The hiring of Sowers followed a trail blazed by Kathryn Smith, who coached full-time for the Bills last season, and Jen Welter, who became the first female positional coach in the NFL as a 2015 intern with the Cardinals. "It's groundbreaking and all that stuff, but the more normalized it is, the better it is," Sowers told the San Jose Mercury News last week. "As a female, the more someone can ask me what I do and I say, 'I coach football,' the less shock on their faces will mean the better direction we're moving."