What NFL's rebooted Accelerator Program means for rising coaches and execs as it expands outside minority pool
White men will be included in the seventh iteration of the program, which took a year off
The NFL's Front Office and Coaching Accelerator Program is set to return in May after taking a 12-month hiatus, just as the league promised a year ago. And there will be big changes.
CBS Sports has learned the NFL will amend the two-day program, which has been aimed at identifying and advancing minority talent across the league, to include non-minority participants when the program restarts.
The league has spent the past year looking to reimagine a program that can claim just one head coach and two general managers since its inception in 2022. The NFL's new-look Accelerator Program will begin on May 18, including white male participants while shrinking the total participant pool.
The program will now combine coach and GM candidates. NFL senior vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer Jonathan Beane expects about 40 total candidates with "really strong diverse representation," he told CBS Sports on Wednesday. The focus will no longer be on candidates who are within five years of getting top jobs but instead on those the league views as being ready this upcoming cycle.
"The Accelerator still has the overriding goal of supporting the advancement of underrepresented football talent," Beane said. "We believe, though, and if you look at all of our programs, we have a framework of broadening access across the board where we're allowing availability for people of all demographics to participate in our programs. So, this is not something that just relates to the Accelerator, but this is a philosophy and a way of operating and an evolution for us as a league.
"There was a lot of discussion, got a lot of feedback. And when I spoke to GMs, head coaches, owners, participants, past participants, and I think there was an abundance of support for having a program that's inclusive of all talent."
The NFL is coming off another hiring cycle with poor results for diverse candidates. At his Super Bowl press conference, commissioner Roger Goodell said the league needs to ask, "Why did we have the results this year?"
While the NFL had 10 head-coaching vacancies this past cycle, Robert Saleh (Titans) was the only non-white coach to land a job, becoming the fifth non-white head coach currently in the league. Aaron Glenn (Jets), Todd Bowles (Buccaneers) and DeMeco Ryans (Texans) are the only Black head coaches.
There are four minority general managers in the league today: Brad Holmes (Lions), Ryan Poles (Bears), Omar Khan (Steelers) and Ian Cunningham (Falcons). All three GMs who were fired this past cycle are Black.
It was a difficult year for the NFL in terms of diversity at its top club ranks, but Goodell said he did not view the absence of the Accelerator Program as being related to those poor results.
"The Accelerator Program, first, as I mentioned before, we reevaluate every program. We evaluate every process, policy," Goodell said. "That's from every time we implement something, and every year, frankly, to make sure: What do we do to improve it, and how does it help us address the challenges in front of us?
"So, do I think that had any impact on this hiring schedule? No, but I think, long term, it's something that we want to continue and figure out: How do we use that to make sure that people understand that the level of talent that's out there -- the extraordinary talent that's out there -- and how to give them the opportunities to continue their careers?
"And that goes for all the talent across the entire NFL, and people that are not in the NFL. I think that's what makes us great, is our people -- whether it's on the field or whether it's off the field -- and that's something why we're -- to us and to me -- committed to diversity."
'It's not a reaction to D.C.'
Goodell has repeatedly said the NFL values diversity, even as diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives are being rolled back across the country.
Last year, the Trump administration stated its goal was to eliminate all DEI practices from the government. A 2025 order from the President required department heads, among other actions, to "terminate, to the maximum extent allowed by law, all DEI, DEIA, and 'environmental justice' offices and positions (including but not limited to 'Chief Diversity Officer' positions); all 'equity action plans,' 'equity' actions, initiatives, or programs, 'equity-related' grants or contracts; and all DEI or DEIA performance requirements for employees, contractors, or grantees."
Beane said the addition of white male participants to the Accelerator Program has nothing to do with the Trump administration's efforts to dismantle DEI programs.
"This is not us taking the direction of anyone on the outside," Beane said.
"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."
Moving forward, the Accelerator will have about 40 participants total with the hope that it will be split evenly between head coach and GM candidates. In addition to the two-day programming, there will be continued learning opportunities throughout the year, including each candidate being assigned a mentor and receiving personalized executive coaching.
Beane and the NFL know this program change will not be met with unanimous applause.
"I don't think that we're going to have 100% agreement on the approach," Beane said, "but … I've spoken to a lot of the participants and just asking them ideally, as this moves forward, 'What do you think would be the right approach?' And we got a ton of support for us having a broader approach.
"So, what I believe is I think that there's going to be a lot of people, a majority of the people, that will be supportive. But then there'll be other people that, um, may have wished that we had stayed with our original approach with the Accelerator."
NFL programs -- like the annual Stanford executive leadership forum and the scouting combine accelerator -- have had blended participation for years, but the Accelerator had long been exclusive to minorities. Other league initiatives aimed at advancing and improving minority involvement have remained. For nearly a quarter-century, the league has used the Rooney Rule, an instrument adopted by companies and industries across the nation, even as its usefulness may have reached its capacity.
The NFL even rewards teams that cultivate and develop minority talent who wind up leaving for a head coach or primary football executive job with two third-round draft picks, though that practice has come under scrutiny when an ostensible technicality led to the Chicago Bears not receiving picks for Cunningham taking the Falcons GM job this year.
The league also remains embroiled in a racial discrimination lawsuit brought by current Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores. Some of the proceedings from that lawsuit are headed to open court rather than private arbitration.
The nation's largest sports league continues to grapple with race, and this program change will not come without controversy.
How effective are these Accelerator Programs?
The six years of the Accelerator Programs boast a combined track record of 79 coaches and personnel members who have secured or been promoted to elevated roles; however, it does not account for participants who were identified as risers yet got demoted or fired. In the end, three of the hundreds of participants have gotten top jobs:
- Ran Carthon was first, landing the Tennessee Titans GM role in 2023, but he was fired after two seasons.
- Glenn is the only head coach to emerge from the program. He joined the team that drafted him two decades earlier and now enters the 2026 season on perhaps the hottest seat in the NFL despite having only one season under his belt with the Jets.
- Cunningham, a past participant, got the Falcons GM job the year the Accelerator Program was not running.
After two years of the NFL having zero Black offensive coordinators, Eric Bieniemy (Chiefs), Mike McDaniel (Chargers) and Nathan Scheelhaase (Rams) now hold those roles; McDaniel was a head coach last season.
One path the league identified as a method of driving improvement was to get more Black coaches in quarterbacks coach positions. That has presented the most expedient path to a head-coaching position with team owners looking for the next great offensive mind.
While gains were briefly made, the league now has just five minority quarterbacks coaches: New England's Ashton Grant, Baltimore's Israel Woolfork, Miami's Bush Hamdan, Chicago's J.T. Barrett and Washington's D.J. Williams.
More concerning: If the path to a head coaching job is thought to be through QB coach before offensive coordinator, that would be news to Black QB coaches who mentored NFL MVPs like Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen.
Tee Martin, a national championship-winning QB at Tennessee, has been coaching for the past two decades since his playing career ended. He served as the Ravens' QB coach the past three seasons, including in 2023 when Jackson won his second MVP. Today, Martin does not have a job in the NFL.
Ronald Curry, a legendary Virginia high school player who played QB before switching to receiver in the NFL, started coaching in 2010. He was Buffalo's QB coach for two seasons, including 2024 when Allen won his NFL MVP over Jackson (still coached by Martin). Curry was not retained by Bills head coach Joe Brady, taking a job as wide receivers coach in Denver.
Martin and Curry were supposed to be on the path to upward career mobility as laid out by the league. Instead of moving into offensive coordinator or head coach roles, neither is even in an NFL QB room today.
It reminds of a quote by the great John Thompson when the legendary Georgetown coach spoke at a race town hall in 1998: "All we want is an opportunity to get out there and to try and a right to fail also. ... I'm sick of us having to be perfect to get the job."
'Meritocracy' or messaging
When first reporting last year that the program was taking a break, it was clear the timing stinks. Amazingly, this timing stinks even worse.
It's coming off a terrible cycle for coaches and GMs as the country continues to roll back diversity initiatives, and it is being dropped right in the middle of NFL free agency, when the sports media's attention is on the millions of dollars going to new faces in new places and not on the intricacies of a program once meant solely for minorities.
Not only that, the news comes as the league announced its plans to take over Thanksgiving Eve by playing a game for the first time. What's more, this is being delivered almost simultaneously with the league informing teams that Giants co-owner Steve Tisch wishes to transfer his stake in the team to his children's trust just over a month after Tisch appeared in the Epstein files document dump.
As mentioned last year, the program has been a failure for the league on a binary scale. Yes, there have been some successes, and those cannot be ignored. But the purpose went beyond just getting deserving candidates in front of decision makers. If, in 2022, you asked the NFL how many coaches and GMs would result from the program after six iterations, a measly three would not have been the assumed number.
However, in the past few years, I have spoken privately with league office executives, head coaches, assistant coaches, GMs and aspiring GMs. It would be fraudulent not to share what I truly felt and expressed to them.
The Accelerator Program was bloated. The five-year time horizon was too distant. The curriculum and conversations were not advanced enough for those on the doorstep of the top job. Team owners could be overwhelmed by speed dating dozens of people who don't look like them in 90 minutes.
On one hand, the idea of cutting this program down to the most deserving candidates -- irrespective of race -- is appealing. They can be in 501-level curriculum to best situate them for the long term, informing the team owners who is really next up without being bombarded by candidates.
On the other hand, this is what a smart executive, who is Black, said to me recently: "My problem with meritocracy argument is, the program is unnecessary if we have a meritocracy. We don't."
The NFL is an institution both literally and figuratively. In our three dimensions, it has a league office in Manhattan and 32 clubs spread across the country. League executives are housed at 345 Park Ave., where a diverse staff works long hours for less pay than people outside sports would expect, as the various clubs operate independently of one another when it comes to salary cap practices, stadium concession pricing, roster building and sports science.
Figuratively, the NFL is an institution where unwritten rules like "don't talk about someone else's money" are understood. It is universally believed to be a meritocracy, but those with hiring power are permitted to employ family members regularly. No one is going to tell scouts to all wear lightweight tech pants to pro days these next several weeks, yet nearly all of them will.
It is the figurative institution that has largely ignored diversity efforts at the highest ranks. It says we've done our part when the part hasn't been done. We hire the best people for the job, and so many of those people look like the ownership population rather than the players.
And any two-day program in May is unlikely to change that.
