The Accelerator program is back. And it’s going to look a lot different.
A year ago, the NFL scrapped the device developed for the purposes of improving the diversity of hiring practices as to the most important jobs in the sport. The cancellation of the program in 2025 came at a time when the recently-installed administration was attacking DEI efforts nationwide.
The resurrected Accelerator program, per Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports, will include non-minority participants.
In comments to Jones, NFL senior V.P. and chief diversity and inclusion officer Jonathan Beane claimed that the expansion of the Accelerator program was not influenced by gale-force political winds.
“This is not us taking the direction of anyone on the outside,” Beane told Jones. “It’s not a reaction to D.C. . . . This is an evolution of how we are committing on developing our people and wanting to be more inclusive in that approach, yet also still stay true to our overriding goals of ensuring that we’re supporting underrepresented talent with their aspirations as well. Instead of either/or, we think we can achieve both.”
The change to the Accelerator program comes on the heels of a hiring cycle that included 10 head-coaching vacancies and one minority hire (Titans coach Robert Saleh). And it’s happening in the immediate wake of the league’s decision to not give the Bears a pair of third-round compensatory draft picks following the hiring of assistant G.M. Ian Cunningham to be the Falcons’ General Manager, based on a hair-splitting rationale that missed the strand. (President of football operations Matt Ryan is, per the league, the “primary football executive,” even though Ryan has said Cunningham is running both free agency and the draft.)
Then there’s the pending race discrimination lawsuit filed in 2022 by Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores, which will fully play out in open court unless the NFL gets the Supreme Court to reinstate the secret, rigged, kangaroo court of in-house arbitration.
Of course the NFL isn’t going to say it expanded the Accelerator program to stay in the good graces of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue or, perhaps more accurately, to avoid being the target of an all-caps, thank-you-for-your-attention-to-this-matter barrage of late-night social-media posts.
The administration recently approved the ESPN-NFL media merger, allowing the league to acquire a 10-percent stake in ESPN and to reclaim a four-game package that will inevitably be sold for anywhere from $500 million to $1 billion. There was extreme value in that specific exercise of governmental discretion.
Now, the NFL is trying to thread a needle by having a commitment (real or P.R.-driven) to diversity but not being too overt about it. The end result has been a word salad bar, but no main course.
Everyone says the right things, but the actions don’t match the comments.
As former NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith explained it during Super Bowl week, there’s no action because there’s no true accountability. It’s a lather-rinse-repeat formula: Talk a little. Do nothing. Suffer no consequence.
When it comes to the expansion of the Accelerator program, there’s a very different consequence the NFL is hoping to avoid.