The Rooney Rule requires all NFL teams to interview at least one minority candidate when hiring a head coach.  The Rooney Rule has an exception, however.  When there is an assistant coach who has a pre-existing deal as part of his written contract to become the head coach at some point in the future, the Rooney Rule does not apply.

No team has yet to attempt to utilize this exception.  If/when it happens, there could be trouble.

According to the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, the chairman of the Fritz Pollard Alliance believes that such a commitment needs to appear in the assistant’s original contract, and that it can’t be added after the fact to persuade the assistant not to take a job elsewhere.

“I wouldn’t accept it with Garrett right now,” said John Wooten.  “He has been here.  If he didn’t have [the guarantee] then, he can’t put it in now.”

But NFL spokesman Greg Aiello told the Star-Telegram that the exception to the Rooney Rule does not distinguish between the assistant’s original contract or any revision thereto.

In Garrett’s case, the issue is presently irrelevant because there’s no evidence that his new contract contains a written commitment to make him the head coach.  Thus, if Garrett is still with the team when Wade Phillips leaves, the Cowboys will be required to comply with the Rooney Rule.

Of course, there’s always a chance that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones will try to apply the exception literally, altering Garrett’s written contract to include the commitment on the eve of Phillips’ departure.  Since the exception apparently has no deadline for the striking of a deal with an assistant coach, Jones likely would get away with it.

Once.

Then the rule would be changed to prevent it from happening again, just as the rule was changed to require face-to-face meetings after Jones conducted only a phone interview with Dennis Green before hiring Bill Parcells in 2003.

The irony here is that the Colts have become the first NFL team since the creation of the Rooney Rule to establish an in-house succession plan for a head coach, and that in the Colts’ case both the current coach and the next coach are minorities.

Our guess is that the exception was put in place in an effort to placate the “I’ll hire who I damn well want to hire, and if Johnnie Cochran doesn’t like it he can sue me” crowd.  But without firm guidelines as to its intended use, it invites eventual abuse, and controversy.