Brian Flores won't be dropping his lawsuit against the NFL alleging racial discrimination in hiring even if he lands a head coaching job in the ongoing cycle, but he did alert teams it'd be coming this week.
One of those teams was the Saints, who held a dinner with Flores, along with a subsequent interviewed in Mobile, Alabama, where team officials are attending the Senior Bowl. Loomis wouldn't go into specifics about the interview itself, but confirmed it happened and that they were not blindsided by the bombshell lawsuit that came down on Feb. 1.
“He’s very impressive, and we had a great interview," Loomis said. "It went well.”
The message came via text message, and also informed the Saints he was still highly interested in leading an NFL team, according to a report from Katherine Terrell of The Athletic. Another team that was alerted was the Houston Texans, where Flores is also under consideration for a head coaching job.
Flores was one of three interviews Loomis said had already been conducted as of Wednesday. The other two interviews had been done with former Eagles head coach Doug Pederson and current Lions DC Aaron Glenn, who spent several seasons prior as the Saints defensive backs coach. The team had also requested an interview with Bucs OC Byron Leftwich, and was expected to interview in-house candidates in DC Dennis Allen and special teams coordinator Darren Rizzi.
Loomis said the team won't be rushing the hiring process, which began a bit later than others after Sean Payton's retirement last week.
Related
"You always want to do it as quickly as you can, but it’s a lot more important to get it right than it is to be quick. We’re going to take our time," he said. "We have a set of criteria and things that we’re looking for. There’s candidates and we’re going to go through the process."
Another coach the team had been hopeful to interview was former Bills OC Brian Daboll, but he was hired by the Giants, a decision that is one of the central elements in Flores' lawsuit. The filing included texts from Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, who texted Flores by mistake to congratulate him, not realizing he'd texted the wrong Brian. Flores was scheduled for an interview with the Giants later that week, in what the text exchange had make clear was simply a token interview to satisfy the requirements of the Rooney Rule, requiring teams to interview a minimum of two minority candidates from outside the organization before making a head coaching hire. The 58-page lawsuit laid out case studies dating back decades to illustrate racial bias in hiring, but none more clear than the current coaching landscape. Mike Tomlin is the lone black head coach in the NFL after the firing of Flores and the Texans' firing of David Culley with vague descriptions of issues with cooperation and "philosophical differences."
The Saints were not one of the teams named in the lawsuits examples and are one of the teams to have never employed a black head coach, though they're currently undergoing their first head coaching hire since 2006.
Related
The Saints GM couldn't point to any specific changes he'd like to see in regard to the Rooney Rule, which has been in place since 2003, but expects the league to continue to identify and analyze its methods regarding diversity in such hires.
“I think you always look at the process and evaluate and see if there might be some things you might do differently," he said. "There were some changes this year and afterwards I think the league will evaluate that, and my guess is they’ll make some more adjustments as they go along."