Florida AG pushes for NFL Rooney Rule suspension and he’s not completely off base

The NFL is heading into another offseason storyline that has nothing to do with football and everything to do with how the league actually operates behind the scenes.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier is pushing for the NFL to suspend the Rooney Rule, claiming it violates state law by requiring race-based interview practices. It’s a bold move from a state official stepping into league business, and yeah, it sounds like political theater at first. Because from his POV, it probably is, even if there is some validity to the Rooney Rule argument.

🚨JUST IN: Florida AG James Uthmeier announced that his office has sent a letter to #NFL commissioner Roger Goodell saying that the Rooney Rule is ILLEGAL.

“We are putting Commissioner on notice: the Rooney Rule violates Florida law & it must stop”

WOW. pic.twitter.com/gIfd5gTeN8

— MLFootball (@MLFootball) March 25, 2026

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If you actually look at how the NFL has handled the Rooney Rule over the years, there’s at least part of this argument that holds weight.

NFL Teams Don’t Follow the Rooney Rule the Way It Was Intended

The NFL didn’t create the Rooney Rule for no reason. The league has a long, documented history of uneven hiring practices, especially when it comes to head coaches and executives. The rule was supposed to force teams to at least consider minority candidates in a process that historically shut them out.

In theory, it’s a good rule.

In reality, it’s been gamed for years.

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Teams check the box. They bring in candidates they have zero intention of hiring. Everyone knows it. There are hiring cycles every year where it’s obvious a team already has its guy before interviews even start. The Rooney Rule interview becomes a formality, not an opportunity.

That’s the actual problem.

NFL Has a Rooney Rule Problem, Not for the Reason You Think

The issue isn’t the existence of the rule. The issue is that the NFL has allowed teams to treat it like a PR requirement instead of a real hiring mechanism.

That’s why the lawsuit from Brian Flores hit the way it did. It didn’t expose something new, it confirmed what people already suspected. The process isn’t always real.

Meanwhile, the league keeps rolling out programs and tweaks to show progress without fixing the root issue.

So when Uthmeier calls the system flawed, he’s not completely wrong. He’s just focusing on the wrong fix.

NFL Needs Enforcement, Not Elimination

Scrapping the Rooney Rule entirely would be a mistake. It exists because the NFL didn’t fix this on its own.

But keeping it as-is isn’t working either.

If the league actually wants the rule to matter, there needs to be real enforcement. Not suggestions. Not optics. Real consequences for teams that clearly go through the motions.

Because right now, the NFL has built a system where everyone pretends progress is happening while nothing actually changes behind the scenes.

And that’s how you end up here.

A Florida politician stepping in because the league hasn’t fixed its own problem.