Brian Flores is about to Burn It All Down!
How the Former Miami Dolphins Coach Strives To Bring Real Change To NFL Hiring Practices
“Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away, and that in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.”
~Martin Luther King, Jr.
Black coaches have been getting the short end of the stick year in and year out in regards to job vacancies in the NFL. The narrative always seems to be that they were not qualified enough, or did not interview well. For some reason, this sounds eerily similar to the job market in the real world.
Anyways, Brian Flores shook up the sports world when he filed a class-action lawsuit against the NFL and three of its organizations. The lawsuit claims those teams acted in discriminatory practices in their hiring process.
Flores also alleges that interviews conducted for black, head coach candidates were a sham and make a mockery of the NFL’s Rooney Rule, which states each NFL team must interview minority candidates for head coaching and other positions.
The rule was created as an effort to give minority coaches better representation in key positions in the league. With only 1 black head coach currently in the NFL, you can see that the rule has been unproductive.
Teams purposely bring in minority candidates to satisfy the rule, and then turn around and hire a white coach more times than not.
See, Flores was the Head coach of the Miami Dolphins for the last 2 seasons until he was fired a few weeks ago. It’s ironic because Flores won 19 games in those two seasons, which was the best two-year stretch they had since 2003.
His experience is similar to many other black, head coaches who seem to be on a short leash with their job. Examples of this include, Jim Caldwell, Anthony Lynn, David Culley, and the list goes on and on.
This might be the most powerful lawsuit against the NFL since the concussion lawsuit was brought on by its former players. What separates this particular lawsuit from other high-profile ones, is that Coach Flores brought receipts.
Text messages from Bill Belichick, Head coach of the New England Patriots, were released to the public. In this exchange, Belichick, who seems to have insider information, tells Flores congrats on getting the head coaching position with the New York Giants.
Flores responds by telling him that the interview takes place in a few days. At this point, Belichick realizes he’s messaged the wrong person. Buffalo Bills assistant Brian Daboll was who he thought he was texting and not Flores.
So as it turns out, the New York Giants were going to interview Brian Flores as a token interview to satisfy the requirements of the Rooney Rule. They had no intention of hiring him and had already made their choice in Daboll.
Flores talks about the Owner of the Miami Dolphins offering him $100k for every loss he had as head coach. He is requesting Flores to lose games on purpose to get a better draft pick.
He also spoke about the Denver Broncos front office team showing up to his interview an hour late and smelling like alcohol.
These are only a portion of incidents given by Flores and there will be much more coming out in the next few days and weeks.
It remains to be seen what the outcome of this litigation is but you can rest assured it will cause a lot of discussions. With almost 70% of its players being black, it’s a travesty that there is currently only 1 Black, head coach.
Social media blew up when the report came out and I have already seen many tweets defending the NFL and accusing Flores of playing the race card.
For those with that mindset, I would ask you, have you ever, in your life stopped to think that maybe, just maybe, there is some validity to the things that black people are saying?
Maybe we aren’t all simply looking to play the victim role and make excuses for certain situations. History shows, that despite slogans and phrases such as, “End Racism” or “Stop Hate” being visible on the field and on the back of helmets, the NFL could care less about leveling the playing field with coaching jobs.
Black people in this country have been fighting for a very long time to simply have equal rights to others. It’s sad to see a billion-dollar company such as the NFL use its position to give us another example of systemic racism. Brian Flores might never coach in the NFL again after this stance he is making.
I’m sure the league will “blackball” him the same way they did Colin Kaepernick. Flores is hoping his actions will bring about real change. If he succeeds, then he will be forever remembered as a hero and the man who changed the hiring practices of the NFL.
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