The rule of naw

And so the About-To-Ditch-Oakland Raiders are about to do what everyone not living on the outer rings of Saturn already knows.

They're going to hire Jon Gruden as their head coach.

What that means is no longer will we have to listen to his name popping up in connection with every coaching vacancy from the Raiders down to Millard Fillmore East Junior High in Fugeddaboutit, N.J. He's got another gig, nine years after his last gig. Whether or not he's been away too long (even for Gruden, who's apparently the greatest coach who ever lived judging from how often his name comes up) remains to be seen.

The Raiders aren't waiting to see. They're reportedly handing him the keys to the franchise for the next decade, which is a light year in NFL time. And they planned on doing it from the jump, becoming the latest franchise to openly flout the league's Rooney Rule.

For those not familiar, the Rooney Rule stipulates any team with a head coaching vacancy must interview at least one minority candidate. This was the NFL's way of spackling over the embarrassing fact there were darn few individuals of color in its coaching and front office ranks. Forcing teams to at least listen to a few minority pitches, the reasoning went, would get them heard, and perhaps eventually compel teams to venture outside the same well-trodden paths when it came time to hire a coach.

The problem is, the NFL forgot to install teeth in the rule. Or rather, it installed teeth, but it almost never uses them -- even in cases, like the Raiders, where flaunting the Rooney Rule has been especially egregious. This half-hearted enforcement of its own edict means teams now regularly make a joke of the rule, and  has effectively added insult to injury.

After all, what says "we don't care about this problem" more loudly than having a rule about it no one -- even the rulemaker -- takes seriously?

At any rate, here are the Raiders, the latest offenders. They were already well down the road with Gruden when they reportedly brought in their tight ends coach, Bobby Johnson, and one other minority candidate. That enabled them to comply with the letter of the Rooney Rule, while trampling all over it in spirit.

I'm trying to imagine what it must have been like for the two minority candidates, sitting there interviewing for a job both knew had already been filled. I'm trying to imagine how demeaning it must have been to both men, and how not being interviewed at all could possibly have been more demeaning.

I'm a 62-year-old white guy, so what do I know. But I think I'd have felt less disrespected if a team didn't even bother interviewing me than if it brought me in just to satisfy some arbitrary "rule." The gross condescension implicit in the latter would be far more hard to take.

Again, what do I know. What I do know is this: Included in all the reports of the Raiders signing Gruden are variations of one telling line.

Which is that the NFL has determined the Raiders satisfied the requirements of the Rooney Rule.

Really? And what would those requirements be, at this point?