Brian Flores says the NFL is a plantation. With these team owners it’s hard to argue

On the same day as Tom Brady’s official retirement, it was another former New England Patriot who stopped the league in its tracks. Brian Flores, former defensive coordinator for the Patriots and now former head coach of the Miami Dolphins, had enough.

Enough with the sham interviews for Black candidates after NFL owners had already privately anointed white coaches. Enough with the impossible-to-reach targets for Black head coaches on the rare occasion they are hired. Enough with a Rooney Rule that 20 years since its birth and despite its intentions to give more opportunities to minority candidates has left us with exactly one Black NFL head coach in the NFL in 2022.

Flores was fired in January after leading the Dolphins to an 8-1 record to close out the season and had compiled back-to-back winning campaigns in Miami, the first coach to do so since 2003. He should have been scooped up by another team five seconds after his ousting. But instead he sat and watched as candidates with no head coaching experience filled the vacancies at the Denver Broncos and New York Giants.

Understandably, he couldn’t take it anymore. The 40-year-old filed an explosive class action complaint against the NFL and each of the league’s 32 franchises in federal court on Tuesday, alleging racial discrimination in their hiring practices of head coaches, coordinators, and general managers.

Flores made a litany of disturbing allegations in the lawsuit, starting with the claim that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross offered him $100,000 for every loss in 2019 so the team could earn a higher draft pick. Miami instead finished with five wins, exceeding expectations. As the complaint details, there was no good option for Flores as a Black head coach. Had the