The National Football League has urged teams for years to hire more minority head coaches, and the mission might finally be paying off, per the AP. Four minority head coaches have been hired this year:
- Raheem Morris in Atlanta
- Jerod Mayo in New England
- Antonio Pierce in Las Vegas
- Dave Canales in Carolina
That brings the number of coaches of color entering the 2024 season to nine, the most in league history. Seattle and Washington have yet to fill their vacancies. Dr. Richard Lapchick, founder of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics In Sport, called it a "major milestone" for the NFL. The league originally created the Rooney Rule in 2003 to promote the number of minority head coaches (and later general managers and executives) by requiring teams to interview at least one person of color before making a hire. The league further expanded the rule in 2020, incentivizing teams to hire minority assistant coaches by awarding compensatory draft picks if they lose a minority coach or top football executive to another team.
So far, six Black head coaches are in place for next season—Morris, Mayo, Pierce, Pittsburgh's Mike Tomlin, Tampa Bay's Todd Bowles, and Houston's DeMeco Ryans—which doubles the number from the 2023 season. The other minority coaches are Canales, who is Mexican-American; Miami's multiracial Mike McDaniel; and Robert Saleh of the New York Jets, who is Lebanese.
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