How the NFL is changing, with more women in prominent roles, through the eyes of those who’ve made it happen

The National Football League was once completely male-dominated, but women have been making their mark in the league at historic highs as of late. Women are holding more prominent roles and proving their gender means nothing when the work is at a high level.

One woman paving the way for others is Catherine Raîche, assistant general manager and vice president of football operations for the Cleveland Browns, who has faced her share of adversity in terms of her gender. Raîche is currently the highest-ranking female football executive in NFL history.

Raîche began her NFL career with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2019, working as a football operations coordinator before being promoted to vice president of football operations. In her first role, she recalled when people on the other end of the line would be surprised, questioning her legitimacy, when she would make calls and state her title.

“I was asked to send a picture of my business card because they didn’t believe I was a scout,” Raîche said (via the Associated Press). “That happened multiple times, and it’s not like it was 10 years ago.”

This is the reality of many women who work around the NFL: they are often not taken as seriously as their male counterparts.

The league’s senior director of diversity, equity and inclusion, Sam Rapoport, said that while there are still improvements to be made when it comes the opportunities women have in the league, the progress is there.

“We’ve only scratched the surface so far, but when you zoom out and look at the progress the NFL has seen in the last seven years compared to its first 100 years of existence, it is remarkable,” Rapoport said (via NBC).

The number of women in the NFL has increased since last year, now at 223 working full-time in coaching or football operations compared to 199 during the 2022 season. There’s also been a 141% increase since 2020. Ten women have full-season coaching positions this season, which is the most in history.

It was not long ago that a young girl watching football would not have seen anyone who looks like her in most NFL roles. This is something Rapoport took note of and wanted to change.

“There were no women in coaching,” Rapoport said at the first NFL Women’s Forum in 2017, something she helped make happen. “There were no women in scouting, and many of us looked around and said, ‘This has to change.'”

The Browns are one team with an increased female presence in higher roles. Cleveland hired a female chief of staff when it added Callie Brownson in 2020. Ahead of the 2022 season, it expanded her role to working as the assistant wide receivers coach. 

“There’s a lot of pluses about having females involved,” Browns co-owner Dee Haslam said, “but really it’s just that we hire the best people and they happen to be women.” 

Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski is supportive of welcoming more women into the league and is vocal about being inclusive. 

“We’ve tried to be very intentional about including women in all areas of our organization because this is not just a boys’ game,” Stefanski said. “This is a kids’ game and that’s boys and girls. We want all the young girls that fall in love with the game to see examples of women on our coaching staff, on our personnel staff, maybe doing P.R., whatever it is. This is not something where we are exclusionary.”