The Raiders’ Jon Gruden hiring process drew scrutiny from the Fritz Pollard Alliance, which took issue with Mark Davis‘ comments an agreement with Gruden was in place before the team fired Jack Del Rio.
Now, the NFL is looking into the matter. A league spokesman confirmed (via ESPN’s Adam Schefter, on Twitter) the NFL is investigating the Raiders for a possible Rooney Rule violation.
The Raiders interviewed tight ends coach Bobby Johnson and USC offensive coordinator Tee Martin, who are both black, and feel that should qualify as Rooney Rule compliance. However, an agreement already being in place with Gruden, as Davis intimated, and these meetings with Johnson and Martin occurring subsequently would stand to put the franchise as non-compliant.
Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk notes the league does not have a rule in place to prevent a coach being hired before his predecessor is fired, but with the league mandating one minority candidate must be interviewed for vacancies, this process may not look great for the Raiders.
Teams should be able to hire whoever they want, and they do. The Rooney rule really serves no purpose.
I mean seriously if they know who they want, why interview anyone else and waste their time and yours when you know they aren’t going to hire them.
You’re right. I understand the need to diversify the head coaching position around the league, but there has to be a better solution. If a team already knows who they want to hire, they shouldn’t be forced to interview anybody else.
One solution I can think of – you can circumvent the rule if you agree to moving your second round draft choice to the end of the fifth round, or some such thing. It’s all moot, because what this investigation will accomplish is to make sure the teams hiring are simply more careful about announcing their intentions before completing the facade of compliance.
The Rooney rule is more disgraceful than anything.. If your a good coach they will hire you..
Do they really think teams interviewed a minority just because of the Rooney rule and were blown away by them and hired them?
They make people interview for a job knowing they are just the minority for that rule if the team is already targeting certain people.
Exactly. The Raiders only interviewed 3 people. Gruden and the 2 rooney rule canidates. It clearly makes them a token
It helps bring attention to minority candidates if their name is thrown out there as a head coaching candidate.
The Raiders knew who they wanted to coach the team. Why do they have to waste the time of others if they already know who their man is?
Its a joke teams cant hire their guy immediately.
Chiefs didn’t interview any white candidates for the OC spot. Just saying.
Racist
I seem to be one of few fans of the Rooney rule, but it absolutely needs tweaking. It would make sense to say that if you interview more than one candidate, then you must fulfill the requirement of interviewing a minority. It is somewhat rare that a team knows who they want and has no interest in talking to anyone else, but in a case like the one with the raiders, or perhaps one with an in-house solution, there really is no point to waste anyone’s time and it does the rule injustice.
If I knew I was only getting an interview based on my skin color, I wouldn’t feel good about even going at all. It’s disgraceful. If the nfl does a rule for black people, they should have one for Asians and Hispanics.
The Rooney rule is racist.
The problem with this is that they are being investigated because they didn’t do a good enough job pretending they were open to others besides Gruden. Punishing teams in sports for not keeping up appearances is idiotic.
Just got hire the best guy for the job.
I’m a bit confused. In the NFL white people are a minority, in terms of global population white people are a minority. Heck, even in the Americas white people are a minority. Unless the rule refers to the population of the United States (which would seem odd given the international players) white people are a minority. Unless what the rule really means is that you have to interview “nom-whites”, which is discrimination. Anti white is racist.