It’s right there, laid out for everyone to read, in the six double-spaced lines and 80 legalistic words of paragraph 166.
Whatever it is.
Wherever it goes now, too.
Brian Flores wrote a letter Dec. 4, 2019, about feeling pressure to lose games by Miami Dolphins owner Steve Ross, the former coach’s amended lawsuit alleges in that paragraph.
“In this letter, Mr. Flores detailed the toxicity that existed within the organization and explained the unreasonable position he was placed in by the team’s ownership and upper management,’’ paragraph 166 finishes.
This letter was sent to team President Tom Garfinkel, general manager Chris Grier and Senior Vice President Brandon Shore. The net, you see, has widened. The stakes are increasing. That’s why this latest legal step ups the overall ante.
It’s not just Ross alleged to be part of some game-fixing scheme thing that could bring down his NFL ownership, bring in an Congressional or FBI investigation and make Bullygate look like child’s play by comparison
Everyone running the Dolphins is involved it now. Again: Whatever it is and wherever it goes. If anywhere. That’s still front and center on the table, too.
Because while Flores’ lawyers dropped the idea of a letter, they didn’t show the letter itself. They didn’t detail what Flores wrote. They didn’t say, for instance, if a $100,000-a-loss payout was mentioned in the letter, as Flores has alleged Ross said in conversation.
We don’t know if the Dolphins front office forwarded the letter to the NFL, too. That would have been the wise and legally necessary thing to do. That wouldn’t just have covered their careers but done what the NFL bylaws say must be done if a game-fixing scheme is uncovered.
Here’s what we know from this latest filing: Flores had the presence of mind to write a letter about the “alarming demands” by Ross to lose games, as the lawsuit now states.
“If it wasn’t true what he wrote, how does he keep his job for two more years?” asks sports attorney Daniel Wallach, who practices in South Florida.
The point being Ross should have fired a coach who falsely accused him of demanding to lose games. But Wallach needs to see the letter, needs to read the words before saying Ross is in trouble.
The letter’s timestamp is three days after the Dolphins beat Philadelphia for their third win. Ryan Fitzpatrick threw for 365 yards that day — the most by a Dolphins quarterback since Ryan Tannehill in the second game of the 2016 season. That’s what it took for that awful 2019 team to win.
What the letter does, Wallach says, is show Flores’ allegation is not, “just a bare accusation. It’s also memorialized in a contemporaneous written document. Who knows if it was accurate or self-serving but in December of 2019 Flores had the awareness to detail what he saw happen in the memorandum.”
There remain issues only depositions can unravel now. Here’s one: What does Adam Gase say? Gase left the team because he, “wants to win now,’’ Ross said at the end of the 2018 season.
That quote can cover a lot of ground. Did Gase not agree with rebuilding at all? Not want to trade quarterback Ryan Tannehill? Did Ross suggest he wanted or didn’t want to tank games to Gase in a manner that would support or undermine Flores?
The mystery remains how Flores was hired without, as he has said, being asked what he thought about tanking a season. You didn’t even have to say the t-word. Ask: What would you think playing a team of all young players?
For now, the Dolphins remain on a strangely dual course. They bought big names like Tyreek Hill and Terron Armstead in a manner that revamped their offense and gave hope for the season.
Off the field, the legal winds are circulating over them and no one knows if it’s bad air or bad accusations. But for the good of all — the Dolphins, the fans, the league — this has to play out, one paragraph 166 at a time.
Everyone in the Dolphins hierarchy got Flores’ letter. That raises the stakes of what’s in the letter.
