The National Football League (NFL) announced on Monday that it will now be requiring every team to hire one minority offensive assistant coach as part of the league’s efforts to increase diversity.
All 32 NFL teams must hire a minority offensive assistant coach for the upcoming 2022 season. The coach can be “a female or a member of an ethnic or racial minority” and each one will receive a one-year contract to work closely with the head coach and offensive staff.
The new rule aims to increase minorities among the pool of offensive coaches that eventually produces the most sought-after candidates for head-coaching positions.
“It’s a recognition that at the moment, when you look at stepping stones for a head coach, they are the coordinator positions,” said Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney II, who is also the chairman of the NFL Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee.
“We clearly have a trend where coaches are coming from the offensive side of the ball in recent years, and we clearly do not have as many minorities in the offensive coordinator [job].”
According to ESPN, minority coaches now represent 39% of the league in total and 15 of the NFL’s defensive coordinators are minorities. Additionally, there are a record 12 women on the coaching staff.
Meanwhile, the NFL on Tuesday also announced that it had approved a change to overtime rules “that will ensure both teams will receive a possession in overtime,” according to Around the NFL Writer Nick Shook
The rule change will only be applied to the postseason, where the advantage has statistically been more skewed toward the team winning the overtime coin toss than in the regular season.
“We always listen to the fans — that’s an important thing. We’re always looking to improve and I think what really drove the decision was the database, ultimately, and looking at the facts and what’s happened,” said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.
“Where we saw that most having an influence, I think, was 12 games in the postseason that have been in overtime, seven of which were won on the first possession. When you see that, that’s the type of thing that I think our coaches and everyone looked at — this is an issue in the postseason we should deal with.”
Goodell added doesn’t “necessarily believe” that the regular season will adopt the new postseason OT rules but the league will continue to look for a different solution.
