A clip from Mike Mularkey’s appearance on the Steelers Realm podcast in 2020 resurfaced on social media Thursday following news that former Titans defensive coordinator Ray Horton would be joining Brian Flores’ class-action lawsuit against the NFL, alleging racial discrimination and unfair hiring practices.
In a stunning admission, Mularkey, who was hired as Titans head coach in 2016 (a position he would hold for two seasons), said he was offered the job before Tennessee completed its interview process, in flagrant disregard of the league’s Rooney Rule requiring teams to meet with at least two minority candidates. One of the coaches interviewed was Horton, who maintains the team never had any intention of hiring him, using him to check a box in fulfilling the Rooney Rule’s minimum requirements.
“I allowed myself at one point in Tennessee to get caught up in something that I still regret. The ownership there, Amy Adams Strunk and her family, came in and told me I was going to be the head coach in 2016 before going through the Rooney Rule,” said Mularkey, a former NFL tight end for the Vikings and Steelers, on an episode from September 22, 2020. “So I sat there knowing I was the head coach as they went through this fake hiring process, knowing a lot of the coaches that they were interviewing, knowing how much they prepared to go through those interviews, everything they could do and they had no chance of getting that job.”
Flores made a similar assertion in a lawsuit filed earlier this year, sharing a damning text exchange between himself and Patriots coach Bill Belichick. Mistakenly believing he was messaging Brian Daboll, Belichick congratulated Flores on being hired by the New York Giants. Flores wasn’t scheduled to interview for the Giants’ head-coaching job until later that week.
Former Cardinals coach Steve Wilks has also added his name to Flores’ lawsuit, asserting he was hired as a “bridge coach” in 2018, losing his job after one season while GM Steve Keim, who had just been arrested for DUI, was given a contract extension. Wilks was ultimately replaced by Kliff Kingsbury, a white candidate with no prior NFL coaching experience.
Flores, who was recently hired as a senior defensive assistant for the Steelers (led by the league’s longest-tenured minority coach, Mike Tomlin), sent the NFL into a frenzy with some of his explosive claims, alleging he was brought in for a “sham” interview with the Broncos in 2019 with top executives Joe Ellis and John Elway arriving late and visibly hungover. Flores also accused Dolphins owner Stephen Ross of attempting to bribe him, offering a $100,000 reward for each loss in a deliberate tanking effort. Flores believes his refusal to follow that plan was ultimately what got him fired, sabotaging his future job prospects by portraying him in the media as difficult and uncooperative.
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