Outgoing NFL Players' Association executive director DeMaurice Smith co-authored an article with Yale Law School student Carl Lasker outlining why the NFL should abandon the current Rooney Rule and replace it with a series of guidelines that better guarantees more diversity hiring among coaching staffs and front offices.
That paper, set to be published in the Yale Law and Policy Review, noted that the NFL "should adopt a consistent, fair, transparent, and lawful system by which all NFL teams must comply with respect to hiring and retention."
Their hope for such a system is that it "fairly evaluates talent, constrains team ownership from engaging in unlawful and/or meaningless 'check the box' protocols, and enforces a deliberate, professional, and accountable system.