MIAMI — Two months after filing the lawsuit that quaked the NFL, former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores has already won.
He might never actually “win” the suit alleging systemic racism in the league’s hiring practices. Ironically, the claim might be seen as weakening with every subsequent minority hire — including his own by the Pittsburgh Steelers as senior defensive assistant and linebackers coach.
But there is an echo of the suit, a victory in it with every such hire even if Flores never gets his day in court and the clear-cut verdict he wishes.
Flores’ biggest win was simply taking sports’ most important stand for racial equality since Colin Kaepernick knelt. For shining a spotlight, with all of its heat.
Of course the explosive subtext of his lawsuit were the damning allegations against Dolphins owner Stephen Ross currently under NFL investigation. One of them is lying. Both are doubling down. The outcome hovers big and malignant over an upcoming otherwise-promising Dolphins season.
The impact of what Flores dared do two months ago, symbolically on the first day of Black History Month, is worth exploring on both fronts.
The coach, fired by Miami despite an 8-1 finish to last season and the club’s first consecutive winning years since 2002-03, called to task America’s favorite sport over its historic paucity, especially of Black head coaches. There are presently three among the 32 teams: Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin, who just lifted Flores from what some feared might be blackball-purgatory such as Kaepernick suffered; Lovie Smith, newly hired by Houston; and Todd Bowles, just promoted by the Bucs — the latter two seeming ripples from Flores’ cannonball suit.
There are only three other head coaches of color, and only two teams that are led by minority owners.
Flores’ legal action against the NFL singled out the Dolphins over his firing and also the New York Giants and Denver Broncos for alleged “sham” interviews of him to satisfy the league’s largely toothless Rooney Rule, designed to include minority candidates in teams’ head coach hiring process.
That Miami has a Black general manager, Chris Grier, is another reason winning the suit per se might be difficult. Another is that the man who replaced Flores, Mike McDaniel, has a Black father and identifies as multiracial. Interestingly, Miami was the only team to interview McDaniel. To note that Ross’ team hiring a multiracial coach helped his defense against the lawsuit might be cynical. It might also be accurate.
In any case American jurisprudence works slow. Takes its time. It is a labyrinth of delays.
We see it big and nationally as the House Select Committee investigates the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol 15 months ago.
We see it small and locally as the Miami City Commission delays — yet again — a vote on Inter Miami’s Freedom Park stadium proposal.
We see it in a thousand courtrooms in between.
You can’t hurry love, or the pursuit of justice.
Meantime. Flores already has won because, for example, after Commissioner Roger Goodell first called Flores’ suit “without merit,” he immediately realized how absurd that dismissal sounded, pivoted, and admitted the obvious — that the NFL’s record in diversifying coaching staffs was “unacceptable.”
Tomlin at the NFL owners meetings in Palm Beach this week said, “I don’t have a level of confidence that would lead me to believe that things are going to be better.”
The pessimism is understandable, but the impact from Flores’ suit has been undeniable.
As a direct result of the suit, all 32 teams beginning this coming season must have at least one person who is “female or a member of an ethnic or racial minority,” on their offensive staff. That is because it is a pipeline to becoming offensive coordinator, the position teams most look to in head-coach searches.
As another direct result of the suit, the NFL has retained outside experts to independently evaluate and review the NFL’s Diversity, Equality and Inclusion policy. In a private league memo about that reported by The Athletic, Goodell wrote, “We understand the concerns expressed by Coach Flores.”
Small steps, yes. But steps forward nonetheless.
More important to Miami is the part of the suit in which Flores targets Ross directly, claiming the owner bribed him with a $100,000 bonus offer for games lost in 2019 in a subverted effort to secure the overall No. 1 draft pick. Flores says he rebuffed that offer, as well as Ross’ invitation to be involved in tampering in the pursuit of an unnamed “prominent quarterback” later reported to have been Tom Brady.
This drove the wedge between owner and coach, one so deep it might explain why a popular coach with consecutive winning season might be fired. When it happened Flores said he turned down “millions” by refusing to sign a non-disclosure agreement upon his termination, an agreement he said would have “silenced me.”
Ross vehemently denies Flores’ allegations, calling them “false, malicious and defamatory.”
Flores doubles down, saying his legal team has “corroboration” of his claims.
Somebody is flatly lying.
If it is Flores, he could face a defamation lawsuit.
If it is Ross, he could be forced out in shame as Dolphins owner.
Ross wants his case heard in open court. The NFL, and Ross, prefer to go to closed arbitration. The idea of a kept-quiet settlement seems unlikely.
How all of this plays out is anybody’s guess. Either way, it is likely to be a dark shadow over the coming season — one otherwise pumped with optimism.
Off two winning years in a row, Miami just finished a big offseason led by the blockbuster trade for All-Pro receiver Tyreek Hll. Tua Tagovailoa enters Year 3 with big weapons and no excuses. McDaniel enjoys his honeymoon as new coach, getting to be the potential Next Big Thing.
The team should be exciting. But what’s happening off the field may be just as riveting.
That is because one man’s lawsuit has called out the NFL for systemic racism and called out the Miami Dolphins’ owner as corrupt.
The outcome — the truth, no matter where it lands — figures to be the legacy of Brian Flores’ football life.
