The Late Show tackles the NFL’s latest racism scandals

In a pre-credits film recalling the stentorian myth-making of NFL Films’ bombastic highlight reels, The Late Show imagined how the sports league is feeling right about now. “Racism—solved. Now let’s movie on,” boomed the John Facenda-esque narrator of this self-congratulatory fake league propaganda film, noting how the league had ordered a small “End Racism” logo painted behind the end zones this playoff season. Mission accomplished!

And, okay, the film’s narrator had to repeatedly backtrack thanks to inconvenient facts like Las Vegas Raiders head coach John Gruden being outed as a slur-spouting bigot back in October. Oh, and the fact that white Washington Football Team fans have defiantly carried on the team’s decades-long tradition of co-opting Native American chants and imagery despite the team being forced to drop a moniker so offensive it’s now not even used in news reports talking about how racist it was.

Or this week’s lawsuit from recently fired Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores, alleging that the NFL’s diversity-smokescreen Rooney Rule is routinely employed as window dressing for the NFL’s institutional old boy bigotry when it comes to hiring coaches. (The narrator concedes the truth of a BBC report on how only one of 32 NFL head coaching positions is filled by a Black person, even though 70 percent of the league’s players are Black, but complains, “Okay, but she’s British. What do they know about football?”)

In his opening monologue, Stephen Colbert continued the blitz against the flailing and scandal-ridden league, noting that two days into Black History Month is a great time to salute Flores for putting his career on the line. Noting how Flores is suing the NFL, even as the now-jobless coach is interviewing for several vacant coaching jobs, Colbert broke out the heavy irony around Flores’ move by noting the NFL’s history of backing Black players and coaches who stand up for their principles. (Or, showing a photo of the still-unemployed Colin Kaepernick, kneeling for them.)

And while the evidence seems pretty damning, what with New England Patriots head coach and 69-year-old who’s super-good at technology, Bill Belichick, being caught accidentally congratulating former assistant coach Flores on landing the vacant New York Giants job. Flores had not, in fact interviewed yet, and Belichick was mistakenly congratulating other Patriots assistant (and “White Brian” in Belichick’s updated contacts list, according to Colbert), Brian Daboll, who’d allegedly been offered the job even while the Giants were still checking that “we’re not racists” Rooney Rule box by scheduling token interviews with minority candidates they had no intention of considering.

Okay, that’s—bad. Colbert imagined Flores’ answer to the typical job interview question, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” as a thoughtful, “I don’t know, suing you?” And if Colbert’s audience seemed a little more shocked at Flores’ additional allegation that billionaire, Trump-loving Dolphins owner Stephen Ross offered the coach a cool hundred grand per 2019 season loss in order to secure a high draft pick, well, that is pretty bad on its own. Especially since, as Colbert piled on the other New York NFL franchise, “The Jets will lose for free.”

Amidst other unsurprising yet still disillusioning accusations (like Ross allegedly engineering a blatantly against-the-rules QB-tampering meeting on a yacht with then team-shopping Tom Brady), Colbert touted Flores’ inspiring gumption in calling out an insanely powerful organization that holds his entire future earning potential in its hands. Noting that Flores is only 40 years old (and citing the fact that Flores was canned despite leading the perennially mediocre Dolphins to its first back-to-back winning seasons since 2003), Colbert mused that that sort of selflessness and willingness to sacrifice success for principle is just what you look for in, say, an inspirational sports coach.

Well, at least the NFL has that whole, “Look, snowflakes, we caved in and changed that cartoonishly racist team nickname” defense. Except, as Colbert showed, the unveiling of the WFT’s new and thoroughly focus-grouped for utter nondescript blandness Washington Commanders featured wall-to-wall graphics of the team’s former nickname, presumably just so Commanders owner and noted creep Dan Snyder could snicker in the face of his many, many critics one last time. Plus, as Colbert noted, a much better alternative name like the Washington Dolly Partons was just sitting there. Go Dollies! Just imagine those halftime shows.