“I don’t think adding an official is an answer to all of the issues, and particularly this issue,” Goodell said.
Goodell’s 40-minute question-and-answer session was dominated by the play in New Orleans, but Goodell also was asked about a number of other hot-button topics, including Colin Kaepernick; the effectiveness of the league’s Rooney Rule in diversifying coaching staffs; President Trump; the messy inheritance fight over the Denver Broncos; and league investigations of the players Kareem Hunt and Reuben Foster.
The most pointed question invoked Atlanta’s past as a hub of the civil rights movement, and how history will judge Kaepernick’s continued absence from the league. Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, has filed a grievance accusing owners of colluding to keep him out of the N.F.L. because of his social activism.
Goodell said the league office had no role in the personnel decisions of individual teams. “Our clubs are the ones that make decisions on players that they want to have on their roster,” he said, adding, “That is something we as the N.F.L. take pride in.”
He also was asked if the league’s Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview at least one minority candidate for head coach openings, was still effective. The rule was strengthened in December, but the number of minority coaches in the league has dropped precipitously after four black head coaches were fired after the season.
Goodell said the league did not view the success or failure of the Rooney Rule, which was adopted in 2003, in one-year increments. He said the league was talking with coaches about how to provide greater opportunities to minority coaches, and announced that a quarterback summit would be held in June at Morehouse College, a historically black college in Atlanta, to train new coaches.
The commissioner refused to take the bait when asked about President Trump, who said two years ago that the N.F.L. should allow more and harder hits. Goodell noted the irony of his being asked about officials throwing too many flags at a news conference dominated by criticism of a game in which a flag was not thrown, before saying simply that the N.F.L. strives for games to be officiated at the “highest level.”
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