Flores reminded us the NFL values Black players for our bodies, not our minds

February is supposed to be the pinnacle of football excellence. Next Sunday, the Cincinnati Bengals will return to the Super Bowl after 33 years behind second-year phenomenon Joe Burrow to play the LA Rams and Matthew Stafford, who has never been to the big game in his 13 years in the league. Keeping with the theme of football excellence, fans, players and the media will no doubt express gratitude to Tom Brady, who this week announced his retirement after 22 years in the NFL and had arguably the greatest career the game has ever seen.

Still, the magic of the moment is lost to myself and my Black colleagues. We watch our white counterparts rightly win praise for the success that they have earned. We Black coaches and players, on the other hand, have to fight twice as hard to get half as far. We saw it with Colin Kaepernick taking a knee to bring awareness to social injustice against Black and brown people, and subsequently being blackballed from the league despite leading his team to the Super Bowl just a few years prior. Colin hoped to highlight the fact that that though we are all created equal, we are not all treated equally, and that needs to change.

Now Brian Flores has taken up the same fight on the coaching side. Flores is suing the NFL over racial discrimination in an environment that he likens to “a plantation”, with rich white team owners profiting from the labor of young Black men. Flores’ lawsuit clearly struck a note and another Black coach, Hue Jackson, has come forward with his own allegations of discrimination (as well as claiming he was offered bonuses if his team lost).

In a league focused on statistics like yards, touchdowns, sacks, and interceptions it’s easy to find numbers that back up Flores and