N.F.L. The Rooney Rule, which the NFL established in 2002 after civil rights attorneys Cyrus Mehri and Johnnie Cochran released a study stating that black head coaches, despite winning a higher percentage of games, were less likely to be hired and more likely to be fired than their white counterparts, is not an effective enough gatekeeper to stop this problem. Still, the number of black head coaches stands at just three, down from a peak of eight. “For the late-arriving crowd: The lack of black head coaches in the NFL is not a league issue, it’s an ownership issue. The Rooney Rule is a National Football League policy that requires league teams to interview ethnic-minority candidates for head coaching and senior football operation jobs. The table shows the current coaches and their records for each National Football League … As for the sports world, the numbers don’t lie: In the NFL, 70 percent of the players are black, but never have more than 25 percent of the head coaches been black. The disparity in racial makeup between head coaches and players is far more apparent in the NFL than NBA, which is 75-percent black and has eight black head coaches out of 30. The NFL has tried to build a pathway for minority coaches through the Bill Walsh NFL Diversity Coaching Fellowship, which is named for the late San Francisco 49ers head coach. It is an example of affirmative action, even though there is no hiring quota or hiring preference given to minorities, only an interviewing quota. The situation in the GM’s office is even more bleak, with just one black general manager.

Their immediate goal: Increase offensive coaching … insiders say it will take more than the Rooney Rule to diversify the league’s leadership.