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Almost exactly a year ago, Art Rooney II, the president of the Steelers team, admitted that the Rooney rule did not work as intended in the 2020 appointment cycle, and that it had to adapt. Rinse. Repeat.
Rooney has similar thoughts on the leasing process in 2021, despite extending the rule.
“There is still work to be done in this area, no question about it,” Rooney said this week via the Associated Press.
The seven NFL teams that opened this cycle surveyed 11 minorities and 16 whites and only two of the posts were filled by minorities. The Jets hired Robert Saleh, who was of Lebanese descent, and the Texans hired David Culley, who is black.
It is particularly noteworthy that Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy has not been given a head coach position.
Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin, Brian Flores of Miami and Ron Rivera of Washington are the only other minority head coaches.
“We have not made as much progress in head coaching as we would have liked,” Rooney said. ‘But I would say that we have made some progress to the general manager, which is encouraging. And then we’ll have to look at the side of the coordinator to see how much progress we’re making on that front.
‘There are a lot of pieces that we will have to sit down if all this is said and done and will really analyze what happened, and there are things we can do to strengthen the opportunities for minority coaches. I think we did take a number of steps last year that I think will pay dividends over time, but that is not to say that we can not do more, and we will take another look at this off-season. ”
Minorities filled two of the seven vacancies in the general manager, with Terry Fontenot going to Atlanta and Brad Holmes going to Detroit. Cleveland’s Andrew Berry and Miami’s Chris Grier are the other Black General Managers in the league.