The Falcons have done plenty of apologizing for the behavior of their coaches at the Scouting Combine, and they and the league now need to do something more than that.
It started with the news that defensive line coach Bryan Cox shoved a low-level Cardinals scout over the amount of time the Falcons were interviewing a prospect. In hindsight, the Cardinals scout may have been doing the Falcons a favor by limiting the team’s time with would-be employees, because the latest kerfuffle regarding the stuff said by an unnamed assistant coach during a Combine interview to former Ohio State defensive back Eli Apple is far worse than Cox’s relatively minor (but still troubling) act of workplace violence.
The league had no comment on Cox’s behavior when asked about it over the weekend. Given the potentially serious P.R. and legal ramifications of the question posed to Apple, the NFL likely will have a strong comment on this one, beyond the apology issued by Falcons coach Dan Quinn.
The question becomes whether and to what extent the Falcons will take action to get the coaching staff under control. Head coach Dan Quinn seems like an earnest, genuine, and well-meaning person. But he has on his payroll a couple of old-school knuckleheads who perpetuate the notion that the pro football industry lags behind the rest of modern American workplaces by 40 or 50 years. And it’s ultimately a reflection on Quinn, especially if he’s going to not name publicly the coach who asked Eli Apple if he likes men.
This one can’t end with simply an apology from Quinn and nothing more, no matter how heartfelt and authentic the apology may be. The Falcons need to take swift and meaningful action against the assistant coach, and the NFL needs to take swift and meaningful action against the assistant coach and the Falcons.
Otherwise, inappropriate questions will continue to be asked at the Combine and elsewhere, and teams will continue to be ready to fire off a perfunctory one-paragraph apology whenever they get called out on it.
