In October 2017, reporter Jourdan Rodrigue asked Cam Newton a question about the route running of wideout Devin Funchess.

“It’s funny to hear a female talk about routes,” Newton said in response.

About four-and-a-half years later, the Philadelphia Eagles promoted Catherine Raîche to vice president of football operations, making her the highest-ranking woman in personnel in NFL history.

It’s safe to say that Raîche knows her routes.

A Montreal native, Raîche spent five years in the Canadian Football League before joining the Eagles in 2019 as their football operations/player personnel coordinator. In the CFL, Raîche served as the director of football administration for the Toronto Argonauts. In 2017, while with the Montreal Alouettes, she became the first woman to serve as an assistant general manager in the CFL after beginning as an intern with the team in 2015. At just 32 years old, Raîche is one of the youngest VP of football operations in the NFL. In her new role with the Eagles, she will be involved in pro and college scouting, contract management, player/staff development and football research.

Raîche’s hiring is significant not just because it is historic, but because it is the latest in a series of momentous female hires across the NFL. On May 17, the Denver Broncos hired Kelly Kleine as their executive director of football operations/special advisor to general manager George Paton, whom she worked for previously in Minnesota. Kleine and Raîche are now the two most senior women in team scouting in NFL history.

The Eagles also promoted Ameena Soliman to the position of pro scout. Soliman joined the Eagles in 2018 and previously served as a personnel intern before becoming the player personnel coordinator from 2019-20. Raîche and Soliman are among roughly 13 women with scouting responsibilities on NFL teams. At least seven received promotions across the NFL this month. 

The recent influx of female scouts across the NFL is not a coincidence. The changes in front offices can be partially attributed to the league’s annual "Women's Careers in Football Forum" founded by Sam Rapoport, the NFL’s senior director for diversity, equity and inclusion. This year’s forum, which took place virtually, was the fifth one to be hosted by the NFL.

Since its inception in 2017, the league has recruited 310 participants, most of whom have experience working in college football. Now, the forum invites 40 women each year to engage with all 32 NFL teams in facilitated meetings. Seven of the 13 women working in NFL team scouting are a result of the forum. According to USA Today, the group of women working in football operations has grown to about 135 in recent years.

For some, like Raîche, a promotion was long in the works. Raîche was mentioned specifically by Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie in January when he was describing a front office that he believed included several future general managers.

"We have about five people in our organization that right now I could project that will be general managers in this league, " Lurie said. "We have a real strong nucleus with Andy Weidl, Ian Cunningham, Catherine Raîche, Brandon Brown."

The advancement of women in the NFL extends beyond scouting.

Super Bowl LV between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Kansas City Chiefs featured three women serving in historic roles. Referee Sarah Thomas, the NFL’s first full-time female official, became the first woman to officiate a Super Bowl. Bucs assistant coaches Maral Javadifar and Lori Locust became the second and third women to coach in a Super Bowl and the first women to win a title. These historic achievements by women came just one year after the San Francisco 49ers’ Katie Sowers became the first woman to coach in a Super Bowl.

In total, there were eight female coaches on NFL staffs in the 2020 season. This marked the first time there had ever been more than two women coaching simultaneously in the league, according to The Institute of Diversity and Ethics in Sport, which tracks hiring across a variety of roles in five major sports.

As more women are hired in different roles across the NFL, the more normal it becomes. In 2015, Raîche was a corporate tax attorney by day and a Canadian taxation master’s student by night. She volunteered for CFL’s Montreal Alouettes on weekends. Raîche told USA Today that her main goal was always to work in football, but that she had to be strategic with her plan B.

She no longer needs that backup plan.