News broke Sunday morning that the New England Patriots are hiring former Tennessee Titans head coach Mike Vrabel as their next head coach.
Vrabel was seen as a hot commodity during this coaching cycle, appearing on the shortlist for several franchises in the market for a new head whistle. However, it was no secret that Vrabel—who won three Super Bowls with the Patriots during his playing career—was the odds-on favorite to return to New England.
But, as most NFL fans know by now, that doesn’t mean Patriots owner Robert Kraft and Co. could just hire Vrabel. They still had to comply with the league’s hiring guidelines, namely the “Rooney Rule,” which currently requires NFL teams to conduct in-person interviews with at least two diverse candidates for certain open positions, including the head coach.
While the ham-handed nature of the rule can be debated, and whether the rule is actually effective in getting diverse candidates hired into prominent roles is another question entirely, the reality is that every team in the NFL has to follow these rules. So even though the Patriots knew Vrabel was their guy- as did media members who cover this stuff- they still had to grant interviews to minority candidates to check the league-mandated diversity box.
To satisfy the Rooney Rule requirements, the Patriots interviewed two candidates who have been out of NFL coaching jobs for two seasons: former Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich and former Houston Texans offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton.
We have completed interviews with Byron Leftwich and Pep Hamilton for our head coach position. pic.twitter.com/WJ4vg1n46Q
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) January 7, 2025
Nobody viewed either as a viable candidate for the Patriots’ job considering that neither were even able to retain coordinator roles at their last stops. Yet prominent NFL media figures reported on the interviews as if they were legitimate.
The #Patriots interviewed longtime NFL assistant coach Pep Hamilton for their head coaching job today, sources tell me and @RapSheet.
Hamilton has a history of working with young QBs, including current New England backup Joe Milton III before last year’s draft. pic.twitter.com/vuxB7HNqxX
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) January 7, 2025
Byron Leftwich is interviewing for the New Patriots head coaching job today, I’m told.
— Mike Jones (@ByMikeJones) January 7, 2025
Patriots announced the completion of head-coach interviews with Byron Leftwich and Pep Hamilton.
First 2 interviews. Also satisfies NFL’s Rooney Rule, which aims to increase the number of minorities hired as head coaches.
— Mike Reiss (@MikeReiss) January 7, 2025
The interviews themselves can be seen as an indictment on the effectiveness of the Rooney Rule, yes. But they were also an indictment on the state of NFL insidership. The transactional, context-be-damned nature inherent to the job of NFL insider could not have been more apparent.
For casual fans that aren’t necessarily in tune with the inner workings of an NFL coaching hire, they see a report from NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero and believe that Pep Hamilton is a legitimate contender for the Patriots job, when in reality, he is not.
Pelissero reported last week that the Patriots interviewed Hamilton who “has a history of working with young QBs, including current New England backup Joe Milton III before last year’s draft.”
Oh, a history with New England’s backup quarterback you say? Surely that makes him a legitimate contender for the job, right?
Such reporting is insulting to NFL fans’ intelligence. Everyone knows why this is happening. If the Patriots were actually interested in interviewing diverse candidates capable of taking an NFL head coaching job, they could have. They just would’ve had to wait for those candidates to become available, because those candidates are currently coaching in the playoffs.
Instead, the Patriots took the easy way out and had allies in the media create a faux legitimacy to these interviews.
To be fair, not everyone in the media was complicit. Sports Illustrated‘s Albert Breer came out last week and said the Patriots’ process “looks like a sham.” Fox NFL insider Jordan Schultz skewered the organization for its “blatant sidestep” of the Rooney Rule.
CBS NFL insider Jonathan Jones reported on Sunday morning that those inside the league felt similarly about the Patriots’ handling of the Rooney Rule. Per Jones, “[Detroit] Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn turned down the Patriots’ [interview] offer. He has requests from every team with a vacancy and plans to interview with them all except New England. Glenn declining the interview was met with praise across the league from coaches and personnel members of all colors who, in conversations with CBS Sports, believed the Krafts were making a sham of the Rooney Rule.”
But overall, there was a surprising dearth of insiders willing to call a spade a spade.
Most people can agree that the Rooney Rule is flawed. But to blatantly skirt the spirit of the rule like the Patriots did deserves to be called out by those in the positions to do so.
Unfortunately, the logrolling necessary to maintain access and favor as an NFL insider makes for a rather perverse incentive structure in these situations. No doubt, the current brand of NFL insiders know exactly what’s happening here, but they’re better served to carry water for the organization than to call out what’s actually going on.
As always, it’s important to consider who the sources are and what they want when it comes to insider reporting, or at the very least, think about who it’s serving.
Coverage of the Patriots’ head coaching hire shows exactly why.
