Former Dolphins Coach Accuses Miami Of Wanting To Tank, NFL Of Racism

Brian Flores was recently fired as Miami Dolphins head coach after three seasons. He unleashed an explosive attack on the way out of NFL. In a 58-page lawsuit filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court’s Southern District of New York, he accused his former team of tampering, tanking and racism. The racism accusation was extended to all of the National Football League and he claims that the Rooney Rule, which requires interviews with minority coaches candidates, is absurd.

Flores, who had a Miami record of 25-25, claimed that Stephen Ross offered Flores $100,000 per loss so that the Dolphins would have the worst record and win the No. The next draft will be the No. 1. Flores stated Wednesday that the conversation was about not doing enough to win football games. Flores said, “Take a plane. Take a vacation. You’ll get $100,000 for every loss. He said those exact words.

If these allegations are true, it’s an incredible blight upon Miami’s and the NFL’s integrity. For rigged matches, people would pay a good deal.

The black Latin coach’s suit includes the incendiary language that the NFL “is racially segregated and is managed much like a plantation” from America’s pre-Civil War South.:

“Its 32 owners — none of whom are black — profit substantially from the labor of NFL players, 70 percent of whom are black. The owners watch the game from atop NFL stadiums in their luxury boxes, while their majority-black workforce put their bodies on the line every Sunday, taking vicious hits and suffering debilitating injuries to their bodies and their brains while the NFL and its owners reap billions of dollars.”

Outkick’s NFL writer Armando Salquero called Flores’ charges “mind-blowing allegations, and it gets uglier for Ross because Flores also claims the team owner asked him to violate the NFL’s tampering policy. Ross allegedly wanted to recruit a ‘prominent quarterback,’ who everyone now understands to be Tom Brady, to the Dolphins.”

Flores did a lot of gasoline to the Rooney Rule. It was originally created in an effort to improve the NFL’s number of minority head coaches and general mangers. Flores said that Joe Ellis, the former general manager of the Denver Broncos and John Elway arrived late for his interview because they were either too drunk to drive or were hungover. That experience was a gesture of respect for the Rooney Rule from a team who had no plans to hire him.

Flores had also been offered an interview by the New York Giants. However, before it happened, he received a text message from Patriots’ Coach Bill Belichick congratulating him on landing that job. The New England coach misspoke though because the Giants had already hired the white “Brian” Daboll to be their new head coach. Flores alleges that Flores was trying to get the Giants to conform with the Rooney Rule by interviewing him with them.

Appearing today on ESPN’s “Get Up” show, Flores said of the Giants’ situation:

“Disbelief. Humiliation. It was hard to take that pill. Bill Daboll and Brian have my respect. I was upset That I wasn’t getting a true opportunity to show what I can bring to a team. … If change comes, and I never coach again, it’ll be worth it.”

The Giants claimed Flores was in consideration for their coaching job until the 11^th hour.

Salguero responded that the teams have “no exact science” in selecting coaches who are the best fits for their teams. Furthermore, he said Flores will have difficulty proving racism in court – if the case gets that far. According to the Outkick author, the NFL could try and squash the case before it reaches the discovery phase. He also wrote that Flores, who is black, was hired to be a coach and had previously been mentored by several blacks.

A January 2019 column by the Miami Herald, Salguero reported that the words “tank” and “tanking” were “expressly used in at least one head coach interview conducted by Ross and his group.” The Dolphins dismantled their 2018 roster and did little to rebuild it for 2019. It was “understood the Dolphins weren’t trying to field a competitive team,” Salguero says.

Miami issued a statement Tuesday refuting the tanking charge: “The implication that we acted in a manner inconsistent with the integrity of the game is incorrect. We will withhold further comment on the lawsuit at this time.” The NFL said Flores’ charges are “without merit.”