When Ryan Poles left the Kansas City Chiefs to become the Chicago Bears’ general manager, the Chiefs collected two third-round compensatory picks. The Rooney Rule had worked exactly as designed. But four years later, Poles lost his own assistant GM Ian Cunningham to the Atlanta Falcons and got nothing back because of Matt Ryan. And now, the league has made that official.

“The matter is now closed following the club’s appeal,” Ian Rapoport shared the league’s statement on X. “The NFL informed the Bears today they will not receive compensatory picks. The policy is designed to provide picks for the Primary Football Executive position. The league determined Mr. Cunningham did not fill that role with the Falcons as it is defined in League rules.”

Under the resolution JC-2A, passed by the NFL owners in 2020, teams get two third-round picks across back-to-back drafts when a minority executive is hired away as a head coach or general manager. Ian Cunningham went to Atlanta as their GM. Chicago’s case looked clean at face value.

But before the hire was announced, Atlanta created a special position for their former quarterback (and former CBS Sports analyst) Matt Ryan: ‘President of Football.’ With this title, Ryan can lead the franchise’s front office hires and report directly to owner Arthur Blank. Ryan found Cunningham and named him the GM. But Cunningham can’t be classified as a ‘primary football executive’ because Ryan sits higher atop the Falcons leaderboard than him. And that’s why the Bears don’t get the picks.

Interestingly, Blank has already made it clear that Matt Ryan won’t affect Cunningham’s authority, throwing the league’s decision, as well as Atlanta’s hierarchy, into sharp contrast.

“Matt’s made it clear to me. He has no desire to do their jobs,” Blank had said. “The coach will pick the position coaches, coordinators, etc. The GM will style out their organization, helping draft and with free agency, etc. Matt will be involved in that. But Matt did not sign up to do their job. He signed up to get the best people.”

When asked about the compensatory picks, Ian Cunningham was also direct about what he believed the Bears deserved.

“I’m the general manager, I was hired, I would think they would get two third-round picks,” Cunningham said.

Cunningham made the case that he wouldn’t have gotten the Falcons job if the Bears hadn’t developed him in the first place. The league heard him and still said no. Meanwhile, Ryan Poles’ position is more difficult. At the Combine, he questioned whether the compensation mechanism should exist at all.

“At the end of the day, you should want to develop your staff regardless of the color of their skin,” Poles said. “I think that’s important. We take a lot of pride with the Bears on how we are set up, and I take a lot of pride in that. To be compensated for that’s a little strange. I saw the Chiefs get a pick because of me, and then I watched that player go and play.”

Poles is running two arguments at once here. One is about what the rule should be in principle, and the other is about what it owes the Bears under its current language. But the NFL didn’t engage with either. It just read Atlanta’s organization chart and closed that file. That’s the internal discord. But the external one the league is facing is quite a bit louder, and it hasn’t moved on that front either.

Roger Goodell vs. the Rooney Rule

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier sent a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in late March demanding the NFL scrap the Rooney Rule for Florida-based teams (Miami Dolphins, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Jacksonville Jaguars). He set a May 1 deadline, calling the rule a violation of state law that “requires race-based considerations in hiring.”

Goodell responded at the annual owners’ meeting in Phoenix and held his ground.

“The one thing that doesn’t change is our values,” Goodell said. “We believe that diversity has been a benefit to the National Football League. We are well aware of the laws, where the laws are changing or evolving. We think the Rooney Rule is consistent with those. We certainly will engage with Florida [Attorney General] or anybody else, as we have in the past, to talk about the policies and what they are.”

The league’s defense is straightforward. The Rooney Rule only mandates interviews, not hires. A team can conduct the required interview and still hire whoever they want. But whether this is enough to save the rule from court proceedings or not is a different question with no answer yet. Meanwhile, Art Rooney II, whose father created the rule, confirmed no formal action was taken at the meetings.

“We had a little discussion about the Rooney Rule,” he said. “There were some questions about it. There was no action taken, just a statement from the Florida Attorney General. So, probably have some conversations with the attorney general down there just to make sure he understands what exactly we do. It’s not a hiring rule. So, I think we’re comfortable with where we are.”

But comfortable isn’t the same as safe. The Bears’ case with Ian Cunningham showed the rule’s compensation trigger can be neutralized by a title like Matt Ryan’s. A Florida AG is now testing whether the interview requirement survives outside a courtroom. The league’s answer to both has been similar. The rule isn’t going anywhere, but it does keep losing ground without a fight.