The folks that gave the NFL the Rooney Rule 17 years ago went back to the drawing board and tweaked it again this week.

If you’re counting, that’s the third incarnation of the league’s primary vehicle for boosting diversity in the managerial ranks since 2003.

But, really, for all that time and all the self-congratulatory back-patting that the owners have engaged in over the years, shouldn’t the nation’s foremost pro sports league be a lot further along?

Certainly more than just the four minority head coaches, two offensive coordinators and two general managers currently in place. That’s four fewer head coaches than there were in 2014. Progress this isn’t.

The problem isn’t the rule so much as the owners themselves. They are the very people who raise their hands to vote to pass each new version and then sit on those same hands when they have an opportunity to promote real progress by stepping outside their white male comfort zone in making their next hires.

The Rooney Rule, named for Dan Rooney, the Steelers owner and diversity committee chairman at the time, was promulgated after the 2002 season. Dennis Green of the Vikings and Tony Dungy of the Buccaneers had just been fired, leaving the NFL with one minority head coach in a league in which 70% of the players were black.

Under threat of a lawsuit, NFL owners quickly huddled and adopted the initial Rooney Rule, which required teams to interview at least one minority candidate for any head coaching job.

In 2009, the Rooney Rule was expanded to also include interviews for general manager candidates.

While that gave minority candidates valuable experience at interviewing, the process itself often smacked of a sham since it did little to actually raise the levels of inclusion for blacks, Hispanics, Polynesians and Asians, male or female.

The failure was graphically apparent over last month’s NFL Draft where, due to the COVID-19 restrictions, GMs, coaches and players were viewed from their homes.

Suddenly, instead of a bunch of people seated at rows of tables, we got to see them individually and up close. And the vivid contrast between who makes up the bulk of the head-coaching and front-office jobs and who populates the player rosters was unmistakable.

“The facts are we have a broken system,” Troy Vincent, an NFL executive vice president, acknowledged on a media call this week.

“And we are looking to implement things to change the direction of where we’re going. It’s been south — not a gradual south — but a direct south.”

So, at Tuesday’s meeting, NFL owners tacked on three new measures aimed at increasing diversity. They expanded the Rooney Rule to take in additional senior-level positions in team organizations and include more candidates. They also agreed to a resolution to prohibit clubs from prohibiting coaches under contract from interviewing with other teams for jobs that would be considered promotions. And, they expanded to league-wide a fellowship program targeting minority candidates.

They also shot down a ridiculous proposal that would have boosted draft status for teams that hired minority members. As Dungy correctly put it in an NBC interview, “I just have never been in favor of rewarding people for doing the right thing.”

Teams must also now interview at least one minority or female applicant for upper-level vacancies including team president and for senior positions. The NFL office will be required to follow the policy.

“We’re not satisfied where we are. We know we should and can do better,” commissioner Roger Goodell said.

And, it has to start at the top with ownership.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.