Head coaches laud NFL’s diversity moves at league meetings

PALM BEACH, Fla. — No NFL head coach is more enthusiastic and upbeat than Pete Carroll. So it shouldn’t be at all surprising that his response to the NFL’s moves to enhance opportunities for minority coaches was, well, especially enthusiastic and upbeat.

“It’s a beautiful thing,” Carroll said Tuesday. “Way, way, way overdue.”

The previous day, to ensure more opportunities for diverse candidates, the league added requirements on the hiring of offensive assistant coaches, and women in general. That included adjustments to the Rooney Rule adopted in 2003 and amended frequently in attempts to enhance opportunities for people of color and women for nearly all league and team jobs.

Beginning this season, all 32 clubs must employ a female or a member of an ethnic or racial minority to serve as an offensive assistant coach. The person will receive a one-year contract and work closely with the head coach and offensive staff to gain experience.

“Inclusion is very important,” said Washington’s Ron Rivera, the only Hispanic head coach and one of five minorities in that position in the NFL. “We’ve opened up a process for candidates and ensured ourselves of finding better candidates.

“Creating a minority position committed to working directly with the head coach and the offensive coordinator and the quarterbacks, taking part in game planning, is a hell of an idea. One thing that has been shown is the next head coaches in this league have been funneled through the quarterback coach position. This will create positive opportunities, I believe.”

Rivera, a leader among NFL coaches in diversity and inclusion, makes a strong point. Such current head coaches as Sean McVay of the Super Bowl champion Rams, Zac Taylor of the Bengals, the team that lost to the Rams for the title, Green Bay’s Matt LaFleur, Atlanta’s Arthur Smith, and recent hires Mike McDaniel in Miami, Josh McDaniels in Las Vegas and Kevin O’Connell in Minnesota took similar paths — from the offensive side of the ball.

“We recognize we have seen progress on some fronts,” said Steelers owner Art Rooney II, chairman of the league’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee, “but we still have a way to go on other fronts.”

Falcons owner Arthur Blank, who was on the original committee that devised the Rooney Rule, expressed faith in the NFL’s direction in minority hiring.

“I feel very confident in the changes that have been made and the accountability that has been created,” he said.

The Falcons hired a Black general manager, Terry Fontenot, and a white head coach, Smith, in 2021.

“As a club I think we’re doing really well, but this is one in which we have to have all 32 clubs doing well,” Blank said. “I think there will be more accountability with each other, which is always the best form of accountability.”