NFL franchises and required to interview minority candidates for head coaching positions because of the “Rooney Rule,” and commissioner Roger Goodell said the league is working on a new guideline that requires women be interviewed for when an executive job is open.
Goodell shared this plan while speaking at the NFL Women’s Summit, according to Richard Deitsch of Sports Illustrated.
Per Lindsey Adler of BuzzFeed, Goodell pointed to recent signs of progress, namely Dr. Jen Welter as a coaching intern for the Arizona Cardinals during the preseason and Kathyrn Smith as a special teams quality control coach for the Buffalo Bills.
A couple hirings are encouraging, but the league is still an unnecessarily male-dominated profession that rarely extends beyond “friend of a friend.” This is a smart move from the NFL, and the new rule could help break apart the Old Boys’ Club that is so evident today.
Ted Sundquist, a former general manager of the Denver Broncos, explained in an article posted on Bleacher Report how he set up an interview with the Tennessee Titans for the GM job. “The politics of garnering a potential interview are mind-boggling,” Sundquist said.
And he’s a man with decades of NFL experience. Do you really think women are given a fair chance in front offices? That answer is no, by the way.
Unfortunately, responses have already included questions wondering if there are enough female candidates who are both interested and qualified. Perhaps that isn’t intended as a derogatory statement, but is it really that hard to believe hundreds or thousands of women hope to work with an NFL club?
A sadder question seen is if this mandate will serve as a special protection for one gender. Considering women are rarely finalists for the major front-office openings anyway, it’s about time they received “special protection.”
May the most-qualified candidate win.