The Cleveland Browns did follow Rooney Rule procedure in hiring their new general manager — they just forgot to report it.
John Wooten, the chairman of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, had been very critical of the Browns for their apparent failure to hire a minority candidate before naming John Dorsey to the position. On Friday, Wooten admitted that the Browns did interview a minority candidate — namely former Bills general manager Doug Whaley — for their open GM position. What they didn’t do was inform the NFL, which has left Wooten a bit annoyed.
“For whatever reason, [Jimmy] Haslam or whoever is running their operation there did not report that they had interviewed a minority candidate before they announced that they had signed John Dorsey,” Wooten told Charean Williams of ProFootballTalk on Friday. “That threw the whole thing into question, because everybody was asking, ‘Who did they interview?’ Well, we checked with the league, and the league said it had not received any information on who they interviewed or anyone that they intended to interview. Under league rules, the fact that Doug Whaley and John Dorsey were not in the league, they could in fact talk to those guys, but you still have to report you talked to Doug Whaley, and they didn’t do that.
“I got a phone call last night from somebody who said Jimmy Haslam had called him saying I was very upset. He’s absolutely right. I was upset, because when I checked with the league office they said they had not received any information on who the Browns had interviewed at all.”
Wooten said that a complaint had been filed with the league over the Browns’ failure to report the Whaley interview.
“That’s where we are,” Wooten said. “We’re still waiting for the league to clear this up. We’ve put it on their table. It’s their responsibility. It’s the team’s responsibility to tell the league, and the league gets it to us. We’ll let the league decide what they want to do there [as far as any punishment].”
It sounds unlikely that any punishment is coming, as the NFL has said they are satisfied that the Browns followed the Rooney Rule. To be fair, this would not be the first time the Browns have screwed up the necessary paperwork for something.
