Roger Goodell: NFL must devise a better way of getting teams to hire minority head coaches

MIAMI — NFL commissioner Roger Goodell confirmed Wednesday what everybody already knew: The Rooney Rule isn’t working.

“Clearly we are not where we want to be on this,’’ Goodell said at his annual Super Bowl week state of the league news conference. “It’s clear we need to change and do something different. There’s no reason to expect that we’re going to have a different outcome next year without those kinds of changes.’’

The Rooney Rule was enacted by the league in 2003 to address the lack of minority head coaches. A team with a head-coaching vacancy is required to interview at least one minority candidate. It has been effective some years, but not so much in others, including this year.

There were nine minority head coaches in the league in 2018. That number has dwindled to four, including just three African Americans.

Five teams hired new head coaches this offseason. Just one — Ron Rivera — was a minority. Rivera, who is Hispanic, was hired by the Redskins after getting fired at the end of the season by the Carolina Panthers.

Goodell said the league will hold a series of meetings in the next month “to determine what are the solutions so we can have better outcomes.’’

Said Goodell: “We need to try and figure out what steps we can take next that would lead to better outcomes. It’s clear we’re all committed to doing that. We have to make those changes.’’

One highly-regarded minority candidate who came up empty was Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy. Bieniemy, who has been Andy Reid’s top offensive lieutenant the last two years, interviewed with the Giants, Panthers, and Browns, but didn’t get any of those jobs. The Giants hired Patriots wide receivers coach Joe Judge, the Panthers hired Baylor coach Matt Rhule, and the Browns hired Vikings offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski.

“There’s always disappointment,’’ Bieniemy said Wednesday when asked about not getting any of the available head-coaching jobs. “But I’ll say this. The interview process was great. Would you have loved to come away with one of the jobs? Yes, you would. But the process, the learning experience, and on top of that, still having the opportunity to work with one of the better head coaches in this league, that’s what I look forward to.

“I’m in a great place. If it ever happens, it’ll happen when it’s supposed to.’’

A lot of people thought the Chiefs were out of their minds three years ago when they moved up in the 2017 draft and took a talented but seemingly raw quarterback named Pat Mahomes with the 10th overall pick.

They don’t think that anymore. In Mahomes’ two seasons as the Chiefs’ starter, he has led the team to back-to-back 12-4 records, has thrown 76 touchdown passes and just 18 interceptions, and is the main reason they’ll be playing for the Lombardi Trophy on Sunday at Hard Rock Stadium.

At Andy Reid’s news conference on Wednesday morning, somebody asked him if he and Mahomes are the new Bill Belichick and Tom Brady.

“We’re young into our relationship, which is about the only thing I’m young at right now,’’ the 61-year-old Reid said. “We’ve only been doing it here for a couple of years, while Bill and Tom have been doing it forever. They’ve proven to be what they are, which is future Hall of Famers.

"I look forward to my time with Patrick, and hopefully that [same kind of success] happens with us. But right now, we’re a work in progress.’’