The Brian Flores Lawsuit Against The NFL Has Grown Rather Significantly
BOSTON (CBS) -- The Brian Flores lawsuit is a problem for the NFL that is not going away. In fact, it's getting bigger.
In addition to two coaches joining Flores' lawsuit on Thursday, Flores also amended his lawsuit to include a message he sent in 2019 to staff members after allegedly being offered $100,000 to lose games on purpose by Dolphins owner Stephen Ross. Additionally, a 2020 quote from former Titans head coach Mike Mularkey was unearthed, in which Mularkey said he was told he got the Titans' job before the team had interviewed minority candidates to comply with the Rooney Rule.
The two coaches who joined the class-action suit are Steve Wilks and Ray Horton. Wilkes was fired by the Arizona Cardinals after just one season, while Horton was one of the candidates who interviewed with the Titans after Mularkey had apparently already gotten the job.
"The ownership there [in Tennessee], Amy Adams Strunk and her family, came in and told me I was going be the head coach in 2016, before they went through the Rooney Rule," Mularkey said in a 2020 podcast appearance. "And so I sat there knowing I was the head coach in '16 as they went through this fake hiring process, knowing a lot of the coaches they were interviewing, knowing how much they prepared to go through those interviews, knowing that everything they could do and they had no chance of getting that job. And actually, the GM, Jon Robinson, he was in on the interview with me. He had no idea why he was interviewing me, that I had the job already."
With regard to Flores' allegation of Ross offering a monetary incentive to lose games to get a better draft pick, the amended lawsuit notes that Flores "memorialized Mr. Ross' desire to have Miami lose games in a December 4, 2019 memorandum." That memo was sent to GM Chris Grier, CEO Tom Garfinkel, and senior VP of football and business administration Brandon Shore.
"When Coach Flores filed this action, I knew I owed it to myself, and to all Black NFL coaches and aspiring coaches, to stand with him," Wilks said. "This lawsuit has shed further important light on a problem that we all know exists, but that too few are willing to confront. Black coaches and candidates should have exactly the same ability to become employed, and remain employed, as white coaches and candidates."
