FORT WORTH, Texas — The NFL’s Rooney Rule isn’t working.
It’s toothless and it’s a sham.
And it has been for some time.
Eric Bieniemy having to take “a lateral move” to the Washington Commanders, albeit with a title and a multi-year commitment, after going to five straight AFC championship games, reaching three Super Bowls and winning two titles as offensive coordinator with the Kansas City Chiefs, is the latest example.
It all has John Wooten, one of the key originators of the rule, named after Steelers owner Dan Rooney 20 years ago, frustrated and dismayed.
“We are struggling with it,” said Wooten, 85, who lives in Arlington. “The commitment we had with the owners isn’t real.”
The Rooney Rule requires requires each team to interview two minority candidates for head coach, general manager and coordinator positions with the goal of improving the league’s losing record against diversity.
For head coaches, it’s as bad now as it ever was.
Only four of the league’s 32 coaches are Black following a hiring cycle in which just one Black coach was hired among five openings in Denver, Carolina, Houston, Indianapolis and Arizona.
Wooten said the Houston Texans decision to hire DeMeco Ryans was a must and helped the NFL save face, considering the Texans fired their previous two coaches, both Black, in David Culley and Lovie Smith, after just one year on the job.
“I said openly, you’ve got to put a Black coach in Houston in order to save the league, really,” Wooten said.
Wooten had optimistically hoped that three of the openings would go to a Black coach and he felt confident that Bieniemy, who has interviewed for 17 jobs over the past few years would finally get one.
For Bieniemy to not only get shut out again but have to watch the two coordinators help defeat in the Super Bowl get head coaching jobs was the ultimately sign of indignity for Wooten.
Less than two days after the Chiefs beat Philadelphia Eagles 38-35 to win Super Bowl LVII, offensive coordinator Shane Steichen was hired by the Indianapolis and defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon was hired by the Arizona Cardinals.
Meanwhile, Bieniemy, whose pre-game scouting keyed the victory with two wide-open touchdowns by the Chiefs in the second half, was forced to make the decision to join the Washington Commanders as assistant head coach/offensive coordinator to again prove himself worthy as a head coach.
It goes without saying that his two white predecessors didn’t have to jump similar hoops, let along his two Super Bowl adversaries.
“It is even more hurtful when you look at the fact that the Rooney Rule was instituted to help coaches get jobs and you look at Bieniemy blows away those Eagles and both of them get head coaching jobs,” Wooten said. “You wonder what they are thinking. Are they that brazen to think that people are not watching?”
It all has Wooten angry, determined, re-committed and ready to go old school.
And when you talk old school with Wooten you are talking about a warrior and pioneer that got it out of the dirt.
Wooten’s rich legacy
Wooten, a native of Riverview, Texas, was the second Black player to play at the University of Colorado. After being drafted by the Cleveland Browns in 1959, he helped break the NFL color barrier as one of the first messenger guards, which was then considered a thinking man’s position.
Wooten, along with Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown, created the Black Economic Union, which fought for African American empowerment. He was alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as a trusted player-activist, when King attended the White House ceremony where President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Wooten helped organized the leading activist-athletes in Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Brown, among others, to meet with and support boxing champion Muhammad Ali when faced prison time as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War.
And that was before he retired and become an leading sports agent, then advisor and scout for the Dallas Cowboys before becoming the team’s Pro Personnel Director in 1989.
Wooten later became vice president of player personnel for the Eagles and was the highest-ranking African American executive in the league.
After leaving the league following a stint with Baltimore Ravens when he won a third Super Bowl title (he won two with the Cowboys), Wooten pushed the league to implement the fair competition resolution, known now as the Rooney Rule.
In 2003, he was one of founding members the Fritz Pollard Alliance with goal of creating more interview opportunities for Black coaches and potential front office personnel candidates.
Wooten served as executive director of the Fritz Pollard Alliance until 2019 but he has never stepped away from his calling.
“Whenever you see a problem you’ve got can tell them what the solution is,” Wooten said. “It’s obvious they don’t have the moral commitment to do what they know is right. So you got to take all that out of the hands. So that’s what we’re working on right now.”
What he’s working on now is trying to get the NFL to adopt a grading system for coaches so they can be judged on an equal level as well as lobbying for a Black owner for the Washington Commanders, who are up for sale.
Black ownership is the final frontier and a sure-fire way to ensure progress among Black coaches.
It also would a cherry on top, considering the history of the Washington franchise, which was the last in the NFL to hire a black player because of the discriminatory ideals of then-owner George Preston Marshall.
Marshall, was an avowed segregationist, did so in 1962 only after President John Kennedy’s administration threatened to evict the team from playing in the stadium.
“We got an outside chance we can Black ownership in Washington,” Wooten said. “We’ve got people lined up. It would be even more meaningful to the league. It would totally help bury Marshall if you go with a Black owner. He was against anything black. So there’s nothing better than to go in Washington and have a Black or Brown owner of the first NFL team.”
