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Outgoing NFLPA chief calls for NFL to eliminate Rooney Rule, proposes sweeping changes to hiring practices

Jul 6, 2023

DeMaurice Smith's time with the NFL Players Association may be in its final days, but he isn't quite done fighting with NFL team owners.

On Wednesday, Smith published a nearly 100-page paper he has worked on for roughly two years in which he calls the 20-year-old Rooney Rule a failure and calls for its elimination, instead offering 12 recommendations for the league to create a fair and equal hiring system.

Co-written with Carl Lasker, a Yale Law student and teaching assistant to Smith at the school, Smith offers an insider's perspective on exactly why the Rooney Rule — here called a "suggestion" — has no chance of succeeding and calls on federal, state and local governments to exercise their lawful oversight to ensure reform.

"The system is broken from the inside out and outside and any effort to affect it that didn’t obligate NFL Owners to adherence or reform was doomed from the start," Smith told Yahoo Sports via text message.

Source: Yahoo Sports

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