The NFL Gets it Right?

Big, big news in the world of DEI this morning. The NFL, of all institutions, has launched a new policy around the advancement and promotion of people of color in key roles for the teams in the league. This is a policy that has been debated for some time, and is controversial — and is big.

First, a little background. For years, the NFL has struggled with diversity — namely the fact that in a league were something like 80 percent of the players are black, there have historically been very few head coaches or general managers who are black. In 2003, they launched a policy called The Rooney Rule — named after former Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney (ironically, a white male of considerable wealth) — which in essence states that for any vacant position of this nature, teams are obligated to interview at least one minority candidate. This rule has had middling results — it could be argued that it has created as many challenges as it has addressed — though variations of it have been adopted by companies and organizations around the country. If you mention the Rooney Rule to anyone who works in DEI, they’ll know what you’re talking about, and they’ll have an opinion.

Kansas City Chiefs OC Eric Bienemy (with Patrick Mahomes in the background)

Flash forward to this year. The NFL — which has a difficult record on race and social equity in general, and which has been front and center on a lot of the conversation the past few years — has continued to work on this challenge. Last year they floated an idea — that teams who were able to demonstrate that they fostered diversity would get an additional draft pick — and the idea was not well-received. The head coach of the Los Angeles (nee San Diego) Chargers lost his mind — and he is black.

However, yesterday, the NFL went through with the policy, and the policy is actually quite strong. Any team that has a minority candidate hired away from them gets not one but two compensatory third round draft picks — one for each of the next two drafts.

This policy is absolutely brilliant. Here’s some thoughts as to why.

How big of a deal is two third-round draft picks?

it’s a really big deal. People in the NFL are crazy for draft picks, and this is akin to saying, you get one of the top 100 players coming into the league, each of the next two years. Joe Montana was a third round draft pick. So was Russell Wilson, and he’s going to the Hall of Fame, and he gets to be married to Ciara. Lots of good stuff comes from the third round. And you get two of them!

But the integrity of the game is at stake! How can you artificially give the advantage to one team based off of something that doesn’t happen on the field? This is outrageous!

This is really the crux of the matter. There is a lot to unpack here. First, the NFL makes decisions all the time that affect the integrity of the game — taking away or rewarding draft picks, fining or suspending players or coaches, etc. Each of these actions has a direct impact on the outcome of games, although they don’t directly involve, say, overturning a call or changing a rule. But the concept is not new — that the league would make a decision that indirectly will affect teams’ capacity to compete on the field in the future.

The use of this type of policy to impact diversity, equity and inclusion, however, is new — that is an escalation. This is a statement that the proliferation of people of color in coaching positions is so important to the league that they are willing to give this level of reward for it.

Why don’t they reward the hiring team?

Great question TA. This is probably the most interesting thing of the whole endeavor — that instead of rewarding the team that makes the hire, they reward the team that lost the coach / official. I think it’s great.

You don’t want to reward the hiring team, for a few reasons. First, virtue, they say, is its own reward. Second, they are already being rewarded by getting an awesome candidate. But, most importantly, if you add in an incentive for that team, you’ll never know if the person got hired because they are an awesome coach, or because they are black and so they’re a good enough coach and the draft picks help get them over the finish line.

You do want to reward the team from which the coach or official left, for two reasons. First, this program will incentivize the development, showcasing, and career trajectory of people of color in coaching and operational positions. Teams are now (heavily) incentivized to foster opportunity for people of color in their organizations, and they’re rewarded for scenarios when those people go on to have success. Because if the league benefits, we all benefit, amirite? Second, and perhaps more importantly, in constructing the policy in this fashion, they are actually creating a disincentive to hire a person of color in those positions, because there is an impact on the team’s chances for the future. So you better be damn sure that you have the right candidate.

Take, for example, the peculiar situation of Eric Bienemy, who is the offensive coordinator for the Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs, and who should be a head coach by now and it’s absolutely mindboggling that he isn’t. Bienemy will be a candidate for head coaching jobs in the offseason. The Houston Texans — who are a team with a lot of talent and offensive firepower who intend to compete in the AFC for years to come — would be a natural home for him. How much will the two draft picks that go to the Chiefs — which will make the rich get richer, in essence — affect the Texans’ decision-making on this? Remains to be seen. But this added disincentive is going to add a lot of texture to the value of this policy.

Will it backfire?

Almost certainly, in some cases. The NFL has a beleaguered history when it comes to dealing with or talking about race. So it’s not exactly the organization that you’d want to be using as the guinea pig for an aggressive policy structure that is relatively new in its impact. Also, the issue surrounding not giving a competitive advantage to other teams is a big one. There are certainly scenarios — intradivisional situations, for example — where teams are going to not go forward with a hire for no reason other than their concern about giving draft picks to a rival.

Overall, I still think it’s a brilliant policy, but it’s got some potential pitfalls. It will be really interesting to watch over the next few years.

What else might they have done?

There are really two options for what they might have done — they could have gone less far, or they could have gone farther.

Less far — offer a lower draft pick, or better yet, offer something that has no direct impact on the game. For example, money. If you hire a minority coach, you get $250,000 donated to your team’s charity, to be used for community development resources. (This is a great idea, btw — they should just add this in to the policy right now. YW.) Basically, reduce the impact of the policy on the league and the game. The advantages of taking this route is its more palatable for those who don’t love this policy to begin with. The disadavantages are that it makes less of a statement and it would have less of an impact.

Farther is more interesting. This was a huge step in the sense that they are demonstrating a willingness to indirectly impact what happens on the field. And to be sure there are a shitload of ways that they could continue this indirect impact. What if they gave teams an extra home game on the schedule? (Especially as the league moves to a 17-game season, this would be relevant). What if they gave teams more salary cap space — you get an extra million bucks of cap space if you have a successful hire. You still have to host the game; you still have to contract the players. But there are several other ways that the indirect impact could be extended or fortified.

Where it gets really interesting, however — and get ready for a bunch of folks to lose it on me — is direct impacts on the game. What if we opened up an avenue where we considered making a direct impact on the outcome of games, as a reward for fostering diversity. You had a better chance of winning the games. Here are some ideas: Your team gets an extra time out each game (four instead of three in the second half, for example). You start the game with a three-point lead. The other team has to kick off five yards deeper (there are safety issues here so this would never happen). You automatically “win” the coin toss and get to choose when you get the ball. You get to dress 57 players instead of 54. You get the idea.

My guess is that 99 percent of NFL fans reject every one of those last ideas summarily, but really we are talking about spectra, right? If you are for a diverse and inclusive world, awesome, so am I. If you are willing to consider that organizations can adopt policies to foster success in this space, even better — I agree with you! Beyond that, it’s just a matter of negotiation about what’s the right point to draw the line.

What can my company learn from this?

A lot. Here’s four takeaways.

First, doing something — anything — is huge. This is an imperfect policy, and it will likely need refinement, but it is a huge action and it will have effects. It will generate data and make an impact and the league will be able to adapt to it. They are taking a risk in adopting this policy, and it’s sure to not be popular in certain places, but that’s what makes it so great.

Second, they took something that was previously off the table and put it on. By connecting DEI to a indirect impact on what happens on the field, the NFL opened a new frontier. What has traditionally been off the table for you all that you might put on it. Is it a public goal? Is it quotas or targets in terms of hiring? Have you previously rejected all incentives based on race, and now might be the time to reconsider?

Third, the idea of rewarding the party that cultivated the talent, rather than the one who will benefit from it, is huge. Imagine if, instead of giving someone a bonus when they bring a person of color to your organization, you actually give them a bonus when that person goes on to success. Imagine rewarding the department who lost their awesome black employee to a different role within the organization because they worked hard to advance that person’s career. Imagine celebrating managers who did it right, and made the world better, and shouldn’t be screwed because they accomplished what they set out to do?

Finally, incentives are everywhere. There are a zillion ways to incentivize or disincentivize behavior at work. You need to look around for what is going to matter to people, and then reverse engineer the connection to your goals. The way the NFL did this is brilliant. They figured out the prize first. And then they worked backward to try and get the impact that they want.

So, in conclusion ….

This is a really interesting moment, for the NFL and for DEI. It’ll be interesting to watch what happens, but in the meantime, bravo to the league for taking this shot.