Roger Goodell Defended the NFL’s DEI Policies. Will He Do So If Political Pressure Comes Next?
In his annual pre–Super Bowl press conference, the NFL commissioner defended league initiatives like the Rooney Rule even as the federal government slashes DEI policies. But voicing support is one thing; it’s another to continue to do so if political pressure rises.
Roger Goodell had a chance to dodge politics and stick to football on Monday of Super Bowl week. The NFL commissioner is famous for sidestepping direct questions and avoiding controversy, but asked at a news conference whether the league would remain committed to its diversity, equity, and inclusion policies while the federal government is drastically slashing such initiatives, Goodell, for once, did not punt.
“We got into diversity efforts because we felt it was the right thing for the National Football League, and we’re going to continue with those efforts because we’ve not only convinced ourselves, I think we’ve proven ourselves, that it does make the NFL better,” Goodell said. “So we’re not in this because it’s a trend to get into it, or a trend to get out of it. Our efforts are fundamental in trying to attract the best possible talent into the National Football League, both on and off the field, as I said previously. And we see how it’s benefited the National Football League, and I think we’ll continue those efforts.”
Goodell didn’t mention Donald Trump by name during his 45-minute news conference, which served as the official media kickoff for Super Bowl week, but he didn’t have to. The underlying context behind multiple questions about the league’s DEI policies, including the Rooney Rule, was clear. The new presidential administration is quickly working to dismantle diversity-related measures throughout the federal government, and many businesses in the private sector—including Target, Meta, and Amazon—have already followed suit. It was fair to wonder whether the NFL would join them.
I have sat through many Goodell press conferences in the past 15 years. Some have been contentious. Some have been a complete snooze. On a few rare occasions, Goodell has stuck his foot in his mouth, like when, in 2016, he answered a question about whether he believed football was safe for children by saying that there is risk in sitting on the couch. But the one thing you can almost always count on is that Goodell will avoid saying anything remotely controversial. His ability to dodge a question is one of his greatest skills, something that’s enabled him to largely appease his bosses—the 31 NFL team owners—while navigating a multibillion-dollar corporation through times of both great financial success and great crisis.
When he showed up to Monday’s news conference, held inside the Saints locker room at the Caesars Superdome, he must have expected questions about the NFL’s place in the current political landscape and about the league’s Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview a diverse group of candidates for head coaching, coordinator, and senior front office roles. (The league office has similar hiring rules in place for executive jobs.)
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And for once, Goodell didn’t try to play it down the middle. His responses to multiple questions about the league’s DEI efforts came off as prepared, measured, and calculated. And he now must be ready for what could happen next.
Goodell has largely kept the league out of politics in recent years, even as several players, like Aaron Rodgers, Nick Bosa, and Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker, have seemed willing to drag the NFL back into the culture wars of Trump’s first term. But in explicitly defending his league’s policies, Goodell has opened the door to a potential new fight with Trump, more than seven years after the president called players who protested social injustice “sons of bitches.” That wasn’t the only time the NFL and Trump have clashed: In 2018, Trump suggested that players who chose to kneel during the national anthem should leave the country. And in 2019, the then–Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles did not visit Trump at the White House—at the time, Trump announced the visit was canceled, while a number of players said they declined to attend.
Goodell’s comments are certainly noteworthy, but the response—either from Trump directly or from Goodell’s largely conservative bosses, the NFL team owners—might be even more telling in the coming months. According to USA Today, 24 NFL team owners made partisan political donations in the 2024 election cycle, 16 of them to conservative candidates or causes. How many of those owners might lean on Goodell to eventually fall in line with Trump’s policies?
There are signs that despite Goodell’s comments, subtle changes are coming. The Athletic reported Tuesday that the league will no longer have the words “End Racism” painted in the back of the end zones at Sunday’s Super Bowl, replacing one platitude with two others: “Choose Love” and “It Takes All of Us.” The website also reported that Trump will attend the Super Bowl as a guest of Saints owner Gayle Benson, who sat, mostly stone-faced, in the front row of Goodell’s Monday news conference. Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie, a semi-frequent contributor to Democratic political candidates, was also in attendance.
In 2003 the NFL first enacted the Rooney Rule, which then required teams to interview one minority candidate for each head coaching vacancy. Over the past 20 years, the rule has been expanded to coordinator roles and senior front office jobs. And within the past five years, league owners have passed additional policies to encourage diverse hiring, including requiring teams to hire a person of color or a woman as an offensive assistant, and awarding draft pick compensation to teams that invest in the development of minority coaching and front office candidates.
The Rooney Rule is far from perfect—and as recently as three years ago, Goodell seemed open to sweeping changes to improve the league’s hiring policies. That hasn’t happened, and many teams and their owners seem to do the bare minimum to adhere to the Rooney Rule. The most recent head coach hiring cycle included several examples of teams seeming to conduct interviews with minority candidates simply to check off the box that they were following the rule. The New England Patriots satisfied the requirement by interviewing two Black former NFL assistants, Byron Leftwich and Pep Hamilton, neither of whom have coached in the league since 2022, and sharing the news in a single ill-advised social media post, before quickly hiring Mike Vrabel, who was pretty clearly their top candidate all along. The Jaguars reportedly tried to keep their final interview with Liam Coen secret so that the second Black candidate they were scheduled to interview, Patrick Graham, wouldn’t cancel. The Cowboys fulfilled the Rooney Rule this cycle by interviewing former NFL head coaches Leslie Frazier and Robert Saleh, but almost as soon as Brian Schottenheimer was hired, news leaked that he had hired Matt Eberflus as defensive coordinator—before the team had conducted interviews for the position.
After this hiring cycle, we will go into 2025 with fewer minority head coaches than last season. Meanwhile, the NFL and several teams are still being sued by former Dolphins head coach and current Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores for racial discrimination.
Goodell on Monday described the Rooney Rule as an “important part” of the NFL’s hiring process.
“The Rooney Rule for us is there is no requirement to hire a particular individual on basis of race or gender. It’s simply on the basis of looking at a canvas of candidates that reflect our communities, and then you make the best decision on who is hired,” Goodell said. “So many of us, including the National Football League, are doing this voluntarily, at all levels, because it has benefited us. I hear that from companies on a global basis that that’s a very strong practice that we are adopting.”
The Rooney Rule is the league’s most famous DEI initiative, but it is far from the only one. The NFL also has a host of affinity groups to support employees of various racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds, as well as groups for NFL employees in the LGBTQIA+ community. The league hosts an annual symposium for women in football, with the stated goal of helping women get their foot in the door for jobs in coaching, scouting, and football operations.
“I believe that our diversity efforts have led to making the NFL better. It’s attracted better talent. We think we’re better if we get different perspectives, people with different backgrounds, whether they’re women or men or people of color,” Goodell said. “We make ourselves stronger and we make ourselves better when we have that. It’s something that I think will have a tremendous impact on this league for many, many years. We win on the field with the best talent and the best coaching. And I think the same is true off the field.”
That’s a strong statement from Goodell in this current heated political climate. But it’s one thing to say it now. And another to follow through in the face of real pressure.
