While they’re gaining an experienced defensive coordinator with a strong track record, they may also gain another opportunity to secure a pair of third-round draft picks if he’s hired to be another team’s head coach.
San Francisco got two third-round compensatory picks (one each in the 2021 and 2022 drafts) after Saleh was hired by the New York Jets before the 2021 season because of the expansion of the NFL’s Rooney Rule. Teams acquire two third-round compensatory picks if a minority coach or executive is hired into a head coach or primary executive role with another team.
What’s unclear in the text of Resolution JC-2A whether teams will be awarded compensation if the minority coach or executive has been in a head coach or primary executive role with another team previously.
According to the text of the resolution published by Over the Cap, it would appear San Francisco would get a pair of third-round picks if Saleh spends at least two years with the 49ers and is then hired as another team’s head coach.
Via Over the Cap:
The employer-club shall be eligible to receive this Draft choice compensation if:
The minority employee hired as a Head Coach or Primary Football Executive has been employed by the employer-club for a minimum of two full seasons; and
The minority employee is not the Head Coach or Primary Football Executive of the employer-club and is hired into the same position with the new club. There can be no break in employment between clubs.
There’s no other stipulations in the resolution denying the awarding of comp picks if the assistant has previously been a head coach. If there is a rule against double-dipping on comp picks, it’s not written into JC-2A.
The bigger issue for San Francisco may be keeping Saleh around for more than one year. He was a head coach candidate in 2025, and there’s a strong chance he’s a top candidate in 2026 if he helps the 49ers defense return to form next season.
Perhaps the NFL will alter the rule at some point, but for now it looks like the 49ers could benefit again from the 2020 expansion of the Rooney Rule.
Here’s why the #49ers wouldn’t get any draft picks if Steve Wilks is hired as a head coach this offseason:
There’s a chance the 49ers could be looking for a new defensive coordinator for the second time in two years. DC Steve Wilks has received interview requests from the Falcons and Chargers, and depending on how the postseason goes he could become a hot commodity on the coaching market.
San Francisco has done a good job developing coaches who go on to have success as coaches elsewhere, and thanks to the expanded Rooney Rule, when those coaches are minorities who become head coaches, the 49ers fetch compensatory draft picks. That would not be the case if Wilks is hired in this hiring cycle though.
One caveat of the expanded Rooney Rule, which incentivizes the development of minority coaches into head coaches and general managers after decades of failure from NFL teams in that regard, is that the coach must be with a team for two years for the club earn draft picks from their exit.
The employer-club shall be eligible to receive this Draft choice compensation if:
a. The minority employee hired as a Head Coach or Primary Football Executive has been employed by the employer-club for a minimum of two full seasons; and
b. The minority employee is not the Head Coach or Primary Football Executive of the employer-club and is hired into the same position with the new club. There can be no break in employment between clubs.
Barring some sort of disaster it seems more a matter of ‘when’ than ‘if’ Wilks is hired again as a head coach. His one-year stint in Arizona didn’t go well, but he helped guide a bad Panthers team to a 6-6 record as their interim coach to close the 2022 season.
He’s well-liked by players and he did a really nice job with the 49ers’ defense this season by making some adjustments that got them out of a rut that played an outsized role during the team’s three-game losing skid from Weeks 6-8.
There are a slew of big names and proven NFL head coaches on the market this offseason, but a strong playoff performance from the 49ers’ defense would deservedly put Wilks firmly in the mix as a head coach candidate.
The Colts did not violate the Rooney Rule as it does not pertain to an interim head coach during the season.
The Indianapolis Colts sent shockwaves throughout the NFL when they fired former head coach Frank Reich, only to announce Jeff Saturday as the interim head coach for the remainder of the season.
The move in itself is curious in the fact that Saturday has no coaching experience above a few seasons at the high school level. But there have been questions pertaining to whether the Colts violated the Rooney Rule by making such a quick hire.
According to NFL Operations, the Rooney Rule states teams are required “to interview at least two external minority candidates for open head coaching positions and at least one external minority candidate for a coordinator job.”
However, the rule does not apply to teams making a hire for the interim. They will have to follow the rule during the offseason when they make their official hire.
Regarding the Rooney Rule as it pertains to the #Colts hiring Jeff Saturday:
The rule does not apply to an interim head coach during the season. It does apply after the conclusion of the team’s season.
The club would have to fulfill the rule before hiring a full-time coach.
Regardless, the Colts will have to follow the Rooney Rule once the offseason begins even if they want to bring Saturday back as the head coach after his eight-game run.
This is the online version of our daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Subscribe to get irreverent and incisive sports stories, delivered to your mailbox every morning. Chris Korman is filling in for Andy Nesbitt.
There was a quaint time, not all that long ago, when we felt like each sport had its moment, and that extending beyond those boundaries was in some way unsavory.
Early April, for example, was baseball’s time. You could smell the peanuts roasting, the crack of the bat echoed across the land and fans of two different Chicago teams got to wonder why the heck anybody would play a sport outside in early April.
It was sacred.
But the sports world now belongs to the NFL, wholly and completely. We were reminded of that again on baseball’s Opening Day when a negative story — with astounding implications that should have shaken the professional football league to its core! — vacuumed so much of the attention.
What’s most amazing of all is that the NFL, unrelenting as ever, will soldier on. The league, willingly or not, has succumbed to our social-media driven desire for constant dopamine, unveiling a string of outlandish stories this offseason, one after the other after another like so many Tik-Toks.
On Thursday, it was two stories tied up in one: A pair of veteran coaches, Steve Wilks and Ray Horton, joined Brian Flores’ lawsuit alleging NFL owners have made a mockery of the Rooney Rule, meant to give minority coaching candidates more access to top jobs. Most shockingly, the evidence Horton provided includes an interview Mike Mularkey gave on a podcast called The Steelers Realm (Tagline: “A bias take on Pittsburgh Steeler’s news, stats, and season play”) in which he flat out admits that the Titans gave Horton a fake interview back in 2016 — after they’d already told him he would get the job.
Meanwhile the Dolphins hired Mike McDaniel, who quickly said he wanted to stick with Tua Tagovailoa (whose average intended pass last year traveled just seven yards, third-lowest in the league) at QB. So then naturally the Dolphins promptly swung a ludicrous deal for Tyreek Hill, who will outrun Tua’s comfort zone in, by my calculation, 1.2 seconds.
Of course it was Deshaun Watson, who stands accused of sexual misconduct by 22 different women who say he acted inappropriately while receiving massages. On Thursday, two of those women amended their suits to say that Watson acted negligently because — get this — he knew of his own proclivity for trying to turn massage sessions into sexual encounters and failed to stop himself. Their lawyers, a judge ruled, will be able to request a list of all women who’ve given Watson a massage since 2019. They will seek to find out how many of them turned into sexual encounters in order to establish this as a pattern.
There’s. Just. So. Much. Going. On. All. The. Time.
But that’s what we’re used to anymore. It never stops, just as we never stop trying to make sense of it. It just feels, more and more, like the second we get close to figuring it all out, another story drops. And so on we go.
Quick hits: Maybe Dr. J is the true GOAT … TIGER WOODS! … Adam Silver is very worried about players resting … The first home run of the year.
Eric Hartline/USA TODAY Sports
— Our Bryan Kalbrosky caught up with Julius Erving for an enlightening discussion on the evolution of the modern NBA star, dunking and the long-overdue changes in college sports.
— Mike Sykes brings you an update on what’s troubling the NBA commissioner: Finding a way to prevent star players from missing games due to “load management.” (Even though it hasn’t really been much of an issue this season!)
Civil Rights leaders called for the replacement of the Rooney Rule in a meeting with Commissioner Roger Goodell
Civil Rights leaders met with Commissioner Roger Goodell on Monday and called for the NFL to replace the current Rooney Rule.
“However well-intentioned, the effect of the Rooney Rule has been for team decision-makers to regard interviews with candidates of color as an extraneous step, rather than an integral part of the hiring process,” National Urban League President and CEO Marc H. Morial said in a statement, noting that the NFL currently has only one Black head coach, two fewer than when the Rule was established. “The gravity of the situation is long past the crisis point.”
The Rooney Rule is a policy established in 2003 that requires teams to interview candidates of color for head coaching and senior football operation positions.
It has led to controversy over whether teams are interviewing candidates simply to fulfill the requirement or are seriously interested in those they meet.
Rev. Al Sharpton hit on that exact point.
“The Rooney Rule has been proven to be something the owners used to deceptively appear to be seeking real diversity,” Sharpton said. “We must have firm targets and timetables.”
Sharpton said the National Action Network will be approaching states and municipalities to stop public funding and tax incentives to NFL stadiums until these firm commitments on timetables and goals are solid and public.
“NAN also has begun talking to members of Congress about Congressional hearings since public funds are being used to uphold this biased enterprise,” Sharpton said. “Lastly, we will be going to major advertisers telling them they cannot continue to use our dollars in this unacceptable economic arrangement.”
The situation percolated last week when former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of New York against the NFL and most of its member clubs — specifically, the Dolphins, New York Giants, and Denver Broncos.
Flores is claiming that he and several other potential Black head coaches have been denied opportunities to advance in the NFL due to the league’s racist hiring practices and flagrant violations of the Rooney Rule.
The NFL just confirmed what we knew all along. Brian Flores is right.
It was only a few days ago that the NFL tried to tell us that Brian Flores’ lawsuit against the league was “without merit.” Fast forward to today? It’s changed its tune quite a bit.
It turned out those texts were actually meant for Brian Daboll, the Bills’ former offensive coordinator. Flores alleged his interview was essentially a sham, and he was simply being used to check the box for the Rooney Rule, which requires NFL teams to interview, at least, two minority coaches for a head coaching spot.
The suit was filed on February 1. Almost immediately after it went public, the NFL rebutted it through a statement saying Flores’ claims were, again, “without merit” — along with a statement filled with buzz words organizations use when talking about diversity and inclusion.
On Saturday, though, the league changed its tune. Commissioner Roger Goodell sent a memo to the NFL’s clubs saying the league was retaining “outside experts” to evaluate the NFL’s DEI policies and the integrity of the game in light of Flores’ allegations.
The memo said these things would be “thoroughly and independently” reviewed.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell just sent this memo to clubs, saying the league is retaining outside experts to help reevaluate its DEI policies and matters regarding integrity of the game will be “reviewed thoroughly and independently” in light of allegations from Brian Flores. pic.twitter.com/VUK2dm0MMe
“We have made significant efforts to promote diversity and adopted numerous polices and programs which have produced positive change in many areas, however we must acknowledge that particularly with respect to head coaches the results have been unacceptable. …
“We understand the concerns expressed by Coach Flores and others this week. While the legal process moves forward, we will not wait to reasses and modify our strategies to ensure that they are consistent with our values and longstanding commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.”
That doesn’t sound like Flores’ claims were made without merit at all. If anything, this statement validates those claims and confirms there’s clearly something that isn’t working in the NFL’s hiring process.
The thing about this is it was never hard to see the NFL had an issue in hiring coaches of color in the first place. We didn’t even need Flores to tell us this. Just doing some simple math would do the trick.
Since the Rooney Rule was adopted in 2003, there have been 127 head coaching jobs to open up, per NBC News. Only 27 of those head coaching jobs have gone to minorities. In a league where nearly 70 percent of the players are Black, that’s a problem.
We had those numbers before we even began to talk about Flores’ receipts. He was fired as a head coach in Miami after a winning season. He received texts from Bill Belichick confirming that he was interviewing for a job that was already gone. Those things are facts. We can point directly to them and see the problem there.
This just goes to show how ridiculous it was for the NFL to immediately come out and aggressively bat away Flores’ claims. There had been no investigation, no discussion. Not a single look.
But, yet, somehow the league felt comfortable in immediately saying the claims were without merit. The accused parties were immediately defended without thought. Just that fact alone is indicative of a larger problem the NFL seems to have in holding its leaders accountable.
It’s also the same problem currently leading to Washington Commander owner Dan Snyder having any sort of control over the release of an internal investigation the NFL conducted into the organization’s toxic workplace culture.
Nobody is bigger than the shield. Unless, of course, you own the shield. Then you’re never wrong.
Former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores is still interested in coaching the Houston Texans despite his pending litigation against the NFL.
Former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores is a plaintiff in a class action lawsuit wherein he alleges the NFL has racist hiring practices.
Although the lawsuit seems to be going scorched Earth against the NFL and it would appear Flores has bigger goals in mind than to lead a football team, the 40-year-old expressed interest on Wednesday in coaching either the Houston Texans or the New Orleans Saints, two clubs he has interviewed with.
Flores has a connection with the Texans in general manager Nick Caserio, who worked in a variety of capacities in the scouting department and coaching staff from 2001-20 with his most recent post as the director of player personnel from 2008 until the end of his tenure. Flores was also in the organization in similar roles from 2004-18 until taking the job with the Dolphins.
Brian Flores’ lawsuit says he was interviewed “only because of the Rooney Rule, and … the Broncos never had any intention to consider him as a legitimate candidate.”
Brian Flores accused the Denver Broncos in a lawsuit of interviewing him merely to satisfy the NFL’s Rooney Rule when the team had a head coach opening in 2019.
The Rooney Rule today stipulates that NFL teams must interview two ethnic-minority candidates when hiring head coaches. At the time of Flores’ interview with the Broncos — noted to have been with then-general manager John Elway, President and Chief Executive Officer Joe Ellis and others — the rule mandated one minority candidate be interviewed. The Broncos fired Vance Joseph following the 2018 season, and interviewed five candidates to replace him: Mike Munchak, Vic Fangio, Chuck Pagano, Zac Taylor and Flores.
Flores was the only Black candidate interviewed. Fangio got the job and Munchak received a position on his staff. Pagano took a role with the Bears and Taylor became the Cincinnati Bengals’ head coach. Flores was hired by the Miami Dolphins as head coach.
Flores filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the NFL alleging racism in hiring. The lawsuit names the NFL, Giants, Dolphins and Broncos, specifically, and the other 29 teams referred to as “John Doe Teams.”
Here is his accusation against Denver in the class action complaint:
Incredibly, this was not Mr. Flores’ first sham interview that was held only in an effort to comply with the Rooney Rule. Indeed, in 2019 Mr. Flores was scheduled to interview with the Denver Broncos. However, the Broncos’ then-General Manager, John Elway, President and Chief Executive Officer Joe Ellis and others, showed up an hour late to the interview. They looked completely disheveled, and it was obvious that they had drinking heavily the night before. It was clear from the substance of the interview that Mr. Flores was interviewed only because of the Rooney Rule, and that the Broncos never had any intention to consider him as a legitimate candidate for the job. Shortly thereafter, Vic Fangio, a white man, was hired to be the Head Coach of the Broncos.
Ellis has been acting as the Broncos’ de facto owner since late owner Pat Bowlen stepped down in 2014 due to Alzheimer’s. Elway has been a member of the team’s front office since 2011. The franchise is now for sale and both Ellis and Elway have contracts that are scheduled to expire this offseason.
Flores spent three seasons in Miami before getting fired in January. Denver also fired Fangio in January and hired Nathaniel Hackett to replace him. Flores was not among the 10 candidates the Broncos interviewed to replace Fangio this offseason.
Former Lions head coach Jim Caldwell says thanks but no thanks to Raiders interview request
The latest news in Raiders head coaching search has them requesting an interview from former Lions head coach Jim Caldwell and being turned down, according to ESPN Dan Graziano.
Caldwell also turned down an offer to interview for the Vikings’ job.
This would be the third interview conducted by the Raiders for the head coaching position. The other two were with current Interim Head Coach Rich Bisaccia and Patriots LB coach Jerod Mayo.
The two seemingly most likely reasons Caldwell would turn down these requests to interview is either because he already has a job lined up, or because he didn’t feel he was a serious candidate.
The new details to the Rooney Rule states the team must interview two outside candidates from underrepresented groups. Mayo was the first, Caldwell would have been the second.
Keep in mind, the Raiders still don’t have a General Manager in place since firing Mike Mayock earlier this week. So, it’s hard to take an interview all that seriously if it’s being conducted without the next GM even in the room. Hard to blame Caldwell for turning down that offer.
New Houston Texans coach David Culley initially told the team he didn’t want to be interviewed if he was just their Rooney Rule candidate.
David Culley has been in the NFL since 1994. The 65-year-old has seen his fair share of the NFL both on and off the field.
In 2003, the NFL instituted the Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview minority candidates for coaching and top football operations posts, such as general manager.
It can be argued some teams have found a way to skirt the Rooney Rule by simply interviewing a token minority candidate.
“This was my first time in 27 years in this league having an opportunity to interview for a head coaching job,” Culley told the Huddle&Flow podcast. “Now, quite frankly, when I got into this situation and got offered the opportunity to interview for this job, I’m sitting here and the first thing that went through my mind was this: I’ve never been a coordinator, I’ve never had an interview for a job as a head coach at this level, and then all of a sudden why me?”
When Culley, who as the passing game coordinator and receivers coach for the Baltimore Ravens from 2019-20, first talked with new Texans general manager Nick Caserio, he pointed out that the rookie GM would have to justify hiring him over other candidates such as Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy.
Said Culley: “When I talked to Nick and the guys here, I says, ‘Look, if you hire me,’ this is the first thing that I said, ‘if you hire me, how do you justify hiring me when I look around all these other candidates that have been coordinators, some have been head coaches before, they’ve been interviewed multiple times in the league for jobs, sometimes two or three years and not getting jobs? How do you justify that?’ Because I did not want to be an interviewee because of the Rooney Rule. I did not want an interview to say that I’ve been interviewed for a job. I didn’t need that.”
As a prerequisite to the interview, Culley made sure that wasn’t the Texans’ intention, that he actually was being considered as the fourth full-time coach in franchise history. The discussions with the Texans revealed that it was Ravens coach John Harbaugh who advocated for Culley to be a coaching candidate.
“Basically I go back to John Harbaugh, the two years I spent with him in Baltimore being a big advocate of David Culley being a possible head coaching candidate without having any of the experience that all the other guys have, then when that happens, and I got the chance to interview for the job, man, I had no idea that I was going to be sitting in this position I am today,” said Culley.
Culley may have come into a mess with the Texans that features a club at odds with his franchise quarterback, who intends to never play another down for the team. However, Culley also embraces the opportunity to lead an NFL team based on his own merit and accomplishments.
