Courtesy of The Athletic, a look at professional football’s efforts to support more diversity in coaching:

With training camp roughly a month away, Anthony Blevins was getting things in order this summer for his sixth consecutive season with the New York Giants. He had just purchased a one-way ticket to New Jersey from his offseason home in the Dallas area and was reviewing the schedule and his responsibilities as the assistant special teams coach. Then, out of the blue, he received an email from Marc Ross, executive vice president of football operations for the XFL.

The second-year league was seeking to fill its vacant head-coach position with the Vegas Vipers, and Ross wanted to know if Blevins had interest in interviewing for the job. The inquiry caught Blevins off guard because there was no forewarning. He knew Ross casually and had spoken to him briefly at the NFL Scouting Combine earlier in the year, but the possibility of being a head coach in the league never came up.

“I was kind of thinking to myself that it could be a token deal,” recalls Blevins, revealing the scar tissue from past experiences. He had spoken with at least seven NFL teams over the last few years about a coordinator position on special teams but walked away feeling some clubs were just going through the motions and checking the box that calls for them to interview a diverse candidate.

He decided to pursue the Vipers job not only because he had a genuine interest in the position, but also because he and many other Black coaches believe they do not have the luxury or privilege to decline interviews. With only the weekend to prepare, he participated in a virtual call with Ross and Doug Whaley, the senior vice president of personnel for the XFL. That was followed by another round of interviews with Dany Garcia, chairwoman and owner of the XFL; Russ Brandon, the league president; and Brian Westbrook, the Vipers’ director of player engagement.

“I wasn’t looking for anything or thinking about anything other than training camp at the time,” Blevins says. “I was just trying to get up there to New York and win some games. Then this happens. It’s really crazy how it came about. I’m excited about the opportunity. The XFL gives me the chance to show what I can do, to show I can lead men.”

Let that last sentence marinate for a moment: The XFL gives me the chance to show what I can do, to show I can lead men. That’s a damning indictment of the NFL, where, sadly, Black coaches continue to struggle to find the same opportunities. This will mark the fifth consecutive year that the country’s most popular professional sports league will open a season with only three coaches who identify as Black.

It’s truly shameful that Blevins and other minority coaches feel they have to continue the pursuit of their dreams elsewhere because most NFL owners have not shown they will have a legitimate opportunity to climb the professional ladder. The NFL likes to say diversity, equity and inclusion are core principles of the league, but that precept has yet to trickle down to the field, where capable and qualified minorities are consistently passed over for White counterparts with lesser experience and weaker resumes.

Brandon Staley can have only one year of coordinator experience in the NFL and be five years removed from working as an assistant at a small college yet still get the head-coaching job with the Los Angeles Chargers, but Reggie Barlow, a former NFL player, can have winning records as a head coach at Alabama State and Virginia State, be named XFL Coach of the Year in 2023, and still not get a sniff from an NFL team — for any job.

“No ‘BCD’ for me,” says Barlow, who led the DC Defenders to a spot in the XFL title game. “No blame, no complain, no defend. It (a leveling of opportunities) will happen over a long period of time, all of a sudden. We just have to stay on our process. Keep the main thing the main thing. Be where our feet are. Do a good job where we are. I’m grateful for the opportunity the XFL has given us.”

The beauty of the XFL is that it has shown itself to be an equal-opportunity employer. Perhaps that stems from the league’s current owners having diverse backgrounds: Garcia is of Cuban descent, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has African and Samoan lineage. The league has diverse representation in its management and along the sideline, and it embraces the idea of being a developmental league for players, coaches and executives. A big question now is whether NFL owners view it the same way. Will success in the XFL actually lead to greater opportunities for minorities in decision-making positions within the NFL?

“Absolutely, I still have faith,” Blevins says of becoming an NFL head coach. “I still believe that it’s going to happen. The truth is that I always believed I’d be a head coach. I didn’t know it was going to happen in the XFL, and at times, part of me probably doubted that my chances were real because teams rarely hire special teams coaches as head coaches. But I always kept the faith, kept working and kept trying to learn my craft, and finally, the opportunity came.

“Sometimes the opportunity comes when you least expect it, and I had no clue, no expectation. They emailed me on Friday and I interviewed on Monday. I do believe there’s a pathway for us in the NFL; I just think it’s harder. The league has the Quarterback Coaching Summit and the Accelerator program for minorities — and it’s all good stuff. But until they put it into practice, it’s hard. It’s frustrating. You’ve got guys like Eric Bieniemy who, obviously, has shown he’s a quality, quality football coach. But for whatever reason, he continues to get passed over for head jobs, whereas there are other guys in his same position who have gotten head jobs.”

Bieniemy spent the past five seasons as offensive coordinator of the Kansas City Chiefs, who went to three of the past four Super Bowls and won two titles. And yet despite working closely with quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who won league and Super Bowl MVPs during that time, Bieniemy was consistently passed over for head-coach jobs.

Some attributed it to him not calling offensive plays, which was specious considering neither of his two predecessors in Kansas City (Matt Nagy and Doug Pederson) called plays but still got top jobs. Others said he didn’t interview well, although no one involved has ever confirmed that or identified just what that means. Lastly, there was the belief that he needed to separate himself from Andy Reid, who casts a long and wide shadow as one of the league’s top coaches.

Bieniemy has done the latter, leaving the Chiefs this offseason to become offensive coordinator of the Washington Commanders. It’s disappointing that he finds himself in this situation, but the NFL is where it is. Bieniemy does not have a franchise quarterback, but he does have a belief in himself and his system. If he succeeds, NFL owners will be out of excuses for looking past him. Not that that will matter. When you’re accountable to no one but yourself, you can do what you want in any manner you see fit. The league’s history has taught us that.

Worst-case scenario, there will always be a home for Bieniemy in the XFL. I say that jokingly. Then again, maybe not.