Tony Dungy expressed some concerns about the proposed changes to the Rooney Rule during an interview on Monday.
Dungy was a guest on “Tiki and Tierney” on CBS Sports Radio/CBS Sports Network and was asked about the proposed changes to the Rooney Rule. The proposal includes giving draft-related incentives to teams for hiring minority head coach and general managers.
“The negative things hasn’t helped, like ‘interview a minority coach or you’ll get fined’… so somebody said ‘well, how about incentives?’ So that got proposed, but it was only 1/20th of the whole thing, and unfortunately it’s whats being focused on now.
“I’m personally not for it. I can see the coach’s points of view of ‘hey, I don’t want to get hired just because you got an extra draft choice. I want to get hired because I’m the best person. I don’t want you to think I need more to succeed.’ I think it’s kind of like the PI (pass interference) rule of last year. People felt like something needed to get done, maybe it’s not exactly the right thing. Hopefully, this spurs some conversation and we come up with a different kind of incentive. I’m not for it personally, but I understand where they’re coming from.”
Some of the other parts of the proposal would include two minorities needing to be interviewed for a head coaching job and one for coordinator jobs.
The draft incentive has been met with negative response, and even a minority head coach has expressed his concern with the proposal.
You can understand where someone like Dungy or Anthony Lynn are coming from. People generally want to feel like they were hired because they were deserving and wanted, not because there’s some nice incentive attached.
