Panthers Tracks: A bad year for the Rooney Rule for Carolina and the rest of the NFL
There are 32 NFL head coaching jobs.
The Panthers were one of five teams to fill a head coaching vacancy this offseason. The Browns finished up the hiring cycle Sunday by making Vikings offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski their fourth full-time head coach since 2015.
But as Carolina and other teams fill out their staffs and front offices, the NFL’s problems continue to be clear.
The issues creating a lack of diversity hiring have been well documented, but cannot be written or discussed enough. Of the 32 coaches, four will be minorities in 2020 (Ron Rivera, Anthony Lynn, Mike Tomlin and Brian Flores). Of those five vacancies, Rivera was the only minority hired this offseason after being fired by the Panthers with four weeks to go in the season. Over the 20 head coaching vacancies over the last three years, only three minorities have been hired.
The Rooney Rule, named after former Steelers owner Dan Rooney who was chair of the NFL’s diversity committee, was created in 2003 to ensure that at least one diversity candidate was interviewed for each head coaching opening (and has since expanded to general manager searches). The Panthers fulfilled their Rooney Rule obligations by interviewing Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, and interim coach Perry Fewell said last month that he would interview with the team.
But diverse candidates aren’t getting the opportunities to lead teams. One thing that has contributed to this issue is the fact that NFL teams, like many industries around the world, hire the people they know.
Just look at Rivera. He has quickly turned Washington into a version of the 2019 Panthers with the number of hirings that have come from Carolina. Many Panthers staffers have joined him in his new venture, including quarterbacks coach Scott Turner and defensive assistant, and Ron’s nephew, Vincent Rivera.
When you hire the people you know, it can limit opportunity for diverse candidates to show what they can do and advance in the profession. There’s more to the issue, especially the biases of NFL owners, but it’s certainly a starting place.
The hiring of Matt Rhule was a risky move for the Panthers in terms of him being the only candidate they interviewed with limited NFL experience, but he was a popular coach that has been considered for multiple NFL jobs over the last three years.
Rhule, who is white, said he is planning to bring on coaches from his Baylor staff, likely including defensive coordinator Phil Snow (white), who has been with him in the role since Rhule was the head coach at Temple. He will also be bringing in coaches who were with him on the Giants staff in 2012 when he was their assistant offensive line coach.
The Panthers’ attempt to look a bit outside the norm may be LSU passing game coordinator/wide receivers coach Joe Brady, who at 30 years old has helped revolutionize the Tigers’ offense this year (another reason to tune into the National Championship on Monday). Brady, who is white, spent time as a graduate assistant at Penn State, where Rhule was a walk-on linebacker in college. But he has become a hot candidate that many college and professional teams would be pleased to have.
We don’t know all of the assistants the Panthers will be hiring just yet. They’re still figuring that out, especially as Baylor goes through its own head coaching search.
But in a league in which more than 50 percent of the players are black, it would be a step in the right direction to see the Panthers go outside the norm with some of their coaching staff or front office hires. Owner David Tepper said this week that Rhule will have access to plenty of “resources” courtesy of the NFL’s richest owner (worth $12 billion, according to Forbes) which is partly what has put them in play for Brady.
Tepper used those resources to make Rhule among the highest-paid coaches in the NFL despite his limited experience in the league. Rhule’s seven-year, $62 million contract will likely change the standard for NFL coaching pay scales.
Perhaps also investing some of those resources in hiring more diverse candidates could help start to move things in the right direction.
NFL playoff scoreboard
Saturday
- 49ers 27, Vikings 10
- Titans 28, Ravens 12
Sunday
- Chiefs 51, Texans 31
- Packers 28, Seahawks 23
AFC Championship: Titans at Chiefs, 3 p.m. Jan 19, CBS
NFC Championship: Packers at 49ers, 6:40 p.m. Jan 19, Fox
Required reading
+ How Panthers coach Matt Rhule became ‘one of us’ and learned to see beauty in people
This story was originally published January 13, 2020 at 4:00 AM.