The AP reports that reverse discrimination has hit the NFL with a vengeance, with League Commish Paul Tagliabue fining the Detroit Lions president $200K for hiring Steve Mariucci. Mariucci was the only person interviewed for the job, and Tagliabue claims that bigger fines will come if minorities aren't given preferential treatment for interviews.

Of course, the problem with the Mariucci hiring was that all the minority applicants refused interviews. The Lions say that "five minority candidates turned down interviews because it appeared inevitable Mariucci would be hired." (Who'd want to coach a 2-14 team any way?)

The real downside to reverse discrimination will be that quality football coaches like Tony Dungy will be perceived as being hired or interviewed, just to fill the quota and avoid the fine. The policy will diminish and overshadow their real gift for coaching. Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFL Players Association tries to defend the League's actions.

"The Detroit Lions gave mere lip service to the agreed-upon minority hiring process, treating it almost as if a nuisance to their hiring of Steve Mariucci," Upshaw said at the time. "The minority candidates were never given a fair chance to interview. In this case, the Lions' position is indefensible."

A nuisance is exactly what it is. Hiring an NFL coach is pretty much like casting the starring role in a Hollywood movie. NFL teams don't exactly post an ad on monster.com and wade through a pool of applicants. When a vacancy comes up, they run down the short list of candidates they want to fill the position. They look for coaches that they envision filling the role. That pool of guys is extremely small, and usually includes only previous NFL coaches, a handful of assistant coaches, and very few college coaches. This time, the Lions list only contained one name, and it wasn't a black guy, so they got dinged by the NFL.