Lost in the abyss of COVID-related football coverage – nestled in the middle of a “Steelers Realm” podcast in October 2020 – former NFL coach Mike Mularkey has made a well-known claim about Rooney’s rule and told a story about with it from a completely unknown advantageous position. It provided the opinion of the man who actually took the top spot in 2016 and the regret that followed because he believed the process was a lie. This is what Mularkey tried to tell everyone in 2020. That the spirit of Rooney’s rule was abused. That he knew it first hand. And that was a top-down complicity problem, starting with Tennessee Titans ownership and extending to general manager Jon Robinson. Somehow, we missed this bomb. Now Brian Flores’s lawsuit against the NFL – alleging racial discrimination in recruitment practices – has rediscovered it. It’s a doomed turn for the NFL, which now has to deal with a former coach who topped the standings in 2016, and then described it as a “fake hiring process” that viewed minority coaching staffs simply to check a framework. . The proposal for this kind of distortion of Rooney’s Rule is not new. But a former coach like Mularkey who regrets being a silent accomplice to it certainly is. That should be a concern for the NFL. Not only because Flores is no longer alone in his team action (Steve Wilks and Ray Horton have joined as plaintiffs) but also because the league could never have imagined facing this Mularkey revelation. Not once in the history of Rooney’s Rules of Procedure has a head coach said he got a job without the other candidates receiving a positive response. Join Mularkey in 2020, answering an extremely broad question in a specific and personal way. Mike Mularkey described the search for a Titans coach in 2016, which ended with the acquisition of the job, as a “fake hiring process”. (Photo by Wesley Hitt / Getty Images) See how the question went: “Would there be anything during your coaching career that you did differently or changed?” The story goes on “That’s a good question,” Mularkey said. “I will tell you guys the following: I have always been proud to do the right thing in this business and I can not say that this applies to everyone in this business. It’s a very boring business and many kids will tell you that. But I allowed myself at some point when I was in Tennessee to get trapped in something I regret. I still regret it. But the owner there, Amy Adams-Strunk, and her family came in and told me I was going to be the head coach in 2016, before they went over Rooney’s rule. And so, I sat there knowing that I was the first coach in ’16 as they went through this fake recruitment process – knowing a lot of the interviewing coaches, knowing how ready they were to go through those interviews, knowing that they could and did not have everything. no chance of getting this job. In fact, GM Jon Robinson was interviewing me. “He had no idea why he was interviewing me – that I already had the job.” Mularkey continued: “Regret [it], because I’m proud of my children first, to do the right thing. I always said that to the players. And here I am, the boss, I do not. I have regretted it since then. It was the mistake he made. I’m sorry I did. But it was not the right way. I should have been interviewed like everyone else and hired because of the interview, not early. That’s probably my biggest regret. “ This is not something that a coach usually says in a podcast. It is the kind of response offered to a sealed affidavit. That probably tells you a little bit about how long Mularkey must have been carrying it. Making such claims is not a small thing, especially when you involve yourself as a passive participant. For Flores Legal Camp, this is the issue of dreams. It may or may not be acceptable in court, but it certainly makes sense that if Mularkey were willing to declare it once as a guest on the podcast, he would be willing to do it a second time as a repentant witness in a courtroom. And even if this does not happen, the public perception of the moment is inevitable. It’s a testament to the idea that some NFL recruits are already locked in before the process even begins. And that Rooney’s rule became a tool used for optics and shielding. NFL teams have long been suspected of conducting “fake” interviews with minority candidates to meet the rule, essentially checking a box that stood in the way of hiring a white coach. It had never been conveyed in a way that reflected the theory from all sides of this chosen context – completing a three-dimensional perspective among minority candidates suspected of being used, into white counterparts who might suspect (or even know) the job was theirs from beginning. Mularkey completed a part of this long-missing image. It is a fact that the Titans actually called him a liar on Thursday. “Our search for a head coach for 2016 was a thoughtful and competitive process, fully in line with NFL guidelines and our own organizational values,” the Titans said in a statement. “We conducted detailed, in-person interviews with four talented people, two of whom were different candidates. No decision was made and no decision was announced before all interviews were completed. “While we are proud of our Commitment to Diversity, we are committed to continued development as an organization to promote diversity and integration into our workplace and our community.” It is worth noting that Mularkey made his statement to the “Steelers Realm” almost 16 months before Flores’ lawsuit arose. He unquestionably dropped the largest Rule Rule grenade to date, at a time when it undoubtedly reflects only itself. And he did it in a way that made him part of the problem, while answering a question that was not specifically about how NFL teams perform recruitment procedures. This all seems very strange. People do not fall for the sword for no reason, especially in the NFL and especially when no one seems to know that you were complicit in something. Mularkey did just that. With zero tangible benefit for himself. This is a statement in itself. And it’s something the NFL should take seriously.
