Another offseason has come and gone, and 10 coaching vacancies have been filled.
One minority was hired (Robert Saleh for the Tennessee Titans is Lebanese), and not a
single African-American coach was hired, proving that the Rooney Rule is not working.
Too many black coaches have been passed over not just for head coaching jobs, but for
coordinator jobs as well, and that’s where head coaches come from.
Named after the former Pittsburgh Steelers owner, Dan Rooney, the rule was designed
to give coaches of color an opportunity, in a league whose players are 75% minoritioes.
It started in 2003, and initially stated that before a head coach could be hired by a team,
that team had to interview at least one minority candidate for the position. Teams are
now required to interview at least two minorities for vacant head coach, coordinator, or
GM positions, and at least one minority candidate for QB coach. With teams now
leaning towards hiring offensive assistants as head coaches, this was designed as a
push to get more offensive coaches who are minorities.
The exception to this part of the Rooney Rule is that a team can skip the entire
interviewing process if an assistant coach has it in their contract that they will
automatically become head coach if the position becomes available (as was the case
when the New England Patriots made Jarod Mayo their head coach in 2024). This is
just one of the ways the rule is broken.
Refusing To Interview
Early in the process, and still to this day, there are minority assistant coaches who won’t
interview for a head coaching vacancy, because they feel the team has made up its mind
about who they want, so the assistants refuse to be the token black guy that satisfies
The Rooney Rule.
This is understandable, but those who defend the rule claim that the interview process
is more for networking, because maybe that team has its mind made up, but the next
team the GM goes to may be looking for a coach, and he will remember the great
interview the minority candidate had.
Sometimes a coach can be blackballed for refusing to interview. Tampa Bay
Buccaneers offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich refused to interview for the
Jacksonville Jaguars last season, not really liking the franchise, and he wasn’t
interviewed once this past offseason as a result.
Different Rules For White Coaches
When Deion Sanders left professional football and mentioned wanting to be a head
coach, he was told that a person can’t go from being a player to a head coach. They
need experience as a position coach, coordinator, and then head coach to understand
all that is involved fully. What the people who told him that meant was that a black
player can’t do that, but white players can.
After being out of the game for four years, Philip Rivers was called out of retirement to
quarterback the Indianapolis Colts. After the season, with only experience as a high
school coach, Rivers was considered for the head coaching vacancy in Buffalo, before
the Bills hired Joe Brady. No need to be a coordinator or position coach. He just needed
to be white.
One of the most egregious instances of racist coach promotions has to be in the
nation’s capital. Brian Johnson had come to the Commanders after being the offensive
coordinator for the Philadelphia Eagles. He took the job as the passing game coordinator in
Washington, and when the team needed to promote a member of their staff to OC, it
went ot the white quarterbacks coach, David Blough.
The Rooney Rule Needs To Be More Aggressive
Commissioner Roger Goodell said that the league is going to look at the Rooney Rule
and see how it can be made more effective. Here’s an idea: One of the three big
coaches on a team (Head Coach, OC, DC) has to be a minority. Period. More than one
can be, but the minimum is one. This ensures more minority coordinators who can
someday become minority head coaches.
If a team tries to circumvent the rule by having a minority in one of the spots to start the
season, then it replaces them during the season with a white coach, then they will have
violated the new Rooney Rule, and as a result, will lose $15 million in cap space the
following year, as well as their first-round pick the next NFL Draft, and a second round
pick the year after that.
Right now, there are only three black head coaches in the league (Demeco Ryans,
Aaron Glenn, and Todd Bowles). There are only 13 coordinators. The league needs to
do better. We all need to do better.
