The NFL coaching carousel has officially closed, with all 10 teams seeking a new head coach having made their hires. Just one day after the last domino fell into place, with only one minority being hired as a head coach, league commissioner Roger Goodell acknowledged that he believes there’s more work to be done to increase the league’s diversity.
“I think we have become a more diverse league across every platform, including coaching, but we still have more work to do,” Goodell said, according to ESPN. “There’s got to be more steps.
“We’re reevaluating everything we’re doing, including the accelerator program, including every aspect of our policies in our program to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow rather than yesterday. We need to be looking at that and why did we have those results this year?”
Goodell said in his annual pre-Super Bowl press conference that although every team seeking a head coach candidate was Rooney Rule compliant, the league will continue to look into what more it can do to increase its diversity at all levels after Robert Saleh, who is of Lebanese descent and was hired by the Tennessee Titans, was the only minority hired this cycle.
“We have to continue to evaluate everything we’re doing and every aspect of the hiring process, how do we professionalize it to the best of our ability,” Goodell said. “I think some of the changes we made was giving more time for the interviews. … But we’re going to see that from year to year where you have different outcomes and that’s something we’ve got to look at.
“But we’re going to see that from time to time and that’s something we’ve got to just evaluate so we can learn and then continue to focus on what can we do better across 32 clubs and the league.”
Goodell still views the Rooney Rule as a net positive.
“We’re in a competitive league,”he said. “People are challenged and we had 10 openings this year. Teams are trying to get the coaches they think can win. I think taking the time pressure off of that is one of the things we focused on as a league in the policy to give them that time so that they can make a really good decision that they make independently. But a decision that is based on being able to look at the diversity of candidates. And I think that only benefits the NFL, and the Rooney Rule I think has done that.”
About Qwame Skinner
Qwame Skinner has loved both writing and sports his entire life. In addition to his sports coverage at Comeback Media, Qwame writes novels, and his debut; The First Casualty, an adult fantasy, is out now.