Brian Flores just made some serious waves across the NFL landscape.
The former Miami Dolphins head coach filed a class action lawsuit in the Southern District of New York on Tuesday against the NFL, New York Giants, Miami Dolphins, Denver Broncos and “John Doe” Teams alleging racial discrimination practices.
The 58-page suit accuses the league of being rife with racism, specifically to the hiring and retention of Black head coaches, general managers and coordinators, and likened the management of the league to being “much like a plantation” with white owners profiting off laborers of whom 70% are Black.
Flores provided several specific instances in which he feels he was unfairly treated due to being Black.
Among them include:
-Sham interview with New York Giants
Flores alleges that the Giants only interviewed him to satisfy the Rooney Rule, requiring teams to interview at least one minority coach. He provides a text message exchange from Bill Belichick in the lawsuit, in which the Patriots head coach mistakenly congratulated Flores on the Giants job thinking he was texting Brian Daboll — who the Giants would hire.
Flores received the text three days prior to when he was scheduled for the interview.
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-Sham interview with Denver Broncos in 2019
The lawsuit states that the Giants were not Flores’ only instance of being interviewed for teams to check off a box. It also alleges that in 2019, when Flores interviewed for head coach of the Denver Broncos, then-general manager john Elway and team president John Ellis and others were an hour late to the interviewer and arrived completely disheveled and that it was “obvious that they had been drinking heavily the night before.”
-Dolphins firing in 2022 and disconnect with owner Stephen Ross
The suit also accuses the Miami Dolphins brass of using the “angry black man” trope and defaming Flores as someone that was “difficult to work with” as the reasoning for his firing.
Flores alleges that in reality, owner Stephen Ross was looking for a reason to get rid of Flores after the head coach refused to participate in alleged unethical practices.
This included Ross allegedly offered Flores $100,000 for every game the team loss as part of a directive to “tank” for the first pick in the NFL Draft. When Flores refused, he was told by general manager Chris Grier that “Steve” was “mad” at Flores’ success because it was “compromising draft position.”
The suit also alleges that Ross invited Flores onto his yacht in the winter of 2020, following the 2019 season, when Flores was told that a “prominent quarterback was ‘conveniently’ arriving at the marina.” This was used as a purported “set up” for Flores to meet the quarterback, which would violate the NFL’s tampering rules.
Flores refused to take the meeting and was “ostracized” by Ross until he was ultimately fired.
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Among the relief Flores seeks in his lawsuit includes:
• Creating and funding a committee dedicated to sourcing Black investors to take majority ownership in NFL teams
• Allow Black players/coaches to participate in interviewing process
• Require teams to write rationale for hiring and terminating decisions – full explanation of the basis for any subjective influences (trust, personality, interview performance)
• Require side-by-side comparisons of objective criteria – past performance, experience, objective qualifications, etc.
• Create and fund program for lower-leve Black coaches in attempt to increase Black coordinators around the league.
• Incentivize hiring/retention of Black general managers, head coaches and coordinators through monetary, draft and/or other compensation such as salary cap space
• Complete transparency with respect to pay for all GM, head coach and coordinators
The suit also cites the NFL’s long history of racial problems, detailing how long it took to break racial barriers as well as details of the league’s current racial problems.
Those included sections on the Colin Kaepernick saga, Jon Gruden emails, how the concussion settlement discriminated Black players and the ineffectiveness of the Rooney Rule.
The NFL responded to the suit with a statement that it will defend against the claims, "which are without merit."
Flores’ firing from the Dolphins last month was viewed as a shock to many fans after posting back-to-back winning seasons in Miami, the first time the Dolphins had done so since 2003.
While some head coaching vacancies remain open, Flores has yet to been hired by an organization despite a widespread belief that he would find a job in this market.
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