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The NFL: 16 ways the game has changed in the Super Bowl era

Forty-seven years after the first Super Bowl was played in Los Angeles before a less-than-capacity crowd, let’s look back at some of the ways the NFL has changed.

11. Influx of black head coaches

  • By Ross Atkin Staff writer

Although Fritz Pollard coached the Akron Pros in 1920, the NFL’s inaugural season, there was not another black head coach until Art Shell took the reins of the Oakland Raiders in 2006. The profession has seen another 13 African-Americans land full-time NFL head coaching jobs (not interim assignments) since then. 

In 2007, Tony Dungy of the Colts and Lovie Smith of the Bears made history as the first black coaches in a Super Bowl.  Currently, three blacks are head coaches: Minnesota’s Leslie Frazier, Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin, and Cincinnati’s Marvin Lewis.

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