According to a report by NFL reporter Jim Trotter, the NFL is looking at a resolution that would radically change the hiring practices by the entire league.
The resolution would reward teams that hire minority coaches and executives with an improved draft position. Then they would see additional improvement in later drafts by keeping those hires on staff for a set number of years.
Here are the parameters of the resolution according to the article:
- If a team hires a minority head coach, that team, in the draft preceding the coach’s second season, would move up six spots from where it is slotted to pick in the third round. A team would jump 10 spots under the same scenario for hiring a person of color as its primary football executive, a position more commonly known as general manager.
- If a team were to fill both positions with diverse candidates in the same year, that club could jump 16 spots — six for the coach, 10 for the GM — and potentially move from the top of the third round to the middle of the second round. Another incentive: a team’s fourth-round pick would climb five spots in the draft preceding the coach’s or GM’s third year if he is still with the team. That is considered significant because Steve Wilks and Vance Joseph, two of the four African-American head coaches hired since 2017, were fired after one and two seasons, respectively.
It isn’t the time or place to discuss the potential pitfalls of a rule like this. There will be plenty of time to discuss the pros and cons of this, should it pass.
