NFL: Brian Flores Sues Over ‘Racist Hiring Policies’

[libermaniac]

Don't get what you want, just cry racism.

Not right to marginalize claims of racism in this way IMO.

If I felt I was the victim of racism, I'd cry racism.

Based on the examples from the lawsuit presented so far, the claims of racism certainly seem dubious.

Thing is racism is tied to the policy that was put in place to deter racist/biased exclusion of minorities from head coach opportunities. If owners/gms of those teams aren't following that policy it can indeed be cited as racist practice. Even if race has nothing to do with your choice of coach you have to abide by the policy.

Same goes for firing a coach with a winning record. If that coach happens to be considered "a good coach" by players and staff, on top of that winning record two out of three seasons, with no bad behavior reported then race may be brought up as possible reasoning of firing. Most of the Dolphins reasoning for firing Flores are certainly not grounds for termination.

Now I don't think race was a issue in firing Flores only that Flores wouldn't tank and do things upper management wanted. Yet Giant's and Broncos appear to have violated the hiring policy. Sure this is why the league already put out a reminder.

Flores built a horrible offensive coaching staff. He had 4 OCs and 4 offensive line coaches in 3 years. He fired one veteran offensive line coach 4 days into the 2019 season because he had a gut feel. He put a rookie offensive line coach in charge of a line with all young players. He had co-offensive coordinators. Almost every young offensive linemen regressed this year under his coaching to the point where they were the the worst rated o line in football. They had a 1-7 start which included losses to a winless Indy team, Jacksonville and Atlanta. This essentially eliminated them from the playoffs in December unless they could run the table. He didn’t play the same “amoeba” defense that was so effective in 2020 until after week 8. Their win streak that put them over .500 included wins against the Jets twice, NYG, Carolina, the Ravens to start a long losing streak, a Covid depleted Saints team. The one impressive victory was against the Patriots in a meaningless week 18 game. In the one challenging/meaningful game Flores did not have a plan for the bad weather and passed it 80% of the time despite having a QB who is really bad in bad weather. Speaking of said QB, it was reported that they cussed each other out at halftime of that game when Flores told him “If I knew you were going to be this bad, I should’ve drafted Mac Jones”, at which point Tua screamed back “F you, you need to learn to take to people”.

Yet the national narrative is he was a good coach. Informed Dolphins fans beg to differ.

[CelticsWhat35]

Don't get what you want, just cry racism.

Not right to marginalize claims of racism in this way IMO.

If I felt I was the victim of racism, I'd cry racism.

Based on the examples from the lawsuit presented so far, the claims of racism certainly seem dubious.

Thing is racism is tied to the policy that was put in place to deter racist/biased exclusion of minorities from head coach opportunities. If owners/gms of those teams aren't following that policy it can indeed be cited as racist practice. Even if race has nothing to do with your choice of coach you have to abide by the policy.

Same goes for firing a coach with a winning record. If that coach happens to be considered "a good coach" by players and staff, on top of that winning record two out of three seasons, with no bad behavior reported then race may be brought up as possible reasoning of firing. Most of the Dolphins reasoning for firing Flores are certainly not grounds for termination.

Now I don't think race was a issue in firing Flores only that Flores wouldn't tank and do things upper management wanted. Yet Giant's and Broncos appear to have violated the hiring policy. Sure this is why the league already put out a reminder.

Flores built a horrible offensive coaching staff. He had 4 OCs and 4 offensive line coaches in 3 years. He fired one veteran offensive line coach 4 days into the 2019 season because he had a gut feel. He put a rookie offensive line coach in charge of a line with all young players. He had co-offensive coordinators. Almost every young offensive linemen regressed this year under his coaching to the point where they were the the worst rated o line in football. They had a 1-7 start which included losses to a winless Indy team, Jacksonville and Atlanta. This essentially eliminated them from the playoffs in December unless they could run the table. He didn’t play the same “amoeba” defense that was so effective in 2020 until after week 8. Their win streak that put them over .500 included wins against the Jets twice, NYG, Carolina, the Ravens to start a long losing streak, a Covid depleted Saints team. The one impressive victory was against the Patriots in a meaningless week 18 game. In the one challenging/meaningful game Flores did not have a plan for the bad weather and passed it 80% of the time despite having a QB who is really bad in bad weather. Speaking of said QB, it was reported that they cussed each other out at halftime of that game when Flores told him “If I knew you were going to be this bad, I should’ve drafted Mac Jones”, at which point Tua screamed back “F you, you need to learn to take to people”.

Yet the national narrative is he was a good coach. Informed Dolphins fans beg to differ.

The Dolphins are a garbage franchise who Flores took to two straight winning seasons.  Prior to that, they had two winning seasons in their previous 14 seasons

[Csfan1984]

Don't get what you want, just cry racism.

Not right to marginalize claims of racism in this way IMO.

If I felt I was the victim of racism, I'd cry racism.

Based on the examples from the lawsuit presented so far, the claims of racism certainly seem dubious.

Thing is racism is tied to the policy that was put in place to deter racist/biased exclusion of minorities from head coach opportunities. If owners/gms of those teams aren't following that policy it can indeed be cited as racist practice. Even if race has nothing to do with your choice of coach you have to abide by the policy.

Same goes for firing a coach with a winning record. If that coach happens to be considered "a good coach" by players and staff, on top of that winning record two out of three seasons, with no bad behavior reported then race may be brought up as possible reasoning of firing. Most of the Dolphins reasoning for firing Flores are certainly not grounds for termination.

Now I don't think race was a issue in firing Flores only that Flores wouldn't tank and do things upper management wanted. Yet Giant's and Broncos appear to have violated the hiring policy. Sure this is why the league already put out a reminder.

Flores built a horrible offensive coaching staff. He had 4 OCs and 4 offensive line coaches in 3 years. He fired one veteran offensive line coach 4 days into the 2019 season because he had a gut feel. He put a rookie offensive line coach in charge of a line with all young players. He had co-offensive coordinators. Almost every young offensive linemen regressed this year under his coaching to the point where they were the the worst rated o line in football. They had a 1-7 start which included losses to a winless Indy team, Jacksonville and Atlanta. This essentially eliminated them from the playoffs in December unless they could run the table. He didn’t play the same “amoeba” defense that was so effective in 2020 until after week 8. Their win streak that put them over .500 included wins against the Jets twice, NYG, Carolina, the Ravens to start a long losing streak, a Covid depleted Saints team. The one impressive victory was against the Patriots in a meaningless week 18 game. In the one challenging/meaningful game Flores did not have a plan for the bad weather and passed it 80% of the time despite having a QB who is really bad in bad weather. Speaking of said QB, it was reported that they cussed each other out at halftime of that game when Flores told him “If I knew you were going to be this bad, I should’ve drafted Mac Jones”, at which point Tua screamed back “F you, you need to learn to take to people”.

Yet the national narrative is he was a good coach. Informed Dolphins fans beg to differ.

The Dolphins are a garbage franchise who Flores took to two straight winning seasons.  Prior to that, they had two winning seasons in their previous 14 seasons

And I will add he had a right to his own coaches being in place. Letting go of older coaches who have been part of the problem is okay. Also the gm had Co hired a bunch of their coordinators. When they proved not good they were let go when Flores showed the evidence. Flores knows what good coordinators should be doing.

As for Tua, he is accused of not put in the work so you can't blame the coach for trying to get some kind of motivation going. Tua shouldn't be swearing back and asking for a coach to be nice. Tua should take his own advice, accept the challenge of getting better than Mac.

[tazzmaniac]

Kind of funny.  The Dolphins hire a 37 year old black coach who hadn't ever been a coordinator to be their head coach.  Now after 3 seasons he's fired and they are accused of racist practices. 

The tanking and tampering charges allegedly occurred in 2019 and somehow that is the reason he's fired two years later.  That makes no sense.  On the other hand, it has been widely reported that Flores has bad relationships with both Tua and their GM.  It doesn't matter if you have 2 winning non-playoff seasons if you can't work with your starting QB and GM.

I find it curious how quickly this lawsuit came together.  Flores is fired on January 10th.  The Giants interview occurs on January 27th.  Class-action lawsuit filed on February 1st.  That seems awfully quick to get a lawsuit turned around. 

[tazzmaniac]

As for the Denver allegation, here is Elway's response.  Sounds like the Broncos bent over backwards to accommodate Flores. 

"While I was not planning to respond publicly to the false and defamatory claims by Brian Flores, I could not be silent any longer with my character, integrity and professionalism being attacked," Elway said in his statement.

"I took Coach Flores very seriously as a candidate for our head coaching position in 2019 and enjoyed our three-and-a-half hour interview with him. Along with the rest of our group, I was prepared, ready and fully engaged during the entire interview as Brian shared his experience and vision for our team.

"It's unfortunate and shocking to learn for the first time this week that Brian felt differently about our interview with him.

"For Brian to make an assumption about my appearance and state of mind early that morning was subjective, hurtful and just plain wrong. If I appeared 'disheveled,' as he claimed, it was because we had flown in during the middle of the night -- immediately following another interview in Denver -- and were going on a few hours of sleep to meet the only window provided to us.

"I interviewed Brian in good faith, giving him the same consideration and opportunity as every other candidate for our head coaching position in 2019.''

The Broncos have said five people attended the interview in Providence, Rhode Island, with Flores, who was a New England Patriots assistant coach at the time. The team said it has "detailed notes, analysis and evaluations'' from the interview with Flores.

[jambr380]

Kind of funny.  The Dolphins hire a 37 year old black coach who hadn't ever been a coordinator to be their head coach.  Now after 3 seasons he's fired and they are accused of racist practices. 

The tanking and tampering charges allegedly occurred in 2019 and somehow that is the reason he's fired two years later.  That makes no sense.  On the other hand, it has been widely reported that Flores has bad relationships with both Tua and their GM.  It doesn't matter if you have 2 winning non-playoff seasons if you can't work with your starting QB and GM.

I find it curious how quickly this lawsuit came together.  Flores is fired on January 10th.  The Giants interview occurs on January 27th.  Class-action lawsuit filed on February 1st.  That seems awfully quick to get a lawsuit turned around.

I don't really want to comment on the racism aspect of this case, as I don't feel that I am necessarily qualified to make an informed opinion, but I do think that it's possible [probably] the Dolphins already made the decision to fire Flores after his 1-7 start, but just decided to let him finish out the season. It's great he ended on such a hot streak; because of that (and before this lawsuit), it probably made him one of the top HC candidates. But it was basically meaningless - similar to how the Celtics game ended with the Pistons the other night. Not only was their schedule soft, but teams probably weren't taking them seriously.

It's too bad it all went down this way and the timing of it is very strange. Like, of course there wouldn't be a lawsuit against the Giants if Flores hadn't been fired by the Dolphins years later. That just doesn't feel right to me and comes off as very self-serving, rather than something greater (ie, Kaepernick)

[libermaniac]

Don't get what you want, just cry racism.

Not right to marginalize claims of racism in this way IMO.

If I felt I was the victim of racism, I'd cry racism.

Based on the examples from the lawsuit presented so far, the claims of racism certainly seem dubious.

Thing is racism is tied to the policy that was put in place to deter racist/biased exclusion of minorities from head coach opportunities. If owners/gms of those teams aren't following that policy it can indeed be cited as racist practice. Even if race has nothing to do with your choice of coach you have to abide by the policy.

Same goes for firing a coach with a winning record. If that coach happens to be considered "a good coach" by players and staff, on top of that winning record two out of three seasons, with no bad behavior reported then race may be brought up as possible reasoning of firing. Most of the Dolphins reasoning for firing Flores are certainly not grounds for termination.

Now I don't think race was a issue in firing Flores only that Flores wouldn't tank and do things upper management wanted. Yet Giant's and Broncos appear to have violated the hiring policy. Sure this is why the league already put out a reminder.

Flores built a horrible offensive coaching staff. He had 4 OCs and 4 offensive line coaches in 3 years. He fired one veteran offensive line coach 4 days into the 2019 season because he had a gut feel. He put a rookie offensive line coach in charge of a line with all young players. He had co-offensive coordinators. Almost every young offensive linemen regressed this year under his coaching to the point where they were the the worst rated o line in football. They had a 1-7 start which included losses to a winless Indy team, Jacksonville and Atlanta. This essentially eliminated them from the playoffs in December unless they could run the table. He didn’t play the same “amoeba” defense that was so effective in 2020 until after week 8. Their win streak that put them over .500 included wins against the Jets twice, NYG, Carolina, the Ravens to start a long losing streak, a Covid depleted Saints team. The one impressive victory was against the Patriots in a meaningless week 18 game. In the one challenging/meaningful game Flores did not have a plan for the bad weather and passed it 80% of the time despite having a QB who is really bad in bad weather. Speaking of said QB, it was reported that they cussed each other out at halftime of that game when Flores told him “If I knew you were going to be this bad, I should’ve drafted Mac Jones”, at which point Tua screamed back “F you, you need to learn to take to people”.

Yet the national narrative is he was a good coach. Informed Dolphins fans beg to differ.

The Dolphins are a garbage franchise who Flores took to two straight winning seasons.  Prior to that, they had two winning seasons in their previous 14 seasons

Out of all of that, that’s all you can come up with? I gave like 10 reasons he might have been fired that have nothing to do with race. Flores is a brilliant defensive coordinator. But he couldn’t assemble and retain an offensive coaching staff to save himself.

And a winning season is not the barometer that they should be measured by. Fun fact, since 2003 Miami has 6 winning seasons to the Niners' 5.  Does that make Miami more successful? Also, the Cs are having a winning season yet there is a very long thread about why Ime should be fired. I know Ime is black but I don’t for a second think they Cs management is racist. But if they decided to move on from Ime I’d understand.

Miami started this rebuild not because they were horrible, but because they were tired of mediocrity. Adam Gase went 23-25 over 3 years. Flores went 24-25. Can you sit there for a second and tell me you think Flores would like have led this team to a Super Bowl contender, even if they got Deshaun Watson (and gave up the huge draft capital and cap space that would take)? As an informed Dolphins fan, I have my serious doubts. So time to move on. A 9-8 season fueled by one of the easiest stretch of games in modern NFL history shouldn’t sway that.

I also might add that they retained Chris Grier as GM who is also black and a case could easily be made for his dismissal. I think a racist organization a) probably wouldn’t have hired Grier and Flores in the first place and b) had the perfect opportunity to clean house and would have taken it.

[Roy H.]

Don't get what you want, just cry racism.

Not right to marginalize claims of racism in this way IMO.

If I felt I was the victim of racism, I'd cry racism.

Based on the examples from the lawsuit presented so far, the claims of racism certainly seem dubious.

Thing is racism is tied to the policy that was put in place to deter racist/biased exclusion of minorities from head coach opportunities. If owners/gms of those teams aren't following that policy it can indeed be cited as racist practice. Even if race has nothing to do with your choice of coach you have to abide by the policy.

Same goes for firing a coach with a winning record. If that coach happens to be considered "a good coach" by players and staff, on top of that winning record two out of three seasons, with no bad behavior reported then race may be brought up as possible reasoning of firing. Most of the Dolphins reasoning for firing Flores are certainly not grounds for termination.

Now I don't think race was a issue in firing Flores only that Flores wouldn't tank and do things upper management wanted. Yet Giant's and Broncos appear to have violated the hiring policy. Sure this is why the league already put out a reminder.

Flores built a horrible offensive coaching staff. He had 4 OCs and 4 offensive line coaches in 3 years. He fired one veteran offensive line coach 4 days into the 2019 season because he had a gut feel. He put a rookie offensive line coach in charge of a line with all young players. He had co-offensive coordinators. Almost every young offensive linemen regressed this year under his coaching to the point where they were the the worst rated o line in football. They had a 1-7 start which included losses to a winless Indy team, Jacksonville and Atlanta. This essentially eliminated them from the playoffs in December unless they could run the table. He didn’t play the same “amoeba” defense that was so effective in 2020 until after week 8. Their win streak that put them over .500 included wins against the Jets twice, NYG, Carolina, the Ravens to start a long losing streak, a Covid depleted Saints team. The one impressive victory was against the Patriots in a meaningless week 18 game. In the one challenging/meaningful game Flores did not have a plan for the bad weather and passed it 80% of the time despite having a QB who is really bad in bad weather. Speaking of said QB, it was reported that they cussed each other out at halftime of that game when Flores told him “If I knew you were going to be this bad, I should’ve drafted Mac Jones”, at which point Tua screamed back “F you, you need to learn to take to people”.

Yet the national narrative is he was a good coach. Informed Dolphins fans beg to differ.

The Dolphins are a garbage franchise who Flores took to two straight winning seasons.  Prior to that, they had two winning seasons in their previous 14 seasons

Out of all of that, that’s all you can come up with? I gave like 10 reasons he might have been fired that have nothing to do with race. Flores is a brilliant defensive coordinator. But he couldn’t assemble and retain an offensive coaching staff to save himself.

And a winning season is not the barometer that they should be measured by. Fun fact, since 2003 Miami has 6 winning seasons to the Niners' 5.  Does that make Miami more successful? Also, the Cs are having a winning season yet there is a very long thread about why Ime should be fired. I know Ime is black but I don’t for a second think they Cs management is racist. But if they decided to move on from Ime I’d understand.

Miami started this rebuild not because they were horrible, but because they were tired of mediocrity. Adam Gase went 23-25 over 3 years. Flores went 24-25. Can you sit there for a second and tell me you think Flores would like have led this team to a Super Bowl contender, even if they got Deshaun Watson (and gave up the huge draft capital and cap space that would take)? As an informed Dolphins fan, I have my serious doubts. So time to move on. A 9-8 season fueled by one of the easiest stretch of games in modern NFL history shouldn’t sway that.

I also might add that they retained Chris Grier as GM who is also black and a case could easily be made for his dismissal. I think a racist organization a) probably wouldn’t have hired Grier and Flores in the first place and b) had the perfect opportunity to clean house and would have taken it.

I don't follow the Dolphins as closely as you do, but to me getting nine wins out of an offense that starts Tua and Brissett seems pretty impressive.  You've got two poor QBs, no running game to speak of, and only one good WR, who is a rookie.

To me, you could probably have the best offensive coordinator in the world, and still be a below-average offense.  From the outside looking in, this is a young team that has overachieved.  I know that you pointed to the offensive line, but at what point does it become an issue of talent? 

I do think if you guys had Watson you'd be more in the mix.  The right answer was probably to tank for Burrow, but the Dolphins did have #5 in the draft that year.  Shouldn't management get some criticism for missing on Herbert?

[libermaniac]

It’s possible it’s an issue of talent but the line regressed last year. Austin Jackson was a serviceable and promising rookie OT. He became so bad this year they moved him to guard where he still struggled. Eichenberg was widely seen as a plug and play OT as well and he was horrible. We also got rid of Erick Flowers when he performed well in 2021. Also two of the guys we cut ended up starting on other teams. One was Isiah Prince who’s now in the super bowl. At some point it becomes about talent evaluation and development. I just don’t think Flores knows how to do that on offense. And, our GM is so much of a yes man that I’m sure it was Flores fingerprints all over the guys we drafted and released.

It’s totally possible Flores could turn out to be a great coach someday. I mean even Bellichick was fired once. But, my main point is you can’t just look at a 9-8 record and conclude that there was no cause whatsoever for his termination other than possibly race.

[libermaniac]

Oh, and I forgot to mention that Flores’ Patriots inspired my way or the highway attitude forced Minkah Fitzpatrick out of town in only his second year. He’s been an All-Pro ever since. That alone could be grounds for dismissal.

[Roy H.]

But, my main point is you can’t just look at a 9-8 record and conclude that there was no cause whatsoever for his termination other than possibly race.

I agree with that.  He p---ed off his owner, GM and QB.  That will get you fired in most situations, regardless of success.

[SparzWizard]

So the Dolphins fired Brian Flores for Mike McDaniel, who was an OC for only 1 year with the 49ers and no previous head-coaching experience

[Moranis]

But, my main point is you can’t just look at a 9-8 record and conclude that there was no cause whatsoever for his termination other than possibly race.

I agree with that.  He p---ed off his owner, GM and QB.  That will get you fired in most situations, regardless of success.

I don't think he necessarily filed the lawsuit to say the Dolphins were racist because they fired him, though maybe that is a part of it, he certainly didn't bring int he Broncos, Giants, and NFL for that.  And since the commish has already basically acknowledged that the NFL has a race problem, I think Flores was probably correct that the league collectively is racist.

[Roy H.]

Looks like the Steelers are hiring Flores as defensive assistant / LB coach.

I've gotta say, I'm kind of surprised that he found work this quickly.  He's obviously quite talented, but I thought he'd be toxic to owners.

[Donoghus]

Looks like the Steelers are hiring Flores as defensive assistant / LB coach.

I've gotta say, I'm kind of surprised that he found work this quickly.  He's obviously quite talented, but I thought he'd be toxic to owners.

I wonder if the league learned their lesson from the optics of the Kaep thing.