NFL considers plan to reward teams that develop minority head coaches, general managers

League leaders said in May that they would reconsider the proposal and perhaps modify it. That is what has happened, with the focus now on rewarding the team that develops the minority candidate.

Under the new resolution, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, a team that loses a minority candidate hired elsewhere as a head coach or GM would receive third-round compensatory picks in the following two drafts. If a team loses minority candidates hired as both a head coach and GM (even if that’s by two different teams), it would receive third-round compensatory selections in the next three drafts.

A team would be eligible to receive those draft choices if the minority employee was with the team for at least two years, with no break in employment, and if the candidate was not already the head coach or general manager.

The owners of the 32 teams are to consider the resolution during a remote meeting Tuesday.

The resolution says teams “believe that policies designed to promote equal employment opportunity and a diverse and inclusive workforce advance significant league interests.” It also says teams “believe that it is appropriate to take additional steps to enhance opportunities for employment and advancement of minorities and women in key positions, including leadership roles in coaching, personnel, and football operations.”

The proposal, first reported by Peter King of “Football Morning in America,” must be ratified by the owners to be implemented.

The NFL is taking steps after only one minority head coach was hired leaguewide last offseason. That was Ron Rivera by the Washington Football Team. No Black head coaches were hired. Four of the 32 NFL teams have minority head coaches: Rivera in Washington, Mike Tomlin with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Anthony Lynn with the Los Angeles Chargers and Brian Flores with the Miami Dolphins. The Dolphins’ Chris Grier and the Cleveland Browns’ Andrew Berry are the league’s only Black general managers.

Under the new proposal, the Carolina Panthers would not have been awarded draft choices for Rivera’s hiring by Washington because they had fired him late last season.

When the previous proposal was tabled in May by the owners, Commissioner Roger Goodell said, “We table resolutions frequently because the discussion leads to other ideas that make it more effective.”

Troy Vincent, the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations, said then: “There’s no rush for this. Let’s get this right.”

The NFL and the owners did enact several measures in May to address diversity hiring. They required teams and the league office to consider minority and female candidates for a wide range of executive positions. They required each team to develop a diversity and inclusion plan. They ratified a plan, designed to improve mobility for minority candidates in particular, by which a team cannot block an assistant coach from interviewing for a coordinator job with another team or prevent an executive from interviewing for an assistant GM role with another franchise.

The league also bolstered its Rooney Rule by requiring a team to interview at least two minority candidates from outside the organization, instead of one, for a head coaching vacancy, and by formally applying the rule to coordinator positions.

Under the previous draft-position proposal that was not enacted, a team could have moved up six spots in the third-round draft order by hiring a minority head coach and 10 spots by hiring a minority general manager.