Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll called out NFL owners during the league’s meetings last week in Florida, saying the hiring of minority candidates won’t improve until owners accept that there are candidates out there different than themselves, a source told ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Monday.
Carroll spoke for about 10 minutes during a meeting of general managers and coaches last Tuesday in Palm Beach. His comments came a day after the league announced that all 32 NFL teams must hire a minority offensive assistant coach for the 2022 season.
The longtime Seahawks coach, though, told the group that such policies will never be enough until the owners themselves change.
“He just went off,” a source told Schefter of Carroll’s comments in the meeting. “He was saying, you can do anything but until owners get to know these candidates before the actual interviews and understand that they have to hire people who are different than them, it’s not going to really change.”
Schefter also reported that owners “weren’t happy” when they learned of Carroll’s comments afterward.
The new policy adopted by the NFL at last week’s meetings states that a coach can be “a female or a member of an ethnic or racial minority.” They will be paid from a league-wide fund. The coach must work closely with the head coach and the offensive staff, with the goal of increasing minority participation in the pool of offensive coaches that eventually produces the most sought-after candidates for head-coaching positions.
In addition, the league added women to the language of the Rooney Rule at all levels.
Carroll, meanwhile, has coached the Seahawks for 12 seasons. During that time, none of the four offensive coordinators the team has hired has been a minority; three of its five defensive coordinators have been Black (Kris Richard, Ken Norton Jr. and Clint Hurtt).