Ex-Dolphins’ Brian Flores Suing NFL, Giants, Other Teams for Racial Hiring Practices 

The New York Giants departed the stage from newly hired head coach Brian Daboll’s press introductory press conference Monday with their primary concerns being assimilating a successful coaching staff and reworking the horrid salary cap that will likely inhibit them in the 2022 season. 

Now, a little over 24 hours later, there’s an unexpectedly bigger problem for the organization to face as they begin the new era. A groundbreaking lawsuit coming from one of the candidates they recently passed on to command the reins. 

Ex-Dolphins head coach Brian Flores sued the NFL and three of its franchises Tuesday afternoon, alleging racial hiring practices that have discriminated against black candidates, including himself, and prevented them from attaining head coaching, coordinator, position coach and even general manager positions, according to ESPN. 

The lawsuit–seeking class-action status and implicating the Dolphins, Giants, Broncos, and unspecified individuals–described the NFL’s hiring practices as leaving the league “racially segregated and managed much like a plantation” and demanded several forms of “injunctive relief” aimed at “effectuating real change for the future”. An issue that many in the NFL community and sports world feel has gone improperly addressed for many years, Flores is now willing to risk his coaching career and future to fight for change against inequality in the league. 

“God has gifted me with a special talent to coach the game of football, but the need for change is bigger than my personal goals,” Flores said through a statement released by his chosen law firm. “In making the decision to file the class action complaint today, I understand that I may be risking coaching the game that I love and that has done so much for my family and me. My sincere hope is that by standing up against systemic racism in the NFL, others will join me to ensure that positive change is made for generations to come.”

Flores also charged the NFL for undervaluing their largely African-American player, coach, and staffing base while the prestigious group of owners–all of them white–benefited financially from the dangerous work of their labor.

“Its 32 owners — none of whom are Black — profit substantially from the labor of NFL players, 70% of whom are Black. The owners watch the games from atop NFL stadiums in their luxury boxes, while their majority-Black workforce put their bodies on the line every Sunday, taking vicious hits and suffering debilitating injuries to their bodies and their brains while the NFL and its owners reap billions of dollars.”

In a series of sweeping head coach firings on Black Monday, Flores was relinquished from his duties by the Dolphins after three seasons and a 24-25 overall record. The move was the most shocking, as Miami began the season with a glaring 1-7 record, but under Flores’ guise, flipped the script and won eight of their last nine to knock on the door of the playoffs. However, like the season before when the team finished 10-6, the postseason door closed on them at the last second and owner Stephen Ross felt that was enough to change directions. 

As it turns out, according to Flores, it wasn’t so much the missed playoff appearances that cost the former New England disciple his first head coaching job in the NFL, it was the Dolphins’ success under his tenure in general that made the owner’s move feel warranted. 

Arguably the most glaring allegation of the entire 58-page lawsuit, Flores fired right back at his former boss in Miami for what he claims was incentivization to “tank”. Shortly after he was hired as the Dolphins’ head coach back in 2019, Flores alleged that Ross attempted to pressure him into losing games in order to improve the team’s draft position. Ross tried to offer Flores $100.000 per each losing effort and even tried to force the coach into recruiting a “prominent quarterback” to Miami in a manner that was in contradiction to the NFL’s tampering policies. 

Flores said the Dolphins’ recent streak of wins that helped them finish 2021 with a 9-8 record–the second consecutive winning season under his watch–deeply maddened Ross, whom general manager Chris Grier allegedly told Flores believed the momentum was “compromising the team’s draft position”. In the aftermath of rejecting an impromptu meeting last winter on the owner’s yacht with a quarterback undisclosed in the suit, Flores said Ross treated him with disdain and held him out as “someone who was noncompliant and difficult to work with”. 

Less than a year after the attempted yacht meeting, Flores is out of the job and putting the possibility of landing another one at dire risk. 

His carousel of complaints didn’t stop with the league nor the Dolphins, Flores had significant charges laid down on the New York Giants organization as well. The 40-year-old alleged the Giants interviewed him–in what he called a “sham” meeting–for their head coaching vacancy only to cover their behinds from violating the NFL’s Rooney Rule, a policy established by the league in 2003 that requires teams to consider and interview at least one minority candidate for head coaching and senior front office personnel roles.

The Giants cut ties with head coach Joe Judge on January 10th in a necessary move for the franchise following two losing seasons, a series of embarrassing postgame interviews, and a 10-23 record that contributed to the franchise being tied for the worst record in the NFL since 2017. On January 18th, Flores had his first virtual interview with the Giants for their opening, a call which co-owner John Mara reportedly initiated out of the team’s interest in Flores’ experience. 

Five days later on January 23rd, the Giants hired Bills’ assistant general manager Joe Schoen to replace the newly retired Dave Gettleman as general manager and immediately began to dive deeper into interviewing candidates and whittling down finalists. When they arrived at their final three candidates, two of the remaining competitors were Flores and Bills’ offensive coordinator Brian Daboll. The majority of reports indicated Daboll to be the favorite given his connection to Schoen and the Giants desire to have the GM and head coach aligned, yet the Giants also made Flores believe he had a legitimate shot at the job. 

Flores even said he was booked for a second interview by Joe Schoen, scheduled to be held on January 27th, and received a message from Giants co-director of player personnel Tim McDonnell that expressed the executive’s desire to see Flores assume the role. He soon came to the realization, however, that his progression through the process was merely an apparent attempt by the Giants to throw smoke and mirrors at the NFL. 

In potentially damning evidence against the organization, Flores provided the courts a series of text messages allegedly exchanged between him and longtime mentor and Patriots’ head coach Bill Belichick hours after the second in-person interview was scheduled. The content of the messages appears to show Belichick telling Flores that he heard “from Buffalo and NYG that you’re their guy” and congratulating him on the role, one which Flores had yet to be offered by the Giants. 

Flores responded back to his former teacher of 10 years asking him if he meant to reach out to him or Daboll, and the 6-time Super Bowl-winning coach answered back by apologizing for his error and breaking the insider news that the Giants were heading towards hiring Daboll. 

“Sorry — I f—ed this up. I double checked and misread the text. I think they are naming Brian Daboll. I’m sorry about that,” Belichick texted.

If the alleged messages turn out to be true, John Mara and Steve Tisch have seen their public images–already tainted from a decades long stretch of mediocrity and zero honest accountability-–grow murkier. Regardless of whether Daboll was the correct candidate to become the head coach (and there are plenty of reasons to support his signing), the Giants have been incorporated into the most shellshocking lawsuit put down on a professional sports league in this era. It truly is one that felt destined to arrive at some point, and it’s one that pro-diversity marketing logos on stadium endzones and the Giants previous Super Bowl victories under the duo’s leadership will not push away. 

The Giants released their own statement Tuesday backing their confidence with the entire search process. 

“We interviewed an impressive and diverse group of candidates,” the team said. “The fact of the matter is, Brian Flores was in the conversation to be our head coach until the eleventh hour. Ultimately, we hired the individual we felt was most qualified to be our next head coach.”

The NFL came out with their statement denying the claims made by Flores and his law firm doubled down on their commitment to ensuring equitable opportunity is achieved throughout the league’s organizational structure. 

“The NFL and our clubs are deeply committed to ensuring equitable employment practices and continue to make progress in providing equitable opportunities throughout our organizations,” it said in a statement. “Diversity is core to everything we do, and there are few issues on which our clubs and our internal leadership team spend more time. We will defend against these claims, which are without merit.”

Presently, only one NFL franchise employs an African-American head coach while only a handful have offensive or defensive coordinators of the same ethnicity. The Rooney Rule was amended in January 2020 to require teams with head coaching openings to interview at least two minority candidates and at least one for both coordinator and high-ranking front office positions. 

Time will tell if Flores, who was tied to interest from the Saints and Texans for their coaching vacancies, will ever land on an NFL sideline again following his lawsuit and if his fight will land new amendments to the NFL’s hiring processes. 

What is certain is that in a time when the NFL has tried to wash away any semblance of wrongdoing to protect its business interests, it now has a new stain on its shield that might disappear from the public eye.