Brian Flores filed an explosive lawsuit seeking class-action status on Tuesday, alleging racist hiring practices by the NFL. His former team—the Dolphins—along with the Giants and Broncos are also named in the suit.
Flores was reportedly a finalist for the opening in New York this offseason, just weeks after his controversial firing by Miami. The team ultimately opted to hire Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll, who like Flores is a former Bill Belichick assistant.
In the lawsuit, submitted by Wigdor LLC to the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York, Flores says that Belichick accidentally let him know that the Giants had already chosen Daboll, three days before Flores was set to interview for the position.
Screenshots of a brief text conversation between Flores and Belichick are included in the suit. In the texts, it appears that Belichick either believed that he was speaking to Daboll, congratulating him on the Giants job, or thought that it was Flores that was being hired.
In either case, Flores says he found out that he would not land the Giants job days before he actually interviewed, indicating that the interview didn’t actually matter, or was, as the lawsuit refers to it, “a sham.”
“Sorry - I f----- this up. I double checked & I misread the text. I think they are naming Daboll. I'm sorry about that,” Belichick wrote to Flores according to the screenshots shared in the filing.
From the lawsuit:
“Last week, Defendant New York Football Giants, Inc. (the ‘Giants’ or ‘New York Giants‘) had an opportunity to move a step in the right direction, if even only one. The Giants had the chance to hire Mr. Flores, an eminently qualified Black man, to be the first Black Head Coach in the Giants’ nearly 100-year history.
“Instead, the New York Giants made the decision to hire Brian Daboll—and disclosed that decision to third parties—during a time when the Giants were scheduled to still interview Mr. Flores and when Mr. Flores was deceptively led to believe he actually had a chance at this job.
“Thus, on Wednesday, January 26, 2022, Mr. Flores was forced to sit through a dinner with Joe Schoen, the Giant’s new General Manager, knowing that the Giants had already selected Mr. Daboll. Much worse, on Thursday, January 27, 2022, Mr. Flores had to give an extensive interview for a job that he already knew he would not get—an interview that was held for no reason other than for the Giants to demonstrate falsely to the League Commissioner Roger Goodell and the public at large that it was in compliance with the Rooney Rule.
“The Giants would likely have gotten away with this most insidious form of discrimination if New England Patriots Coach Bill Belichick had not mistakenly disclosed it to Mr. Flores in the below text messages.”
Flores remains in the running for the Texans job. He was 24–25 in three years with the Dolphins, after 11 years in a variety of roles under Belichick with the Patriots.
