In a suit almost certain to fail, Brian Flores is suing the NFL, et al., for discrimination on the basis of race. His argument, in part, was that teams sought to interview him not because they were open to hiring him, but because of the Rooney Rule.
The Rooney Rule, introduced in 2003, requires NFL teams to interview even minority candidates for head coaching and football operations opportunities in senior manager positions. It is often cited as an example of positive action.
The obvious good intentions of the rule were the sort that would warm the cold, hard hearts of the most fervent supporter of diversity. There are a great many black players in the NFL, so why so few (if any) minority head coaches and general managers? Something must be done,
Aside from Supreme Court justice, there are few careers with fewer opportunities than NFL head coach. If one was an owner of a professional football team, wouldn’t you want to hire the best qualified candidate? Isn’t the point to win, maybe even a Superbowl? So it would be irrational and counterproductive for an owner to reject the best candidate for head coach based on race. Unless, of course, the owner was racist.
But was the Rooney Rule the right way to force change? Not if you’re Brian Flores, who argues that he was never seriously considered for the job, but merely the warm body needed to comply with the rule’s quota.
He may be right, or he may be somewhat right. It may be that he wasn’t so much an unserious candidate, even if he wasn’t the frontrunner for the post. You have to be in it to win it, and there was always the possibility, no matter how remote, that he could have blown the owner away in his interview, causing a rethinking of their preference and winning the gig. It could happen. It’s not likely, but not impossible.
But the Rooney Rule necessarily taints the process. In the rarified world of professional sports head coaches, it’s not as if the pool of potential candidates is a big mystery. They know each other, study each other and have a pretty good idea of what they’re looking for and who might be the right fit. It may be a particular individual or one of a small, very small, group. Ted Lasso is fun, but not necessarily realistic.
Was Brian Flores seriously considered for the job or was he a warm body needed to fulfill the Rooney Rule? The teams will naturally argue that he was given serious consideration, even if they went into the interviewing process with a favorite in mind. After all, minds can, and do, change. But short of some smoking gun evidence, such as an email that says, “we know who we’re going to hire, but we still need to interview some minority candidates, so go find whoever is out there and bring them in before we hire the guy we know we’re going to hire anyway,” the burden will be on Flores to prove his case.
It’s possible that such an email exists, because people put insanely stupid things in writing all the time. But even so, does that mean the team discriminated on the basis of race? If its choice of head coach was made on the basis of the best person for the job, and that person wasn’t Flores, then it was no less a nondiscriminatory selection than had it come after all the potential candidates, whether minority or not, were completed. The rule doesn’t require a team to hire a head coach based on race.
But what of Flores’ hope of a full and fair opportunity to interview for a position, to be given the chance to make his case, to impress the owner, to win the job? Without the Rooney Rule, the team would have made its choice, hired the new coach and never given Flores the chance because, well, the choice wasn’t him. Even if he never had a real shot at the job, the fault isn’t necessarily with any racism by the team’s owner, but the mandate of the Rooney Rule that required minority candidates be interviewed regardless of whether they are being seriously considered or the decision has already been made.
It’s not that the Rooney Rule wasn’t well intended to break from the historic failure and refusal to consider minority candidates for the lofty position of head coach. And it may well have helped by exposing teams to the potential of candidates who had long been ignored or rejected because of their race. But that doesn’t make it suck any less to be Brian Flores if he never had a shot at making the cut.
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Maybe I’m missing something, but exactly how can he claim he was never seriously considered for a head coaching job when that is the job he just got fired from?
Yes, you are missing something. The lawsuit alleges that prior to an interview, Flores received a text from Bill Belichick congratulating him on being hired as the new head coach. Embarrassingly for everyone involved, Bill had thought he was texting the other candidate who was, in fact, hired. In short, Flores alleges that his interview was a fiction. He was entitled to a shot at the job, but didn’t get it.
Lawsuits like this one usually allege a lot; the truth of the matter may be different. But I am not nearly as confident as others that Flores won’t prevail on some issues.
So all it takes now is one instance, even if it was a simple human error, to allege a pattern of racism?
It’s not even one instance. The Belichick text was a third party acting upon rumors. It’s exactly the sort of “facts” that gets non-lawyers steamed even though it’s of no evidentiary value. If this is all his lawyers have, they better start prepping their opposition to Rule 11 sanctions.
So, not a lawyer, but won’t deposing Bellichik reveal how he knew the other coach got the job? I would assume there would be other texts in Bill’s phone from where he heard about it.
On re-reading what Bill said, he definetely implies he misread a text that stated that the Giants were naming Daboll
It possible that it can be track backed to a good source, who then admits to actual knowledge rather than surmise, but there are a great many steps before you get there and if any don’t go the plaintiff’s way, it hits a brick wall.
Assume all you want, but eventually you either have the evidence or not.
This lawsuit was just filed. We’re at the complaint stage, so it is just one side’s allegations supported by some curated evidence which hasn’t been tested by the defendant. So yes, one can allege employment discrimination based on one instance alone.
If the lawsuit proceeds to discovery, will damning evidence emerge supporting the defendants’ and/or plaintiff’s positions? Maybe. I don’t know. I wasn’t there. And as our generous host points out above, people put insanely stupid things in writing all the time.
The complaint has to survive a motion to dismiss under Twiqbal before it gets to discovery. This won’t do it.
Yes, which is why I wrote “if the lawsuit proceeds to discovery.”
Will Flores’ suit survive a motion to dismiss? Maybe. I don’t know. You seem confident that it will not; I’m not so sure.
I can’t speak to the complaint as a whole as I haven’t read it, but as to the Belichick email as a stand alone factual predicate for racial discrimination, I’m pretty confident.
If he feels that he is the token candidate, then he should start charge fee for interviews, refundable should he be hired.
Here in Houston, the local team (who I admit I don’t follow very closely) just fired their coach after a tenure of one year. Flores was the first guy they interviewed and he’d been interviewed more than once. The TV sports guys acted as if he was the favorite for the job.
I guess that has probably changed now, assuming it was ever actually true. But I wouldn’t think that bringing someone in for multiple interviews is tokenism.
The tokenism is one thing, but the claim that he was paid a bonus for each loss so as to improve his draft picks is something else. Flores alleges that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross offered him $100,000 per loss in 2019 to ensure the team wound up with the first overall draft pick, and Pro Football Talk reported that former Cleveland Browns head coach Hue Jackson made similar allegations — which he claims he can prove. That part of the lawsuit could prove more interesting.
Based on Flores’ behavior in this and other matters, I can confidently predict that no team will ever hire him for any position, unless they decide that they need a human train wreck who can be counted on to piss all over himself and his team, and then blame his employers and co-workers for the mess. To mangle LBJ, it’s better to have him outside the tent pissing in, than inside the tent pissing in.
Brian Flores has a tough road to go with his lawsuit but, why blame the Rooney Rule because teams are deliberately making a mockery it? It seems like the elephant in the room is being ignored. Namely, in the most popular sport in the country, that’s 70% now? black in terms of players and has a plethora of qualified black DCs, OCs, AHCs and former head coaches to choose from, there’s only one black HC and they still have to be forced to interview qualified black candidates for HC jobs? So much for meritocracy I suppose.
Speaking of meritocracy, the notion that NFL owners are rational actors and will simply choose the best person for the job based on their burning desire to win is laugh out loud funny when the reality is the incestuous world of coaching trees and insider networks run the hiring game. Or whomever the owner feels personally comfortable with like the Panthers HC Matt Ruhle who was a college HC with no prior NFL HC experience. Also, GMs often make the hiring decisions. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that the Giants new GM who was previously the assistant GM for the BIlls hired his buddy, Brian Daboll, who was previously the OC for the Bills.
There isn’t as much of a clash between “the best person for the job”/meritocracy and coaching trees/pre-existing relationships as you’re making it out to be. It’s a team sport, chemistry is very important, and if you have assistant coaches and even players who are familiar with a system, especially more complicated offensive systems, then yes, familiarity and “incestuousness” is a meritocratic qualification, especially when players who understand a system can teach it to other players who are unfamiliar with it. Football isn’t baseball, you can’t just get all the highest stats and win totals, put them all together, and expect to steamroll everyone.
Why do you take Karl’s inane delusion seriously? Only an idiot would argue that any player is capable of being an NFL head coaches or that they’re randomly fungible cogs of generic competence.
Just because Karl has no fear of playing the obvious asshole doesn’t mean you have to credit this idiocy.
Yeah, it just so happens that none of the plethora of existing qualified black DCs, OCs, AHCs and former head coaches, most if not all who were former players, understand team chemistry, are familiar with more complicated offensive systems (e.g. West Coast offenses, RPOs and so on) and can’t teach it other players? Uh huh. Even though on the OC side guys like Byron Leftwich and Eric Bienimy are doing it right now? The latter runs the most sophisticated and complicated offense in the NFL right now (KC Chiefs). Do you even hear yourself talking? Btw, you can’t do what you claim in baseball either. Maybe fantasy baseball if you get really lucky.
If you want to put words in people’s mouth, feel free. Are Byron Leftwich and Eric Bienimy “qualified”? Sure, more than 99.9% of people in the world. Do they understand team chemistry? Maybe, but Byron Leftwich wasn’t much of a leader when he was a QB, so maybe not. Does that mean they should be head coaches? I don’t know, I’m not an owner, head coach, or GM.
Qualified in quotes, huh? Leftwich was an NFL QB for 9 years and a coach for the last 4. The last two he has been the OC for the Bucs and coached the GOAT Tom freakin Brady to 2 of the best years of his career and SB championship. If anything, he’s overqualified. Anyway, thanks for the conversation and have a goodnight.
I often hope that some commenter here will be able to provide a thoughtful, rational, cogent explanation of the progressive perspective on issues. I am sad to learn that you are not that commenter.
On the other hand, you would make a very good grocery clerk with a checklist.