On Wednesday, league owners agreed to make adjustments to the Rooney Rule. The rule, which stipulates that NFL teams must interview at least one minority candidate before hiring a new head coach or GM, will now require clubs to interview one minority candidate who is not employed by the team or on the league’s list of suggested minority candidates.
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Ostensibly, the rule is being changed in order to force teams to consider minority candidates in good faith, rather than interviewing a minority coach or executive in order to fulfill an obligation. There’s no guarantee that the adjustment will accomplish that, however – teams are still liable to lock in on a candidate before the interview process starts.
Although the NFL won’t come right out and say it, the rule change is likely in response to the Raiders’ hiring of Jon Gruden in the last coaching cycle. The Raiders technically interviewed two minority candidates for the job in Oakland tight ends coach Bobby Johnson and USC offensive coordinator Tee Martin, but all indications are that Gruden reached verbal agreement with owner Mark Davis before those interviews took place.
Stupid rule.
Stupid comment
Very stupid rule
Very stupid comment.
One of the dumber rules in a league full of dumb rules.
It takes a racist to think that.
Is that Mr Sharpton?
so what’s the point of the suggested list of names if those coaches dont count?
The rule is a joke. It needs to be abolished. It makes no sense.
It makes perfect sense…unless you’re white.
Nothing more racist than bringing up skin color
Why can’t you just interview and hire who you want?
Why can’t they have the best coach for the team no matter what skin color?
Then why bother hiring minorities for coaching positions at all? The league is 68% African-American…so, good enough to play on the field, but they don’t have the skills to coach, is that it?
Some of the coaches we have in the league would never have received an interview if not for the rule.
There doesn’t seem to be any shortage of black head coaches or quarterbacks in the NFL these days based on what I see on Sundays.
It didn’t used to be that way before the Rooney Rule.
Dungy/Lovie in SB XLI helped that cause quite a bit.
All this does is further drag out the process. Yes, there shouldn’t be discrimination, but teams have a shortlist of guys in mind if they are moving on from their coach. All this does is insult the capabilities of some coaches just being brought in to fulfill a requirement
not only that it will waste their time, waste money (travel expense) and takes them away from other opportunites
Agreed. I am all for equal opportunity and no discrimination, but this rule is a joke. They shouldn’t need to interview anyone if they know who they want. It’s really laughable.
Forced to interview someone based on their skin color. Sounds like moving backwards
So, give the teams control as they did before and all they will do is choose the same retread Caucasian candidates to interview. Don’t tell me that’s not true since that is exactly how the NFL used to be. Mandating that they give consideration (not the actual job) to minority candidates is just right to force some of the old, racist owners to at least consider somebody who isn’t white for the HC job.
You are living in a 1950s fantasy land. There is no chance an owner will choose to be racist and purposely hire a head coach just because he is white. And dont bring up Kapernick because he doesn’t make a team better. You are really trying to spew out that all the minority coaches were hired because of the rooney rule
It’s not even about hiring a colored coach. It’s about giving a colored coach a chance to make an impression when he otherwise would not have. Case in point the Steelers were believe to be looking at Russ Grimm or Ken Whisehunt to replace Cowher but Tomlin came in as a one year DC and blew them away. Probably doesn’t happen if not for the rule. Likely would have been Grimm who never ended up being a HC in the league
The Mike Tomlin story is getting a little old. Been a decade now since his hire
Go back to when Dungy was fired from his HC job in spite of having a winning record or to those years when there was only one or none coaches of color. That’s why Rooney pushed his rule thru. It looks bad for the NFL and reflects racism from certain owners who believed that no person of color should be an exec or HC. The commenters here complaining about it or either racist, stupid or both. MAGA Tho, right?
They won the super bowl after he was fired so leave it to you to bring race into it. I dont care what his record was, if they won the superbowl after a coaching change they made the right move. If you think owners would rather not hire a minority and be racist, at the expense of their coaching hire you are clearly out of touch.
What would be a good Hugh Jackson rule if one were made.
Shut up and quit saying you’re the coach!!
The only openly racist rule in all of sports*.
Just an abomination.
*Except for the equally racist MLB clone of this rule.
Common sense would indicate that any rule that tries to force someone to show “good faith” is doomed to fail. How many minority candidates will be interviewed when Roger Goodell’s contract comes up for renewal?
Nothinh screams equality by still separating ourselves by race