PATRICK GRAHAM SAT at a table set for five at a Jacksonville steakhouse in January 2025. He had shown up to meet with Jaguars owner Shahid Khan and team executives after interviewing for the head coaching job earlier that day.
The then-Las Vegas Raiders defensive coordinator waited alone for about 30 minutes, his hopes for getting the job fading minute by minute. He took a selfie with the empty chairs.
Graham didn't know it yet, but the group of Jaguars executives had not shown for the dinner because, at the same time, they were discussing a contract with future head coach Liam Coen, who had reentered the interview process after withdrawing the previous day. The dinner marked Graham's second awkward moment that day -- two NFL sources told ESPN -- as he had run into Coen while he was leaving the team facility, the first sign that Coen might have had the job in hand even as Graham interviewed for it.
The pain he felt that night as he waited at the table and for weeks after wasn't because he didn't get the job -- "that's life," he said -- it was because of the way he didn't get the job. "I was hurt through the process," Graham said.
Once home, Graham collapsed to his knees crying on the floor of his garage.
"It just made me think, like, 'Damn, I haven't done enough,'" Graham, now the Pittsburgh Steelers' defensive coordinator, told ESPN. "Football is pretty high on my priority list. And it felt like the thing that I hold in the highest regard let me down and crushed me."
Graham's story spread quickly throughout the NFL, and for other Black coaches, it sounded familiar: a perceived sham interview and a coach left questioning his worth and NFL future.
Graham was the second minority candidate to interview for the job in person, meaning the Jaguars were compliant with the NFL's Rooney Rule -- designed to even the playing field for underrepresented coaching candidates -- as soon as he walked out the door.
The Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview minority candidates for several positions -- has seen successes over the past 23 years. (The NFL defines "minority" or "diverse" candidates under the Rooney Rule broadly, including Black, Latino, Asian, Indigenous and women candidates.) But significant progress remains elusive, and in some coaches' eyes, the NFL's interviewing process is so fraught with issues that they are taking themselves out of the interviewing process.