Flores a finalist with Texans despite lawsuit
Despite filing a class-action lawsuit against the Miami Dolphins and NFL, Brian Flores reportedly is a finalist for the Houston Texans’ head coaching job.
Pro Football Network and CBS Sports reported Thursday that Flores, along with Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon and former NFL quarterback Josh McCown, are finalists.
Flores on Tuesday filed a lawsuit alleging racial discrimination in the league’s hiring and firing process, including a “sham interview” with the New York Giants after the Dolphins fired him last month. The suit also claims Dolphins owner Stephen Ross offered Flores $100,000 per loss in 2019 as Ross hoped the Dolphins would lose enough games to land the No. 1 pick in the 2020 NFL draft.
Ross responded to the allegations in a statement late Wednesday night, calling them “false, malicious and defamatory.”
While in an initial statement the NFL said the claims in the lawsuit were “without merit,” ESPN reported that the league will investigate the allegations of Ross incentivizing losses during the 2019 season.
Flores also claims he had a “sham interview” with the Denver Broncos in 2019, before Miami hired him. In the suit, Flores claims Broncos CEO Joe Ellis and John Elway, who was then the general manager in Denver, “looked completely disheveled, and it was obvious that they had been drinking heavily the night before. It was clear from the substance of the interview that Mr. Flores was interviewed only because of the Rooney Rule, and that the Broncos never had any intention to consider him as a legitimate candidate for the job.”
Elway responded to the lawsuit Thursday, calling the allegations “false and defamatory claims.”
“For Brian to make an assumption about my appearance and state of mind early that morning was subjective, hurtful and just plain wrong,” he said in a statement. “If I appeared ‘disheveled,’ as he claimed, it was because we had flown in during the middle of the night — immediately following another interview in Denver — and were going on a few hours of sleep to meet the only window provided to us.”
Mike Tomlin of the Steelers is the only Black head coach in a league where 70% of the players are non-white, and there are no Black owners in the NFL.
Jaguars reportedly pick Pederson: The Jacksonville Jaguars have chosen Doug Pederson, who led the Eagles to a Super Bowl title, as their next head coach, ESPN.com reported.
Pederson, 54, had a 42-31-1 record with the Eagles from 2016-2020. His team won the Super Bowl after the 2017 season.
Pederson would succeed Urban Meyer, who was fired in December after a 2-11 start in his first season with the team.
Congress pressures Goodell:
Former Washington Commanders employees and members of Congress pressured the NFL and Goodell to release a report about the team’s history of sexual harassment and its sexist, hostile workplace culture. They said the team and owner Dan Snyder have not been held accountable for their misdeeds.
One of the six former employees who spoke before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform also came forward with a new allegation that she was sexually harassed by Snyder, which Snyder denied.
Complaints about the team’s treatment of female employees first surfaced in 2020. Snyder commissioned an investigation into the team’s workplace environment that was taken over by the NFL. The probe by attorney Beth Wilkinson’s firm led the league to fine Washington $10 million, and Snyder temporarily ceded day-to-day operations of the team to his wife, Tanya.
But the league did not release any details of the Wilkinson investigation’s findings, and former employees who spoke Thursday noted the contrast to the way the NFL handled an investigation into allegations that quarterback Tom Brady deflated footballs.
“When the investigation of the air pressure of Tom Brady’s football concludes with a 200-plus-page report, but the investigation into two decades of sexual harassment concludes with nothing, it shows the NFL’s complete lack of respect towards women, their employees and for the culture of our country,” said Emily Applegate, who worked in the team’s marketing department and said she was sexually harassed daily by her direct superior.
Briefly: The NFL won’t sign off on a Super Bowl watch party at Cincinnati’s Paul Brown Stadium on Feb. 13. The league sent a letter to stadium officials saying the legal and logistical barriers are too great to allow a broadcast of the game on the stadium’s big screens . ... Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti joined other officials urging fans headed for the Super Bowl to strictly adhere to pandemic safety protocols that include staying masked, except while eating or drinking. Under a Los Angeles County health order, masks are required at all times, with limited exceptions.