Rooney Rule to be strengthened by NFL

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said during his Super Bowl news conference that he would seek changes to improve the league’s record on diversity hiring, and NFL owners may enact some important measures to address that issue.

The owners will convene via a video teleconference on Tuesday and are expected to modify the Rooney Rule to require more interviews of minority candidates for head coaching and offensive and defensive coordinator positions.

A club in the interview process must interview at least:

— Two external minority candidates for head coaching positions.

— One external minority candidate for any of the three coordinator positions.

— One external minority candidate for the senior football operations/GM position.

— Club and league office must interview minorities and/or female candidates for senior level positions.

The Rooney Rule, named after late Steelers owner Dan Rooney, was adopted in 2003 and has led to some improvement in the league’s diversity hiring. But in recent years, minority hires have diminished; this year, only one of the five head coaching vacancies was filled by a minority candidate: Ron Rivera of the Redskins, who is of Hispanic descent.

Owners had been scheduled to meet outside Los Angeles after their regular March meetings in Florida were postponed because of the COVID-19 outbreak, but the meeting was changed to a virtual format. Goodell will brief owners on the status of training facility reopenings, which are scheduled to begin Tuesday. The Giants and Jets are among about 10 teams unable to get back to their practice sites because of continuing state or local restrictions on businesses restarting. All team facilities were shut down in late March, and teams must adhere to a t set of health and safety guidelines to reopen.