The Rooney Rule and Employment in The National Football League

-- By SpencerBecerra - 20 Apr 2022

A Rude Awakening

On February 2, 2022, the National Football League faced a distraction from its otherwise-paramount efforts to hype up the fast-approaching Super Bowl contest between the underdog Cincinnati Bengals and the gleaming Los Angeles Rams. Brian Flores, fired in January 2021 as head coach of the Miami Dolphins, filed a class action lawsuit alleging pervasive racial discrimination in head-coach hiring practices in the NFL. The complaint provides evidence that Flores was fired in part for his unwillingness to go along with Dolphins owner Stephen Ross’ offer of $100,000 bonuses per thrown game, a scheme hatched to secure better draft position. Flores further alleges that in late January, the New York Giants conducted sham interviews with him in order to satisfy the NFL’s Rooney Rule, which then required all NFL teams with head coach vacancies to interview at least two diverse candidates.

The Rooney Rule has come under intense scrutiny since the filing of the lawsuit. One fact seems clear; the policy as currently implemented does not function. The chief reasons seem to be the lack of hiring requirements for diverse candidates, low diversity amongst the general managers and owners who make final hiring decisions, and a lack of a for-cause termination requirement. Some have suggested that hiring quotas would prove the best solution to the Rooney Rule problem; however, stronger contractual protections for head coaches, coupled with programs to actively recruit diverse candidates for “pipeline” coordinator jobs would likely provide a more palatable solution for the NFL

The Rooney Rule's Background

The Rooney Rule was adopted in 2003 at the recommendation of the Diversity Committee, created by the NFL to tackle the persistence of White dominance in head coaching positions. Aside from previously mentioned expansions of the Rule to require two interviews, the NFL now mandates teams to interview at least two diverse candidates for general manager, assistant coach, and other senior front office positions, as well as one woman for head coaching jobs. The NFL has further incentivized development by granting teams compensatory third-round draft picks for any diverse head coach or coordinator lost to another team.

The Rooney Rule has No Effect on Diverse Hiring

Overall, the Rooney Rule has been ineffective at increasing diversity in the ranks of all targeted positions. Going into the 2022-2023 season, the NFL has one Black coach of thirty-two total, less than the league had when the rule was first instituted in 2003. Only six of thirty-two general managers are Black. Coordinator positions, long seen as pathways to eventual head coach positions, show similar disparities with four Black offensive coordinators (12.5% of total) and eleven Black defensive coordinators (34% of total) currently holding positions.

The NFL has been embroiled in high-profile racial controversies since the Rooney rule was adopted, which critics say point to a culture unwilling to accept a change in the racial makeup of its top ranks. Most calls for culture or policy changes regarding race are usually brushed off, with the one exception being the massive pressure exerted to embrace Black Lives Matter messaging after the George Floyd murder in 2020. Keeping with this phenomenon, enforcement of the Rooney Rule has been spotty. After the NFL expanded the Rooney Rule to mandate two diverse interviews for senior front office positions, the Washington Commanders seemed to openly flout it without consequence. Flores’ allegations point further to unserious interviews which technically comply with the Rule but do not actually give Black candidates a shot at landing a job.

Proposed Changes and Fresh Perspectives

While the data shows that the current Rooney Rule does not achieve its goal, there is little consensus on how the Rule can be reformed to enhance effectiveness or what other policies may achieve the goal of diversity. For his part, Flores advocates for creating a funding committee to increase black team ownership; involving select Black players and coaches in the interview process; require objective written assessments to accompany hiring and firing decisions; and draft or monetary incentives for hiring Black coaches. These suggestions are difficult to evaluate without real-world examples, but they mostly get to the heart of the problem, which is a lack of incentives from an all-White ownership structure to hire Black coaches, and a lack of real enforcement for initiatives like the Rooney Rule. Because owners hold near-absolute power within their realms, an increase in Black ownership of NFL teams has the potential to achieve the best results; however, achieving this in even a quarter of the league’s teams would entail eight multi-billion-dollar sales, likely making for a decades-long project.

The NFL’s timidity with stepping up enforcement of the Rooney Rule and apparent unwillingness to turn it into a quota calls for an exploration of other solutions. One place to turn for inspiration is the National Basketball Association, which has a comparable 74% Black player demographic to the NFL’s 70%. NBA commissioner Adam Silver has resisted any imposition of a Rooney Rule copycat; instead, the NBA relies on development programs like the NBA Coaches Equality Initiative which create an effective pipeline from playing on a team to working either as a coach or in a managerial position. Portland Trailblazers head coach and former player Chauncey Billups credits some of this success to the NBA Players’ Association, which unlike the NFL’s union equivalent has the clout to advocate for aggressive changes in league policy.

The NFL would be better served by adopting a similar initiative than by imposing further ineffective interview quotas, or even hiring quotas. Teams could agree to create an initiative which gives retired players priority hiring for coordinator positions, from which 80% of head coaches are taken. The cost of these programs would be shared by each team, with incentives like draft picks included for head coaches hired out of the pool of participating former players.

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