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Bears say Rooney Rule is working, but NFL must make it better

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

The NFL’s Rooney Rule is a worthy idea clumsily executed.

Established in 2003 and tweaked in 2021, it requires teams to interview at least two minority candidates in person before they are permitted to hire a head coach.

Back when every coaching search was a mad sprint that began the second the regular season ended, that strategy made sense. But the NFL has, in recent years, turned coaching searches into drawn-out exercises in which teams must wait two full weeks before they’re allowed to talk with employed pro coaches in person.