The NFL’s intransigence regarding the Bears’ plea for compensatory draft picks following the hiring of Ian Cunningham as the Falcons’ General Manager raises an interesting question.
Could another team hire Cunningham away from the Falcons as its primary football executive?
It’s a fair question. If Cunningham didn’t get a job with the Falcons that triggers the provision in the Rooney Rule that rewards a team for developing a minority candidate who becomes a General Manager with another team, he’s not really a General Manager. Another team could, in theory, hire him as a General Manager — if that G.M. job makes him the primary football executive.
That’s how the league distinguished the Saints getting a pair of third-round picks when assistant G.M. Terry Fontenot became the Falcons’ G.M. in 2021. Although Rich McKay was the Falcons’ president and CEO at the time, Fontenot became the primary football executive. This time around, Matt Ryan (the president of football) is viewed as the primary football executive.
For now, it’s a hypothetical. As soon as next month, it could become something tangible.
The Vikings will be looking for a new General Manager. If the job, as defined by the Vikings, makes the new G.M. the primary football executive, they could hire Cunningham.
It doesn’t even have to go that far to become a potential mess for the league. The Vikings could, in theory, put in a request to interview Cunningham. And the Falcons, under the league’s Rooney Rule reasoning, wouldn’t be able to say no.
We’ve asked the league for clarification of this point. But it’s hard to imagine that Cunningham wouldn’t be eligible to be interviewed or hired by the Vikings or any other team that would make him the primary football executive.
If Cunningham can’t be hired by another team as its primary football executive, the league would have created a bizarre dead zone for NFL front-office positions. It would make the job Cunningham has big enough to prevent upward mobility elsewhere, but not big enough to trigger the compensatory draft-pick provision.
Eventually, it could become an issue for the league to confront. If the Vikings don’t try to interview him next month, the question will become ripe for consideration the moment a team that is looking for a primary football executive submits a slip to the league office seeking permission from the Falcons to interview their G.M. who, per the league, isn’t really the G.M.
