NFL announces a new ‘Rooney Rule’ requiring teams to interview women for executive jobs

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell compared a new mandate for NFL teams to consider women for executive positions to the so-called “Rooney Rule,” which requires teams to interview minority candidates for head coaching positions.

Amy Trask thinks she has a better name for the new rule.

“I think this should be the Al Davis rule,” tweeted Trask, who was hired by the late Raiders owner as the league’s first female chief executive officer in 1997. “Hope my reasoning is clear.”

Goodell was speaking Thursday at the first NFL Women’s Summit in San Francisco when he revealed that the league was working to “formalize” the new policy. He later said during an interview that teams already are supposed to interview women when there’s an opening for an executive position.

“We’re already doing it,” he told BuzzFeed of the new rule.

During his comments at the summit, Goodell told the crowd, “We believe in diversity,” and listed Sarah Thomas, the NFL’s first female game official, and Jen Welter and Kathryn Smith, the league’s first female assistant coaches, as examples.

“You can see that progress is being made,” Goodell said. “And our commitment is we have something called the Rooney Rule, which requires us to make sure when we have an opening, that on the team or the league level, that we are going to interview a diverse slate of candidates. Well, we’re going to make that commitment and we’re going to formalize that we, as a league, are going to do that with women as well in all of our executive positions.

“Again, we’re going to keep making progress here and make a difference.”