As promised, the NFL is bringing back its Accelerator program.
And in Florida, of all places.
What a striking coincidence. A year after the NFL tabled the coach and front office development initiative and pledged to constitute a “reimagined” program, Accelerator 2.0, if you will, debuts on Monday before league meetings kick off in Orlando under the shadow of the anti-DEI attacks – and a fresh investigative subpoena – spearheaded by Florida AG James Uthmeier.
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Go ahead, NFL. Do your thing. Sort of.
Here’s something significant to note about the new Coach and Front Office Accelerator program that contrasts the spirit of Uthmeier’s off-base contentions of unfair, discriminatory labor practices: For the first time since its inception in 2022, the Accelerator program will not be limited to diverse participants.
Was that a response to Uthmeier’s letter on March 25, which slammed the Rooney Rule and other diversity initiatives? Hardly. This was the expectation long before that letter. And shoot, given a political climate injected with anti-DEI dogma, it would have been a shock if the NFL didn’t expand the Accelerator program beyond minorities and women.
For the NFL, it’s damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t.
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Why does the NFL need a Rooney Rule?
Look at the track record, silly. In the most recent hiring cycle, zero Black candidates were chosen for any of the 10 head coach openings, with just one person of color, Robert Saleh, the Tennessee Titans coach of Lebanese descent, hired for a top job. Over the past two cycles, the New York Jets’ Aaron Glenn was the only Black candidate hired among 17 openings. And when Eric Bieniemy returned earlier this year to the Kansas City Chiefs, it snapped a string of 30 offensive coordinator jobs – the most substantial path to a head coaching role – filled by white men.
No, the Rooney Rule doesn’t mandate hiring. It merely requires that minorities are granted interviews – which people like Uthmeier think is some sort of crime.
Yet given the track record of NFL teams while hiring for the most powerful and visible coaching jobs, there’s an obvious need for the league to address what has historically been an uneven playing field in the hiring process. Too often, Black candidates with deeper resumes – including some with Super Bowl credentials – have been passed over for the top jobs that went to others.
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