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Del Rio's quick rise through coaching ranks raises eyebrows

Jack Del Rio obviously wowed the Jacksonville Jaguars this week, and it's not difficult to understand why. Just seven seasons removed from the NFL playing field, Del Rio is an impressive young football coach.

He's well-liked and well-respected by his peers, his players love playing for him, and he's said to have one of the sharper minds in the game. He's articulate, passionate about his work, and leaves nothing but good impressions in his wake.

Still, eyebrows were raised around the league this week when Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver tapped Del Rio as his team's new head coach, and that too isn't hard to understand.

Del Rio, 39, has been an NFL coordinator for just one year, this season in Carolina. And while he made the most of his opportunity on John Fox's staff, helping the Panthers soar from 31st and last in team defense in 2001 to second overall this season, Del Rio's big promotion came suddenly by league standards.

Or at least standards that seem to apply in some notable cases.

Del Rio, who becomes the league's second-youngest head coach behind Tampa Bay's Jon Gruden, deserves nothing but congratulations and well wishes. He got a chance to interview for his first head coaching job and seized the day, winning a competition in Jacksonville that was dominated more by the names that dropped out of the running than those remaining in it.

Good for him, and good for the Jaguars, who likely recognized and landed a rising star.

But you couldn't help but wonder, in a week when Marvin Lewis' seven-year stint as a league defensive coordinator happily came to an end with him getting the Cincinnati head coaching job, about Del Rio's ascension and how the process accelerated so dramatically.

The natural question is how come it has yet to work that way for talented black defensive coordinators like Ted Cottrell with the Jets, Greg Blache with the Bears, Lovie Smith with the Rams, or the recently fired Willie Shaw of the Vikings? How come one big season didn't land them a head coaching job? How come it took men like Tony Dungy and Lewis so many more years of waiting in line?

As one NFL head coach said this week: "Whatever progress the league made with Marvin Lewis finally getting a head coaching job, you wonder if it didn't get negated with Del Rio getting hired in Jacksonville. Jack's a talented coach, and he'll do well. But his chance came very quickly, and that can't make the league look too good."

But Del Rio's hiring raised questions that extend beyond race and equal opportunities for minority coaches. Age discrimination is one of the most unspoken of taboos in the NFL, but it's the hot potato issue that never gets talked about. There's no Johnnie Cochran and league-sponsored diversity committee to fight that fight.

While Del Rio was introduced to Jacksonville fans on Friday evening, ultra-successful defensive coordinators like Jim Johnson in Philadelphia and Monte Kiffin in Tampa Bay -- both of whom are white, in their early 60s, and career assistants -- went about the business of preparing their units for Sunday's NFC title game.

"There were a lot of people who were surprised to see Jack get that job in Jacksonville,'' said Blache, the Bears defensive coordinator, on Friday. "And I agree that Jack is a fine football coach. I'm happy for him. He's done a good job everywhere he's gone. But what about Jim Johnson? What about Monte Kiffin? This is more than just a racial issue.

"There are some fine, fine football coaches out there who have been at this for a long time, and had success for multiple years. There are a lot of other exceptional coaches who have done it more than once. I was more upset about Jim Johnson being overlooked. I worked with Jim in three different places. Here he is in a second straight championship game, going against Monte Kiffin, who has had one of the league's top defenses for five or six years. Those guys' clocks are running. Their chances are dwindling."

Equity, of course, is never promised in the world of football coaching any more than it is, shall we say, in real life. But could you blame a Cottrell or a Johnson or a Kiffin for wondering, especially after this week, if their day will ever come?

"When we got into this business," Blache said, "there wasn't a contract of fairness that we signed. There have been a lot of coaches fast-tracked over the years. Who knows what people are looking for and what they want? When an owner hires a guy, it's a marriage. It's got to work between those two people.

"Some men marry someone their own age, and some like young girls. If they're comfortable together, the rest of us can sit and pontificate and speculate, but in the end, it doesn't matter. It was a personal choice."

Again, Del Rio has nothing to apologize for. He worked hard and got his chance, as everyone would want. It was just the juxtaposition that was so jarring. Lewis's opportunity finally arrived, concluding a three-year saga, but Del Rio's chance got here via warp speed.

That's reality, like it or not. But for a league trying to recommit itself to equity in the workplace, and defining that goal perhaps a bit too narrowly, this week felt a little like one step forward and two steps back.

Cincy's Lewis could follow the Dungy plan in Tampa

Speaking of Lewis, I don't buy into the notion that he's in an unwinnable situation in Cincinnati. Challenging? Most definitely. Unwinnable? It's a little early to make that assessment.

I was a beat writer covering the Bucs back when they hired Minnesota defensive coordinator Tony Dungy in January 1996. Though the Bucs had broken their NFL record streak of 12 consecutive seasons of double-digit losses in 1995, going 7-9 in Sam Wyche's final year, Dungy was inheriting a team that had posted 13 consecutive losing seasons and was the laughingstock of the league.

Sound familiar? The Bengals have endured 12 consecutive non-winning seasons and haven't made the playoffs since 1990. Like the old Bucs, they've been down so long they don't know which direction is up.

But the Bengals have several things going for them that Tampa Bay didn't in 1996. For one, they have a new stadium. Saddled with an outdated stadium, the Bucs looked like they were headed for Orlando back when Dungy signed on.

Secondly, the Bengals have arguably more talent than Tampa Bay did in 1996. Yes, Derrick Brooks, Warren Sapp and John Lynch and Trent Dilfer were Wyche draft picks. But the Bengals can at least match that with a nucleus that includes Corey Dillon, Takeo Spikes, Justin Smith, Brian Simmons and Chad Johnson.

And like Dungy's Bucs, Lewis's Bengals are expected to build the defense into the strength of the team. That's still the quickest way to turn a loser into a winner in the NFL. One key difference in the comparison: Tampa Bay had general manager Rich McKay on hand to help Dungy build. The Bengals still have what many perceive as the Mike Brown problem.

Late in the regular season, just after he had turned down the Michigan State job, I asked Lewis if he would be afraid to take on the massive job of trying to end the Bengals' drought. I expected him to say he wouldn't go near Cincinnati.

"Don't assume that I wouldn't be interested in that job,'' he said. "I think there's a lot to build on there. It wouldn't scare me away.''

Turns out, it didn't. Now if Lewis could take another page out of Dungy's book and do away with all traces of orange in Cincinnati's uniform.

Was Mularkey closer to Bengals job than we knew?

Though Lewis was the front-runner for the Bengals job from the time of his first interview on -- and he was the first candidate to meet with Cincinnati -- informed sources say Pittsburgh offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey could have made things very interesting at the end.

Mularkey greatly impressed Brown, who has an affinity for offensive coaches. Mularkey might have gotten the offer over Lewis had he not been under consideration for the Jacksonville head coaching vacancy as well.

The Bengals met with Mularkey a second time Monday night in Mobile, Ala., site of the Senior Bowl workouts. They made it clear to him at that point that he had a real shot at the job, but would have to adhere to Cincinnati's decision-making timetable. The Bengals wanted to have a coach in place by Wednesday, when their assistant coaches' contracts would expire, and needed a quick decision. They also didn't want to be in the position of being turned down by their top candidate, so they needed a understanding that an offer would be accepted.

Mularkey, wanting to see what transpired in Jacksonville, which was his first preference among the two jobs, couldn't live with the Bengals' all-or-nothing timetable, and essentially eliminated himself in Cincinnati. As things turned out, Mularkey finished as the runner-up with both the Bengals and Jaguars.

The Brunell question looms in Jacksonville

Here's the first big challenge facing Del Rio in Jacksonville: Sources say that during Weaver's interview with at least one head coaching candidate, it became apparent that the Jaguars owner believes the team should rid itself of longtime starting quarterback Mark Brunell and his $6.75 million base salary in 2003 and turn the starting job over to the unproven David Garrard.

Jaguars vice president/football operations Paul Vance disagrees, believing that Brunell should be retained for at least another year or two with his contract restructured. Brunell has two years left on his contract, but he could be traded or released without the team taking a significant cap hit.

What that means is that Del Rio could walk into town a conquering hero and almost immediately be asked to play the bad guy, cutting the franchise's most beloved and successful player ever.

Jacksonville may not be at Cincinnati's level, but there are problems on the horizon for Del Rio. Brunell is 32 and still a bit injury prone. Receiver Jimmy Smith is 30, and running back Fred Taylor hasn't out-run his reputation for chronic injuries.

Good luck, Jack.

Minority interview process still has some kinks

While both Johnnie Cochran and the league's diversity committee was pleased with how the Bengals' head coaching search unfolded in terms of minority candidates, let's look at how the rest of the NFL's coaching vacancies went on that front:

In Dallas, owner Jerry Jones called Dennis Green twice on the phone, which the league allowed him to count as his minority "interview."

In Jacksonville, Weaver made Green his first face-to-face interview, but the two sides had serious disagreements about key issues and Green pulled out three days later knowing he was not going to be the choice. Weaver went on to interview four other candidates, all white.

In San Francisco, Green figures to again get an interview, but sources say Bill Walsh's preferred candidate won't be the choice of team director John York. The 49ers, however, are expected to interview other minority candidates, among them George Stewart, a current San Francisco assistant.

Take Green, who figures to go 0-for-3 this off-season, out of the equation and that's not an impressive first-year response to the league's new guidelines.

A little perspective on Mariucci and the 49ers

In the unvarnished opinion of one 49ers insider, here's what went wrong between Mariucci and his front office:

"It came down to the fact that Terry Donahue, Bill Walsh and John York simply didn't like Steve. Terry and Steve butted heads. There were problems in the office. My sense was that unless Steve took us deep into the playoffs, and did it with style points, he was in trouble.

"John York never really was a Steve guy, because if you were an Eddie DeBartolo or Carmen Policy hire, you're not a John guy. John couldn't control Steve. John wants a coach he has under his thumb, and he wants a coach he doesn't have to pay $3 million a year. If Steve would have won out in the playoffs, he would have been forced to keep him. But the team's playoff performance at Tampa made it easy for them to get rid of him.

"It goes back to the fact that the three of them just didn't want Steve around. Terry didn't want him, Bill never liked him and John wasn't supportive of him. John ultimately was making the decision. Terry and Bill chimed in, but it was John's call. He'd rather have a coach making $1 million or $1.5 million a year, who when he says 'Jump,' they say 'How high?' "

York did everything but reverse the charges

Listening to Mariucci's post-firing news conference on Thursday, I get the feeling he knew the end was coming at some point during his Monday night telephone conversation with York.

"I was at home sitting on the couch with my kids watching Joe Millionaire. What kind of show is that? The girls are going to get shocked when they find out. So, [York] called and ... he seemed to be upset as soon as I said hello. I don't know how or where that started. By judging the tone of his voice, he was very angry and I don't know why.

"Without getting into the particulars of our conversation, he led me to believe that somewhere along the line, things have changed quickly or maybe this was just the time to do this. We spoke for about 45 minutes or an hour. I missed the whole show. I came back and told my wife that I can't promise what was going to happen. There was not a lot of dialogue back in forth. There was more listening on my part.''

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