Three months ago, the NFL world was rocked when the Miami Dolphins fired Brian Flores. In the coming weeks, Flores took it upon himself to file a lawsuit against the NFL as he claimed they are racially discriminating against African American and Minority coaching candidates.
While it is hard to argue with his point when you look at the number of Minority coaches in the NFL, without concrete evidence you can only consider it hearsay at this point. Flores went a bit further to not only sue the NFL but to sue the New York Giants for how they handled him during the hiring process. He then went on to sue the Miami Dolphins as he claimed owner Stephen Ross wanted to give him a 100K bonus for each game he lost.
As we still await concrete evidence on all these claims, you have to believe that Flores has a legitimate case. If he didn’t have a case, I find it difficult to believe he would risk coaching in the NFL again. As the lawsuit dragged on, Flores found it harder and harder to find a job, let alone interview for a head coaching position.
That was until Art Rooney and Mike Tomlin made it a point to hire him as an LB coach on their staff. If the name Rooney sounds familiar, that would be because the NFL has a ROONEY rule put in place to help minority coaches and the Steelers owner had that rule named after him. Although an LB coach is not the job Flores wanted, it keeps him in the NFL as he could potentially land a future head coaching gig.
My next question would be, what happens if Flores is right and he does indeed win this lawsuit? How will that affect his future as a coach and the way the NFL goes about the hiring process? For him to win, you would have to think other coaches would need to come forward. As of Thursday at 12 PM ET two more coaches have joined in the Flores lawsuit with former Arizona Head Coach Steve Wilks and DC Ray Horton joining the mix.
Both Horton and Wilks are well-respected coaches in this league, but only Wilks has had a head coaching gig. It didn’t go well in his first go-around, but that didn’t mean he shouldn’t get another shot. The same thing can be said for Horton. He is a great DC and deserves a head coaching gig. However, he has yet to have an interview for an open position which is a huge problem.
There is a lot more to unpack from this story as more information gets released, but seeing that more coaches are joining in leads me to believe this is far from over. The more coaches that join, the more the NFL will be exposed to the crooked side of the business they often perform. This has been a long time coming and finally, it looks like coaches are willing to risk it all to speak out about racial equality and fairness in the workforce.
