It was only a few days ago that the NFL tried to tell us that Brian Flores’ lawsuit against the league was “without merit.” Fast forward to today? It’s changed its tune quite a bit.
Flores levied allegations of racial discrimination in hiring practices of the Giants, Dolphins and Broncos after he received texts from Bill Belichick congratulating him on getting the New York Giants job, despite not being interviewed for it yet.
It turned out those texts were actually meant for Brian Daboll, the Bills’ former offensive coordinator. Flores alleged his interview was essentially a sham, and he was simply being used to check the box for the Rooney Rule, which requires NFL teams to interview, at least, two minority coaches for a head coaching spot.
The suit was filed on February 1. Almost immediately after it went public, the NFL rebutted it through a statement saying Flores’ claims were, again, “without merit” — along with a statement filled with buzz words organizations use when talking about diversity and inclusion.
On Saturday, though, the league changed its tune. Commissioner Roger Goodell sent a memo to the NFL’s clubs saying the league was retaining “outside experts” to evaluate the NFL’s DEI policies and the integrity of the game in light of Flores’ allegations.
The memo said these things would be “thoroughly and independently” reviewed.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell just sent this memo to clubs, saying the league is retaining outside experts to help reevaluate its DEI policies and matters regarding integrity of the game will be “reviewed thoroughly and independently” in light of allegations from Brian Flores. pic.twitter.com/VUK2dm0MMe
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) February 5, 2022
“We have made significant efforts to promote diversity and adopted numerous polices and programs which have produced positive change in many areas, however we must acknowledge that particularly with respect to head coaches the results have been unacceptable. …
“We understand the concerns expressed by Coach Flores and others this week. While the legal process moves forward, we will not wait to reasses and modify our strategies to ensure that they are consistent with our values and longstanding commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.”
That doesn’t sound like Flores’ claims were made without merit at all. If anything, this statement validates those claims and confirms there’s clearly something that isn’t working in the NFL’s hiring process.
The thing about this is it was never hard to see the NFL had an issue in hiring coaches of color in the first place. We didn’t even need Flores to tell us this. Just doing some simple math would do the trick.
Since the Rooney Rule was adopted in 2003, there have been 127 head coaching jobs to open up, per NBC News. Only 27 of those head coaching jobs have gone to minorities. In a league where nearly 70 percent of the players are Black, that’s a problem.
We had those numbers before we even began to talk about Flores’ receipts. He was fired as a head coach in Miami after a winning season. He received texts from Bill Belichick confirming that he was interviewing for a job that was already gone. Those things are facts. We can point directly to them and see the problem there.
This just goes to show how ridiculous it was for the NFL to immediately come out and aggressively bat away Flores’ claims. There had been no investigation, no discussion. Not a single look.
But, yet, somehow the league felt comfortable in immediately saying the claims were without merit. The accused parties were immediately defended without thought. Just that fact alone is indicative of a larger problem the NFL seems to have in holding its leaders accountable.
This is the same problem that led to Colin Kaepernick being blackballed from the NFL while half-heartedly trying to embrace his plight by slapping “end racism” on helmets and on fields.
It’s also the same problem currently leading to Washington Commander owner Dan Snyder having any sort of control over the release of an internal investigation the NFL conducted into the organization’s toxic workplace culture.
Nobody is bigger than the shield. Unless, of course, you own the shield. Then you’re never wrong.
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