For years, the NFL has battled the perception that it's an uphill battle for coaches of color to land minority roles as head coaches and as top front office personnel. The Rooney Rule was established in 2003, and while it was undoubtedly a step in the right direction at the time, the feeling after 17 years of its implementation is that is has served as largely an interview quota to allow for opportunities to coaches of color.
Over the years, a number of top minority coaches at the NFL and college level have turned down opportunities to interview for NFL head coaching jobs because they felt like it was an interview "just for show" to allow franchises to check the box of interviewing a minority candidate. One recent example of this was Clemson's Tony Elliott last year, who reportedly turned down an opportunity to interview with the Panthers because he didn't feel like it was a legit interview.
Nearly all parties can agree there is a big disparity, as just one of the open top jobs this past NFL hiring cycle went to a minority candidate. So, a few new ideas are set to go in front of NFL owners in an effort to provide more fair opportunities, according to the NFL Network's Jim Trotter.
According to Trotter, the first of the resolutions being voted on would remove the anti-tampering barrier that blocks assistant coaches from interviewing for coordinator jobs with other franchises.
The other measure, as we highlighted last week, is to incentivize the hiring of minorities as head coaches or front office personnel with improved draft picks.
Improving draft picks with a minority hire has been a hot button issue since it was first floated, and Trotter points out that a team that hires a minority head coach could move up six spots in the third-round draft order in the coach's second season, and could move up 10 spots if a minority were hired in a GM role. Filling both with minority hires could result in a jump of 16 spots and could possibly mean a jump from the second to the third round, depending on the timing of that second-day pick.
Looking at hiring trends, since 24 of the past 33 NFL head coaching hires have been from the offensive side of the ball (and many of them have experience working with quarterbacks) the league office is also considering draft pick incentives for hiring minority coaches as quarterbacks coaches as well. Teams that employed a minority quarterbacks coach past one season would result in a fourth-round compensatory pick for the team. Currently, only two quarterback coaches in the NFL are minorities.
The league office is also looking possibly doubling the number of minority candidates a team has to interview for head coaching jobs (from one to two), and the rule is expected to also extend to coordinator positions for the first time since the Rooney Rule's inception in 2003 as well.
There are some additional details on the proposals that you can get your fill of here, and hear more from Trotter below.
Update >>NFL Owners have decided to table the resolution, Jim Trotter shares.