To become the most dangerous threat to the NFL’s racial indifference, Brian Flores tossed his coaching career into the scrum. He’s done trying to get a job the expected way for a Black head coaching candidate, the way that requires a man to smile through all the lies and sham interviews, the way that makes his dignity bleed out one insulting little cut at a time.
What’s a job earned like that worth, anyway? Now that Flores is suing the league and its teams for discrimination, some might say he is engaging in self-sabotage by fighting a battle he can’t win. But that ignores his reality: Simply by dreaming, the former Miami Dolphins coach was already engaged in a no-win game. By dislodging himself from the false hope of a fair chance, at least Flores doesn’t have to play pretend to pursue equality.
He probably won’t win against the NFL and its legal machine. But now he can’t lose, either. He gets to be Brian Flores, in full, no matter what.
Flores is dangerous to the league because he no longer operates from a place of need. He isn’t working humbly within the system to realize a dream of job stability. He’s gripping a sledgehammer.
Flores is 40 and fearless and ready to fight. He may end up being considered a martyr. For now, though, he is a combatant.
The NFL will fear him because the league is able to suppress the worst of its unjust hiring and retention practices – because minority coaches can’t speak out if they want to remain candidates for promotion. Flores won’t barter silence for opportunity anymore, not after he said he found out from his former boss, Bill Belichick, that the New York Giants had interviewed him knowing they had decided to hire Brian Daboll as their head coach. Flores claimed Belichick accidentally texted him – the wrong Brian – with the premature congratulations.
So the texting thumbs of the league’s legendary 69-year-old coach just ripped off the veil of the Rooney Rule.
Flores, who is as principled as they come, isn’t wired to let it go. He won’t let aspiration cloud his judgment. He sees only right and wrong.
“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,” he 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.”
His lawsuit came with tales that went beyond the league’s poor history of promoting Black coaches and ventured into details that may clarify why it’s so hard for the few who are hired to receive a reasonable amount of time. Flores, who lost his job in Miami after back-to-back winning seasons, made a tanking allegation against Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, saying he offered to play Flores $100,000 per defeat during the 2019 season in attempt to ensure Miami captured the No. 1 pick in the draft. Flores also accused Ross of asking him to commit a tampering violation to recruit another team’s “prominent quarterback.”
Flores is showing his receipts after unnamed sources told reporters Miami surprisingly fired him because he’s difficult to work with, code words used all the time to describe Black employees who voice their opinions.
For decades, Black coaches have kept their mouths shut, lowered their heads and tried to be perfect just to get promoted into rebuilding jobs that they have no chance of seeing to the end. Flores is now fighting for all those voiceless coaches, and he’s doing so at the beginning of his career, not the end. He could have another 25 years in the game – playing the game – if he said nothing. He’s over it.
His audacity could turn into a seminal moment, a shift in the movement for equality. For NFL teams and their owners, silence can’t be guaranteed any longer. Flores isn’t built to back down, and other coaches just might join him in his mission to see “positive change.” The potential influence of his resistance matters as much as the strength of his lawsuit. That’s what scared the NFL into releasing a hasty statement in which it dismissed Flores’s claims knowing full well it hasn’t had time to vet the allegations.
“The NFL and our clubs are deeply committed to ensuring equitable employment practices and continue to make progress in providing equitable opportunities throughout our organizations,” the league said in its statement. “Diversity is core to everything we do, and there are few issues on which our clubs and our internal leadership team spend more time. We will defend against these claims, which are without merit.”
Without merit, huh?
Just trust ’em, huh?
This league? With its shameful track record? With its one Black head coach (Mike Tomlin), after years of vowing to do better?
It would be so on its craven brand if the league persuaded an owner or two to hire a Black coach now, with five head coaching jobs still open in this hiring cycle. But it doesn’t matter whether Byron Leftwich, Eric Bieniemy or any other minority coach gets what he has already earned. The NFL is still flooded with systemic racism, and a temporary image fix doesn’t change that. Every year, the clock restarts for these coaches. The system will stay broken until someone demolishes it.
Free of obligation, tired of the disingenuousness, Flores takes his swing now. The NFL can’t control him by dangling opportunity. For coaches like him, an era of silent acceptance may be over.
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