IRVING, Texas – The NFL remains committed to its program intended to accelerate the rise of qualified minority employees in coaching and front-office management, which was emphasized during the league meetings that began Tuesday at The Las Colinas Resort.
The program, which began in 2022, puts candidates in the same room – many for the first time – with the powerful people who run pro sports’ most profitable league. Tennessee Titans general manager Ran Carthon emerged as the most successful member of the program’s inaugural class and, top league officials said, his rise provides the ideal example of the effect the program could have on hiring throughout the club level.
Carthon, who was the director of player personnel for the San Francisco 49ers when the program began, impressed Titans principal owner Amy Adams Strunk during an NFL meeting in Atlanta. The rest, as they say, is history.
At this league meeting, the NFL is focusing on the front-office portion of the program. Coaches were the focus of the previous gathering at Minneapolis in May. Each of the NFL’s 32 clubs were asked to nominate two potential participants. The nominees were then vetted by an NFL selection committee.
During the two-day event, participants are scheduled to attend sessions on subjects tailored to help them continue to grow in their current jobs, and to prepare them to be at their strongest when, hopefully, they enter the hiring pipeline for general managers ahead of hiring cycles.
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This gathering marks the league’s fourth in the program, and Rod Graves is pleased that it appears to be going strong.
An NFL lifer, Graves has worn many hats during almost 40 years in the league. Formerly a club player-personnel official, a general manager and a high-ranking executive in the league office, Graves, now the executive director of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, is the leader of the independent group that advises the league on matters of diversity, equity and inclusion in hiring.
The program is a useful tool in the NFL’s stated desire to increase the representation of people of color in key positions from the front office to the field, Graves said.
“This is a beneficial step toward improving the process of understanding who is out there, identifying talent and having an avenue for connection with those people,” Graves said between sessions at the meetings. “It really has been a huge first step for everyone throughout the league to know who each team looks at as the next generation of leaders.”
A common refrain among many NFL minority employees who have interviewed for top-tier positions in football operations is that they rarely – if ever – interact with decision-makers before the processes begin, whereas team owners often are much more familiar with their white counterparts’ professional and personal backgrounds. The imbalance, NFL officials acknowledge, is yet another impediment to the upward mobility of minority employees in a league that continues to struggle in its stated attempt to have a truly inclusive workplace.
In different positions he has held in the league throughout his long career, Graves has witnessed the problem firsthand. Although Graves is generally encouraged about the long-term potential impact of the program, he believes it could be strengthened.
“Where the league can improve is with an even more structured process of identifying and evaluating the talent coming into the league at the very beginning [with each team], so we know very early in the process the talent that exists in our world [the NFL],” Graves said. “And I’m not just talking about minorities. I’m talking about a program that’s for everyone. A program or a plan so we know who’s on track to take that next step into [front-office] leadership.”
During the past few cycles, the NFL has made gains in team president and general manager positions. In those jobs, franchises have reached milestones. The league now has five Black club presidents, including Las Vegas Raiders president Sandra Douglass Morgan, the first Black woman in that role. Eight Black men are general managers.
With the accelerator program providing a strong foundation, Graves believes more progress in management in football operations and coaching is attainable.
“I really do credit the accelerator program for helping us identify these capable candidates in leadership, which has been very important,” Graves said. “But we can be much more intentional about the process. There’s an opportunity for further development there. We have so many talented [people of color] in our league who are ready to lead. But we need to have a universal approach where this kind of program exists at all levels of leadership.
“And we need to make sure that it extends to other entities under the NFL umbrella. Not just football, what we see on the field and the teams, but in NFL media, NFL properties and all the other areas that we call the subsidiaries of the NFL. We need to have an overall plan of development and diversity, equity and inclusiveness with all of that. We still have a great opportunity to do so and do more.”
