Former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores wants NFL teams to hire more black coaches, as long as those coaches are named Brian Flores.
Flores claimed he was willing to sacrifice his coaching career to ensure that more black coaches get hired. That pledge apparently lasted all of a week. The Houston Texans hired Lovie Smith, adding another black head coach to the NFL ranks. Smith is very well respected, and he became the first black coach to be hired as a head coach three different times. This is a problem, according to Flores, because the Texans didn’t sign him instead.
“It is obvious that the only reason Mr. Flores was not selected was his decision to stand up against racial inequality across the NFL,” Flores’s lawyers claimed. Since Flores was one of the finalists for the Texans, he was entitled to the job, apparently.
Last week Flores was “prepared to sacrifice my coaching career” for the cause.
Six days later his lawyers are putting out a statement like this after Texans hire Lovie Smith.
Anybody else confused? ?♂️
— Ross Tucker (@RossTuckerNFL) February 8, 2022
Perhaps the Dolphins’ decision to fire Flores wasn’t as crazy as everyone thought?
Meanwhile, Flores’s already-weak allegations of racism became even weaker. The New York Giants noted that the leaked texts from Patriots head coach Bill Belichick mean nothing because Belichick doesn’t speak for their organization. The Denver Broncos claimed they had “pages of detailed notes” from their interviews with Flores, to which he claims Broncos brass showed up drunk, and Flores himself said in 2019 that the interview went well and the Broncos hired a “great coach” in Vic Fangio.
Meanwhile, the Dolphins hired Mike McDaniel to replace Flores. McDaniel is biracial and was hired by general manager Chris Grier, who is black. The Chicago Bears and Minnesota Vikings also hired white head coaches, but their new general managers, Ryan Poles and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, respectively, are also black. The assistant general manager of the Giants, Brandon Brown, is also black, which would be a peculiar move for a racist organization that allegedly rejected Flores based only on his skin color.
Flores’s claims of racism looked weak from the moment he made them, and they only look worse one week later. That’s because this was never about racism or promoting black coaches, as Flores made clear. Flores was mad that he got fired by the Dolphins and spurned by the Giants. Much like former quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s antics, Flores is only trying to promote himself, which is why he and his lawyers are willing to disparage a coach of Smith’s reputation as being unworthy of a job even though it fits with the stated goal of Flores’s lawsuit.
