On Brian Flores & Leadership

For Patriots fans, Tuesday was a busy news day. Two stories broke around the same time:

1. Tom Brady officially announced his retirement;
2. Former Pats coach Brian Flores filed suit against the NFL and some of its teams for discrimination in the hiring process.

While most of the oxygen around these parts went to Brady and his conspicuous omission of the Patriots from his lengthy announcement, I found myself transfixed by the Flores discrimination lawsuit, intentionally filed at the start of Black History Month. In reading the complaint and listening to some of Flores' media appearances on Wednesday, it only got more interesting.

Beyond the palace intrigue over the inclusion of Bill Belichick's texts, and the stunning accusation that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross offered Flores bonuses to lose games rather than win them, much of the commentary from sports media types focused on how as a result of his suit, no owner would ever hire Flores again — that he'd never coach another game. Flores himself acknowledged this risk, saying “If I never coach again and there’s change, it’ll be worth it."

Flores just led the Dolphins to their first back-to-back winning seasons since 2003. It would seem hard to believe he couldn't get another job, if not for the recent example of Colin Kaepernick, who was blackballed after he sued the league. And while commentators go back and forth on whether or not Kaepernick could still actually play, or that signing him would stir up fan backlash, Flores isn't nearly as polarizing a figure. His method of taking a stand is less controversial than Kaepernick's taking a knee. There's no denying the lack of diversity in the coaching ranks. There's no case to be made he's on the decline. He has been an active and in-demand candidate for vacant head coaching positions as recently as Monday. If he couldn't land another head coaching gig this offseason, he'd would have almost certainly been offered his pick of coordinator positions.

And thus, my interest: Flores is a 40 year old man who has dedicated his life to the game of football. He worked 20 hour days for minimum wage as a low-level staffer in the Patriots scouting department in 2003, grinded his way into coaching by 2008, into winning three Super Bowls by 2018, and then to running the Dolphins by age 37. Given the team's relative success, his firing was a surprise, but he would no doubt have landed another head coaching job soon — if not this year, almost certainly next. With the average NFL head coach making around $7 million a year and Flores primed to coach for another couple decades, he had a hundred million reasons not to upset the apple cart. Imagine the ripple effect of taking this risk, not only on his life, but the lives of his family members and assistant coaches. Think of risking the comforts of a multi-million dollar coach's salary and fame. To potentially render a lifetime of coaching experience and technical knowledge useless, with no skills or experiences outside football to fall back on. With around 40 other coaches (and counting) in the proposed class action lawsuit, Flores could have opted against being the public face. Surely there are other aggrieved coaches involved that have less to lose. Flores is famed for being the coach that said "Malcolm, go!" sending cornerback Malcolm Butler in to make the game-saving interception that won Super Bowl XLIX for the Patriots. This time, he called his own number and sent himself into the fray; a last line of defense to a seemingly endless drive against equity and diversity. He made himself the focal point and spokesperson for the cause without much consideration of self. That is leadership.

Of course we'd all like to think we would do the same, but none of us can honestly know we would. I sure don't. Clearly most have not. How many times have we kept quiet when we should have spoken out? And on matters far less important, with no court filings and no CNN cameras.

I first really learned of Brian Flores reading a memorable ESPN feature from 2018, "The Patriots' next coaching star? His odds were incredibly long" by Ian O'Connor. Revisiting it before writing this, it isn't hard to see the through-line from then to now. In it, Flores says to those following in his footsteps in Brownsville, "'I hope they look at me and hear my story, and there's a hope and an understanding that they can do it too. That would be exactly what I would want them to feel. To see that regardless of what your circumstances are, or where your parents are from, of where you live ... you can write your own story. I've written my own story.'" Presented with a dispiriting chapter, he reached back for his pen.

In his filing, Flores says only 1 of the NFL's 32 teams has a Black head coach. The assistant coaching ranks aren't much more diverse. All this in a league in which 70% of the players are Black. The league's own executives have opined publicly about the issue but have done little to address it. It took 43 years before Art Shell became the first Black head coach, 54 years for Ozzie Newsome to become the first Black GM, and the next Black team owner will be the first in the league's 76 year history. Flores' filing cuts to the heart of the issue: "Even when Black candidates get hired for Head Coaching positions, a rarity, they are discriminated against in connection with the terms and conditions of their employment and compensation and terminated even as far less successful white Head Coaches are retained. Moreover, Black Head Coaches are far less likely than white Head Coaches to receive second chances even as white Head Coaches are routinely hired by Teams even after the fail elsewhere." The filing points to Eric Bienemy, the extraordinarily successful coordinator behind star QB Patrick Mahomes who has interviewed repeatedly without hire; Jim Caldwell, a successful head coach fired by the Lions after a winning tenure; David Culley, fired after just one season running the Texans in which they exceeded expectations. Flores himself points to being passed over for white coaches with lesser resumes, and to his firing by the Dolphins after a mostly successful tenure, for "poor collaboration" and being "difficult to work with." Sound familiar?

Flores and his Black coaching peers are all frustrated with the well-intended but ineffectual "Rooney Rule," which requires teams to interview two minority candidates for each vacancy. The NFL defends itself by holding up this initiative, but in nearly twenty years, the rule has accomplished little more than providing humiliating and time-wasting sham interviews for coaches of color.

Some will miss the lesson here in leadership, the lesson in courage, the opportunity to empathize with Flores in an unbelievably selfless moment. They might suggest he is after a financial settlement or a book deal. Neither seem remotely worth the risk of immolating a lucrative and successful career in the only profession one knows. But implementation of Flores' and his peers' proposed solutions might change the game for the better. If they have their way, it just might be worth it. They seek to make the league diversify ownership by helping Black investors become owners, ensure objective decision-making in the hiring and termination process, increase training opportunities for Black coaches climbing the coaching ranks, incentivize teams with draft capital and additional salary cap space, and make the pay rates of coaches transparent. These coaches aren't asking for a payday to retire — they're asking for real change — for the league to go beyond its "disingenuous commitment to social equity." We should all ask ourselves what we can do to go beyond our words to take a step or three closer to equity.

The 2018 ESPN piece frames his then-upstart coaching career, but a statement of his rings doubly true today. Flores, the son of Honduran immigrants, said at the time: "Myself and my brothers are what our parents dreamed of having when they came to this country," Flores said. "We are the American dream."