Brian Flores probably would be the first to say he's ill-fitted for the role of crusader.
He's a football coach. Football coaches holler a lot and wonder why their Os keep screwing up the intricate loveliness of their blackboard diagrams, and likewise their Xs. Sometimes they win and feel good for a minute. Sometimes they lose, and they're depressed for, like, years.
But Flores just opened a can of worms on the NFL and three of its teams, and possibly a can of whoop-ass at the same time. He's filed a racial discrimination suit against the Dolphins, Giants, Broncos and the NFL, a frontal assault on the Shield's self-congratulation about what a fine job it does with its racial diversity initiatives.
Hey, look, the league crows. We passed a rule that says you gotta interview at least one minority candidate when you're looking for a coach, even if most of the time it's a charade and you've already decided who you're going to hire! We talk and talk and talk about how important racial diversity is, which proves we're serious about it! And black head coaches do sometimes get hired in our league, ya know!
And then get fired before practically any white coach would be, which is why right now there's now only one black coach in the NFL, Mike Tomlin of the Steelers. Last hired, first fired: That's kinda the point Flores is making with his suit.
The Dolphins, after all, just gave him the heave-ho after three seasons in which he took them from the outhouse to ... well, not the penthouse, but nice joint with a view. The Dolphins went 10-6 and 9-8 in Flores' last two seasons, and were in the playoff hunt in 2021 until almost the last week of the season, thanks in part to a defense that Flores remade into a unit with some bite to it.
That combined 19-14 record is the best two-year stretch the Fish have had since they went 9-7 and 10-6 in 2002 and 2003. Which is like 19 years ago if you're keeping score at home.
Nevertheless, Flores lost his job. Last hired, first fired.
Supposedly he lost his job because he was difficult to work with, which apparently is code for "Wouldn't go along with his owner's crazy schemes." In the suit, Flores alleges that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross offered him $100,000 for every game the Dolphins lost in 2019 so the Fish could get the No. 1 pick and draft Joe Burrow.
Flores, a man of considerably more integrity than his owner, refused. The Dolphins wound up winning five games that year, and the Bengals got Burrow instead.
But, wait, there's more!
Flores also alleges the Giants scheduled an interview with him after they'd already decided to hire Bills assistant Brian Daboll, something Flores inadvertently discovered when Bill Belichick, who had mentored both Brians in New England, got confused and sent Flores a congratulatory text meant for Daboll.
The Broncos, meanwhile, called Flores in for an interview that was so obviously going through the motions to satisfy the Rooney Rule that then-Denver GM John Elway showed up an hour late and hungover, according to Flores.
If you were so inclined, you could dismiss all of the above as mere pettiness from a man who's just butt-hurt because he got fired. The league, and the three teams named in the suit, implied as much with their responses, which used words like "baseless" and "without merit" to describe Flores' claims, after which they dished the usual pablum about being committed to diversity and we-did-so-seriously-consider-him, and ... well, blah-blah-blah.
Of course, the suit also points out that, according to its data, black head coaches are 3.5 times more likely to be fired than white ones -- and when they're fired, they rarely get the second, third or fourth chances white coaches get. According to the NFL's own numbers, the suit contends, 116 white former head coaches or coordinators have been re-hired since 1963; in the same time frame, only 21 former black head coaches have.
This number is skewed, of course, by the fact there were no black head coaches in the modern NFL until the Raiders hired Art Shell in 1989. But still.
As for Flores ... well, if he's just doing this because he's butt-hurt, he's potentially blowing up his career for nothing. Which doesn't seem likely.
"... the need for change is bigger than my personal goals," Flores said in a statement put out by his attorneys. "In make the decision to file the class action complaint ... I understand that I may be risking coaching the game I love and that has done so much for my family and me. My sincere hope is that by standing up against the systemic racism in the NFL, others will join me to ensure that positive change is made for generations to come."
Gee. That sounds pretty crusade-ery for a football coach.
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