Any interested NFL team has a great opportunity awaiting it.
The New England Patriots cut ties with longtime head coach Bill Belichick earlier this month, making him available for other teams to hire. The Atlanta Falcons are reportedly interested.
However, due to the NFL‘s “Rooney Rule,” teams must interview at least one non-white candidate during the hiring process for various positions, including head coaching jobs. Belichick being available as a head coach shows why this rule should not exist.
Belichick is one of the greatest head coaches in NFL history. During his 24-year tenure coaching the New England Patriots, he won a record six Super Bowls. He has 333 career wins as a head coach, putting him 14 shy of longtime Miami Dolphins coach Don Shula’s record. Plus, his teams have been innovative, using unorthodox decisions such as his reliance on left-footed punters, the use of Tom Brady for surprise quick kicks on third-and-long, and even employing Canadian Football League legend Doug Flutie to convert the only successful drop kick in the NFL since 1941.
If a team can hire Belichick as its head coach, it should take the opportunity, and there is no need to interview anyone else to check a racial quota box just because Belichick is white.
The rule leads to sham interviews that waste people’s time and provide people with false hope that they may get the job.
When former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores went for the New York Giants head coaching job in January 2022, Belichick accidentally texted him congratulating him on getting the job before the team interviewed him. That’s because Belichick knew the Giants were hiring Brian Daboll — and he accidentally texted the wrong Brian. The Giants interviewed Flores for the job because he is black, even though they already knew whom they wanted to hire.
Teams such as the Tennessee Titans, Denver Broncos, and Detroit Lions also have faced accusations of holding sham interviews to satisfy the Rooney Rule.
So why should a team dead set on hiring Belichick as its head coach also have to provide a sham interview to another candidate because of the color of their skin?
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The same would be true if Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin, who is black, were available. Tomlin has been the team’s head coach since 2007 and has never had a losing season, including years when, at times, he had to start backup and third-string quarterbacks due to injuries — such as third-stringer Mason Rudolph this season. If such a rule existed, there is no reason why a team should have to interview a white coach if they wanted to hire Tomlin and believed, correctly, that he was the best man for the job.
This failed DEI policy belongs nowhere near professional sports. The NFL should let teams interview and hire the best available coaches, regardless of their race. Let teams put themselves in the best position possible to win football games. Any team dumb enough to discriminate against whites or minorities will suffer on the gridiron.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts.