Yearly on the Tremendous Bowl, journalists get an opportunity to ask NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell the questions that must be answered on reside tv because the world watches. This yr, the inquiries and topic issues ranged from two Black quarterbacks making historical past, Damar Hamlin, officiating, and the potential ways in which the league will broadcast upcoming video games. However, the Black cloud — no pun meant — that’s been hovering over the NFL for over a yr wasn’t talked about as soon as on Wednesday. And it’s proof that the NFL is loving the truth that folks appear to have forgotten that Brian Flores, Steve Wilks, and Ray Horton have an ongoing class-action lawsuit in opposition to the league for its alleged racist hiring practices.

Distractions are a part of the sport

It’s been over a yr because the former Miami Dolphins head coach — and present defensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings — dropped a bomb on the sports activities world when he determined that authorized motion was the one solution to make folks totally perceive simply how rigged the sport is for Black coaches within the NFL.

“It’s arduous to talk out…however that is greater than soccer. That is greater than teaching,” mentioned Flores.

Days later, Goodell was on stage answering questions on the Tremendous Bowl about that, and extra.

“I feel I’d begin with the premise that racism or any type of discrimination is in opposition to our values. And actually one thing that we are going to not tolerate,” he mentioned eventually yr’s press convention.

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Same as it ever was

On Wednesday, it was more of the same. “I do, but I still feel like there’s better work, and more work ahead of us,” Goodell said about the “meaningful progress” that’s taken place with diversity amongst head coaches. “I think that there is progress, and we’re pleased to see progress. But it’s never enough.”

A lot has happened since Goodell took the stage last year in Los Angeles and when he returned to it in Arizona. For instance, Steve Wilks and Ray Horton joined Flores’ lawsuit. Flores spent last season as an assistant with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and he’s now with the Vikings — as an assistant, again. Wilks was the interim head coach of the Carolina Panthers, but due to the historical past of the lads who carry that title along with his pores and skin shade, he by no means had an opportunity of completely touchdown the job — irrespective of if Panthers proprietor David Tepper is claiming to be making an attempt to eradicate the league’s “previous boys community.” Horton is teaching within the USFL. And you’ll nonetheless rely the variety of African-American head coaches within the league on one hand and have some fingers left to spare, as Mike Tomlin (Pittsburgh), DeMeco Ryans (Houston), and Todd Bowles (Tampa Bay) are the melanated trinity.

I believed Goodell mentioned progress was going down. Does it appear like it to you? Possibly my eyesight is dangerous.

Final fall, the plaintiffs’ legal professionals have been alleging racial bias in opposition to the NFL because the league needed issues to maneuver to arbitration — the place no one can see. In court docket paperwork, the legal professionals wrote that “arbitration would permit ‘unconscionably biased one-sided ‘kangaroo courts’ to find out the result. If arbitration is the place issues land, it signifies that Goodell would be the arbitrator — which is in the perfect curiosity of the groups which can be being sued, and the league. The most recent growth occurred final week when it was reported that the choose presiding over the case has requested that extra written briefings about arbitration be submitted later within the month.

What does that imply?

That this factor remains to be in limbo, as we’re ready to see if this can play out in court docket or behind closed doorways.

However, even when this arbitration determination does go the way in which of Brian Flores, Steve Wilks, and Ray Horton, we do not know when the mud will lastly settle — which is a win for the league. As a result of whereas the league would possibly wind up shedding this case, they’ve a profitable technique. Which is to disregard it, as everybody else did on a Wednesday afternoon in Glendale, Arizona.