By Raycon Raj Khan Wick
Coach Brian Flores
Ahh, The NFL. The home of the Super Bowl. The big concerts and the superstars that come and bring us gigantic shows. The NFL is something unique after all. But with rewards comes setbacks. Recently as headlines have been showing that Brian Flores has been fired from his job as the Miami Dolphins head coach. Many of you will wonder why is this important or why am I bringing this up. Some might ask if he got fired, so what. Well, it’s bigger than that. You see there are many African American football players, but there is only one, well now zero African American football coaches.
Brian Flores has filed a lawsuit against the NFL and three teams for racial discrimination. He has been quoted as stating: “This is bigger than football”, and “This is bigger than coaching.” Robert Griffin III, a former quarterback, added that Flores had to end his career to point out discrimination. The lawsuit’s specifics sound like something out of a television show. They include images of a purported text exchange last month in which Bill Belichick, the league’s most successful coach, incorrectly congratulated Flores on being named head coach of the New York Giants. (Belichick has not acknowledged that the communication that took place.)
Flores says Belichick intended to send the text to another coach named Brian — specifically white coach Brian Daboll. Flores stated that he was preparing for his own interview with the Giants when he received the text. When he learned the text wasn’t for him, he suspected Giants management had already picked someone else. The N.F.L. requires every team to interview at least one non-white candidate for any head coaching job. By conducting a pro-forma interview with Flores, the Giants would have been technically following the rule.
Now hear this. Below is some research that is shocking as well:
- A 2019 academic analysis commissioned by the N.F.L. confirmed that Black coaches were less likely to receive second chances. “In the NFL,” The Atlantic’s Jemele Hill recently wrote, “Black coaches are expected to perform miracles quickly, and when they don’t, it usually costs them their job.”
- In a 32-team league where most players are Black (and that has long been the case), only one current head coach is Black. He is Mike Tomlin, who has one of the highest winning percentages of any active coach.
- Teams have also been reluctant to hire Black coaches as Offensive Coordinator — a job that often leads to head coaching positions, as Tyler Tynes noted in The Ringer. An academic study concluded that the low rate at which teams hired Black candidates for coordinator jobs was the No. 1 reason that white head coaches dominate the league.
- Even when Black coordinators succeed in those jobs, they are sometimes passed over for white candidates with weaker résumés. In last year’s Super Bowl, both offensive coordinators — Eric Bieniemy of the Kansas City Chiefs and Byron Leftwich of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — were Black. Neither has become a head coach, even as 14 teams have hired new coaches since the end of last season.
Now don’t be all sad and shocked forever folks. There is some good news. Brain Flores has a new job. He got picked up by the Pittsburgh Steelers as their defensive assistant in charge of linebackers. While it is still a coaching job, Flores will continue to sue the NFL for racial discrimination, and the Miami Dolphins for his unexpected termination after two winning seasons.
Let’s just hope the best for both Brian Flores and the NFL, and hope that everything will work out between the two sides. The entire incident simply reminds us all how important it is to continue to fight against racial inequality and oppression so as to make the world a better, more fair, and more productively diverse place for everyone.