DeMaurice Smith's time with the NFL Players Association may be in its final days, but he isn't quite done fighting with NFL team owners.
On Wednesday, Smith published a nearly 100-page paper he has worked on for roughly two years in which he calls the 20-year-old Rooney Rule a failure and calls for its elimination, instead offering 12 recommendations for the league to create a fair and equal hiring system.
Co-written with Carl Lasker, a Yale Law student and teaching assistant to Smith at the school, Smith offers an insider's perspective on exactly why the Rooney Rule — here called a "suggestion" — has no chance of succeeding and calls on federal, state and local governments to exercise their lawful oversight to ensure reform.