NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell says league is falling short in its efforts to create greater racial diversity among its coaching ranks and that he bears responsibility for the failure; "We want to see Black head coaches in the NFL, coaches that are people of colour, and eventually gender"
Monday 14 February 2022 04:08, UK
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the league is falling short in its efforts to create greater racial diversity among its coaching ranks.
Goodell's comments come after former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores filed a lawsuit against the league alleging discrimination against Black candidates for top level coaching and management jobs.
Flores sued the NFL as well as the Dolphins, New York Giants and Denver Broncos last week, criticising the league for conducting business like a "plantation" and inadequately tackling racism in regards to the hiring of Black coaches and general managers.
The NFL issued a statement the day the lawsuit was filed saying Flores' allegations were "without merit." But on Saturday, Goodell issued a memo to all 32 teams in which he said that the results of the league's efforts to promote diversity within its head coaches have been "unacceptable".
Goodell said of Flores' suit: "I put the legal claims and the legal process to the side and that'll be handled by lawyers.
"To me, it's more important for us to sort of listen to coach, understand what he and other coaches are going through, what our clubs are going through, the feedback they have and re-evaluate everything we're doing.
"I admire and respect coach a lot and so I hope we'll get a lot of feedback not just from coach Flores but everybody in this league. That's what going to make us better."
Goodell added: "We won't tolerate racism. We won't tolerate discrimination. If there are policies that we need to modify, we're going to do that.
"If we've seen evidence of discrimination, we will deal with that in a very serious way that will reflect the fact that we won't tolerate that."
Of the league's 32 teams, only three will have Black head coaches next season despite Black players making up 70 per cent of team rosters. There are no Black team owners.
Goodell said: "We have made a tremendous amount of progress in a lot of areas but not at the head coach.
"That is something we really focused on to try to get the kind of results that we would expect and we fell short by a long shot."
Eight head coaching positions were filled this year, with Mike McDaniel and Lovie Smith being the only two minorities hired.
Goodell said "all options are on the table" to address the issue, including an overhaul of the Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview at least two external minority candidates for head coaching jobs. Flores and others have said the rule leads to "sham interviews".
Goodell said minority candidates are getting into the interview room at a higher rate than required under the rule but that it is still not leading to the desired outcome.
"We want to see Black head coaches in the NFL, coaches that are people of colour, and eventually gender," he said.
"So what we're going to do is step back and look at everything we're doing to date and re-evaluating that."
Goodell added: "We work really hard, we believe in diversity, we believe in it as a value, we believe it's made us stronger.
"We just have to do a better job. Is there another thing that we can do to make sure we're attracting that best talent here and making our league inclusive? If I had the answer right now, I would give it to you."
Asked if he took responsibility for the lack of progress on hiring given his 15-year tenure as commissioner, Goodell said he did.
"I do bear that responsibility as does all our clubs."
Asked about the explosive claim in Flores' lawsuit that he was offered money by Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross to lose games in order to get higher draft picks, Goodell said he found the allegations "very disturbing".
Flores has said his refusal to deliberately lose games contributed to his firing.
"Integrity of the game is obviously an important element... we are going to look into that and we will make sure that if there were violations, that they won't be tolerated," Goodell added.
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