The NFL will hold its third Coach Accelerator Program next week at the annual spring meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The league announced this year’s Coach Accelerator Program participants on Wednesday afternoon. The NFL teams chose 40 attendees this year because they showed great potential for consideration as future Head Coaches. Sixteen participants will be returning from the May 2022 Coach Accelerator Program.
Here’s the full list of participants via an NFL press release on Wednesday afternoon:
The NFL has announced the coaches who will participate in the Coach Accelerator Program on May 21-23 at the Spring League Meeting in Minneapolis. #NFLpic.twitter.com/OS5MxldWH8— Patrick K. Flowers (@PatrickKFlowers) May 17, 2023
According to the NFL, the Coach Accelerator Program aims to increase exposure between owners, executives, and diverse coaching talent, providing ample opportunity to develop and build upon their relationships. In a change to the nomination process this year, clubs could nominate those outside their organization.
As The Athletic’s Mike Jones describes:
“The accelerator program is designed to connect owners and top decision-makers of the NFL’s 32 teams with candidates of diverse backgrounds for head coach, GM, and other key front-office roles. It’s part job fair, part matchmaker, and part educational tool.”
The program debuted last May and held a second installment last December. The NFL has struggled to provide minority coaches the opportunity to become head coaches. As a solution, this program aims to address the issue. However, the NFLPA estimates 70 percent of the players are Black, but head coaching opportunities are severely lacking for Black coaches. Mike Tomlin (Steelers), DeMeco Ryans (Texans), and Todd Bowles (Buccaneers) are the only Black head coaches in the NFL. As Jones wrote in his column at The Athletic, Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel is biracial, the Commanders’ Ron Rivera is Latino, and the Jets’ Robert Saleh is of Lebanese descent. However, the other 26 head coaches are White.
That’s simply not diverse enough, and the NFL knows it. The NFL’s senior vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer, Jonathan Beane, said the Accelerator Program has three objectives:
1. “We want to make sure there is a deeper understanding of the business of football. These are coaches and front-office executives and they need to know everything about the business of football to help them dominate. This is to peel back the curtain that gives them a deeper understanding of the business of football.”
2 . “Everyone there has an aspiration — to be a GM, to be a head coach, or even to be a president. … We will provide programming for you that will assist you as you’re on that path and make you more aware and make you stronger as a leader, because we’ll provide you with access to information and ways of thinking that you may not have thought of, or that you want to reinforce.”
TheXFL announced that three additional players from XFL teams have signed NFL contracts. D.C. Defenders punter Daniel Whelan (Packers), Arlington linebacker Willie Taylor (Jaguars), and tight end Alize Mack (Titans) became the latest XFL players with NFL opportunities.
According to the XFL, 58 players have either been invited to camps or have held individual workouts with NFL teams since the conclusion of the regular season. In addition, 21 players have signed NFL contracts since they were permitted to on May 15.
Las Vegas Metro police arrested former Las Vegas Raiders cornerback Damon Arnette on January 28, 2022, for carrying a concealed weapon without a permit, assault with a deadly weapon, and two drug charges. Clark County’s grand jury has since indicted him for these gun and drug charges. Although the case was dropped by the Clark County District Attorney’s Office in July 2022, Arnette was indicted last week on the assault with a deadly weapon and firearm-related charges by the grand jury, as reported by a Las Vegas CBS affiliate.
The Raiders let go of Arnette in 2020 because he displayed a firearm and made threats on social media. So, Arnette joins fellow former Raiders first-rounder Henry Ruggs III in the Nevada court system. Ruggs is facing 3-10 years for killing a woman and her god while driving drunk in Vegas.
Sorry, Matt … I think the ship has sailed.
Matt Ryan: I learned not to shut any doors, anything can happen in NFL. https://t.co/Ez0dqorRRf
Patrick grew up in Chicago's Bridgeport and Garfield Ridge neighborhoods before moving to the Western Suburbs of Chicago before eventually relocating to the Las Vegas area with his family in 2023. He started with Bleacher Nation in 2021 and has spent time as a Staff Writer and on the Chicago Blackhawks beat. He is currently a writer and editor at Bleacher Nation covering the Chicago Bears and the NFL at large and the author of the Bleacher Nation Newsletter. Patrick is a member of the Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA).
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