tagliabue punished Millen for failing to comply with league guidelines requiring a minority candidate be interviewed before a head coach is hired.
Understand, this new NFL policy is laudable. It is both belated and necessary. For decades, league owners have ignored qualified African-American candidates while promoting white coaches with lesser pedigrees.
More than 60 percent of the league's players are African-American, yet less than 10 percent of its head coaches are. There is something fundamentally wrong with that ratio and the league should be ashamed it did not seem to notice until political activists began complaining.
Yet, even with those circumstances as a backdrop, the Millen situation was handled improperly.
The Lions were not in the market for a coach when the calendar turned on 2003. The only reason Detroit decided on a change was because Steve Mariucci was let go by the 49ers. A Michigan native who had success in San Francisco - 60-43 with four playoff appearances - Mariucci long had been coveted by Millen. All of which led to Marty Mornhinweg's sudden unemployment.
Because of the timing of Mariucci's availability and Mornhinweg's dismissal, it was correctly assumed Mariucci was the leading candidate.
So when Millen tried to comply with the league's directive concerning minority candidates, he was rebuffed. He asked five African-American coaches to interview and was turned down by all five.
Millen attempted to comply with the rules but was penalized, essentially, for being too honest. He could have misled candidates by claiming to have no preconceived notions but was up front about his interest in Mariucci. He could have found an unqualified minority candidate to use as a charade interview, but he declined to make a mockery of this serious issue.
This is where it became a difficult decision for Tagliabue.
His first case under the new guidelines came with extenuating circumstances. The Lions had violated a rule in practice but not in spirit.
Tagliabue could have acknowledged this. He could have pledged to be vigilant in enforcing the directive while declaring this was not a case of a team deliberately shunning African-American candidates.
Tagliabue could have chosen to take the heat himself. Instead, he chose to throw Millen under the bus. In the process, he may have weakened the policy he purports to endorse.
Instead of promoting the idea African-American candidates be taken seriously, Tagliabue has simply told teams to watch their backsides.
Dennis Erickson never had a winning record in four seasons as an NFL coach, but San Francisco is in the clear because minorities were interviewed. Jack Del Rio had one year of experience as a coordinator, but Jacksonville skates by because a minority was interviewed.
Is this what the NFL is truly after?
Window dressing disguised as interviews?
Sherman Lewis, an assistant coach with 20 years of NFL service including 10 as a coordinator, is one of the five coaches who declined to interview with Millen. Yet even before the fine was announced, Lewis said Millen's search was more above board than either Jacksonville's or San Francisco's.
"I have a problem with Jack Del Rio being an assistant coach for six years, having one year of experience as a coordinator, getting a head coaching job, when we've got African-Americans who have been coordinators for years who have been very successful," Lewis told the Detroit News.
"I have much more respect for Matt ... than what I saw happen in San Francisco. I personally think they took two guys, two of our top assistant coaches, and paraded them around. It was a sham from the start."
The NFL has taken the easy way out. It has deemed perception more important than progress. It seeks to pacify rather than rectify.
Yes, it is critical that teams be encouraged to interview African-American candidates. But it is even more important that they treat the process with some sense of respect and sincerity.
Tagliabue would have more credibility if he had wondered aloud about the process in San Francisco and Jacksonville. He could have questioned Dallas owner Jerry Jones, who talked to Dennis Green on the telephone and declared his minority responsibilities exhausted before hiring Bill Parcells.
If Tagliabue were truly committed to change, he would be asking tough questions in every situation instead of grandstanding on the most notorious. His ruling, in the face of other offseason hires, has served only to perpetuate the idea of token interviews in place of legitimate reform.
The commissioner has been presented with a unique opportunity to step to the forefront in the NFL's minority hiring practices.
