Bomani Jones Claims NFL Has a ‘Cancer of Racism’ in Response to No Black Head Coach Were Hired This Year

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Sportswriter Bomani Jones believes the NFL still has a racism problem after no Black head coaches were hired in this year’s hiring cycle.

Following the conclusion of the NFL regular season, there were 10 vacant head coaching positions up for grabs around the league. Many have pointed out that despite there being so many openings, not one went to a Black coach.

In 2003, the NFL introduced the Rooney Rule to address such hiring discrepancies. The rule requires teams to interview minority candidates during head coach searches.

On Monday’s episode of his podcast The Right Time, Jones broke down what he believed to be the NFL’s issue when it comes to hiring diversity:

The problem with hiring as it relates to race in the NFL is not the Rooney Rule. The problem is not that the Rooney Rule is ineffective. That would be like saying that the problem with cancer is that you can’t fix it with an aspirin. That is not about the limitations of aspirin, that’s about the problem with cancer; and the NFL has a cancer of racism when it comes to hiring people at these levels.

The problem in this case is the white people who do — or, more accurately, do not do — some of this hiring. The issue there is them. The issue is the owners. It’s all these people on top. They are the problem. I don’t think that we could ever truly have any measure of solution on this until we are more honest about who the issue is. The issue is the people who ultimately decided to enact the Rooney Rule just because Johnnie Cochran, rest in peace, was about to sue them into the ground.

When it comes to progress. In the presence of racism. It is not me and my people who need to make progress, it is White people that need to make progress. It is not us who created these circumstances, it is them who created these circumstances, and they are the ones that need to do better. And as I say every year about this, the biggest winner from the Rooney Rule and breaking down those barriers of racism would be the white people.

During NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s Super Bowl press conference Monday evening, Goodell also acknowledged the lack of Black hires and claimed the league has “more work to do.”

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