Despite the NFL's efforts to "address its diversity problem in the coaching ranks," including the implementation of the Rooney Rule, "none of it is working," according to Mike Sando of ESPN.com. NFL teams "have taken a chance on 21 first-time white head coaches and only one first-time minority head coach," the Jets' Todd Bowles, over the past five hiring cycles. It is as though owners "have reverted to previous form, undoing the historic gains" driven by Pro Football HOF-elect Tony Dungy and his coaching tree in the early '00s. Various league initiatives -- led by the Rooney Rule -- "continue to address the symptoms, not the underlying issues." Eighty of the NFL's current 85 offensive coordinators, QB coaches and offensive quality control coaches are white, while 23 of 32 defensive coordinators "are white." The path to becoming an NFL head coach "is clear," and it is also "largely unavailable to minorities." Dungy said, "The good thing about the Rooney Rule was not that you had to interview a minority candidate but that it slowed the process down and made you do some research, but now it seems like in the last few years, people haven't really done what the rule was designed for. It has become, 'Just let me talk to a couple minority coaches very quickly so I can go about the business of hiring the person I really want to hire anyway.'" Cardinals coach Bruce Arians "thinks the league should expand the Rooney Rule to include interviews for jobs as coordinators." The rule was expanded in '09 to cover "lead personnel executives" such as GMs (ESPN.com, 7/19).
WHAT MORE CAN BE DONE? ESPN's Pablo Torre said there clearly is the "case that there just are not enough qualified candidates for these jobs or head coaches of African-American descent are not seen as having the mental acuity to do these jobs." ESPN's Tony Kornheiser added, "If I'm an owner, if I put up all this money, do I want to be told exactly who to pick from? I suspect you wouldn't and I wouldn't ... (But) the league has to be more proactive. The league has to lobby more" ("PTI," ESPN, 7/19). ESPN's Jim Trotter called the rule a "complete sham," but noted people like Dungy "say it is good from the standpoint of slowing down the process and getting these minority candidates in the pipeline to be interviewed." But he said "you can't legislate morality in this process, and that is what the NFL is dealing with here." More Trotter: "The owner is going to hire the head coach, and when you have older, wealthy white men ... what is the comfort level going to be with those individuals? ... These owners don't know these people, and you are not going to learn about them simply from a Rooney Rule interview" ("NFL Insiders," ESPN, 7/19). ESPN's Bomani Jones: "(The) Rooney Rule is not the thing that's not working. What's not working is the people who are in charge" ("Highly Questionable," ESPN, 7/19).
