PITTSBURGH — We could go any number of ways with the Brian Flores bombshell story from Tuesday afternoon, none of them reflecting kindly on the NFL.
For me, it evoked memories of the most incredible interview I have conducted in more than 30 years in sports.
Flores, recently fired as Miami Dolphins coach, filed a class-action lawsuit against the NFL, the New York Giants, the Denver Broncos and the Dolphins, claiming discrimination in the league's hiring process for coaches and executives.
The suit also alleges that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross "told Mr. Flores that he would pay him $100,000 for every loss" in 2019 and that Ross was " 'mad' that Mr. Flores' success in winning games that year was 'compromising (the team's) draft position.'"
If true, the allegation could — and should — spell the end of Ross's ownership in Miami.
You might remember 2019 as the "Tank for Tua" season and that Joe Burrow eventually eclipsed Tua Tagovailoa as the No. 1 prospect. If the Dolphins hadn't started winning late in the season (they finished 5-11), they might have landed Burrow, who appears to be a generational talent.
Like many of you, I would imagine, I couldn't help but think back to the Dolphins' ridiculous all-out blitz call against the Steelers and Mason Rudolph that season — with 20 seconds left in the first half and the Steelers facing a third-and-20 at the Dolphins 45, trailing 14-3. Diontae Johnson scored easily. Social media erupted with tank talk.
What I think of mostly, though, is the agonizing position Flores was put in, if the allegation is true. It would appear that he didn't go for the money, although it would also appear there was at least one highly questionable play call — the all-out blitz — in the Dolphins' 0-7 start.
Can you imagine being put in that position?
Lou Angotti could. Angotti was the Penguins coach in 1983-84, when the team needed to tank in order to draft Mario Lemieux. It barely accomplished the mission, finishing with 38 points, just three fewer than the New Jersey Devils.
Then-general manager Ed Johnston made several shall-we-say curious moves en route to those 38 points, and thank goodness he did if you're a Penguins fan. The franchise would be long gone if he hadn't.
Johnston has never publicly admitted to tanking, talking his way around the topic whenever it arises. Angotti was way more direct, first in a 2016 TSN documentary titled "Playing to Lose."
As an example, Angotti admitted the Penguins sent starting goalie Roberto Romano to the minors "with the idea of ... weakening our team." He also told Michael Farber, "We were coaching not to win. I will never deny that. I put my fourth-line players out against the other team's first-line players, and whenever we got a penalty, I put players on the ice that normally you wouldn't put out there to kill penalties."
I wasn't sure any coach in the history of American sports had ever uttered such a thing. I wondered how a ferocious competitor such as Angotti — the original captain of the Philadelphia Flyers — coped at the time and beyond, so I called him after the documentary aired.
I won't soon forget what Angotti told me then:
"It was tough waking up in the morning. It didn't make me feel very good. It was far more strenuous trying to figure out (how to lose) than it would be trying to play a normal game. I remember we got a penalty, and I sent out two players I wouldn't normally put out there. One player yelled to me, 'Louie, what the hell are you doing?' It was almost an ongoing thing. If the game started off badly, there wasn't much for me to do. It was the games where we were competitive and looked like we were going to win where I was in position to put us in a position to lose. The only thing you could do is manipulate your bench, use whatever you had on the bench to put yourself in a position to lose.
"I can honestly say the players who came to work every day gave all they had. That was the tough part. I was playing against them. It was me against them, them against me. They were trying to go out and win, and I was using them to lose."
It was almost as if Angotti, who passed away in September at age 83, wanted to unburden himself. He never coached in the NHL again, though he remained convinced that he did the right thing.
Flores, too, I would imagine, believes he did the right thing in trying to win. And both men have a case.
But can you imagine being put in that position?
