When it comes to the performative antics of Florida attorney general James Uthmeier, we’ve urged the league to respond with three words: “Bring it on.”
On Tuesday, Commissioner Roger Goodell essentially said just that during his press conference at the NFL annual meeting.
Asked whether the Rooney Rule, which Uthmeier has demanded the NFL ditch as to the three Florida-based teams, is going anywhere, Goodell was clear: “No. No, the Rooney Rule has been around a long time. We’ve evolved it, changed it. We’ll continue to do that as circumstances warrant.”
The league may be changing the Rooney Rule, but it won’t be changing it to create less diversity in the selection of candidates for key jobs.
“Well, the one thing that doesn’t change is our values,” Goodell said. “We believe that diversity has been a benefit to the National Football League. We are well aware of the laws, where the laws are changing or evolving. We think the Rooney Rule is consistent with those. We certainly will engage with the Florida [attorney general] or anybody else, as we have in the past, to talk about the policies and what they are.
“As you know, the Rooney Rule is not a hiring mandate. It’s intended to try to help and has been used by industries far beyond football, far beyond the United States, to help identify candidates — a diverse set of candidates — bring in better talent, and gives us an opportunity to hire the best talent. Ultimately, clubs make those decisions individually and those are, I think, principles of how we try to get better — bring in the best talent.”
Uthmeier believes otherwise, obviously. And he has given the NFL a deadline of May 1 to scrap the Rooney Rule as to the Dolphins, Jaguars, and Buccaneers, or risk potential enforcement action.
Call his bluff. Let him do it. Stick to your principles.
It sounds like that’s what the NFL plans to do.
Carson Beck and Ty Simpson are making some of the same stops as they make the pre-draft rounds of NFL teams.
NFL Media reports that Beck and Simpson are both slated for meetings with the Cardinals and Dolphins ahead of next month’s draft. Both quarterbacks have also spent time with the Jets already.
Simpson had a brief meeting with the Cardinals at the Combine as well and their head coach Mike LaFleur called him a “good dude and we’ll see where it goes.”
Beck has also met with the Steelers while Simpson has spent time with the Browns as he works to find a home in the NFL.
The Dolphins’ trade of wide receiver Jaylen Waddle to the Broncos was the team’s latest offseason move to elicit questions about their goals for the coming season.
Moving Waddle while parting ways with a slew of other veterans in moves that have left the team with significant dead cap money has led many to suggest that the Dolphins are looking at 2026 as a year to focus on building for the future while passing on doing all they can to compete in the present.
General Manager Jon-Eric Sullivan was asked about that perception during an appearance on PFT Live this week and Sullivan called it a “false” premise. While he acknowledged that he and head coach Jeff Hafley stepped into “a unique situation,” Sullivan insisted that the roster maneuvers are being done with an eye on trying to win right away.
“I have incredible faith in Jeff Hafley’s ability to lead,” Sullivan said. “I know that he and his staff will have this team ready to play and we’re going to show up and compete. Where it goes, it goes. We’ll build this thing out for the future, but we’re here to win now as well. Make no mistake about it.”
Sullivan noted that a lot of players on the Dolphins roster are on one-year deals, which does create a lot of motivation for players to put their best showings on tape. Whether players in that contractual position for a team coming off a poor season are the right ones to create a winner is a question that will be answered in the fall.
The NFL is struggling to balance the P.R. and legal realities of diversity in key positions with a potential political assault from those who regard the three-letter “DEI’ acronym as a four-letter word. Through it all, the results speak for themselves.
Exhibit A? The 2026 photo of the NFL’s head coaches. Exhibit B? The 2026 photo of the NFL’s General Managers.
Falcons G.M. Ian Cunningham, whose promotion from assistant G.M. in Chicago somehow didn’t result in the Bears receiving a pair of third-round compensatory picks, addressed the situation on Monday, in comments to David Brandt of the Associated Press.
“Just from my position, especially being a Black man, there’s still work to be done,” Cunningham told Brandt. “Now that I’m in this position and have this platform, I’m going to be intentional about what we do from a grassroots effort to a director level. . . . I do think it’s important to give people of all races and sexes a chance to be in a position to further their career.”
Cunningham’s comments come only days after Florida took aim at the Rooney Rule as discriminatory against white men, and in the aftermath of Steelers owner Art Rooney II acknowledging that “the environment has changed.”
The environment has changed, at the national level and in plenty of states. The law has not. And the NFL’s historical performance as it relates to the hiring of coaches and General Managers — coupled with the league’s decision more than 20 years ago to make interviews of minority candidates for the most coveted positions mandatory — shows that the longstanding legal standard has not been met.
The problem is that there has been no real accountability. And the irony is that the first governmental effort to enforce the law comes from the perspective of the demographic that has benefited from the league’s traditional hiring practices.
The league undoubtedly hopes the Florida problem will go away. That the demand made by Florida attorney general James Uthmeier to abandon the Rooney Rule as to the Dolphins, Jaguars, and Buccaneers is more performative than substantive.
Whatever Uthmeier’s motivations and intentions, the NFL should do the right thing. Don’t run. Don’t hide. Stand up and say, in a clear, loud voice, “Bring it on.”
Would that be good for business? Probably not. But doing the right thing isn’t always good for business. The truest test of an organization’s true character is whether it will do the right thing when it could be bad for business.
The Dolphins have been reshaping their roster under new General Manager Jon-Eric Sullivan and head coach Jeff Hafley, with the recent notable trade of Jaylen Waddle to the Broncos.
But that doesn’t mean everyone is on the table to be dealt.
Speaking to Miami beat reporters at the annual league meeting on Monday, Sullivan said the club is not interested in trading running back De’Von Achane.
“Nobody’s untouchable in this business. I don’t believe in that, because you never know who’s on the other side of the phone, what they’re going to offer,” Sullivan said, via David Furones of the South Florida Sun Sentinel, “but there’s zero effort on my end to move Achane.
“I’m very excited about him and the future of the Dolphins. He’s a difference-maker for us, and I see him being here and having a lot of success.”
To that end, with Achane heading into the last year of his rookie contract, Sullivan noted in a separate interview with PFT Live just how much the club would like to get an extension done with the running back.
“Yeah, it’s important to us to get a deal done with De’Von,” Sullivan said. “He is a difference maker as a player. We are in talks. We’re gonna try to get that done. It’s a priority to us. He is a building block for us as we move forward.
“I think he’s a rare player. His feet, his acceleration, his ability to play on all three downs. He’s a very good pass catcher. He reminds me of a lot of a guy that I played with in high school by the name of Warrick Dunn, who went on to have a marvelous career. Maybe it’s the 28 that he wears on his back, which Warrick wore forever. But I do — I see a lot of similarities. Now, Warrick did it for a decade, and neither one of them are big guys, and I think if De’Von was sitting here, he’d be the one to tell you, like I think that’s gonna be the question for him. Can he be as durable as Warrick was over time? But he’s a marvelous player. We wanna move forward with him. It’s important to us to get a deal done. He’s part of the future for us.”
Achane had his first Pro Bowl season in 2205, leading the league with 5.7 yards per carry to finish with 1,350 yards on the ground with eight touchdowns. He also caught 67 passes for 488 yards with four TDs.
Since Miami selected him in the third round of the 2023 draft, Achane has rushed for 3,057 yards with 22 touchdowns and caught 172 passes for 1,277 yards with 13 TDs. He has averaged 5.6 yards per carry over the course of his young career.
