In one of the most stunning sporting news developments that I can remember, Brian Flores has decided to put his entire coaching future on the line and sue the NFL for discrimination due to the lack of minority coaching and front office hires. He’s laying it all out there calling out the Miami Dolphins for tanking, the New York Giants for hiring another Brian before actually interviewing him, the Denver Broncos for literally not giving a shit in his interview with them 3 years ago, and the NFL’s Rooney Rule for being a complete farce.

There’s a lot of accusations to untuck here but let’s start with this. Brian Flores should have never been fired in the first place. In my opinion, Flores is a top tier head coach in the NFL. He inherited a team that was intentionally tanking for a high draft pick (more on that later) and went on to probably the most impressive 5-11 record in NFL history. He followed that up with back to back winning seasons with mediocre quarterback play, and in his 3^rd year finished with a 9-8 record after starting the season 1-7. So, the fact that he was fired speaks more to the fact of the Miami Dolphins being a piss poor organization then to the fact of Brian Flores being a competent football coach.

First up, the Miami Dolphins. After a slow start to the 2019 season Stephen Ross, the senile owner of the Miami Dolphins, approached Brian Flores about tanking the rest of the games. To make matters worse, he even offered to incentivize Flores paying him $100,000 for each loss. Flores refused to tank and when the team actually started to win, he was notified by Chris Grier, the team’s general manager, that Stephen Ross was mad at him! For winning! Now, rightfully so Stephen Ross is getting investigated by this from the league so if he is found guilty, he should be forced to sell the team. Professional sports put up with a lot of shitty things, but this is one shitty thing I actually think they will take some sort of action on.

Another thing the demented Stephen Ross tried to get Flores to do is try and commit tampering. When a “prominent’ quarterback was seeming to become available in the off-season Ross tried to get Flores to start recruiting him before the season was complete. Flores, rightfully deeming this tampering, refused stating that it was against the rules. A few days passed by and Ross asked Flores to have lunch with him on his yacht in South Beach. When Flores arrived, Ross said that the “prominent” quarterback was on his way to meet for lunch. Noticing that this can get him in trouble Flores promptly left. With the refusing to tank for the draft pick and refusing to commit tampering to recruit the quarterback Flores states that he felt his job from there on out was on shaky ground and was never given the rightfully fair chance that he deserved.  

In 2019, when Flores was on the interview circuit for head coaching positions, he had an interview set up with the Denver Broncos. Flores showed up on time but was left there waiting for over an hour until the president of the Denver Broncos, John Elway, showed up. Flores noticed that Elway seemed very disheveled and seemed like he was extremely hungover. Flores took it was he never truly had a shot at the job but was there to check the Rooney Rule box. John Elway showing up unprepared to interview and seemingly not giving a shit, shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone looking back at some of his personnel decisions as President of the Denver Broncos.

This past January, being recently fired by the Dolphins, Flores had an interview set up with the New York Giants, which he deemed his “dream job.” Two days before the interview was to take place, he receives a text from Bill Belichick congratulating him on getting the job. Going along with it at first, Flores asked Belichick if he has the right Brian, Flores or Daboll? Belichick tells him he texted the wrong Brian informing Flores that the job wasn’t his even before the interview took place making Flores yet another box to check off to comply with the Rooney Rule. The fact that Bill Belichick texting the wrong Brian, being the match that lit the inevitable fire, is so wild to me. The greatest coach in football has no idea how to use technology.

Brian Flores has had enough. He got sick and tired of being used as a ploy to comply with an imperfect rule. He took action and actually wants to see change. He is really putting he neck out on the line here both personally and financially. The NFL and its owners are going to start to sling more mud at him to try and deem him as something that he’s not to try and make him less credible. And from the looks of it, he sees that and doesn’t care. He actually wants to see change. And he should be admired for that.