The NFL made more adjustments to the Rooney Rule this week. Teams must go into the season with a minority coach or a woman on their offensive staff, Kevin Seifert of ESPN.com notes. This can include a woman of any race, and the NFL also will include women among Rooney Rule requirements going forward. Teams must interview at least two external minority candidates for head coach, coordinator and GM roles; women are now included in this pool. Clubs, however, will not be required to interview female staffers for these positions. The female or minority staffer hired as part of this offense-based initiative must work closely with their respective team’s head coach, Seifert adds, and their respective salaries will be paid via a leaguewide fund. The NFL has a league-record 17 minority defensive coordinators currently, with two teams employing co-DC setups, but 27 of the league’s 31 offensive coordinators (the Patriots do not currently have a staffer in this role) are white.
Here is the latest from around pro football:
- Clemson cornerback Andrew Booth looms as a first-round prospect, but he will not be ready for his team’s offseason activities. The incoming rookie defender underwent sports hernia surgery, Adam Schefter of ESPN.com tweets. While Booth (Scouts Inc.’s No. 30 overall prospect) is expected to be ready for training camp, it will be a bit before he is healthy.
- De’Anthony Thomas joined Oregon draft hopefuls in working out at the school’s pro day Friday, with Schefter adding the former Chiefs wide receiver/return man is aiming to make a comeback (Twitter link). A six-year NFL veteran, Thomas has not played since 2019. He was among the first to opt out due to COVID-19 concerns ahead of the 2020 season. The Oregon alum is currently on the British Columbia Lions’ roster in the Canadian Football League, signing with the team in February.
- Staying in the CFL, Martavis Bryant will receive another chance north of the border. The former Steelers and Raiders wide receiver who battled suspensions in the NFL signed with the CFL’s Edmonton Elks, who are taking a flier on the talented pass catcher despite his refusal to report to the Toronto Argonauts’ training camp in 2021. The Argos held Bryant’s rights last year, but he is now in Edmonton. Bryant last played in the NFL in 2018, catching 19 passes for 266 yards with the Raiders. Bryant posted two 600-plus-yard receiving seasons in Pittsburgh but was suspended three times during his NFL career for violating the league’s substance-abuse policy.
- Another spring league will launch this month, with the rebooted USFL beginning play April 16. The latest spring effort’s contracts are structured in a way that will make it a bit more difficult for the XFL to acquire players when its latest relaunch occurs in 2023. The USFL gave its players one-year contracts with team options for 2023, per Ben Fischer of Sports Business Journal (via Mike Florio of PFT). None of the recent spring leagues — from the Alliance of American Football (2019) to XFL 2.0 (2020) — finished their respective seasons, so the matter of USFLers’ 2023 contracts is not exactly a front-burner item just yet. Some notable players — like Paxton Lynch, De’Vante Bausby, Kyle Lauletta and other ex-NFLers — are part of this centralized (in Birmingham, Ala.) USFL.
Martavis Bryant couldn’t cut it as a jagoff, so he’ll try his hand at being a hoser.
Good one
all for hiring anyone that is QUALIFIED! your skin color or sex doesnt inherently make you qualified!
Blows my mind that people don’t see how racist that is. It’s literally categorizing people by race/gender and using it as a means to hire
Needs more caps and exclamation points. 5/10.
lol tell me which job Brian Schottenheimer was qualified for.
Solving racism with racism
Amazing. Just amazing.
I usually try not to say anything about these sorts of articles, but…this is a joke, right?
I promise mandating that’s teams hire at least one coach who isn’t a white man isn’t any more discriminatory than hiring every son of a well known coach who has a pulse.
Yes it is.
Nope
100% it is.
Just how manyd women have UCF a working knowledge of the game to coach NFL players? I am sure there are a few, but 32?
Ignore the UCF on previous post, error.
What bothers me is that Goodell and his minions actually think we fans are naive enough to believe that NFL owners care about minorities or women. The reality is they only care about being wealthy and having Goodell spin a positive league image for public consumption. The Rooney rule is a farce but apparently Goodell is going to try to convince us all that the NFL will soon be a member of the United Nations.
‘Teams must interview at least two external minority candidates for head coach, coordinator and GM roles; women are now included in this pool. ‘
Oh the irony, this rule wasn’t even a week old when TB hired Bowles. And the league was perfectly fine with them interviewing only 1 candidate!
Imagine holding out and refusing to move to a world class city like Toronto to force your way to Edmonton.
Did TB meet with this mandate when they changed head coaches last week?