Former Buffalo Bills head coach Mike Mularkey has a pretty interesting, and incriminating, way of tying into Brian Flores’ lawsuit against the NFL.
Flores filed a class-action complaint in the Southern District of New York, claiming that he and several other potential Black head coaches have been denied opportunities to advance in the NFL due to the league’s racist hiring practices and flagrant violations of the Rooney Rule.
On Thursday, two others joined him: Steve Wilks and Ray Horton. The latter is the reason why Mularkey has become looped in.
Mularkey, 60, was head coach of the Bills from 2004-2005. His most recent stint as a bench boss was with the Tennessee Titans from 2015 to 2017.
Mularkey was the interim in his first year and then got the job full time. This in between grey area is where Mularkey referenced some damming things against the league.
According to ESPN, Mularkey appeared on the Steelers Realm Podcast in 2020. During his appearance, he reflected upon being promoted to the Titans job and essentially said the whole thing was a sham for Black coaching candidates.
Before he ever was officially hired as the permeant head coach, Mularkey said the Titans told him he had already gotten the job.
At the time, Horton, a Black candidate, was interviewed for the position. The way things are lining up, it appears to be a clear violation of the Rooney Rule.
Here’s Mularkey’s comments on the hiring practice in Tennessee:
“I allowed myself, at one point, when I was in Tennessee, to get caught up in something that I regret. I still regret it. The ownership there, Amy Adams Strunk and her family, came in and told me I was going to be the head coach in 2016 before they went through the Rooney Rule. 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 that they were interviewing, knowing how much they prepared to go through those interviews, knowing that everything they could do and they had no chance to go that job. And actually, the GM Jon Robinson, he was in an interview with me. He had no idea why he is interviewing me, that I have a job already. I regret it. . . . and I’ve regretted that since then. It was the wrong thing to do and I’m sorry I did that, but it was not the way to do that. Should have been interviewed like everybody else and got hired because of the interview, not early on. So that’s probably my biggest regret. . . . It’s not hard to do the right thing. It’s really not. But you can get caught up in this business.”
Since the former world-wide leader has made light of his prior thoughts, Mularkey declined to comment. He still even did so in another ugly look for the NFL.
“I believe you have the truth and what you need. Prefer not to comment any further,” Mularkey told ESPN.
[lawrence-related id=99425,99517,99516]