Bill Belichick’s clumsy SMS game might help change the NFL coaching landscape forever.
On Tuesday, former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores filed a lawsuit against the NFL and three teams alleging racist hiring practices for coaches and general managers. The 58-page document, filed in Manhattan federal court, seeks class-action status and unspecified damages from the league.
The lawsuit states that the NFL’s Rooney Rule — which requires teams to interview at least two external minority candidates for open head coaching positions and at least one external minority candidate for a coordinator job — isn’t working because the interviews aren’t being done in good faith.
Flores believes that was the case just last month when, prior to him interviewing for the New York Giants’ head coaching job, Belichick mistakenly informed him that the team had already decided internally to hire former Buffalo Bills coordinator Brian Daboll. Flores — and many others — believed he was a top candidate for the job. He also claimed that during an interview with the Denver Broncos in 2019, executives showed up an hour late and didn’t appear to be taking the interview seriously. Both of these situations suggest teams agreed to interview Flores only to comply with the league’s Rooney Rule.
One of the most explosive allegations in the suit is that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross offered Flores $100,000 for each loss during the 2019 season in an effort to encourage tanking for a better draft pick.
All three teams named in the suit swiftly denied the allegations and the NFL said they “will defend against these claims, which are without merit.” The fact that the league released its statement only a few hours after the suit was filed instead of committing to a thorough investigation into the claims tells you everything you need to know.
Flores’ timing in filing the lawsuit is important to note: He’s still under consideration for two open head coaching jobs, and brought forth his complaint on the first day of Black History Month. He chose to send a message even though it may impact his ability to continue his own coaching career (Flores interviewed with the New Orleans Saints on Tuesday and is reported to be a finalist for the Houston Texans job).
And Flores is seeking more than just individual damages here. He’s trying to even the playing field. The lawsuit is looking to increase influence of Black individuals in hiring and termination decisions. It asks to increase diversity of ownership and decision makers, create and fund a training program for lower-level Black coaches, incentivize hiring and retention of Black GMs and coaches and transparent pay for GMs, coaches and coordinators. These are all things the NFL should be expressing as goals instead of being pushed to do in a lawsuit.
But thanks to this suit, we’re about to have a conversation in the lead-up to the Super Bowl about the viability of Black coaches. Let’s make sure that discussion is pointed in the right direction.
And that starts with the Rooney Rule, which was first introduced back in 2003. We now have enough of a sample size to conclude it’s not having its intended impact.
Every NFL off-season, I find myself writing about some angle of this topic and how things are getting worse. In 2017, there were eight minority head coaches in the NFL. Right now, there are three. In total across the league, there are only four Black offensive coordinators and 11 Black defensive coordinators, and one Black head coach.
There have only been two Black coaches hired in the last four off-seasons combined. Flores was hired in 2019 and David Culley was hired in 2021 and neither made it to the end of their first contract. Both were fired despite inheriting bad teams that played better than anyone expected during their tenure.
Nine teams have had head coaching vacancies already this year. Six of those vacancies have been filled — none by Black coaches.
The best example of the Rooney Rule doing what it was designed to do was back in 2007. It was an open secret that Russ Grimm — essentially a clone of predecessor Bill Cowher — was set to be the next head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers … until Mike Tomlin interviewed and won the job.
I talked to Tomlin about his mindset going in for that interview as a long shot and he candidly told me, “I was so confident when I sat in that seat if I didn’t get that job, I was going to get another one. I believed in my plan and my abilities to convey it.”
The Rooney family, which owns the Steelers, were also open to believing in it. They’ve been rewarded for that open-minded approach with a Super Bowl victory and an NFL-record 15 consecutive seasons (and counting) without a losing record to start a head coach’s career.
Yet, you always hear that teams are looking for the next Sean McVay, or Kyle Shanahan, or Andy Reid. You never hear that teams are looking for the next Mike Tomlin.
This goes well beyond just “hiring the best person for the job.” That is not happening in the NFL, unless you believe all the best people for the job just so happen to be white men.
Flores should be the top coaching candidate on the market. He had a record of 10-6 in 2020 and 9-8 in 2021. He’s proven to be a competent coach in one of the toughest divisions in football. He’s the only Belichick alum with a winning record against his former boss. He should be able to pick what NFL job he wants.
The other glaring trend that studies point to as the best predictor to determine future NFL coaches is if you’re somehow related to one.
McVay and Shanahan are great coaches who now have their own coaching trees early in their careers. They were also given their first NFL jobs without a resume that would garner one, simply based off their personal relationships with people in power. It’s not an even playing field; Black coaches at the top and bottom of the profession have an uphill battle and aren’t inherently given the benefit of the doubt like their white peers.
There long was the argument that Black coaches weren’t being hired because the demand was for offensive-minded head coaches and most of the offensive coordinator pipeline was white. Except defensive coaches are hired like Vic Fangio. Coaches with no play-calling experience like Matt Nagy are hired. Coaches from college who had lost their job and were average (at best) like Kliff Kingsbury are hired. Coaches from college who had controversy surrounding them liked Urban Meyer find work. Special teams coaches that aren’t even on the radar to be a head coach like Joe Judge get jobs. Somehow, all types of white coaches find ways to get work with resumes that are said to exclude Black coaches from getting jobs.
The excuse that there are no Black coaches in the pipeline should be debunked.
Even when Black coaches do get hired, the evidence clearly shows that they are given less time than their white counterparts to turn their teams around.
Hue Jackson has come out and said he too was offered payment to lose games when he was the head coach of the Cleveland Browns. Steve Wilks was given one season with the Arizona Cardinals in 2018 but as soon as the team secured the No. 1 overall pick, he was ushered out the door in favor of Kingsbury. Culley was just fired after one year in a role everybody knew was a sham. He was hired essentially to answer questions about the Deshaun Watson scandal all year and take the heat off of the organization.
As a Black coach, you’re put in no-win situations. You’re incentivized not to win and then are fired because you failed to win. Owners make decisions not based on merit but with implicit bias and their personal network. Nepotism and the old boys club rules the day.
Systemic and institutional racism in hiring is real. It has been studied and proven and is not unique to the NFL. There is a Brian Flores in every corporate industry. If this is happening in a highly-competitive, public space like the NFL, imagine what these dynamics are like for Black employees at your place of work.
Ultimately, change has to start with the NFL’s team owners. After all, it’s they — not the league itself — who have the hiring power. That means this is not so much an issue with the NFL, but more so an issue with NFL owners. And until we address the root of that problem, we’ll never resolve the issue.
The fastest way to change the supply chain is to change the supplier. The NFL has only had one minority owner in its history. With the Broncos currently up for sale, this would be a good opportunity to diversify the league’s board of governors.
But NFL teams generally are passed down in the family. That is the case with a team like the Giants, who are owned by the Mara family. The franchise has never had a Black head coach and were the last to start a Black quarterback (Geno Smith in 2017). Draw your own conclusions.
We need to acknowledge the system is broken. The NFL doesn’t know what the root of the problem is, or they don’t want to fix it. Either way, management looks nothing like its labour.
Black people have not been integrated into the NFL’s fabric unless they’re competing on the field or performing on stage at half-time during the Super Bowl. If you’re comfortable with that reality, you’re part of the problem. What we can no longer do is ignore that the issue is institutional and believe that it will somehow change organically.
Discovery in a court case might finally force the change that the Rooney Rule failed to achieve.
The conversation about the upward mobility of Black coaches has been intellectually dishonest … until now. And we have Brian Flores to thank for that.
