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.
Jaguars Clips
Jaguars cornerback/wide receiver Travis Hunter is “very well ahead” of schedule in his rehab, coach Liam Coen said Monday at the NFL owners meetings.
Hunter injured the lateral collateral ligament in his right knee during an Oct. 30 practice. He did not play the rest of the season, undergoing surgery on Nov. 11.
Coen is uncertain whether Hunter will return in time to participate in the offseason program.
“I don’t know his timetable-to-return, but he’s very well ahead of where he’s supposed to be,” Coen said, via Ryan O’Halloran of the Florida Times Union. “I know the [doctors] and athletic trainers feel really good [about Hunter’s recovery].”
The Jaguars traded up to take Hunter second overall, and he played both ways as a rookie. He caught 28 passes for 298 yards and one touchdown in 324 offensive snaps and made 15 tackles and three pass breakups in 162 defensive snaps.
General Manager James Gladstone indicated after the season that the Jaguars would make Hunter a full-time cornerback and a part-time wide receiver next season. Coen, though, said he and Hunter have not discussed Hunter’s role for 2026.
“We haven’t really had a ton of those conversations,” Coen said. “It’s more so just working through the rehab process. I think it’s kind of an unspoken understanding of knowing that there are some depth things [at cornerback] that he can come in and help us. But the focus [of the talks] have just been about the day-to-day and, ‘How are you feeling today? How are you doing?’ and getting to see him smiling and moving around again in the facility.”
After Florida attorney James Uthmeier posted a video on Wednesday demanding that the NFL suspend the Rooney Rule, the team owned by the man after whom the rule is named had no comment.
On Friday, Steelers owner Art Rooney II — the son of Dan Rooney, the namesake of the Rooney Rule — had a comment.
“There’s no question that the environment has changed in recent years,” Rooney told Kalyn Kahler of ESPN. “We do have an obligation to make sure that our policies comply with the laws, whatever the law is, and whatever the changes in law might be. We’ve got to look at that and make sure we’re in compliance. . . . That’s just the environment we’re existing in today.”
The laws haven’t changed. The attitude toward them has. No state attorney general has ever investigated the NFL for decades of questionable hiring practices when it comes to race. Now, out of the blue, a red-state attorney general is attacking the Rooney Rule as being discriminatory on the basis of race.
Rooney’s comments have relevance far beyond Florida. They explain the NFL’s tiptoeing through the DEI minefield, dumping the Accelerator program last year before bringing it back in 2026 and expanding it to include white candidates.
The NFL has tried to strike the balance between saying all the right things and doing as little as possible. Now, the league is faced with a dilemma. Paying lip service to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts has invited an attack from Florida. What the NFL does from here could invite a social-media assault from one specific location in Washington, D.C.
It also could spark an effort by a blue-state attorney general or two to pluck low-hanging fruit that has been hanging there for decades.
On Wednesday, Florida attorney general James Uthmeier demanded that the NFL suspend the Rooney Rule as to the three franchises based there: the Dolphins, Jaguars, and Buccaneers.
On Friday, the NFL issued a statement regarding Uthmeier’s correspondence.
“We are reviewing the letter,” NFL executive V.P. Jeff Miller said. “We believe our policies are consistent with the law and reflect our commitment to fairness, opportunity, and building the strongest possible teams.”
Uthmeier believes otherwise. It’s part of the current assault on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Programs meant to rectify past instances of systemic discrimination have been met with claims that those programs are discriminatory.
Obviously, the NFL’s Rooney Rule doesn’t mandate the hiring of minority coaches. The goal is to get owners to slow down, to take a look at a broader pool of candidates. Even with it, the NFL’s collection of head coaches doesn’t begin to reflect the demographics of its rosters.
The situation puts the NFL in a delicate spot. It’s possible that the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is watching, waiting, and ready to start posting social-media attacks in the wee small hours of the morning.
For now, the NFL has said something. Even if it’s not much of anything. Starting this weekend at the annual meetings, owners undoubtedly will be asked about the situation. The league presumably hopes they’ll say nothing more than, “We are reviewing the letter.”
The video posted by Florida attorney general James Uthmeier on Wednesday has been supplemented with formal correspondence.
Via Andrew Atterbury of Politico, Uthmeier sent a letter to Commissioner Roger Goodell demanding that the Rooney Rule no longer be applied to NFL teams in Florida.
In the letter, copies of which were sent to the owners of the Dolphins, Jaguars, and Buccaneers, Uthmeier asks for confirmation by May 1 “that the NFL will no longer enforce the Rooney Rule or any variation or extension thereof — which requires consideration of race, sex, or any other prohibited classification — on teams in Florida.” Uthmeier adds that "[f]ailure to provide such confirmation may result in a civil rights enforcement action.”
From the letter: “The NFL’s own Executive Vice President of NFL Operations has acknowledged that the NFL should create ‘a workplace culture that doesn’t require mandates to interview people of color and minorities.’ If that is so, then stop discriminating based on race. Stop discriminating based on sex. Interview, hire, and train based on merit. If merit-based employment should exist anywhere (and it should exist everywhere), it is in the NFL. NFL fans in Florida don’t care what color their coach’s skin is. They care what colors their coach is wearing — and that those colors are winning on the football field.”
Of course, the full quote from Troy Vincent reflects his stated belief that a “double standard” exists regarding white and minority coaches. The Rooney Rule was created 23 years ago amid decades of hiring practices supporting the conclusion that the head-coach hiring practices had been heavily skewed toward white candidates. The league acted when it did in order to stave off a threat of litigation from Cyrus Mehri and the late Johnnie Cochran.
Uthmeier’s letter ignores the fact that litigation has been pending, for more than four years, regarding the firing of Brian Flores by the Dolphins.
Provisions like the Rooney Rule are aimed at rectifying decades of systemic discrimination. It’s about ensuring that candidates will get a full and fair opportunity to prove their merit, which often isn’t measured by objective metrics but by subjective factors that are characterized at times by terms like “comfort,” “fit,” and “feel.”
NFL franchises over the years have been owned almost exclusively by white men. Consciously or not, they have gravitated toward white coaches in a way that pales in comparison to the constitution of NFL rosters.
For the players, it’s much easier to display merit. The best players, as evidenced by their skills and abilities demonstrated during practices and games, earn and keep jobs. It’s much more difficult to determine merit when the supply of capable head coaches far outnumbers the 32 positions that are available, and when they all have the basic ability to perform the basic physical requirements of the job.
The league has said nothing to date about Uthmeier’s crusade against the Rooney Rule; the NFL has not responded to two separate emails from PFT seeking comment.
With the league’s owners soon to be arriving in Arizona for the annual meeting, where many of them will be speaking to reporters (and where Goodell will eventually conduct a press conference), it’s inevitable that someone will be saying something about the NFL’s position in response to Florida’s attack on the Rooney Rule.
Florida is taking aim at the Rooney Rule, calling it discriminatory. The Fritz Pollard Alliance, in a statement issued to PFT, has defended the provision.
“The Rooney Rule doesn’t limit opportunity; it expands it,” Fritz Pollard Alliance interim executive director Michele C. Meyer-Shipp said. “It doesn’t cap who a club can consider or dictate who gets hired and it’s not a hiring rule. What it does is increase fair competition and ensure a true merit-based process by opening the door beyond the traditional ‘tap on the shoulder’ system, so the best candidates from all backgrounds are actually seen, evaluated, and can compete.”
The Fritz Pollard Alliance, as explained on the group’s website, works “to ensure that hiring, advancement, and decision-making processes for career opportunities both on and off the field are open, fair, and inclusive, so that the leadership of the game reflects the excellence, talent, and diversity of the sport itself.”
The NFL has not responded to an inquiry from PFT regarding the Wednesday afternoon comments from Florida attorney general James Uthmeier, who has demanded that the NFL suspend the Rooney Rule or face possible enforcement action.
The Rooney Rule is named for late Steelers owner Dan Rooney; the Steelers had no comment on Wednesday evening regarding Uthmeier’s demand that the Rooney Rule be suspended.
Last month, former NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith explained in a visit to PFT Live at the Super Bowl that accountability when it comes to the league’s hiring practices could come from the attorneys general of one or more states in which the NFL does business.
That has happened, but not in the way that Smith would have envisioned.
In a video posted Wednesday on Twitter, Florida attorney general James Uthmeier demanded that the NFL suspend the Rooney Rule.
“Next week, the NFL’s annual league meeting begins in Phoenix, Arizona,” Uthmeier said. “And the NFL draft is only a month away. Ahead of the annual meeting, my office is sending a letter to the NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell regarding the league’s hiring practices. Specifically, the use of the so-called Rooney Rule, which requires NFL teams to interview candidates based on race.
“The NFL’s use of the Rooney Rule violates Florida law by requiring race-based considerations in hiring. Florida law is clear. Hiring decisions cannot be based on race, and the Rooney Rule mandates race-based interviews and incentivizes race-based decisions. That’s discrimination. We’re demanding the NFL suspend the Rooney Rule, and failure to do so may result in enforcement actions against the league for race-based discrimination. NFL teams and their fans don’t care about the race of the coaching staff. They want a merit-based system that gives their team the best chance to win.”
Florida hosts three NFL teams: The Dolphins, Buccaneers, and Jaguars.
The move comes at a time when the NFL has been tiptoeing around the federal government’s assault against diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Recently, the league expanded its Accelerator program to include non-minority candidates, arguing that it was not influenced by the current political climate.
The easy reaction to DEI efforts is to argue that all decisions should be based on merit. The NFL’s traditional hiring practices suggest otherwise; NFL executive V.P. of football operations Troy Vincent’s admissions regarding the existence of a “double standard” were featured in the pending lawsuit filed by former Dolphins coach Brian Flores against the Dolphins, the league, and multiple teams.
It remains to be seen whether Uthmeier follows through with his threat, if the NFL doesn’t suspend the Rooney Rule. Coincidentally, or not, Florida took no action after Flores claimed that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross offered to pay Flores $100,000 for each game Flores lost in 2019.
Jake Bobo will not be headed to a different team in 2026.
Per Field Yates of ESPN, the Seahawks have decided to match the offer sheet Bobo signed with the Jaguars as a restricted free agent.
Tom Pelissero of NFL Media reports the new contract is for two years and worth $5.5 million, with $4.5 million guaranteed. Additionally, Bobo will receive a $1.75 million signing bonus and can earn up to $7 million with incentives.
Bobo, 27, has been with Seattle since signing with the club as an undrafted free agent in 2023. He appeared in all 17 games in each of his first two seasons while playing 11 in 2025. He caught just two passes for 20 yards in the regular season, but also had two receptions for 33 yards with a touchdown in three postseason games, helping the Seahawks win Super Bowl LX.
Seattle had tendered Bobo at the original-round level, meaning he would have made $3.52 million on a one-year deal. But Jacksonville’s offer now means Bobo is set to be back with the Seahawks through 2027.
Wide receiver DJ Chark announced his retirement on Friday.
Chark has not played in the NFL since 2024, remaining a free agent all of the 2025 season after the Falcons released him during training camp.
“After much contemplation, I have decided to share a proper farewell as I navigate retirement,” Chark wrote on social media.
“My journey began at the age of 7 when I signed up for football, unaware of the profound impact it would have on my life. I simply loved the sport and had the unwavering support of my parents. Years later, I received the support of my wife, kids, family and thousands of fans!
“As I write this I reflect on the challenges I’ve faced and overcome, as well as the rewards I’ve reaped. I’ve learned to appreciate every experience and not take any of them for granted. As I enter this next chapter of my life, I remain committed to being an active pillar in my community, empowering the youth through charitable work.”
Chark played four seasons with the Jaguars after they made him a second-round pick in 2018. He also played with the Lions, Panthers and Chargers.
He finishes his career with 216 receptions for 3,100 yards and 24 touchdowns.
Chark made his only Pro Bowl in 2019 in his only season with 1,000 yards.
Jake Bobo may be on the move.
The Seahawks’ restricted free agent is signing an offer sheet with the Jaguars, according to ESPN’s Field Yates.
The details of the offer were not disclosed.
Seattle has five days to match the offer.
Bobo, who turns 28 in August, entered the league in 2023 as an underrated free agent with Seattle. He’s appeared in 45 games with three starts in his career, catching 34 passes for 323 yards with three touchdowns. However, he had just two catches for 20 yards in 2025.
Seattle tendered Bobo at the original-round level. That means he would make $3.52 million on a one-year deal with the Seahawks. But if the Seahawks decline to match the offer from the Jaguars, Seattle will not receive any draft pick compensation.
Former Seahawks offensive coordinator Shane Waldron is the Jags’ passing game coordinator, giving Bobo familiarity with some of Jacksonville’s staff.
