In his final days as executive director of the National Football League Players Association, DeMaurice Smith ripped the two-decade Rooney Rule, calling it a failure that should be eliminated, and offered his recommendations to improve diversity in the league’s hiring practices.
In doing so, Smith joined the chorus of critics who somehow see the Rooney Rule as being useless in increasing racial and gender diversity in the NFL. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
The Rooney Rule, initially created by a report authored by the late Johnnie Cochran and civil rights attorney Cyrus Mehri, was first implemented in 2003 by the NFL requiring organizations to interview at least one minority candidate for every head coaching vacancy.
Since then, the Rooney Rule, named after Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney-a champion of diversity, has been extended to other front-office and assistant coaching positions. Looking beyond the color of the head coach, its impact has been far-reaching and offers encouragement for people of color looking for a place in a league generating nearly $20 billion in revenue.
Consider as teams went to training camp last year, the NFL had more women in coaching roles than any major male professional sports league; and the total number of NFL head coaches of color increased from four in 2020 to six (18.8 percent) in 2022. Also, the percentage of assistant coaches of color increased to 42.9 percent (332) in 2022, an all-time high, with 36.3 percent of those positions held by 209 African-Americans.
In addition, the percentage of women in the NFL League Office rose to an all-time high of 41.3 percent in 2022 up from 38.8 percent in 2021, and eight people of color held jobs as general manager heading into 2022.
Those numbers were provided by NFL’s 2022 Racial and Gender Report Card for the NFL authored by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports at the University of Central Florida.
The impact of the Rooney Rule
Certainly, there is continued frustration with the process and results when it comes to hiring head coaches. Initially, vigorously supported by former Commissioner Paul Tagliabue and current Commissioner Roger Goodell, the Rooney Rule made an early impact. On Feb. 4, 2007, Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith, two African-American head coaches, led their respective teams to Super Bowl XLI in Miami where the Indianapolis Colts beat the Chicago Bears, 29-17. Dungy became the first black coach to hoist the Lombardi Trophy.
More recently there were seven black head coaches and eight of color at the start of the 2017 and 2018 seasons. Heading into the 2023 season there are just three black head coaches — Mike Tomlin (Pittsburgh Steelers), Todd Bowles (Tamp Bay Bucs), and DeMeco Ryans (Houston Texans) — which is why Smith’s paper gained traction.
Beyond the current state of head coaches, the spirit of the Rooney Rule has made the NFL more diverse and shouldn’t be abandoned for anything more than recommendations from an outgoing NFLPA director, who has a long-running beef with Mehri for being critical of Smith’s leadership.
Smith calling the Rooney Rule a “suggestion” is hardly a revelation. It has always needed the support of the commissioner’s office to have an impact, and much of that support weakened when Goodell failed to penalize the Las Vegas Raiders in 2018 for making a verbal agreement with Jon Gruden before speaking to minority candidates.
Token interviews to comply with the Rule have long been a source of frustration for potential black head coaches. Even those hired feel an imbalance of support evidenced by former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores filing a class action lawsuit last year charging the league with discrimination against black head coaches and executives. Flores, fired after to back-to-back winning seasons in Miami, cited in his complaint “a sham interview” with the New York Giants just so the team could comply with the Rooney Rule.
Mehri called the lawsuit “a signature event” that could impact the Rooney Rule.
“The Rooney Rule is a successful process, but it requires good faith in implementing it,” Mehri once told me.
Smith offers some suggestions that have merit and if applied to the Rooney Rule would give it much-needed teeth, especially “adopting strict and significant punishment systems for team and league officials that don’t abide by rules for a fair workplace with fines starting at $5 million.”
Truth is, the Rooney Rule is all the NFL has to remind itself to do the right thing: be inclusive; be transparent; and enforce penalties for non-compliance. The Rooney Rule isn’t the problem. Its spirit has made the NFL more diverse on and off the field. Eliminate the Rooney Rule and the NFL will have no reason to care about diversity at head coach or any other position.
George Willis is a columnist for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.