Attorney of Brian Flores provides update on race discrimination lawsuit

Former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores will move forward with his lawsuit against the NFL. The attorney of Flores confirmed in a statement that the coach is still focused on seeking justice for the discrimination he faced within the league, per ESPN’s Brooke Pryor.

Flores was hired Saturday as the defensive analyst and linebackers coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He will succeed defensive analyst Teryl Austin, who was promoted to defensive coordinator. But even with his new responsibilities, he isn’t losing focus of what’s important.

“We congratulate coach Flores on his new position with the Steelers and thank coach Tomlin and the organization for giving him this great opportunity,” Flores’ attorney said. “While Coach Flores is now focused on his new position, he will continue with his race discrimination class action so that real change can be made in the NFL.”

More on Brian Flores lawsuit

Flores filed his lawsuit against the NFL on Feb. 1. It alleges discrimination in interview processes this offseason with the Giants and Broncos. The hiring practices of those teams, in conjunction with questionable behavior displayed by Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, created grounds for Flores to push legal action.

According to the lawsuit, Brian Flores claims that the New York Giants proceeded with his interview in an attempt to satisfy the NFL’s Rooney Rule before officially naming the coach they already agreed to a deal with previously.

The legal document read, in part: “Mr. Flores was forced to sit through a dinner with Joe Schoen, the Giants’ new general manager, knowing that the Giants had already selected Mr. Daboll. Much worse… Mr. Flores had to give an extensive interview for a job that he already knew he would not get – an interview that was held for no reason other than for the Fiants to demonstrate falsely to the League Commissioner Roger Goodell and the public at large that it was in compliance with the Rooney Rule.”

The document contains personal text messages with New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick and includes a description of the dinner with the Giants front office.

In a series of text messages with Belichick, who Flores formerly worked under, it was revealed that the Giants would hire Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll as head coach three days before a scheduled interview.

“Sounds like you have landed – congrats!!” read the first message from Belichick.

Flores then asked if his former boss heard something around the league he had not, but it was later revealed that Belichick thought he was talking to Daboll and not Flores.

“Sorry – I f*cked this up,” Belichick wrote in a later text. “I double checked & I misread the text. I think they are naming Daboll. I’m sorry about that.”

The Rooney Rule requires teams to interview diverse candidates for vacant positions within NFL organizations, as the law firm noted. However, there seems to be a disconnect between the interviews and the hires, as Wigdor Law was quick to point out that this rule has done little, if anything, to improve diversity in the hiring processes since its inception.

“Roughly 70% of @NFL players are Black,” the lawfirm pointed out on Twitter. “Meanwhile, out of 32 teams: Not a single team has a Black owner, only one team (3%) has a Black head coach, three teams (9%) have a Black QB coach, four teams (12%) have a Black offensive coordinator, six teams (19%) have a Black GM.

“The NFL does not interview Black candidates for these roles in good faith, thus creating the stigma that they are mere ‘Rooney Rule candidates’ regardless of their qualifications, the class action complaint alleges. Unfortunately, Coach Flores knows this all too well.”

On3’s Simon Gibbs contributed to this report.