On February 1, former Dolphins head coach Brian Flores filed a class action lawsuit in the Southern District of New York, claiming that he and several other potential Black head coaches have been denied opportunities to advance in the NFL because the league’s racist hiring practices and flagrant violations of the Rooney Rule.
The examples Flores alleged were individual bombshells on their own. Taken together, they painted a picture of an NFL that is even more widely racist than some would have accused it of being before this complaint was released.
“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 in a statement. “In making the decision to file the class action complaint, I understand that I may be risking coaching the game I love, and 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.”
Now, two other Black coaches have joined Flores’ complaint — Steve Wilks and Ray Horton.
Wilks is a longtime defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach who was fired after one season (2018) as the Arizona Cardinals’ head coach. Wilks is currently the Defensive Passing Game Coordinator and secondary coach for the Carolina Panthers.
From ESPN’s Kevin Van Valkenburg:
Lawyers say that Wilks was discriminated against as a “bridge coach” who was “not given any meaningful chance to succeed. Wilks was 3-13 in one season with Arizona before being fired and replaced by Kliff Kingsbury. Lawyers wrote that while Kingsbury has been successful, “Mr. Wilks, given the same opportunity afforded to Mr. Kingsbury, surely would have succeeded as well.”
Horton was an NFL defensive backs coach and defensive coordinator for multiple teams from 1994 through 2019. He had been up for head coaching opportunities throughout his career, but that never happened for him.
One reason it never happened, Horton alleges in Flores’ amended complaint, is that the Tennessee Titans gave him a show interview in 2016, when they eventually hired Mike Mularkey.
The complaint of Ray Horton: pic.twitter.com/Htf0IbiP6v
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) April 7, 2022
“I believe you have the truth and what you need,” Mularkey told ESPN, via email. “Prefer not to comment any further.”
“Our 2016 head coach search was an open and competitive process during which we conducted in-person interviews with four candidates and followed all NFL rules,” the Titans said in a statement. “The organization was undecided on its next head coach during the process and made its final decision after consideration of all four candidates following the completion of the interviews.”
Wilks released a statement in conjunction with Flores and Horton, explaining his participation.
Statements from Brian Flores, Steve Wilks and Ray Horton as the latter two join the Flores' class-action lawsuit pic.twitter.com/LFphDx6kQB
— Jonathan Jones (@jjones9) April 7, 2022
The NFL released a statement when Flores originally filed his complaint, and the “without merit” part of that statement rubbed a lot of people the wrong way — because when you take even a casual glance at NFL history, systemic racism against players and coaches of color has indeed been systemic since the earliest days of the game.
The NFL statement: https://t.co/P1MzblHDjC pic.twitter.com/8BkG0WNhjE
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) February 1, 2022
And Roger Goodell’s claims of independent investigations into the matter were equally sketchy.
The additions of Wilks and Horton to the complaint, especially if both men have legitimate cases, makes things quite a bit more complicated on the NFL’s side. The recent addition
At the 2022 league meetings in March, the NFL decreed that all 32 teams will hire a minority offensive assistant coach for the 2022 season, part of a series of policy enhancements announced Monday to address the league’s ongoing diversity efforts.
“Efforts” is doing a lot of work there, as the NFL has never taken a forward stance on the advancement of people of color until and unless it has been forced to do so.
