Super Bowl 2023: Roger Goodell says there's 'more work ahead of us' on NFL's diversity efforts

As is customary, Roger Goodell’s annual state-of-the-league news conference Wednesday featured questions about diversity among NFL head coaches and front offices.

Much like last year, the NFL commissioner said there is more to be done.

"It's never enough," Goodell said Wednesday. "I still feel like there’s better work and more work ahead of us."

He noted that the Coach and Front Office Accelerator program introduced last year helped former NFL player and now Tennessee Titans general manager Ran Carthon, who made vital connections through the initiative.

During last year's news conference, former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores’ racial discrimination lawsuit took center stage.

"We have to do a better job," Goodell said last February when asked about the league's history in hiring people of color. "I think we have made a tremendous amount of progress in a lot of areas but not at head coach."

That wasn’t his first time fielding the question. In 2021, he opened the news conference by addressing a question related to diversity.

According to the league’s most recent diversity report, released two weeks after Goodell’s 2022 comments, there were 47 open head coach, general manager and coordinator positions between the previous two Super Bowls. Fifteen available jobs (32%) went to people of color, a drop from the 2021 report of 37%. In 2020, only 19% of open positions went to non-white candidates.

Goodell's comments indicate that he believes the league's diversity efforts need to be better, but his actions have left him open to criticism. His ruling that the Las Vegas Raiders did not violate the Rooney Rule in 2018 is still referenced as a turning point for the efficacy of the rule, which requires teams to interview minority candidates for all head-coach openings.

Currently there are three Black head coaches in the NFL — Pittsburgh's Mike Tomlin, Houston's DeMeco Ryan and Tampa Bay's Todd Bowles; Miami's Mike McDaniel says he identifies as "biracial" — the same amount as when the Rooney Rule was instituted in 2003.

Goodell was not able to provide answers Wednesday as to why that is. Reporters in attendance made observations to that effect, noting that the league’s need for diversity also applies to media coverage of the sport.

“Goodell just held a 45-minute press conference in which he repeatedly congratulated the NFL on its diversity initiatives. He took zero questions from women. The room was about 25% women,” Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Marcus Hayes wrote on Twitter.

During the conference, NFL media reporter Jim Trotter asked Goodell a detailed question related to the lack of Black employees in the NFL Network newsroom and senior management. The question was a follow-up from last year and led to Goodell essentially refuting the lack of diversity there.

Goodell did say that he would “get back to [Trotter] on that,” adding that it was something the league will “continue to look at and hopefully make real progress” — a statement he might be reminded of next year.