Brian Flores suing NFL, NY Giants, Dolphins, Broncos.

[TheFunPolice]

8 minutes ago, Dr. Who said:

Oh, character is destiny. The ancients knew that. All I was attempting to say is that those who found his initial testimony useful for building an argument will still find it useful. They'll simply finesse the justification for using what he said.

 

Agreed, and it's already happening.

 

This whole lawsuit just strikes me as clumsy but the damage is done and nobody wants to hear the "updates" let's call them. Maybe that was the real purpose all along. 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

2 hours ago, SoTier said:

"I believe the overwhelming majority couldn't care less about race, they care about championships. The only colord they really care about are Silver Lombardi's and green cash flow. "

 

Billionaires can't be racists?  or misogynists?  or religious bigots?  or crooks?  Really?

 

"His career is most likely over and it has everything to do with the fact he is now a liability, not an asset."

 

If the majority of owners really don't care about race but championships, then why is Flores "a liability"?   He's proven to be a good coach who can get his players to produce above their talent level.  How is that a liability in your supposed color-blind NFL?

 

I think it's generally held true that once a person files a lawsuit against their employer, they better get a settlement large enough to sustain them for life or at least let them switch fields, because they're never gonna be hired in that industry again.  No one wants an employee who might be looking at every interaction in their new job as "evidence" for another suit if something pisses them off.

 

Billionaires can certainly be all of those things.  I think it's true that NFL owners are probably most strongly motivated by cash flow, and some are motivated by the desire for championships.  (It doesn't follow that therefore they have, or utilize, the best objective judgement on how to achieve football success.)

 

But Owners or CEOs or GMs hiring coaches don't need to be any of those things to generate an overall result of bias in hiring HC:

 

Let's look for a moment at the head coaches hired so far:

Kevin O'Connell, Vikings (age: 36) ... (OC, Rams)

Matt Eberflus, Bears (age: 51) ... (DC, Colts)

Brian Daboll, Giants (age: 46) ... (OC, Bills)

Nathaniel Hackett, Broncos (age: 42) ... (OC, Packers)

Doug Pederson, Jaguars (age: 54) ... (out of football 2021; HC Eagles; OC KC)

Josh McDaniels, Raiders (age: 45) (OC, Patriots; former HC, Broncos)

 

The pattern I see is:

Three are young offensive coordinators from currently successful teams (1 Superbowl team; 2 playoff teams that contended for conf. championships last season. 

Two are retread HC from the offensive side of the ball (One long-time OC on a perennial contender who had a good year with a rookie QB)

Only one is from the defensive side of the ball and had 4 years as a DC on a contending team

 

As long as this trend for hiring OCs and offensively-backgrounded HCs continues, then the question will be "is there a pool of Black OCs (and Black QB coaches who become OCs) from which HCs with an offensive background could be chosen?".  And if the answer is "no" or "not many", then racial disparity in HC hiring outcome will persist, without any need for racist motivations on the part of the hirers.  It is (to use a word I used upthread) "baked in" to a selection process that favors coaches with OC experience (and then previous HC experience).

 

20 minutes ago, Dr. Who said:

Yeah, but will the folks who find the initial corroborating evidence useful going to allow him to retract? Maybe this is just caving to NFL pressure? You can always find your way around inconvenient facts in order to secure a favored interpretation if you nuance things sufficiently.

 

The "Shield" pretty much has to investigate (or appear to investigate) what Jackson said, retraction or no.

Just as they pretty much have to investigate Flores' allegations about Miami.

[YoloinOhio]

 

[BuffaloBillyG]

1 hour ago, TheFunPolice said:

Hue Jackson came right out last night and said unequivocally that he was never offered money to lose.

 

So his story has already changed.

 

As far as a solution? Incentivize hiring a minority HC.

 

They're doing that now but it's backwards. The team who loses the coach is rewarded. Instead, reward the hiring team.

 

1st round pick for a team that hires minority HC. If the goal is to increase the number of minority HC that will do it. 

 

If I'm the Saints I can either hire Bienemy, who comes with pick #33, or whoever recently had lunch with Sean Mcvay. It could tip the scales. 

 

 

That is a great theory, however in practice it would never work well.

 

The Texans would, by that rule get a 1st round pick for hiring and firing Culley in less than a 12 month span. What would stop a team from repeating this action for several years?

 

I believe the though process for the losing team getting the picks is being used to be an incentive for not only employing minorities in positions where they are noticed, but also grooming them and giving them the tools to succeed when/if they got their shot. That eliminates the Wilks or Culley issues where those guys seemed unprepared.

 

When we look around the NFL there are 3 minority HCs. Of the 3 the longest tenured by far is Mike Tomlin. Tomlin also often serves as the poster child for "Rooney Rule done right". In all his time as a HC he has not mentored or promoted minority candidates at the same rate as Caucasian coaches, either. 

 

In comparison, take someone like Tony Dungy. If you look up his coaching tree about a THIRD of all black HCs in NFL history come from his tutelage...his mentorship. 

 

What this tells me is that we are constantly told that the Kevin O'Connell's of the NFL are "the most qualified" man for the job...what we need to ask is "Why". 

 

Proper mentorship and helping minority coaches become qualified are why the NFL rewards those picks to the franchise losing the coach. We just need HCs that will guide and mentor.

[TheFunPolice]

21 minutes ago, BuffaloBillyG said:

That is a great theory, however in practice it would never work well.

 

The Texans would, by that rule get a 1st round pick for hiring and firing Culley in less than a 12 month span. What would stop a team from repeating this action for several years?

 

I believe the though process for the losing team getting the picks is being used to be an incentive for not only employing minorities in positions where they are noticed, but also grooming them and giving them the tools to succeed when/if they got their shot. That eliminates the Wilks or Culley issues where those guys seemed unprepared.

 

When we look around the NFL there are 3 minority HCs. Of the 3 the longest tenured by far is Mike Tomlin. Tomlin also often serves as the poster child for "Rooney Rule done right". In all his time as a HC he has not mentored or promoted minority candidates at the same rate as Caucasian coaches, either. 

 

In comparison, take someone like Tony Dungy. If you look up his coaching tree about a THIRD of all black HCs in NFL history come from his tutelage...his mentorship. 

 

What this tells me is that we are constantly told that the Kevin O'Connell's of the NFL are "the most qualified" man for the job...what we need to ask is "Why". 

 

Proper mentorship and helping minority coaches become qualified are why the NFL rewards those picks to the franchise losing the coach. We just need HCs that will guide and mentor.

 

That makes sense... I hadn't thought of the ways teams could abuse the rule

[Hapless Bills Fan]

29 minutes ago, BuffaloBillyG said:

That is a great theory, however in practice it would never work well.

 

The Texans would, by that rule get a 1st round pick for hiring and firing Culley in less than a 12 month span. What would stop a team from repeating this action for several years?

 

There would have to be a lot of caveats and hedges around such a rule, to prevent this: the HC would have to be retained for a minimum of 3 seasons, there would have to be careful definition of what "HC" meant to avoid hiring a figurehead etc.

 

It could be done, but I'm not a fan

 

29 minutes ago, BuffaloBillyG said:

I believe the though process for the losing team getting the picks is being used to be an incentive for not only employing minorities in positions where they are noticed, but also grooming them and giving them the tools to succeed when/if they got their shot. That eliminates the Wilks or Culley issues where those guys seemed unprepared.

 

Yeah, that was the rationale - to encourage teams to promote and develop Black coordinators and high-level FO positions, and be rewarded for that.

 

I can't guarantee that it isn't backfiring to some degree as teams may not want to give their competitors goodies

 

The rest of your post makes a good point with regard to mentorship.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

1 hour ago, YoloinOhio said:

 

 

Heh. 

 

Translation: "He stole our Flow!  He stole our entire Flow!"

 

 

[leh-nerd skin-erd]

5 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Heh. 

 

Translation: "He stole our Flow!  He stole our entire Flow!"

 

 

It’s always difficult to know whether to side with the billionaire ruling class or the hundred-millionaire law firm that thinks “real change” starts with a check written for $10m+. 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

6 minutes ago, leh-nerd skin-erd said:

It’s always difficult to know whether to side with the billionaire ruling class or the hundred-millionaire law firm that thinks “real change” starts with a check written for $10m+. 

 

Heh.  Several people here up-thread expressed concerns about the morals and ethics of Wigdor

 

[Malazan]

My post was deleted for some reason, but Hue Jackson jumping on the bandwagon and jumping off at the first bump was as predictable as snow in Buffalo in the winter. 

[muppy]

7 minutes ago, Malazan said:

My post was deleted for some reason, but Hue Jackson jumping on the bandwagon and jumping off at the first bump was as predictable as snow in Buffalo in the winter. 

Tease...lol

[leh-nerd skin-erd]

13 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Heh.  Several people here up-thread expressed concerns about the morals and ethics of Wigdor

 

Well then OJ was framed.  I WILL be heard. 

[FireChans]

No one is talking enough about Brian Flores getting his boss to hate him and fire him. Brian Flores is singlehandedly hurting diversity in the NFL.

[The Wiz]

On 2/4/2022 at 4:37 PM, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

 

Well we know that cell phone is somewhere at the bottom of the Atlantic. 

[ndirish1978]

In the end, this whole thing MIGHT move the needle a bit towards more black coordinator level positions, which may or may not result in more black head coaches. It will likely result in Flores not getting another HC position for the simple fact that he made confidential information in regards to tampering public. I don't see how an owner would want to hire someone who has shown they will air out everyone's dirty laundry if it's to their advantage. 

[benderbender]

Gotta love how the entire NFL's front offices stuck their heads in the sand after the lawsuit was announced and kicked the can along to all the other NFL teams with coaching vacancies saying "YOU hire a minority." The Raiders, Jacksonville, and soon to be Vikings and Texans saying "you didn't mean US." Like roommates walking past the full garbage can on the way out the door. 

[Punching Bag]

And Jacksonville's coach is an ethnic minority who has hired 5 head white coaches in row.   

 

While rules and articles state minority what they mean is black.  This is as prejudiced as what they claim they are fighting.  No mention of Ron Rivera in article.

Quote

The NFL's main avenue for increasing diversity in its leadership ranks is the two-decade-old Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview minority candidates for jobs including head coach and general manager. Despite the rule, there is currently one Black head coach in the league: Pittsburgh's Mike Tomlin. There are no Black team owners, just a handful of Black GMs and relatively few Black coordinators in a league where more than 70% of players are Black or another ethnic minority.

 

Point of example is an AP article which 

https://pro32.ap.org/article/nfl-bolster-inclusion-policies-probe-tanking-allegations

Quote

Lawyers Douglas H. Wigdor and John Elefterakis, who represent Flores, said they were skeptical that Goodell's memo would lead to meaningful changes and called on a court or government agency to appoint a federal monitor to oversee the league.

“For too many years, the NFL has hidden behind the cover of foundations that were supposed to protect the rights of Black players and coaches, as well as law firms and experts that purport to be unbiased an independent but are paid for by the NFL," the attorneys said in their statement. “All the while, systemic racial bias has festered in the NFL's front offices.”

 

 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

This article breaks down the odds that the racial makeup of NFL's HC hiring is the result of unbiased selection

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/nearly-all-nfl-head-coaches-are-white-what-are-the-odds/ar-AATyGmO

 

Makes a lot of the points made upthread, that the relevant numbers to look at are not the overall population, but the applicant pool.

 

Critiques Flores lawsuit which references the % of black players when alleging systematic discrimination

Quote

However, the Flores complaint’s suggestion that NFL veterans are the natural hiring pool for NFL coaches is not quite right, either. In fact, only about a third of NFL head coaches ever played in the league.

 

But points out even looking at the qualified applicant pool, the results we're seeing are still unlikely to be reached by random selection:

Quote

The legal complaint further alleges systematic racial discrimination in the hiring of coaches and other personnel. In addition to the now-infamous texts from New England Patriots Coach Bill Belichick, the prima facie evidence offered is the disparity between the players, who are 70 percent Black, and the head coaches, who are overwhelmingly White.

 

Quote

Employers defending themselves against charges of race discrimination often argue the candidate pool is small or not very racially diverse, inevitably producing a small number of minority people hired.

 

The pool of people who could plausibly be NFL head coaches is small and not very diverse. The 32 coaches who started the 2021 season all had prior experience on an NFL coaching staff. The most common job before being a head coach is an NFL offensive coordinator — a group that is currently 80 percent White — or an NFL defensive coordinator, currently 60 percent White.

 

It then points out that since the NFL teams are also responsible for hiring and promoting coaches to OC, they are also responsible for the disparity in the hiring pool.

 

Then it looks at the odds of the current HC hiring given the racial makeup of the coordinator pool:

Quote

Since February 2021, 10 people have been hired as NFL head coaches. Eight of them are White. Let’s assume that the only plausible pool for those hires was the previous season’s offensive and defensive coordinators plus any newly fired head coaches. In fact, all 10 hires do come from those categories. That pool was between 70 and 80 percent White. If the hiring process did not favor White candidates, the chances of hiring eight White people from that pool is only about one in four — or plus-322 in sportsbook terms.

 

Also discusses racial makeup of NCAA players since 2/3 of coaches did not play in the NFL

 

Good read IMHO for people who want a fact and reason based approach to the issue.  Concludes that there does appear to be a bias problem, indicating that the Rooney rule has not been applied in good faith

 

It also supports (but doesn't state) what several in this thread have implied: that Flores lawsuit was slapped together hastily without much research or care for the comparisons it uses

 

 

 

[Mij yllek]

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/02/lets_see_if_the_nfl_really_is_racist.html

 

[billsfan1959]

4 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

This article breaks down the odds that the racial makeup of NFL's HC hiring is the result of unbiased selection

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/nearly-all-nfl-head-coaches-are-white-what-are-the-odds/ar-AATyGmO

 

Makes a lot of the points made upthread, that the relevant numbers to look at are not the overall population, but the applicant pool.

 

This is a point that seems to be lost on so many people when discussing minority hires. When it comes to the NFL, the vast majority of people want to look at the actual minority head coaching and managerial hires strictly in terms of percentage of minority players in the league or percentage of minorities in the general population. In fact, the actual hiring can only be evaluated within the context of the population of the applicant pool.

 

Now, it would be really helpful if we could move past the extreme (and mostly emotionally based) baseline beliefs that racism doesn't exist or, at the opposite end, that any inequity in outcome is evidence on its face of systemic racism - and actually engage in substantive research and discussion on what constitutes "qualifed" within the various applicant pools from assistant position coaches through head coaches on into managerial and executive positions.

 

4 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

But points out even looking at the qualified applicant pool, the results we're seeing are still unlikely to be reached by random selection:

 

I do not necessarily disagree with this statement; however, for me, the sample size is so small and the relevant variables so poorly understood at this point that how meaningful any conclusions might be is open to debate. Particularly when the percentage of minority head coaches has fluctuated between 6% and 23% (the latter of which might actually be fairly consistent with the applicant pool described in the article) over the last ten years or so.
 

4 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

It then points out that since the NFL teams are also responsible for hiring and promoting coaches to OC, they are also responsible for the disparity in the hiring pool.

 

This is an interesting concept to me. One might argue that the control, and accountability, a prospective employer might have in shaping the applicant pool for a particular position is tied primarily to the degree of concreteness of the framework of qualifications for the position. Obviously, the more concrete that framework is, the less subjective the process is. The more vague the the framework becomes, the more subjective the process becomes - and the greater the chance for biases to creep in.  The greater problem that I see in this area is a lack of tools and resources in developing a more concrete and accurate framework of qualifications.

 

4 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

Also discusses racial makeup of NCAA players since 2/3 of coaches did not play in the NFL

 

This again, for me, goes to that framework of qualifications and the actual composition of applicant pools. I am not aware of any serious research on the topic; however, a quick review of head coaches in the superbowl era seems to, on the surface, indicate there is very little correlation between being a player and being a successful head coach. It would be interesting to see some real research regarding the attributes that correlate to success in different areas of the NFL from player to player (as we see differences in racial makeup just among player positions), to position coach, to assistant coach, to coordinator, to head coach, to managerial/executive positions.

 

Perhaps a better understanding of attributes that are quantifiable in some way could help at the entry level of potential coaches and help shape applicant pools up the promotion chain.

 

4 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

Critiques Flores lawsuit which references the % of black players when alleging systematic discrimination

 

There are so many problems with Flores' lawsuit. Just to quickly name a couple:

 

1. It is a class action suit, which by its very nature revolves around harm to a larger group, or class. In this instance, that harm is ostensibly about race. However, the issues cited with the Dolphins revolve entirely around specific conflicts between Flores and the front office/owner with no mention of race related issues other than a passing accusation of saying Flores was difficult to work with was somehow wrapping him up in the stigma of the "angry black man." Likewise with the Giants. Regardless of how one feels about how the entire interview and selection process played out, there is not one fact cited in the complaint that supports any contention that racism played any part in Flores not getting the head coaching job. The facts, as cited, again relate specifically to Flores and not a larger group.

 

2. While the complaint describes incidents of other individuals (David Culley, Jim Caldwell, Steve Wilkes, etc.) who suffered some sort of injustice, there is no evidence to support the allegation that those injustices were due to racism. It is not an inclusive list and seems to be cherry picked with little to no context.

 

3. To be honest, the allegation of systemic racism in the complaint primarily revolves around statistical disparities between numbers of minority players vs numbers of minority coaches. Those numbers do nothing more than show statistical disparities. They do not, on their own, shed any light on the underlying reasons for the disparities.

 

Based on the above, it appears he is trying, in a not too subtle manner, to hijack what should be a legitimate national conversation to use as a vehicle for airing his personal grievances. As such, it seems disingenuous as a legitimate attempt to address racism in the NFL, and only serves to over simplify and trivialize the topic.

 

Edited February 7, 2022 by billsfan1959