NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s annual Super Bowl week press conference opened with a series of questions about the hiring of minority head coaching candidates.
The NFL’s initial statement in response to former Dolphins head coach Brian Flores’ lawsuit was that his allegations were without merit, but Goodell sent a memo to all 32 teams a few days later saying that the league has not done enough to advance minority candidates. On Wednesday, Goodell said the initial response had to do with the “legal claims” rather than the experiences that Flores and others have had during their careers.
Goodell said “racism or any form of discrimination is against our values and really something we will not tolerate” and that the league has fallen short of where they want to be “by a long shot” on the hiring front.
“We want to see outcomes,” Goodell said. “We’re going to step back and look at everything we’re doing.”
Goodell included the Rooney Rule among the things that the league has to re-evaluate in the future. He said the league would look at both changes to the rule and the possibility of eliminating it if it’s found that the rule is not creating the opportunities that the league wants to see. He added that the league will not “draw any conclusions” before fully evaluating “everything we’re doing” when it comes the lack of diversity in the head coaching ranks.
