Brian Flores blows NFL’s illusion of inclusivity wide open

The NFL needs to prove that the Rooney Rule has teeth and that there’s more substance than slogans about the sport’s approach to discrimination, writes Tony Evans

Brian Flores is suing the NFL and three teams (Getty)

Sports like to give the illusion of inclusivity. The NFL is no exception. This season players have displayed phrases promoting social justice on the back of their helmets. Among the six authorised slogans are “End Racism” and “Say Their Stories”.

The last thing American football’s professional league needed on the eve of the Super Bowl is Brian Flores to say his story. The former Miami Dolphins head coach’s tale began to unfold in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday. The 40-year-old African-American is suing the ruling body and three teams, alleging racial discrimination.

It has been an uplifting few weeks in the NFL after a series of thrilling playoff games. The lawsuit suggests that beneath the glamorous surface of the game there are serious structural issues and the commitment to equality is superficial. The NFL, Flores claims, “is racially segregated and managed like a plantation”.

The Dolphins, the Denver Broncos and the New York Giants are named in the litigation. The allegations against the Broncos and Giants are arguably the most damaging. Flores says he was interviewed by both teams as a box-ticking exercise. NFL clubs are obliged to interview at least one individual from an ethnic minority background for head coaching and senior front-office positions under the Rooney Rule. This initiative was introduced 19 years ago and was instigated by Dan Rooney, the former owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers. The regulation has been hailed as one of the turning points in sporting diversity and has been widely praised. Businesses like Amazon and JP Morgan implemented versions of it. It will be a huge embarrassment if teams are found to be circumventing this attempt to open doors to those who are traditionally marginalised.

The submission reflects poorly on everyone concerned but the Giants and the Broncos come out of it particularly badly. NFL legends have been sucked into the controversy. Flores has produced as evidence a message exchange with Bill Belichick, the New England Patriots coach who has six Super Bowl victories to his name. Belichick congratulated Flores for getting the New York job, even though his former assistant had not yet interviewed with the Giants. The 69-year-old had confused Flores with Brian Daboll, who was announced by New York two days later. “Sorry – I f***** up,” Belichick wrote. “I double checked and misread the text. I think they are naming Brian Daboll.”

That gave substance to Flores’s suspicions. Daboll was also on Belichick’s staff and in contact with his mentor. Flores contends that the deal was already done before he was spoken to by New York. Belichick’s inability to organise his contact book to distinguish between the two Brians may turn out to be the killer fact in the case.

Denver interviewed Flores two years ago and he says he was treated with disrespect. John Elway, the Hall of Fame quarterback who won two Super Bowls, and another Broncos executive arrived for the meeting an hour late, the lawsuit alleges. The submission says that both were “completely dishevelled, and it was obvious they had been drinking heavily the night before”.

In each case Flores lost out to a white coach with no experience in the role. At present, only one black head coach is working in the NFL – Mike Tomlin at the Steelers. More than two-thirds of players are black. This compares starkly to the sport’s senior positions: just 12 per cent of offensive coordinators, 34 per cent of defensive coordinators and 19 per cent of general managers are black.

Getting a job is difficult enough. According to Flores, things got no easier once he was through the door in Miami. During his three seasons with the Dolphins, he was encouraged, he claims, to lose games to ensure the team received a higher position in the NFL Draft. Stephen Ross, the owner, is alleged to have offered him a $100,000 bonus for every defeat. Flores says he was asked to break the league’s tampering rules to secure a “prominent quarterback” after the 2019 season. When he refused, he was “treated with disdain” and given a reputation as being “an angry Black man”.

There was widespread shock when the Dolphins sacked Flores last month. The team had an awful start to the season, losing seven of their first eight games, but turned things around to end up with a 9-8 winning record.

The Giants said that they were happy with their process and Flores was “in the conversation to be our head coach until the 11th hour”. Denver’s reaction was curt, calling the allegations “blatantly false”.

Miami “vehemently” denied Flores’s assertions and the NFL said the claims were “without merit” and “diversity is core to everything we do”.

History does not back up this assertion. Colin Kaepernick has not played in the league for six years, despite being just 34 years old and at an age where he should be nearing his peak. The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback was the most high-profile and most vocal player to take the knee during the US national anthem to protest against racial inequality and police brutality towards minorities. Despite taking the 49ers to the Super Bowl in 2013, there were no takers for Kaepernick when he became a free agent four years later. The quarterback sued the NFL, claiming he had been blacklisted and the league paid $1m to settle.

In October, Jon Gruden stepped down from his head coaching position at the Las Vegas Raiders after historic racist, homophobic and misogynistic emails emerged. Urban Meyer, the Jacksonville Jaguars head coach, hired an assistant who had a litany of complaints about racism levied at him. Meyer was sacked after 13 games by Shad Khan – one of only two ethnic-minority owners in the league – but the coach’s casual attitude to his staff’s behaviour played only a minor part in his demise.

The Flores lawsuit blows things wide open. The NFL needs to prove that the Rooney Rule has teeth and there’s more substance than slogans about the sport’s approach to discrimination.