Eric Bieniemy is a Chiefs assistant at a time when interviews for minority candidates have been lackingGETTY IMAGES
NFL team owners have "ratified a proposal" intended to "address the league’s lack of minority hires among head coaches and general managers," according to Mark Maske of the WASHINGTON POST. The hiring resolution -- approved by owners yesterday -- "calls for a pair of third-round draft choices to be awarded to any team that develops a minority candidate hired by another franchise as a head coach or general manager," and is "subject to approval" by the NFLPA. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in a conference call with reporters yesterday said, "We have taken many steps in this area, particularly over the last year. But we all recognize that we must do more to support development opportunities for minority coaches and all personnel.” Under the system, the draft choices awarded to a team that develops a minority candidate hired by another franchise "would come in the compensatory-picks stage at the end of the third round." If a single team loses minority candidates hired as both a head coach and GM elsewhere, it "would receive third-round compensatory choices in the following three NFL drafts." The minority candidate "must have been with the team for at least two years with no break in employment and cannot have already been the team’s head coach or general manager for that team to be eligible for the draft-pick awards" (WASHINGTON POST, 11/11).
WORTH THE ATTEMPT: PFT's Mike Florio, who regularly talks about minority hiring, said, "I don't want to say it's gotten bad, it was always bad. It really hasn't improved much over the last generation. I think it's worth a try to see if it does shift away from the who-you-know and who-you're-related-to model to just simply giving out these jobs based on merit." NBCSN's Chris Simms: "There are a lot of positives there, really, for the whole league. Hopefully, we can do this to jumpstart it and then we don't have to have this in a few years." Florio: "Is it determinative? No, because I would rather get a great assistant from one of my rivals than worry about my rival getting two third-round compensatory picks, but those could be valuable picks" ("PFT," NBCSN, 11/11).
ROONEY ADDRESSES RULE EXPANSION: Steelers President Art Rooney II, who is NFL Diversity Committee Chair, earlier this year said, “The thing that’s struck us this year was the limited numbers of interviews that the minority candidates got. It was a small list of people that got interviewed. That was something that I think we felt like we needed to address and I think we did address some of the things we did in this offseason, but it will take a couple years to find out if what we’re doing here is making a difference." In May, owners removed an anti-tampering rule that enabled teams to prevent coaches from interviewing for promotions on other staffs. NFL officials said that that rule "adversely impacted coaches of color." Owners at the time also approved an expansion of the Rooney Rule to require teams to interview two people of color for head coaching vacancies, and at least one minority for coordinator and GM jobs (THEATHLETIC.com, 11/10).
