As expected, the NFL has formally extended the “Rooney Rule” to the senior football operations position with each team.
“This policy specifically requires clubs to interview at least one minority candidate as part of the hiring process for a club’s senior football operations position, whether described as general manager, executive vice president of football operations, or otherwise,” the league said in a release.
The topic was discussed during the most recent ownership meetings in May. Though the release isn’t specific on this point, it appears that the power to pass this rule falls within the purview of Commissioner Roger Goodell. Steelers chairman Dan Rooney, chair of the Workplace Diversity Committee, recommended the move on behalf of that committee.
“The discussion at the league meeting identified the strong reasons for taking this step, which in large part simply confirms a recommended practice that clubs have voluntarily embraced,” Goodell said. “The recommendation also recognizes that this process has worked well in the context of head coaches, and that clubs have deservedly received considerable positive recognition for their efforts in this respect.”
Previously, the rule applied only to head coaches. As Goodell mentions, teams were encouraged to follow the spirit of the rule in hiring key football operations employees.
There are two key exceptions to the rule, as applied in the front office. First, the requirement won’t apply where the position is held or filled by the owner or a member of his family. Second, the requirement won’t apply where a club has a pre-existing contractual commitment, filed with the league office, to promote a current member of its staff if the senior football operations position becomes vacant. (The same exception applies for the coaching version of the Rooney Rule.)
The impetus for the change isn’t clear. There are five African-American senior football operations executives: Rod Graves (Arizona), Martin Mayhew (Detroit), Ozzie Newsome (Baltimore), Jerry Reese (New York Giants), and Rick Smith (Houston). And there has been no public outcry for expansion of the rule.
Commissioner Goodell also has “strongly urged” teams to interview a “broad and diverse slate of candidates” for most other football operations roles, including scouting, player personnel, and contract management positions.
“The more thorough the search, the more likely clubs are to find the right candidates, and to be able to groom future leaders from within their organizations,” Goodell said.
We agree, if “broad and diverse” includes not only people of various racial and ethnic backgrounds, but also folks of diverse genders — and ages.
As we’ve pointed out many times in the past, there’s a belief in some circles that it has gotten harder and harder for middle-aged white men to find and keep work in NFL front offices.
In our view, no one should be hired, or not hired, for any reason other than competence, experience, and character. And, frankly, it’s kind of sad that the NFL feels that it needs to force 32 supposedly modern businesses to dot “i”s and cross “t”s in order to avoid focusing on factors that should never matter.
Especially not in the year 2009.
NFL Extends "Rooney Rule" To Senior Football Operations Jobs
Posted by Mike Florio on June 15, 2009, 1:15 PM EST
31 Responses to “NFL Extends "Rooney Rule" To Senior Football Operations Jobs”
Goodbye America.
This is getting ridiculous! I wonder how many African American’s feel like they are getting special treatment or that these rules are beginning to become a little too much in this day and age to the point where they are almost embarrassed? How many times have we had an African American coach refuse to interview for a position because they knew that the team was just going through the motions and already had their head coach decided on? I think it’s only fair that you start throwing in gender and age if they are going to continue adding more and more of these seemingly ridiculous rules.
Great.
Dan Rooney is just like Al Davis and Jerry Jones, except he prefers to interfere with other teams.
Lets see…
2008: America elects a black president.
2009: The NFL decides it still needs to enact further quotas so that minorities can be given what is more often than not a “token” interview, regardless of the fact that many minorities are already employed at the coaching and executive level.
So much for progress…
Why don’t they just say “hire the best person for the job regardless of age, race, gender, etc.” and not FORCE people to hire a minority candidate . That is that liberal BS that basically wants less white people and not the best person. If the best person is white and 50, hire them, but if they are 27 and black, hire them. Hire the best and disregard color or gender completely. I will argue though that I think scouts should have experience playing in high school, college or pro or have coached at one of those levels and I don’t see a woman fulfilling those needs in scouting. I do think that operations jobs and others could easily be filled by a woman.
If a member of a minority (Obama) can land the highest job in the country, without any sort of assistance from work programs or affirmative action, any qualified member of a minority should be able to land ANY job without such assistance. This move is at best an insult to minority candidates, and at worst blatant racism. Way to go Goodell.. Would have thought the NFL would be better than this.
I couldn’t agree more. The Rooney Rule should be done away with, not expanded. Screw the political BS and get the best person for the job.
“First, the requirement won’t apply where the position is held or filled by the owner or a member of his family.”
Will this apply going forward, or just during the transition to start the rule? Ah, sweet nepotism.
I think it’s got to be to avoid liability, even if only in the eyes of the public. No way these guys think this ridiculous rule is necessary in order to force fair hiring practices.
Why doesn’t the NFL just sign over the league to The REVeruns Jack”nnn” and Sharpton?
The Rooney Rule is racist. Almost 70% of the league’s players are black. If anything, there’s reverse discrimination going on.
The best man should get the job.
Period!
This is bullshit. At some point the “good ole boys” will figure out if they want their fraternity to stay alive and well for future generations, they better quit get back to old principles…no, not racism…equal means equal…it does not mean give the job to the minority because they are a minority.
“The impetus for the change” is clear to ME: it’s classic quid pro quo: “I make you foreign diplomat to Ireland, you see to it that affirmative action hiring practices are mandated for the NFL big-wig positions, okay?”
Stupid. No one in the NFL will not-hire someone because they are black if they are good and will help them win.
This rule blows. I don’t care if you’re green, blue, yellow, or red, minority or not, if you are the best candidate for the job, then you should get the job. What if the most qualified candidate is NOT the minority candidate? Then you are just running them around to appease other people, and not putting the best interests of your team in the forefront of the decision making process.
i’m all for equal opportunity, but this is bordering on reverse-racism.
when are they going to require teams to start offering tryouts to white running backs & defensive backs? my point is the teams just want to win, i don’t think that the color of skin is still dictating the jobs at that level. The fact that we keep rules around for it just highlights the non-issue that is racism at that level. I can’t believe that this was voted on & passed, just seems like a pain in the ass for more owners if you ask me…
Extend the Rooney Rule to owners and see how quickly it dies.
Florio, if you could dig it up, it would be very interesting to see why this was done. Goodell referenced the “discussion” that led to this, but it would be nice to get more details on exactly why they felt this was needed.
I think it’s a dumb rule and I can’t wait until everyone is in agreement that it’s no longer needed, but I’m not going to get outraged by this move. If it was discussed with the owners, and the owners generally agree to adopt it, it’s their choice. They are only restricting themselves and their league, and if that’s what they want, it’s certainly their choice.
But again, I’d like to know why they decided to make the move. Two of the last three head coaches to win the Super Bowl were African Americans. If there are teams that are still going to discriminate, I think it’s more than obvious that it’s their loss if they do so.
The number of readers who don’t understand the difference between a requirement that you INTERVIEW a minority and a requirement that you HIRE a minority simply astounds me.
Keep up the good work, people!
kmart0319 says:
June 15th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Extend the Rooney Rule to owners and see how quickly it dies
100% agree. id like to see an owner be forced to sell their franchise to a lower bid because the potential buyer is black, and the other 31 owners approve it.
@celephaiz- The understanding isn’t the issue, it’s the principle of the matter that we are talking about. Would you like to be granted, as another poster put it, a “token” interview? Personally, I wouldn’t. It would mean that I was brought in to fill a quota with no real shot of getting the job, and that’s got to feel awfully shitty.
for fairness to everybody,since african americans represent 14% of the overall population in the usa,let that 14% have 14% of the jobs open in the nfl,the rest should go to any ethnic persuasion that wants a job….there,settled.
@celephaiz – i suspect that most of us do understand the inherent difference between interviewing and hiring a candidate. what you don’t seem to understand is that most of the people on this blog feel that it is no longer necessary or desirable to force private business into practices which do not interest them.
i am a Ravens fan. Ozzie Newsome is black and is the best GM in football. He got his chance because Art Modell realized that he would be a great GM. Not because of a stupid a$$ed Rooney Rule that forced him to interview Oz because of the color of his skin.
we live in a country that should be colorblind. we have elected a president of color (to my great dismay – and not because of his color – because of his socialist politics), we have had a woman who was black as our foreign policy expert, etc… etc…. It is time to STOP mandating change because of race. Affirmative action is discriminatory if it is race based and at least on this blog that is recognized.
I’m a woman and more pissed than all of you guys put together.
I’m pissed I couldn’t even get an interview, but I’d be more pissed if I got the job just cuz of what’s between my legs.
This rule sux. Let the best candidate win!
Let’s take the Rooney rule one step further … I think there should be black owners … Rooney can start by selling the Steelers first.
i agree with tpf.
and btw, osamabama got a lot of help, and has never demonstrated any ability to govern. and still hasnt. he is running very scared. and ya know what – i agree with reverend wright this week!
and topcide, i bet that is coming. osamabama has just closed republican-owned gm and chrysler dealerships. just what the f@#$ do you think is next?
wtf… I want to see nfl team hire more black punter and kickers. how many can you name. the nfl is so racist against black kickers. oops. what about mandatory interviews for spanish asain and arabics for coaches and uper level management.. boy is the nfl racist… I think the white american that there are way too many in the nfl (lol) should stop watching football and let all the blacks watch it and buy all there products and fill there stadiums since the nfl is so worried about them. what about employing mexican. the nfl doesnt like them? no mandatory interviews for them either. I want to know why the nfl team rule only allow a black scull cap under there helmet. adrian peterson was wearing a white scull cap last season and was fined for breaking team uniform policy. what is the nfl racist against white scull caps? only black allowed? this is so ridiculous i might stop watching football. leave it for the blacks.
I hate when people say “I don’t care if your skin color is blue or green…….or blah blah blah”. No one’s skin is blue or green unless you have scurvy. If you have scurvy then I will discriminate against you because you are contagious. For the record, I didn’t know I had stumbled onto the Fox News blog. They should label these threads better.
What a crazy rule!
This bad rule just slows the hiring process down.
You have to interview the Rooney Rule candidates first in order to get them out of the way before you bring in the real candidates.
Now for head coaching jobs, teams bring in position coaches for Rooney Rule interviews, then coordinators and former coaches for the real interviews.
The same thing will happen with the front office jobs.
No body will get hired unless they have talent.
Did the Ravens need the Rooney Rule to hire their GM?
The rule is 40 years behind the times.
Why do you keep censoring comments that don’t have profanity in them. You are supposed to be a lawyer for God’s sake. What happened to free speech?
moonbeam says:
June 15th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
for fairness to everybody,since african americans represent 14% of the overall population in the usa,let that 14% have 14% of the jobs open in the nfl,the rest should go to any ethnic persuasion that wants a job….there,settled.
————————————–
So 14% of the NFL jobs should be reserved for blacks and everyone else should compete for jobs?
I’m absolutely fine with racist hiring practices by NFL teams. If you’re NOT hiring the best man for the job, you’re only hurting your franchise. So go ahead and do it. There’s no question black coaches can thrive in the NFL. I think that’s been proven by now.
The nepotism exception is ridiculous. Every other industry has taken numerous steps to avoid nepotism, however, the NFL takes steps to protect it. Also, these exceptions essentially eviscerate the rule. If I can devise a variety of scenarios in which these exceptions will apply, I known the owners can as well.