The rule isn’t the problem. The rulers are.
Nearly two full decades after the Rooney Rule was adopted by the NFL, and a year after the league once again strengthened those guidelines — designed to promote diversity in the front-office and coaching ranks — the lack of opportunities for minorities in those roles remains a hot-button issue.
And the reason isn’t simply because the rule is flawed, or that the changes haven’t gone far enough.
No, the truth is the consequences aren’t there, and the exclusive club of NFL owners —the group that pays Roger Goodell handsomely (nearly $128 million over the past two seasons) to protect them and their multibillion-dollar babies — are the only ones who can change that.
But will they? History says don’t bank on it, though a recent lawsuit from former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores — one that alleges everything from sham interviews involving Black coaching candidates to bribes for losing games among league owners — might spark something.
It certainly sparked another round of pointed questions for Goodell at his annual state of the league press conference Wednesday in Los Angeles, the site of Sunday’s Super Bowl LVI.
“We won’t tolerate racism, and we won’t tolerate discrimination,” said Goodell in one of several answers addressing what he called the NFL’s “unacceptable” shortcomings with respect to diversity, equity and inclusion. “If there are policies that we need to modify, we’re going to do that. If we’ve seen evidence of discrimination, we will deal with that in a very serious way that will reflect the fact that we won’t tolerate that.”
But what also has grown intolerable, frankly, is this one-act play featuring Goodell that always feels more performative than progressive, especially from a league where nearly 70% of the workforce is Black, but none of the owners are. And where you can count on one hand the number of Black coaches or general managers, despite scores of qualified candidates. or on one finger the number of Black team presidents,
So this problem that Goodell was confronted with once more Wednesday isn’t new at all, nor is it his alone to solve.
“Because there are 32 owners that make the decisions,” reminded Tony Dungy, the Hall of Famer from Jackson who became the first Black coach to win a Super Bowl in 2007 and remains one of the league’s most respected voices.
“You can put in a lot of policies (in place), you can put in a lot of things to help, but at the end of the day, those 32 owners make the decisions on who they want to hire. And there’s only 32 jobs, so it’s a pretty closed shop. And to get progress, that’s what it’s gonna take: Those men and women stepping up and saying we’re gonna look in every direction.”
But it’s the current direction that leaves the league open to all this criticism, and all these questions about just where the progress really is.
Back in 2003, the Lions became the first NFL team — and still the only one — to be punished for violating the Rooney Rule, incurring a $200,000 penalty after Matt Millen hired Steve Mariucci without interviewing any minority candidates. Yet when something similar happened in 2017 with the Oakland Raiders’ hire of Jon Gruden, there was no punishment, and the fallout from that — or lack thereof — still is being felt. As DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFL Players Association put it Wednesday, “How important is a rule that has no consequences?”
There are far too many other examples that Black coaches across the league can point to as evidence of a double standard when it comes to hiring and firing decisions, including another involving the Lions more recently. As Flores noted in his lawsuit, Jim Caldwell went 36-28 with two playoff appearances four seasons as Detroit’s head coach, and he was responsible for three of the Lions’ four winning records since 2000, yet he was fired after a 9-7 finish in 2017.
Then in a surprise to almost no one in the league, GM Bob Quinn replaced him by hiring Patriots defensive coordinator Matt Patricia, with whom he’d spent more than a decade together in New England.
Before making that hire, though, the Lions satisfied the Rooney Rule requirements by interviewing two minority candidates in Packers assistant Winston Moss and Teryl Austin, Caldwell’s defensive coordinator in Detroit. Last week, Austin’s agent, Eric Metz, shared his view of that process with the Associated Press, saying, “Bob Quinn knew he was hiring Matt Patricia and used Teryl to comply with the Rooney Rule. Didn’t work out well for the Lions. Never should’ve fired Jim Caldwell.”
Lions fans have debated that plenty in the years since. Patricia lasted less than three seasons as the Lions’ head coach, compiling a 13-29-1 record before getting fired by new owner Sheila Ford Hamp in late November 2020 along with Quinn. The ensuing search for a new GM and coach were far more expansive and inclusive, thankfully, and the Lions were honored by the Fritz Pollard Alliance earlier this winter for their efforts, which resulted in hiring a Black GM and assistant GM, along with a coaching staff last season that included minorities as offensive and defensive coordinators.
It’s something Hamp was asked about last winter, too, when the Lions settled on Dan Campbell as their head coach.
“Well, I can’t really comment on what other teams have done or not done,” she said. “When you’re looking for a coach, you’re looking for the best candidates or the best fit for your organization. I think everyone goes in colorblind, honestly.
“But I do think the league — and I think everyone’s aware — can do a better job of creating a pipeline and teaching and developing and working with diverse candidates. I think it’s something the league can do a lot better at. Everyone’s aware of it and trying hard.”
But not hard enough, it seems. Because sometimes the results speak for themselves, especially when so many of the league’s owners take a pass on doing the same.
“Fifteen years ago, Lovie Smith and I coached in a Super Bowl against each other,” said Dungy, recalling that milestone moment at the end of the 2006 season. “There were some really, really good minority candidates on both of our staffs and you thought that the NFL was headed in the right direction in minority hiring. Mike Tomlin had just gotten hired by the Steelers days before the game. It was an exciting time.”
Indeed, for a time after that, it seemed as if progress was being made. By 2011, a quarter of the league’s teams employed Black head coaches. But that number had been cut in half just a couple seasons later. And while it spiked again at 25% in 2017, of the 34 head coaching hires since then — two of them by the Lions — only five were Black, including the last two this offseason.
The promotion of Smith, a 63-year-old former head coach in Chicago and Tampa, and Miami’s selection of Mike McDaniel, a biracial 38-year-old who was San Francisco’s offensive coordinator, means there are now a handful of minority head coaches in the league. Tomlin (Pittsburgh), Ron Rivera (Washington) and Dearborn native Robert Saleh (New York Jets) are the others.
“We’ve had some progress, but in the last 3-4 years, the progress has dissipated,” Dungy said. “So we’ve got to do some things to prick the conscience of the owners. That’s my opinion.”
That’s an opinion Goodell seems to share, though he also seems at a loss to do anything about it. And again, that’s the problem here: Why did Goodell sit down with civil-rights leaders earlier this week to hear their concerns? So the owners wouldn’t have to. Why was it the commissioner on the dais Wednesday taking all that shrapnel? Because the owners can’t be trusted not to say the wrong thing. (And the ones that can be, I’m sure, want no part of answering for the likes of Washington’s Dan Snyder, who remains an embarrassment among all the riches.)
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There’s a push to finally bring in the NFL’s first Black owner, and mogul Byron Allen, a 60-year-old Detroit native, announced this week he’s planning to make a bid for the Denver Broncos, who went up for sale earlier this month. Goodell says he and other NFL executives have spoken to Allen, who said in a statement, “I strongly believe I can effectuate positive changes throughout the league.”
And Goodell promised more efforts from within to effect change as well, whether that means tweaking the Rooney Rule again or replacing it altogether.
“Is there another thing that we can do to make sure that we’re attracting the best talent and making our league more inclusive?” Goodell said. “If I had the answer right now, I would give it to you. I would have implemented it.”
But the bottom line is, he doesn’t, and he won’t, because he can’t. Only the NFL owners can.
john.niyo@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @JohnNiyo