The Raiders made a mockery of the Rooney Rule via the hiring of Jon Gruden, and the NFL has responded (nearly a year later) by beefing up a rule that had been swallowed and digested by its various exceptions.
“These Rooney Rule enhancements are a breakthrough,” Fritz Pollard Alliance executive director Harry Carson said in a press release. “After last season’s hiring cycle, something had to be done. These enhancements should strengthen the Rule and ensure that it applies as intended and truly gives candidates of color a fair chance.”
The Rooney Rule requires at least one minority candidate to be interviewed in person for every head-coaching vacancy before the vacancy is filled. Last December, Raiders owner Mark Davis (pictured with Steelers owner Art Rooney II, son of the man for whom the Rooney Rule is named) struck a tentative deal with Gruden to replace Jack Del Rio before Del Rio was fired, and before any minority candidates were interviewed. Eventually, the Raiders interviewed then-Southern Cal offensive coordinator Tee Martin and tight ends coach Bobby Johnson.
The NFL found that the Raiders did not violate the rule, and the Fritz Pollard Alliance loudly objected to the outcome. The NFL ultimately spared the Raiders from a finding of a violation by concluding that the Christmas Eve consensus reached between Davis and Gruden wasn’t an actual offer because it wasn’t reduced to a complicated and binding legal document.
Commissioner Roger Goodell eventually defended the finding of no violation, citing a “disagreement on the facts,” but without identifying the specifics of the alleged disagreement.
“These new provisions were a long time coming,” Fritz Pollard Alliance chairman John Wooten said in the release. “The FPA has been in discussions with the League about strengthening the rule since the Combine. Cyrus Mehri and Jeremi Duru have taken the lead in our conversations with the League, and we’re pleased with the outcome. The Rooney Rule has done a lot for equity and fairness in this League, but at times clubs have fallen short of the commitment they made when instituting it. We look forward to robust compliance of the Rooney Rule going forward and to full equal opportunity for all in the NFL.”
The FPA’s release explains that the Rooney Rule, as revised, requires: (1) involvement of a club’s final decision maker throughout the interview process (Davis didn’t interview the Rooney Rule candidates last year); and (2) an interview of a minority candidate from the NFL’s Career Development Advisory List or a candidate not currently employed by the team.
The Commissioner also will be “more directly involved in enforcing the rule,” and he will have a “wide range of remedies.” Whether the Commissioner uses those powers as aggressively as he enforced football air pressure nearly five years ago remains to be seen. After all, the league office has a strong incentive to not label any of its teams as an employer that fails to comply with the most basic and fair steps aimed at ensuring an open hiring process -- or at a bare minimum creating the perception of one.
Really, that’s all the Rooney Rule requires: The perception of a fair hiring process. No one is compelled to hire a minority candidate, or any candidate. But everyone is compelled to slow down long enough to have an inclusive search. The various glitches that necessitated today’s changes show that some owners still need to be forced to do something that they should be doing anyway.