Former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores filed a class-action lawsuit against the NFL and its teams this week, accusing them of sham interviews, incentivizing losses and pressure to improperly recruit players. The league and three of the teams involved — the Dolphins, New York Giants and Denver Broncos — denied his allegations in short order, leaving two distinct tracks to follow.
The first, of course, is whether any laws were broken. The second is whether the NFL will react internally to Flores’ allegations. Will it make further attempts to strengthen its diverse hiring policies for coaches? Would it discipline Dolphins owner Stephen Ross if he, as Flores alleges, offered $100,000 bonuses to lose games in an effort to secure the No. 1 pick in the 2019 draft? And what will become of Flores, who has risked his career at age 40?
Flores said in a statement that he hopes others will join his lawsuit to share stories of “systemic racism in the NFL.” In its own statement, the league said “diversity is core to everything we do” and added that Flores’ claims “are without merit.” At the time the lawsuit was filed, the Pittsburgh Steelers were the only team that employed a Black head coach (Mike Tomlin), with five spots still vacant in this hiring cycle after four openings were filled by white men.
Let’s consider where each track could go in the coming weeks and months, with the help of league sources as well as N. Jeremi Duru, a professor at American University’s Washington College of Law and a former counsel to the Fritz Pollard Alliance, which advocates for diversity in the NFL. Duru called Flores’ suit “a strong complaint” and not one that “throws spaghetti at the wall” or is “set forth just to make waves in the media.”
What exactly is a ‘sham interview’?
Flores put in a legal document what Black coaches have said privately for years, specifically that they receive job interest to fulfill the NFL’s Rooney Rule — which requires teams to interview two external minority…
Source : espn
